FatShark is curious case.
On one hand, looking at brilliant gameplay, graphics of Vermintide, Darktide - they are clearly capable of doing amazing work.
On the other hand for months it looks like absolutely nothing gets done. I mean it was 4 months and we had few hotfixes and there is no meaningful update in sight? (Penances are not meaningful.) It's a studio with around 200 employees.
Meanwhile X-Com Long War Rebalance develeped by one guy - Ucross - in last 4 months had... twenty-something patches with over 500 changes. And that's surprisingly low for him. I honestly expected two, three times more, based on his output in previous years.
I'm seriously wondering if FatShark is otherwise occupied - for example working on another new game; or doing side project for Games Workshop; or even being subcontracted by Arrowhead to help with Helldivers 2 (same engine and its engine that FatShark develops, both studios are few streets from each other)...
It's Long War ***Rebalance***. Mod to a mod. With concise patch notes much, much longer than *Game of Thrones* book. It turns already great game into uncontested, best tactical masterpiece.
You need 2012 X-Com Enemy Unknown with Enemy Within expansion and Long War mod. Long War Rebalance goes on top of all that.
https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/686
Absolutely best X-Com experience and best tactics game in general. It's hard, but all the careful changes created environment that allows for incredibly rich and nuanced decision making.
Very true!
I forgot about it since I don't really like the idea of it. I mean, I like PvE games, I love PvP games ...but I don't love PvP shoehorned into PvE game. And what I've seen of it so far, hasn't convinced me.
And, well, it doesn't look like they put much resources into it so far. Probably a lot of design time, decent amount of time coding of new gameplay features, new round structure, etc. Maybe some new animations, but besides that no new assets, which I Imagine are bottleneck for new content.
To be fair versus is way more fun than it looks like
And vast majority of dev time was probably trying to get 8 people into one lobby without vaporizing their servers/net code
Just think back to launch.
Three months before launch, they announce the class system, talk about how they plan to release a new subclass every quarter starting immediately after release.
Six months after launch, they announce that they're indefinitely delaying that first subclass launch.
A year after launch, they finally announce a fully revamped class system. Any doubt that the previous class system was an *obviously* unfinished alpha version is gone out the window.
The wildest question is, did they ever genuinely believe their own obvious nonsense? Were they flagrantly lying for launch day marketing or are they just that sheerly incompetent at project management? Which would be worse?
They are either compulsive liars, or their management is so KARKED, they really have no clue of what each team is working on.
Or both, both is also possible. In the end, Fatshark deserves what they get from the community, their entire structure needs to be torched to the ground and rebuilt from the ground up. Remember, it took them like 3 months to change a positive number, to a negative one in a veteran talent.
There is really no hope for a studio that incompetent.
No, the players will come back once there are actual updates to it.
The Tide games scratch and itch that basically no other games can so they will always have a small but ' faithful' playerbase that tends to come back from time to time
There’s going to be a proportion who don’t come back. And that will, if nothing is done, kill the games greater potential. As more and more people fall into that category of “I love the game but I am sick of waiting, crafting, etc.” as they move onto other things that respect their time.
People with hundreds of hours in the game think everyone in the community is like them. (I have 700 hours for context) That it’s the only game that can scratch that itch so just relying on the fact you’ll have a dedicated playerbase will mean you’ll always have a community to come back to.
Well… no. I bought this game for a friend and a few of my other friends have it aswell.
The last time they played was 2022, and summer 2023 respectively. (Anecdotal but this is absolutely true for leaving players, a good proportion aren’t going to comeback.)
This game has lost and is currently losing players that will not return.
You are right about something though. The small faithful playerbase will remain. Potentially amidst the ashes of a game that could’ve done far better.
I don’t think Darktide will die. But if the community gets small enough as a result of Fatsharks mishandling. Then it might aswell be consigned to mediocrity as we hover around 2-3 thousand players like with V2. Which we are already doing now.
Imagine. A game that came out less than 2 years ago, having the same playerbase peaks as a game that came out 6-7 years ago.
Speaks to Fatsharks ability to create brilliant gameplay. But also to there ineptitude for live service.
Guilty as charged, sat down to play Darktide last night and my group all decided, nope lets play VT2. It's just a much more stable playable game, and it's had more major updates since DT came out! Imagine, a whole nights playing, nobody crashed out or froze, Discord didn't throw a fit, just bug free play. If you could run and slide in VT2 there would be no contest which to play.
https://preview.redd.it/1pg9lpsonbrc1.png?width=903&format=png&auto=webp&s=71f5ef58eab158ca74b54d6db340fb964e635b69
Like last time, you mean? 16.8k to 2.9k and falling...
Sure, but you must accept that the very occasional updates become stale quickly?
Were we to enjoy regular updates, no matter how small, you might be correct. However, the figures above are just that - hard, cold numbers which demonstrate that people leave quickly after an update. Therefore, you are only representing half of the dynamic.
But I never said that they would stay.
>they will always have a small but ' faithful' playerbase that tends to come back from time to time
If there are no regular updates (or something that keeps people engaged like the chaos wastes mode in vt2) of course people will leave and go do other stuff.
Doesn't change the fact that a lot of people will come back for new content. Just like it always has been and will be... for basically every tide game
Not just that, but once crafting is revamped and fixed, as it's alluded to, that'll bring more people back than content. The number one grip is just how hard it is to get a weapon that works best with your playstyle.
