The Crafting Memorial; lest we forget

[Cerebrophage]

@SkipRat

Why would anyone “sacrifice” anything at the “cost of game play?”

Why make a game worse, then sacrifice lore/RL to achieve this? It’s fundamentally stupid.

And even if it is type O, your argument still makes no sense, as the all crafting system has done is push the vast majority of players away from the game. So why destroy the lore/RL that does nothing but make the experience for players so bad that most have left the game? As they are sick to death of being spat in the face by something that should be “fun.” It’s not “gameplay” it’s punishment and an insult.

So “you” like it, so what? As with most things in life, there is always an outlier that is at odds with the vast majority of the rest.

What you say - what does this accomplish? What do you hope to gain by saying this?

[SkipRat]

What do you think?

[Cerebrophage]

I asked you, as I don’t want to make assumptions.

Edit so as not to clutter with more replies:

I made assumptions about a lot of people and got in trouble for it. Now, I ask point blank.

[SkipRat]

You might want to start making assumption, it would a difference from the BS you have talking for weeks.

[AsukasHeadphones]

@Cerebrophage

I don’t think it was added with the intent to make people angry

You don’t think adding multiple layers of RNG which all serve to frustrate the player and prevent them from playing with the loadouts they want. Won’t make people angry?

[Cerebrophage]

That isn’t what I said.

I said it wasn’t designed with the intent to make people angry.

This isn’t to say that the design itself wouldn’t make people angry.

[AsukasHeadphones]

@Cerebrophage

I said it wasn’t designed with the intent to make people angry.

When the system is very hostile to player expression; what other intent can there be except to make people angry. There was no way someone sat down, created the worst RNG system of all time, then legitimately thought this was going to bring people lots of joy and fun.

[dragomusic]

@Cerebrophage

I said it wasn’t designed with the intent to make people angry.

I’ll keep bringing this up while this is discussed but I actually agree with Cere here. I believe they said before launch that they were surprised by how much people played VT 2 (I can’t find the quote, so hopefully I’m not making that up).

I believe the system was designed to give players adequate weapons to complete the hardest difficulties, while giving players who play for thousands of hours something to always be chasing (the perfect 380 to 540 roll).

I don’t like it, and I don’t think it succeeds in that, but that is how I view the current system.

It’s possible certain values and rng was adjusted with malicious intent. But I don’t believe the whole system was.

[Cerebrophage]

That’s really difficult for me to believe that a bunch of developers would create a system with the explicit intent to anger a playerbase.

[AsukasHeadphones]

@dragomusic

I can’t find the quote

Here friend, it’s a classic from Vermintide’s steam forums:

V2 wasn’t designed as a “live service game”, but a game that might capture hearts and minds for like 80-100 hours.

why so big? :: Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Helmgart Keep - General Discussions

[Molonious]

When everything about weapons and gear, from availability to acquisition to stats and perks and blessings, is RNG coupled with FOMO rotation, that’s specifically and intentionally designed to hook into gambling impulses. That is exploitative even if not malicious.

Most of the time, this is done with the intent to stretch things out and intentionally create some level of frustration, which can then be bypassed through either paying real cash or obscene amounts of in-game materials earned from tons of playing. That’s the entire business of model of Gacha systems and other games like World of Warships (e.g. You can earn this ship from playing a couple matches every day for 6 months, or you can fork over $70 and get it now) and things like Warthunder’s event and squadron vehicles (squadron with mates for a hundred games and get a cool new tank, or fork over $60 for it now).

Darktide has the frustration generation, but no outlets built in. It’s like they were going for the monetization model of World of Warships, but then just stopped halfway through after making it even more random and inconsistent. At least in WoWs if you’re grinding for a ship you know you can play a few matches and get a minimum of X resource a day towards that ship you want. None of their monetization is actually built around gear and crafting, but they designed the gear and crafting as though it were going to be monetized.

[SkipRat]

Why do people keep ignoring the mission statement that they have had up since before the release.

That;

1. Would move away from randomisation and repetitive actions etc etc

But,

2. Then give us a system that has 6/7 layers of RNG to craft one weapon at the cost of 10’000’s resources and millions of Dockets.

This is where the problem comes from and kudos to them, they are finally addressing it, hopefully.

This choice was deliberate from FatShark, whether it was pressure from TenCents/Investors or not, it was still deliberate even if there was no intent to anger. It would however, still have been sheer arrogance to think that promoting the game with minimal if any RNG, then replacing it with RNG at every level burning millions of dockets and resources wouldn’t provoke a backlash from the player base.

You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to guess exactly what would have happened and did happen. It was done with intent, deliberate and cynical in nature (to keep players playing).

The only outcome would have been anger and they should have seen it.

[dragomusic]

@Molonious

You can earn this ship from playing a couple matches every day for 6 months, or you can fork over $70 and get it now) and things like Warthunder’s event and squadron vehicles (squadron with mates for a hundred games and get a cool new tank, or fork over $60 for it now).

I have friends who have played these games, and one who has sunk thousands of dollars into them even though he is not the best off financially (finding this out actually made me really sad, and idk if there’s anything that I can do about it).

I believe that DT’s crafting system is a magnitude above this, at least from how I understand it. It’s not good, but not nearly as bad. Progression isn’t locked after a certain number of games (Melk Coins are, but that is only one method of progression that isn’t always better). You can roll up, and get access to weapons without that much trouble. And for the level most people play at, it will probably be sufficient.

While RNG can make getting things theorhetically impossible, I never had to out in as much time as in the games you mentioned to get at least close enough to what I wanted. And even if designed like one, not having any way to spend money to increase progression is a positive.

[AsukasHeadphones]

@Molonious

It’s like they were going for the monetization model of World of Warships, but then just stopped halfway through after making it even more random and inconsistent.

Funny enough there was a rumor going around at the time that speculated there being some monetized paid element in Darktide:

I cannot currently discern what currency you’re supposed to purchase these with, nor what their duration is anticipated to be as that appears to be controlled server-side.

What irks me is that these smack of paid boosters that often cost premium currency and I really hope that this isn’t the case.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTide/comments/zwr4zw/looks_like_theres_a_boon_system_coming/

[dragomusic]

Yes I heard discussion of some sort of paid premium booster being datamined at one point or something similar, but eventually moving away from that.

Personal head cannon is still that DT was meant to be more of an MMO type game, maybe even FTP, and that was a residual piece of that before the game get restarted halfway through development.

[CommanderJ]

Yep, player retention systems are routinely made with the express purpose of creating frustration in the players.

[AsukasHeadphones]

Some waifu gachas figured the science of retaining people: shower the user with free rewards via daily logins, give the player freebies from events, give the player free spins at the slot machine, give the player free gifts, and so on. For some reason though Darktide has a different science for retaining players.

[Rainman]

I’ve been playing peregrinaje with a group for a few weeks now, and it’s such a breath of fresh air. It uses the athanor, did a bunch of balance and talent tweaks, and changed the flow of the game with new added modes. On top of that, it’s practically a live service mod with the rate the author updates it. FS shouldn’t release updates like him, but all the changes and new variability really draws you back to keep trying new things. That’s what darktide is missing and what everybody complains about with the itemization system

[AsukasHeadphones]

@Rainman

I’ve been playing peregrinaje

Aw dude. That mod is amazing. I had a group with me that would run it. We once did the tabletop mode and it took us hours, a few of us had to go to sleep. It was so fun.

[SkipRat]

@Rainman

peregrinaje

What is that?