It’s like keeping the special Ed kids from pestering people who just wanna play Computergames 
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Separate but equal! Kinda! In the same way how we humans share a lot of our DNA with bananas!
Seriously… I like the skill tree revamp, but let’s be honest here. If they want to successfully ‘re-launch’ the game amid the tidal wave of new titles this fall they will need to stand out. Which means they need more than just fixing skill trees.
Maps, weapon and weapon attachments, enemies, unique modifiers, fixing the lifeless hub, better play-unlockable cosmetics, fixing RNG loops, etc.
The fact they haven’t announced any of these on top of the skill tree revamp probably means they don’t have anything else. Then again, they don’t believe in road maps or community engagement, so maybe they’ll still announce stuff?
It’s really hard right now not posting the Gigachad Design Intent meme.
Anyway, I don’t really get it. Why the desire to opt out of crossplay? It’s the anti-dote to community splitting as well as empty servers at “hour X in place Y”.
The only downside I see with console gamers is their lack of control options. Pretty sure the game accounts for that with enough simplifications for controller layout.
It will forever boggle my mind that Fatshark will hire community managers for the purpose of improving communication - but then they are still so bad at it, that they avoid things like roadmaps or just basic conveyance of plans or whatever because instead of trying to improve said communication, they’d rather just keep everyone in the dark to avoid backlash.
It’s such a bad relationship - how come we didn’t hear about this new talent tree system (which I am very excited about btw, I’m 100% coming back when that comes out) earlier when people have been asking for updates on classes for like…what, 6-7 months now? Every single time it was asked, just pure silence. Even a “hey we’re working on something that we believe will solve the class issue people have presently, we can’t give an ETA on it yet but have something that we’ve been working on. We’ll give more details when we finalize them” would have gone a long way to building trust. They’ve been supposedly working on this for months now and we didn’t hear about it until a random article on some site where it was a big surprise? Come on. Clearly this talent tree system is such a big W for the game, I’m sure people would have loved to hear about it, even if it was in early preliminary stages earlier. There’s been multiple huge updates that have been announced for this game which…are nowhere to be seen on their official forums - are they that scared to even just talk to us?
I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, I know the gaming community in general sucks, and some people will whine no matter what, but ffs most people understand if things don’t go according to plan and you have to adjust - just communicate. “Hey, this isn’t working out like we thought because of XYZ and it’s causing us to re-think strategy. This is going to delay things a bit and may change what we suggested initially” - Satisfactory had very transparent updates along those lines and people were fine with delays & changes because they were very clear with their communication. I would be disappointed but I wouldn’t be frustrated, very different.
If things go wrong, Fatshark just shuts down and doesn’t say anything at all. I’m not going to lie, I can relate to that. I’ve done that before. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. But the solution is to work on communication, not just give us less info. That’s what makes this so frustrating - it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to improve. There’s a super toxic relationship that’s been fostered for a few years now because of this and it sucks. I just want some transparency and communication. I’m willing to tolerate a ton when I can see the human element behind an error or a delay - that happens all the time and is completely understandable. It’s hard to have empathy when we’re stonewalled the whole time which makes the backlash worse when there is a problem.
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Well, to be fair, they did improve quite a bit. But it depends what standards you compare it to, what company you come from.
Fatshark is absolutely mid when it comes Communication. Sometimes they do it right, sometimes they communicate something entirely wrong and sometimes they are just silent.
That said, it used to be the silent treatment 24/7. I remember VT1 had a really good rush of players coming in when it was “discovered” as a “hidden gold nugget”. But there were no real news or anything. The game had launched and then some odd time with nothing happening, a DLC dropped out of nowhere. At least that’s how I remember.
VT2 had a completely silent phase from launch until Xbox release. Then it picked somewhat up, but still was sparse communication. But they didn’t need much of it then because they had picked up the pace at which they released content. Releasing new content is a form of communication, too.
