The Crafting Memorial; lest we forget

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
744

Not to start an argument, but there was a survey in the launcher about what’s wrong in this game, maybe they base their stance on that?

There was also a post on Reddit about someone coming from a division not understanding what people find wrong about the crafting system at all (arguing that both the acquisition and the crafting options are better than in that game).

The post under it was pretty enlightening and fit very well into the general view of the crafting system. That is anyone coming from loot-based games would find the system okay, and anyone coming from something like previous Tide titles or non-loot-based games would just want total freedom in gear tuning with no RNG whatsoever.

I don’t think that’s so far-fetched from the developers that maybe a very loud portion of the forum isn’t representative of the general player population.

745

Going back to that famous reply of one of their game designers regarding Winds of Magic Feedback.

They’re - as usual - too deep in their own rectum to care.

1 Like
746

I never played that game, but saying “at least it is better than in that other game” is basically equal to saying “it could be worse” and not a very high praise.
If a system is only good in comparison to something else that is worse, maybe it is not very good at all.

I played loot based games before, but i despise the Darktide crafting system.

Aside from my own opinion, it does not matter if anyone else likes the current system either.

The system that we currently have, is the polar opposite of what the Darktide crafting system was advertised as. A blind person could see that.
Until we get what was advertised (or something objectively better), it is a very simple situation: everyone who says “it is fine as it is” is objectively wrong.

If we are sold a steak and we get a steak, nobody can complain about getting that steak.
Maybe you would have preferred if the steak was a bit bigger, smaller, thicker or seasoned differently, or maybe you would like the option to have a side dish. But nobody can reasonably complain about getting a steak, when they buy a steak.

However, if we are sold a steak and we get a vegan salad instead, then the situation is a bit different.
Independent of the quality of that salad, or how much you might like salad, you did not get what you paid for.
Every single person complaining about not getting a steak, when they paid for a steak, is 100% justified in doing so.

Did they change their advertisement to advertise a salad? No.
Did they say that the salad is only a temporary solution and that we will get our steak as soon as it is ready? No.

What did they do? They added a little crouton to our salad and now apparently expect drastic changes regarding our feedback.
Well excuse me, i would still like that steak you promised i would get.

6 Likes
747

My comment was about the reaction to @FatsharkCatfish post. Maybe the loud people on the forum aren’t representative of the player population. I might be wrong, I might be right, but what matters is that it is possible the higher-ups might have a point.

Edit: It’s lovely how your 2 paragraph reply enlarged so much over the last few hour.

748

As i already said, it does not really matter how representative anyone thinks our feedback is.
They advertised something and delivered the opposite. Therefore, every single person complaining about it, is right to do so.

There are many points to be made for why the system is objectively bad (on top of being the complete opposite of what was advertised).
I am pretty sure though, that i have not seen a single reasonable point being made by anyone, for why the current system is better than what was originally advertised.

It would need some quite spicy mental gymnastics for those higher-ups to:

  • deliver the opposite of what they said they would
  • get objective reasoning for why what they did is bad
  • get >95% negative feedback anywhere they look (maybe they do not look)

and then come out of that situation, thinking “Oh well i guess that’s just the loud minority. Actually, everybody loves it.”.

Not sure what kind of point they think they have, but i would really like to hear it.

4 Likes
749

And I don’t care that you don’t care. Simple as.

750

I did not say that i do not care.
I said that it does not matter, because
everyone who complains about FS delivering the opposite of what was advertised, is objectively right.
And everyone who thinks it is fine, is objectively wrong.

2 Likes
751

i mean im not gonna deny that we FS forum dwellers got strong self-select bias here,
but to dismiss our feedback because its not representative is just silly…

i mean the game fell faceflat on concrete, and everyone who is even bothered to report on the state 3 months after release said, that substantial changes are needed…

and here we are still giving and talking of potential ways to pull this thing up.
yet we don’t “represent” the majority, yeah no s*it, but the things you tried drove away the vast majority in less than a month…
you think you can bring back “the majority” on your own? or for who’s feedback you gonna ask? there’s nobody left, don’t make me laugh

5 Likes
752

It would kinda make sense to be critical of the forum feedback, if it was mostly positive.

If player numbers tanked, and feedback got more and more positive, that would be strange.
Apparently those, who are still around, like everything about the game and have nothing to complain about. Those who had something to complain about, have all left.
Feedback would have to be looked at with a large pinch of salt.

However, in our case, the player numbers tanked and the crafting feedback has continuously been negative since release.

Of course, people are more likely to go out of their way to give feedback, when something is bad.
But considering that this is a public forum, where ideas are being discussed, it would be strange to assume that it is just a loud minority.
People tend to really get active, when they disagree with something (much more than when they agree with something).
Yet somehow, nobody seems to disagree with “crafting system is bad”, but hundreds agree.

Everything points towards the “crafting system is bad” crowd not being a loud minority.
Yet even if it was “only” a loud minority, that would still not be a reason to ignore the feedback.

1 Like
753

I mean considering the state of the crafting system (if we could even call it that) at the beginning and now is night and day. A lot of changes happened. The base system introduced was really bad even for what it wanted to be.

