Normal Lobbies are BIS

Hello everyone and welcome !
In Today's vidya we answer the most common question I receive in the comments or in Discord, " Why do you play normal lobbies ?". The answer is herein.
TheLorr - / @thelorr ‪@thelorr‬
Koopa's Place - / discord
#darkanddarker #gaming

[@StepOnMeJohn]

normal lobbies function more like the gameplay loop I want to see: less gear fear You find a couple upgrades with damage on them? Nice, you're rocking a set! you found that shit, now you get to use it in combat found a weird item you wouldnt normally bring in? oh well it has nice damage rolls, might as well use it found some expendables but not confident youll even extract with them? good, fire off those explosive bottles Items ACTUALLY FEEL REWARDING TO FIND. You know in other dungeon crawlers where you find a few artifacts over your run to greatly enhance the run? That factor is missing so hard here.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

They do feel rewarding to find, but from my point of view, they are 'loaners'. Good enough to use right now, and not good enough to stash as part of a long term sets. I agree with you, it's closer to the loop we want to see.

[@Wulfrim]

On one hand, I want this game to massively improve with the coming wipe and see big success on Epic and eventually Steam. On the other, I haven't played in quite a while and I've been noticeably less angry when I'm gaming. Instead I've been working towards the Ashlands in Valheim, conquering the land in the name of the Lady in Total War: Warhammer, and finally killing Fatalis in Monster Hunter. I wouldn't be upset if there's nothing worth coming back to on wipe

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Glad to hear you are still out there and not as angry. I too need to get to Ashlands, I haven't made it through mistlands yet myself. I'm really trying to be optimistic re: the next wipe. It's hard to do given the last 6 months. The reduction in +all and +dmg is a positive step, but I think the only thing that will really energize folks to come back to the game is new content, and not some silly arena system which will likely flash in the pan like it did in Tarkov. I'm talking about new classes, new maps, and new floors. Don't lose touch, I'll keep you posted on the quality I find in the next wipe.

[@DavidDeFrain]

My issue with normals, it doesnt support the gameplay loop. Which is, get gear, get power, fight. There is no incentive to do anything other than PVP in normals because as a norms player youll never need any gear, thus removing the main staple of survival / looter shooter games. I really enjoy getting gear, building sets, and using the sets / gold I have acquired to win matches. Nobody would ever loot / kill troll if there was no need for wealth / grinding in this game.

[@TheCgio5]

Normals should have some gear allowed in that slightly increases player power. Loot in normals should be limited to exclusively gear that can be taken into norms. This gear should also not be sellable on the market.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The longer we go on like this, the more I find myself loathing the concept of trading. I wish they'd try, as an experiment, turning off trading for a few weeks at the start of wipe and measure the effect. I bet we see a marked drop in cheating and RMT activity. But I'm biased, The longer I play the more I thirst for self found only.

[@austinlevi3452]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8leyour whole comment is something I could get behind

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Test Self Found 2024 !

[@damiangorczynski846]

I follow exactly the same philosophy. Even playing the same build :D

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great minds think alike !

