The new Endgame

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Basically, I just wanted to check how the new endgame works, but I got turned back because I need to finish a Maelstrom mission first.

I’ve played for about 216 hours so far, have every class at level 30, and some nice gear I’m comfortable with. I’ve finished some missions on difficulty 4 or 5, but I have the most relaxed and fun experiences on difficulty 3 with high intensity. This is the level where the game stays enjoyable—the guns have good feedback, and the enemies die easily. It’s the best middle ground to embrace the fantasy, mechanics, and overall gameplay for me.

I’d like to keep playing and progressing somehow, but I don’t enjoy the artificial difficulty or the stress of higher difficulties, let alone Maelstrom. I don’t need the artificial validation of being “good” at a game or solving it when it’s cranked to 11. I’m just a chill dude who likes to shoot some heretics and see numbers get bigger from time to time.

So, for players like me, what’s the endgame besides higher difficulties?

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you made malice your “end” and seem to enjoy it.

as for the game there’s tons more challenges to do, its just up to you when to un-chill

for you personally, true.

me? i enjoy my game when its pushing me to ever new heights.
so auric maelstrom I II V E G is currently my “chill zone” with lately the director throwing some real nice things my way.

if i aint spend at the end of a 5 hour session, i wasnt having “fun” :saluting_face:

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It’s all natural, baby.

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Variation of builds is end game.

Once you get to the stage where you have plentiful resources you can build whatever you want in a few mins to try out for fun factor rather than meta/optimised. Trying out new things.

Sometimes I get bored and switch to support builds. Gets boring doing Zealot DPS all the time tearing it up. Maybe consider support build then up the difficulty.

When to move onto next difficulty - When it is rare for you to go down and if you’re 1-2 shotting Crushers yea time to move up.

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Thanks for sharing this.
Glad to hear that the endgame content is in your comfort zone.

I just had hoped we get something in parallel that can be done/progressed even if not just playing with handicaps and more numbers cranked up.

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Odd.

Maelstrom VEG has been there since Maelstrom was released. The difficulty has not changed, the maps haven’t changed all that much. How long til that starts to get tedious, bud? I got sick of Maelstrom within a couple months. Havoc was supposed to be the “new”.

What now? More Maelstrom? Or back to waiting for Fatshark to get the message that we need actual new content (missions, modifiers, maps and monsters)?

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hence me calling it “chill zone”, pal.

last couple matches there’d been an uptick in enemy density that for all accounts should be the norm.

other than that good ol I II V E G and C I VI is still the most the game has to offer.
true one got used to it and havoc might have some new stuff up its sleeves, will check today. :+1:

“tedious” is something i need to do as a chore in order to progress but once you’ve reached max (except solo of course) you make yourself at home and enjoy the game until some new stuff comes around or you pause it for a while :man_shrugging:

then again when playing mmo’s i was fine farming high end stuff for years on end so…

access to havoc though right now is “tedious” for needing a team to start on your own wasnt how i imagined it.

i’m fine trying for some 100 hrs to improve and crack the content, only the content should be available in the first place coming from doing auric maelstrom for since it was a thing

problem is you stopped on your own accord half way, what filler could fatshark build in thats not the equivalent of heresy as the next step followed by damnation?

whats there to “increase”

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Therein lies the problem with retention of average players for Darktide.

Instead of letting people earn more cosmetics or aquilas for a shop that has plenty of options or recolor opportunities, they use a harder mode for harder mode’s sake and a mobile game rotating shop (yes other non-mobile games have them too, but that doesn’t make them any higher on the slop scale than mobile gaming).

I personally like extra harder content, but not every player is motivated by the intrinsic reward of “f yeah I did the thing”. And even so, liking hard mode doesn’t preclude a person from wanting extrinsic rewards too.

In a game where you don’t grind loot or come out with massive/more frequent content expansions like in MMOs (or develop a cult of masochists like FROMSOFT) you need cosmetic grind. They tried to have a gear grind, but that’s never what horde games have ever been about, it just doesn’t work.

No one liked farming abysmal rng in VT1, no one liked farming reds in VT2 and no one liked playing Hadron’s emporium of slot machina wonders in DT. Hyperbole, obviously some people like that stuff or are ambivalent towards it, but no matter how much they speak out about it they are still in the minority and will not themselves sustain the population of the playerbase long term.

