Dark and Darker Critical Missing Features

[@tylertristanp]

Hey, @3:42 what quest requires three cursed crowns? I am familiar with the treasurer qiest that asks for one, but not aware of any other quests that use the item. Was it recently added in a hotfix? I have been away so can't log in at this time and the wiki doesn't list any new quests.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

You are 100% right, and I am incorrect in my messaging around this quest in the video. It is the treasurer quest I'm referring to. I'm sorry. It's supposed to be 1 crown per character x 3 characters, not three crowns x3 characters. I'm going to pin this comment as a stop gap till I can correct my mistake in the video. I still think the drop rate is too low :)

[@bradyanooshian7708]

​@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I don't know what the odds are but my group has found 4-5 crowns from 30 ghost king kills and the wendigo x10 is significantly better than the 15x of each berserker as you can kill 3-4 wendigos per match so it only takes a few matches assuming you are familiar with the ice abyss mobs

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

You sir, are insanely lucky and I speak for most of us in saying we are incredibly jealous of your crowns.

[@doxzly]

@@bradyanooshian7708 daaaamn i'm not sure how many i killed so far, probably around 20 but only 1 crown that a random yoinked so basically 0 ^^

[@drago2412]

I appreciate that you arent like other DaD youtubers who just create the same "OMG THIS BUILD IS INSANE" videos. I also like that you mainly focus on the bad of the game, it shows that you truly care about the game and you want to see it become better.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks, I'm glad you are enjoying my content. I'm attempting to be balanced, but critical, out of a desire to improve the game, as you point out. Thanks for watching ! I'll keep making them if yall keep watching em.

[@CripplingMemeAddict]

I literally subbed just because of this fact. The game needs better maps, ai and UI/UX not constant balance patches. Especially maps because DaD is supposed to be low fantasy to be immersive but the maps are just 5x5 small pvp arenas that are glued together, and tbh it looks like dogwater, even if they play well.

[@MrThewetsheep]

Rouge needs way more build variety, add perks around not only being an assassin but maybe like a musketeer subclass and Pirate. Flintlocks could work a lot like the windlass requiring a one slot ball and 2x1 slot powder to reload

[@_NMO_]

Dimo

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@_NMO_ Hard to single anyone out, it's everywhere. I feel like I should make a video called, " Nothing is OP, this is the most balanced time in this game's history'. It would get 5 views.

[@imisleek]

I wasnt going to click on this video with you being a small/unknown to me content creator+ my aversion to watching rant style videos but this video was fantastic. You make some solid points and i struggled to disagree with any of them. Great video, thanks for making it!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it ! I'd like to think I make reasoned yet critical content. The KZbin algorithm really hates that in my experience.

[@christianlandgrave5796]

For crypts bosses, just put three pedestals in the room where you can select which boss you want to fight. They can make it cost something if they want.. like grave essence

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@christianlandgrave5796 Or make the mcguffin craftable with grave essences. I dont know about you, but Im drowning in the stuff.

[@joelmaster329]

You should collect players souls in order to sacrifice to the alter to summon an undead boss... Just saying the purge would be epic.

[@icejoe6534]

Wow… AMAZING VIDEO!! Let’s hope iron mace (mainly SDF) can get out of his own way to let this game become the hit it should be

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

THANKS ! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm on a mission to help that dream become a reality.

[@icejoe6534]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le i would love more videos like this! maybe go more in depth on how u would do the ground up rework of wizard rogue and barb? Then after all the stuff in the video what would you do next as IM?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'll do my best !

[@RonaldMcDonald-o5z]

For the algo!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the Algorithmic lov'n !

[@TheCgio5]

Imo the biggest obstacles preventing new players from becoming hardcore players- 1. Too many possible gear rolls and too many redundant gear rolls. Not every player is going to watch videos or read the Reddit to figure out how to min max the stats on their kit. For players like this the redundant stats are too confusing. Why do we have 4 different possible rolls for + damage? Additional physical damage, true physical damage, phys power, physical damage bonus. Get rid of all but one of these and streamline it. 2. Lack of a firing range/test dummy. Goes with point 1, give players a way to test their damage, movespeed, attack speed without needing to load into a raid. 3. There is a massive gap between

[@shanebitner8991]

Good outline! I'm new with the steam release, maybe 100 or so hours in dungeon. I'd like to point out the connection to 3. And 5. I don't really run geared often, I mostly play sub 25s or 124s just because I haven't accumulated wealth until recently crafting, and it makes it so I'm not going in with a 2k kit against 15k kits. I am constantly using white gear, either because 24 lobby or filling out pieces I don't have gear score to upgrade in 124 so having it apply to all my characters is a big quality of life boost to try other classes in 24's and 124s I'm getting into geared duos with a friend now, but I wouldn't consider playing with real gear as the natural end game for everyone. I'm not very good at pvp so putting up 5-10% of my wealth in a kit is too pricey and risky when I'm not even to the boss quests

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Lots to unpack here. I'm going to follow your ordering. 1. I think you have a point about gearing complexity, but your macro point about how this game REQUIRES extra-game content to play; is a better stand alone argument than a gear specific argument. Could gear be better streamlined, certainly. But I feel like gear complexity is only one of many categories of poorly explained systems which require guides. We have players who can't find the squire. 2. This seems like an easy fix, and I think they are working on it. If we just had a place we could go, in our gear, to test run our builds and gear sets without risking them, we could explore and theory craft ourselves without needing guides or engendering risk. 3. Absolutely true. My perspective is that these low gear score lobbies are essentially the best and purest version of the game. It's a minority opinion, but we are only in this spot because IM had to cluedge together a fix to the FTP offering not being able to run gear. The original design intent was no gear in Normals, and that works outside of the FTP considerations. Accept as a given, If you give well geared players an option to prey upon un/under-geared players they will, and this downward pressure will push the casual player base into safer waters. Even if we were to increase the granularity of the brackets, we'd still have players who would minmax and game the bracket-budgets for fun and profit. 4. There exists no compelling reason to play HR. Full stop. You tax something you, you get less of it. Econ-101. It's a worse PVP experience , as the tougher PVE and monsters retards map momentum, so Normals provide more action and more fights / hour of gameplay. The only two reason to go into HR is to grind AP for titles, which I'm convinced is poison and a silly value-proposition, or to farm better gear to run in normals. Just watch what happens when the season winds down, HR will be a ghost town. 5. I heard that they are moving in this direction, but I can't site sources at this moment. I have a very different point of view, for me, unlocking white gear from all my vendors is THE most important thing I do all season. But my preference is to play the lower end of the GS curve, It just feels like a purer version of the game. I'm very excited to see the player demographic data which Terrance has promised to publish at the end of this season ( he committed to this in the last one-peg interview he did ), I think it will greatly inform us about what's really going on in the game, but my anecdotal guess is that

[@ingo505]

I don't agree to many of your points: 1. I like the varied and detailed stat system. I don't see a reason to streamline an interesting and detailed stats only so some new players won't be confused. I was a new player, I liked the detailed stat system from the get to. 5. I like that squire and quests are character based, it's a carrot on a stick that makes you feel you have constant progression. Not every game needs to be streamlined to maximum to appeal to massive audience. I like how DnD feels niche and immersive, compared to more sleek and polished games. DnD devs imo should focus on the game they want to make and ignore players, since players will have varied opinions anyways

[@MrDraehl]

My change wishlist: 1) Perk overhaul for the older classes. Rework or buff the perks/skills that don't see much use. Maybe add one brand new perk and skill per class while they're at it? It would just make for more build variety. 2) Somewhat diminish the kite/door slam meta. A combination of increased door close time, faster melee move speed with compensation buffs for ranged/casters with more health, utility, buffing their melee capability, etc. If non-melee builds have some better agency in melee it makes it reasonable to nerf kiting meta.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

1) Agreed. I didn't say it in this video, but I was constraining my problem solving to things that could reasonably be achieved for next wipe. That being said, this is really needed on some classes and build diversity is really important. 2) I agree, and it's giant can of worms. Some folks call the game, Door and Doorer. I know it's a meme, but needs to be examined at the same time they look at movement speed. At high level play, it's a bit unfun, both to play and to watch.

[@awgmax]

Also "kill x class" when x class might be one of the less played ones. You can't control what other players play. If a class is less played for a variety of reasons you might get stuck on it for no reason and it encourages friends queue-sniping eachother just to trade kill for that quest.

[@shanebitner8991]

Yeah, I wanted white armor from the armor smith and he needed me to kill a rogue. The day after they turbo nerfed rogue so no one played it, and if I see one on my fighter I'll never be able to touch them they're so fast. Only got it knocked out by a stroke of luck as a rogue tailed me in solo crypts and ran into a dead end

[@Iforgor777]

I’m pretty sure they tried to make each class kill their “counters” because my barb quest was to kill wiz and lock. I like the idea behind the quest but you’re right it should just be killed 2-3 magic users or 2-3 ppl with their melee out

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I've been frustrated by these before. Whichever class is least played becomes very valuable. You'll see one in the lobby, everyone else is standing around drooling while staring at them... a precious little snack. I don't really feel like these are, ultimately, as frustrating as some of the other RNG blockers. At least not to me. These tend to sort themselves out through happenstance. What's more frustrating to me about these quests, is YOUR character having to get the killing blow to get kill credit in teams. This might be a support cleric gripe, but when you only see 1 Class X per night of play, and it's squishy and your front liner kills them..... These quests should share kill credit like PVE does, IMHO.

[@shanebitner8991]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le 100% on it being shared. I would like to note the kill quests aren't a roadblock for you, outside of credit being shared. I'm getting my SO into the game, and she doesn't have a ton of gaming experience. It's probably going to take like 40-50 hours+ to get to a skill level where she doesn't crumple immediately upon pvp, it's a giant quest roadblock. More of a skill roadblock against new players/unskilled players than a time check. Hell, I'm not new to gaming and have like 100 hours, I'm not winning most of my PVP encounters. It's a random time based roadblock to me, when I just want affinity on the merchant

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Is your SO enjoying Dark and Darker as a new player ? Do they have a background in gaming ? Genuinely curious.

[@killerbas40]

Having to kill lich ( even once) as a solo to unlock the mummy skin quest almost broke me. I haven't even had it happen that a skeleton stole the kills, it just took 8 hours for him to even spawn once, after which i sadly died because it was my first ever attempt

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

For a lot of players, it can take dozens of attempts across many many hours of play, to learn a boss fight. I think that's enough challenge right there. We don't need to pile on the extra hours of waiting in lobby for Crypts to come around on top of the extra hours of not getting lich on top of the extra hours caused by dying before reaching lich on top of the extra hours of dying to lich : while we are learning the fight.

[@Web.40]

I recently started playing this game a little over a week ago and I just yesterday learned about the squire. It’s been a total game changer, I didn’t wear shoes at all until then as well as spending gold on every single healing item I needed to use as well as weapons from the weapon smith / shop every single game. Just because of this i didn’t have any gold to start off for the first week of playing already trying to figure out how things work. Was pretty lame

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm soo sorry to hear this. I literally walk up to any shoeless folks in low GS lobbies and try to talk with them over VOIP and let them know about the squire system. I feel like a crazy street preacher shouting, " Have you heard the good word about shoes ! Repent and find your squire !"