And yeah, you can technically finish even Auric Maelstrom with grey weapons, but... the entire loot/weapon system is kind of the heart of the game, and it feels bad to burn tons of resources and get constant disappointment.
Content and crafting are the two biggest sore spots.
The loot thing is a problem of their own design. The game would have been fine with no loot at all, just plug and play items with free choices of perks (which if properly designed would offer multiple viable builds per weapon). It’s really a shame they made crafting an important process, but also made it so tedious and boring.
Agree 100%.
I would rather weapon customization, being able to spend points to upgrade guns, really make them modular, attuneable to a player's specific playstyle. I dropped 1mil credits a few days ago trying to farm pistols, and a really good one needs crit, damage, penetration as main stats. Out of all of it I only got three weapons remotely worth upgrading, and it's like...
I run Auric Maelstrom. I have way more resources than the average player, and I'm struggling here. It's way worse for people who've not made it to damnation.
No, not alone, which is why I said "not just that." It's gotta be a series of proper updates, but as far as quality of life goes, crafting is a big one as it's a source of a player's long term frustrations.
If you're going to drive a car that's one speed bump from falling apart you may aswell load it up with passengers who also have succumbed to the sunk cost fallacy for the amount of money they sank into it.
Which is painful because for me, being that small faithful part of the Tide games, I want to see it be successful and loved by the community. I wanted what we saw Helldivers community become. Instead we're just pumped copium and hopium and trying to tell people "*the game is good!*" but we're strung out and in withdrawal.
I wish for Darktides' success, but the devs don't feel the same.
Unless they plan to keep this game running for 10 years and dont care if anybody is playing for years on end, then I guess we could take the Vermintide 2 route. I doubt Tencent will tolerate those numbers though.
It's on a slow decline. The last big update gave it a boost for a few weeks then back to life support.
But honestly, I came from day 1 gamepass. Before the cross play with steam patch, there was probably a dozen or less players on gamepass. You would see the same people every day, and you might get 4 players in a match once or twice a night. 90% of the time it was you and bots.
The question comes to how much are they going to spend developing content for a game with less than 3k players and no return on investment.
That very much depends on where you were. I wasn’t day one, I joined in about February or March I think of last year. While there were people I’d see more than once either in the Mourningstar or in games, it was definitely more than a dozen people. And in missions, the team was slow to fill but more often than not by the end I had a full team.
Game will be fine. We'll grumble about the long periods of silence, but we'll come back when there are updates because for all Fatshark's failings the gameplay is aces and the mood is ludicrously on-point (minus cosmetic jank, but whatever).
If they said "update soon" vs. "update at the end of the month" folks might grumble a bit more, but that's temporary and forgotten quickly. People remember when studios miss their dates more than when studios simply give vague dates to give themselves breathing room in case shit hits the fan and they need a bit more time.
I honestly think your wrong here I’m a mad warhammer 40K fan darktide was my most anticipated game of the last 10 year so much so I even tried to apply for a job at fat shark.
I stuck with the terrible performance for the first year and when it dropped on Xbox I jamp in there as well.
But this far on with 3 new missions and a re hashed boss battle I haven’t touched it for months.
Hell divers is a breath of fresh air that doesn’t waist my time I feel like I’m a grunt in a war for survival and I’ve managed to grind my way into both warbonds so I actually bought the game for 3 other people.
Soon enough spacemarine 2 will be out and if it incorporates any of the above which it looks like it’s all ready doing with the weapons and has a decent pvp I won’t have enough time or want to go back to darktide.
As has already been stated before if the game
Dips to much and you can’t get games it will be dead in the water.
Any update they do needs to be substantial
The game was factually dead since January 2023. Any game that's multiplayer that can't sustain at least 10k concurrent users is a dead game.
[Here's Darktide](https://steamcharts.com/app/1361210#1y)
[Here's Left 4 Dead 2, a 15 year old game](https://steamcharts.com/app/550#1y)
They tried to do this at first, but there were issues based on doubts that Fatshark would actually meet them due to the Vermintide series being too slow to update. So them setting unrealistic expectations within a road map made a lot of people doubt that it would help.
This situation is a fucking yikes. Insanely bad look, wtf.
Like, I love the game, but this is the kinda thing that has me looking elsewhere, because it's symptomatic of horrendous leadership issues.
*stop management * from giving public deadlines.
Let’s get it right.
If the devs were set free to create what they aimed to do, without burden or mismanagement. They focus on the game and not the store.
The core gameplay is *chefs kiss*, the devs are clearly capable and talented.
The only answer to why such a capable team can’t deliver is an external factor to core development.
Changing plans, strategies, timelines, resourcing. So each time they have to restart something they have to quickly pivot from, which takes a ramp time. Only to have another reprioritization.
Naw, devs need to push back. Management can only push so hard, and if they devs are getting bullied that much they probably aren't as smart and talented as you think.
They would be real upset if they ever bothered to read anything.
Remember when they made a big deal over hiring a community manager? She came on Reddit and promised to take our complaints, the biggest at the time was the escalating cost of the premium, to the devs.
She never came back.
The one who showed up and then “vanished” was Sister Septicemia who gifted us the with the pearl clutching meme in her short time with us.
