Please stop the FOMO

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I prefer to try and be more positive minded on things but this I feel strongly hurts the experience for people I’ve met and known.

People are put off seeing things they want to earn or get only to find they came and went.
The promise of “maybe” returning isn’t enough to swade the disappointment and bitter taste in their mouths.
the game runs dry of content eventually and sometimes the work towards a shiny trinket is what gives them joy, to cosplay some new imperial degenerate.

The shop rotation system is slow, and old cosmetics very rarely return in a timely fashion, leading to allot of potential cosmetics being in a limbo of maybe-maybe not coming back.

Either add older cosmetics back into the game via a bigger shop menu with search functions or make them things to be earned from the ordo dockets shop or drops in world much like deep rock.

Not everyone plays this game every week and wants to stress over what they missed.
its a casual drop in with friends game [with hardcore gameplay] for crying out loud.

it’s a psychologically manipulative system, sure it makes money but it cuases long term burnout that pushes players away and other folk outright avoid it becuase they’ve experienced it all too much in many other games already.
If your teams managment really cares about the games long term health consider the effects your monetary system is having on your players.

You’re asking for more cash out of warhammer players, we’re the idiots who buy near everything warhammer, it’s redundency that does more to harvest Ill will towards the dev team and the game than it does otherwise.

if you have a shop with more items, you can make the differance with timed sales on bundles of cosmetics that will keep people coming by to check.
You can also collect much better data on what players enjoy buying. Because fomo sells via fear or stress, not exactly what people want, so your data gets diluted.

Goodwill pays for itself, and if the investors complain than make a point out a crashed investment isn’t going to be as useful as product that actually lasts.
if they still don’t get than subject them to a special FOMO system called if you missed the meeting you’re not allowed get updates. and set them up under stern timetables until they get it.

Do I expect this to be heard, maybe not. But maybe the community will be loud enough to push against it.
And I get this isn’t as big a deal as other game bugs or issues to many but long term health is just as important, since this effects new and veteran player experiances.

I havn’t missed anything I’ve wanted off the store, but I live warhammer stuff and it still leaves me bitter to hear from folks who missed on their chance.
I just want this to be fun for other people without that sour taste in their mouth.

So update the commisary with search functions, the order dockets store or add them in with penances or loot to give players allot more joy playing the game.

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You likely already know this but just incase someone doesn’t, there was unfortunately an official response to this and it’s a conclusive answer they likely won’t budge from. Here:

That’s right, the FOMO rotation is actually in place to prevent you from getting confused. Also, the cosmetics MIGHT come back, MIGHT not, so don’t worry.

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The actual reason is that they need to rotate stuff out so they can sell recolors and badly kitbashed/remixed stuff without people noticing too hard.

If you could see everything at once, you’d soon realize that most cosmetics aren’t worth their money, and what’s even worse, that the better fitting headgear of a bundle is generally sold sperately in order to force you to double dip.

There’s also intentionally mismatching things in a bundle and either selling a better matching piece seperately or just putting it into another bundle. Happens mostly with pants.

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@Ironkin , if you do not object, I shall add this thread to the Book of Grudges, as it’s well-written and shows this is still a consistent problem for players.

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I also wish there was a VT2-style shop where everything was available and new stuff was regularly added to the whole bunch.

I strongly suspect (but of course don’t know) that they’ve gone this route in an attempt to make cosmetic sales more predictable. But I also think if every recolor and minor variation of outfits was available at once, they’d sell just as many. People love dressing their action figures up!

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Here’s someones actual thesis on this subject which sums it up nicely. I’ll give you a spoiler though, it’s most likely not because they want to make sales more predictable. Whatever that’s supposed to mean anyway.