[@Web.40]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le doing the lords work 🖤

[@Frogger601]

Strong recommendation as well is sharing Kill Credits. So if 3 of us are partied up and working on killing Ghost King, all 3 of us should get the credit for the kill, not just the final blow. Otherwise we need to get lucky on getting that boss multiple times, for multiple people, if the wrong person gets the hit, then it's just a waste. Same goes for player kills. If I've hit an enemy Bard multiple times, but my friendly Ranger hits them with an arrow for the kill, we should be get credit.

[@korbynishydrated3363]

Pve kills are shared for quests that’s how I hit my troll kill idk about pvp kills tho

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

If you are grouped, like in a three man team, and one player kills the ghost king, all three players on that team should get quest credit. That was not case a long time ago, but it's been changed since the days of 'kill 15 liches' quest. If you are solo, and meet two other random adventurers in the dungeon and make peace with one another for the purposes of fighting the lich, only the person who gets the killing blow will get quest credit.

[@Turpinator-Forest_Wars]

Brother, thumbs up you said it all! Ive spent 3 days to get lich, 6 times we got attacked while almost killing the boss , other times it was a different boss that none of us needed , i got burned out of the game because of that. It literally felt like a second job... hated it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks ! I don't feel like this is a big ask for the dev team. It's simply removing a frustration that is almost universal. When three man teams, with a combined 6 k hours of played time in the game, share a basic complaint with a new solo player, seems like a pretty obvious area for improvement. It can feel like a job. Frustrating, long hours, can never find my boss.... :)

[@overtasked618]

As for selling items to one merchant. I believe that we either go with the ability to sell all items to one merchant OR sell items to different merchants for different values. For example, Leather equipment to the Leather smith for slightly more gold than the Armour smith. Or make it better to sell weapons to the Weaponsmith. This approach is much more engaging to me and lets me fulfill the fantasy of being a dungeon dweller coming back to the tavern. The main reason I say this is because its how I approached the game when I started playing. I was disappointed to see that there weren't benefits to selling to the right people.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think a lot of players have this preconception. I'm not sure if I want to trade more fiddling with merchants for slightly more gold. I know I don't want to be forced into trading will all merchants for their specific loot type.

[@carbharharbcar5867]

tarkov has this and its AIDS. it's just busy work. if it was a big open world and you had to physically travel to merchants across different regions it would be a different story, but the only difference between getting 5k roubles from selling this grenade or 4k roubles is clicking on The Correct Head. it hurts noobs and it wastes everyones time. all merchants should be able to accept every item for the correct cost, and you should gain rep for selling/buying from your favorite. means that even if you're stuck on a quest, raw playtime can push you forward. IF gaining rep with the alchemist means that you can sell potions to him for more money, then that bonus should be applied to every trader. (the same way gaining white spellbook with the squire should apply to all characters) or dont get rep from selling to specific traders, it doesn't matter. the system is vestigial as is and wastes time. the minimum action that must be taken before anything else can happen is allowing every trader to buy every item. i think a neat feature (could be added to the squire??) would be a button you can press to autofill items in your player inventory into quests. sometimes its hard to remember that you need Gold Hammered Banglet for a quest, and by the time you realize, you've already sold it to the collector (for the 4th time in a row)

[@overtasked618]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Maybe with this addition it also gives us the ability to sell all of our items to one guy even if we lose 20-30% of the gold we would have made. Then it goes from being a cool future when we start out to make the slightly extra cash to being nice just getting rid of all of your trinkets and other items you want to get rid of for a slight penalty.

[@Nicholas-qy5bu]

You want to reduce time between dungeon crawling session, thats where the fun is, not in inventory management and selling at the right place for 10% more... You play DaD for the dungeon extraction gameplay not for trader simulator.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

1000 %. Well said.

[@tabaranuclaudiu3627]

I strongly agree with an "aggressiveness" measurement. As a new player with around 400h where i tested all classes to around level 40, learned how to fight mobs in all maps and inferno/abyss, plus PVP, it's super annoying to truly test or learn how to play a class without gear. A wizard or rogue with out gear is slow and unfun to play, but if you put gear on it, players with thousands of hours will just stomp you in higher lobbies. As per High Roller, I managed to get to Voyager on my fighter, but the learning curve it's even steeper by the addition of nightmare mobs with different mechanics which you rarely/never saw. Learning how to fight a boss it's once again annoying AF, due to the fact you are spawning very far away, the boss it's already dead by the time you arrive or veterans come there to farm it, killing you in the process. Just as an example, when I learned to fight Cyclops, it took me around more than 50 runs, all in squire gear, spamming solo/duos or even trios, just to get a chance to fight it for a few seconds before getting killed by the boss, or by other players. I also propose a training ground where you can spawn whatever mob you like and learn it's mechanics in a safe environment.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I love your idea for a training ground. Warhammer 40K Darktide had a really similar testing ground concept, it didn't include bosses, but it was magical for testing builds and weapons. It's a big development commitment and not quickly delivered. Some new players on my discord, who have voiced your same concerns, have told me they are having better luck learning bosses in the 25-124 GS bracket. They are just taking in a green weapon. What I'm hearing from them is that there is less aggression and more cooperation, more folks working on bosses and taking turns on learning runs. You might try that, or drop by if you are looking for others to play with : discord.gg/z2z6UERB

[@tabaranuclaudiu3627]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le i got this idea from Warhammer Vermintide 2 , where you could login to the modded server where everything was permitted and just use the mod on an empty map. I understand that IM is a small team, but opening your game to modders community would help a lot. Vermintide 2 implemented over the years a lot of the mods into base game, as they were quality of life improvements. And Cheats are already here, so we dont have to fear this🤣

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Agreed. I'm a huge fan of Vermintide and WHFB in general. It's a question of weather their code base could really be adapted for mudding. IronMace has been very hesitant to share information in general, I can't really see them opening their kamado to that extent. Also, this is a competitive live service, which is very different in nature to Verm's cooperative orientation.

[@yungbobross6418]

I think one of the biggest issues with dark and darker, or modern games in general, is they expect you to be browsing Reddit, discord, and KZbin to have the most basic understanding of the game. I shouldn’t have to find a Reddit or discord thread to find out what the gear tiers are, I shouldn’t have to browse KZbin to understand what a skill actually does, etc. IM just expects that if you’re playing their game you must be also keeping up with every new piece of info that comes out of alternative sources which is absurd. The amount of players going into higher gear score lobbies with basically the two or three greens and blue weapon they found the raid before will eventually leave if they keep getting farmed due to their ignorance of the gear score mechanic. The squire warning is basically useless now, has been for weeks now.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

This comment hits hard. Your indictment of games requiring extra-game resources to have a fair chance to engage with the core gameplay loop is visceral and apt. To your specific point, 100%. I've coached dozens of new players this wipe, and none, zero, of them were even aware that their gear was effecting what kinds of lobbies they were being placed into. Which is why we need additional controls / tools. Iron Mace must add the ability for players to select a GS in their squire and have him return to BLOCKing them from entering higher GS lobbies accidently. Putting that squire pop-up / interstitial back to it's intended purpose is a HIGH severity issue / task we need ASAP.

[@Drathrin]

Personally thought that was part of the hardcore experience. Either figure it out for yourself or look it up like we did back in the early 2000s. I didnt mind myself but a tutorial mode for new players would be nice

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Drathrin Yeah, I think this is a reasonable point that reasonable people can disagree on. I think I fall on the side of ' if it helps capture or retain new players, or converts new players into long term players it's worth the resource investment '. I can't find an argument for the sudo elitism of the hardcore experience which isn't anit-revenue. Regardless of how much training you give new players, in the form of tutorials or in-game assistance, leveraging and expressing a large knowledge delta in pvp will always be a sizeable advantage. It's not diminished by helping new players come up to speed faster. At least not in this turtles opinion.

[@Drathrin]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le no gatekeeping here, i just thought a lot OP mentioned was intentional by the Devs as Grayson once said "too much QoL can take away from the experience " or something along those lines.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I see his point, you could definitely sand down rough edges to the point that you lose the thing that makes the game special, but that argument sounds like pretext to excuse rough edges; an attempt to rationalize away poor design choices.

[@doxzly]

The mummy skin quest chain on tavern master frustrated me so much. Since I was the furthest on druid I tried to do it on him but it took me killing 26 centaurs to get a single hoof over 3 days just for one of the quests not to mention that one quest is entering lich room and the next killing it, it took me 2 days to get lich again once more and both my randoms died because they lied instead of saying they don't know mechanics of it flaming me and reporting me when i refused to rev and solo'd lich what took me until the last seconds. The whole I have to do it on druid now or do all the quests again and then maybe be even unluckier. It's just poor design and useless grind that is ultimately going to burn out every player that just wants to get some free cosmetics without grinding for hours every day.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Wow, Thats really bad luck. Sorry to hear it. It's a theme though, reduce the RNG grind please and thankyou.

[@jeffersonderrickson5371]

Now imagine starting the game a month ago and learning PC gaming at the same time 😅.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Hard Mode, unlocked.

[@owingseven]

Wizard mentioned, providing engagement. In all seriousness, great video. I'm looking forward to seeing you grow as a creator.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks ! I've lost a few pounds this month due to illness, but I'm hungry and ready to pack on some weight !

[@toxicmagnaguard]

Took me 2 weeks to kill lich playing 4 hours everyday.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

56 hours seems like too much of a time investment to me. I think reasonable people can disagree about reasonable thresholds here... but : how much of that 56 hour time commitment was you : 1. Learning the lich fight ? 2. Waiting for Crypts to come around in rotation ? 3. Clearing crypts only to find a boss you didn't want to work on ? The rub is in the unproductive time inherent in your answers. I feel like it's a needlessly frustrating proposition.

[@TheJamesboink]

5:15 Haven't heard wiser words about gamedev in general. This is what, as a game dev, I ALWAYS wanna point out - first make proper, working and optimized systems, then you can add tons of content much easier.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the compliment ! I don't have a lot of game design experience, but I have a significant background in software. It's great to hear these ideas validated from a Game Dev perspective.

[@lucasdelmicon1685]

Great video, dude. Also, I think a filter for the stash similar to last epoch's would be really nice. Being able to highlight the gear with the stats you need would be pretty good.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thansk ! and Agreed. They could do a lot here. I didn't mention it in the video, but I was largely focus on in-game improvements which I feel could be implemented, wholly or incrementally over the next 5 weeks. I get the sense that their inventory code is pure spaghettis, it takes forever to make even minor changes to this aspect of the game.

[@rubsome]

I feel like it would be so simple to add tarkov-style quests from simple ones like get x player/subboss kills with long sword, or more lore-based POI ones like “interact with the dead knight’s body in goblin town”or something. Would be cool if some quests drew people to certain POIs more often.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I agree. They have barely scratched the surface creatively. I'm strongly in favor of the idea of bringing quest items into raid, and using them to accomplish the goal. This leans into the risk vs reward inherent in the game while adding to emersion and tension. Imagine having to bring a vial of holy water to a cursed fountain to cleanse it. etc,

[@rubsome]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le that would be great for adding tension, and much less stressful and time consuming than bringing a key into raid

[@omnisquirrel]

I appreciate that we can be critical of a game we genuinely love. It feels like Ironmace really struck gold here. They made an awesome game, it just needs refinement. I do find it a little frustrating that their mission statement was basically "we're not like other game companies!" But they use the same predatory pricing and grind tactics. And I get that server costs are an issue, but I also feel this game would be perfect for more cosmetic items for people to buy (after game polishing, of course). I would just love for this game to succeed more than it has, and keep succeeding.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I couldn't agree more. I've been mocked for saying this before, but I can see a world where Dark and Darker is able to hit and sustain fortnight levels of success. This is a game / genre I've been waiting for my whole gaming life. It's truly lightning in a bottle. I wish they were more focused on adding more fun and removing un-fun in equal measures. Increasing the size of the player on-ramps, not locking them down to feel more edgy or elite. Just look at the dad subreddit. It's a nasty place of gatekeeping nonsense over there. In the end, games get the communities they deserve.

