Change the status of the game to “Early Access” Delist the game. Set up an open beta access shop on the official site, or work with Steam to figure something out. Just stop marketing this as a complete game.
Give all current active accounts (made prior to changing the game to"Early Access") 2400 Aquila (or whatever the cost is to get one premium outfit set).
Design a special cosmetic item for all current active accounts (maybe a new backpack, or the banner/badge thing that appears next to the player portrait). Kind of like the Beta helmet (even though people still got it after the official beta period ended), something for the current player base to show off that they’ve been standing by you during this rough time period.
Logic:
This game is clearly an early-access title given the sheer amount of bugs, continued implementation of new mechanics (like the suppressed fire epilepsy motiff), lack of a complete crafting system, lack of a single-player system/solo mode, and poor server optimization/matchmaking system (not an all-inclusive list). I think if people knew this from the get-go it would’ve heavily influenced their decision on whether to purchase the game or not, and would’ve given players the proper warning about the current state of the game.
The “Aquila Gift” is essentially a good-will bribe. It’s free to do on your end (it’s made up money–at this point most people who haven’t purchased Aquila probably won’t buy Aquila)
The “Special Cosmetic” is another good-will gesture. It would cost you the time to design and program it. As above, it’s a reward similar to the Beta helmet that acknowledges the current player base and the state of the game. Maybe even a hidden penance that gives the player base the new item (one that isn’t counted towards a 100% completion).
*** One Fan’s Opinion ***
So the open letter probably had a net-neutral to possibly net-negative effect. Kind of hard to say definitively since the loudest voices online are those that are upset with the state of the game (I’m included is this group, and the letter was positive in the sense it was some comms, but a wash since it was a non-announcement of things we already knew).
I was glad they told us they’d work on bug fixes, but I think a community announcement would’ve sufficed
The XBox official announcement of delay at least helps to quell some speculation that they’re actively working on the port instead of optimizing the game and adjusting gameplay aspects.
The delay of seasonal content is a big killer – this game was supposed to be a live service, but for the past 2 months it’s been dead save for the 2 new weapons. This game is very stagnant. Delay of this re-emphasizes this is an early-access title since “live service” was a selling point.
The suspension of the cosmetics shop was “meh.” It was the only actual “live” thing about the game. I never cared about the shop-- it didn’t factor into my review of the game, and it doesn’t impact the way I feel about the game. I’ve never used the cosmetic shop, but at least it was something for people to look forward to, and it was nice seeing more than just the currently available skins.
There is no claim of responsibility or any sense of apology for the current state of the game. This probably rubbed a good portion of the “not recommended” player base the wrong way. When I read the open letter three things crossed my mind: 1) FatShark exists; 2) What a great non-apology that acknowledges how broken the game is; 3) Looks like it was edited by a lawyer to exclude any sense of culpability.
At this point I’m thinking the player base is split as follows: 15% love the game and will defend it no matter what; 15% will hate the game and trash it, and would get a refund if they could despite sinking a great amount of time into it; and the remaining 70% are in-between–upset with the current state of the game but patiently waiting for fixes (after two months that patience is running very thin). The following recommendations are meant to win over the 70%.
Change the game to early access! De-list this game, or work something out with Steam to close this game and make it some sort of re-release Beta Test. Something other than this “Full Release” hot mess. This game is clearly in early access given the amount of game-breaking bugs and complete lack of content. The most common bit from reviews are ‘great core-gameplay but everything else is lacking/broken.’ The “Early Access” tag would’ve been a big “Caveat Emptor” to customers, and probably could’ve prevented a majority of the negative reviews. But now we have this mess. Fully warning any new customers of the actual state of the game is paramount. If you really want to continue sales, find some way to make a new Open Beta portal.
Give current players a bundle of Aquila - Enough to get one full cosmetic set, or maybe a cosmetic set and a bonus head-gear or something. This is free to you–Aquila is made-up money. This might even boost the Premium Shop as maybe it would get people to consider purchasing more premium cosmetics. This is in essence a good-will bribe.
Give the current player base something they can show off, to show their support for you. A new cosmetic like a backpack or badge (not a helmet, as not all people want to hide their hair/face). This will cost you the time of an artist and programmers. It’s again a goodwill gift, but also something akin to the Beta helmet that will show that the current player base is participating in something other than a complete game.
This won’t solve all of your problems. This won’t appease the 15% of customers who hate the game. But this would help with a good portion of the current player base, and might help stop the declining reviews. I would definitely change my review to a ‘recommend’ if people new this title were early access because I do think this game is fun, but not complete.