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

Normal lobbies are for sure the best thing that ever happened to Dark and Darker so far anyway. Really glad more and more and more people are coming to realize this. High Roller could learn a lot from the success of norms. In regards to the entertainment thing, i dont think dark and darker will ever be an esport game so the "fun to watch" aspect is MUCH less important than the "fun to PLAY" aspect. and high roller just isnt fun to play. Dark and darker wanted to be an extraction looter game but it ignores so many fundamental core aspects and "rules" if you will that most extraction games follow. One of those biggest rules being the gear differential. In games like Hunt Showdown or Tarkov, yeah you have talents or gear that creates a difference and in some cases a relatively large one. But it is not such a monumental difference like it is in Dark and Darker, furthermore, it is not RNG. You either find it/purchase it, or you dont. None of this oh well i got the weapon i wanted but it didnt roll the "300% bonus damage every second shot" modifier so its meh. These games flourish off of the consistency of gameplay in acquiring what you want with relative ease, at the potential cost of losing it, while most engagements given equal skilled players, will very rarely feel extremely one-sided if ever. Dark and darker on the other hand, as we all know. If youre actually PLAYING the game(not trading), the likelihood of acquiring what you want with the modifiers you want at the rarity you want is so abysmally low. Not to mention dark and darker is FAR more restrictive at a baseline due to all of the stats and systems that function off of those stats, you require certain breakpoints to play some builds, most notably magic classes, but this is something that is practically non-existent in other extraction games. Which is fine, but this is precisely why dark and darker needs to be MUCH more consistent with player power, and consistent ability to acquire what you want/need in the dungeon or from a merchant so that you can properly enjoy the plethora of builds the game offers. or in other words, enjoy the GAME. My proposal to fix at least part of this issue is to completely or almost completely delete RNG modifiers, they will NEVER belong in pvp extraction games like this. If they want to keep RNG modifiers then they can keep them as a single stat line but honestly they just need to go completely. The only RNG that should exist is Rarity. It is already extraordinarily rare to acquire a specific piece of gear at the rarity youre looking for. With the sheer amount of gear pieces which is also ever increasing alongside each piece being able to roll at a multitude of rarities, the actual chance is laughably low. Nonetheless, keeping build diversity alive with mixing and matching gear, but HEAVILY squish the power difference between white and legendary gear. to give a general concept, numbers are irrelevant, this is just to get the idea across. Riveted gloves could give 12 armor and 3 strength at white, 14 armor, 3 strength and 1 vitality at green, 16 armor, 4 strength, and 1 vitality at blue. So on and so forth. again, numbers being irrelevant but just to get the idea across of a system which is FAR easier to properly balance especially when it comes to class specific gear alongside helps consistency, while allowing for build diversity. would of course need to be designed correctly and tweaked over time but this *concept* is in my opinion much much better than what we currently have and would help a lot of the pain-points the game has from a gameplay standpoint

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

oh something i forgot to mention, i believe it was SDF at one point mentioned he was debating just deleting RNG affixes entirely. they really need to do this.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@thecosmicastro You've made this argument several times across the comment sections of several discussions. I'll echo here, what I think I responded to the first time. I think its an idea worth trying, particularly if you reduce the game's overall dependence on trading / marketplace. The only argument I ever hear against this ( without testing, evidence or justification ) is that this would make the game feel boring. I'm not sure I agree with that without some first hand experience. The point you raised about gear standardization being easier to balance is spot on. I think there is an order of operations which is worthy of discussion : Step one, bring down the curve of stat budgets across rarity. Step two, look at garbage affixes and either a) make them relevant for build-craft or b) remove them from roster. Step three, start an overall balance pass of weapons, abilities and perks from the bottom up. All good points. Per usual, thanks for the well thought through comments.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

@WrathofKoopa-fs8le yeah sorry for the repeat comment lol I mostly comment for the community to see just to help propagate the idea! Its a point of contention talked about in the game very often so when I see it crop up I try to put it out in the world just in case it has a chance to make some positive change. Even though the chance of that is low. I really appreciate your content and you always come at things very logically, which is fantastic. Again, sorry for the broken record commenting 😅 But hey, it helps the algorithm! At the end of the day I hope Ironmace figures out how to make the game feel great to play over the long term. And I wholeheartedly agree with the more cautious approach of taking it step by step and testing out the concept on the test server to be able to really get a proper idea of how it'd feel. Cause sometimes ideas don't always feel how you imagine in your head. Thanks again for all you do

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

no reason to apologize, I was letting you know that I've heard you say it, and establishing a baseline for folks just jumping into the conversation that you are a serious commenter with a history of well reasoned Ideas and arguments with a history of throwing in your 2 cents. That's why I recapped my end of the conversation. Putting idea's out into the world for the betterment of this game is the whole reason I'm here on YT at all, I support it, I'm here for it, keep doing what you are doing.

