There are a lot of things I just don’t understand in how it came to these decisions. In lots of parts in the game.
An important trait in good game design is giving the player control and choice to allow them to cater their experience to their preferences. Yet, in many parts of this game, they chose to design features in a way that heavily restricts this (compared to alternate methods of going about these features).
Many small QoL features they added into VT2 over time are also just…gone?
For any of these things there might be reasons or not. Thing is, for a lot of these, them missing is just extremely baffling. Better communication would have helped there.
Let me just list some points here in mostly no particular order.
- Starting the game. We basically have 3 different stages until we get to operator selection. First stage can be skipped with "any key", second stage with "escape", third stage can be progressed with "space".....why? This should be homogenised to offer a smooth entry into the game for the player. There is a very basic principle in design. KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Why have 3 different buttons, or rather "any button" followed by 2 different specific buttons? I guess they kinda fixed this one at least. Altho I don’t really understand the placement of the button prompt during the cinematic and why it is so far away from the left end side.
-
Overall rating (itemlvl) of all equipped gear. In VT2, this was also coupled into displaying the powergrowth through simply lvling, which I don’t even know if this exists in DT anymore. Do we actually get stronger stat wise via lvling? No idea, not visualized anywhere. No feedback for that growth. IF the overall rating influences the average rating of items available through emperors gift/armoury, this influences our control bc we aren’t aware of information that impacts game systems.
-
Third-Person inspect. In VT2, you could stand still in a mission, press x (I think it was x?) to turn third person so you can look at your cool character. Why do we not have this? Choice and Control
-
In VT2, we had the lootchest. At the end of a mission, our mission accomplishments would be tallied up and the lootchest (which contains 3 pieces of gear) is lvld up. I am NOT saying anything about the crafting system here nor item bloat or anything like that. It is just that that system gave feedback and validation of the players spent time and effort. It was rewarding. You were clearly rewarded for what you did, directly after you finished the mission. In dt? There is NOTHING that connects your time and effort put in with a reward. It is just rng. Yes, guaranteed lootchests would give a huge item bloat to dt, but we have the emperors gift mechanic that no one really knows yet how it really works. The emperors gift mechanic could have literally been implemented in a similar fashion as the VT2 lootchests, that gets levelled up according the accomplishments you had during that mission (side objectives, mutator, monstrosity kills etc). It would be a single item, that is a special reward for the completion of the mission…wouldn’t it make sense to get a better reward if you lets say, completed the mission with a mutator, full side objective and killed 1 or 2 monsters? This flows into the choice part. We can choose the effort put in and directly impact the reward.
-
Ties into the last point. Monsters just feel…useless? In VT2, they dropped lootdie, which yea is kind of comically BUT they give you direct feedback in the sense of “Hey congratulations, you beat this strong enemy, here is a reward”. As it stands, even if you get some extra dockets for killing them, that is very poorly visualized/indicated and is a far cry in feeling rewarding compared to VT2.
-
The hub. I love the idea of the hub. It doesn’t feel as alive as I would like tbh but the issue I have is the nonexistence of shortcuts to open lets say the mission terminal or the armoury. Don’t even start with the whole “immersion yaya” part. That is not gone if you add shortcuts as in VT2. If anything, you give players more choice and control over their gameplay experience so they can cater it to their preferences and enjoy the game even more without negatively impacting ppl with different preferences. So what’s the holdup here? The decision should be more than obvious, same as with many other points listed here. Same here. Choice and Control.
-
Few things about the crafting system, as a bunch of these following concerns are interconnected. So, as far as I understand it, in order to even try to reach max rating on an item (which is a core goal for endgame obviously), you would have to get a really high rating GREY item and upgrade it all the way through all the stages and basically do that with 5 different items for every slot. That alone is a HUGE amount of resources needed. Add to that potentially needing those same resources for rerolling, coupled with the current rng nature of even having a CHANCE to get gear. A lot of systems in the game rn give you basically a chance for a chance to have a chance to maybe have a chance to get what you like. On the other hand, a core part of the crafting system is supposed to be that the player is able to finetune the gear they like via blessings and rerolling into being the exact piece of gear that you want. Doesn’t really fit with the whole chance bonanza hm? Somewhere I can get the point of not being able to craft the weapon, but if that is to be, the ways to get gear needs to be changed drastically. The having to upgrade a grey all the way part is…unnecessary? This could be solved by just letting us upgrade the same item above max rarity for additional cost just to increase the rating. That would make way more sense rather than having us constantly sit in the armoury and doing nothing but waiting and hoping. Where is the EARNING part? On one hand, they want to give us rather minute control over specific gear but vehemently do NOT want to give as any control over actually getting that gear we want to keep. Again, choice and control.