The bug fix patch was much more important for calming people down, which is fine, but I think they should have split it in two and pushed out a smaller bug fix patch 2 weeks ago, or 1 week ago, would have saved a lot of community grief. It was a poor moment to leave people hanging for a month.
" If your game is already released, then it’s not possible for a game to move backwards from “Released” to “Early Access”.
That’s quoted directly from the Steam Early Access FAQ. That’s not going to be an option for them at this point since the game has already been “fully released”
I can’t find any concrete info, but I’d guess that Steam probably wouldn’t allow that either. Even if it’s a different “early access” build of the game, it’s still technically the same title, and the has-been-fully-released aspect would still apply.
That would be an interesting angle for FatShark to investigate. I don’t remember what happened when Spacehulk Deathwing was re-released, I just remember at some point they de-listed the original and set up the Enhanced Edition. Maybe they should just de-list the game all together. That way nobody buys the current hot mess, but the current player base can continue playing.
Will update my original post to reflect this. Thanks! I never knew about the early access rollback policy (when I’m on a computer and can do strike through easily).
I don’t know about delisting it I have about 40 hours of stable no crashing experience lately, it’s definitely not a full release game should still be early access honestly a lot of bugs and features missing but it’s still enjoyable to play.
A de-list and re-release might be the only way to save this game. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that a de-list and re-release would clear off all the negative (and positive) reviews. This game is in a pretty nasty spot, and I think only something as drastic as that would work out for the best in the long run. Again, Spacehulk Deathwing did something similar, but I don’t recall the details because I only found the “enhanced edition” a long time later after I wanted to give the game another go.
Apparently there’s no way to change the title back to “early access,” so to be fair to any future consumer, they should find a way to de-list it and get a completely new beta platform out.
If they did this, then people would review bomb the re-released game into the stone age, because it would be seen as extremely underhanded and sneaky.
It also just flat out isn’t going to happen for many reasons.
Why? Total War: Warhammer 3 also had a rough release where its overall review score dipped into mixed.
It recovered with the release of Immortal Empires.
Darktide may have it easier than warhammer 3 because its core gameplay is almost universally agreed to be phenomenal whereas Warhammer 3’s core was rocky for a long time and turned people off.
But Darktide would still need a big injection of new players and hype for this to work out.
Which is realistically only going to come from big new content in the form of a new enemy faction, a compelling story to tell, a new game mode like chaos wastes, or PvPvE.
Ideally they should do all 4 after stemming the current stream of negative reviews by fixing the game ASAP.
You have no clue how long anything in this game takes to fix so don’t pretend you do. Depending on how the game is coded seemingly easy things can be hard and vice versa.
With that said, drop rates are hopefully relatively easy, but I would never claim to know.
Have customers make fun of them for doing that to a to a title marketed as a live service.
I think 4 is the only thing that is likely to happen. Re-releasing a game, and a live service title at that, would be a disaster for the company image. Re-mastering a single player title after a few years night wirk the way you describe though. Do we have 3 versions of the firat Dark souls?
They cannot delits the game. I don’t want that they return to an open beta, cause beta means wipe when the game is released. That’s total NO on that.
Give players Aquilla ? for what ?
Lower prices of cosmetic shop, better. Refund in aquila players that have already bought cosmetics for the differnce…
Now, what do I want? Simple. A roadmap.
We should already get crafting, so I would like to know what they plan to do. What are the changes they plan to do? when do they think they will deliver us crafting? Until I don’t see crafting in the game, I cannot recommend this game.
Oh but we do have an idea. The system has already been implemented in Vermintide. The only way it would take them an entire 4 hours to fix is if they spent 3 hours and 59 minutes searching for it, and 1 minute to ctrl+c ctrl+v.
I was thinking about this, and how some of us who still want to play the game are kind of getting a bum deal.
We have been told “Yeah just wait a few months while we fix this, and no we won’t be adding any new content until then.” And that’s it.
Worse still, those of us still playing are the ones still finding bugs and sharing feedback, despite the fact we were sold an unfinished game.
I realise it wasn’t ever intended that way, but it really feels like the people getting most hurt right now, are those of us with the most passion for Darktide to succeed.
I’d sure like Fatshark to show at least some compassion for those of us still playing the game they sold.
For clarification on a re-release, existing customers wouldn’t have to purchase the game again. At least I didn’t have to with the WH40k Spacehulk: Deathwing, which is what made me think about the delisting-relisting concept (the original version of the Deathwing is still in my library but marked as delisted, and the re-released “enhanced edition” is the only available version in the store).