[@michaelarcanists]

I'm really unsure where you're going with this point. Predatory pricing? Where lmao. The game is very cheap. There is very minimal grind unless you want to - even the harder grinds like demigod are very quick to do and grinding - believe it or not is sometjing many players enkoy and strive for.

[@carbharharbcar5867]

that ghost king teamwipe at the end was a very fun way to end the video. as a new player, the way you and your team have been moving has been really interesting, it all looks very composed and intentional, you all knew what was going to happen before you even agroed the boss. until you sprint at it and it teleports behind you, until it oneshots your entire party and you're forced to flee. there's an aesthetic to it, and it meshes with your design ideas in an interesting way. i like this game alot.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I absolutely love this game. Thanks for pointing out our groups cohesion, it can take a while to cultivate that level of team work. Honestly, I think ghost king might be easier solo than in threes. The teleport mechanic is based on spacing and sometime he just loses his mind and starts teleporting like crazy, which really ups the difficulty of the fight, due to all the blue circles he creates on the ground.

[@gladlawson61]

Fire quest was lit. Loved it ... Especially the people reacting to my backpack packed with fire kits

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

'Fire quest was lit.' - Well played sir.

[@Redb]

strongly agree with this, i hope they see it and add these suggestions.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Me too ! Thanks for Watching !

[@SheepWizardMoneyGang]

I love how you broke the issues down and made it digestible for someone like me who knows next to nothing but loves these ideas :D

[@H_Nate]

The biggest QoL feature I am hoping to see is account wide affinity for the squire. It would make the early game on classes I don’t play as much way more convenient. I also think this would be easier to implement and more balanced than account wide questing.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It sure would. It looks like they are working on this now, so fingers crossed, we'll see it in the next wipe, come September.

[@ScytheOni]

Really great video, this is the first wipe i've played and i've really enjoyed the game. Something that I think needs to be added very soon is a quiver for the ranger because the amount of inventory space taken by arrows alone is just silly to me, and if they're worried about the amount of arrows being brought in then they can just make it an item slot where you can find a higher tier quiver or buy one from the market to change the amount of arrows you can bring in.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for Watching and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Good point. We've been talking about the quiver system and , more recently, the new and improved inventory system for the better part of this year. I fear the work to unwind the old system and refactor it has been a MUCH bigger effort than the team anticipated. Hopefully soon.

[@jradplays3904]

A training ground would be nice to see as well, being able to go in stress free with your chosen build with your party to practice

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think you hit on something really important, that I've echoed myself many times. If you accept as a given that it takes X number of hours for players to really feel comfortable enough with the game to start exploring aggressive pvp; you need to realize that X has a large variance. For some players it's 10 hours, for other's its 200 hours. Some players get frustrated and give up before they hit X. We need to find a way to insulate those folks from Gen. Pop and give them all the time they need to feel comfortable.

[@Isaax]

Ironmace vastly overestimates not only how skilled the average player is, but also how much time they're willing to put into quests. I think of myself as moderately skilled and even I have never touched Inferno bosses. I can do Cyclops in normal and HR, I can't do Troll unless I play Warlock. I thought that the "kill lich/ghost king 3 times" quests were the final ones, if I had done them and found out they want 3 crowns or whatever I would've immediately stopped questing altogether. What are they thinking?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Just to clarify, I made a transposition error in my script for this video. The quest I reference at 03:40 is a treasurer quest to bring 1 crown per person. 3 players x 1 crown, not 3 crowns x 3 players. My mistake. I've pinned a comment above to retract my error. That being said, your point stands. The time investment and skill it takes to achieve some of these results are insanely mis-calibrated. Some weeks I can play this game like a job, and I don't find it easy to knock all of these out. Gatekeeping fun stuff and cosmetics behind skill challenges is prestige. I think this has a place. Gatekeeping fun stuff and cosmetics behind RNG and huge time investments is silly and frustrating. It makes people want to give up and play less of your game. I'm not sure how you can see it any other way.

[@Isaax]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Ahh okay, but with that said, if the drop rate is 5% like I believe you mentioned, that means killing Ghost King 20 times on average to get a crown, which is total madness for someone that just wants to get the quests done, especially considering the time investment to not only reach Inferno but also get lucky to get Ghost King, and then be able to defeat him, while potentially fending off players. I say this from the perspective of mostly playing solo, but this doesn't really change from a Trios perspective either, or perhaps changes unfavorably if all 3 want to do the quest. I believe the devs might have made the mistake of seeing the crazy 0.001% top players that solo HR or Inferno bosses with base kits on every class at world record paces and unfortunately base balance around those kinds of elite-grade players. Many such cases, alas. The thing with Dark and Darker is that it's such a fun game on its own that it really doesn't need crazy quests to keep me engaged. If all the quests were simple, if not perhaps even "boring", that basically filled up almost entirely through regular play in whatever way somebody wants to play, that would take away the pain of grind very easily with lttle effort. Because it's grind like this that burns me out and makes me dislike playing a game, and I'm not alone here

[@shanebitner8991]

Maybe they see the long time veterans as the "average player" because everyone else just quits. I'm right there with you, I'd say I'm just coming out of being a novice after 100 or so hours in dungeon and I haven't touched an inferno boss and mostly visit inferno/ice abyss in a party with friend I made online who's much more experienced. If every quest was in a similar fashion to goblin merchant, or they put the big road stop quests at the end for very strong crafting recipes I'd like them more. But my experience is just getting the affinity for white gear on certain classes is only for veterans or people willing to sink 100+ hours to learn the game

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That might be true. I'm really hoping that they publish detailed demographic data for this wipe next month. I'd love to see all the % breakdowns of who's playing what game modes and how many individuals made x progress against Y objectives.

[@GhostHacker97]

my idea for the bosses is, when you go to inferno and reach the boss room there is 3 crystals that you can destroy or 3 different statues. each one represents one of the bosses so you can fight whichever boss you need to

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Not a bad idea, there really isn't a way it could be much more frustrating ( not a challenge IM ! ).

[@LordOfTheDeceased]

GTA Online solved the aggression metric by splitting matchmaking pools based on hostility and added a new stat in game to track it. It was an incredible decision that helped prevent griefing, and I think it could do a lot of good in a game like this where lack of skill can reasonably get you locked out of progress if you don't have a fair enough experience to learn anything.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think so too, but regardless of what metric we measure and factor in the Queuing algorithm, the point I'd like to stress is that we can improve speed AND quality of lobbies at the same time now. The system we have today is rather unsophisticated, and I fear Iron Mace might be sleeping on the ability to do some real good with adding just a pinch of complexity to their queueing logic.

[@RazzleTheRed1]

Yeah, I don't see the point of keeping the cosmetic rewards locked behind a huge grind on one specific game mode. They should really make it so you can earn the rewards in any mode, and make it so you don't have to do the entire grind on a single class at the very least. Cuz maybe some people want to play other classes sometimes in a game with different classes XD (same issue with quests being class specific too)

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

aside from the folks at the tippy top of the leaderboard, The only thing the current system measures is played time. Why not just tie the rewards to things like FAME levels which is a plain 1:1 for played time.

[@RazzleTheRed1]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Yeah, that would be so much nicer

[@pauljerome01]

Honestly I would just like to know in advance what quest will have the skins. That would solve most of the stress.

[@shanebitner8991]

Re: questing New to the game with the steam release, about 100-200 hours in dungeon. For me, as someone who plays mostly 24's and 124 lobbies it's the quest ORDER that's the killer. I played fighter and then went to wizard for a hot minute, and as someone whos struggling to survive any pvp encounter and not die in inferno the initial quest of the tailor to get like 1/8th of the way to white mystic vestments is crazy! As a new player, who only knew what affinity does from the wiki btw, I have to spend 30 minutes on a SUCCESSFUL RUN to kill a handful of mobs in hell. Half the quests just assume youre in a party, or a grisseled veteran who OnLy had to spend 5 hours to do it. Someone on reddit did a nice write up of a quest order rework to be a better progression. I've had people tell me to "get gud" and "it's a hardcore game" in response to this, but they're talking about a game that where a majority of the mobs are trivialized/cheesed by two simple tactics

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great comments and all of these recommendations are good. I think part of reviewing what's fun and rewarding in a 'quest system review' is to look at these kinds of blockers and remove them. Another commenter in another post points out how the 'interact with the res alter quest' is a complete blocker for solo players. This likewise needs to be removed. This is particularly hard felt for the caster classes looking for tailor affinity, I had to do this on my wizard. I'm the grizzled veteran you are describing and it took me more than 5 hours of game time. One of the reasons is that the wizard class is kind of lousy until you unlock some better gear ( whites ).

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Also, The folks in the subreddit are just terrible. They try and gatekeep anyone from expressing an opinion unless they have 3 k hours in the game and can solo all bosses in the game on cleric AND Agree with their edgy sudo-elitism world view.

[@beh256]

Seeing the quest to farm 4 vendigo body parts with 15% drop rate and he only spowns in ice hell has to be the most disrespectful quest for players time. Off note goblin merchant has to be the best merchant he has very simple and quite fun quest line with really good rewards.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think the goblin has the best quest progression as well. It's reasonable from start to finish. They should use his quest chain as a template for all the others when they calibrate fun vs. grind.

[@straxx]

100% correct on the arena. unless it's implemented completely differently it will be dead on arrival and misses the point of the game completely which worries me about the future of this game. if they don't know why people play their game they can't improve it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yes, and I worry about this as well. They have a large, passionate, community. It's a matter of creating a system for registering feedback and separating the signal from the noise. If they want to hear about what the players think is fun, that is. I think they have competing points of view, inside the company and inside the design team, about what's fun. That internal conflict manifest as a public lack of direction sometimes.

[@collegelifecookingwithjohn8481]

For the gear score ranges for Normals not HR, I feel that there needs to be one more bracket. 0

[@collegelifecookingwithjohn8481]

Also, another reason I just realized is it encourages going in moderately geared to fight bosses. Especially when still learning a boss and anticipating dying. You can go in with that better than nothing loot, but over 125, and not worry about being rolled up on by a 300+ gs group farming the boss which has happened to myself and my friends.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

They sorta tried this before. We had a season where you could only bring Blue or lower quality gear in lobbies. By creating this extra bracket, it would likely lead to a similar situation. Blue gear would become more valuable than epics as the Timmy hunters and lobby bullies modify their shopping behavior to game the new bracket. The underlying behavior would not change. People with means will still be looking to express a gear advantage to magnify their other advantage. They'll assemble the best gear they can with their 199 point GS budgets and the gold value of those kinds of pieces will sky rocket. I'm not sure though. I've seen this play out a few times now.

[@dressyfiddle3946]

Also removing INSPECT feature is a must. In a game that is supposed to be kind of forcing "unknown" being able to see every piece of item on another player as well as all f'kin buffs is just absolutely insane.

