Why are these cosmetic challenges not only impossible, but also discourage the core fundamentals of this game?

Using the image posted below for reference - Why are the challenges for unlocking cosmetics not only extremely difficult to achieve even for an organized group, but also completely go against the idea of playing a co-operative game? To unlock this raiment you’re asking someone to forgo helping their team and solo a boss - with only one ability. The chances of accidental damage from other sources is basically inevitable. Not to mention this would take several minutes to do, requiring your team to basically sit back and add-clear while you do nothing productive to the team to unlock a cosmetic item.

Why was this approved? Who thought it was a good idea to have cosmetics - the thing we all know a good chunk of people are going to want - behind challenges that inherently go against the fundementals of the game? Were these made basically impossible to keep people from getting them in the beta period?

Please consider changing these challenges to actually promote co-operative play rather than avoid it. Things like this are what are going to create toxicity in the game - not a scoreboard. Thank you.

136 Likes

Yes, one can really question some of these penance challenges.

They didn’t want scoreboards because green circles promote toxicity. But there’s requisitions to find grimoires and scriptures which take you away from the team as you look for them (green circle chasing) there’s also challenges like sharphooters not getting hit in melee even once during an entire match on malice or higher, or depleting your ranged weapons ammo to 0% and not missing a single shot. Challenges like these do not promote teamplay, instead they promote players wanting to finish their challenges at the detriment of their teammates and the mission objective especially since you don’t even need to finish the match to complete the penance. In CB there were requisitions for plasteel and diamantine and only the one picking it up got credit (again promoting toxicity much like green circle chasing)

Have to really question the game designer on some of these choices.

50 Likes

It’s extremely frustrating, for both sides. So many of the challenges are excessively difficult for anyone attempting them and for people who’s teammates are attempting them. I love watching a zealot teammate let people die and fail the mission just because there’s a cosmetic challenge for never using a ranged weapon in a mission. Challenges either need a premade team that get nothing in return for helping or for randoms they result in actively discouraging co-operative behavior.

15 Likes

The penance design is, in many cases, directly contrary to the design philosophy of the game. It forces you to do things that are not fun, anti-atmospheric, are not why you chose to buy and experience Darktide, and are contrived and gamey.

Why remove stats to encourage a team mentality (which sucks by the way, I want to see my own stats privately at least), and invest in making this amazingly atmospheric game, to then add penances which have people doing anti-teamwork nonsensical stuff that takes you completely out of the atmosphere of the game?

For sharpshooter, examples would be Long Bomb and Make Every Shot Count.

  • Long Bomb has you dragging out encounters in larger areas instead of helping your team by throwing stupid grenades way up in the air like you’re playing Call of Duty, trying to airburst enemies 100m away. Why on Terra can’t we at least cook off grenades if you’re going to insist on this contrived challenge?

  • Make Every Shot Count directly incentivises, or even requires, you to deliberately expend all your ammo center of mass (i.e. not on weakspots) on close, easy targets, to ensure you don’t miss at all, and then never pick up ammo for the rest of the mission. On Heresy difficulty no less. This is to the direct detriment of your team and their experience, as this will be almost like having an AFK player, and will lead to many frustrated players.

There are some good penances that have you doing things you would already hope to do in the course of normal play, that help your team and are a genuine challenge of skill (like hitting weakspots consecutively when using your active ability).

Get rid of these other nonsensical ‘lol so random’ penances please, they are of negative value to the game, they stick out like a sore ogryn’s thumb.

43 Likes

This is actually a serious topic that needs to be addressed, all of these challenges need to be reworked, a tiny few of them are actually fun little challenges but most of them (this one being the worst) are seriously questionable, and fatshark needs to change them

16 Likes

Fatshark, I’m going to hop in and ask, what on earth were you lot thinking with some of the Penance requirements?

“Make Every Shot Count”: **100 % Accuracy, 0 ammo remaining, Heresy difficulty. **

  • I get it. I bet somebody thought this was hilarious when they wrote it up. This looks like you guys tried to come up with the most ludicrous requirements to complete it. It’s terrible for gameplay. This isn’t fun.

  • We have no way of tracking our accuracy.

  • Does this apply to only Ranged attacks, or also melee attacks and grenades? It wouldn’t surprise me if this Penance went full smooth-brained, but we have no way to tell.

  • Veterans generate ammunition on Elite kills. Better hope one doesn’t get killed last-minute.

  • If your teammate lands the killing blow an a target before you, poof. There goes the 100% accuracy chance for you.

This isn’t a fun or proper challenge. Penances like these just feel hostile to the player.

How about you show us some gameplay of your dev team completing these?
Were these even actually tested?