-
This goes into parts of the previous point. Considering the huge resource need, it feels like an absolute waste to not have resources be shared across characters. Why is the only thing shared (afaik rn) the premium currency? Why not the cross-class equipment (like in VT2) or resources (like in VT2). It only gives more control to the player with not direct negative impact. I know it is probably to increase player retention so ppl keep playing for longer. But this is also to the detriment of a lot of ppl. Would you rather have players spent their time playing happy or frustrated and exhausting from constant grinding? Those things not being shared imho, leans more toward the latter.
-
On the part of cross-character content. A lot of ppl want to play more characters, even all 4 (me included). Having the weeklies not be shared, feels like a certain amount of pressure put on the players. Doing all weeklies with lets say 4 characters is an immense effort. Why not have resources (weekly currency included) be shared, increase the weekly quest amount a bit and have progress be shared too? Again, adds control and choice to the player. “Kill XYZ enemies with melee” on a veteran doesn’t seem as fitting as with zealot for example, so if it was shared, I would have the option to switch operatives for this.
-
Mission Terminal. The mission terminal feels like a framework put into place but then they just stopped developing it. I like the foundation and idea behind it, but the execution is really lacklustre and short-sighted. Big part at this point for a lot of ppl I know (me included) is that we look at the mission terminal and there just isn’t a mission in a diff and setup we want to play. Sometimes, there might even be like 1 mission of the diff we want to play. Why? Did they really just put a pure random script in there with barely any limitations to even it out. I would have expected it to just show 3 missions per difficulty and make sure all the have different side objective/mutator configurations. Even aside from that, a somewhat simple solution I would prefer is a straight up filter at the top that you can set to your preferred difficulty and all the missions that pop up from then are ALL in your preferred difficulty in different configurations. This all is ofc completely aside from the fact that we need the option to choose specific missions and have private lobbies. This all only gives (i repeat myself I know) choice and control to the player without impacting other people or systems negatively. So why is this not the way it is? Give players back choice and control.
-
No actual crafting of weapons. This in combination with how gear is required is just dumb. The main argument I see floating around, and I think have even seen CM use, is that it just wouldn’t make sense nor would it be lore-friendly to actually craft weapons. From a lore point of view…maybe…doesn’t matter though, because this is a video game and we have to view it from a design standpoint. You can create systems that are functionally the same, yet fit into the narrative.
Case in point example. Weapon requisition system. Let us as rejects and potential new warband members put in requisition requests for specific weapon (types) to the warband/inquisition for a fee cost. “Recon Lasgun Requisition Request”, “Infantry Autogun Requisition Request”. This would basically be a random “drop” of a specific type of weapon. Afaik, this would make a lot of sense lore-wise (As I would think it to be normal or at least easily believed that within military type bodies, units can requisition new/improved gear. Let us unlock new weapon types to requisition with lvl increase (like how they unlock already). This would literally be functionally the same as straight up crafting a weapon, but be lore-friendly. So where is the problem here? It would definitely be doable probably in other ways too. It is just a different coat of paint on the same functionality. This would solve the issue of the gear system on one side giving players control and on the other side heavily restricting it. It would homogenise the differences on this spectrum, therefore “smoothing” the overall experience. This would double as docket sink, as the game is suffering from severe inflation in terms of Ordo Dockets. There is barely a reason to use them. (Ideally with adding another docket sink in the long run though) -
Preferably, albeit probably difficult with how the game is set up, I would like for us to be able to switch operative in the mission preparation screen, where everyone has to go ready. This way, you can tweak your team comp (if wanted). If I play Zealot, and get into a lobby with lets say 2 other Zealots and 1 Ogryn, I would love to be able to switch to Psyker or Veteran to even it out a bit.