[@Axel-vt8no]

Those are good points, as usual. I really wouldn't mind an SSF mode test, which could be done as a 1-week mini-wipe this season. I also agree that gear is way to good. I want very low gear disparity besides the high-end named-weapons. I wouldn't mind lesser named-weapons being added to the game under the legendary tier as well. These items should all continue to be very rare and be considered "game-changers" when you do manage to find and run them.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think I'd really enjoy a test of it. I don't know how popular that approuch to the game would be with the other members of the community. If you read through these comments, lots of people have different solutions to the gear problem, but you will notice, no one likes where we at. That might be an echo chamber problem with the folks in this channel, I'm not sure. Regardless, I'm up for some experimentation around it 100 %.

[@evanloner4983]

Bro the league comment gave me flashbacks. 2 years of grinding my life for a game that I had no talent in.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

So many complaints I could levy against it, starting with my fellow players. That game would get me tied up in knots of my own creation. Like I said, I still enjoy watching it, but I'm much happier not playing it.

[@aedankor2961]

I agree with almost everything you said, normals is the old DaD feel and its awesome

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I fear the number of us who still remember the feel of old DaD get smaller every wipe.

[@sigmarito]

I've been playing league since s1, been diamond and peaked master once back in the day, I watch also a lot of the league Esport, My man i couldnt relate more with this video, every argument is spot on, "I`m in this video and I don´t like it" HAHHAAHHA The most underrated content on DaD, you sir are BASED

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Glad you enjoyed it, hope you have a great Monday ! I'm over here resisting the impulse to reinstall league :P

[@Xailion]

I've only done basekit LR since like playtest 3. I don't extract down there, I'm not going to stand a chance in hr. Don't bother with the marketplace. Just vendor w.e. I managed to find.

[@QueekHeadtaker]

You said it all my friend. Quit this game two months ago, I thought multi-class in Normals was the best the game ever has been. Wish this game was just a BR, would be back in a second.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

If history is any indicator, we will be back to multiclassing and battle royal in a patch or two. You just have to wait for the carousel to make another rotation.

[@owo3632]

multiclassing was pure garbage

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@owo3632 In retrospect it's hard to say which was worse, the design or the execution of it. Regardless, together is was terrible for the game. I did a whole essay on it "A condemnation of Multiclassing in Dark and Darker"

[@CybergoonTV]

I vividly recall twice now, SDF mentioning a reward track for normal mode as well, I believe announced before the start of this current season??? Wonder where that is. A new problem that is gonna pop up in normals is gonna be the exact build you're running, slayer fighter with the skelly skin. Its kind of crazy that the exciting high loot mode isn't exciting because of +dmg and now normals will be ruined by +dmg inherently.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Honestly, I don't want them to put any attention on Normals. I'm afraid it will be corrupted. Just like this skelly skin is attempting to do. I was just chatting in another comment about this build. I'm showcasing its broken-nes as some inside baseball / performance art. It's silly and unfair. If I could have one thing for Normals, I would add a 'sell all' button on the squire dialog when he noses in and points out that one green band aid or pot in my inventory stopping me from queuing up.

[@CybergoonTV]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le oh boy this new “free to play” and content/balance update is certainly something. Can’t wait to see your thoughts.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@CybergoonTV It's a big, bold risk. Fingers crossed it pays off !

[@notmychannelname42]

Believe it or not but the marketplace will be the undoing of this game when you consider the ability to artificially create gear disparity. However, players have not become this evil yet. It will eventually cross the high end player's minds at some point. When it does, the game will become extremely unfair.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

This vector you describe, do you imagine a conspiracy of high wealth players cornering the market on certain premium items ? NOTLIKETHIS, in his magnum opus, inferred that something like this was already happening on 3rd party discord servers for which I don't have visibility. Like I said in this discussion, I don't see much value in it. Add on top the cheating and the RMT. If you can't solve any of these problems, take down the feature until you can.