Darktide, while you might think of it as having poor communication, actually had the most coverage. We had weekly and then bi-weekly blog posts for a while. We also had regular announcements pre-release. We had good trailer coverage (although it did overpromise).
The issue with the Hedge comments and the anti-hedge posters probably made someone internally gag Hedge, so we had silence for a while.
Since Catfish is on board, it was quite alright.
So yeah. It’s not the worst or even that bad. If you compare it to some of the really good games when it comes to community handling, of course Fatshark will lose out, though.
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This community isn’t big enough to lose 1/3 of its population though.
Yeah that’s fair. I guess it’s easier to look in the past with rose-tinted glasses, VT2 at the beginning was definitely worse. It still feels like it’s lacking at such a base level though that although it’s improved, it’s nowhere where it should be
You say that and I’ve seen games truck on for years with a “zombie” playerbase in the three digits.
APB:Reloaded comes to mind. Amazing game ruined by F2P non-sense and budget mismanagement in several instances. It still has players. It still runs a profit. Believe it or don’t.
The thing with communities is this: The smaller they get, the more resilient they also get. Seems to be a general feature of this world, too. If you know what I’m referencing, you just know.
The smaller a group becomes, the more it sticks together and the harder it is to be disbanded / displaced. Weird but true.
Which is why I called it mid. Fatshark’s communication endeavors (and many of their other endeavors, too, by the way) remind to the mental image of a very well-intentioned and spirited marathon sprinter, who lacks the necessary endurance.
Like they will see a glimmer of ambition, sprint forth for a while, then slowly run out of breath, lose speed and get ever slower until they almost stand still. Then they remind themselves they have a goal line to cross, do another push forward, and so it goes on and on. That’s the feeling you get when you watch their many actions with an analytic eye.
Every great thing is followed by a good. which is followed by an okay thing followed by a disappointment. They recover from it with the next good thing, followed by an average thing, etc…
These skill trees they just teased look amazing. But the summer preceding this announcement had the botched date for the blog post and the uneventful Warhammer event. Stuff like that.
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People say… what? I’m fairly certain we were discussing the commonality between the interests of gamers that would or wouldn’t play SM2 and DT. As per:
To elaborate, If my post wasn’t expansive enough - I do expect the launch of SM2, should the game prove to be even decent and not boring, to register on the curve of DT’s weekly and then monthly players. To suggest otherwise, given the games’ IPs and genres is ridiculous to me.
As to this new topic you present - yeah, I mean, all games co-exist at all times after they have some form of exposure to the market. I don’t think that’s a very poignant conversation - I’ve not seen nor do I think it’s possible for the population of one game to disappear due to the launch of another, or for a total migration to happen.
As my quite personal view explains - given the choice between two games in the same IP, with similar, if obviously fundamentally different platforms and design, I’d opt for the game that approaches my time better. Hell, even to just see the story of SM2 and have a go-around with the coop. I don’t see this very likely outcome of the games coexisting as anything related to X dying.
If we are to further this idea (if you’ll allow me) - FS launched during a time of no other 40K game really pressing the market. Or another coop shooter worth a damn. But we did and still do compare it to the other games in the genre/IP, because they coexist, as you pointed out. So, even in that state of the market during the launch of DT, well… you know the graph, no need to link the player counts again.
I don’t think DT needs to be pressed or killed by another game, it’s doing a good enough job of steadily declining in player base even after major patches and changes.
Here’s hoping October proves to be the much needed uptick.
Another change of topic (I know I know) - I’m considering that DT wasn’t launched to be a title focusing much on retention. It might’ve been designed like one, at some point during development, but I’m left with the impression that the goal of the game is to provide some hours of entertainment post-purchase, a few distractions and a few bloated systems to reach that point of cosmetics sale here and there, maybe some discounts now and again and maybe squeezing some more sales off the console crowd. I don’t think it was meant as a revolutionary, cutting edge coop shooter with the 40K IP slapped on top for good measure. Or at least, that’s how it ended up after the coof years of development, the delays and the obvious feature backlog.
