Stats on player base over locking items

Since there seems to be a split on who wants what I think the values could be useful (for us and fatshark if they ever read it).

The Grinders- 1 group (broadly) seems to like the grind and believes it has more player retention value for mechanical purposes. Seems to be the design philosophy that getting a “good” weapon/curio should be relatively easy but a “max” one should be pretty much impossible/ not meant to be strived for.

The builders- The other group seems to be more on wanting max items to be acquired within reasonable means either as casual players or players that want to test various combinations and do not need mechanical loot to chase to have retention.

  • Low grind- Easy to get a single specific “good weapon/curio” (~2 hours) Moderate to get a single specific max value item (~15 hours)
  • High Grind- Moderate to get a single specific “Good weapon/curio” (~15 hours). Effectively Impossible to get a single specific max weapon/curio (~1000 hours)
  • Don’t care/ I don’t look at the shops or craft weapons or focus on builds.

0 voters

“Good” defined as: A weapon/curio with at least both perks and blessings being something you want of middle-high tier value, some perks/blessing won’t be ideal or their values not as high.

Max defined as: A weapon or curio with the exact combination of blessings and curios desired and with max values on a max modifier item with the desired bars.

  • I believe player retention NEEDS to be held by items that serve mechanical purpose (loot)
  • I believe that cosmetics alone CAN hold player retention.
  • I believe gameplay alone CAN hold player retention.
  • I believe ONLY new content (maps, items, classes, events, etc.) can hold player retention.

0 voters

  • If I had to choose, I would prefer grinding for loot even knowing that certain combinations would be impossible for me to obtain.
  • If I had to choose, I would prefer all weapons, feats, blessings, etc. to be unlocked with no grind but all options available to all players.

0 voters

I think getting these numbers, if the sample size is big enough, would essentially reveal how well received the crafting update WILL be when it launches.

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A lot of these options are kinda black and white. Like I believe that gameplay and new content creates player retention, not ONLY this and ONLY that. I want all options and builds to be available to me if i’m willing to work for it. I don’t want to pull a lever and keep my fingers crossed to get the item I want.

3 Likes

Sure I can agree. Black and white are better for metrics/ decision making, just more whatever statement appeals the strongest or is the most accurate really. I would agree both can (you can choose multiple options the second one isn’t locked).

Yeah, these are a bit too binary to me. For example I’m fine with something where an absolutely literally perfect weapon or some such is a grinding goal, but I’m completely fine if you can get a relatively comparable weapon more easily. IE: If somebody really wants that extra .1% power, they can chase that dopamine hit all they want.

To put it in more Darktide-y terms, the current system is hostile to what I like, with the very clearly segregated tiers of perks/blessings. Vermintide had the more randomized roll where it was between a threshold, but if I was going for something and got 4.9% crit instead of 5% crit I’m not exactly too upset. Blessings are just awful with how dramatically they can affect a weapon’s efficiency in conjunction with RNG, on top of the tiers to them.

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I don’t disagree with what you say, but in the most extreme case lets say 1% more damage is what makes or breaks a hit. A kickback from Ogyrn one shotting a poxhound or taking two is a major difference, which may be determined by a 1%. Breakpoints make even small modifiers (potentially) meaningful. Since the values are tiered 1-4 the increases/variances should be more than 1%.

I was actually editing in a comment about breakpoints because I figured they’d get brought up :stuck_out_tongue:

They definitely muddy the waters and I’m generally too lazy to give a crap about them and mostly just focus on improving myself. I know there’s people that do though. I usually just go for things that are typically generic “Always useful in some manner” like damage to unyielding or crit chance unless making a specific build. (Also because I can’t be arsed to reroll 500 times)

I wasn’t saying that each tier needs to only be 1% or some such, simply that I vastly preferred having a range of values over the much more “You either get it or you don’t” that Darktide has. In the sense of breakpoints you might be fine with “8.8% damage to X” with a potential roll between 5 and 10%. That dramatically increases the chance of getting a potentially fine roll on it versus Darktide where if it was something like 4/6/8/10 only a max roll would be good enough. (And seems to be weighted with the lowest chance by far)

Also after a certain point being able to mostly freely do whatever you want would be nice. I’ve gone back to Vermintide and was playing Warrior Priest and the ability to quickly make a set of weapons for him and immediately roll them a few times was such a breath of fresh air over the hell of never getting some weapons I was hunting for in Darktide. (I’ve become convinced that momentum eviscerators were actually a fever dream I had while leveling)

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Have a grind for the first 50-100 hours and then open it up to freely or quickly build items you want.

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unyielding damage is only useful for bulwarks and bosses

They’re also tanky enough that the damage bonus will pretty much always be useful against them, which was my point.

Always useful against them, but not in general. Bosses don’t even appear every match. Unyielding damage might amount to a few hundred extra damage per run, which is trivial. When the opportunity cost of unyielding is elite, maniac, flak etc., you really need to think about how you use your two perk slots. No one who actually understands the game would recommend unyielding as a “generalist, good in most cases” option. The only way i see unyielding being actually good is if you’re the sole person on bulwark duty, and you’re not psyker.

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Although if the drops were reasonable people could have a weapon spec’d for assassination missions or bosses, because they’d have enough resources/time to do so.

I didn’t recommend it, I said I’ll take it because I can’t be arsed to reroll it 500 times and it’s not going to involve me looking up breakpoints. (And without looking up breakpoints things like flak damage might effectively end up being worthless) On damnation bulwarks are typically the enemy I run across that trips things up, along with a boss nearly every run.

This is getting beyond the scope of my point anyway and basically coming across as you wanting to preach about how much more you know. (Even though you’re saying things I’m fully aware of) If it was more feasible to actually get perks and whatnot that I want I might give more of a crap about it, but until the weapon/upgrading/crafting system isn’t awful I’ll just take whatever isn’t totally worthless. (EG: Taking flamer damage resistance on a curio is lol)

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It seems like you can’t handle being corrected. All i said was that unyielding damage isn’t generic and isn’t always useful, contrary to your original claims. If you were already aware of this, then you might just have trouble articulating your thoughts into text. Or maybe you just enjoy spreading misinformation, i wouldn’t know. But if you think I’m flexing my knowledge, that’s just a reflection of your personal character.

Never said it was generic. Did you somehow interpret that as me thinking it applied to every enemy? On Damnation it’s pretty much always going to get some use though. Maybe if you don’t play above malice. shrug

Point: Bulwarks are tanky enough that damage to them is pretty much always going to make some difference, barring extreme edge cases like two shotting them, and even then it’s still going to be useful against bosses. Bulwarks also tend to trip up people in my experience, so clearing them more quickly is useful for me.

Point: Flak damage or some such might effectively make no difference against most enemies due to them not being as tanky and without looking up the breakpoints I could be effectively putting a mostly dead stat on said weapon. I’ll still leave carapace or what have you on it because I can’t be bothered to farm for plasteel or some such in lower difficulties and I (was) prioritizing getting better curios because they’re a nightmare.

You misinterpreted my point and are now continuing to be insulting just because I don’t care about obsessing over the breakpoints.

Irony.

Bro is this satire? I can’t anymore xD

The generic thing was the fact that it’s always useful in some manner, not the stat itself. Generic is describing the concept of “Always useful in some manner”, not thinking that unyielding applies to everything or something.

I’d rather not derail this thread further.

Even though the sample size is small it does seem like there’s a noticeable trend.

dumb poll no one likes any of this sh-t unless you are insane

The amount of people complaining about crafting, RNG, and grind, and topics about it would all disagree with you.

I want a long grind. I just want the reward to be guaranteed.