[@somebodyontheinternet1090]

Sorry noobs here... are the dev wipes for characters or just gear?? Thank you

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Hiya. When we talk about wipes, it's traditionally been this. All gear and wealth is reset to zero. All character levels are reset to zero and all vendor faction is reset to zero. you get to keep your character(s), it's just a fresh start for everyone.

[@DavidDeFrain]

I do agree about cheaters in normals

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That there are far fewer than in HR ? When the water levels came down with population drop around end-of-wipe, it was kinda scary to see how much cheating is going on in HR's right now.

[@ItsTharvas]

Just yesterday I got killed in Frost Caves with 300ish GS by a 690ish (legendary weapon) rogue without standing a chance. And sure part of it is skill issue but it still feels really bad getting outgeared to heavily. counter strike has how many ranks to divide players into according skill groups? but unfortunately DaD does not have the luxury of player numbers to back it off. so all you got is good and bad players in normals and good and bad players in HR.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I was pretty shocked to find players with 600 GS in some of the HR games I was running. Then I realized that the devs had put in a 'release valve' for when the population got low enough, they just stopped weighing by gear completely in favor of halving SOME population in your match. I don't know how I missed this news but it was a shocker. My strategy of picking up an upgrade here and there to assemble a set: It completely falls down in the face of 600 GS folks. The power differential is way beyond my skill cap.

[@beh256]

Right now if a player wants to be able to have fights and have the same chance to win he has to spend up too hours sitting in market place with a calculator maxing out the gear score to be 299 and literally playing the game is less efficient then sitting with a calculator and buying and reselling items. And thats kinda of a hot take but i preferred the old trending place it made the game feel more alive actually doing trades with other players felt new compared to other games and now dark and darker felt in to market place where its too easy to trade its just too efficient too get good gear and idk thats something that i felt in love with the game the talking in lobbies the trading but as is it for now its all gone now we just have people sitting in a marketplace for hours and making a new vedio of "this new rouge build deals up to +80 more damdge!!"

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It feel like, " It's 2024 and we can't have nice things". For all the reasons you list above, I would love to see a 2 week experiment at the start of a wipe which would have all trading disabled. The longer it goes on like this, the more I feel like any sort of trading only favors the RMT / Cheating crowd, while forcing the rest of us into spending our time NOT in the dungeons. I've recently been talking with a buddy of mine. I'm pretty sure he's done with Dark and Darker: he thinks the cheating situation right now is a clear indication that this game is on the same path as Tarkov.

[@beh256]

This feeling of thinking IM is making tarkov comes from lack of trust in thier ability to make a game. And honestly about IM i understand they are struggling and stressed out but if they dont fix this trust and don't put in the effort they will lost this golden gose because right now all it takes is someone to make dark and darker but better and we literally sow what happend to tarkov how fast they died off because of someone new taking over.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@beh256 I little bit more communication from the team would go a long way. Like let us know how many cheaters they perma-banned last month. Preach on brother.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

the problem is you shouldnt feel like you have to trade at all. trade should be the "i just want it now" option. but majority of the time you feel like its your only realistic option. They need to make it so you can actually feel confident in finding precisely what you want IN DUNGEON, yknow, playing the game. We didnt download Trading Simulator, we downloaded Dark and Darker. to touch on points i see people bring up. deleting trading or adding SSF doesnt fix this issue. The issue is that you do not feel like youre able to actually find what you want playing the game. so you feel forced to trade. removing trade doesnt fix the issue but it actually exacerbates the problem because now you have no way to mitigate the terrible design of loot

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I see your point @TheCosmicAstro- , but I think that point would be arrived at faster in the course of a two week experiment of no-trading. It would also expose other emergent, structural issues with the game that are currently overshadowed how nasty the gear stat-bloat issue is.