-
Psykhanium can easily be improved with 2 things: Let us spawn monstrosities and let us “activate” groups/types of enemies so we can test actual combat scenarios in a controlled environment without having to q up just to test something, potentially failing or quitting after testing and negatively impacting other players experiences that just happened to end up in a mission with you.
-
Scoreboards. As far as I am aware, they are working on a compromise solution in form of a personal scoreboard or something of the like. I will reserve judgment until this iteration arrives. In general though, this game desperately needs a scoreboard and should have launched with a similar one as in VT2. Removing a feature that can benefit players (because it gives information relating to their gameplay) because of POTENTIAL issues with a few bad apples PREEMPTIVELY is a no-no, as that doesn’t mean scoreboards are inherently bad. They are a tool that can be used. Using it for toxic reasons rather then improvement/information gain is called misusing said tool. This doesn’t warrant removal of said tool, but tweaking/moderation. You don’t remove your entire garden because moles keep digging holes.
-
Armoury cosmetics & premium store previews. So, in the premium store, you can barebones preview the items on a dummy (I think we cant rotate them manually? not 100% sure on that rn). In the armoury cosmetics store though, we cannot even do that and just have the icons to go off on. Why? Why is there not an actual “preview on your current character” option? Same point as before, choice and control.
-
Armoury cosmetics are…lacklustre. To say the least. Some boring checker patterns rather than more colour variations (we had colour variations as prison uniforms, why not reiterate that into the ingame cosmetics? seems obvious). In addition to that. Once you have unlocked cosmetics through penances, colour/pattern variations of THOSE penance cosmetics should also start popping up in the armoury cosmetic store. Again, choice and control.
-
TINY thing, but QoL nonetheless. In situations like the operative selection screen. Let us rotate the character with our mouse (right stick with controller for example). Gives us control to inspect our characters and look at cool cosmetics/rewards we earned and appreciate the effort we put into them.
-
Why can’t we change the vox channels (Chat channels)? If we are in a strike team, we should be able to have a strike team chat. You can then let us cycle through via a button (on pc tab for example).
-
Penance progression. I can’t say for sure all cases that this applies to, but let’s take the class penances to complete missions of all types with that class. We aren’t shown a list of what types of missions we have already completed and which are missing. Why don’t we have a checkmark list like the penances that require you to have several penances completed, like “Kinetic Killer (X)” for example. That is information, the player can use to cater their efforts to reaching a specific goal (completing the missing mission types). It would give…choice.
-
Armoury…the armoury is just…horrible (In connection with everything else). Ties in with a few other points. Taking away all control from a player about the reward they receive is very…confusing. Better solutions should become clear through previous points but if something like this rng store must stay (Hopefully in addition to a LOT of other progression/reward changes), why not alter it a bit? Depending on character lvl and/or overall rating, have lower rarity items disappear. Increase the amount of class-specific weapons. Make sure, the selection is evened out and won’t show for example 5 lasguns but idk, no flamer or thunder hammer on zealot.