A certain unit is available for a certain amount of time until
the shop refreshes, normally about two weeks to a month. Whenever the time runs out, the unit is then completely unavailable […], the lack of transparency on scheduling making it almost impossible to predict whenever they will be available in the shop again. This creates a pressure to buy toward players, in other words, FOMO to buy the characters or the weapons available before they are taken down. Leaving players with tight budgets frustrated on the premise they are going to miss out on an item they wanted, incite them to spend real money

The only way players can make sure they do not miss anything new from the shop is to follow notices, either from logging into the game or social media. Therefore, players are encouraged and motivated to check out or revisit the game every now and then.

its rotation shop also creates a sense of FOMO in the players, making them to always keep in touch with the game even when they have quit. All of these gameplay loops and design aspects help gacha games to not only obtain an enormous number of players in such a short amount of time, but also maintain players for a very long period.

Interesting also:

The gacha games’ gameplay loop revolves around the collection and rarity of items, the leveling system, RNG progression and daily grind, while also integrating with the pay to skip aspect and rotation shop.

Darktide really is a gacha game outside of the “pay for power” aspects (and the fact it has great gameplay). Level Infinite influence was a disaster.

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My thought is that if whales are a prime target for microtransactions, as I think is not unlikely and I’ve often seen mentioned, then it would be predictable that they would buy every outfit offered. Offer X outfits a month, multiple by Y whales/likely purchasers, and you might have a reliable formula for a minimum amount you can expect to earn in a month.

I’m not refuting anything you’re saying here, and I don’t claim to really know if “predictability” is part of their reasoning or not, but I don’t think it’s crazy.

As for your PDF: Is this the same thesis document?

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The whales actually enjoy the exclusivity, I know a guy that has every Ogryn outfit/accessory (don’t wanna think about the $ involved there). Part of what makes them feel good is the cost and the fact that nana na nana you can’t go to the store and buy it. He actually got mad that the premium sets are back up atm too.

But yeah considering how badly they plan the catalog even if you look into the code for cosmetics to preview it really is a waste. Like when they plan hats in a color scheme that doesn’t have upper bodies to match it for months. Or how the Ogryn and Veteran have those Militarum sets you’d like to larp in busted up over multiple sets, and then usually the regiment hat off to the side as well.

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Yeah it’s the same.

I think insofar as “keep milking people via psychological tricks biweekly” is predictable, it is predictable I guess. I just wouldn’t describe that as being a significant feature of it.

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Cool thanks I’ll check it out.

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Fomo isnt rly fomo when it will make a return one day. But sucks it affects many people when there is a simple fix.

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You found it! Ty.

It still is FOMO. There is no gurantee anything will ever return. The fear of missing out is not knowing if it will return.

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Fatshark stop being greedy !!

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Well they’re explicitly keeping the possibility open that some things wont return. That’s where the fear of missing out comes in.

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Reminds me of Dungeon Siege 3. I played that with a friend couch-coop and he played the battle mage. He’d get pants after pants after pants dropped and nothing else. At the end of the game he had 20 epic pants and no chest piece. Feels reminiscent.

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I would agree normally but after being a player since beta onwerds I can say that theres stuff in rotation that’s come and gone and never been seen in over a year.

I wouldn’t have bruaght this up otherwise. I’ve quitely waited to see what comes of it.
But a year on new items appear, great, but the list of things that haven’t returned also grows.

Basicly the pit of limbo is growing.
and yes some of it is retextured stuff but its effort of the art team left in limbo when theres allot of methods to make them relevent again.

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thats fair.

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the biggest offender of a one and done would be ogryn cat pants. I’d throw the weapon camo sets up there too but man I missed out on jazzercize ogryn.

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Except you can easily sort a healthy user interface with simple tabs and sorting.

There user interface for players who have allot of cosmetics is a cluttered mess. which could be sorted by a sorting system or search system, other games have made functional UIs for overblown grocery lists.

A good user experiance can be acheived, but with the excuse given its hard to not beleive it’s an excuse given placate people, especially when the financial gain of a limited item rotating menu is a factor to consider.

As much goodwill fatshark has earned, I can’t help but assume bad actors in managment pushing a more predatory system.

And I never did hear anyone complain about vermintide cosmetic menus. oddly that was never touched up, even when more and more stuff was added.
So that adds to my doubt of their statements.

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We all know this is just a corpo speech, but even then, implying your auditory is so braindamaged that having several pages will confuse it… lule.

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