[@omransaeed1988]

This is a sure-fire way to turn off new players from the game

[@dressyfiddle3946]

@@omransaeed1988 I disagree, as it is just an annoying feature and makes no sense to have it in game. But to each his own I guess, other than that all points you made are spot on.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

As a long time player, I agree with you that inspecting in pre-game lobbies needs to go. Its either used for stream sniping or it's a mini-game which you need to play, to gain advantage parity with other players running around and gain knowledge about specs and builds are on the map. New players are using the feature to try and understand what builds are good, which is likely what @omransaeed1988 is referencing. They don't know what gear a fighter should be running, so they are looking at other fighters in their lobbies so they can try their builds out. I think this speaks to the massive learning curve this game demands, that newer players are looking anywhere they can to better understand how to find success.

[@ShadowMear101]

SDF did say they are in the process of removing inspect and the tavern all together, when you que up for a game you'll just be in lobby then to the dungeon. Expect it earliest for next wipe

[@oblivionfan345Tony]

I'm fairly certain they've said they're eliminated pregame lobbies all together.

[@Armando04854]

I loved this video! You made some phenomenal points. One thing I’d like to add as someone who primarily plays cleric and Druid is a “heal target indicator”. The heal aiming system is extremely inconsistent. There are times where my cursor is on an ally and it misses for what seems to be little to no reason. This can at worst cause fight loses and at best be an annoyance. Just a simple “you are targeting x” would be so so helpful in letting me know whether my heal is about to land or not.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That would be nice, but I'm fairly certain the engine would not support it: as is. I think we've all struggled with exactly this issue. I have maimed cleric across several wipes and I've healed and shielded my fair share of enemies and monsters. I think the heal and buff 'skill shot' is actually consistent, assuming that neither you nor your target is lagging. Here are a few tips which I learned the hard way : 1. When you are about to land a big heal in a heavy fight, step into your target. Ideally, right on top of them. This helps you land the skill shot and prevents the common enemy tactic of positioning themselves between you, the healer, and your front liner you are trying to heal, intercepting your heal. 2. Assuming you are playing with a regular group of comrades, you need to train your mates to stop moving for .5 second when you have the heal fully wound up, particularly when the heat of combat is over. 3. Don't be afraid to Sanctuary or Drood AOE heal in a team fight. Sure, you might heal one of the enemies, but it's generally going to favor your side more. Use these spells to heal single targets if you are very worried about landing the skill shot for whatever reason.

[@notmychannelname42]

Would be neat if they made a classic mode (solo que only) where you go into the dungeon wearing the same thing as everyone else (no squire gear, no healing items) and your temp health vanishes. Voip is always on in this mode and players are allowed to team up in this mode. Classic mode would be a dungeon crawling focused mode as opposed to being pvp focused. At the same time you would want to release the arena mode. That way if you were wanting pvp you can go to arena and if you wanted adventure you could go to classic mode.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I've seen a lot of comments from folks who have dreamed about a more cooperative, less blood thirsty version of the game. I'm sure it's possible and it seems clearly revenue positive; it would really open the game to a new market of players who wouldn't immediately reject the premise of a hardcore, full loot pvp game.

[@morokei9394]

I think a bit focus of any rogue rework should be buffing up underutilized perks and skills and introducing new ones that encourage and support other playstyles for the class. Many people dislike the landmine playstyle of rogue and for good reason but it's prevalent because it's pretty much the only viable playstyle for the class. One of the great strengths of classes like Warlock and Fighter is all the different ways you can play and the range of equipment you can use. Like the rapier and shortsword are prime examples of weapons that are available on Rogue but are never used for PvP because they don't have perks to support them. Giving the class more variety in what they can do will go a long way to making it a healthier pick in the long term instead of flip flopping from useless to broken based on the current patch.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Agreed. Build diversity is very scarce on Rogue. It's rather Scarce in the game as a whole. Fighter, Warlock and Cleric feel like they have the most well rounded perk / loadouts with the great diversity. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are also some of the most well rounded and role-dominate classes in the game right now.

[@zxcasdqwe33]

They should create some sort of Training room as well. Where you can freely swap the gear from your stash and check your damage on dummies. Also a place to train against bosses. Having to wait 30 minutes+ between each boss run is ridiculous.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

In this discussion Im rather focused on things they can do quickly. I strongly agree, we need a place we can take out gear and builds to test them out, without fear of losing them. Ideally, this would include an area where we could practice against the movesets of selected monsters as well. I just feel like this idea is a larger effort than they could reasonably achieve before September.

[@johnniewilliams2319]

An item ypu can buy to influence the boss while waiting in the pre hell lobby should be added very similar to how dead by daylight has map offerings.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I certainly hope they do !

[@CodyisKing]

i did the demi god grind for pre season 1 to get the star cape, finished it, took a break for a couple weeks after my pc broke, and didnt get my cosmetics i worked my ass off for. Iron Mace Refused to unlock them for me after submitting a ticket, even though it shows that i achieved them on the leader board. Honestly they suck at balancing, development and thinking in general but having trash service to the early backers who already earned the rewards is pathetic

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That's a terrible story. To do all that grinding for no reward, I would be super pissed. Have you ever done the grind again ?

[@CodyisKing]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Nope

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@CodyisKing Yeah, I don't know anyone who's done it more than once. I sure as heck would not after your experience.

[@giantgoblinman]

i've done it three time.

[@giantgoblinman]

it's not the most fun, but i do like having a goal to achieve. The biggest bummer is that HR is kind of off limit once the grind is complete. Fighting so many nightmare mobs is terribly annoying, daunting, yet challenging for this season.

[@Alfie-ni7lx]

The quests being bad is because this is a Korean game, they have a different idea about how grindy games should be.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Maybe, but they have a global player base and I'd argue it's a Global game now. I'm asking that they adopt a more western-calibrated definition about what an acceptable grind is and stop needlessly wasting our time.

[@Zorkalot]

Great video but I will say there is a stash all button on the squire. If anything it’s easier to access then the gear menu

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Glad you like it ! The button on the squire only works for a very small number of cases, it doesn't really help low gear score player manage their gear scores. Essentially it only works for unique items or Higher.

[@Zorkalot]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le odd, I was under the impression it was greens as up and it always has been. I was unaware of any changes made. I’m curious when that was changed

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Zorkalot It was changed when they added the

[@thestrokegoat]

i think they should add a ping system to the game to help players who don't have mic communicate quickly with their team

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That would be nice. I play Mic, and It's hard for me to conceive of playing this game, in a team, without one. That's hard-mode for sure. I didn't say it in the video, but I was really focused on recommendation they could implement over the next 5 weeks. Yours is a great suggestion, but would likely take much longer.

[@EXXTSON]

Dude, i think youre the Best DnD creator; your ideas show a very well made thought-out process which is a very welcome chance of pace of the classic THIS BUILD IS BROKEN OP PLS NERF that is 99% of the video creator base. Looking forward for your next video. Grats!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

THANK YOU! I can't tell you how much this compliment means to me, nor how tempting the dark-side of click bait thumbnails is to those with small audiences. Thanks again, I'll keep making them if you keep watching them.

[@wochtulka]

Very nice vid! Got some discussion points if youre interested :) Escaping without taking damage shouldnt be removed outright IMO. 2/3 of my crypts runs I completed within a couple days of getting the quest not even thinking about it, once I even fought a rogue duo with my buddy. Once I kinda cheesed it after I realized Im halfway in and still got all my heals. Setting it to escaping once I think would be a good middle, maybe on any map. I feel placing campfires on ice caves in particular was done to increase the player base of the map, because oftentimes it was kinda empty. Escaping X times I feel is only a challenge for a super new player, but for them, I would keep like one iteration of the quest in the game for them to escape each map once or something, so they establish a baseline on how to extract, which is good for onboarding. Wendigos are crazy since being put in hell. I feel lategame quests for boss kills are good though, but not multiples with kills/quests. What would the mcguffin do, if multiple teams bring different types into hell? 50/50? That seems like a feels-bad purchase. But it helps.. Hard one. Squire features are the best part of the vid for me. Also the merchants, spawns, and AP :) I just dont play HR now and Im having fun, just got to the blue rank real quick hoping for a skin later :) Splitting matchmaking seems necessary from the arguements laid out, but seems dangerous if player retention is not propped up by the additional changes proposed for QoL. Im personally looking forward to arena, but I fear like you it might be a tarkov arena move. But I think its possible to do right, hopefully.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm always up for discussion and the grand contest of ideas ! Another commenter also suggested that the primary design perspective of the quest system is to breadcrumb new players through maps, monsters and mechanics. I don't think the current system is successful at this, but I do agree that Extracting from a raid, w/o taking damage could be a skill based achievement worth celebrating. It's certainly a goal, but it needs to be framed in a way where it is achieved organically and not through an adapted behavior like sitting around camping till your extract opens. IMO both things could be achieve by adding a secondary condition like ' Kill 1x Centipede AND extract without taking any damage.' This is a forcing function to play organically, and also demonstrate a level of mastery. I also think this should be a 'do 1x times' thing, not a '3x' thing. I would counter your campfire / ice caves point with this. If we are having to give players reasons to encourage them to play a given map; it's a distraction from a better fundamental question, " Why aren't players running ice caves as much as the other two maps ". It's band-aiding and obfuscating a complex answer which needs careful examination by the designers. My two cents is: the difficulty of the map in general, the lower pvp encounter rate as governed by the reduced clear speeds from more difficult AI, or maybe the 'chilling effect' all the mobs have is fundamentally over powered. I'm doing the same thing in HR. I'm ranking a handful of characters to Green rank for gold, pots and Bags at the start of next season. I'm opting out of any Demigod stuff till the system is redesigned. I really hope I'm wrong, and I hope they are able to pull off the arena and realize SDF's vision of it being the end-game for the hardcore pvp folks. I just don't see how they can do this. But I'm just a content creator and DaD addict. What do I know.

[@SheakiFreaky]

I agree with everything except the the about bringing an item to hell that chnages the bosses. Would make more sense that when the gates open theres like a symbol on top that indicates wat boss ull be facing if u went to hell. That seems like a much better fix and allows u to choose if u want to go to hell or not

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

This is certainly one way to solve for it. It will greatly reduce the amount of time wasted in inferno, but not really reduce the time lost on a crypts run, intended to kill x boss. At the end of the day, I'm for any incremental improvement at all, so I won't nit-pick solutions, just embrace them. Thanks for the comment !

[@dennissutton5988]

Thank you for bringing up the point about the bosses I’m still learning bossing in the game in general and am currently near the end of tavernmaster and trying to learn the boss is challenging to me but what makes it frustrating is waiting for the map in the pool then also waiting to go deeper only to not get the right boss hasn’t turned me off of the game bc I love the game but has defintly ruined some nights playing trying to complete it for sure

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

My macro point is that frustration you are feeling, and that we've all felt, is entirely unnecessary. It's a blemish on the game which should be easy to fix !

[@SHMEFFREYSHMEPSTEIN]

It would be nice if every item has a gearscore attached to it so i know how much i'll have when i equip said piece of gear.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Right ! You have to equip it, then measure the change, then adjust. That or keep a table or spreadsheet open on the side to tinker with. That's why we need better tools to manage / around the system.

[@siddh2658]

I feel like a way to change or choose which boss you get will lead to players only learning one boss and probably never learning the warlord. I do agree those quests suck but I wonder if theres a better solution

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think this punctuates and frames my point. If we accept that questing is a primary progression system, then introducing time sinks or RNG barriers which make it harder for me and my team to advance that progression AT OUR PACE, feel needlessly frustrating. Another way of looking at this would be to say, Lich only spawns on Days which start with the letter 'T'. It feels arbitrary and silly that I can't advance my progression on a Wednesday, because lich won't spawn on a Wednesday. Regarding Warlord, we skip bossing every time he's up. He's not worth fighting in my opinion, but that's a whole other can of worms.

