With the “big update” for this quarter come and gone with only one new gamemode (that seems to be poorly-received, or at least have a mildly mid reception from the playerbase) and only a small number of minor bugfixes we’re going to have to go another three months before there’s anything new. Basically, six months between content updates.
What kind of content do players ACTUALLY want?
Multiple choice poll, select up to 4. I’m sure someone will find a reason to whine about it, but I don’t care.
Bug fixes
New Adventure Maps
New Maps for Other Modes (Expeditions, Mortis Trials, Operations)
I hardly play this game anymore, but my friends who still do only tried Expedition for a few runs on day one and ended up going back to Havoc anyway.
There have been no meaningful balance changes, just things like a +5–10 second cooldown increase that no one would even notice in a blind test. The Heavy Sword got a nearly meaningless +10% rending, and the Ogryn’s Stubber still feels terrible to use. Gold Toughness invulnerability remains unfixed, while VoC and the Plasma Gun were nerfed and ES was buffed, yet in reality, most Veterans are still running VoC and Plasma Gun. No one is using the Heavy Sword.
Havoc has seen almost no improvements. The matchmaking through Party Finder is just tedious and time-consuming, and modifiers like Rotten Armor and others feel more like annoyances than meaningful challenges, they just pad out playtime and make the mode exhausting.
Soulblaze and other DoT damage issues are still untouched. The new Ogryn boss is so weak it barely feels like a boss at all, less threatening than a Crasher.
As expected, even after the update, Havoc is still dominated by the same repetitive meta: Gold Toughness, bubble, Inferno, over and over again. The same template gameplay we’ve already seen a million times.
The dueling sword still hasn’t been nerfed in any meaningful way, and Uncanny hasn’t been removed either.
It really feels like the developers are so focused on pushing out new game modes and classes that they’re neglecting everything else. And the community has become the worst it’s ever been, no communication, no transparency, nothing.
Adventure Mode maps are maps for the base game, and the maps for other modes only means maps for those modes - not new game modes themselves. I hope that clarifies!
They ruint the mode with queue splitting, under the hood its alright if you get to play and when people aren’t crashing. So that’s an uphill battle with the loadtimes, but can be fun even if its just horrendously easy. I don’t expect much from modes not deliberately attempting to bust my nuts after thousands of hours fighting the same enemies. I don’t get the replay value concerns, it doesn’t stop me from killing the phage tree over and over, why would it keep me from this mode? Oh right nobody plays it and you can’t finish a run solo.
Honestly the stubbers should be de-clunked, the Achlys has no slowness to it but weak range and stagger hardly Ogryn feeling. That level of slow wield should be kept for an autocannon weapon.
If you pick more game modes… Fatshark will come with something else like a hut or cabin building mode on Atoma or whatever ridiculous they could find.
I want also solo game mode, but it should have been an option in the poll and there should be then an other option for new game mode like Havoc, Mortis and Expeditions.
If this was asked two months ago I would have said New Mode(Chaos Wastes) but I believe that is a pipe dream now. Exclusive focus should be given on new maps and new weapons. Those are the bread and butter of this game.
New enemies at this point are the #1 thing that will get me to play more. Not just a singular enemy (that they add then nerf to the point of irrelevancy) but multiple, a new faction would be most ideal. Beyond that, I’d like some bug fixes/QoL updates. In another game I played, they would occasionally do a Spring Cleaning update where the focus was bug fixes, performance, and QoL updates.
To the other Hive City. The one everyone pretends doesn’t exist.
Mainly, I want more maps for the main adventure mode. Push the story forward. Ideas for new mechanics? Trial them in smaller operations style maps or events and then integrate them into larger maps.
Mortis Trials and Expeditions? Update them with new maps or at least new rewards like cosmetics or even aquilas. It’s anecdotal but I’m already noticing Expedition teams aren’t filling. It’s only been a week. Granted, I usually have crossplay off on Xbox, but adventure maps always fill.
New enemies would be welcome, as would new weapons. Perhaps also a thorough rework of enemies, weapons, and balance. Any weapon, and any build should be viable at all difficulties. The director should react to teams accordingly to keep it a challenge beyond ‘here’s seven crushers and an endless stream of trappers.’
New classes are always welcome.
The commissary is in dire need of an update.
I genuinely enjoy the game. It does so much well (combat, art direction, characterisation, music, atmosphere) that it’s frustrating when it also goes in some odd directions.
Where I want it to go: Actually developing rather than farting out half-baked silo’d off game modes, balancing the broken nonsense regardless of the screeching from certain sections of the ‘fanbase’, actually pulling back on the enemy spam to return to the old days of limited-but-impactful elites, and approaching the game with passion and a vision.
Where it will likely actually go: Refusing to acknowledge or communicate with the players on their own forums, they’ll continue to make C-Suite-demanded game modes that tick boxes but have no true passion. They’ll refuse to make significant nerfs and will continue to create new ‘classes’ that nobody asked for that are incredibly p2w. They’ll never actually do anything useful as all the competent and passionate people have long since left the company, and the next game will either be a UE5 slopfest or see the company finally die of its own stupidity. Eventually the servers will be shut down, and because of their refusal to allow a solo game mode or P2P matchmaking, Darktide will go with it.