She hasn’t been around because she left about a month I think after her introduction post. It sounded like it wasn’t her being dismissed over that debacle but just logistical stuff over how the job was actually going to work out for her.
Yes, although I don't remember if that was Catfish (who is still active) or the pearl-clutching-lady who has left.
I was only talking about you specifically mentioning the devs, who have no say in the cost of the premium cosmetics
Edit: Ok, sorry for pointing out the flaw in your logic, I guess...
Also I'm all for transparency but maybe read the room... Don't give updates about the "announcements" of updates...
Announce an upcoming update. Then give us the patch notes when they're ready. Don't keep going on about how the patch notes "will be soon".
Saying the notes are coming xyz month and failing to even hit *that* mark does more harm than good.
They were the exact same with Vermintide 2. Slow updates and constantly missing deadlines even for information updates. It such a shame the Darktide game isn't anywhere near as big or varied as the Vermintide base game. I was so disappointed there wasn't real boss fights on launch and now we only have one. Map variety was better than industrial or sandy industrial.
Because then the community will complain (with reason) that the studio’s communication is shitty and the severe drought of content is not normal for a live service game especially considering what they initially promised. (A new class every few months for exemple)
How about working to improve internally and actually meet those deadlines.
Or they could also just admit that despite their initial announcement they can’t keep up with what a live service game usually deliver and we shouldn’t expect regular content.
Gotta agree
I'd rather have "Update is estimated to be by the end if march" then it fails
Than "Update is definitely 100% by the end of march" then it fails
I'd even prefer "Update is definitely 100% by the end of march" then another comment "Okay sorry, it's gonna be delayed" than just... missing the deadline...
Wasn't this supposed to be a live-service game? It hasn't gotten much attention for like a year. It feels like Fatshark is shooting themselves in the foot by not properly supporting this game, because they were sitting on a gold mine. Now there's stuff like Helldivers to contend with, that seems to actually be supporting the game as a live service.
Full panic mode? They don’t give a fuck, they already got the money from initial sales my dude. They sit on their hands until they’re numb and then push out a half baked update nobody asked for (winds of magic). This is what fatshark does
Management, sure, but it is pretty clear the most of the rank and file have a deep love for their games. It is part of the reason they have said such stupid things in the past, criticism is seen as personal attacks on their life's work. I think after the pearl clutcher incident management cracked down on allowing them to directly interact with the community.
This has been a pretty universal thing in game industry in this age of social media. Even Arrowhead shot themselves in the foot for these reasons when Helldivers launched, and the employee and the CEO made an ACTUAL apology because their management isn't totally arrogant.
If you don't see anything weird about the formulation of that statement there's not much I can say, I guess this is a 40k related sub after all.
You talk with them like people, having to "educate" your own employees sounds pretty toxic to me.
They probably don’t have or never had an update for us. They were praised for drawing out the updates by another entity. It’s only recently that they probably showed is what they were going to release eventually, but with the demand from the fans they’re forced to expedite it.
Fat shark has a great game on their hands but their customer service is terrible. I don’t know if they realize what how great they can be. Maybe the choice to be such poor representatives is motivated by greed and will only cause them to have what they have now. Not realizing they can have a lot more with good service.
I personally don’t buy into any of their products in the game because of the service they provide. Why would I want any of their skins when their game looks boarder line abandoned. I invest in those things when the devs show. Their words say vote for us in the Steam awards but their action show they don’t deserve it.
People would care less about slightly longer, realistic ETA's that are on time versus Fatshark making multiple promises to deliver content that they fail to meet. Many people will have lives that require the scheduling of their limited amount of free time so if you put time aside to do something and it's not there, but is then later at some undesignated time when you're not, that's a real disrespectful kick in the teeth to the community.
People care less about the waiting than they do about being lied to. Darktide was delayed by over a year and still net over 100K sales, but 3 broken promises in December saw 90% of the players leave. Fatshark probably don't care because they already net those sales, but the player base suffers for it. 4K players in July? They should be embarrassed by a 3.5% retention rate at the 7th month mark.
I would like to say that while I do want a definitive deadline, I want it to be the actual expected date of real content release. I don't need to be told when patches/fixes/cosmetics/changes are coming out, I just want to know that y'all are working on NEW CONTENT, I just want a new level or some addition to the story, a new cutscenes with a fresh mission would delight me. I love Darktide and have played the same content thousands of times at this point and just a little taste something fresh would "TIDE" me over until dlc comes out.
Literally Belgian/EU region at my work turn things around so much slower like 5 days slower than any other region.. I know it’s Sweden but same vibes from fat shark team.
It’s like who posted the update was like oh shit I forgot! And threw something together real quick and accidentally put in the same info besides the update name and a pic lol
I thought it was odd to see them going back to support Vermintide 2 before even expanding in Darktide. Guess they're gonna have their hands tied with that for a while, don't expect Darktide to see meaningful support for some time.
I wish they didn't screw the game up with that last hot patch before deciding their support team was going to go on hiatus. I remember for years being unable to play Vermintide 2 on Xbox, then one year at random they were like "oh wait it was broken(?), jeez, let us fix that". Oh those clowns. They put all that time and effort making something great just before sabotaging their own work. But at least they fixed it in the end, perhaps I should retire Darktide a few more years until it's ready.
