At launch, Fatshark's game, which attempts to keep you from accidentally shooting a big friendly ogrin in the back while defending you from a horde of people with scabies, was missing a few things. Most notably, three-quarters of the crafting system seemed to have been omitted.

We asked Fatshark why Darktide had placeholder messages for the rest of the crafting system. Victor Magnuson, head of design at Fatshark, said, "If we release a system and it's there and people are using it, it's really, really hard to take that system away and replace it with another system. "People are already invested in the previous system. From a back-end perspective, it would be a nightmare. From a player experience, it would be really bad. So if we release a game with a bad crafting system and decide we need to redo it, that's major surgery, and we don't want to do that. It was a really difficult decision, but I think players will ultimately agree that it was the right one. Of course, they will never know how bad the original crafting system was."

The developers have since been working on a new crafting system for Darktide, fixing bugs and adjusting progression. In a recent developer blog (opens in new tab), they outlined some upcoming changes that will come as a result.

The Armorer's Exchange, a store that offers a random set of weapons updated hourly, will now also allow players to select the type and mark of weapons they have unlocked and receive those with random item ratings and stats based on level. No more unlocking a bolt gun only to find it missing from the store. According to a note on the blog, "Obtaining a weapon through this new requisition system in the armory will give the player a generic (Profane Rarity) weapon with an item rating that varies based on the character's current level. It should be noted that Darktide's Profane weapons have the greatest potential to become powerful weapons when combined with basic modifiers or upgraded through crafting.

Weapons available in the hourly catalog, on the other hand, are of improved quality. In addition, the "Emperor's Gift," in which a weapon is randomly awarded as a reward for winning a mission, will occur each time a mission is completed, and the quality of the reward will increase with the difficulty of the mission and the side objective achieved.

The quality of weapons offered as rewards for weekly contracts will also improve, while completion requirements will decrease." The amount of work each contract requires of players will be reduced and the rewards (ingots) received by players who complete the task will be increased. Grimoire and Scripture collection will be combined into one contract for completing these collectible side missions. Several new contracts for collecting Plasteel and Diamantine will also be added.

For equipment upgrades, at this time, visiting a tech priest will present options to trade perks for items or add new perks and blessings, but the submenu for combining blessings is grayed out and both acquiring and re-blessing blessings are "Open Soon."

Ultimately, Fatshark has decided to discontinue Combine Blessings altogether. Instead, "instead, acquiring a blessing permanently unlocks the ability to re-bless with that blessing at any time. This will also greatly reduce not only the ability to re-bless, but also the number of items needed to re-bless." Further information about the changes coming to this part of the game is yet to come." While we are excited that we have chosen to go in the direction of Blessings," the developer blog explains, "we are not sure how long it will take for the game to be updated. 0]

It's good to see that progress on "Darktide" continues, but this focus on craft and gear quality seems off the mark when the moments are already many times more enjoyable despite the unfinished parts. the real problem with Darktide is that the great prologue The plot is abandoned afterwards. There are no story missions to break up the flow, and the cutscenes become repetitive and feel like B-team work; each act in Vermintide 2 climaxed with a challenging boss fight, but the equivalent in Darktide is just an assassination mission against a random target. mission is just that: a mission against a random target. There are no mountains or valleys in its structure, only flat plains.

Ignoring that problem to focus on crafting seems misguided. Every game designer should read the Resetera thread (open in new tab) and note how many times crafting comes up in regards to game mechanics that people ignored. Spoiler alert: a lot. Outside of survival games and farm life sims, crafting systems are usually boxed features that add nothing.

Fatshark's games have grown and moved forward in important ways from their primary inspiration, the Left 4 Dead series; in Left 4 Dead 2, you don't have to grind for a better cricket bat; in Left 4 Dead 3, you don't have to grind for a better cricket bat; in Left 4 Dead 4, you don't have to grind for a better cricket bat.