DT sales are around 2-3M units sold and ~$60-100M revenue in total from what I can find from industry numbers, with ~2.5m units and ~$84M in revenue being the average that I can find.
The problem is that the overwhelming bulk of that was in late 2022, and like the playerbase, dropped off like a cliff shortly thereafter, and did not break into the top 50 best selling titles for 2023 on Steam. I know for sure Deep Rock Galactic outsold Darktide in 2023, but I’m not sure about other 4 person coop games like L4D2 or Payday2.
Weapon choice really isn’t vermintide 2 weakness. You can complete cata with practically anything so the options are there. The major weakness of vermintide 2 is that despite 6 years of asking them do do something about traits and properties they still haven’t bothered to do so.
Even darktides perks/blessings are 50 % useless filler. At least i don’t have to deal with that filler in the previous title.
Ideally there should be neither. But I’d rather have a difficult time with crafting with some interesting results possible rather than no optionality in the first place. At that point, just scrap crafting.
Weaves system would of course be supreme.
I don’t think it’s much of a problem. Sure, a studio can’t “sit around” and do nothing for years on end, but Fatshark has regular income from the additional purchases. I’m sure of it. DT is fine, they sit on a pile of securities, to put it that way, and they have repeatedly confirmened they want to support the project long-term. I have a bright outlook for Darktide and it’s player numbers.
It’s just… going to take some time. Crafting Rework will be the big pivotal moment no doubt. New Penances + Free Cosmetics and such will bring some people back for a few weeks to months, but the Crafting Update is clearly the dealbreaker on the horizont.
As for the other projects you mentioned, I am glad to hear DRG is doing well. Seeing Indies knock it out of the park is always great, no matter what. Small time and Middle Class studios matter a great deal to me. Unlike Big Corporate (AAA) gaming, they often have a certain soul that cannot be found elsewhere.
As for Overkill Studios: Payday 2 is a DLC grind farm for the developers. I’m sure they’re swimming in cash and recognition, but that didn’t stop them from botching Payday 3 harder than any other big studio release in recent history, Fatshark, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard Activision included.
I’d go as far to say that Overkill Studios have coded and marketted themselves into a corner here. They either continue working on Payday 2 or they have a giant heap of work with Payday 3 ahead. That launch was terribad to the next level.
Yes, exactly. It’s upsetting because Vermintide 2 could be so much more when it comes to Perks and Traits. But there is one really good Trait option for melee weapons and two for ranged weapons.
Both games have useless filler in their Trait and Perk department, but in VT2 it’s just so much more limiting.
you don’t have to convince me, boggles my mind how they to this day think crafting improves the experience, even tho aethanor is what people constantly reference as a good system for the gameplay formula
in the field of psychology its quite a united stance
people consistantly demanded more RPG elements in the vermintide games, with crafting and leveling perks being central to the endless whinefest. both were a mistake (crafting just gives people something to rage over, leveling points turns balane into a circus game) but both are central to the additions made for the community and it would effectively be making a whole new game to remove either.
it’s still all the community’s fault, the discord is a miserable hive of selfish pricks.
The idea to have Warhammer related content be RPG-centric isn’t wrong at all.
The question of importance is the how. How is it executed?
I’d argue superficial leveling mechanics aren’t really that great of an RPG mechanic and in Tide games they really just drag the “tutorial” out. Plenty of devs get that wrong. Leveling is meant as a vehicle for growth, it shouldn’t be the center of the RPG in itself.
I can also summarize why other RPG systems in Darktide don’t feel heroic or strategic as they should: They lack transparency and direction.
For instance, the armor class system in Darktide is confusing, because there’s 2 systems layered on top of each other.
System by Armorclass features 6 classes (unarmored, infested, flak, carapace, unyielding, maniac).
System by “enemy type” features 3 classes (groaners and poxwalkers, special, elite).
Top it off, there’s additionally perks available that are just general “weapon bonus enchantments” that are great overall. +5% critical hit chance for instance.
What ensues is a lack of transparency and unnecessary bloat. This leads me to ask weird questions: “Should I specialize against enemy group X by type?”
“Is it better to specialize against the armor class that has mixed enemy types?”
“Am I better off just going for an easy critfishing build?”
“Why are there redunant Stamina perks for ranged options?”
These are questions you never ask in a well-executed RPG System. But you ask them here, because Fatshark seemed unsure what to focus on.
They obviously liked Warhammer’s armor system from the table top and wanted to emulate it.
But they also figured enemies are their own types. Instead of making the decision which to present, they threw it all in and put it onto you, the player.
Nevermind the ridiculous math that happens, affecting game balance: +25% armor class dmg + 10% enemy type dmg + x% dmg from talents + y% dmg from weapon attribute system + z% dmg from enemy inherent weaknesses.