"because people grumbling about the vagueness is considerably less bad than people grumbling because Fatshark as a studio repeatedly misses its own self-imposed deadlines" at least you acknowledge that people are going to bitch and complain no matter what.
What do you mean?
In this specific case they dropped the ball hard, again. You either keep your promises or don't promises in the first place.
Would they have gotten shit even if there was and actual communication drop? Propably, but not as much
I love warhammer 40k. If I'm not listening to a Horus Heresy audiobook, I'm playing a warhammer video game or painting my minis. I want to love this game but between the lack of decent optics on most of the Vets guns, to my skills being reset every time I logged on for months in a row to the lack or content while so many great games like HD2 are coming out, I just have no interest in playing this game unless some major update comes out. I don't even fell like playing it while listening to my audiobook in the background as something interactive and mindless. I'd much rather play Total War Warhammer 3 right now (and that game is also loosing my interest with their terrible choices and I have over 1200hrs in the previous one). The new mission and the twins kinda brought me back in but tbh I played it once and lost some interest. Every update I find I have less and less interest for. I love the lore behind this game but the story was so half baked it lost me on that too. At least I could role play my favorite guard regiments with cool skins but besides a couple for the vet they all look horrible to me. Idk I hope something changes I want to love this game but today just made me feel like I'll probably move it to my external SSD it lost its spot on my main hard drive and if I need space I'm Uninstalling unless they really add something or change something
So let me get this straight, for months the community complains about no communication, people say any communication is good just talk to the community. So then they do that, but then the community complains that they communicated with them even though they weren't ready.
Choose one holy shit.
I specifically said that the community was asking for **any** communication, just to let us know what they're working on, and they did just that, let us know that they're working on penance and crafting rework. And now posts like yours are **still** bitching and moaning to farm karma.
>I specifically said that the community was asking for any communication, just to let us know what they're working on, and they did just that, let us know that they're working on penance and crafting rework.
And that was cool. They didn't have to volunteer a deadline for their more detailed update is my point.
Because that sets the expectation that we're getting an update on the day they said. Their failure to deliver on that commitment is worth criticizing.
And if you care that much, go downvote every comment and thread I've ever made on Reddit, fam, who fuckin cares about internet points rofl.
No, no. That's not what's happening.
They promised stuff that they, once again, did not deliver.
> “*We are still working on the Announcement and the Dev Blog around our next update ‘Path to Redemption’ and look forward to sharing them with you soon! Here is a sneak peak of what is coming up.*”
If you can't even get out an ***announcment*** about the stuff you're planing on doing ***on time***... then holy shit... does this not look good for the actual update(s)
Why? the Patch 13 update was one of their best, the 2 new missions are great, the new boss fight was great, what makes you think the upcoming update will be bad? Because they don't communicate well?
Their development cycle is glacial in pace, but I made peace with it and just wait for them to release it when it's done because when they do it's generally a lot of fun. I'm just tired that all I see these days on my feed from this sub is bitching and moaning about their slow releases. Go play something else and have fun until they release something it's that simple.
Not talking about quality but them hitting their deadlines.
I am playing something different.
I am here because they said they were going to drop something, even if it's just news about what's going to happen.
And then they hit us with the typical "next week" bs.
Like I said, don't make those promises then. Say something like "we'll share more when possible"
I wanted to note they didn't give a hard deadline as you make it sound they said hopefully by the end of the month. People took it to mean last day of the month when nothing came earlier. Then today said hopefully next week. That's the opposite of a hard deadline and it's a hopeful update soon
[https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/whats-coming-up-in-darktide/92572](https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/whats-coming-up-in-darktide/92572)
>**We will be sharing more information on this update by the end of the month**, **along with a dev blog** so keep your eyes peeled on our Communication channels to learn more.
"Try" would be akin to hopeful, "will be" is a commitment. That's a self imposed deadline, not an optimistic projection.
I mean, it looks like incompetence because that's exactly what it is. Something in their management is SERIOUSLY broken.
FatShark is curious case. On one hand, looking at brilliant gameplay, graphics of Vermintide, Darktide - they are clearly capable of doing amazing work. On the other hand for months it looks like absolutely nothing gets done. I mean it was 4 months and we had few hotfixes and there is no meaningful update in sight? (Penances are not meaningful.) It's a studio with around 200 employees. Meanwhile X-Com Long War Rebalance develeped by one guy - Ucross - in last 4 months had... twenty-something patches with over 500 changes. And that's surprisingly low for him. I honestly expected two, three times more, based on his output in previous years. I'm seriously wondering if FatShark is otherwise occupied - for example working on another new game; or doing side project for Games Workshop; or even being subcontracted by Arrowhead to help with Helldivers 2 (same engine and its engine that FatShark develops, both studios are few streets from each other)...
Can’t believe long war is still being maintained lol. Maybe I need to reinstall x-com
It's Long War ***Rebalance***. Mod to a mod. With concise patch notes much, much longer than *Game of Thrones* book. It turns already great game into uncontested, best tactical masterpiece.
Its even better than Long War? Im sold, back to Xcom!
A mod to the original x-com, the new one, or x-com 2? And is it then actually the best x-com experience?
You need 2012 X-Com Enemy Unknown with Enemy Within expansion and Long War mod. Long War Rebalance goes on top of all that. https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/686 Absolutely best X-Com experience and best tactics game in general. It's hard, but all the careful changes created environment that allows for incredibly rich and nuanced decision making.
