First of all, I am glad this game finally came out! The art direction is very, very impressive - and for the most part, the game has been stable for me. Not for many others tho, which has been discussed ad length - so I won’t get into it.
After 100 hours with the game, here are my main points of criticism:
Penances need a complete re-work
A lot of penances are tied to what little progression there is for the end game, i.e. cosmetics. Hence it is a bit odd to have the first tier penances already be so harsh (some classes, some penances). Some of these should be reserved for the final tier of cosmetics, not the first one. Like not getting hit as a sharpshooter on Malice+ or brain-bursting a monster solo as psyker- probably doable, but endlessley frustrating right now. And frankly, some of the penances are essentially impossible to do for players who do not have a group of friends to play with. The requirements often ask a lot of patiences from your fellow players. Again, probably not a good design, especially for the tier 1 unlocks.
Story is an afterthought
Listen, I know people mostly do not play Tide games for the story, but it is still something to “complete” and enjoy. Right now the story feels like an afterthought and is not in any way linked to the content beyond “reach level XX”. Dissapointing, if you ask me.
Too much damn RNG
I really fail to see how we went from VT2, which had some RNG, surely, to the complete RNG hell that is Darktide. Do you hate your players so much? How did this get past the initial design stage?! All I can think of as an explanation is that the game is just so low on content right now that, that RNG was the only quick fix to keep people in the game longer. This is not appreciated, FS…
No diversity in weapon skins etc
Really, the only long-term thing to do in Tide games, beyond mastering the highest difficulties, is unlocking new, rare skins and weapons - and that is currently completely lacking. A grey lasgun looks basically exactly the same as a fully upgraded legendary lasgun. What gives?! The recently added weapon skins are… pretty lackluster.
Don’t get me wrong, FS has something good burried under these criticisms, but the game probably shouldn’t have launched in the state it was in. I just hope they can make changes and push out content fairly quickly now - I really do want Darktide to suceed and be my main game for the forseeable future.