Put solo in the game Devs. You’re gonna get more sales like do you not want more money?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
659

i recall the same CM talking about how the purpose of the fomo store being time limited was totally just so “people don’t get confused with too many pages” which i at least think is obviously a corporate lie. so i personally would not be surprised if solo mode being ready was just a corporate lie, too. not to throw shade on aqshy, but it’s the realities of business and we can call a spade a spade here. it was how fatshark communications operated at that time at the very least

but i disagree a little bit on the notion that implementing local progression would take a team a long time to implement. it’s just a matter of telling the server after a mission what you did and what you picked up. i think it’s probably quite simple so long as there’s no anticheat measures involved. which i’m not sure why there should be to be honest, who cares if people cheat in materials and achievements, let them (they kind of already do indirectly anyway)

660

Turn the private game player requirement from 2 players to 1.

Eat the increased server costs because you should’ve dealt with that and it’s minimal at best.

Job done, even if it’s poor quality due to bots being terrible.

661

Community managers being told to lie to the community? That never happens!

More seriously: We know none of this stuff exists, because we can look at the code. I’m speaking as someone who has put a significant amount of time into creating a localhost mod, with the intent being to allow for modded realm stuff but it’s the same sort of thing that would need to be created for “full” solo play though.

The reason I haven’t managed it yet, though, is that none of the stuff needed for it currently exists in the codebase. It would all have to be made from scratch, and then I’d have to figure out how to push the game from using the remotehost stuff into the localhost, but that part I think I’ve got figured out (I just can’t test it cuz I don’t have localhost stuff built [yet, hopefully]).

662

Yes, if they were building it from the ground up. But remember, it was “almost ready” in November 2022. There was issues that delayed it since the next update was “we’re not quite happy with it,” and then they had more important things to fix so it became “not a priority” almost a year later in October 2023. It’s now June 2026 with 3 new game modes and 3 new classes since then. They can finish working on it.

You have access to Fatsharks internal network to view code that hasn’t been pushed to the public branch? Or do you think the public branch is the working copy of the code?

663

Thanks for sharing the video!

TL;DW for co-op/solo mode mentions (basically meh):

  • “We adhere very hard to the L4D formula”
  • “There are elements in the game where you have to co-op […] you have to have a friend help you out” (seems to refer to disablers)
  • Mentions ledges (“drops”) as a game design of having to stay together

So… not sure where anybody’s supposed to feel ‘unwell’, it reads like a super bland Skitarii DLC promo for people who aren’t familiar of “Warhammer 40k Darktide”. Which, to be fair, is probably exactly the target audience.

664

That’s even funnier. Given that the L4D formula has disablers and one-way ledges, and yet only Darktide can’t be played Solo. I think Victor is just lonely and can’t comprehend the idea that people might want to play alone

665

in his defense the co-op quote in that interview was more referring to how there are elements that when you play with other people, you have to let them help you with. the example he used was not getting a button prompt to free yourself from a net, somebody else has to do it. i don’t think he meant that it needs to be a human, bots actually do the same

i don’t really see it as a conflicting statement with the idea of a solomode unless you try really hard to bend the intent behind the statements. i also personally doubt he has strong feelings against a solo mode considering all his other games have one. none of his other games had tencent and level infinite execs looming over his shoulder though

666

I give you my word gentleman, that I am going to read it all.

But why you force me to read so much?

:sob:

667

You’re not wrong, I’m definitely cynical and jaded about it though, which makes me read “it’s a co-op game” in the same deragatory tone as the (in)famous “don’t you guys have phones” event

668

i think it might not be worth placing much stake into anything anyone at fatshark says, because the skitarii post just announced that servo skulls will be able to remove nets and complete objectives, directly contradicting what victor said in that interview.

so i was wrong in my defense too, i now think they just say words and they mean nothing

669

Are we sure Victor isn’t a philosophical zombie?