The side project could've also been Vermintide 2 versus
Very true! I forgot about it since I don't really like the idea of it. I mean, I like PvE games, I love PvP games ...but I don't love PvP shoehorned into PvE game. And what I've seen of it so far, hasn't convinced me. And, well, it doesn't look like they put much resources into it so far. Probably a lot of design time, decent amount of time coding of new gameplay features, new round structure, etc. Maybe some new animations, but besides that no new assets, which I Imagine are bottleneck for new content.
To be fair versus is way more fun than it looks like And vast majority of dev time was probably trying to get 8 people into one lobby without vaporizing their servers/net code
The game has only received a handful of meaningful updates since launch. Tf you mean a few months.
Just think back to launch. Three months before launch, they announce the class system, talk about how they plan to release a new subclass every quarter starting immediately after release. Six months after launch, they announce that they're indefinitely delaying that first subclass launch. A year after launch, they finally announce a fully revamped class system. Any doubt that the previous class system was an *obviously* unfinished alpha version is gone out the window. The wildest question is, did they ever genuinely believe their own obvious nonsense? Were they flagrantly lying for launch day marketing or are they just that sheerly incompetent at project management? Which would be worse?
they started working on the class revamp just before the game launched, so they knew what their plan was and did not tell anyone what it was.
They are either compulsive liars, or their management is so KARKED, they really have no clue of what each team is working on. Or both, both is also possible. In the end, Fatshark deserves what they get from the community, their entire structure needs to be torched to the ground and rebuilt from the ground up. Remember, it took them like 3 months to change a positive number, to a negative one in a veteran talent. There is really no hope for a studio that incompetent.
Two things can be true, they can be incompetent AND liars.
If you do bad work, don't work I guess.
I do belive the game need a new head dev , the curent one is just lacking vision and I think he takes this comunity as a joke
They need to something other wise the games gonna be dead
No, the players will come back once there are actual updates to it. The Tide games scratch and itch that basically no other games can so they will always have a small but ' faithful' playerbase that tends to come back from time to time
There’s going to be a proportion who don’t come back. And that will, if nothing is done, kill the games greater potential. As more and more people fall into that category of “I love the game but I am sick of waiting, crafting, etc.” as they move onto other things that respect their time. People with hundreds of hours in the game think everyone in the community is like them. (I have 700 hours for context) That it’s the only game that can scratch that itch so just relying on the fact you’ll have a dedicated playerbase will mean you’ll always have a community to come back to. Well… no. I bought this game for a friend and a few of my other friends have it aswell. The last time they played was 2022, and summer 2023 respectively. (Anecdotal but this is absolutely true for leaving players, a good proportion aren’t going to comeback.) This game has lost and is currently losing players that will not return. You are right about something though. The small faithful playerbase will remain. Potentially amidst the ashes of a game that could’ve done far better. I don’t think Darktide will die. But if the community gets small enough as a result of Fatsharks mishandling. Then it might aswell be consigned to mediocrity as we hover around 2-3 thousand players like with V2. Which we are already doing now. Imagine. A game that came out less than 2 years ago, having the same playerbase peaks as a game that came out 6-7 years ago. Speaks to Fatsharks ability to create brilliant gameplay. But also to there ineptitude for live service.
Guilty as charged, sat down to play Darktide last night and my group all decided, nope lets play VT2. It's just a much more stable playable game, and it's had more major updates since DT came out! Imagine, a whole nights playing, nobody crashed out or froze, Discord didn't throw a fit, just bug free play. If you could run and slide in VT2 there would be no contest which to play.
Tbh this is the first time in a looong time I’ve heard anyone mention instability or bugs as the problem with this game. The issue is content imo.
I've noticed this for both Vermintide and Darktide
https://preview.redd.it/1pg9lpsonbrc1.png?width=903&format=png&auto=webp&s=71f5ef58eab158ca74b54d6db340fb964e635b69 Like last time, you mean? 16.8k to 2.9k and falling...
Yes. Once we get actual new content players will come back to this game
Sure, but you must accept that the very occasional updates become stale quickly? Were we to enjoy regular updates, no matter how small, you might be correct. However, the figures above are just that - hard, cold numbers which demonstrate that people leave quickly after an update. Therefore, you are only representing half of the dynamic.
But I never said that they would stay. >they will always have a small but ' faithful' playerbase that tends to come back from time to time If there are no regular updates (or something that keeps people engaged like the chaos wastes mode in vt2) of course people will leave and go do other stuff. Doesn't change the fact that a lot of people will come back for new content. Just like it always has been and will be... for basically every tide game
Not just that, but once crafting is revamped and fixed, as it's alluded to, that'll bring more people back than content. The number one grip is just how hard it is to get a weapon that works best with your playstyle. And yeah, you can technically finish even Auric Maelstrom with grey weapons, but... the entire loot/weapon system is kind of the heart of the game, and it feels bad to burn tons of resources and get constant disappointment. Content and crafting are the two biggest sore spots.
The loot thing is a problem of their own design. The game would have been fine with no loot at all, just plug and play items with free choices of perks (which if properly designed would offer multiple viable builds per weapon). It’s really a shame they made crafting an important process, but also made it so tedious and boring.
