Not trying to make a 1:1 comparison here, Darktide requires a lot more work because it’s more graphically demanding, and while DT is recovering from a disastrous launch DRG is maintaining success so office morale must be completely different between the two companies, etc. However, I think it’s useful to weight games against others in the same genre.
New batch of unlockable cosmetics (brand new, not recolors)
New music
Previous season unlockable cosmetics rotated into in-game currency shop
Random rocket boots pickup in-game
Fun little extras (arcade cabinet added to the hub, new beer, toggle-able sleeves on some outfits)
Various QoL/bug fixes (one specifically suggested by the community)
All in all, pretty good update, little short on cosmetics compared to other seasons imo but that’s fine, there’s already so many. All while only releasing 1-2 cosmetic DLC packs per season, purchasable with actual money directly from steam, no FOMO monetization, no premium currency, and consistently Overwhelmingly Positive since release.
Seasons in DRG last about 6 months. Interestingly, and a but surprisingly, DT seems to have released a comparable amount of content (maybe slightly less total, or just more in one area than another) in as much time, just spread out over several smaller updates.
My big question is: Where is Fatshark going wrong? If the volume of content is similar and delivered in a similar amount of time, why does it feel good in DRG, but very underwhelming in DT? Did FS fail to manage expectations and overhype the players? Is it just that DRG is a simpler looking game, and therefor it’s easier to churn out quality content? What should FS learn from this?
I have not played DRG for awhile now as I am currently busy with diabo 4, but if what you say is true, then Fatshark is doing even worse than I thought.
Fatshark is a team of 180+ members. Surely not all of them are developers, but that is still a sizeable amount of people.
How many employees does Ghost Ship Games have? 20-30 people maybe and according to you they are delivering the same or more content in the same time frame as a team of almost 200 members.
That is a really, really bad look on Fatshark’s part if that is true.
Ghost Ship has a few things working in their favor that FS doesn’t, each player character is an identical model which would make adding cosmetics easier, pretty sure each dwarf is just the same voice actor pitched up or down so they don’t have as much dialogue to record, graphics are simpler, afaik they’re only working on one game, etc. But these are all things you should account for if you’re in charge of making a game, regardless of the budget.
On one hand, it’s just a cheaper game to make than Darktide, but at the same time there’s a clear issue with resource management at FS if such a small team can regularly blow them out of the water like this.
They also have a split system going dividing their labor between xbox delivery (likely the senior devs) and comtent for PC (junior devs figuring it out as they go with no access to resources)
yeah. 3rd point i forgot is about making virtual siloed teams. in the name of doing things faster. usually thats idea of guys who built that democratic system
devs from teams are not allowed to talk to eachother unless POs agree. sounds good if POs understand anything related to dev work. hence it does not work in most companies
In my opinion, Ghost Ship has managed to circumvent their budget constraints.
The management obviously knows how to deploy its small team in such a way that it moves forward at a steady pace.
The fact that the dwarves have the same bodies and the same voice, but pitched, is something they have talked about openly before, and yet AGAIN good planning to work around their constraints.
Ghost Ship streams their team playing Deep Rock weekly, which shows that they know how their game works and have the same experience as their playerbase.
There are the kind of developers like Ghost Ship, FFXIV, and the new Final Fantasy team that play their games openly to an audience and show great mechanical skill in it because they understand their games.
On the other hand, there are developers like Fatshark and Blizzard who do not play their own games to the extent that they need to, and do not understand where the problems are and what the player base does not like.
You should strive towards to be like the developers of Ghost Ship and Final Fantasy and not like Blizzard and Fatshark (terrible company name btw).
I do believe that and that’s why I have a lot of respect for Yoshi P (director of FFXIV).
Besides saving the game he plays a Black Mage, which is one of the most mechanically difficult classes in FFXIV for those that do not know, and parses very high on the damage meters.
Or the Final Fantasy 16 dev that parried every attack against a boss and melted it at the highest difficulty while being underlevelled on a live showing of the game.
They play their own games in their free time and understands them and that is what I expect a dev team to do.
I used to work as a chef before I switched careers in 2020 because is wanted to be able to see my family and be off on holidays.
Worked in a franchise restaurant which means that every recipe and how to cook every dish on the menu is written down thourougly.
I still tasted every sauce, pasta Alfredo, Pepper Sauce, Bearnaise, temped every steak, salmon etc I cooked and prepared before we served it to customers.
I think comparing DRG and Darktide on a technical level is very unfair, there is so much more that needs to be done to make, let’s say, a new skin in Darktide, simply because there’s more graphical fidelity here - you need higher quality textures, you need to animate more, you need to make sure there’s no clipping with any other skins and models, etc. In DRG some clipping doesn’t matter and no one will call devs out on that. I’d say it’s like 50% as hard to make a new batch of skins in Darktide, than in DRG.
Same with maps, it’s much easier to make a map for a procedurally generated game, like Warframe and DRG, than Darktide, where you have to build entirely from the ground up.
Now, to answer your question about why does playing new content feels good in DRG and not in Darktide. Personally, when i log in to play Darktide, i’m not really excited about anything, i know the Emperor’s gift is gonna suck, i know that the chance to get a good blessing is low and i’ll probably not gonna get it today, checking the shops is not making me happy either. So it all feels pointless.
Comparatively, in DRG you know you’re making progress, and even if you don’t, there’s nothing that stops you from having fun.
And of course, i probably don’t need to say, that Fatshark has completely failed on both meeting and managing expectations front.
Core gameplay in Darktide is incredible, most everyone agrees on that. But for many people, everything outside of that (the hub itself, progression and reward systems, etc.) drag the experience down.
Example: You come of the high of having a successful high-intensity mission completed! Awesome work everyone! I guess I’ll see you all … maybe never since we can’t stay in a group? Oh look, Emperor’s gift is another garbage useless item to scrap. Maybe 1 out of 50 times it is worth something. Hey, I have got 1,500 plasteel saved up. Gone in 10 seconds upgrading items to orange hoping to get a blessing on that 370+ rated item you’ve been holding onto. But no, two bad blessings later and it’s bricked. Yay!? Let’s look at Melk: Nope, nothing good… oh wait! There is! Except I’m short on Belk bucks and already did my weeklies…
…sigh…
The above is the core gameplay loop most of us are experiencing. You’re better off just IGNORING it entirely so the negative impact on your experience is at least minimized.
No, combat and melee especially in DRG is still mid. I love the game but it’s the weakest point. Not impressed by this season either, Rockpox stuff is still annoying, and the scorpion like enemies are as poorly tuned as the robots were originally. Giving us some more perk tiers on our support or excavation tools would have gone a long way to make season 4 interesting.
All true, but I was comparing the two more to show how much more efficiently Ghost Ship seem to be able to use their resources compared to FS. It’s not just that one has more money than the other, or that one game is cheaper/easier to make, it’s that one dev team clearly knows how to use their budget cleverly to get the most out of their limitations while the other really seems to be floundering on what exactly they should even be working on most of the time. There’s a huge difference in the management strategy between these two companies that imo FS really needs to take some notes from.
