… put people off playing, and prevent them ever spending a single penny on cosmetics.
I have over 1200hrs in Darktide, although to begin with I had a great time with my friends playing many hours a day, it is now sadly an uphill struggle to get anyone to play. After asking if anyone in my friend group wanted to play DT with me last night I was told “We don’t want to play that awful game anymore (come play DRG instead).” in those words or fewer by over a dozen people.
I asked why - almost joking as I know most of the reasons, but was still met with a barrage of them from multiple people. Most of the things they listed I do find to be annoyances with the game - but some are annoying enough to make people not want to play it anymore and openly tell other people “Don’t play it, it’s a mess of a game and it’s not fun - just go slam your *******s in a door a few times, it’s less painful and more rewarding”.
I tend to agree with them for the most part unfortunately. The majority of the games systems feel like a punishment for the small parts of the gameplay loop that are enjoyable. Most of the issues that were brought up by the group overlapped, and very few were minor gripes over inconsequential design choices and cosmetics. They were all very much pointed at the systems in place surrounding gear and progression and the user experience in general.
These issues that have not only made the game unenjoyable enough that none of them want to play anymore, have influenced their view of Fatshark as developers, making them want to actively disuade others from trying the game. Also making the entire idea of spending money on cosmetics a mockable offence because that would support the bad choices made by Fatshark. (Yes FS, this is impacting your bottom line).
So here is a list of some of these issues, primarily ones I agree with and find to be a massive pain and waste of my time. I have also included possible solutions to these issues that would greatly improve player retention and willingness to spend our money on skins.
Small things that inconsequential on their own add up to create an overall poor user experience in the game;
Press Space to Start the game. We already press two buttons to start the game and spam space to skip the pointless splash screens - give us an option after first start of the game to jump straight to Character Select.
The Mourningstar. It’s an extra load screen between us and the mission board. Then having to walk to the mission board, shop, crafting, etc. makes it feel like you don’t respect the players time. Not to mention the knock on effect from other bad game design choices meaning we are loading into the Mourningstar up to FIVE TIMES AN HOUR Just to check the shop. Give us optional hotkeys or menu options to jump right to the interfaces - from BOTH the Mourningstar and Character Select screens.
Having to check the shop on each character every hour and Sire Melk every day. see above and see below.
The Mission Board is a confusing mess. Let us toggle it to an ordered grid so we can easily see what is available.
The Mission board lacks variety. The lack of choice in available missions and modifiers also makes it so people will opt to just not play rather than do the unappealing selection available at the time. I think this is highlighted more than ever with the release of new missions, as each new map overwhelms the board for several weeks. Increase number and variety of missions available, increase frequency of special conditions overall but reduce frequency of the Low Intensity special conditions as they are more boring and offputting than a regular mission.
The weapon details and stats are confusing and convoluted. Make the Modifiers system clearer, show that the max modifier is 80% rather than making it look like 100% is possible, show that the max base rating is out of 380 and what it means. Tell us what Power, Impact, Cleave, Finesse, Mobility Etc mean with distinct terms somewhere relevent and easy to see.
The Weapon and curio menus are difficult to navigate due to lack of shown information. When we have two dozen of the same weapon because of the terrible shop/crafting systems it’s really hard to tell them apart until we click on each one to examine it. Use the ample extra space in the listed items to display more of the items details just like the Blessings on weapons. Improve the Curio selection method and display, have a single window that allows us to pick all three and see what is in each slot while selecting the others.
The multiple currencies / crafting materials and their values are very unbalanced. Most long term players have millions of credits, many tens of thousands of Diamantine - and no plasteel. Allow us to convert crafting materials for a small credit cost. (The crafting mechanic itself is bad, so is not an accurate resource sink to balance against which leads to this disparity.)
The major points;
The Shop and Crafting system are a punishment for wanting to play the game, they are not a fun mechanic, they are not even a gate mechanic, they are a straight up waste of our time and effort, and really feel like they are purposefully designed to be as annoying as possible and patronising of our effort to enjoy the game and progress our characters. It’s very off putting never having the gear you want to play with - and the frustration of wasting hours or even days grinding crafting material for no return on investment drives people away from the game. Balancing the chance based system with a “pay for quality” system where we could choose to spend more to guarantee better results would feel far more rewarding, we would have a sink for diamantine and credits so they no longer feel worthless and get a better item we would be more inclined to play with.