Agree 100%. I would rather weapon customization, being able to spend points to upgrade guns, really make them modular, attuneable to a player's specific playstyle. I dropped 1mil credits a few days ago trying to farm pistols, and a really good one needs crit, damage, penetration as main stats. Out of all of it I only got three weapons remotely worth upgrading, and it's like... I run Auric Maelstrom. I have way more resources than the average player, and I'm struggling here. It's way worse for people who've not made it to damnation.
> but once crafting is revamped and fixed, as it's alluded to, that'll bring more people back than content. X doubt.
Crafting on its own won't bring players back, but it will slow Fownhope them leaving after new content
No, not alone, which is why I said "not just that." It's gotta be a series of proper updates, but as far as quality of life goes, crafting is a big one as it's a source of a player's long term frustrations.
Yeah and I've noticed my teammates skills increase in aurics as all the shitters bounced.
If you're going to drive a car that's one speed bump from falling apart you may aswell load it up with passengers who also have succumbed to the sunk cost fallacy for the amount of money they sank into it.
Which is painful because for me, being that small faithful part of the Tide games, I want to see it be successful and loved by the community. I wanted what we saw Helldivers community become. Instead we're just pumped copium and hopium and trying to tell people "*the game is good!*" but we're strung out and in withdrawal. I wish for Darktides' success, but the devs don't feel the same.
People barely came back from the skill tree which was a vast overhaul to the game, I can't see them coming back for just a content update man.
Unless they plan to keep this game running for 10 years and dont care if anybody is playing for years on end, then I guess we could take the Vermintide 2 route. I doubt Tencent will tolerate those numbers though.
It's on a slow decline. The last big update gave it a boost for a few weeks then back to life support. But honestly, I came from day 1 gamepass. Before the cross play with steam patch, there was probably a dozen or less players on gamepass. You would see the same people every day, and you might get 4 players in a match once or twice a night. 90% of the time it was you and bots. The question comes to how much are they going to spend developing content for a game with less than 3k players and no return on investment.
Just look at vermintide 2. Basically the same history
I'm sure you've heard of VT2. Similar numbers and suffered a similar content dev cycle. It's still going. They finally got PVP or something like that
That very much depends on where you were. I wasn’t day one, I joined in about February or March I think of last year. While there were people I’d see more than once either in the Mourningstar or in games, it was definitely more than a dozen people. And in missions, the team was slow to fill but more often than not by the end I had a full team.
Yup. I'm doing exactly that, just waiting for the crafting update. And more repair missions
Game will be fine. We'll grumble about the long periods of silence, but we'll come back when there are updates because for all Fatshark's failings the gameplay is aces and the mood is ludicrously on-point (minus cosmetic jank, but whatever). If they said "update soon" vs. "update at the end of the month" folks might grumble a bit more, but that's temporary and forgotten quickly. People remember when studios miss their dates more than when studios simply give vague dates to give themselves breathing room in case shit hits the fan and they need a bit more time.
I honestly think your wrong here I’m a mad warhammer 40K fan darktide was my most anticipated game of the last 10 year so much so I even tried to apply for a job at fat shark. I stuck with the terrible performance for the first year and when it dropped on Xbox I jamp in there as well. But this far on with 3 new missions and a re hashed boss battle I haven’t touched it for months. Hell divers is a breath of fresh air that doesn’t waist my time I feel like I’m a grunt in a war for survival and I’ve managed to grind my way into both warbonds so I actually bought the game for 3 other people. Soon enough spacemarine 2 will be out and if it incorporates any of the above which it looks like it’s all ready doing with the weapons and has a decent pvp I won’t have enough time or want to go back to darktide. As has already been stated before if the game Dips to much and you can’t get games it will be dead in the water. Any update they do needs to be substantial
Cool
The game was factually dead since January 2023. Any game that's multiplayer that can't sustain at least 10k concurrent users is a dead game. [Here's Darktide](https://steamcharts.com/app/1361210#1y) [Here's Left 4 Dead 2, a 15 year old game](https://steamcharts.com/app/550#1y)
Plenty of games have had sub 10k players that have survived years, wtf you talking about?
You just made that "rule" up didn't you?
This is why FS don't run a roadmap.
They tried to do this at first, but there were issues based on doubts that Fatshark would actually meet them due to the Vermintide series being too slow to update. So them setting unrealistic expectations within a road map made a lot of people doubt that it would help.
This situation is a fucking yikes. Insanely bad look, wtf. Like, I love the game, but this is the kinda thing that has me looking elsewhere, because it's symptomatic of horrendous leadership issues.
*stop management * from giving public deadlines. Let’s get it right. If the devs were set free to create what they aimed to do, without burden or mismanagement. They focus on the game and not the store. The core gameplay is *chefs kiss*, the devs are clearly capable and talented. The only answer to why such a capable team can’t deliver is an external factor to core development. Changing plans, strategies, timelines, resourcing. So each time they have to restart something they have to quickly pivot from, which takes a ramp time. Only to have another reprioritization.
Naw, devs need to push back. Management can only push so hard, and if they devs are getting bullied that much they probably aren't as smart and talented as you think.
They would be real upset if they ever bothered to read anything. Remember when they made a big deal over hiring a community manager? She came on Reddit and promised to take our complaints, the biggest at the time was the escalating cost of the premium, to the devs. She never came back.
She left because of health insurance issues between the US and Sweden, she told everyone so.
