TIDE megathread: A cameo by the famous "updog"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > TIDE megathread: A cameo by the famous "updog"

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

IMO the only 40k books people should read if they're not already completely sold on 40k and therefore willing to forgive a multitude of sins are:

Dan Abnett's stuff, in particular:
- his Eisenhorn/Inquisition series
- Brothers of the Snake (quite small-scale Space Marine stuff, very engaging and good enough that I re-read it every now and then)
- Double Eagle (very much a nod to WW1/WW2 pilots)
I found Gaunt's Ghosts a bit of a slog and a bit predictable, to be honest.

The Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell, although he has a formula and sticks to it religiously

Lord of the Night by Simon Spurrier

and then the controversial choices of a bunch of old-school Ian Watson books. Watson is weird and liked writing about faeces just a little bit too much, but his work really jived well with the tone of 40k at the time:
- Inquisition War Trilogy (kind of a proto-Eisenhorn series)
- Space Marine
- Deathwing (anthology)

Abnett is their best and most consistet writer, and I am baffled by some of the praise heaped on some of the other big names in 40k writing given how strong a negative response I've had to their work (looking at you, David Annandale). The Horus Heresy series is an absolute slog with some highlights. There's a billion books of varying mediocrity outside of that.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2022 15:29

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 17:34

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Zephro posted:

Specifically, for any Brits reading this, the formula is "Flashman in space"

Not even just that - his books follow the same pattern almost every time, and he really starts to repeat even the same phrases in some of his later novels.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2022 15:56

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Kaiju Cage Match posted:

This is every Ciaphas Cain novel

Missing the ubiquitous "if only I had known then what would happen i would not have done this! <end chapter>"

# ¿ Nov 10, 2022 18:06

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

They don't have to be wedded to the prisoner concept. A dlc set of classes could easily be more traditional inquisitor retinue types, which opens it up quite a bit.

E: it's one of the upsides to having them be generic and not named characters.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2022 19:35

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Bussamove posted:

Surely in all the lore and fluff 40k has over the decades there’s some jokey character somewhere that stumbled into some warpy poo poo in Fantasy and ended up in the 41st millennium. There has to be precedent!

I'm almost certain that some major fantasy series - maybe Gotrek and Felix? - has some sort of warp tunnel scene with chaos space marines involved

# ¿ Nov 12, 2022 01:39

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Perestroika posted:

As I recall, a few of those were already present in the beta. The AoE ground blast is the secondary fire of the force staff (primary is a somewhat slow single-target projectile), it does pretty much what you expect. You can charge it up for greater damage and area, though on the whole it seemed more intended for disruption rather than killing power. The weapon enchant is the special attack of the force sword, basically you charge it up (at a severe perils cost) and the next hit within a few seconds will cause huge additional damage. Lastly the shield is just the blocking animation for the force sword, as I recall it doesn't do very much mechanically different from regular blocking.

Also on rewatching the video, there's a section that confirms there's a rapier-style sword is in the game as well:

Surely that's just the cutlass. The blade is way too big to be a rapier.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2022 18:24

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

The Demilich posted:

Still curious what the BL authors even wrote since there's no story.

Everything currently in the game could have been written on the back of a napkin.

There's an absolute poo poo-ton of ingame dialogue and it's largely pretty good. I would expect that's where Abnett and co spent most of their time.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2023 12:33

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Cyrano4747 posted:

edit: ^^^^ lol how did you beat me to this?

So, standard caveat that this is just Steam etc etc. but out of curiosity I looked at what VT2 and DT are doing players-wise:

right now, at this moment, VT2 has more players with 7700 vs DT's 6000:

Now, 9 AM EST on a work day etc etc, so maybe there are just more VT2 players in Europe, but still.

The 12-hour peak for both is almost dead on at ~12k players.

Worse, DT is showing about a 50% player base drop in the last month.

What's all the more damning is that DT is the technically superior game (in a moment-to-moment gameplay and graphics sense), and VT2 is a five year old game.