Keep in mind here: These are all cumulative stacking, because they are internally calculated with decimales.
Example:
Take for instance a Zealot with several +dmg talents using a melee weapon, +25% maniac dmg, +10% specialist dmg against a mutie:
1.25 (armor type bonus) x 1.1 (enemy type bonus) x 1.3 (talents of Zealot) x 1.1 (weapon has bonus dmg on specialists) x 2 (inherent mutie weakness against melee) = 3.93 multiplicator
3.93 times the damage of your weapon. insert Angry Joe voiceALMOST FOUR TIMES?! FOUR TIMES THE DAMAGE?!
Darktide’s RPG mechanics would be supreme, if they were sensefully simplified: Step 1) Put all elites, specialists and armored looking dudes into “heavy armor” Step 2) Put all the chaff into “light armor” Step 3) Put all bosses / Ogryn in a specialized “Juggernaut” tier Step 4) Only allow one armor perk per weapon Step 5) Diversify the non-armor options (+crit chance, +atk speed, +bundle stamina max and regeneration, etc.) Step 6) Remove “enemy type” bonusses altogether. Only armor class is in the game now.
Now you are automatically a dedicated role: Horde clear, Specialist and Elite clear or Boss nuking.
There. I just fixed the armor system from Darktide to be a gameplay centric mechanic. It now also allows allows strategic group role assignment and teamplay.
There you go.
So you see, it’s not the fact that there’s RPG present that is unnecessary. It’s how we’ve got it (not at all) sorted right now.
Now that we’ve properly reframed the argument, it sounds a whole lot more like Fatshark failed to meet market demands with their product, as opposed to some rabble making unreasonable demands at gunpoint.
I’ll note most other games with item leveling and crafting systems don’t have anywhere near the same angst and butthurt over them that Darktide does. I can’t think of a single other 4 person coop shooter or major RPG where those topics generate the froth they do in Darktide. Somehow Deep Rock Galactic reviews aren’t consumed with crafting and item issues. Character Levels and perks don’t seem to be holding back Helldivers II. That suggests the issue is with Darktide’s implementation of these things being bad, not that the fundamental ideas are bad.
I have just become the world’s #1 Mayson hater. I will be unliking any Mayson replies or posts I had previously liked and will begin petitioning the mod team to remove them from the forums permanently.
That’s because you’re right and Darktide’s Crafting and itemization could be heaps and leaps better. I never even debated that. If I was in charge of the game, I’d redo half of it tomorrow.
I’m just saying, where Darktide feels confusing and unfinished with itemization, it’s still better in that regard than VT2, because in VT2 it feels barely even present. shrug
How will I survive without my BS internet points now? You bastard! :c
Jokes’ on you, though. You cannot unlike me after 10 mins of liking the posts. ALL YOUR LIKES ARE MINE! FOREVEEEERR!
you keep trying to put this on fatshark, and it’s not on fatshark. a large chunk of the 40k playerbase very simply did not bother to read what the game was. the players that wanted a COD game with extensive RPG mechanics were not who fatshark’s game was marketed to (in fact nobody markets to them, because they’re asking for something that’s more work than it’s worth) came in, insisting fatshark make them a game fatshark wasn’t making and then, as you’re doing now, continued to squat on the game trying to argue it’s fatshark’s fault their dream game was not magically produced by fatshark.
the first vermintide game had better balance because they didn’t make extra traits “+% damage on [type]” but instead went with “% chance to get bonus” so you could make the actual assistance both meaningful but unreliable. the players hated that because it made trying to math out a meta system impossible, which was their entire point.
now everything’s a flat bonus, there’s a half-dozen different ways to get those bonuses and the community is impossible to deal with. listening to the community has made fatshark’s games worse across the board.
It’s absolutely on Fatshark. They’re the ones making a product for money. They want money from customers (the community). You don’t get to blame the people you want money from when you fail to deliver what they want.
Again, we don’t see these issues with other 4 person coop shooters. We don’t see the steep drop-off in active players or consistent complaints in reviews or forums about the issues you’re complaining about with similar competitor games. Either somehow the Darktide playerbase is uniquely and distinctly awful, isolated, and stupid relative to every other competitor title out there, or Fatshark dropped the ball, and the latter is orders of magnitude more likely.
If huge sections of your customerbase fundamentally misunderstand your product, even possibly a majority of them, that’s not on your customerbase, that’s on you for failing to communicate and market the product properly and failing to account for market tastes. There’s no business, economics, or marketing program out there that’s going to tell you any different. This is basic market theory and business competition 101 stuff.
i swear it’s like you’re a parody of yourself. other co-op shooter forums are literally nothing but complaints and virtually all of them have large dropoffs months after release.
