WoM Beta and current live version problems and theory craft

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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I have been playing Vermintide 1 + 2 for a very long time. My total hours nearing somewhere in the 2,250 mark. I have been an avid gamer for as long as I could hold a controller in my hands, or have a PC available to me. I love the universe and the characters you’ve created, which is why I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel about the current state of the game, and the soon to come expansion.

The majority of criticism you’re about to receive has been building up ever since I was able to critically dissect what works in the game and what needs fixing or alteration. While this post is not the culmination of EVERYTHING I want to say about the game, it is substantial, and will point out a good chunk of problems or issues that have been plaguing this game for a long time. I post this here, and not on the mysterious beta forums, because I have not been granted access to it, even after directly asking for access from Hedge. Know that, all my criticism stems from a desire to make this game better, which means, both, for the player, and for Fatshark as a company, and while I may come across as crass or angry, it’s probably because I am angry or upset that the developers are not placing enough resources into areas that can turn this GOOD game, into a GREAT one. I hope that some of my comments shine a light on your process and the frustrations of many players whom I’ve discussed these issues at length with. These players that have stuck with your game as long, if not longer than myself, and are the ones that I would consider to the the truly dedicated and who care about your product.

I’ve taken the Beta survey from the launcher and essentially the flow of topics is directly from the questions asked by the survey. I’m writing this here, because the survey deemed my responses “too long” and would not allow me to submit my full report on the beta, and the current live version of the game. So, let’s begin:

Did you find Weaves engaging and fun?
Please explain why.

My answer was: Not at all.

I already spent time optimizing my gear for every character. Now, you reskinned a bunch of maps and
weapons and essentially attached a meaningless task for the player to perform, so that they can grind … more loot? No thank you. Your loot system is already sh!t enough without me wanting to do 2 sets of grinding, just so that I can play extra DLC missions.

Secondly, your re-use of game assets is incredibly painful. I get that a game will do this from time to time, but you’re just taking old levels, putting in some root, crystal, or magma rock models and calling it an extra mode? This is painfully cheap, even for you guys. If you want a good example of DLC done right, look at The Witcher 3 dlcs, and try and live up to that standard, because the weave is not fun, it’s not challenging, and it’s not really balanced (though this is still BETA so, you can kinda get away with that for now).

Please explain why you did/did not enjoy these winds?

These modes do not really provide anything more to the story of Vermintide, or at least there isn’t any connection to the story so far in the beta. Secondly, the missions resets all your gear. Why? Why split up the weapons sets for different modes? This is at best annoying, and at worst a terrible idea. I have about 1500 hours in your game and you can rest in the solace that YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE THIS GAME ANY MORE GRINDY. You’d have thought that you would have learned your lesson form V1, but you actually took it further in V2, and now this? This is a terrible, AWFUL way extend your games longevity and the sooner you remove it, the better.

Was there a particular Weave you found extra challenging? What made it stand out?

The gimmicks of the levels, at least as far as I had gotten, were not very memorable. “Take this, carry it there.” “King of the hill” “Take and give extra fire dmg” “Incremental grimoire stacks that can be reversed by wasting time standing next to golden pyramids” “Don’t stand in the circle”. Listen, to some people, maybe these might be interesting, but to the seasoned gamers that still have faith in this game, and that have played numerous other games, these are extremely uninspired and feel extremely tacked on for no apparent reason.

Even if they hold to some aspect of the lore, they’re still more of an inconvenience than a fun mechanic, especially since you have to regrind all your equipment, instead of enjoying the mode. Furthermore, the people that might have found these gimmicks interesting, aren’t going to be the players that stick around or sing praises about your game. They’re going to pick it up for a week or two, then completely forget about it and move on, and you’ll be left with the hardcore fans of your game being upset at you not giving them any meaningful content. Catering to the casual audience is the death of a good video game. Don’t do it.

Let us know any thoughts you have regarding Weaves.

I will bring up the point that you guys did actually stumble on a good system for gear crafting. The way gear is currently being handled is fücking awful (as is the loot system, but I’ll get into that later). Re-rolling a piece of gear over and over again, in hopes to try a new build or modify a current one is the worst system I’ve dealt with since Diablo 3. It’s tedious, and unnecessary.

However, the method you have for adjusting the gears stats in the Weave menu, feels much more intuitive, is visually superior (since you can see which stats can go on which items), and is not RNG based which saves the player a ton of time and frustration. You could balance the costs out to move individual stats around and have a final total to be paid in dust at the end to switch them up. I can’t speak for others, but I would gladly pay 10 orange dust, to move around all the stats I might want to try, instead of gambling for 10, 20, 40, 70 times in order to finally get the combination I had in mind. I recommend you implement this system, or one similar to it, for the crafting menu of the main content of the game.

Let us know your thoughts on what we should do to improve the customization screen (Temper screen)

Pick one or the other. There is 0 good reasons why there needs to be 2 sets of weapons load-outs in this game. As I mentioned before, I’ve worked really hard to acquire some of the items that I have, and I don’t want to grind for another specialty item when I’ve already put in the time. Implement the new Temper screen as the crafting menu and allow extra bonuses to be added to current equipment, instead of there being 2 different sets. Or completely rework the mode, because this is simply awful.

If you played on Cataclysm how did you find it?