When the previous iteration of your franchise is doing as well or better than the shiny new one you just launched, something's hosed up.

This is doubly hosed up for Fatshark because obviously their revenue model for this game is based on ongoing purchases rather than the initial purchase of the game. You're not going ot sell many fancy skins if only 12k people are playing at any given time.

To put this into perspective, here are the current player counts for some random other games:

Stellaris, a fairly old Paradox strategy game: 15k

Cyberpunk 2077: 25K

This War of Mine, an old indie game: 1.2k

Kerbal Space Program: 3k

Deep Rock Galactic: 14k

Valheim: 35k

Peak hours in Europe (9:45pm UK time).

Darktide - 10,734 current
VT2 - 5,872

VT2 is currently on heavy sale so it's not a huge surprise it's had a bump but it does look like the VT2 population is mostly further east (peaks around 2-3pm UK time, which suggests something around Korea, China, Japan, Australia, etc is the big driver - my money's on the Aussies) and it looks like it's not going to get to 10k any time soon. Darktide gets over15k at peak on the weekends and is much more focused in Euro peak hour timezones.

Obviously still not ideal for Darktide and indicative of problems but DRG "only" getting 5k more at its weekend peak means the game hasn't exactly cratered. DRG might be old but it only really got popular in 2020 - it took years to hit Darktide's current numbers.

As someone who'd rather there was a game left for Fatshark to eventually finish, I'm vaguely reassured it hasn't died off.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2023 22:54

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

It's changed hugely, there's a ton more variety in every aspect and they've improved practically every part of the game since 2019.

But at heart it's still the coop mining and shooting game, that's not going to change

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 01:11

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

dogstile posted:

Patch is literally 99% of what everyone was asking for, you get emperors boxes every run, you can craft grays (told you so, you fuckers) and get them to orange in a couple of missions, plus blessings are account wide, not character only and its still just a minor patch, guys. loving lol

It might have far reaching impact and looks positive but it's largely a systems balance patch, not a big content patch or anything, and that's still a huge thing that people want

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 18:32

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Tagichatn posted:

Just because there's other stuff people want doesn't mean that this patch is minor. It's got a lot of changes that improve the game a lot so I really don't understand the quibbling over whether this a 'huge' patch or not.

I'm sure a content patch is coming regardless.

It's mostly that "99% of what people were asking for" is not even remotely true

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 22:27

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Having bounced off this game pretty hard at release thanks to, well, the entire clusterfuck... I'm basically a newcomer and uh actually guys this has been a really great experience in the last week. Had a couple of wipes, had one bad game where everything was freezing up, and then every other game was actually fantastic. The new player experience isn't awful, you can try out all kinds of different weapons with ease, you can get engaged in the upgrading of weapons early on - this is great fun.

And I'm getting good FPS, the action at worst is a bit wonky but at best is incredible, the atmosphere and sound design are superb, and maps take the perfect length of time IMO. Very impressed and very happy my money wasn't wasted.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2023 11:51

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Arghy posted:

Chaos wastes in VT2 did it right with the boss chests, don't do grims and tomes instead add a very hard to miss option that gives you a straight up benefit for a challenge. Give tomes and grims at the beginning of the mission that you then choose to carry through it or not.

Have it require three players to enable it and you're good

# ¿ Mar 10, 2023 15:56

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Looking on Reddit, it seems people are able to play Darktide at 40fps fairly solid on the Steam Deck with the right settings. That seems mad, but I'm willing to give it a go for a laugh. Does anyone use a gamepad for DT? How is it?

# ¿ Mar 11, 2023 13:03

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Qmass posted:

after this came out and the dev. progress they were making after a month I figured another year of development before the game would be in a reasonable state... so I stopped playing to avoid burning out on the (good) gameplay before then.

catching up on the state of the game and their progress so far - I think this game is proper hosed

I bet that they release a paid xpac before anything resembling a complete product is patched into existence, if they do at all.

woof

Not seeing the doom for the game tbh. As someone who recognised that it loving sucked in beta and at release, I came back to it a few weeks ago and it's been the best co-op experience I've had playing entirely with randoms - beating L4D, DRG, etc. The game has vastly improved and they've put a lot of effort into the new player experience, it's engaging right from the start. The last patch is a huge win for Psyker, which was a big issue, and their pace of improvements can only be a good sign.

