Also I have a quick meme post about cosmetics I want to do later today so don’t get mad at me if I post that after this!
Before I start with anything there are two things I want to clarify quickly. This is the first forum that I have ever actively checked, read, replied, and posted. A game doing that to me shows that it has something that pulls me in and want to learn more or share my experiences, which Darktide had done and no other game has done. Secondly, I’m sure people will say this is just an ego stroking post or whatever. And maybe partly it is, trying to make myself sound more important. My rationale is that this is more for me to summarize my experience and give a definitive "end point,’ so I don’t end up still checking the forums for no reason.
While I joined in November, I didn’t really do anything until December. I made this post and honestly still feel like this should be implemented especially since VT 2 Bosses give loot die:
Alternatively @Reginald mentioned that actually finding weapons and picking them up in game would be better than Emp’s Gift which I agree with, but would probably take more effort than it’s worth at the moment.
Something specific I wanted to point out, is this post I made on January 9th. This was when Fatshark was coming back from Winter break, and I wanted to specifically show off this comment from Aqshy and the community response to it:
At this time lots of people were very angry at the state of the game and the timing of the winter break, and I feel there were more people active on the forums as well. My thinking behind this post was that there was no reason to be angrily posting stuff if FS was going to be posting a Comm Link with their upcoming plans shortly. I was trying to say, “Wait and see if their next comm link is good. If it is, awesome. If not, then you can start making more upset forum posts again.” I was NOT trying to say that we should be patient for the game to be fixed or whatever, just to see what the Comm Link had in store. 2 things happened after I posted that:
First is I got pretty mauled by a lot of people. Again, lots of people seemed to misinterpret what I said, and maybe I should’ve been clearly. I didn’t expect FS to be able to post a full and comprehensive plan right after the break, but lots of people did. I replied 19 times to people out of 133 full replies (this was before I knew you could quote multiple people in one reply). However after a certain point I just really stopped caring or reading anything about that post. People were overly rude and flippant and they more than drowned out the good comments I received. The only person from that thread who I still see on hear, and who I am very thankful that they replied with a very well thought out reply is @Mezmorki , so I wanted to give them a thank you for that.
The 2nd thing is that Fatshark really, REALLY failed to deliver. Aqshy made that comment on January 9th, and I posted that thread the same day. Obviously I am not blaming Aqshy for anything but she said that they wanted to have a Comm Link ASAP and preferably in that week. Instead, the only thing we got 15 days later was that horrible and something that’s becoming all too common, the dreaded (not only for Darktide but the gaming industry as a whole), “Open Apology Letter.”
Coincidently this had nothing specific, mentioning that they were focusing on the crafting system they promised in December, “a more rewarding progression loop” (is that supposed to be the new free cosmetics we can buy now?) and performance optimization. I will say while I haven’t played for a couple months at this point, more performance did improve over time. I know that’s not the case for everyone but I can only comment on myself.
24 days after my initial post, on the 2nd of February, FS posted this anemic Comm Link:
On February 8th we got the Dev Blog for the Shrine, a full 30 days after my initial post:
This was when we got the full look at the crafting system that would be introduced into the game on February 21st. As a side note, this was mentioned in the blog and I’m not sure if we have reached a conclusion with it:
Did anything come from this? What was the direction blessings are being or were being taken? How does this work with the lock system? Does this actually have any meaning behind it or was it just filler PR speak?
Anyways all of this points to a sort of cycle: people who are confident of Fatshark or optimistic for the games future run into conflict with people who feel the opposite way. Fatshark fails to communicate or deliver in a reasonable amount of time which leads to more conflict in the forums. And honestly nothing comes out of it. I started feeling this way near the end of March as well and posted this thread:
That post pretty much just sums up how I feel and why I don’t think the Darktide forums are worth interacting with at the moment. There’s nothing left to be said that hasn’t been said, and the issues that have been discussed to death and back make me not want to interact with the game at all. It feels like we’re just sort of screaming at a brick wall. And I understand forums don’t exist so players can constantly talk directly to devs. However I don’t feel like discussing the other parts of the game while the barriers to play still exist.
Even after the honey moon period was fading, the forums did still have positive effects. While it’s (usually) fun to talk and think things out, the best interaction I had was with @Reginald . I had felt that the Chain Axe was a practically unusable weapon since launch, besides just running around on malice light spamming. Deisu was kind enough to post this tutorial in a thread:
and was nice enough to help a bit with a couple of extra questions I had in some short dms. Learning how to make the Chain Axe useable on both Vet and Zealot, and then proceeding to do well with it was some of the most fun I had in Darktide. Funnily enough indirectly Deisu was kind of the reason I quit playing as well:
Really cool overview of how to still use the basic Lawbringer shotgun. I thought to myself, why not try to get one out and try it? I hadn’t really used any of my mats on Zealot for a couple of weeks. After a game session, I had used that days mats alongside all of my saved ones and got nothing. It felt awful and I decided that I wasn’t going to play the game anymore, but for some reason I’ve stayed on the forums.
A large part of that reason is probably because I hoped we would get some sort of change before Summer Break. I really wanted to play a ton of this game this summer. 20 Days ago I made this post practically begging for some sort of change to crafting before summer, even a cost reduction:
As you can guess nothing came out of it. Probably because the “players don’t know what they want.”
The Comm Link 4 days ago basically confirmed that. Cross play is awesome and I’m really happy they added it. I’ll wait and see for the blessing rebalance. As for all the people praising their acknowledgment of issues, I don’t really get it. It seemed like more nothing to me.
Don’t worry they’re “”“reviewing”“” these areas of feedback which includes “adjustments” to crafting locks, and “options” on the mission board. The absolute worst part of that is they’re reviewing perk refinement? Are they absolutely insane? What is there to “review???” Literally just let players pick 1 t4 perk they want instead of having to use a mod to reroll something upwards of 500 times to get it. I think this perfectly illustrates my issues with the game, company, and forum.
Also, I couldn’t really find a nice place to sneak this in somewhere else, but the forums in general are fairly negative. Not toxic, negative. And people are justified to feel that way with the current state of the game and such, however with the rest of my life the way it currently is checking in on the forums doesn’t make me feel any better.
Sorry about the length of this post. I didn’t initially intend for it to be this long but I guess I had a lot I wanted to get off my chest, as Darktide has been an incredibly frustrating game to follow. I’ll probably check the forum a day or two after I post this to respond to people. Additionally I’ll probably make a comment on the Summer Comm links if there is anything substantial in them. Besides that I’m just kind of done. Wish the best for everyone reading this, hopefully I can make an incredibly narcissistic and self aggrandizing post about me returning to the community in 3-4 months but I’m not holidng out hope for any major changes this year. Have a good one.
Edit 1:
While I’m sure there are more, the 2 that come first to mind that are still semi active are @Mayson and @HenchAnt (I promise I’ll finish our DMs before I go!), and I appreciate and respect both of you having different opinions from the majority and presenting them in a well thought out and calm manner, and apologize for any times I might have gotten too aggressive or rude with a reply.