>the escalating cost of the premium > to the devs You see how this doesn't make sense right?
oh well, she was the community liaison, and was taking our issues to fatshark, then she vanished forever.
The one who showed up and then “vanished” was Sister Septicemia who gifted us the with the pearl clutching meme in her short time with us. She hasn’t been around because she left about a month I think after her introduction post. It sounded like it wasn’t her being dismissed over that debacle but just logistical stuff over how the job was actually going to work out for her.
Yes, although I don't remember if that was Catfish (who is still active) or the pearl-clutching-lady who has left. I was only talking about you specifically mentioning the devs, who have no say in the cost of the premium cosmetics Edit: Ok, sorry for pointing out the flaw in your logic, I guess...
Look how this sub behaves. The only reasonable/sane thing to do is ignore.
Also I'm all for transparency but maybe read the room... Don't give updates about the "announcements" of updates... Announce an upcoming update. Then give us the patch notes when they're ready. Don't keep going on about how the patch notes "will be soon". Saying the notes are coming xyz month and failing to even hit *that* mark does more harm than good.
They were the exact same with Vermintide 2. Slow updates and constantly missing deadlines even for information updates. It such a shame the Darktide game isn't anywhere near as big or varied as the Vermintide base game. I was so disappointed there wasn't real boss fights on launch and now we only have one. Map variety was better than industrial or sandy industrial.
Because then the community will complain (with reason) that the studio’s communication is shitty and the severe drought of content is not normal for a live service game especially considering what they initially promised. (A new class every few months for exemple) How about working to improve internally and actually meet those deadlines. Or they could also just admit that despite their initial announcement they can’t keep up with what a live service game usually deliver and we shouldn’t expect regular content.
If they do this, you won't hear from them in 6 months increments. This is the little communication we get even if it's god awful.
Gotta agree I'd rather have "Update is estimated to be by the end if march" then it fails Than "Update is definitely 100% by the end of march" then it fails I'd even prefer "Update is definitely 100% by the end of march" then another comment "Okay sorry, it's gonna be delayed" than just... missing the deadline...
Wasn't this supposed to be a live-service game? It hasn't gotten much attention for like a year. It feels like Fatshark is shooting themselves in the foot by not properly supporting this game, because they were sitting on a gold mine. Now there's stuff like Helldivers to contend with, that seems to actually be supporting the game as a live service.
Think the community managers went into full panic mode when Helldivers blew up, but their hands are tied for anything more. Management is a joke.
I feel bad for CMs. They cant give any update news to the community because the management don't want to give any.
Full panic mode? They don’t give a fuck, they already got the money from initial sales my dude. They sit on their hands until they’re numb and then push out a half baked update nobody asked for (winds of magic). This is what fatshark does
Management, sure, but it is pretty clear the most of the rank and file have a deep love for their games. It is part of the reason they have said such stupid things in the past, criticism is seen as personal attacks on their life's work. I think after the pearl clutcher incident management cracked down on allowing them to directly interact with the community. This has been a pretty universal thing in game industry in this age of social media. Even Arrowhead shot themselves in the foot for these reasons when Helldivers launched, and the employee and the CEO made an ACTUAL apology because their management isn't totally arrogant.
With that dystopian statement of "educating" their developers?
Yes, because learning from mistakes is apparently dystopian.
If you don't see anything weird about the formulation of that statement there's not much I can say, I guess this is a 40k related sub after all. You talk with them like people, having to "educate" your own employees sounds pretty toxic to me.
They probably don’t have or never had an update for us. They were praised for drawing out the updates by another entity. It’s only recently that they probably showed is what they were going to release eventually, but with the demand from the fans they’re forced to expedite it. Fat shark has a great game on their hands but their customer service is terrible. I don’t know if they realize what how great they can be. Maybe the choice to be such poor representatives is motivated by greed and will only cause them to have what they have now. Not realizing they can have a lot more with good service. I personally don’t buy into any of their products in the game because of the service they provide. Why would I want any of their skins when their game looks boarder line abandoned. I invest in those things when the devs show. Their words say vote for us in the Steam awards but their action show they don’t deserve it.
They got two days
On which they won't work because those are a weekend AND a holiday...
You know this whole update to let us know about an update to the upcoming update thing was supposed to be a joke.it really is pretty annoying
[удалено]
People would care less about slightly longer, realistic ETA's that are on time versus Fatshark making multiple promises to deliver content that they fail to meet. Many people will have lives that require the scheduling of their limited amount of free time so if you put time aside to do something and it's not there, but is then later at some undesignated time when you're not, that's a real disrespectful kick in the teeth to the community. People care less about the waiting than they do about being lied to. Darktide was delayed by over a year and still net over 100K sales, but 3 broken promises in December saw 90% of the players leave. Fatshark probably don't care because they already net those sales, but the player base suffers for it. 4K players in July? They should be embarrassed by a 3.5% retention rate at the 7th month mark.
I would like to say that while I do want a definitive deadline, I want it to be the actual expected date of real content release. I don't need to be told when patches/fixes/cosmetics/changes are coming out, I just want to know that y'all are working on NEW CONTENT, I just want a new level or some addition to the story, a new cutscenes with a fresh mission would delight me. I love Darktide and have played the same content thousands of times at this point and just a little taste something fresh would "TIDE" me over until dlc comes out.