[@terrellsdoomed]

I would like some semblance of difficulty when it comes to the cosmetic rewards, not grindy, not RNG, but semi-diffcult. Something a timmy could learn within the wipe, and have a fair chance at, you know? But not just play time, in my opinion. That becomes grindy again, just in a different way. It does need to be different though 100%, I agree. Not good how it is now with the AP system involved with the cosmetics.. I also agree with focusing on the current classes, as fun as sorcerer sounds

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think it really depends on what you are going for with the AP system. I would argue, Right now, their is zero prestige from the cosmetics because its not a measurement of skill, it's simply a matter of perseverance: can I dedicate the time to grind out the HR PVE to hit my goal. They need to go back to the drawing board about what they want their prestige tier to be. The AP system is not it. It's simply measuring play time, and perverting that even, by forcing a lot of us to play in a way which is not natural or against our preferences. I'm arguing to make it simple in the mean time, while they figure out what they really want Leader boards, AP and the high roller system to mean. Until that's designed in a way where we don't need to adapt our behavior, rewarding players for simply attaining FAME level for example, preserves the upside for the player base, while removing the frustrations of having to adapt our playstyles to some weird hyper-PVE-Teaming grind fest, which just burns us out on the game we'd likely be playing anyway.

[@glltch7662]

Something that I feel like should be mentioned, as when I tried to get my bro n friends to play they were frustrated by the limited attack patterns. All medieval/melee style games that we have played has had some variety, so itd be nice to see it here. Because i got over it and love the game, my bro n friends did not and they dropped the game after 50 minutes due to jank.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

You are the second commenter to make this comment. What is your shared background ? Mordhau ? Chiv 2 ?

[@glltch7662]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8leI personally played chiv 2 and for honor (i regret that one). My bro played banner lord 3 and some chiv 2.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Gotcha, makes since.

[@BeyondTilted]

I think an easier way to make bossing easier on inferno, is to make it a 5x5 map with all 3 bosses on it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

While it would make bossing easier, it would also have a profound impact on the game outside of bossing. I didn't outright say it in this video, but I was constraining my problem-solving to what I think the iron mace team could reasonably achieve before the next wipe. It's very unlikely that they could design for your suggestion over the next 5 weeks.

[@Nicholas-qy5bu]

got a better idea overall for quest : - remove quest requirements, all quests are available from start This solves 2 major problems : - first you dont sell future quest item required for quest you didnt know about because you start the game, and you dont have to hoard everything on multiple characters, which fix the inventory management overhead ( this is pissing a lot of new player off ) - no more having to focus or getting progression blocked by silly quest, since you have all quest available theses quests will get completed overtime. This will reduce bad quest design impact on the game. So you dont have to redesign all the quests. Also auto accept available quests ( specially with new character lol ) i mean simply remove the accepting quest mechanic, and show last completed quest at the top for easy validation. Arena will suck, it will just be a training ground for PvP basicly. I would rather prefer they improve the UX and design for all the mechanics presents between game session, to reduce the time you spend there and more time crawling the dungeon. The AH is missing so many QOL, same for vendor, the inventory gestion etc... so time consuming, this does not add anything to the game and actually hinder the game more than anything. One *fun* badly design mechanic also, is when you leave your party you are not automaticly queued for single player so if you dont notice ( which happens to me all the time ) you enter a 3v3 game in solo. Nice way to loose your gear... You should just be automaticly queued depending on your party size and whenever the size change. Add a checkbox somewhere to not automaticly adjust lobby size depending on your party size for the hardcore gamers outthere, problem solved. And there are so many problems like this in this game, which makes it so unpolished right now.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Lots of good stuff in this comment. Firstly, your suggestions around changing quests. I think this functionally changes it from a quest system to an Achievement system. Not that this is a bad thing, you just get get rewards when you achieve certain things. If you think the marketplace is missing a lot of quality of life stuff, you never saw the old 'trade channel' nonsense we used to have. I agree, it could use some polish, but as a long time player, I've essentially given up on shopping for gear. I've just come to see it as busy work I HAVE to do outside of the game, to enjoy the game. One of the many reason I've come to enjoy HR less and less. Your last point, makes me ashamed I left it out of this video. Absolutely brilliant. *Your selected mode should auto-toggle to your current group size 100% of the time*. This is not hard to code nor implement, and it's completely silly that solos are accidently queuing into trio maps. In fact, in a saner UX you'd get a popup asking 'are you sure?' anytime you attempt to queue into duo's or trio's as a solo. Great points.

[@Nicholas-qy5bu]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Thank you for you feedback, I wish there were more discussion about all the UX issues in this game out there, they are not necessarily game breaking, but in the end due to the sheer amounts of them it adds up and create a noticeable level of frustration. So thank you again for talking about it in a video ! About quests, you are right it would not really feel like quests and more like achievements, but i think the tradeoff is worth it, redesigning all the quests to solves all the UX problems seems really time consuming and they have other problems to address on top of the one from the quest system. Maybe they could have both system, but the quests should be well designed and not create frustrations issues like it does right now. Imho quests should be more based on stories than on reward, that what makes quests great in some games. They could for exemple create community quests to release new content based on lore stories etc ... The AH feel like busy work i agree, and if you dont do it you will loose a lot of money, which take you in an emotional state i really dislike. So i end up hoarding gear on multiple character for a time when i ll gather my strength to sell them on the AH ( which never happen in the end lol ). I would prefer is there were no AH at all. I know i can choose to sell it to merchants instead but it is kind of FOMO mixed with not fun busy work. I like game where everyone stand on an equal footing ( specially PvP game ), and right now i feel like people spending time using the AH are way ahead of me.

[@edgardsimon983]

tbh the balance of this game compare to other is insanely good and they realy improved a lot, the only problem is rogue and they should just simply make it more a glass canon than before, cause the major problem about them is the unfairness inherent to their playstyle and the fact that they have average damage and defense make it that its not realy fun for rogue cause u might not kill even with all advantages on ur side and the ennemy cannot realy punish a fail in the jump cause they dont die that fast too and when they stick to u u pretty dead except if u have abussive defensive, if u make it a glasscanon it will reward a realy good surprise effect and reward a realy good defense reaction wich look far more cool, like it is for instance on a wizard bonk rogue match up where they jump on u and u are surely dead except when as a wizard u are constantly on ignite and staff out and u bonk him instantly, but that should not be exclusive to one class even one spec

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I would hope so. They have spent the better part of their design time over the last year tweaking balance, near constantly. Balance is better right now, than at any point in the products history. The problem with both Rogue and Barb is that they are essentially stat check characters with different engagements. Both are either OP or duds based on movement_speed.

[@Feybrand]

Imo a better idea would be just put a boss icon on the map roto to see what boss will b in that Q. Save so much time lol.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

So my buddies and I have waited 8 mins for Crypts to come back around. We are waiting on Lich. His icon is not on the Queue, it's warlord ( it's always warlord ), so we just chill for another 8 mins and hope it's lich next time ? I get your point, but what I'm advocating for is more agency in advancing our progression. Your solution does save me some frustration, at least I didn't spend 15 mins clearing crypts only to be disappointed, that it's Warlord. Again. But I feel like it's a half measure that does not address the agency concern and might just lead to more sitting around in tavern screen, checking every 8 minutes to see if it's my turn to try and progress yet.

[@Feybrand]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le While i agree to an extent i feel both solutions are kind of moot because what if theres another team with said item to change the boss? I feel their really isn’t a great solution unless they either choose a half measure or just separate crypts into 3 separate queues for said bosses.

[@Killer2Croc]

The quickplay idea while on paper seems good, would never work in a game like DaD, you stated : Take player that have no preference to fill up the lobby of people that do have preference. Fill up lobby regardless of map, sure ! Fill up lobby regardless of gear ? So how does it work ? If your filling up a

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the detailed comment. I think you start with the assumption of whatever GS you currently have equipped when you mash the Quickplay button. If it's 400. I don't think we need the automation you describe to bank or auto-sort gear to meet the needs of a given lobby's GS, that is a ton of work. The starting point here is assuming that some players are selecting a preference for a given map, and care more about that map preference than they do about 3 or 5 or 8 minute wait. Other players, who are hitting Quickplay in this use case, don't have a map preference and want to play NOW. These players are used to fill in around the players who have elected a given map, over a fast queue. I thought about going into more detail in the video here, but I was worried that most of the audience wouldn't appreciate the detail. When you think about it, when my two mates and I want to play crypts, but it's on ice caves, we've got an 5 + minute wait anyway, while we wait on the map carousel to rotate around anyway.

[@kalebross424]

These are all great recommendations!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thank you ! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@polvoruen]

I've been doing most of the quests this week and man... It's been a real torture... Waiting for the maps to roll back, waiting 12 minutes to get to the second layer... And then pray to get the drops from the wendigo... I had to spend a freaking several hours doing nothing but wait. This can't happen in any existing game...

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

One of the things that makes it soo torturous, is that the game is soo fun, we want to be in the game. You know making progress. Not standing by. waiting to play the game. It's like being in a really long line for a rollercoaster you can't wait to ride. Let's hope they address this real soon.

[@carlosolea4290]

IMO the only thing that needs to change for the AP system is that players should be awarded half the points they earn if they die. The reason nobody fights and people always team, and even rarely go for bosses is because the opportunity cost of these things is enormous. A death is a wasted 20-30 minutes, plus another 20-30 minutes to make back the ante. This is on top of any gold and time losses building another kit. There's no reason for this. Demigod is already not hard to get, it's just grindy. This change enables people to do the fun stuff without stabbing them in the balls for not engaging only in pve and safe looting.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think this recommendation is a giant step in the right direction. I think one of the complicating factors in it's current design is that the leaderboard system and the AP cosmetics track share the same system. One is for prestige, one is for engagement. It's currently failing both both principle. I think divorcing these systems is the logical first step to solving for both.

[@SpeedGoodComms]

Hey I love this game, but one feature that just absolutely blows my mind that it hasn’t been implemented yet is auto sort for items in ur stash. For me that’s the most annoying part of the UI

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

They have talked about a new inventory system for quite a while now, at least the last 1.5 quarters, but I have not seen any substantive updates or examples of how it will be better. I'd love some quality of life lovn' in this area for sure.

[@ShadowMear101]

Maybe instead of using treasures to determine AP rank, it could be measured by successful extraction. Just randomly throwing a number lets say 300 successful extracts to hit Demigod and Crypts would count as 1 but going into Hell would count as 2.5 to be more rewarding since it's risker with more difficult mobs. Just throwing an idea.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Not to sounds hyperbolic, but literally anything is better than what we have now. I want the devs to take this system back to bare metal and redesign it from the bottom up. They clearly have competing design principles at play. On the one hand, they want a leaderboard system for prestige. On the other, they want a progression system to reward.... something ? right now it's played time and dogged perseverance, but what should it be ? I don't know. Extractions is decent idea short term, long term, It's up to them to define. Regardless, I think whichever principle you are designing around : you can't ask the player base to adapt their playstyle to achieve it. If we have to change our behavior, playing in that adapted style just leads to frustration and burn-out.