[@TheCgio5]

I agree with your overall premise only some issues with your more minor points. On the feeling of fairness in pvp and speed of clearing pve - I don’t think it’s fair to make this statement when you are using almost exclusively what I would consider the most over tuned build in normals - slayer fighter. Taking this straight from your last video, default kit slayer fighter with the new skin and right perks; you get +8 weapon damage and +15% or more action speed. So yes, normals probably feels good with a build that gives you that much power from the onset. While discussing stat checking in you literally stat checked the Barbarian in melee. I don’t disagree the game has a ton of issues pushing people away from HR, gear being one of the main ones. But imo if they squeeze the hell out of stats on gear without doing a total balance overhaul of spells, abilities, and weapons it’s going to feel awful and slayer fighter will become even more busted than it currently is.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thank you for assisting with my performance art. I'm running this build to showcase how stupid over-tuned it is. I want eyes on this for precisely this reason, because it's in need of tuning. I played a few games on the fighter, but I also ran lock, rouge, ranger and cleric ( oh my ) in the same session.. Normals still felt pretty good on all of them except cleric, which is no longer on the same level as the rest of the game imo. Thank you for pointing out this hypocrisy though. I think a bottoms up refactor of spells, abilities and weapons is inevitable if we'd like to erect a foundation that can actually be built upon and support the weight of the stat structure above it. Also, if we are going to have a system where melee and ranged weapons can have flat additive damage gains, then that damage has to be factored against swing speed. Otherwise, faster weapons will almost always be better. That's where we are today, with daggers and survival bows.

[@TheCgio5]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le all good man. Overall I’m a big fan of your content and I’m glad to see more discussion of how over tuned slayer fighter is, especially with weapon mastery enabling recurve bow. Imo weapon mastery either needs to be removed or adjusted to only allow melee weapons. Not enabling fighter to cover up all of its inherent weaknesses. My biggest fear with a massive squeeze in gear power is two fold. 1. Too many shitty dead rolls in the game. The sad truth is IM has yet to come up with any new enchantments that feel good to build around. If we remove damage rolls and squeeze the possible additional stats, the looting and increased player power from getting gear upgrades is going to be extremely boring. They need to look at other games to find inspiration for how to make gear enable more playstyle and build variety rather than pure damage and health stacking. 2. If we don’t get a balance overhaul with the stat squeezes then so many spells weapons, etc. will feel awful. We’ve had so many nerfs and balanced changes to address how strong things get at high end gear and I’m not confident they will go back to revert those with a gear power squeeze. This will also require balance changes to things like slayer fighter who has access to so much + damage by perks. Otherwise fighter and Barb will be the only viable melee classes.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@TheCgio5 I think all of this is true. One thing I find particularly troubling is how we don't seem to track balance changes across patches. To pick on just one example, Cleric got nerfed because smite was too good in the context of Multi-classing, and yet here we are, 1.5 months later and that nerf was never reverted. Who can keep track of the number of times or ways Magic Missiles has been changed in the last year. I'd really like to see Iron Mace do a post mortem on Multiclass. I would really like to see what perks were multi-classed and to what extents. I'm certain, that Weapon's Master is in the top 5 for non-fighters. Glad you are enjoying the discussions. Never feel shy about challenging me when you think I'm wrong. Argument is the process by which the best Ideas emerge.

[@TheCgio5]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le agreed, it’s almost impossible to track balance changes unless you are terminally checking the discord. It’s a huge problem for new and returning players. No where in the UI for the spell or character selection menus does it explain how things scale. How is a new players supposed to know how the damage on magic missiles scales or how magical healing on warlock scales? It’s a mess and it’s something that absolutely needs to be cleaned up before this game releases on a major storefront.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I've beaten this horse to death, but just put the details in the game and in the patch notes. It's going to be on the wiki or datamined in the first 24 hours of release. Why add extra steps ?