Weave Editor

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Feedback
1

In my boredom I have managed to cross a forum-popular request (map-editor) with a forum-unpopular topic (Weaves) to create a new abomination: the Weave-Editor

Act I - General Remarks

In contrast to other people I do not believe that a map-editor will be the holy salvation tool. The reason for this are numerous. In short I do not believe the community is capable of creating quality maps which can be played in the official realm:

  • If you look at the L4D2 workshop you see that lot of maps there are either unusable trash or are just copied from other media (Helm’s Klamm, City 17, Resident Evil 2) and fit as such not the Warhammer Lore. Of course there are also several quality maps, but they are rare and needed 6 months or more normally to create.
  • Atmosphere will be lacking as they will not have custom voice lines like nearly all other maps in the game. Banter will cover this partly, but there will be missing something.
  • Maps have to be within reason and lore of Warhammer and the Ubersreik 5. This is not actually that easy.
  • Maps will most likely have a veeerrryyy similar feel to already existing maps as most map creators rely on existing assets which means: Cities and Forests. This was less a problem for L4D2 or Unreal Engine games as there are several other games were creators could rip assets from. The outlook for Autodesk is rather bleak in comparison.
  • Other reasons

With these limitations in mind I don’t see more than 2 or 3 maps per year which could reach the official realm. In addition to this, there seems to be some legal jumbo mumbo causing problems for a release.

Act II - The Weave Editor - What is it and how does it work

Entry Weave-Editor. Parts of the previously mentioned problems can be covered if we “transfer” the map-editor over to the Weaves in a reduced form:

  • Weaves rely on existing maps for now so there is no need for new assets. Even if there would be the possibility to create something new, Weaves are shorter and therefore less work. Also, they don’t need to be 100 % coherent as they are the result of jumbled Chaos Winds.
  • Weaves are short maps with no own story. While Weaves follow an arc, the single Weaves are not. As such they do not need specific own voice lines and they do not need to be coherent.
  • There might be a chance that it is less problematic from a legal perspective as the main part of the map-editor, creation and arrangement of assets (as well as navigation files) will be provided by Fatshark and the creators only take care of other aspects. So they do not interact with Autodesk per se. It could be managed by some kind of in-game tool. Not sure if that would work out.

With this said, how could it work:

  • As a first step, creators would choose a map part as well as the Wind. These parts have to be provided by Fatshark.
  • Creators can then set global parameters like the time frame of the Weaves (to deviate from the 15 minutes), to control time-based spawns (like all 2 minutes spawn 2 CW’s close by), parameters for the Weave modifiers, objective of te map or the difficulty of the Weave.
  • Next creators set ambient spawns as well as location based spawns. Where do enemies spawn from, which enemies and how many.
  • Creators then set items on the maps like med packs, potions, bombs or barrels.
  • Creators should be able to “edit” singular enemies to have more freedom and to allow special settings. For example you could edit the Hp of a Rat Ogre or an Assassin to one million and as such you would have an undying threat for the whole time. Those enemies should be marked in some way to avoid to nasty of a surprise. Maybe some limit on degree or amount of editing is needed.
  • Lastly for the upload, creators (togeter with an invited team) have to play AND COMPLETE the Weave they created in order to avoid to much stupid trolling.

With this creators could more or less easily create new sets of Weaves which would be available for other players

Act III - Which scenarios are possible and what general problems are there

How to provide these Weaves to the other players is another problem which would have to be discussed. There are different possibilites.

  1. Created Weaves will be reviewed (and curated) by Fatshark and can then be added to the pool of ranked Weaves for the next Season. Advantage is reduced chance for trolling and farming maps as they will be sorted out. But the process between creation and being able to be played increases in time.
  2. Created Weaves will be added to an ever-growing quickplay pool. As such the maps can’t be picked specifically and it is possible that it will never be played with bad luck. However, with increasing quickplay pool the chance of replaying Weaves and them feeling repetitive will diminish.
  3. Created Weaves will become a third option beside quickplay and ranked playing. The Weaves can then be chosen specifically but they might appear less attractive for players as they are just for fun. And we know how people react on stuff which is just for fun and doesn’t give you a billion rewards.

What are general problems:

  • People will complain the Weaves are stupid and ask why a map-editor is only for that not-requested mode
  • People will call Fatshark lazy and incompetent because they expect their audience to create content them, especially in scenario 1
  • People still try to create troll, cheese or farm maps
  • Other stupid stuff the community does.

Like most stuff a Weave Editor is probably unrealistic. But it would give community the chance to take part in the creation process and maybe get some enlightment that even just creating new Weaves is actual work where you have to consider a lot of stuff and make them realize that making new maps is even more problematic.

So, enough Wall of Text right now. There might still be many points I have forgotten to mentioned or haven’t addressed at all.

3 Likes
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You don’t find friends with Weaves? Hm, it would probably be better to let this die but I will give it another push nonetheless.

Seriously, this is one of the easiest ways for endless new content. And it gives people the chance to prove to FS how “easy” it is to actually make challenging difficulty without being cheap. And it gives community involvment to the game. Or are people still stuck up about the never-promised map editor which wouldn’t even solve the games problems?

3

Somewhere between the in game difficulties (recruit-cata 3), the mods (deed mods, weekly event mods) and all the maps (adventure/weave), are all the tools needed for countless types of challenges. Deeds have poor accessibility (both getting deeds and matchmaking for them). Weekly events have low variety and frankly no reason to not be thrown into a system already filled to the brim with mods (deeds). Weaves if the spawns and maps aren’t getting retooled every season (which my understanding is they just said “everything the same but change winds” have low variety.

Together they also have the rewards problem. (Maybe not deeds i feel like they fair the best in that department). But earning the same abilities over again was not a good move IMO and now what do you do once you have all the essence in the world? But the other problem I see is that the current game population doesn’t really facilitate the playing of this number of modes.

Now my issue with players create their own is we could pretty much already do that with a crafted deed system without having to add the whole Fatshark curate and storing all these specifically created maps. Just have x map with Y mods on Z difficulty and give players a reasonable way to access it.

The issue I see is three game modes being smashed into a doorway big enough for one and none of the tools that already exist being leveraged at all to create an engaging system that utilizes them. And ya know what? I don’t care at this point if we’re gonna use the weave maps rather than the adventure maps to do it that’s fine. Essence being what it is you could just reward more for adventure maps and less for short weave maps.

Anyway save weekly events for anything that’s an actual special thing like “A quiet drink” or anything not appropriate to be level modifier to be thrown in with the others. Take deeds and weaves, combine them, and then give us something to spend extra essence on.

4

^ this I like :partying_face: More abominations!

Interesting idea that reminds me of the player vs player mode (not vs) that was discussed way back. 5-player games where the 5th player act as a director. I think that there will be a lack of interest, unfortunately, for these light modifications.
But since I came to think of it, I’d like to promote the player as director idea again. Giving some maniac limited or unrestricted control of the spawns etc. would be like a supermasochistic twitch mode - i.e. good fun!