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Which we are doing because someone in this thread claimed the one game would essentially drain the playerbase of the other.
Which shortened is the “x kills y” argument. You are making this point, too.
You said DT “has no chance”. What chance do you mean? It’s not going to go anywhere and most of it’s population isn’t going to switch. We know this because the population that isn’t into DT already moved on. What you look at is the diehard fans of this game and its mechanics.
The problem with your argument is that it’s limited to one part of the equation what makes a game a game. Namely the thematic aspect.
Space Marine 2 and Darktide play in the 40k Warhammer franchise.
That’s where the similiarities end and the differences begin. For starters, even thematically the games are not even close to each other despite having the same setting.
Darktide is a game where you play some nameless cannonfodder schmuck. You are stuck on a hive and traverse claustrophic corridors in an attempt to save that hive.
Space Marine 2 is a game where you actually play the fabled Space Marines, the war heroes of this setting’s universe. You step onto new worlds to kill the Xenos threat.
That’s just talking game world.
We haven’t even dived into the real meat, which is the gameplay.
Both games are coop games, yes.
But Space Marines 2 sells a power fantasy. It will play different from Darktide.
Darktide on the other hand has stronger survival elements clearly. There is many different disablers, I doubt Space Marines 2 will be that centered on surviving Disablers.
The real kicker is that you believe the games to be similiar because both are shooters, but you forgot a very important thing here.
Darktide is 1st person shooter.
Space Marine 2 is a 3rd person shooter.
It’s a completely different genre of game. Same for Payday 3, which Asuka named. Different genre, different game feel. These games are not even in the same ballpark of gameplay, they attract completely different crowds. Your argument is, that the new soccer game will drain the basket ball stadiums of many of the ticket buyers. I’m sorry to say, but it doesn’t work that way.
I did not present a new topic. I have been on topic this whole time, which is to assure you that no great switch of players is going to happen.
Again you are a little too stuck in the thematic aspect of both games being 40k games. But there is players who got into Darktide because they played Vermintide. There is players who played Darktide as their first Warhammer game generally.
These people don’t dash from one Warhammer game to the next. They stay where the gameplay is or whatever caught their eye. They may not even register that a new Warhammer title drops because they didn’t come for Warhammer. They came for funny ratman but it’s space and you can shoot guns.
As for your time, that’s how you approach games. Or so you say, I mean you’re still here.
But others may not play that way. The world’s hikkimori population is growing. There is a lot of people with “too much time” (if such a thing is even possible). They can maintain several games and they’d probably stick with the more addictive one - Which is going to be Darktide, likely.
As for your comment on what Darktide is supposed to be, it doesn’t matter. Fatshark has the customers that stay with a niche product and no matter how they feel, they will churn out more for this game. Because they have to.
I think there was even an interview on the internet somewhere in which the CEO says, he finds it scary that people end up playing thousands of hours of their game. So you might be right, their original intention is to make a game for the 200 hours crowd.
But they have no choice in the matter really. They have to cater to what they got. That’s how a business works.
If you had a Hot Dog stand and you also sold steak, but nobody want your steak. They all just came for the Hot Dog. You’d have to discard the steak from the menu and go full on Hot Dog expert, whether you hated the change or not. Otherwise you’d go bankrupt and your insolvency would make you a poor man for many years.
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It entirely depends on the level of aim assist and how it’s implemented. There are plenty of controller-dominated competitive shooters. Halo immediately jumps to mind. The game is basically unplayable at a high level on mouse because of how controller aim assist works.
I feel like I might’ve barged on a topic you were discussing previously in the thread, caught a bit of it and failed to provide enough nuance. I admit, I sometimes don’t read into every post. My apologies -
I didn’t at all mean to go into DT dying and wasn’t why I replied to your post.