Deep rock has drip, helldivers has drip, sea of thieves has drip, payday has drip, warframe has drip to an extent, even those aforementioned MMOs have drip to go along with their hard mode content via transmog.

Even games with less exciting gameplay than Darktide will thrive more than it because there is more than just the same 6 sets of earnable cosmetics.

They’ve added more the past year yes, but I don’t think the current rate/method for obtaining some of them is going to tie down average players that well.

Unlock the shop, make aquilas earnable at a slow rate or via Havoc only, and even add an aquila based recolor system. Done. I’ve solved retention.

It might not be perfect, for either the players or for the corpo suit f*ckers, but I will bet any amount of money that the average player will play more.

Whales cannot indefinitely sustain a game and FS if your money guys are listening you can tell 'em to touch grass because they’re clearly delusional if they don’t realize there are a finite amount of whales in the world and they don’t have bottomless pockets.

Overfishing is a thing, you would think a company named after one would know that.

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I get what you’re saying, and yeah maybe with a couple friends, playing a couple VEG on a weekend, sure its fine.

But I’m sure many of us were waiting for something substantial and challenging to work on/towards. Havoc was supposed to scratch that itch. I too am I sucker for solid engame content, and big challenges. But we don’t have that and neither do we have new things to explore (barring an okay new map and some new modifiers).

Agreed 100%

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Hm, that’s the job of the game designer to solve. But if I were to suggest, I’d like to see some sort of prestige progression: over-leveling, customizable missions, a prestige skill tree to further increase rewards/stats, extended weapon upgrades and customization, different mission goals, or in-mission mini-mechanics like the ones Deep Rock Galactic or PoE leagues have.

Just something to allow chill players to keep grinding. The new weapon XP system was a start, but it felt more like a setback than true endgame content.

As of now i don’t see me engaged more just by playing harder and harder difficulties.

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The Endgame - is to have fun!

Some people are having fun when they overcome hard stuff and gradually become better, some want exactly what you want, which is chilling, I think, it’s just the matter of preference.

Basically find what you enjoy about the game, and do it

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I think that’s kind of the whole reason he is asking, I assume he doesn’t find the current offerings sufficient and is making sure he didn’t miss something/asking for something that does not yet exist in the game.

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Things any player can do: penances, trying out different builds, or just waiting for new content (like the 3 weapon families we just got, that’s a few hours of matches to level up at least).

I do hope that when the red weapon equivalent comes out (pushing weapon stats to 100%) that it’ll be a long-term deterministic progression path available to players at any difficulty (unlike reds in VT2). After all, the benefits they’ll offer (assuming it just tracks with what we can see missing from weapon stats now) are going to be marginal improvements at best.

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What’s with this new age of gamers thinking they are entitled to a “forever game” so to speak? Is it the GaaS culture?

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It’s the dream! Just about every game I’ve ever been excited about, since I was a kid, has been the one I’ve thought was going to be the one: the game I’d play forever and never get bored of.

Nowadays there’s a financial incentive, and it’s a technical possibility, for developers to make games that live long lives and grow and offer potentially infinite value.

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Could be, but in this case, I see an “endgame” that’s locked behind extensive investment and effort just to reach it in the first place. Maybe it’s not a real “endgame,” but more like something to pacify high-skill players who’ve already solved the game twice. I thought it would be more like, you know, “endgame” content for everyone who’s reached max level to keep progressing through an additional system.

Like going Mapping in PoE after the campaign, having different missions with unique mechanics like in Deep Rock Galactic, or unlocking a new skill tree like Diablo 3/4. Just… an actual endgame?

That being said, I’m pretty sure this is a GaaS project - always has been!

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Yeah “moar harder” has limited appeal. I play Darktide with several different playgroups, all varying levels of skill. Only a few of us are good enough for Damnation and Aurics, and don’t typically find any of it a walk in the park, while most of the friends find Heresy to be a true challenge and have zero interest in ever trying the harder difficulties. There is 0 interest in Havoc as yet from anyone.

That is an inherent part of the fundamental value proposition of GaaS games. An ongoing continuous service, like an Online Disneyland you can visit whenever that will routinely have new things to check out, as opposed to something you buy once and play for a bit and then move on.

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Maelstroms seem to have been cranked up since the patch imo. The ones I did to unlock havoc were absolutely insane.

Beyond that, havoc is the endgame for now I guess if you’re looking for more challenging content. So far I’m really enjoying it despite the rough edges, altho it seems I’m in the minority on that one!

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