44 Likes

Not only are a lot of these challenges counter intuitive to how the game works and punishes you for trying to be a good team mate, but they are also pretty vague and lack a proper description of what you specifically need to do.
I have a few challenges that i am 4/5 completion on, but i have absolutely no idea when and what i did to get it to 4/5.

11 Likes

I think the problems with some of these could be mitigated if they weren’t so cripplingly restrictive. If Malleus Monstronum only required you to deal the majority of damage to the Monstrosity (i.e. having a higher contribution than any other individual squadmate) instead of all of it. That way teammates can focus on keeping the field clear of trash and still be dealing damage when there is no trash to be cleared.

Make Every Shot Count should be something like 90% accuracy, something that is still difficult but much more easy to achieve without being next-to-useless to your team (I’ve done it plenty of times on other horde games like L4D2), and instead of having no ammo remaining it should be something like less than a full magazine remaining or having a requirement that 70% of the damage you deal being ranged damage.

Other penances definitely need a complete rework or a change to game mechanics though, like Long Bomb being next to impossible without being able to cook grenades or adding impact-detonation.

7 Likes

I’ve already had people flame me in chat on more than one occasion because they were going for these challenges and I accidentally shot an enemy or moved out of range or something.

I really hope they rework these challenges because they’re obscenely tedious.

Things such as countering a Pogryn’s charge with an Ogyrn’s charge? Killing a dog mid-leap with Brainburst? Killing enemies with a grenade that doesn’t bounce? Those are interestng challenges you can work towards that don’t actively impede the player or team.

7 Likes

With all the drastic changes to classes and to the core of the game from the CBT why is anyone surprised at this?

3 Likes

Absolutely. Classic Fatshark.

3 Likes

Not to mention the cosmetics look bland and barely any cooler than the stock stuff.

If I have to beg my team to let me do all the damage to a boss, or intentionally blue-ball myself from firing lest I accidentally miss, I better get some damn good-looking cosmetics. Not some gray, run-of-the-mill armor.

6 Likes

Even with a legit team who all agrees to help with these penances, some of them just seem straight up impossible. Some of them also seem to be bugged as they don’t properly track your progress.

As a psyker, I have held full warp charges on malice difficulty for well over 5 minutes (a CONTINUOUS 5 minutes that is) and yet it still isn’t completed. I have been shoving people off of cliffs yet none of those kills are counted towards the penance.

I imagine that fatshark made such absurd penances simply so that people wouldn’t actually beat them. However, they also disabled letting people complete the penances so that people will continue to grind for them thinking “Ah, I was so close! Next time for sure!”

4 Likes

one of the challenge pants for zealot is literally the exact same as the level 10 pants, just like 1% cleaner

9 Likes

Just throwing my hat in the ring that I agree that these challenges need reworking.

I’m lucky that I have a large group of friends that I can play with that would be willing to help eachother with these kinds of challenges.

I couldn’t even remotely imagine having to try to do these if you don’t have that. You basically just straight up can’t if you’re playing with randoms the whole time. No challenge should be impossible to achieve if you’re playing with randoms.

4 Likes

The fact that this exist is beyond stupidity. How the hell we have IN-GAME design clearing telling us to be toxic and non cooperative??? No one thought about?
“Lets create a stuff that in order to complete players must be ruin someone else game experience! Even better! Lets give them cosmetics for doing it!”

4 Likes

well, I havent looked through all the penances but I have also seen some crazy ones which are nearly impossible to do and yes, I agree that this does not contribute to gameplay fun. They really need some re-work, make them a bit easier.

Yeah, some of these challenges actively make players throw the game. In addition, not everyone has a dedicated 4 stack to grind the penances as most players are just matching into a random lobby as the game is designed to do.

If a penance needs you to go into a lobby and explain why you’re not using a large part of your kit or what everyone else needs to do for you to complete it then it’s not a good penance.

2 Likes

like legit, if I’m in quickplay with randos it’s because I want to get a quick game in. If someone says they’re going to only do Melee, or do something else that’s highly hindering for a challenges, Imma leave and join a different group. These challenges are unfair to their team-mates.

Not everyone has a group of friends that they can sit down and try to do these with.

3 Likes

Thought the same thing, i guess these are only for people in dedicated prog groups who’ll sweat until they get them. For everyone else, we’ll be buying all the micro-transaction cosmetics no doubt (bit cynical but can you honestly blame me). I don’t think anyone is actually supposed to unlock these besides a select few who will actually attempt to do any of this with their groups. We’ll have the micro-transaction plebeians and the penance patricians cosmetic divide haha, grimdark.