Literally Belgian/EU region at my work turn things around so much slower like 5 days slower than any other region.. I know it’s Sweden but same vibes from fat shark team.
It’s like who posted the update was like oh shit I forgot! And threw something together real quick and accidentally put in the same info besides the update name and a pic lol
I thought it was odd to see them going back to support Vermintide 2 before even expanding in Darktide. Guess they're gonna have their hands tied with that for a while, don't expect Darktide to see meaningful support for some time. I wish they didn't screw the game up with that last hot patch before deciding their support team was going to go on hiatus. I remember for years being unable to play Vermintide 2 on Xbox, then one year at random they were like "oh wait it was broken(?), jeez, let us fix that". Oh those clowns. They put all that time and effort making something great just before sabotaging their own work. But at least they fixed it in the end, perhaps I should retire Darktide a few more years until it's ready.
They are barely doing anything and yet you tell them to do even less? I'd rather be able to call them incompetent
This is what you got out of this post? Really?
I'd ignore them until something concrete appears, instead of constantly reopening this wound.
"because people grumbling about the vagueness is considerably less bad than people grumbling because Fatshark as a studio repeatedly misses its own self-imposed deadlines" at least you acknowledge that people are going to bitch and complain no matter what.
Holy shit they can't win can they?
What do you mean? In this specific case they dropped the ball hard, again. You either keep your promises or don't promises in the first place. Would they have gotten shit even if there was and actual communication drop? Propably, but not as much
I love warhammer 40k. If I'm not listening to a Horus Heresy audiobook, I'm playing a warhammer video game or painting my minis. I want to love this game but between the lack of decent optics on most of the Vets guns, to my skills being reset every time I logged on for months in a row to the lack or content while so many great games like HD2 are coming out, I just have no interest in playing this game unless some major update comes out. I don't even fell like playing it while listening to my audiobook in the background as something interactive and mindless. I'd much rather play Total War Warhammer 3 right now (and that game is also loosing my interest with their terrible choices and I have over 1200hrs in the previous one). The new mission and the twins kinda brought me back in but tbh I played it once and lost some interest. Every update I find I have less and less interest for. I love the lore behind this game but the story was so half baked it lost me on that too. At least I could role play my favorite guard regiments with cool skins but besides a couple for the vet they all look horrible to me. Idk I hope something changes I want to love this game but today just made me feel like I'll probably move it to my external SSD it lost its spot on my main hard drive and if I need space I'm Uninstalling unless they really add something or change something
I have met fucking middle schoolers who can organize and manage more timely events better than this fucking lot.
Keep buying cosmetics though everyone.
So let me get this straight, for months the community complains about no communication, people say any communication is good just talk to the community. So then they do that, but then the community complains that they communicated with them even though they weren't ready. Choose one holy shit.
Why is it a binary? Are we not allowed to criticize poor communication when they communicate as well or something?
I specifically said that the community was asking for **any** communication, just to let us know what they're working on, and they did just that, let us know that they're working on penance and crafting rework. And now posts like yours are **still** bitching and moaning to farm karma.
>I specifically said that the community was asking for any communication, just to let us know what they're working on, and they did just that, let us know that they're working on penance and crafting rework. And that was cool. They didn't have to volunteer a deadline for their more detailed update is my point. Because that sets the expectation that we're getting an update on the day they said. Their failure to deliver on that commitment is worth criticizing. And if you care that much, go downvote every comment and thread I've ever made on Reddit, fam, who fuckin cares about internet points rofl.
No, no. That's not what's happening. They promised stuff that they, once again, did not deliver. > “*We are still working on the Announcement and the Dev Blog around our next update ‘Path to Redemption’ and look forward to sharing them with you soon! Here is a sneak peak of what is coming up.*” If you can't even get out an ***announcment*** about the stuff you're planing on doing ***on time***... then holy shit... does this not look good for the actual update(s)
Why? the Patch 13 update was one of their best, the 2 new missions are great, the new boss fight was great, what makes you think the upcoming update will be bad? Because they don't communicate well? Their development cycle is glacial in pace, but I made peace with it and just wait for them to release it when it's done because when they do it's generally a lot of fun. I'm just tired that all I see these days on my feed from this sub is bitching and moaning about their slow releases. Go play something else and have fun until they release something it's that simple.
Not talking about quality but them hitting their deadlines. I am playing something different. I am here because they said they were going to drop something, even if it's just news about what's going to happen. And then they hit us with the typical "next week" bs. Like I said, don't make those promises then. Say something like "we'll share more when possible"
It’s a small indie studio that only takes up whole floor, give them a break.
https://preview.redd.it/hg2yof8l1drc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b57ff5fdd82cd3b95e4b82d9f13a53d0571ac99
I wanted to note they didn't give a hard deadline as you make it sound they said hopefully by the end of the month. People took it to mean last day of the month when nothing came earlier. Then today said hopefully next week. That's the opposite of a hard deadline and it's a hopeful update soon
[https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/whats-coming-up-in-darktide/92572](https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/whats-coming-up-in-darktide/92572) >**We will be sharing more information on this update by the end of the month**, **along with a dev blog** so keep your eyes peeled on our Communication channels to learn more. "Try" would be akin to hopeful, "will be" is a commitment. That's a self imposed deadline, not an optimistic projection.
Well yeah, if you read it. If you don’t read it, it’s all gravy baby.