And yes, obviously DT and SM2 are very very different games. No argument there.
I specifically pointed out the franchise ahead of the gameplay because the initial interest in DT was largely boosted by the IP. Accounting for overlap between previous tide fans and the 40K crowd, you can easily (I think) attribute the 100k peak players at launch state to the combination of these two elements.
With that - DT’s plummet in playerbase can rightly be attributed to many things - design, marketing, retention tactics, technical issues at launch etc etc. AND there was the moving away of the 40K fans that don’t particularly care for the specifics of the genre - they just wanted to shoot some heretics, tide or no tide. Judging by how many are left, and assuming those are hard tide fans, the majority of the 40K crowd didn’t particularly care for the fine gameplay or the tide formula.
But the idea here (if I understand correctly) is that the ~500 dedicated, bonafide hardcore tide fans DT has been bleeding steadily on average since March will be remedied with the introduction of the new console players, the return of some previously gone players who will want to try out the new stuffs, and some fresh purchases stemming from the game finally looking like something that maybe constitutes a launch-ready title (sorta)?
And you don’t see how DT now competes for those other, not already hooked players? Come now.
Maybe FS are quite alright with DT spinning between 2 and 5K peak daily players. We don’t know.
Maybe they’re already more than happy with the 2.2m sales and the upcoming console launch is just gravy? We don’t know.
But you’re right about the steaks and the hotdogs - the game has to continue (or begin to, depending on jaded one is) churning out content and developing. And while co-existing with other titles in the IP (specifically), while retaining the tide junkies (in the best meaning possible) - you don’t think the company would like to take up as much of that player purchasing power as possible? I find that hard to believe.
Ehmm, all of that said - ok, it’s possible that I’m way off here, I didn’t quite understand what the discussion within the discussion in the unrelated topic was about - and if so let this brief exchange fade out.
But you tell me, avid fan and solid DT forum goer as you are - once SM2 comes out, and provided it’s not a complete disaster, but actually offers solid gameplay in a genre that’s not tide, while managing to capture the feeling of a 40K battlefield - would you look at it and forego the time it will take up, in favor of DT?
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Eh, not really. I’ve got nothing against console players (apparently the old rivalries are “toxic” now), but it’s true that the difference in capabilities from the different input methods has a big impact on how a game should be designed and balanced.
It’s not so much opting out of crossplay entirely, just opting out of playing pc/console crossplay.
My experience with PC/console crossplay always ends with the console players opting out (or quitting) because the PC players either destroy them in PvP or don’t leave any fun for them in PvE. There’s a reason that the use of KB/M on console games is such a contentious issue.
The problem is that there’s not really a middle ground. Either consoles are prioritised and the assistive features are ramped up so high that unassisted inputs can’t compete, or PCs are prioritised, assisted controls are tuned low and the game is tuned for unassisted controls.
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I mean, if I recall correctly. They did say they planned this type of RPG variable build system. But said it wasn’t finished so we got what we got. That’s okay. I wasn’t happy being a beta tester for an obvious early release game. But I do recall them stating that about that particular system. Along with the weapon modifications they also supposedly did not finish. (which still has the skeletal code in there as we now know)
Now, where the crux of the issue is, and imo more aligns with what you’re saying is that they did make it sound like it was completely abandoned. Hell don’t quote me, but I even remember the word “scrapped”. This is where Fatshark is really bad at with communication. They kinda zigzag with what they say and what is actually done. It’s a bit jarring at times to say the least.
But I think you hit the head on the nail talking about the managers being the primary issue. If you look up glassdoor reviews on Fatshark, they complain about pay (which what employee doesn’t) and incompetent upper management.
Honestly, I feel the absolute love for this game from the developers. The music, the combat loop, the animations and details are awe inspiring. However, between the pandemic cutting in dev time, moronic management, and majority stakeholder Tencent at the helm… this game was kinda bound to be a crap-shoot at launch.
