The Devs deserve much better than they are getting

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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(Posted this to the steam discussion section of the itemization update but I thought I would also put it here too. Frankly I’m really tired of the devs being absolutely abused and I wanted to share a bit of gratitude for them in a place that they were more likely to see it.
They are people like any of us with a passion for the thing we too love and the VAST majority of what I see is just rude, negative, mean behaviour that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere in the real world but is apparently OK because it’s online. Not good enough people, they deserve much better.)

"The devs don’t deserve this…
So upset to see all this negativity in the comments. People have been asking for this, it is now being done and there are still people here that clearly don’t care about the game ergo are only here to be scumbags. Really not good. No one acts this way in the real world and it is genuinely depressing to see people treat others that are doing their best so callously. The team are, slowly sure, doing all the stuff that people have been asking for and they are just met with hate every step of the way. (Not by everyone, I get that, there are some here that aren’t complete ingrates. Good on them for spreading a little positivity.)

I for one am thrilled by the proposed changes. the dev team aren’t the fastest in the world, I think that is a fair criticism, but they ARE still working on the game and making it better. AND they clearly listened to the feedback. AND they are much, much better than they were about clearly communicating to the players what they are doing and why. That is far more than many, many, MANY games. I’m really grateful.

This attitude from players would, for so many developers, result in the game being abandoned and the players that do want the game to keep getting better, would be left to rot.

Thanks FS for continuing to work on the game despite the truly endless waves of negativity that are thrown your way seemingly no matter what you do. Good luck guys."

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I agree with the sentiment, and i agree with you to an extent. I am a Darktide and Fatshark defender, but only where warranted. The game launched in a terrible state. There is no possible way Fatshark wasnt aware of the constant crashes before they launched. The class system was the exact same as Vermintide at launch, despite them saying it would be different. There was no (and still isnt) weapon customization, which i believe they also said Darktide would have it.

The extent where i disagree, is that in a free market, they open themselves up to any and all possible criticism as soon as they enter the market. They are more than aware of this, and they are not children who need to be protected. They made some f ups, and rightly have been criticized for it. With all that being said, i give them credit where it is due, their communication is great lately and the game is objectively better than launch. There are DEFINITELY people on here who’s sole purpose is to sht on Fatshark at any oppurtunity. Obviously things like death threats are absolutely ridiculous and only the game should be criticized, the people who do those kinds of things are pure scum who must not have any kind of life outside of the internet.

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I’m a defender of Fatshark sometimes too, but the problem isn’t that Fatshark makes the mistakes you list above, OP.

It’s that they’re going to make the same mistakes next time, and if history is any indication then they’re gonna lie about it too.

The terrible launch, the too-early reveal of ambitious features that don’t make it in, the abject dishonesty as to the launch state of their products, an unwillingness to admit that they need extra time to work on ports and the related radio silence (remember, we’re only just now exiting the SECOND UNANNOUNCED SECRET CONTENT DELAY DUE TO PORTS, which they STILL haven’t copped to), the revolving door of CMs who leave without explaining why or put their feet in their mouth repeatedly, these are all valid criticisms but the problem with Fatshark is that they’re going to repeat all of these mistakes. They always do, they always have, they always say they won’t next time and they’re always wrong.

I love this dev studio and right now they’re 100% improving the game and their comms but I don’t have faith it will last because there are clearly systemic, managerial, and organizational issues within the company that they aren’t willing to fix. Normally I’m not a basher of developmemt teams but Fatshark keeps shooting themselves in the same foot with the same gun, loaded with the same ammo. No shade to StrawHat or anything, but I don’t expect this string of good comms to last. I hope it does, but I’ve been playing “fool me once” with Fatshark for a decade now and i’m just too tired to make that bet anymore, boss.

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Truth, I’m not gonna cry at em every chance I get like some of these people, but I will not forget how disappointed I was with the systems surrounding the gameplay.

Darktide still doesn’t respect your time as a player as much as Vermintide 2.

Which is a damn shame, because the moment to moment gameplay is so much better, that I have a hard time even wanting to play VT2.

Just…the sprinting, the (now revamped) talent trees, the shooting, toughness instead of temp hp, etc. All these differences are so good and the game is only getting better (however slowly).