I'm not saying it's flawless and there's a bunch of stuff you could argue about, but many of the problems are more about content than design IMO, and they've shown flexibility in changing design quickly when it's clear something isn't working.

I genuinely thought I'd wasted my money on a shitshow but it's been a significant turnaround in a short space of time.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 11:21

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Chopstick Dystopia posted:

nah this is good info, not looking for anything specific just have a couple of mates who are jumping in for the first time and wanted to know if I missed anything big, thanks!

You will receive weapons far more often and can upgrade and tweak everything as you go.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 16:02

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Jack B Nimble posted:

One of the Apex devs remarked recently that an hour of live server time in the general population is equal to a year of QA; it's just a matter of scale.

Any tips for someone that's generally played and enjoyed every major CO-OP shooter sine the original l4d, and loves 40k, but just can't seem to get this game to click? It seems like I'm always having problems:

I take lots of damage in melee combat.
I don't enjoy juggling melee and ranged, it feels like I always want the other one out and I hate the down time of swapping and reloading.
I can't keep track of what's happening in big fights, there's always a special behind emptying their mag into my back while I'm fighting a single pox walker.

Seriously, something's either wrong with this game on my PC or just wrong with me - every second that I play it it just feels bad. Dropped frames, laggy input responses. The steam overlay assures me I'm getting a solid 70FPS on low, with every single setting cranked down, but when I'm playing this game I constantly feel like my PC is broken.

I'm assembling a 40k army in anticipation of 10nth and I'm re-reading the Eisenhorn trilogy. This was one of my most anticipated games of the year and the very instant I hop back into it I think "Oh right, this game sucks for some reason, gently caress". I want to like this game but it's like all my friends are playing a different, better version.

Did you play the beta? I wouldn't be surprised if left some config nasties lying around. I'd be tempted to do a clean reinstall.

Also don't be tempted by the raytracing no matter how nice it looks

# ¿ May 6, 2023 23:58

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Evil Kit posted:

It's probably not a retcon and more supposed to be a fun reference, considering how much dialogue there is of really niche Warhammer lore bits the various classes will bring up.

I've heard, in no particular order:

-the felinid abhumans (aka catgirls/catboys) get referenced by the male dreamer
-bodyguard Ogryn mention the space marine acid spit

And some others I don't remember off the top of my head. Someone at Fatshark is clearly a fan of the silly lore in the universe

People keep asking what Dan Abnett actually did. It's this. The in mission dialogue and barks are absolutely spot on.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2023 23:55

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Evil Kit posted:

Actually Dan Abnett did the fluff on their website for the scabs. Check it out, it's pretty good!

It's not the only thing he would've been involved in - but some of the mission dialogue is classic Abnett (before he lost his mind trying to finish off the Horus Heresy series)

# ¿ Aug 9, 2023 00:18

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Looking forward to Darktide: Path of Exile edition

# ¿ Aug 18, 2023 08:29

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

A "tech savant" would be a pretty easy insert that doesn't break the lore or demand Mechanicus specifics.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2023 09:51

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

drrockso20 posted:

I mean a lot of the appeal of doing something Mechanicus related is that they have a lot of fun toys that would otherwise be a bit hard to justify being accessible

Oh no, that's not a problem at all. The presence of an inquisitor opens that door already, it's canonical that they hoard mad tech poo poo and weapons of dubious provenance. There's almost nothing you couldn't do with a tech savant that you could do with a Mechanicus character in Darktide.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2023 10:42

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Must admit I did not expect "Fatshark making huge game changing updates and improvements to the game and then tweaking them after observing the results for a while is bad, actually" to be a thing

# ¿ Oct 19, 2023 16:34

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

ZombyDog posted:

I was pretty much XII Lasgun + Powersword when I was last playing Darktide, but my trigger finger was feeling the pain ( my powersword definitley hurt my enthusiasm as well ). Levelling up a vet post update I was running the revolver and focusing on weakpoint damage and that carried me well into tier 3 but became seriously problematic in Heresy because single tapping most of the elites and specials stopped being a thing, and with only 5 rounds in the cylinder and pretty much everything except snipers needed a double tap it was time to change up my playstyle. All of the shotguns had similar problems ( I remember the Lawgiver being so much more hard hitting back in the day, and I hadn't been playing when the newer variants had come out ). I don't mind the recon lasgun ironsights so much, at least they aren't as bad as what I remember the hellbore lasguns were, and they are good enough that I can confidently snap burst snipers at range. Unless I'm blind I can't find the weapon customization mod on Nexus so there's no putting the Mk XII holosight onto your recon lasgun because that would have been nice to mess about with.

The mod is only available from their Discord, unfortunately

# ¿ Oct 21, 2023 15:53

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Ra Ra Rasputin posted:

It's a mod for what you guessed, how many times they releveled past 30 with their exp.

You would be surprised how many freshly 30 characters you'll see in maelstroms with 4+ modifiers, sometimes with blue weapons with a t1 blessing, those games are usually playing a man down and they will fold at the first adversity we come across, but dangit I will try and push them over the finish line if I can.

You reminded me to turn off the ingame display in the mod settings though.

This is all getting a bit WoW RaiderIO, kind of a lovely path for mods to go down and I hope it doesn't catch on

# ¿ Oct 31, 2023 23:26

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Gah, I'm crashing every time I try and view cosmetics on my character. Is there any way to know what mod might be causing this? Also is there any way to automatically update mods or do I need to do them all manually?

# ¿ Nov 11, 2023 12:08

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Squatch Ambassador posted:

You'll probably need to try disabling them one at a time. Some can be disabled from their in-game menu, others need to be removed from the load order file. Darkcache would be a good one to check first.

Vortex support for Darktide is in beta now, but I haven't tried it yet.

Turns out the Preview Cosmetics mod (surprise!) was the culprit, and has been removed from Nexus as well.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2023 00:05

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Not sure what it is about this patch but I've not enjoyed any of my games so far. My builds feel less effective, I'm taking way more damage than I should be the level I'm playing at, and on top of that my teammates seem to be almost trolling me with how much they're not doing the basics.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2023 21:18

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Legit Businessman posted:

What classes, builds, weapons etc?

I'm having a blast with the following on damnation:

Plas shout vet
Shield taunt ogryn
Evis charge Zealot
Voidstrike barrier psyker

With the shield ogryn being the most powerful feeling right now (plas vet being very close behind).

I'd just stopped playing my fresh 30 shouty revolver vet when the patch hit, and I've been struggling to find any build that really keeps my head above water. It's all pretty poo poo gear but I'm not pushing myself at all, I'm having problems even on Malice (and not just with teammates)!

Might level an Ogryn for a bit as a change of pace.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2023 22:52

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Level 7 Ogryn in a normal uprising difficulty map. Within the first three minutes, three ragers, two mutants, four gunners, two dogs, and some other poo poo. Yikes.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2023 23:48

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Ahem, you mean copse stach surely

# ¿ Nov 19, 2023 15:37

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 17:34

Thirsty Dog: May 31, 2007

Arc Hammer posted:

I've also started using the plasma gun. Unfortunately it has a problem with gun feel which is surprisingly rare in this game. If I don't like the way a weapon feels to use I don't do well with it. The firing sound is good but the feedback feels lacking. I think the barrel flash obscuring my view of the projectile path is the big issue. I get a cloud of blue plasma and then hopefully something on the other side of that flash is killed.

I won't deny its a powerful gun that can one shot specials but it just feels wonky compared to the lasguns or the bolter.

Yeah, same here, although I think the bolter also has a level of clunkiness that prevents me truly enjoying it compared to Las weapons or especially the revolver.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2023 09:54

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