-
Premium store. Oof…the big and heated topic. Personal truth first up. I don’t mind monetization and monetized cosmetics. But there are good ways to do it and bad ones…this…this just ain’t it, chief. I read the pcgamer interviews that reeked of corporate speech. We have 2 big parts to dissect here. The cosmetic items (overall featured page + class-specific pages) and the premium currency bundles. The issues here are the manipulative and exploitative techniques employed. I read the interview. I don’t believe it but either way, to clarify. Intent does NOT matter…consequences DO. The store itself, the feature page AND class-specific page all function on a timer. It doesn’t matter if items will cycle out forever, for a week, month, year, who cares. Those are all varying degrees of FOMO. And FOMO is BAD. It is manipulative in nature if things are BASED on them. If this wasn’t the intent, why did they not simply implement the same shop system that VT2 had? A featured page up front with time-limited deals and an actual catalogue that allows you to purchase specific cosmetics to their regular price. That way you don’t have to worry about missing anything other than maybe a small price reduction via limited deal. Would still promote short-term purchase with deals while also allowing players to purchase at their speed. WIN/WIN. As it is, it runs and breathes FOMO. This is a very VERY bad look. As soon as you make decisions BASED on manipulative and exploitative techniques like FOMO or obfuscating currency (more to that in a bit), you make decisions to the detriment of the player for the benefit of profit whereas monetization decisions should be based on a compromise between player experience and company health). Absolute NO-GO. Now to the premium currency. I know the hard stances of “just let us buy directly” and the reasons why premium currencies are used. I personally like the concept of in-world special high-value currency. BUT. AGAIN. There are ways to do it and there are ways to NOT do it. This ain’t it chief. The bundles aren’t reflecting the prices stages of the actual cosmetics at all (2,400 for bundles, 800 for chest+legs, 700 for helmets and 400 for single weapon skins, maybe more depending on what cycles in, who knows). We have aquila bundles for 500, 1,000, 2,100, 4,500 and 7,000. They are obfuscating so you have left overs and aren’t able to buy the amount you need, so you end up spending more than necessary/wanted. It is a complicated topic and a lot more can be said about this but there are enough videos/studies out there. In an interview, they said this was unintended and that they…forgot a bundle? Hm? For one, there isn’t enough space in the UI there to accommodate another bundle and secondly, that wouldn’t change all the currently existing bundles being obfuscating. If it is not meant to be manipulate, why not have 2 steps here. 1 - Have the bundle amounts reflect the overall price stages (2,400, 1,600, 1,000, 800, 600, 400) (oh and change helmets to be 600. I don’t understand them being 700, while all other numbers are even?). Second (if first step is done well somewhat optional) step! Allow us to buy custom amounts of premium currency (World of Tanks does this afaik. At least they did when I played way back). This way, the premium currency is not obfuscating and gives more CONTROL and CHOICE to the player in deciding how much they want to spend to support the devs that totally aren’t trying to make them pay more (which is the impression this gives making a lot of ppl also hesitant to actually spend anything).
With all of this, I haven’t even started with the actual gameplay.
Most parts of this game feel like they were decided upon, roughly implemented and then the devs just…stopped reiterating and improving on them? How are these features supposed to look like in 2-3 years with X amount of additional content?
Usually an important goal is to increase trust between company and consumer. All of these decisions don’t feel made with that in mind (and whether it is pro consumer or not). All of the above issues raised, really make me worry about the future and longevity of this game.
The performance is another matter. Yes, they are working on it and I can personally see improvements with every hotfix, but it just still ain’t there. I have a decent/good setup. The issue isn’t as simple as “hardware too weak to reach high fps”. It is that the fps is highly volatile and can, in-mission mind you, jump anywhere in between 40-140 fps, depending on what is happening. I do not have a bottleneck. In terms of usage, the only thing I noticed that is weird to me (might be common though, I don’t know enough) is that my GPU usage, altho usually at 85-95%, constantly sharply drops down to even numbers like 30-40% for a very short second and then jumps back up again. In other games, I just have a stable 90%+ without dips. As context, RAM is fine (have 32GB) and CPU is usually around like 40-50%. Things in this department are…wonky at best but I know they are working on it and really hope they can turn it around here and have the game utilize the present hardware properly and allow for smooth gameplay.
On the topic of communication between players/devs… A simple listing of issues and concerns quickly put together BEFORE giving interviews, bloated with corporate speech, with sentences like “We are aware of XYZ and are working on these issues” and “We are aware of the concerns about XYZ and are internally discussing possible changes to improve the player experience” would go a long LONG way in keeping and building consumer trust.
I know this all sounds very negative. I assure you, I LOVE wh40k, the core gameplay here and the really BIG potential this game has. There is just…a LOT that still needs to be worked on.
Phew. This got long. Hopefully everything is at least somewhat understandable. I just felt like putting all of this down here so I get it out of my system and have them listed somewhere in case I want to share them. This is not a 100% complete analysis or anything, just some points that I keep noticing/thinking about. I hope I was able to bring across some of the core points here well so that they are easy to understand.
If you read all this, I thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