But even when you put strikethroughs on a book’s grudge, you can still read the text underneath it.

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fatshark for whatever reason developed a fanbase that’s convinced they know what needs to be done, and never stops needling them for it, even when they’re proven wrong over and over.

means they spend a lot of time every time trying to please a bunch of clowns.

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Real world is not a one-way street, live with your rose-colored glasses all you want, but FS has many more faults than just being “a little slow”.

doesn’t excuse some of the horrible things that were flung at them. But the times they made an absolute fool of themselves and got clowned for it, is fully deserved.

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This game has consistently crashed and had some of the worst console performance of any game ive ever seen every day for more than 3 months straight on xbox with no fix in sight and you think they deserve praise? Yeah sorry but I cant get down with that. Fatshark is lucky anyone plays this game at this point. Trust me if there was another game I was interested in playing I wouldnt keep playing this mess of a game. Unfortunately no other game compares to darktide in terms of gameplay so here we are.

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I’m not saying they should be excused from all negative feedback and I’m not saying they never did anything wrong. I’m saying they don’t deserve the endless bashing that they get. It just goes on and on and on. No matter what they do there is always without fail, a comment section swarming with people spewing crap.

Many of you rightly point out many cases where they stuffed up and say they deserve to know about it. OK sure. I agree.

But where are those same people when they do something right? The vanish into the ether. They aren’t there tallying up the score and giving any credit where it’s due. They’re on to the next thing bashing the dev’s while they do it.

And the main thing that bugs me is the ONLY people at the company that care about the feedback are the exact people that don’t deserve it. If you think the company has serious and systemic managerial issues then what good do you think putting the entire dev team, as a whole, down does? I know that in the store I work at, if someone stuffs up and we get a pissed customer screaming down the phone, the dude that doesn’t give a damn doesn’t care. I care. I’m the one trying. And I’m sure the people making those bad decisions and hamstringing the game couldn’t care less that the community is putting the team on blast endlessly. but the dudes sat at the desk, trying to actually make this thing who has a passion for it will certainly care to hear what the players think and all they are ever told, and I mean like 90%+ of the time. Is reprehensible abuse. That’s a horrible way to treat people.

No one is going to defend a company getting away with awful behaviour but the way the community goes about it is just appalling.

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Well I completely disagree.

Some of the vitriol comes from misguided people in the heat of a sour moment. Some of the criticism is based on straight up logic (why release a bolt pistol that is utter garbage when the players are dying for new content? measure twice, cut once.)

And finally, there is maybe some fair criticism of certain people at Fatshark who wear the term “dev”, who are in more of a leadership role, who are blatantly doing a bad job.

On the other hand, I believe the ground level workers at Fatshark are just good folk doing their jobs everyday, and I love them as I do any other person. We’re all just meat blobs gooping about on planet earth.

Thinking about it, its kinda weird that lead devs can get away with some anonimity and are so easily able to hide themselves from criticism. Criticism isn’t some evil thing people use to hurt others, its supposed to be honest feedback, a critique, your thoughts relayed. An author, or movie director, will place themselves before their peers, their readers or movie goers, and take the feedback onboard, allow themselves to maybe improve their craft. Sure it hurts sometimes (for example M. Knight Shayamalan), but you can learn from it. Lead devs hide away, and get away with way too much (like Blizzard lead devs).

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Hrm, there’s a reason for that, and there’s a reason Darktide’s reviews on Steam remain stubbornly “Mixed”, while competitor 4 person coop shooter titles like DRG/PD2/L4D2/HD2 consistently both review better and retain more players and achieve higher rates of active play.

This game was released unfinished, underbaked, and unready, and far from fully fleshed out, nobody really debates this, but Fatshark still charged full price.

We’re now going on almost 2 years from release, and the game still lacks features promised before launch (e.g. solo mode). Many of the features that the game has incorporated are bad at an inherent fundamental level, some so bad that they really don’t have an excuse, such as the current crafting and itemization paradigm.

What’s more, Fatshark has taken forever to address much of this, seemingly going out of their way to refuse to even address or acknowledge issues (often pushing out other updates and content nobody was asking for in the meantime, like Doom-esque super shotties and reskinned variant enemies) UNTIL they get tons of online anger for it.

