Fatshark, we need to talk.
Your design decisions for Darktide so far has been abhorrent and anti-consumer from day one.
Today’s topic will be your idea of a crafting table system.
I will be direct on this issue: Remove any and all notions of placing a lock on blessings and perks on any and all weapons and equipment. There should never be a lock.
Placing a lock on a randomly rolled blessing or perk on an item that is also randomly generated is inherently, grossly anti-consumer– because failing to get the item/perk/blessing combination you want forces players to spend possibly hours of grinding to try and get the same weapon and try again. This is a sickening game design decision and you should be ashamed for doing so.
Whoever decided that this is a good decision for your crafting system should take a good, hard look on the reviews for this game. The people involved who are responsible must be completely tone-deaf and blind to the criticisms this game has received.
Be fully aware that locking blessings and perks will only lead to more players quitting the game in frustration. This isn’t how you retain players, this is how you chase them away. Fatshark, be better. I know you can be.
It is bad, especially on curios where there are three slots (so getting the perfect slot item is almost impossible). I get why they don’t remove it right away though. Right now, the only motivation to keep playing (other than just loving combat) is to get better gear. If the lock doesn’t exist, it could make it so they lose a group of players who get bored after min/maxing their character in less than a week. The lock is stupid, but just erasing it and having nothing else in terms of progression incentive in place seems like it would be a short-term fix to me.
I certainly wouldn’t complain if they got rid of the locks, though it doesn’t bother me much personally. I do think the community is focusing their rage in a less than optimal direction though. Plasteel economy is what will truly kill crafting if not addressed. It’s dire even if applying blessings somehow doesn’t also consume mats. In the very likely situation that it does consume mats it would be generous to call the pace at which you can modify your weapon “glacial”.
They probably should remove the locks since it seems too large a majority of the community can’t deal with the idea of only having a 90-95% effective weapon rather than 100% effective. At the end of the day it’s a poor choice to fight majority of the community on that.
HOWEVER, could we please start campaigning harder for fixes to the plasteel economy? It’s a design issue that even poisons the in mission gameplay as people are encouraged to split off and loot, and it’s possible to do a 40 minute Damnation run and get less plasteel than it takes to upgrade a white to a green.
If you don’t get the weapon perk/blessing combination you want, you’ll be forced to start all over again with a new weapon, either buying it off the shop or waiting to get it from a mission clear, meaning potentially tons of hours being wasted just to try again, and potentially get another bad roll, just to waste even more hours to try yet again.
Plasteel is easy to get. Just explore the map together with your teammates and you’ll have it in no time.
If you think you’re getting too little, too slowly, sure. They could fix that too.
But don’t act like everything would be fine if they fixed the plasteel economy but not the locking, because as @Flawless pointed out, everyone hate the blessing/perk locking with a passion-- because it is a legitimately anti-consumer tactic that will kill player retention if not adressed.
Which is why you might note I did say they should change it judging by how unpopular it is. Personally I can deal with having one bad perk and one blessing not at max tier. But whatever, when blessing crafting is released and it is also inevitably a large crafting material sink I’m gonna be here laughing at all the threads that pop up finally realising what an issue the plasteel economy actually is. You’re welcome to to remain blind to it but it’s gonna bite you in the ass later if not addressed, I almost guarantee it.
Seems pretty clear what you were saying to me. Anyway I’ve said my piece, hopefully it doesn’t fall on completely deaf ears. Good luck with the locking issues, I do genuinely hope FS changes their mind on that one, I doubt they’ll win many people back to the game otherwise.
i imagine some of the functions of the new crafting are going to either cost mostly diamantene (most likely) or somehow reward both plas and diamantene but mostly plas and possibly both? that’s my expectation anyway, the other thing they did addressed the ordo excess so i expect there’s something in there to address the P/D ratio problem.