But don’t worry! We’ll get there eventually my friend. After the Xbox port and Tencent has finally milked that cash cow, they will turn to content and more of the “live service” aspect will bloom. Believe me, content will start coming more regularly, maps, weapons, new classes, all kinds of stuff. Why? Because they need a playerbase to have whales who will buy their MTX. Content drops will be the primary source of income to drive up sale numbers. Thus becoming a very high priority.
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yeah, in the pre-release they talked a lot about how classes were going to be different from VT2 for all these reasons, and we basically just got VT2. This update lines up EXACTLY with that pre-release discussion on how they wanted to transform classes. A ton of the data-mining shows how they were a decent chunk of the way in, but clearly ran out of time or something so they had to quickly put in a placeholder in the meantime. Which didn’t reflect at all what they were saying.
Similar to how they had a whole post about crafting and how it was going to be a pillar of progression, no RNG, player agency, etc etc. and uh…yeah, we know how that went. I’m guessing same thing here. In the last update Catfish said that they were going to keep looking into crafting, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they did a whole rework like this skill tree to better match their original vision.
I mentioned this in another thread, I really wouldn’t have minded if they were clear about how these were placeholder systems, and put the game in Early Access or something. But because they were completely silent on it, I just eventually assumed that this was its final state. Just the lack of transparency here kills me. If they said like, 5 months ago they were starting work on a rework of the skill system, that would have been a great start to rebuilding trust because they are demonstrating that they ARE in fact committed to trying and fix this game up and ARE willing to do complete re-works of core systems. Like that’s huge. I remember seeing tons of extreme negativity and pessimism from lots of people (myself included to be fair) stating that this is probably what we’re going to get because there’s no way that FS would do a complete reword of a system. Yet here we are, that disproves that.
FWIW this is the exact same trend as VT2 where basically nothing was really happening during the XBOX port, the game was a mess that whole time. Once the port was done, then content really started flowing. Seems like that’s going to be the case here.
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I checked it. We talked about this whole “X game is dangerous for Y game” because @AsukasHeadphones responded with a Space Marines 2 video to someone saying that the next few months have a lot of great releases and that it’d be a bad time window to do the Xbox soft-relaunch. And that’s when I made the comment you reacted to.
Maybe I read too much into it, I’ve been in way too many discussions of this sort before. 
The main reason for the player dip really was a failure on managing expectations and the many missing features or technical issues at launch. Remember, the game was almost unplayable. Had it launched in it’s current state, we’d have a lot higher player numbers now.
Anyway, 2k to 5k daily active players is quite alright.
Going by the current active player numbers right now this very moment, Vermintide is the 257th most played game on Steam and Darktide the 261th game.
And most games seem to fluctuate between 20k and 2k active players.
As for your question:
I don’t have as much as time I used to. So I have 2 to 3 games I regularly play and that’s it. It’s unlikely for me to hop titles. It’d be different if I had more time.
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I mean, it’s attracting me, so there’s absolutely some crossover of demographics there.
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I don’t have issue with console players per se, but when you introduce feature like this that you cannot opt out of it pretty much means you also have to support it for those console players.
This could mean simple stuff such as enemy densities, spawning, ai logic, etc being tuned down in the future to allow consoles players in the PC que without instantly melting their hardware.
You also have to make it so controllers are not at an massive disadvantage gameplay wise to keyboard/mouse, this would be potentially excessive aim assist and other features.
And the list goes on.
If this was truly opt into feature for both PC and Xbox crowd then I would be totally fine with it. You have a choice then to enter into potentially inferior lobbies from PC perspective to play with healthier base of players.
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Yes there is.
I shouldn’t have used such absolutist words.
Yes, there is some crossover, but there is also significant differences. Want to say, there is layers to this whole topic.
You put more thought into your comment than I did, lol. I posted because the next few months of gaming ARE going to be hype.
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