670

i figured he was just putting empty down words too, but thinking about it some more, it might just be that the structures at fatshark are really bad, and the dev team isn’t actually picking up what the lead design puts down. in either case it’s annoying to see direct contradictions like this.

i guess the takeaway is that it might be best to not to place much value in what they say in interviews

671

It played out the exact same way with Arrowhead and HD2. Lord and Savior pilestedt would glaze the players and then the next patch would directly contradict 99% of what he said.

I’ve decided it’s a swedish game dev thing.

672

Ok I have read it, thanks for the detailed explanation.

I think everyone should read it.

:+1:

673

Problem is still…

This is not hypothesis I want to read, but a Fatshark stance.
Frankly, we don’t care if someone cheat to get 850 plasteel from a damnation+ game… who care? seriously?
That’s really a chance for darktide… we do not care if there is cheats if they do not impact the gameplay of others… and by definition, a player that plays it in a solo game mode, cannot hurt the gameplay of others even if he cheats.

674

how deeply related are those things? you’re talking about multiplayer hosted by one of the players basically right? that doesn’t exist yet, but what’s the actual overlap with singleplayer hosted by a player?
i might be misunderstanding but aren’t you talking about locally hosted multiplayer whereas locally hosted solo wouldn’t require any such structures?

675

They’re very related. At the most basic level, it’s approaching the same fundamental issue from opposite angles. What I’m trying to do is to bring an offline fake server online, such that other players can connect to it and play with me. A “proper” solo mode is taking all the currently online functionality and moving it offline.

For example, they would have to build out a way to store, handle and process your inventory in your local client. Right now all your weapons, curios, etc, are all stored on Fatshark’s servers, and when you log in, your client pings the servers to get a list of what’s in your inventory, what items you have equipped, etc. Then, when you finish a mission, the server running the mission determines what your Emperor’s Gift loot reward is, and then it tells Fatshark’s inventory server “hey, character X on account Y just got item Z”, and when you load into the mourningstar, your client then pings Fatshark’s inventory servers and gets a new list with item Z in it.

For a full solo mode, they’d have to add functionality to each player’s client that does one of two things. It can either a) communicate with Fatshark’s inventory server to tell what’s in the user’s inventory and push updates to the server when new loot is dropped, or b) manage all the inventory on the client side, and the locally hosted server will update the client with any new loot or whatever, and then when you go to join a multiplayer game, the local client will inform fatshark’s servers “here’s the player’s inventory, don’t question anything in it”.

A) is relatively easy, as it’s “just” building out the inventory messaging service into the client, but it’s also not “real solo” because you’d have to be online for any progress to count, and that’s something most of the people agitating for solo mode won’t accept.

B) is a substantial undertaking, needing to rebuild the entire inventory system from scratch, and it opens an avenue for cheaters and hackers to come in and ruin online games with modded and glitched weapons, and that’s something all the people who play the game as it was “intended” won’t accept.

There’s also the C option, which is “modded realm”, and that’s basically B, except any character who engages in offline/solo/whatever you wanna call it play can never play normal online games or vice versa (and this is basically what Vermintide 2 has), but that still means doing all the work to build out the inventory systems in the local client.

And this is just for the inventory. There’s still character roster, cosmetics, havoc progress, penances, currencies, and probably a few more things I can’t think of offhand, all of which are around the same level of complexity and would require more-or-less the same sort of stuff being done.

Edit: To be clear, this is something that can absolutely be done, but it’s not nearly as simple or easy as people around here would like you to believe. I’d even like it to be done, tbh, cuz it would make my project way easier. I’d just really rather not have a 6-12 month content drought just so a handful of people can avoid being in the general vicinity of another human being.

676

i appreciate the in depth explanation, i didn’t even consider things like inventory specifically.

although i do think many people would be fine with an always online solo mode. vt2 worked that way and i think the always-online-fighters are all in retirement homes now (myself included i begrudgingly accept that this is the industry now)

677

I think you’re misunderstanding pretty heavily what people are asking for.

Yes, a fully offline solo mode would be nice but definitely way too much work to be worth it.

However. Beyond something like Stop Killing Games being successful, what people want is online solo mode. Just letting people play the game without bringing a friend along.

678

@FatsharkJulia @FatsharkQuickpaw
Any updates on Solo Mode?