[@tatetaylor4518]

I love the idea of aggression scores impacting lobbies. I hate feeling bad for killing pve grinders or timmies in high roller lobbies who clearly don't want to fight.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks, I'm just spit balling a bit. But with the increase in the number of players with the Steam release, I feel like the player base is large enough now to look at using some category of secondary metric to start optimizing lobbies beyond simply 'fast games'. Regardless of what metric is used, the ability to improve lobby quality seems like it's being slept on.

[@sethsends]

Absolutely fuck boss quests, I'm here for it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Well said !

[@freezymays]

They should be able to let u interact with ur utilities while resting, I dont understand the reason why they dont. They also should either have more gear score brackets or decrease the gear score for weapons, I've seen a million times ppl having a blue primary weapon with a few blue and green clothes and getting dropped into a lobby against ppl who have full epic/legendary stuff

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Not being able to interact with the inventory drives me a bit nuts too. Adding new brackets is a tough call. You only have soo much player population to spread across so many queues, which is a concern. Also, it's going to have an economic impact to the overall market. You could see some really silly stuff begin to happen, like blue weapons becoming worth more gold than epic or legendary ones. This exact thing happened a year ago when you could only bring blue or lower quality items into normal raids. Blues became super valuable and epics became almost worthless. Hell was empty and all the devils were in normals.

[@CybergoonTV]

Hey great video as always. I took a few months off the game and I'm happier for it. Its unfortunate to see after these months, nearly nothing has changed. It's very indicative of the game's future in my opinion. Dungeonborne is creeping up slowly and I really hope Ironmace gets it together, and maybe the new wipe will do the job. A lot of mine, and the entire playerbases' complaints like AP grind, bad rewards, bad balance, and horrible quest design/no account wide quests, still here after so many players wanting these things fixed or changed is just sad. I really love the game, and I wish that it could bring me back in, and like I said maybe the new wipe will but I'm doubtful at this point. Months ago in a conversation on one of your videos we both agreed that a competitor could rise up if they don't figure out the circle they keep running in and its feeling closer and closer now. Hope the best for the game, studio, players, and you, and I definitely hope there's much more substantial improvements and changes in the future.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Welcome back bud ! I think this is first wingy video I've made all push. Honestly, the games in a far better state than it was even four months ago. I'd encourage you to log back in and give it a whirl, prolly the best it's ever been. Give it a try. This is just me trying to keep them focused on the right things. IMO, skip the demigod grind :P

[@CybergoonTV]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Fair enough. I will definitely be giving it another shot on the wipe. Starting this late would likely kill anything I have left for the game lol.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@CybergoonTV Fair Fair, Just wanted to make sure you knew it's 100% better than what we had in Q2 of this year.

[@christianlandgrave5796]

Honestly Dungeonborne isn't creeping up slowly, it's blasting shit out of the water. They have balance updates 24/7 to fine tune things, already have more overall content than DaD, and are already having limited time events. The game released with a tutorial and a streamlined merchant system as well AND has a pretty interesting crafting system. I prefer DaD purely for some stylization differences but damn I really hope they take some notes from DB.

[@CybergoonTV]

@@christianlandgrave5796 yeah I don’t like the feel of Dungeonborne at all, but the amount of stuff they pump out is nuts so early. I’m not sure if they’re using a lot of store assets like DaD but if they aren’t that’s even crazier. I know a lot of people saying DaD is doing a lot better, but there’s just not really much of anything new, meanwhile DB is killing.

[@Giideonh]

i agree with the season rewards and the ap system . after having grinded s1 rewards and now thinking back and seeing this season id rather see the rewards get put into maybe the ingame shop . it doesnt feel like a achievement reward that youre proud of in other games and you for sure dont want others getting for not enduring what i had to endure . with the ingame shop consisting of a couple of type of character skins and a bunch of emotes it would probably be something good for players and ironmace . it would give people more oppertunities to support the game with buying extra cosmetics , people that missed out or simply didnt find the game during those times since entry cost have been spent for the bigger part of the playerbase that started with the early access release . i know that discussions about these "limited" items is always a bit rough in any game if league or World of warcraft gladiator mounts and cosmetics since they are supposed be meaningful rewards and challenging achievements . right now we dont have anything else to compare that you could get instead since these season rewards for the most part are the only ones of their kind .

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It comes down to what they want the AP to mean. Is it prestige or is it seasonal rewards. I don't think they know, and I can't tell you either. I paid an extra 10 bucks for the 'hold the line' edition a year ago. I would be very happy to hear that they gave all players FREE access to the 'private' test server, if for no other reason, then to encourage IM to actually use it. I also wouldn't mind if they offered up the 'exclusive' emote - hold the line - for sale for red shards in the in-game shop. What I hate the most is the phycological impact the AP / Seasonal system has on the player base. It's a bit FOMO, and it leads players who love the game down a track which cause them to love the game less. It's bad for players and ultimately bad for business.

[@Giideonh]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le the test servers feel like such a wasted space to a degree when there is not an "upcoming feature " or something else . inbetween hotfixes they could do way more to just test out different maybe drastic changes to balancing or classes in general since if theres no new class that needed to be tested from time to time they could unleash something that otherwise could very well break the game in someway for a certain amount of time . i also agree with not seeing where they going with the rewards if its prestige or seasonal , with the AP system being flawed since its release it kind of feels like that the leaderboards back then had a bit of a more meaningful showcase of peoples "skill" to it . FOMO always comes back and pushes me away . Rarely do games get a reward track right without it feeling like you gotta do x amount daily or spent x amount of time . i think for example helldivers (eventho its a pve game but i think it still gives an a new look on it especially "live service games " ) way of approaching it was incredible , making your time spent rewarding and not a chore to chase after . if you hardcored it you could get more out of your time but at the lowest level no amount of time you spent playing was a waste . The rewards being kept up forever and just expanding the store with each new addition made it a very comfortable experience that didnt try to tie you down at all .

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I agree on all points. I've been preaching about the test server since Jan of this year. Such a missed opportunity. I think helldivers did a great job. Not only did it reward you for playing with new fun stuff, it also provided premium currency to players in each new reward track.

[@kylegserafino]

Do you think they are done with 3 layer maps?? I thought they talked about making a ice village map aboue the cave.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I have not heard them talk about it in a while. The last attempt to make 3 tier work was not well received and made bossing EVEN more painful in inferno.

[@444jrios]

I am a new player. I have been playing about a week. Mostly solo and a few duo with a friend who is also new. We both had no idea that the queue would put us in different lobbies based on hear score and were super confused why people with legendary items were in a game with us in some greens. Secondly, I was also mega confused why I was dying to level 168 dudes blasting around the

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yes, I hate that it so easy for a new player to miss the squire, get some nice loot one run and be at a massive GEAR and KNOWLEDGE disadvantage in their next game. It's a really bad experience, and one of the primary reasons I made this video. Check out this video series I'm continuing to develop. I think it might help you avoid some pitfalls ahead : kzbin.info/aero/PL4C_kPHGqRGH8bU8KDwDYL47J-D4MGptu

[@jaredh923]

I hate Tarkov merchants. I was upset when i first-first saw the merchants.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

A needless frustration for sure. Shopping isn't that bad, but selling just seems silly.

[@karsb2012]

Genuinely curious what would you prefer to see?

[@tomj0771]

Nice vid what are your opinions on the state of ranger i feel like its kinda weak

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I love ranger, and I think it's in a very strong spot. At least A tier in all modes. That being said, Hitting a target with a bow, that knows you are shooting at them and is trying to dodge you, is one of the hardest things to do in this game. Also, when you hit all your shots as ranger, you feel like a god. When you miss, you question every decision that brought you here. If you are struggling a bit on Ranger, pop by discord and DM me, I'd love to chat with you in more detail about the class. I love ranger. discord.gg/z2z6UERB

[@tomj0771]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le i joined the discord thanks for the reply

[@bloodyboo3351]

Some great ideas here, keep up the good work

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the kind words, I'll keep making them if you all keep enjoying them.

[@tk20channel]

Great content. Dang, IM should be paying you! Lol

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks ! Why would they ? I'm doing the work for free !

[@tk20channel]

@WrathofKoopa-fs8le yeah, just a saying I guess meaning you're doing some good work on their behalf...hey do you have a GCX torch yet?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I do ! I was very happy to donate to St. Jude for neat skin in my favorite game.

[@cuddlybear781]

I'm new to these pvpve extraction games but after playing both Dark and Darker and Dungeonborne, it feels like Dungeonborne does a lot of things better (Not everything, but a lot of things) and Dark and Darker should consider looking at Dungeonborne for how to make the game easier to get into for new players.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The only thing I think Dungeonborne has done better is Product Management. It's clearly got someone who wakes up thinking about where the fun is, trying to locate it and then magnify it. Connecting different services, game systems and making them synergize to be more than the sum of their parts. To find new ways of using existing system to bring more fun to different areas. Dark and Darker has somewhat of callus reluctance to listen to the voices of their customers. An arrogance to dictate what we should enjoy about their game instead of understanding our collective behaviors to understand what energizes us. I sincerely hope this changes.

[@colereed2370]

I hope the market could be changed to work like dungeonborne (the one good part of that game lol) it auto filled how much a item sells for and you can change it around and it'll tell you have much your selling compared to others

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That sounds like a great feature in a purpose-built market place. I don't really have any experience with DB. We have to remember, we only arrived at the Dark and Darker market place by happenstance. Their original design had a terrible scroll text channel for buying and selling. I don't how extensible the existing marketplace truly is, given how it got cobbled into the game in Q1 this year.

[@gapirchik]

Getting warlord 5 times in a row when you need lich or ghost king is very fun

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sarcasm detected. That boss can shove it. Low value boss. IM don't add quests for Warlord, just take it out. Please and thank you.

[@_NMO_]

Man. I’m still a pretty new player but I’m telling ya. I spent probably 5 days without having a clue what the squire did and my first question when I found it was. Why the hell are they hiding it from people.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Take comfort in the fact, it's not just you. I literally accost shoeless folks in every lobby and try to VOIP them about the squire. I'm sure they think I'm crazy. At least in today's patch they have added a button to the squire pop-up which *might* route some folks there. Fingers crossed.

[@twistedbrother]

I think the described issues such as "I had to grind 3 days for this quest" or "it's not fun to buy a full inventory of camp fires" or "AP grind forces me to grind the game instead of having fun" stem not from the poor game design (although it's certainly very opinionated), but from grinder mindset. The wipe lasts over 3 months and you don't have to complete all quests in one week. I understand some people have limited time, but the rewards are just cosmetic items so they're not missing out on some game changing stuff. Also quests like "use x item y times" are supposed to motivate new players to explore the game more. Same with the "escape the dungeon without taking damage" motivate people to learn kiting patterns probably (or cheese spots for some). IMO most asks in this video are from a top 5% player time player perspective. And this perspective has little to do with attracting new players or keeping them engaged. (I'm pretty sure most of new players haven't killed any main bosses on their first wipe)

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm not tracking your argument. I'm making an argument that the quest system is too exclusive and should be made more accessible to new players and to folks with limited play time. That it should be focused on quality, or a fun factor and not a quantity ( a quantity governed by large swings in RNG at that ). If the designers of these quests think that these scales are motivating new players, I invite them to the read the comment section of this video, because their design is having the opposite effect. These quests are frustrating and discouraging new players. I have literally and personally coached more than a dozen new players to get their first boss kills. These are new players, new since the steam release. I am baffled at how you've heard my message in this video to be preaching about the concerns of the top 5% of players. It's almost the exact opposite.

