Itemization Rework Q&A Part 2 - Dev Blog | Warhammer: Darktide Dev Tracker

Heyo Everyone,
As promised, here is the next batch of questions and answers regarding the Itemization Rework coming after summer. Again, we collected over 11 pages of feedback, questions and general concerns after the release of the last Q&A dev post.

As a refresher, the two new systems are the Mastery system and the Empower system (formerly Expertise). (There is still a chance that these names change.)

Note: All of the questions we’re answering in this are pulled directly from the comments on the Forums, Reddit and Discord. We kept the players’ wording instead of writing our own questions.

See Also

Baldurs gate overgrown tunnel us

Question
What happens to my weapons in the inventory that have blessings on them i dont have unlocked? Will they just stay the same and i only cant use the blessing on another weapon?

Answer
Items will remain the same, therefore the unlocked blessings will not be taken into account when it comes to the translation of the blessings library into Mastery. Any unlocked blessings will exist on the weapon itself, and they cannot be transferred to another weapon.

Question
When StrawHat said that players will begin with a headstart in the new system, does that mean that we won’t have access to blessings we did previously and therefore forcing us to grind for the tiers all over again? (This is from the last Q&A post.)
You did not answer my question regarding the transfer.
I currently have collected all level 4 blessings for my favorite weapon. But I did not collect any level 3, nor any level 2, nor any level 1 blessing.
After the transfer, will I still have access to all level 4 blessings?

Answer
Yes and no. It will depend on how you are building your new Mastery track. In the worst-case scenario, playing 1 or 2 games would be necessary to have it all. We saw that having T1/T2 blessings were less common for those at max level. It would feel too punishing if we put too much weight on asking players to have these lower tiers in order to reach max Mastery. Therefore, we will be weighing T4 blessings in such a way that you won’t encounter that grind.

Question (More of a Comment)That weapons are still locked at 380, and that you’ll still be hunting for the ‘perfect’ stat distribution base weapon is kind of insane, to be honest.

Answer
With the new system, players will be able to freely change between marks of a weapon family as they progress in the Mastery track. This means the player will only be searching for the base weapon with the stats distribution they want, rather than searching for the preferred stats distribution on each individual mark.

That said, a player will be able to play with the best weapon they’ve found, and then with minor investment be able to change to a better weapon once it’s been found. And any progress within that weapon family will be transferred to the new weapon.

Question (More of a Comment)Worse still, the ‘broken locks’ are time gated. Want to freely swap around T4 blessings? Gotta have maxed Mastery on that weapon family first.

AnswerThis is incorrect. Players will get access to the best blessings before reaching the actual end of the Mastery curve.

Question
Well it’s a pretty huge difference that you can’t change perks or blessings, nor can you cash in a blessing into a library. It’s all about the grind first.
And depending on if Strawhat was careful with wording or not, you have to unlock all T1 blessings to unlock a single T2 blessing.

Answer
You will not need to unlock all the T1 blessings to unlock a T2 blessing. Furthermore, you can change around the perks and blessings on a weapon as much as you want.

Question (More of a Comment)Also, allowing Hadron to still consecrate items to let people brute force it with enough currency is a good choice, but if you still need to unlock the blessings when an entirely new family of weapons comes out, that will still hamper people who like to experiment, even if the Mastery grind isn’t that long.

Answer
As players are free to unlock the blessings they want (in whatever order they want), players will be able to fairly quickly unlock the blessing choices they want to experiment with after just unlocking a few tiers of Mastery of a weapon. Since we are adding more tiers to each blessing and making them all available at tier 1, players will quickly be able to unlock the gameplay potential of a blessing. This allows players to be able to create the build they want sooner. Though it will take a bit longer to unlock the most powerful version of that build.

We are also introducing a “sacrificing” system to allow players to sacrifice weapons to get Mastery experience for a weapon family. This gives players even more avenues to gain Mastery within a weapon family outside of only playing with the weapon. For example, when a new weapon comes out, players will be able to sacrifice ANY other unwanted weapon, even those from completely different weapon families, to get a headstart on Mastery. Note: If it’s the same weapon, more Mastery XP will be given versus if it’s a different weapon.

TL;DR: Weapons a player no longer wants can be sacrificed to get a headstart.

Question
When you say: This system will merge all weapon types/families, meaning players will be able to freely switch between different marks of the same weapon type. For example, once you own an Infantry Lasgun, you have the potential to unlock all the possible marks for this weapon and switch from one mark to another.
What does this mean for weapons:

That are on their own: Staves and Kickback/Rumbler (Don’t share blessing, but do models)
That may not be on their own: Plasma; Bolter; Ogryn Power Maul; Crusher; Hack Shotgun…
Weapons that do share but still might get a variant: Stub Revolver; Chainsword; Chain Axe; Evicerator…

Answer

Weapons that share models/skins, but not blessings:These will be classified as different weapon families, therefore getting each their own Mastery track with separate blessings trees.
Weapons that currently have only one mark:These will still be classified as separate weapon families and get their own Mastery track, just without marks to unlock.
Weapons that have multiple variants:Variants of the same weapons are called “marks”, and will be included in the same weapon family. Each family will receive its own Mastery track. Different weapon families that are similar, like Chainswords and Eviscerators, will still have separate Mastery tracks. Some blessings will appear in multiple Mastery tracks, but each blessing needs to be separately unlocked in each blessing tree.

