Should FatShark really fear backlash for nerfing the Dueling Sword and other overpowered weapons?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I heard people claim that FS does not want to nerf overpowered weapons because the Asian players will review bomb the game and as proof they mention a leak, that happened on the Chinese Steam which had nerfs for the Dueling Sword and the Plasma Gun. They suggested that a mere suggestion of nerfing the outliers caused a very impactful reaction from the Asian playerbase.

So I checked the number of negative reviews for DT on Steam days later after the leaks to the DS and Plasma Gun nerfs happened to see what really happened, and here are my findings:

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Now, I found about the leaks through Mr E and his video was posted on July 19, so I assumed that’s when the leaks happened. But now, after seeing the sudden spike in negative reviews on Jun 18, I take this is where the leaks occurred.

  • On Jun 18 DT got +173 new, negative reviews.
  • On Jun 19 DT got +51 negative reviews,
  • On Jun 20, +25 negative reviews,
  • On Jun 21 +24 negative reviews,
  • On Jun 22 +8 negative reviews
  • On Jun 23 (Arbites release) we got +188 negative reviews (probably caused by people being angry with new class being premium DLC and not Asian gamers, upset that FS suggested DS nerfs).

So to sum these numbers up:

After the leaks that FS plans to nerf the DS and the PG, all the way up to the release DT got +281 negative reviews (excluding the Arbites release). And I must add that I haven’t read through all the reviews, so I do not actually know how many were left because of the leaks.

The only negative review that I found, that could be referring to the leaks, was this:

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Translates to:

“Instead of making pointless adjustments, Fat Shark, you’d be better off increasing production capacity to rescue the servers and your mother in warp space.”

In conclusion:

While Jun 18 saw a huge increase in negative reviews being left on Steam for the game, the Arbites release has seen the same, if not slightly bigger, increase in negative reviews and the Arbites was a successful addition to the game that was a huge net positive for FS and DT.

Taking all of this data into account, I believe FatShark does not have to fear being review bombed by the Asian players, over them nerfing the Dueling Sword, the Plasma Gun and even others like the Flame Staff and the Rumbler.

While it is quite a huge spike in negative reviews, I don’t think it would run the game into the ground or affect the sales that much. I am saying this based on the fact that Hive Scum reveal trailer also saw an influx of negative reviews yet when I look at the game now, days later after the spike, before the class is even released, it says “Mostly Positive” in the Recent Reviews section.

In other words: the consequences from these kinds of player reactions do not last longer than a few days, and the game doesn’t really suffer from it.

Additionally, applaying these changes to DT will be a net positive for the game in the long run (nerfing the outliers will make it so enemies no longer die immediately, aka. Enemy spam can be reduced).

But what do you think? I wish to hear what people have to say to this post and the data within it.

Cheers!

14 Likes
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If a small handful of outliers are directly warping global balance, then they are the problem and should be sorted, regardless of a few -1s and mean words on a platform’s store page.

25 Likes
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Maybe if nerfs immediately followed class drops without prior notice, review bombing would be cushioned by the influx of positive reviews for the class from new players.

2 Likes
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Yeah; when they drop Hivescum they should also just go ‘btw we’re nerfing the hell out of the broken stuff’ and rip off the band-aid and dangle the shiny new class keys to soothe hurt fee-fees.

6 Likes
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Ideally the best way to nerf DS without backlash is nerfing DS (and other OP weapons) and, in THE SAME UPDATE, buff the weaker ones (Chainsword, heavysword vs armor, catachan devil’s claw)

This way it shows that FS cares about balance, by making the underperformers be standard, and the OP be standards as well

9 Likes
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Yeah? buffs all crusher HP

we hate underperforming weapons!!! make em even more trash!!

7 Likes
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Classes have their own steam page, so their positive reviews will not count towards the game’s main score

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They could take Uncanny from DS, give it to Heavy Sword and Devil’s Claw, take away it’s interaction with DoTs completely that would be fine. Also just get rid of Dueling Sword Finesse stat and replace it with Critical Bonus. Then we’re all good problem solved. :blush:

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Ahhhhh, you’re bringing me back to the old bugged hand cannon days, when you could one shot crushers with D Claw parry. Very funny stuff.

I do think moving uncanny to those weapons is unnecessary. If you remove dot interaction and nerf rending values, you can then proceed to significantly reduce the amount of crusher spam, which would in itself effectively buff D Claw and Heavy Sword.

