Rolling Steel and the problems with it

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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To preface this, I have played Rolling Steel fifty times, in a mix of public games, private games and a duo, completing the penance for doing so, and as such I have noticed a few rather notable problems with the map.

The Timer

I fundamentally disagree with having timed missions with failure conditions relating to the mission timer, given that the Damnation timer is 8 minutes and 50 seconds, the mini game’s length is of concern.

There is three minigames on the map with the auspex, each of these take thirty seconds, minimum, to complete without being interrupted by enemies or by making a mistake with the minigame. This usually ends up with one player sitting on the auspex for 40-60 seconds each time, with difficulty of the scans increasing dramatically with the quality of the other members of the strike team and if you are playing with friends on high ping.

It is my opinion that forcing a player to spend almost half of the game on scans to have a chance of completing the mission is a mistake and is not a fun game mechanic.

My suggestion for an improvement is reduce the total time required on the scan to 20 seconds and tweak the movement of the circle to be more generous for players playing with friends on higher ping while slightly increasing the total timer on higher difficulties.

Quick Play & Mission Selection

It is my and others opinions that Rolling Steel does not belong on the regular board, as it is a short mission that quite frankly, is not worth playing if you want/need dockets or resources.
This falls neatly into place with the core problem: Mission selection.

In the past 24 hours since 18:48 03/10/2024 UTC Rolling Steel has replaced 15 potential high intensity shock troop gauntlets or Mob 21st missions, and has by error, spawned on the auric maelstrom slot three times. It would be more appropriate to put operations in a separate tab like Special Assignment, where potential other missions of similar length could go.

Ultimately, this comes full circle to the mission board problem. There should be difficulty, condition and map selection for private lobbies. Many players want to play certain missions with friends are unable to do so as the mission board did not spawn it, sometimes the missions people want to play haven’t spawned for the past 24 hours so you cannot use the mod Many More Tries to play them.

Thanks.

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A lot of people have been asking for the ability to start private games with the map, difficulty and modifier stack of their choice. I know a lot of people that would get back into the game for that feature alone. Simply because they could actually play what they want.

The fact that we’re still begging for this 2 years after release is insane.

Hell with the sorry state of the party finder, having map selection would actually give it some use.

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Gonna want better bots that all Generic McDefault vets with that feature.

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I think the auspex should be removed completely and there are just more train parts you have to smash up before continuing. No one wants to sit on an auspex for any length of time in an 8 minute mission. Just let us smash stuff up and run!

Even just switches or levers would suffice but since the destroying of consoles at the end is fun, may as well have a few more of those moments.

The auspex game would be good for other levels (it still needs to have it’s time reduced by half at least regardless of map).

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You know back in the day FS had the technology to use your unused characters as bots and fill the lobby with them. Exact equipment, talent tree and all. Funny how that was lost to time.

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Really hope they make some changes to the mission. I have not done as many times as OP, but I’m already bored to tears by it. Zero variations other than where the blasted batteries appear, the doors that can only be locked once, enemies constantly having high ground advantage - are they all wearing magboots?

It’s also such a miserable mission to get in quickplay. I wanted to have fun in an intense auric mission, instead I get sent into Rolling Steel, where I spend half the mission staring a boring mini-game (because nobody wants to do it), and you can tell already before the timer reaches 50% that a mission is over, because there’s no way of recovering lost time.

Because I keep getting it so often in Quickplay, I think this might be the first mission that I actually hate in Darktide.

It’s the most miserable experience I’ve ever had in this game, and that’s including regular missions where I’ve had disconnects and crashes 5 times.

All it takes for a Rolling Steel mission to fail is a bad party composition, or 1 specialist who does 1 good move.

Doesn’t help that enemies somehow spawn everywhere despite us being on a moving train. Where are they all popping out of??

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