One nice aspect of the new system is that if/when we do add more marks to a weapon family, they will be unlocked in the Mastery system instead of diluting the loot pool and making it harder for you to obtain the weapon you want from the loot system. Previously, every time we released a new mark for a weapon, we made it harder to get any specific weapon from the loot pool. This new system removes that problem and will make the addition of new marks purely positive.

Stats Question
"Every weapon is created with a pool of stat points that have been distributed in the different stat buckets, and every weapon has the same potential maximum number of stats that can be distributed.”

Is there a way to remove points from one “bucket” to be added to another? while still keeping the “investment” cap from expertise in mind?

Answer
No, it will not be possible. Each weapon will be generated with varied maximum caps on each stat.

Question
Is the overall power of weapons remaining the same, or will a newly-maxed-out weapon with this new system give more damage/power/stats?

Answer
The overall power of the weapons will remain the same as before.

Question
What makes a weapon go to 380?
Let’s say I roll the dice at Brunt’s and get a 340 Force Sword. That sword can now go from 340 to 380? If so, how? By consecrating it?

Answer
Every weapon will now have the potential to reach 380. The Power system (formerly referred to as Expertise) is where you can make it happen by empowering your weapon through the use of crafting materials.

Question
When viewing any weapon, it will show the weapon’s maximum potential stats. These stats will be randomly determined. It’s up to the players to decide if the weapon profile is interesting enough for them to commit and increase the stats until reaching this potential (which are then applied to the weapon through the Expertise system).
Does this mean that we CAN choose to fill things from 0 to cap for each different stats?

Answer
You cannot select where the points are going exactly, it will be an automatic increase for each stat.

Empower (formerly Expertise) / Mastery Question
I think the gist is that the blessings we’ve unlocked get converted to ‘Mastery XP’ that we can then spend to put whatever we like on new weapons?

Answer
Correct, the blessings on a specific weapon are converted into Mastery XP for that weapon family. However, the Mastery XP is bespoke to the weapon family and it is not universal (to be applied to any weapon you like).

Question
So if I understood correctly, we long-time players skip “Mastery”, go straight into “expertise” and can attribute perks and blessings freely at material costs?

Answer
The idea is weapons will be converted over to the new system. The Mastery XP is determined by the blessings that are unlocked on the weapon itself. The more blessings unlocked or the higher tier of the blessings unlocked, the more XP that is gained for that weapon family. Then, using crafting materials, players can Empower their weapons and apply the perks and blessings as they wish.

Also, we have mentioned above the ability to sacrifice unwanted weapons in order to increase Mastery XP at a player’s discretion.

Question
I was wondering to get the maximum amount of Mastery XP for a weapon group, do I need to unlock every single tier of every blessing for getting the maximum XP for that? I have all tier 4 blessings but never bothered with lower tier blessings.

Answer
Players will not need every blessing of a weapon family to achieve max Mastery upon introduction of the new system. We are looking at something like having all T4/T3 blessings will be enough to max Mastery.

Question
Would it be possible to add a new item filter in the shops and crafting menu which sorts items from their max potential to lowest? That would help a lot when min maxing gear!

Answer
Well, every weapon will have the max potential of 380. However, we will be adding a filter so players can sort by the current Power rating.

Question
Is this update going to come with balancing changes? A lot of us feel the game is too easy, even on the hardest difficulties right now. Weapons like the plasma gun, revolver and knife makes the experience way too easy, for instance. I understand you guys try your best not to nerf players, but sometimes the players really do need it. Some enemy buffs would be welcomed also.

Answer
We are aware of this problem and try to balance the game accordingly. Still, as different players will see balance changes differently, we want to be careful and try to respect all player’s investments in the game. Hopefully, the Mastery system will allow us to be a bit more forthright with balance changes, since it will make it easier for players to adapt to any new meta in the game without having to rely on RNG systems to do so.

We are also working on other features that will address this problem, but more news about them in the future when they’re in a more solid state to share.

Question
Looks good! Genuinely hope there are cosmetic rewards for fully mastering a weapon. Come on FatShark! Just one free skin, just a scrap.

Answer
There will be a cosmetic reward per weapon family.

Question
Are curios also implemented in this system somehow? Currently you can’t even buy them from the Brunt’s store.

Answer
Curios are not a part of this overhaul. We are however thinking of ways to make curios more fun and engaging. We felt that we would tackle the bigger problem of weapons first and give curios the time and attention that they need to become a more interesting part of a player’s loadout at a later time. However, we will note that the locks will be removed from Curios, as well. This means players will be able to change anything at any time, aside from the base property of the item itself.

Alright, that answers the second batch of questions. If anything in this post is unclear, please let us know below. This will help us collect more feedback and ensure we answer them in our future posts.

Thank you!

Itemization Rework Q&A Part 2 - Dev Blog | Warhammer: Darktide Dev Tracker | devtrackers.gg (2024)

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