Hello!
My name is Ace and I’ve been excitedly playing the Darktide pre-order beta after waiting eagerly for the game to come out after extensively playing the Closed Beta-test.
The thing I’m hoping to try and give feedback on is the penance system as I think it falls into a rather typical consequence of “challenges” in modern video games. Where it is a system that gives rewards while also gatekeeping those rewards behind difficulty locked task lists that often do not synergize with normal gameplay.
At time of writing I have completed every Penance on Veteran Sharpshooter except “Make Every Shot Count.” At least of the one’s currently technically possible.
Why haven’t I completed “Make Every Shot Count?” Well partially because match-making is currently broken and you can’t match with anyone for Heresy difficulty. And for second because it is a challenge that requires you to expend all of your ammo with 100% accuracy in a mission, but to do it on a class that passively generates ammo. I have to end the match in a game on an end-game difficulty without missing a single shot and having 0 ammo at the end of it on a class that passively makes ammo…
Why so obtuse? I like free cosmetics but its not really free if it costs you an arm and a leg to be a useless teammate for a match mag dumping into an ogryn until you’re out of ammo and forcing yourself to keep it that way to be safe.
It falls into the problem with a lot of modern game challenge systems in that it locks away cosmetics behind arbitrary difficult tasks that aren’t very streamlined with the gameplay of the class. Missing no shots is certainly skilled, and definitely an interesting achievement but also nearly impossible with a vast majority of weapons available, and also BAD AMMO MANAGEMENT IS NOT SKILLFUL! So why is that even part of it? Oh right cause then players just wouldn’t shoot. So basically you’re forcing players to throw away their ammo and constantly be pressured into mag dumping or let them just do a mostly melee run. Feels like a real damned if you do damned if you don’t situation.
Lets look at another example, “Deadeye” which tasks the player with killing 5 highlighted enemies on heresy+ difficulty in a single toggle of volleyfire. Sounds easy enough except unless you specifically choose the talent that highlights Scab shooters from the level 30 feat selection this challenge is actually impossible. Because there are never enough highlighted enemies that can be killed an efficient amount of time UNLESS you have that feat. At least not without a TREMENDOUS amount of effort. The problem though, isn’t whether its possible with or without the feat, but that the game is again pressuring you into a playstyle you might not enjoy. Auto-pistol isn’t going to do that very well, neither are some patterns of autogun.
You see this problem with a lot of Melk’s Contracts as well.
You have been tasked to kill 700 Scabs in melee! Oh you mean the group that primarily comes in ranged forms? Meaning to get optimal progression I need to ignore ranged (On a ranged focused class) and run into melee for this task? Okay sure, at least its just killing things, but the contracts do get more absurd in certain situations, and charging people currency to swap them out just feels like something bound to spawn frustration when you aren’t getting a contract you can complete just playing and enjoying the game.
What’s the solution? Well its a simple one that a lot of games seem to fear implementing for some reason. Just make the contracts and penances something that happens in regular gameplay rather than something that requires re-organizing your favorite setup in order to do. I understand the desire to provide a “challenge” but its not challenging if its inconsistent and more importantly it doesn’t matter if its challenging if its just NOT FUN. Having to waste all my ammo without missing is NOT FUN. It sounds like a task not a challenge, and I really hope some of these penances and contracts are reworked to also be based around class and function, its weird to get a task to kill ranged enemies in melee as a Veteran Sharpshooter. I also hope the really cool cosmetics that were advertised are not locked behind awful penances that force someone to play like a goober in order to accomplish.
TL;DR Forcing playstyles is bad. And Darktide’s Penance system as well as a lot of the contracts try to force a playstyle on you in difficulties you might not even have access to.