[@twistedbrother]

Let me try to explain my point in other way. You're saying the proposed changes described in this video are designed to help new players (and some definitely are, like squire change for example). I'm saying that current quests are already designed to help/encourage new players to learn the game deeper and removing some of the quests you deemed not fun may hurt new players in the long run (they might not learn some aspects of the game). You're saying quests should be designed primarily around fun factor. I disagree on that: IMO the some of the current quests you criticized are designed around motivating a new player to try out new items/learn new mobs or boss/venture in hell or abyss. And IMO this focus on the influence on player's behavior (with some qol tweaks of cause, like your proposal of increased drop rates for quest items) should be prioritized. With the fun factor being a second priority. Quests that are geared towards new, inexperienced player will usually be less fun for a veteran. As for comment section, and its ability to capture shared frustration: the video has over 4k views, and only around 300 likes/comments. I don't think the comment section necessarily displays common sentiment. More so thoughts of people who feel strongly about the topic or want to share their perspective (which are, again, minority). I would say in general lesser fraction of people go out of their way to research meta game topics on KZbin, use discord to find a knight or actively engage with the community of the game (e.g. read/discuss patch notes, leave feedback on gameplay etc.) Would you agree with that?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@twistedbrother I’m beginning to suspect that we have a language barrier here; you’ve failed to address a number of counterpoints I’ve raised in my reply, but we will circle around to that In a moment. You said, “You're (koopa) saying quests should be designed primarily around fun factor. I disagree on that: IMO the some of the current quests you criticized are designed around motivating a new player to try out new items/learn new mobs or boss/venture in hell or abyss.” To paraphrase, you think the primary design principle of these quests is to introduce and breadcrumb new players through new maps, new monsters and new mechanics and that Fun is a secondary consideration. Firstly, I think the question ‘Is this thing fun ?’ is the primary design objective of any game designer. Full Stop. If you make a thing, and it’s not fun, why are you including it in your game? If we accept your assertion that that the primary design goal of the current quest system is to guide new players, then it utterly fails at this point to a far greater degree than servicing any fun factor. If we examine the quests we have today, through the lens of guiding new players lets examine this : The first quest on the Tailor ( one of the most critical merchants for half the classes in the game ) : ‘Kill 3x Skeleton Mages, Kill 2x Demon Bats, Kill 1x Demon Berserker’. Week one day one, the developers are leading the new player to inferno and asking them to fight some of the highest challenge level monsters in the game. To add insult to injury, it’s locking behind these quests, very critical gear upgrades for half the classes in the game. Lets examine the Woodsman, a far less critical Merchant to raise affinity with. Week four, quest one. ‘Use item Campfire Kit in the Ice Cavern Dungeon x 12’. One of the quests I call for removing in fact. If we accept your perspective that guiding new players is the primary design focus of the quest system, you are teaching them to use camp fires one month after they started questing ? Weeks after sending them through harrowing challenges getting dozens of kills on sub-bosses on level 2, inferno, this is the right time to teach them to install a camp fire ? Your argument is silly. Regardless of whether I’m right, and the primary design factor should be ‘ is this fun’ or you are right and the primary design principle should be ‘ Am I efficiently training a new player base on maps, monsters and mechanics ?’ The current system fails at both these things, spectacularly. So again, I’ll restate what I said in this video. The quest system needs to be refactored and aligned with it’s primary design principles while improving fun and decreasing grind. I don’t think reading the tea leaves of ‘likes, views and reach on a given platform’, is a great way to steer or prioritize road map items. I think you’re trying to diminish or marginalize the perspectives of people who disagree with you. But lets take a look at Ryan6daysAweek. A far better youtuber ( by your definition ) with significantly broader reach. By your logic, his numbers should better represent the broader energies and excitements of the player base. His latest video, discussing new announcements from Iron Mace about upcoming releases (similar, if tangential topics) has 53,000 views and 1.6 k likes for a like to view ratio of 3 %. This video has 4,400 views and 307 likes with a like to view ratio 6 %. You seem to want to dismiss or minimize this feedback and pigeonhole my perspective as that of veteran who doesn’t appreciate the perspective of new players, when all my creative efforts for the last several months have been solely focused on the new player experience. Your point about fewer people wanting to research and explore outside or extra-game resources to learn more about a game is spot on. It’s a huge problem for the new players experience in Dark and Darker and the number one reason why the new player bounce-off rate is so high. The game does such a terrible job of introducing itself to new players, many of them just walk away after the first few hours. They don’t have the energy nor inclination to go looking for the out-of-game resources needed to get their feet firmly planted. But seriously. If you are a game dev, and your primary design perspective is anything other than ‘Make it fun’, you need to find another career.

[@twistedbrother]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le agree, quests' order doesn't make sense from the "gentle introduction" perspective in some cases. That should be reworked. The point about people watched vs people commented/liked wasn't meant as "L plus ratio" personal attack or something, sorry if it came out like that. It was just meant to illustrate why I think the comment section of ANY video (no matter big or small channel) is a bad indicator of general playerbase experience in most cases. As to the "if your primary design perspective is anything other than 'Make it fun', you need to find another career". Fun is subjective. For example are boss-fights in Dark Souls/Elden Ring fun? Certainly not for everyone. But some people like to grind until they've learned all their (bosses') move-sets. So this kind of grind is also "fun" for some. How should devs measure if changes in the quest system have achieved their goal of "being fun (?for newer players I assume?)"? With the objective of teaching new players I think it's pretty straightforward, you just measure if players who've completed certain quests are performing actions, that these quests were meant to "promote", more often. Disclaimer: I'm not a game dev and I know nothing about game design theory. The little knowledge I have comes from game devs' interviews and gaming experience.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think your call out and comparison of Elden Ring is a really good one. Elden Ring is a hardcore, brutally punishing game which doesn't have a great deal of in-system hand holding. It asks the player to improve themselves as much as it asks you to improve your character but has still managed both critical acclaim and insane levels of commercial success. I think it does all these things, by making the difficulty spikes, while frustrating, fair and clearly on the shoulders of the player to up their game. By and large, there exists a clear path to for improvement. That game does breadcrums very well. As a player you are slowly introduced to new concepts, new abilities and ever growing levels of challenge. Each successive boss fight is slowly increasing the stakes. It also has a release valve baked in, either in the form of player summons or the option to 'over level' / 'out gear' a fight which is giving your trouble. You can certainly have an opinion as to whether you enjoy learning new bosses in Elden ring; do you find that fun ? This is a 'take it or leave it moment' for the consumer. Still many consumers seem to engage with this title, which likely should be niche, and limited to a rather hardcore audience. Dark and Darker could be doing some of these same things to reach a broader appeal, and focus the player on the singular truth of Dark and Darker. There are no broken builds or broken classes right now in Dark and Darker. We have players who have honed their skill and their decision making processes to the point that everything is broken in their hands. They can make classes and builds broken, in their hands. This has been a good conversation, and I think you've motivated me to make full video on this subject. With regard to 'how do we measure fun ?', that is a very complex question. I think the most simplified view of it is this : 1. Does the player count go up ? 2. What is the % bounce off rate ? How many 'new' accounts quit playing in the first X hours of play. 3. Where is the largest drop in engagement with the quest system ? What is highest quest achieved / account and where does most or mean progress end. Thanks for the detail conversation here. I'll site you as a contributor and associate producer on this video if/when I get it made.

[@Raayyzer]

Bro was spitting facts

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I try not to spit, but I do love facts. Thanks for watching !

[@Chipotlespice]

I just want a search function for tabs like POE

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It would be nice, but I fear that this would be a bigger change than they could implement in the next few weeks. I don't know much about the inventory code base, but it seems overly complex as it seems to take the team a ton of work to make small changes.

[@drago2412]

I feel the best way to create universal quests without making things too easy is to mutliply quest requirements by 2 or 3 times. I dont see it being too hard to code for the devs, it doesnt take much thought to impliment, and it serves as a good quick fix. After that, they need to make better quests in general.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The kind of changes you describe are at best, configuration changes and at worse, database updates. It's the work of minutes.

[@carbharharbcar5867]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le it really really depends on the system but yea if they built it even slightly right the first time an intern could be trained on this in an hour and could completely revamp the system over the course of a week or two

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Agreed. Lets hope all these values aren't in nested arrays in C#.

[@TheJamesboink]

My friend killed Lich 6 times. But actually once because of skelly archers XD

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

A lich kill, sniped by skelly snipers. Sad stuff, feels bad.

[@edgardsimon983]

right now in hr if u die, u loose on average 3-6k gold and 900 ap in demigod thats pretty insane and dont incentivise u to do anything but maximise ap and survive

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yep, and this has been the case in every leader board season they have run. It always degrades the core gameplay loop into a hyper paranoid cooperative PVE fest with little to gain and much to lose. It has always been a huge source of player frustration, as we are forced to alter our preferred playstyles to attain the goal. "They keep putting the gun in their mouths because they like the taste of the metal " - Robert Downy Jr.

[@christianlandgrave5796]

One of the most important issues with the game is that most weapons are garbage and have no actual mechanics. A huge number of the weapons in the game need total redesigns and additional mechanics added to them such as parrying. Parrying on the longsword itself also desperately needs to be fixed. It is currently unaffected by weapon impact which makes playing against it with slow/high impact weapons an absolute joke. Another major issue that the game has currently is healing. Barbarian is the prime example of this with very high HP and very low action speed causing it to several minutes and stacks of potions just to heal off one arrow or PvE hit. The new player experience on the barb is sitting down for 5 minutes every match just to regen some health.. it's awful.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm not sure I'd agree with the statement that weapon variety is one of the most important issues. I think we could have better selection and more distinctive options, like longsword, and the lantern shield is definitely a step in that direction. In terms of development effort and return, High effort, low reward investment. It's tough having soo many hit points as barbarian. They really need to lean into Potion Chugger, or play around Healing shrines to succeed. I'd like to see the WHITE / Common quality surgery kits start dropping as well, for the new players. You get a few as quest rewards, but I've never seen on drop in my 2k+ hours of played time.

[@christianlandgrave5796]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I think having fun and nice feeling weapons is a major factor in player retention in games. When I think of any game I’ve ever played, the feel and fun of a weapon was always as important as if it were actually good or not. There are two good melee weapons in the entire game and one (longsword) is broken on multiple levels coding wise and lantern shield is pretty unused. I don’t think surgical kits are a solution for barbarian at all. I think they need to lean into the substats that they already implemented in the game which are simply garbage IE health recovery. Right now, it only works while you’re sitting. I think it should start working if you haven’t taken damage for 10 seconds. This game loses a lot of new players to quality of life issues like healing on barbarian. I deleted my first barb and swapped to playing fighter because it was the dumbest shit I’ve ever experienced in a videogame.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Good news here. Today's patch is bringing quite a few improvements to healing items. A big QoL improvement, just like you wished for !

[@GhostHacker97]

DUDE the boss quest is so annoying, as a new player this season starting some time in july, i’ve learned the game pretty quick but fucking hell waiting around for the boss and when you get there having to die learning the boss after sitting afk for 13 minutes and getting to the arena and when we get the boss a mob kills it and voids it

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I hear you. It's awful and it needs to change. I want more time, in the game, progressing. Not more time waiting for the right map to roll around, on top of more time waiting to do down to level two, on top of more time not getting the boss I'm looking for, only to have that progress voided by a skelly archer. Get real already.