Brunts Armory Exchange is utterly depressing for several reasons;
Requisition Weapons and Curios; Five Characters, every hour. Load into the Mourningstar and walk over to Brunts, and maybe once or twice out of the 40+ total visits I make each day there might be something worth buying to attempt to consecrate. No-one who knows anything about the system is buying anything with low damage% - and the people who do buy it because they don’t know better end up with a terrible weapon that makes them not want to play the game anymore. The very poor selection of Curios is another matter, It takes far too long to get the curios people want and the ones available repeat too often. Our choice of +1 wounds at low mid 60’s and +1 wounds at mid to high 60s 20 times a day is not good enough. Provide a larger selection of weapons with base ratings above 350 for players who have reached 30 - stop putting actual trash in the shop - hard to do with due to how bad some blessings are but we’ll get to that. Fix curios so that their true stat is reflected in their shown stats and make them a seperate catagory in the shop so there is an actual selection .
Brunt’s Armory; I know several people, myself including who have sat and spent 100’s of thousands, even millions of credits on buying the same weapon over and over again, and not gotten a single worthwhile roll out of any of them. When the new weapons dropped the other day I watched two streamers roll away 1.2 and 1.5 MILLION credits each trying to roll a new Revolver and neither got something worth consecrating, the best rolls they got were mid 350’s br with mid 60’s damage%. A kick in the teeth really. Allow us to use the thousands of extra Diamantine and millions of credits most players have to buy things that are much closer to what we desire. 5k Diamantine and 200,000k for weapon with a guarantee of 80% in one or two CHOSEN stats, and a much higher chance of high 70’s in two or three more would be a start. For A MILLION CREDITS We should be allowed to max the BR and choose the point distribution.
Sire Melks Contract system isn’t bad - I enjoy it, just wish there were more to do and more choice in rerolling so that people of all skill levels can do ones they feel comfortable with and feel rewarded in kind for their efforts. However the “limited time acquisitions” faces the same problem as the Armory Requisition shop - there is rarely anything in there worth the token cost, if there is anything in there at all. See above with Brunts, increase overall quality of items, make larger selection available to try.
The Biggest issue;
The Crafting system is the worst part of the game, it feels like a kick in the teeth every time we use it - even if we get something approximating what we wanted. There is so much wrong with the process, the blessings, the cost, the wasted time and effort of the players - I want to be clear - this is the single worst crafting process I have experienced in a game in my entire 30 years of PC gaming and is the main reason I will never buy the cosmetics, will never recommend buying this game to anyone else, and will never support Fatshark as a developer again while it persists.
I have neither the time nor inclination to write out a complete a study on game design and why the crafting system in DT is completely antithetical to a fun and rewarding gaming experience, but I will say this; it requires a complete overhaul as it has no redeeming qualities. Again, remove or completely rebalance the chance aspect - Allow players to either buy what they want using a large amount of the currency and mats we grind or use them to very strongly influence the outcome of the system so we have a chance of gettting a weapon we actually want to play with before we grow sick of the process, and sick of the game entirely.
I’ve seen it suggested that being able to attain what we want in the game will not give us any impetus to continue playing, in truth the entire reason people want those things is so they can play with them. Making them unobtainable makes the task feel pointless and not worth attempting. A simple real world example; if you save up to buy something for a long time, when you finally get it do you just keep it in the box and never use it? Or is being able to use it the sole reason you saved up?
The Takeaway;
If this game was less of a chore for the amount of entertainment it provides, and it felt like FS actually cared about the time we spend playing the game and grinding for mats, more people would play, more people would enjoy themselves and more people would be willing to recommend the game to others and to buy skins to support the devs efforts into making a fun system.
Currently it feels like the efforts have gone towards making the system a grind that wastes our time and then punishes us for even trying. People don’t want to support that, people want to support companies that respect the fact we spent our hard earned money on their product and provide them a user base that generates income. Through continual interest generating further sales and creating a large community that loves the game, people will appreciate the efforts of the devs for fostering that by buying cosmetic items, both to support the devs and to show how dedicated they are to being a part of that community.
What little community there is surrounding this game seems fairly united in their hatred for the systems and game design choices being made in many areas, and it seems pretty universal between the content creators and their viewers that create the larger pockets of openly communicating players that the same things are complained about time and time again. And now I am faced with people who say they want to play anything with me, saying “Anything, except that”.
As it stands, I won’t support Fatshark again unless they start making positive changes. I’m the kind of idiot who once bought everything in the VT2 shop just because I could and wanted to support the game, and spend too much of my disposable income on rubbish things like colour pallets in Warframe just so I can change the colour of a part of a cosmetic that only I will ever notice. If Fatshark have lost me of all people, how many others will never open their wallet for them again?
This effort post was bought to you by Brunts Armory and Malibu. You too can waste hours every day! Visit Brunts for all your disappointment needs! Drink Malibu! The exotic way to forget how much time and effort you wasted on this game!
