I would like to request that we receive a public announcement on the status of solo w/ bots. This was a feature promised on release or within two months after release. We’re currently sitting at over *one and half years since the official launch of the game and aside from adding private lobbies where we can play with just our friends/bots (thank you for this) we haven’t heard anything in a proper announcement at where the promised feature of Solo w/ Bots is at. The best we’ve received is off-hand replies in forum categories like this or private messages.
I, personally, understand that the game was/is missing a lot of promised features and had many systems to update and fix, therefore the ability to launch a private game while alone was put on the back burner. That being said, we’re now at a point where the game is in a solid place and a lot of the missing features have been implemented and systems that needed updating have been updated, aside from the ability to play solo w/ bots and crafting (which is around the corner apparently).
This feature is a staple of the genre that has been around in every iteration of this style of game since its implementation in Left 4 Dead and has been in both of Fatshark’s previous games in the Tide Series. I believe that a community announcement that includes the current status of solo w/ bots is mandatory, even if the news isn’t good. I’ve already seen that it’s not a priority, which is baffling to me as it was “almost done” in 2022. We deserve to know where this promised feature lies in the Darktide Pipeline and why you as a company let the ball drop so hard on this basic feature.
The ability to launch a match solo is in: Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Vermintide, Vermintide 2, Helldivers 2, Risk of Rain, Risk of Rain 2, Killing Floor, Killing Floor 2, Back 4 Blood, GTFO, and World War Z. The only exception in this niche genre is Darktide.
Edit: corrected two and a half to one and a half. Thanks @Ragnarok101
Edit 2: Removed the “technical support” information from the post since it’s been moved.
(Let’s ignore that you posted it in the Bugs section and think that this is actually a General Discussion topic, which it is now)
I do really want to have some solo mode for funs, where the other 3 guys are my dudes, or I want to host my own games, so I will not have an abysmal ping from time to time
(sometimes I will connect to the matches that have 3 times the promised ping in the region.
My regions is 100-150 and my match is 320, which I do not like, and it’s all because the game prioritizes created lobbies, like real hard. I can’t do anything about it )
Also, it’s real cool that you found them talking about Solo mode, respect
I’d like a solo-nobots so I can finally do that Malleus redacted Psyker penance. It’s just weird to ask people in a pug to not hit a boss.
But otherwise, pretty ambivalent towards solo mode. You can do solo+bots with the mod. If you’ve been around for 18 months then you don’t need any game rewards (one assumes?!) so the fact you can’t gain any real-game credit is moot. But if you want it to cheese some obscure penances then … actually I’m fine with that.
Now: where I wholeheartedly support this argument is that the bots might get better! And I can finally (finally!) hit escape, click “take a break”, and not lose my mission progress while I go feed the cat… then jump back in. Alt-F4 and reconnect is such a pathetic work around to do this.
You imply that I’m actually going to PUG without solo mode. I played like three matches in the beta with my friend and Randoms, then I did one or two matches with my friend and Randoms. Then we stopped playing because of Randoms until private lobbies were added. Then we only did 2-man + 2-Bots in private lobbies until he stopped playing. At which point I used the Many More Try mod to play solo until I got sick of needing to track down mission IDs to play the game in a way that had been promised over a year prior.
So, yeah, I do need game rewards but I’m not going to force myself to play in a way that I don’t enjoy (it’s literally unfun to play with Randoms for me) or continue using a clunky mod to play this game. Why jump through hoops when I can play something else?
Can you at least share internally that we need a dev blog on this? Like, clearly people want and deserve to know. I promise you that I’m not the only person on this forum who bought the game expecting a solo experience to be added by February 2023 at the latest.
tailor made solo mode with free variables would be a treat.
either 3 bots of your choosing (your alt chars and equip.) or a special solo deployment of lesser scale altogether.
something as squad can´t be arsed to to, maybe kick a few doors in as ogryn to get missing contraband, something like that.
or endless walloping with kill counter and reward every 1000 heretics. geez i´d love that wave mode on a weekend off. pizza, energy, nurgle… what can go wrong with that combo ?
don´t get me wrong, i like the 4 man dynamic, but someday i´m not up to snuff or caffeinated proper to carry every auric maelstrom i´m tossed into.
then it´s far less straining on my vocal cords to have the only mistakes made be my own
I really don’t know what to say. You bought a co-op shooter, managed 5 games with other players, found they were SO detrimental to your experience that you then decided you’d only play this co-op shooter with your mate, or play alone.
I can’t think what to say without saying you’ve not bought the right game.