[@drago2412]

Looking at some datatmines, giant bat drops have been added. (Ear, fur, etc.) So this will not happen until the wipe after the one in September. This is 2025 stuff now lol

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think I understand what you are saying, but why do you believe that the wipe in September won't include new quests to use bat materials ?

[@Ackrill]

​ @WrathofKoopa-fs8le thank you for the video. I agree with you. 600 hours ingame, playing since steam playtests, but im a casual player. They say it may be 6th september (the wipe day), so it means we have a month of less of this current season. And the in-game timer is still NOT showing this info, and the rewards (for which we are grinding) are still not shown. Doesnt these rewards have to encourage us to grind? When they show the rewards - it will be already too late to start getting to Demi. AP system is awful. This should be a simple "battle pass" with no "rollback" option (like you said about "reaching player level" as a measurement). I feel SO stressed about investing so much time (stressfull time btw) in it, so im already burnt out (im Voyager 3, got demi only in the pre-season and voyager in the last season). And there is no guarantee you move forward - 2 games win, 2 games loose and you are farther from the Demi then before you invested 2 hours (all my available time on evening). I felt stress when did the Mummy chain (Lich was stolen 2 times by his own skeleton archer, so 2 of 3 skellys got the skin and i DID NOT), now i finished it and its a big relief. This should not feel like this. I feel like "huh, i can finally play the game the way i want to" after finishing this questline. And players dont know WHICH questlines they have to finish to get cosmetics, so i did ALL quests as fast as i could, but it was still not enough (wendigos and yeti's tooth got were not complete when the final quests were released). Last season they added cosmetic quests 2 weeks before the wipe and no one knew it "can be this way", but they let people play these quests without pre-requisites, which is great. This lack of information and blindness in investing TONS of my time is exausting me, its really like the second job with ghostly rewards. What i ask for (other than you said): - I wish they tell us the end of the season date at the beginning of the season, not 1 week before the end. - Show the rewards at the beginning of the season, so i can decide "does it worth the grind" - Show us at the beginning, which questlines will contain "cosmetic quests" so i can do them in priority and decide "do i want to do other quests for the rewards or not" - Reword AP system to be non-rollback (char level based) thing

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

WOW man. I'm soo sorry to hear this. I tell everyone who will listen not to grind the AP system, it's the best way to quit the game you love. If I can ask you to step back, for perspective, for a moment a go through this thought exercise ? Is there any level of wonderful cosmetic you could potentially earn that would make if worth feeling the way you do right now ? Any shiny cosmetic that could possibly be worth this time investment of feeling this way for so long ? For me, the answer is an easy no. Not to pile on.....but... They did exactly this same thing last season. We didn't know when the season was going to end and we didn't know what the rewards were to very close to the end of the season. I don't know if this is indifference to our time, incompetency of planning or some kind of FOMO tactic. It's not clear to me and it's hard to assign motive. Regardless, you and I are in violent agreement. This is precisely why I say that the AP system is POISON. I'm not being hyperbolic. It turns love into hate.

[@Ackrill]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Thank you for your reply. Regarding "stop the AP grind" - i want to add more to be clear: Grind is not a bad thing, especially for such multiplayer games, so my point is they need to change the things, not "remove the grind in any way". I like playing games for meta- rewards (i reffer to core- and meta- gameplay concepts, not the "best meta items" term).Its cool - playing and getting some permament rewards (which stay with you between seasons, aka skins, cosmetics). It's a retention mechanic, which works great in other games. So its one of the reasons i stay for longer in DaD - i collect memories in a form of these rewards. Some were collected with my brother, some - when i was alone. Its a good thing too. The season ends and you know that you took everything from it with you. But There are only 2 ways of getting these rewards right now: Its a grindy questlines and super-grindy AP. Both have problems and ARE the stress factors because of lack of information given to players or player agency (questlines, random bosses etc) and because of inconsistancy and grind for grind sake (AP ladder). I love how hard the game is - in DaD i level up myself, not the character and its great. I may sound contradictory, but i want something to stay with me even after the wipe, after the seasons' end. I want to get this new content, i even ready to buy it later if i decide to miss it (they say "quest items will be sellable after 2 seasons and HR-AP ladder items will NEVER be in the shop). Its a game, and the game should be rewarding, right? I played since the start and i though im worthy to get all that game offers, like, let me see: "i play 3-4 evenings a week, i dedicate myself to only one game for more than a year, i study guides, builds, hidden mechanics, read interviews, read patchnotes and i love it", but looks like im still "not worthy enough" to get ONLY rewards that game offers. There are less then 100 wizards in DUOs Demi right now, so i think im not alone? (i play duos, im a wiz). I just feel sad about it, many games treat you for your invested time, but here - looks like i miss all the rewards if im not a 100h-per-week player or a Pro PvP chad. You can say "git gud" or "fight better, ap is easy, get 1500 every run, you can do it in 15h" - it doesnt work for me, i get 800 ap at BEST (on voyager 3) and getting insta-killed by a landmine rogue can just eat all my run + half of the previous one, it demotivates. Im not sad about losing gear or ap, im sad about losing time spent on this grind. Im sorry for such a waterfall of text, but i was worried about this for a long time and you are the first one who said the same thought on this subject. Others are like "Demi is easy, git gud, dont see the problem"

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I agree very strongly with the point you raise about " In DaD, we level the player up ". It's a game which deeply rewards hard won in-game knowledge and the good decisions which arise from it. I never want that to change. I love that about the game, I love that it's hard to improve ourselves inside the context of the game. But difficulty should be measured on a scale which is completely independent of time sinks. My progress in leveling myself up should be based upon overcoming my bad habits, or gaining new insights. Rewarding good decision making is at the heart of what makes DaD great. What we have here is meaningless time investments. Making people play the game as job doesn't make your game élite nor your rewards prestigious. It cheapens the whole proposition, is growth and revenue negative and simply frustrating to the largest section of the audience. I'm at a place where I can invest unreasonable amounts of free time into this hobby, and I have zero interest in the AP grind that whole based on how empty and meaningless the system is today. Thanks for your detailed comments. You might enjoy other discussion on my discord at : discord.gg/z2z6UERB

[@float_wntr2723]

When i go ice caves i kill every frost walker on the map at this point ive killed nearly 400 frost walkers and gotten a grand total of 1 eye

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Whoa, really ? That's terrible luck right there. I had similar bad luck the first two weeks of this wipe, but it feels like they upped the drop rate in hotfixes since then. I also only say 1 drop in the first two weeks, but I've seen dozens since. Better luck to you.

[@Anathorne]

I'm not sure is one good idea to make one matchmaking with the "agressivity" level. I remember when i started i was so scared about the interaction with the other players, and with the time (and lot of death) ,now , i love have fight in the dunjeon. For learn you need leave the safe zone, but the norms games under 25 gear score is very very timmies friendly.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I agree. But I think the evolution you describe is the natural order of things, as players become more comfortable, they branch out into more and more PVP. The problem here is that some players need 10 hours to find this comfort level and other players need 100 hours. Whatever the metrics, I would like to find further ways of insulating the population who is still finding their comfort/aggression; setting aside the large number of folks who may never want the levels of aggressive pvp that you and I might enjoy.

[@ActivistTigers]

August wipe? Have they stated when the end of this season is?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The wipe is 'Likely' to be the second week of September 2024. It's fair to assume that the current season will end a week or two before wipe. This was not formally announced, so much as a developer gave a groggy and meandering 2 hour exposition dump during a popular streamer's stream and released new information. Not a great way to communicate important things to the player base if you ask me.

[@ВиталийМартыненко-е7й]

SDF, make the quests linked to your account. This will help the game🤐

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

This gets mentioned a lot. I'm excited to give it a try, but I worry that I might miss the completionism dopamine hit from running them on several characters. We'll just have to see.

[@shanebitner8991]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8lemaybe it could be a character creation choice? Like when you make a fighter, do you want it to be a shared quest character or solo quest character?

[@ВиталийМартыненко-е7й]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Well, if you evaluate quests in a vacuum as they are now, then it would be better if they were on an account and I could play on the characters I want, but if the quest system changes for the better, then this will not be necessary

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Seems like lots of players are in favor of shared questing. I'd love to see them try it, or fix what we've got. Or both.

[@theirresponsibleghost7748]

im currently stuck on the quests that REQUIRE you to play with others, like the 3 revives quest. ive been trying to get people to play with, but they dont want to. which is fine, theyre not required to. but i literally cannot progress that questline, because i dont have people to play with. and going into the official discord is rife with team killing and such from what ive heard, so i dont want to deal with that shit. how exactly am i supposed to progress that quest line, if i have no one to revive. i think the quest should be, visit or interact (jsut a quick F press and dipping) not a full use of the shrine.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yeah, that quest is sort of a F U to the solo player I guess. We have a Looking for Group channel in my Discord, which is very new player oriented due to all the new player content I've created since the steam release. I'd encourage you to stop by, don't be shy and meet some quality folks to play with. At least a few to get your past that quest :p

[@theirresponsibleghost7748]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le wheres the link to your discord? ill check it out

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@theirresponsibleghost7748 It's linked in the video description above, let me try and link it again here : discord.gg/hCN6DTjgVM

[@NitsuJisReal]

SHARED AFFINITY MY GOD i wanna playalts but i refuse to regrind quests to have decent base squire gear to even feel functional, wizzard wearing dex? the fuck

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It can't get here fast enough. I'm in the process of getting my characters to green rank, for the season rewards. Not having access to the white squire gear can be a huge pain on some of them and I can't really grind through chapter three again... for the 5th time.

[@johnniewilliams2319]

Make at least some of the quests profile quests maybe increase the reward of them as ypud pnly be able to complete them once instead of many times, but i hate having to get my squire gear all over again every time i play a differenr class, and as someone with many classes in the 60+ range it is very tiring repeating quesrs on every class just to have decenr gear especially on classes that need good gear like rogue wizard and warlock who without gear are much much qorse maybe not all quests are across every class,or maybe affinoty with merchants transfers across class at least so i can choose one class to quest on and get all the good benefits on every other class besides the actual matwrial rewards

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

From what I'm hearing, shared affinity will be coming very soon. Maybe as soon as the September wipe. I agree about the classes you list. They feel rather 'meh' without at least white quality gear.

[@victorguimaraes1969]

Population has dropped by half since steam launch and Im sure the main reason is the lack of a simple tutorial and the hidden squire mechanic

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think its certainly a large contributing factor. That population swing in player population is accepted as normal for these extraction games with wipes, and I think that's copium to a certain extent. I've been on a one man crusade since the steam release to attempt to ease new players into the game, and to retain them. That's why I spend so much energy talking about these kinds of issues and advocating for the players we are losing along the way.

[@Isaax]

I hope this game stays as far away from anything eSports or competitive related as possible

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Agreed. I thinking trying to make it into one would certainly kill a large amount of the joy found in the current product.

[@Isaax]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le SBMM & excessive focus on trying to make games competitive eSports has killed many games. Especially in the current landscape of gaming, what we want it something fun and accessible. Yes Dark and Darker is a "hardcore" game, but that doesn't mean it needs to be inaccessible to the general player, or worse yet, have it be catered to the eSports crowd who see the game as little more than an exercise to fish for dopamine. It's a whole can of worms that is tiresome to even get into

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think the game can be hardcore and still be nurturing towards new players. I want it to successful and that means pro growth and pro revenue in it's general orientation.