I would be much more inclined to think that bleeding player numbers are mostly due to the failing of the crafting system if there weren’t (or isn’t) a large number of other problems present. Not to say that in the first few months, the crafting system was probably one of the larger reasons (out of like 4 other ones).

We could all agree that the advertised 1 class per quarter wasn’t happening (the next patch will make up for it I think) and the amount of new content that came so far was inadequate. Add to this bugs, server issues (including the current ones), and a number of other stuff, and you have a large number of problems that could be pointed at as a reason for bleeding numbers.

754

Its also a bit disingenuous to heap all the problems on the crafting system. The game’s servers constantly drop you from games where there’s actual numbers of enemy entities worth playing, since launch but more so now that there are more servers running those modifiers. The hit registration is stupidly determined by the server client, making a lot of ADS capable weapons and melee hit reg ludicrously unreliable, at its most sinister literally costing you rounds because of ghost hits. The game’s cache is clearly messed up, because you have very long hang ups with loading time at random (this was already fairly bad for VT2 console players).

Crafting is just something easy to target, since its basically the only thing they set out to reasonably ‘complete’ with a year, and they didn’t.

1 Like
755

i don’t get your argument, literally all the negatives, you point to were criticized in this very forum, i never said anything about the crafting in particular, i was talking about feedback in general.

756

I do not think that people blame everything on the crafting system.
There are certainly other issues, but you have to consider the difference between dislike for something that does not work correctly vs something that does.

Hit registration and crashes are not something that sparks a discussion, or that people have many opinions about.
It is very simple: hits should be registered, sessions should not randomly close and the game should not crash. Absolutely nothing to discuss.
Those things clearly do not fully work as intended, but they obviously should.
The intention behind these systems is fine. They simply need a fix.

However, the crafting system works exactly as intended. But the intention completely sucks.
The crafting system is a great topic to complain and discuss about, because it does not simply need “a fix that makes it work as intended”.
It needs to be changed. The intention needs to be changed.

3 Likes
757

I love this so much.

We were never going to be representative of the majority, the majority left, never to retrun!

Our feedback is representative in that there are multiple hundered people with a shared interest but totally different opinions and reasons for those opinions that all say the same thing.

How any times does it take to see independant conclusions and thought process’ that all arrive in the same feedback before you call it representative? You’d think 400+ times would be enough.

FS should be insanely greatful that there is even a single person left that wants to improve this game and believe in their ability to do so.

I also wanted to add on:
To anyone doubting that the negative feedback surrounding the crafting isn’t representative, how have I never seen a single post praising the crafting?

I am not exaggerating here, not a single damned one.

6 Likes
758

Sorry for the double post. This ended up being too big an edit to just tack on.

Night and day???

I understand you ment to say that it’s substantionally better but that is probably the poorest fitting methaphor you could’ve chosen.

We went from having THE worst crafting and progression systems I have ever seen in any game unbefitting of such systems to now having the worst progression and crafting system of any Tide game and the gap is indescribably massive still.

And even if you want to argue semantics on how bad it actually is, it’s still the opposite of what was advertised

They have not changed a single substantial thing about crafting or progression. Double the resources, a direct way to gamble the gold away, free 2 lock permutaions and one less lock on curios later and the system is still nothing more than a pile of burning dogsh!t.

There’s no fixing this, it needs to be fully reworked from the ground up. Ideally from a different person with a complete 180° turn in intention.

5 Likes
759

I agree with everything you said, except this part.
I still think that the entire dumpsterfire that this system currently is, can easily be fixed (and brought in agreement with what was advertised) by simply adding my 4 step program that i have repeated too many times already.

  • remove diamantine cost from consecration
  • allow modifier upgrades for diamantine
  • allow lock removal for diamantine
  • allow blessing learning for diamantine
4 Likes
760

Well. What we have currently can be salved.
And it wouldn’t be that hard either.

That would slavage it.

But why season the burning pile when you can come up with something completely different?
I didn’t say new, specifically because a lot of ppl would be happy with the athanor system.

At this point, I’d take those 4 changes and just be done with it.

But do I say that because it’s the best solution or do I say it because it’s been a year of nothing changing?

3 Likes
761

Yes.

762

Wrong.

It’s simply, cathegorically, wrong.

Night and day are opposites.

What DT launched with and what it has now are not opposites, they are different levels of “(not so) well seasoned dogsh!t”.

8 Likes
763

Difficult to say.
However, these 4 changes would fix the issues without requiring any crazy changes to the existing systems, or how items and their stats work in general.
I have suggested these things at least since march, and i would have been happy with a system like this at any time (not just because it is “less bad” than what we have had to suffer through for 9+ months now).

There might be a way to make the system better overall, by making more invasive changes, but that would no doubt take longer and be much more complex.

Imo they should just make the 4 above changes no matter what.
Even if they want to make a more expansive rework of the entire gear acquisition system, to create something that is better overall, they could still do that after making those 4 changes first.
At least we would have a good and functioning system in the meantime and they could take all the time in the world to rework the whole thing.

2 Likes