6 Likes
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Ngl kinda agree on most of this. But one that’ll always bother me is their trash servers.. kinda wish we had an option for peer to peer. Also just making things harder to kill without crits wouldn’t be bad itd cut spam. Just today was playing auric and the director just didn’t stop spawning stuff. Its like if maelstroms still existed and wasn’t in rotation or if I play havoc but without the fun and good rewards. Vermintide relied on crits and stagger in cata but overall you would get a breather, auric? No never.. same with havoc at times but honestly havoc is better.

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I’m not convinced that Fatshark is avoiding nerfs simply because they’re afraid of review bombing. Rather, with Mats Andersson having left the studio, and with no clear indication of who has taken over his role, it feels more likely that the team led by the current Combat Designer either doesn’t fully understand the state of the game’s balance, or that the issues aren’t being communicated to them properly. The situation isn’t helped by the rapid turnover in community managers over the past few years, which gives the impression that internal coordination isn’t where it should be.

The problems with the dueling sword and the Inferno line, including Soul Blaze, are good examples. Any experienced player would immediately recognize after even a small amount of testing that “this is clearly not okay,” and these issues should have been easy to fix.

15 Likes
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They should do an event with free aquillas as the top tier prize when they release the new class and nerfs.

4 Likes
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nerf that stuff until performing as “intended” and if the crutchlings f-off as a result, it’s a nice bonus I take gladly.

game did fine with 2-3k players, at least those who stuck around knew their :poop:

so if a mediocre tourist jumps ship cause his only toy is less shiny, what exactly of worth is lost?

games sale revenue was made already, them coming out of the woods only when some new stuff is around aint gonna sell many cosmetics anyways and some mean words online could just as well decorate a toilet wall in outer siberia :man_shrugging:

darktide aint a game for “broader”, skittish audience that runs for the next hot :poop: in 4 weeks and wouldn’t buy upon a “bad review”.

tide fans know what they’re into and likely to stick around for their experience, not what a random dude is gurgling on steam

7 Likes
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Yeah the game has been sitting on mixed for 2 years after launch, ppl still played the game even when nerfs happened. Its just the whole community lash on arrowhead for nerfing everything in hd2, that spawned the neva nerf attitude on game devs.

3 Likes
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Once you give people a crutch it’s hard to take it back.

First of all FS should learn to test things better.

Second - i don’t undertsnad why they are nerfing/buffing things by 40%+ precentages in one go. Do them with small steps, like with 10% leave it for a few weeks, make another balance pass for 10%

Nefing/buffing things with several patches in a row is normal.

Add some sweets, don’t make only nerfs, add some buffs.

Incase with heavy nerfs say it’s a bugfix and never was supposed to be that strong, intern did some formula typo. Be smarter.

3 Likes
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If they were truly afraid of backlash, there are plenty of ways they could handle it, for example, releasing it initially with weaker performance and then only buffing it later to adjust.

1 Like
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that’s mind boggling to me as well.

even if the ones “creating” the gameplay aint suitable to clear it (I mean a car designer doesnt need to be a formula 1 champion) they got playtesters at hand, they could

a) hop along through a “sherpa’d” match and see first hand how steam rolling unbalanced some encounters get or

b) view their recordings from every perspective (heck if I had the luxury I would make my videos a 4 picture split screen with every pov synchronously)

pause, rewind, repeat and get smarter by this method…..

I mean I got no hidden camera in the devs studio, but aint any of these child’s play methods a mandatory step when creating new weapons/talents etc?

how do these outliers even come to life? someone in charge had to think of a “number” and go

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1 Like
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Should they, yes.

Games live and die on their review score for the most part.

Does it mean that it shouldn’t be done, no.

This is a festering wound that will keep continuing getting worse until it is done, had Duelling Sword remained exclusive to the Psyker, I would have said to keep it as is, but as it is shared as of now… It has to get fixed at some point, better to do it after Christmas, in the 1st update, and then do an update that would be able to pick up new speed.

6 Likes
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That was stright up incomeptense. How they don’t understand such a surface level fundamental thing, that you shouldn’t be able to equip “rogue” weapon on “paladin” with no consequences but having all benefits. There are no stats requirements, weight pr loadout points system in DT, you pay nothing.

Another problem is that weapon damage shouldn’t come from base stats and blessings alone. It should be a synergy with the skill tree.

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Especially now, with Darktide on a huge sale (75% off), a lot of new players are joining.
The broken meta is becoming their standard, and cheat mods are freely available for download.

1 Like