Damn. Too late.
I’ve played with Randoms in other games and hated every second of it. Also, I’ve got over 400 hours into Vermintide 2, almost 1000 across Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Vermintide, Vermintide 2, and World War Z.
Do you know what those “co-op” games had in common? They let me play with bots in private lobbies. I’ve played most of them with my friend but could continue playing even when he stopped playing or was interested in something else.
So please, continue telling me how I’m supposed to play these games.
How would you feel if you bought Halo and it only had a solo player campaign after every other version had co-op and multiplayer pvp. Then people said “yeah, you can’t play with others, so just play by yourself, it’s still fun. It’s a single player game why would it have coop?”
For me, playing with Randoms actively takes away from my experience. I can’t play how I want with Randoms and every second of Vermintide 2 solo was a thousand times better than the handful of times I tried playing with Randoms in that game. Darktide wasn’t any different. Even the Many More Try mod with basic bots was more enjoyable than playing with Randoms. So when I’m told “yes you will be able to play solo” and then “it’ll be on release or in a patch shortly after”. I’m going to still buy the game.
And I have since gotten my refund, doesn’t mean that I’m not invested in this issue as the addition of solo mode will get me to buy the game again.
Edit: to go a step further. They could roll back every single positive change ever made to Darktide and let me launch a private lobby alone and I would insta-buy the game again just because I can play solo. Talent trees? Gone. Upcoming crafting update? Doesn’t matter. Penance changes? Poof. The inability to play solo is the only thing that is keeping me from playing the game. Am I a bit extreme for that viewpoint? Sure. But I enjoyed Vermintide 1 and 2 in their early stages before all their reworks and changes that made them as good as they are now. Id enjoy Darktide in its broken glory too as long as I could play solo w/ bots.
Firstly, I’m going to apologize for getting testy. I’m just sick of the “it’s a coop game!” argument , which is just a bad argument. As I pointed out that Darktide is the only exception in the very niche “co-op horde shooter/slasher” genre. Every other game allows you to launch the game solo, despite being a more “play with others!” design. Some don’t give you bots, but most do.
And to elaborate on my comment on “play how I want”. In Vermintide 2 I went fairly fast but not speed run level, I’d get both grims and all tomes and by the time I was needing a break from the game I had every character at 35 with 2/4 masteries, per character, decked out in gear and could run 85% of my Legendary difficulty runs without issues. As I learned the maps I could go faster and I just enjoyed my time killing hordes of enemies and having a good time.
Every time, and I mean EVERY time I’ve played with randoms in this genre I’ve had: people run off and die because “we’re too slow”, people going too slow because they want to look around and “we’re too fast.”, people focus solely on self-preservation and blame the party for anything that went wrong, people who focus entirely on being a “tank” and doing 0 damage, people who focus entirely on damage and can’t dodge or block, people who friendly fire everyone else because we’re in -his- way, people who jump out in front of others and get shot in the back and it’s the shooters fault, etc.
I could go on but you’ve seen them all before. It’s not fun playing with people like that and for the one match out of twenty that goes perfectly fine with no issues, that’s 19 matches that I would have had more fun playing with bots who are literally braindead.
You and others may be fine for the 1/20 match that’s great, or you may not be bothered by the other 19. I am, I was told “you can play solo” and I’m not able to play solo. I believe Fatshark owes us an explanation on why this promised feature is the only one they still haven’t publicly acknowledged and I’m not the only one.
I’ve never had issues in other co-op games. I mean, hell, I played FFXIV for over a thousand hours for that game alone and never had the issue of “I hate PUGs” as much as I do in this genre. Did I have bad PUGs? Absolutely. But they didn’t define my experience as much as the Horde Shooter/Slasher genre did.
At the end of the day, I do not have fun playing with Randoms in these games, I was told we can play solo or just with our friends (we got the second part) and I can’t play solo. Again, I’m aware I’m in the minority on this topic and I’m not here to convince anyone that they should just play solo. I’m just trying to get a public response from Fatshark as to why this feature was dropped and kicked into the “don’t talk about and maybe they’ll forget” closet.
Edit: I know you deleted your post, but I’d like to add that I didn’t call anyone a jerk. Some of them were, yes, but most were just trying to play the game how they wanted to play it. Which I’m perfectly fine with. It just didn’t mesh with mine is all. And the times it did mesh with mine was great, but even then it wasn’t as fun for me as just playing with my friend or with bots.
You might be a minority in why you want it to be a feature but ‘it’s ready to roll out and will come out after launch’ is a broken promise so I applaud your crusade.
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