Fatshark’s communications for most of this game’s existence haven’t helped. We’ve gotten multiple iterations of the same copy-pasta about Crafting in the game about wanting to avoid RNG pitfalls and making it a core element of game progression, in a system clearly and intentionally designed to cultivate those RNG pitfalls. We’ve been told that “oh we have no news on anything because we’ve only been back from vacation for a month despite not having released anything this quarter”. The entirety of content additions for this game to date since last December are Green bombers, a single new mission, and a couple weapons copy-pasta’d from Deep Rock Galactic.

Meanwhile a studio literally walking distance from Fatshark’s front door released their own 4 person coop shooter on the same core game engine with Helldivers II, and absolutely crushed Darktide’s market performance.

Fatshark is getting better. They’re getting better about feedback and communications. They’re finally addressing some major issues, bugs, and QoL concerns.

But it took people being screaming mad for 18 months and local competitor mashing their product into the dirt to get the point across.

Somehow Jakal thinks Darktide has a unique userbase that’s more toxic and rude than any other game’s userbase ever, despite not coming within an order of magnitude of the toxicity and anger seen from games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, Call of Duty, or something like World of Warships where they ultimately shut down the forums entirely.

Most importantly however, Jakal has never understood the fundamental business 101 fact that even if all that’s true, that’s who Fatshark is selling to, and that’s who they need to ultimately please if they want to generate income.

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Another thread falls victim to your blatant misanthropy, old friend?

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Catfish literally told us she used to CM for DOTA2, can you imagine her job on steam forums? hahaha. Much respect to her.

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coughs meaningfully, looks at the Book of Grudges and the fact it’s constantly getting updated to reflect both negative and positive changes

Are you on Steam forums? Aka a constant toxicity pit?

Because the people who actually care are usually on this forum, and are hardly awful to the staff.

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The game came out 2 years ago. Also, something is at your door.

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There is something amusing to me about players who love the fundamentals of a game so much that they debate about the game for years, but also are predominantly negative in their interactions with the devs. It’s like their actions don’t follow their words.

And I am still frustrated it’s been 2 years and still no rumble support in DT. I still think it is the best 4 player hoard shooter for me though. I love the graphics, mood, gameplay, etc

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I mean just take a step back a moment and think about humans.

Some of those people are very immature and perhaps just enjoy some drama on steam discussions.

Some of what you are describing might be people still confused why the game is half finished after two years.

On here, most folks interactions (ie, literally just posting stuff and maybe Catfish or Strawhat passes a more palatable version along), are positive, with a slight lean towards good, well constructed feedback. Mostly thanks to the real heroes on this forum who spend hours collecting data.

But sure lets take that tar brush and go to f’in town up in here.

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People are just frustrated because they have made one of the best games ever (IMO) but everything surrounding the incredible gameplay is sorely lacking and could so easily be resolved with some genuinely minor changes but they keep ignoring requests.

See all the mods that some people swear by…FS should just integrate them.

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Servers are getting worse, ghost hits are getting worse, weapon swaps are getting worse, sound ques are getting worse. Random bugs and issues are becoming more prevalent each week.

Please explain to me where they deserve gratitude and what for. Every issue I just listed has been known about for a long time and NOTHING IS BEING DONE. You want to know what they are consistent with? Those awful cosmetics. Ghost hits should be TOP PRIORITY. Weapon swap issues should be TOP PRIORITY. If I can’t even play the game properly because combat is completely bugged, in what world do you think they are doing a good job? I don’t understand what universe you are living in but it’s definitely not the same one I am in.

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Yes BUT, they did fix the close range bug (for now. Can you imagine if that got unfixed in a patch? lol)

I feel like I’ve been on this exact same rollercoaster with Creative Assembly’s TW: Warhammer. Similar complaints, similar issues, similar dev approach. Ahh well, at least I enjoy the games for the most part. Its a strange thing being a Warhammer fan, sometimes.

There have been far worse cases than the Tide and TW Warhammer series. I sometimes try to imagine what Battlefleet Gothic 2 could’ve been like, if the devs hadn’t just dropped and bailed.

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