I feel like it might be a bit over tuned atm. Overall, I like the idea, but there are certain aspects of it currently that don’t work very well. First of all, while playing on CATA, there’s obviously a learning curve, especially when I played with the players that were allowed into the beta. Secondly, no body knows the optimal talents for every build so, I am taking that into account. Given these two considerations, the games I did play with people I would consider appropriate for the difficulty level felt pretty good, until there was a horde.

What I got out of this, was, everything just has WAY too much health. This is a basic problem every game designer runs into when tuning for difficulty, how do I introduce more challenges into my game but still make it fair. Often times, an inexperienced designer will make the mistake of simply turning everything into a meat shield, or bullet sponge. Adding more health to an enemy IS NOT a creative or interesting way to up the difficulty on anything.

With that said, most of what you’ve done is already working fine with the difficulty level:

  • There’s more specials, and they spawn more frequently
  • There’s now berserkers and plague monks mixed in with the horde waves.

These things work GREAT to add more depth to the combat by adding layers of complexity to it, instead of simply making things absorb more dmg. Then, you need to give players choices, either via talents, or weapons and move sets, to deal with those complex situations that might arise. Currently - and again, this might be just the lack of play-time that was available to me - there is simply not enough tools to deal with all the threats that are possed to the group of players with the enemies having such a large amount of health, but I’ll get into that in a later discussion about enemies and possible adjustments to their gameplay.

With that said, the over-tuning part is the sheer amount of health each enemy has. Not a single character, with the possible exception of Ironbreaker, or Merc Kruber with the Executioner sword, and both with proper talents can hold their ground when a horde comes (note: I haven’t tried it with Zealot or Foot Knight yet, but the point still stands). For the majority of the games I played, the loss condition was the first horde, and the group being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of enemies. This is boring, and it doesn’t allow unique or interesting builds from the new talent trees, because with a majority of the characters I played, I found only one optimal build that was absolutely necessary in order to win a Cata game. Those builds all consisted of “kill the enemy as fast as possible” and “become as tanky as possible”, these decisions automatically throw out roughly 2/3s of all other possible talent combinations, that might otherwise be interesting or fun to play as.

Lastly, the new race of beastmen, is the most un-fun group of enemies to fight thus far. Granted it’s still the beta, so I’ll cut you some slack, but I will describe in detail how almost every single enemy fails at being engaging when I talk specifically about the dlc enemies a little bit further down.

To sum it up, in order to make Cata more enjoyable, challenging and less frustrating, consider the following:

  • Add more complexity, not more health

  • Consider adding elites into hordes such as storm vermin, or the chaos equivalents

  • Do not turn the enemies into meat shields or bullet sponges

  • If you do end up tuning the health of enemies, you’re gonna have to do it EXTREMELY carefully, because your end-game matters more than all your other modes combined, and I’m assuming that Cata is going to end up being the new end game mode. If you fück it up, you’re just going to end up alienating your hardcore audience, and they’re going to steer any potential business away from your game.

  • Consider having 2 bosses spawn instead of one, but with ABSOLUTELY NO HORDES. Specials are still ok, but not too many.

  • Consider removing full hordes from fights with bosses. This is like MMO rule #1, a boss fight is NOT fun if you have to deal with adds. You can have something like a mini-horde, where it’s only like 1 part of the usual 3 part horde wave, but not all 3. This usually wipes most normal pick-up groups on Legendary difficulty and is incredibly unfun to deal with. On Cata, I can already forsee being an insta-loss condition for most groups that attempt it.

If you fought the Beastmen, how was your experience?

Extemely poor. So far, every beastman enemy has been extremely unfun to fight against.

-The charging elites: Whoever thought it would be a great idea to add an around-the-corner charging, unblockable enemy deserve the prize for making one of the least fun mechanics in a game I’ve seen in a long time. The dmg through block on this enemy ABSOLUTELY needs to be removed. The new mode is hard enough without a enemy that feels cheap added to it, and the stagger and stamina dmg is more than enough to make him a formidable enemy. Furthermore, if Kruber can’t make a 90 degree turn while charging, why can this enemy? Thirdly, what happens if your party is in a corridor or tunnel or there’s two of them charging you at staggered times but you only have one dodge? It’s just free dmg for the enemy and it’s completely unfair and unfun to deal with, unless you’re a class that can gen super good temp health. So to sum up:

  • Remove the dmg component of it’s charge

  • Rework how his charging mechanic works

  • Consider giving shields the ability to block their charge without being staggered (but still with stam dmg)

  • The banner bearers: This guy, might be even more annoying than the charging elite. Again, the prize for terribly unfun gameplay goes to whoever though that an AoE (area of effect) knockback on placement and destruction of the banner was a good idea. This is without a doubt the most annoyingly disorienting and büllsh!t ability of any of the specials so far. The only way to take these banners out is by melee-ing them down, but after placement you have to chew through a group of regenerating (not sure about regen, but it sure feels like they do) tank mobs in order to get to the banner. You can’t shoot it with arrows, or AoE it down w/ a fireball. So, the only way to get to it, is for certain classes like Handmaiden, Shade, Footknight, Slayer, or maybe even Battle Wizard to use their charge ability to charge into the fray and destroy the banner or kill the banner bearer before he places it. Over the course of the time I’ve played Cata with these enemies, very seldom did I see either of these tactics work well. Usually, the person would charge in, not be able to break the banner because of the mob density, and die. Even when they were able to break the banner, they would immediately be cut-off from the rest of the group, and then die. The person trying to snipe the special often times was, simply, unable to do so, or was stabbed int he back if the special came during a horde and was downed, complicating the matter. So, you can’t shoot it, you can’t reliably single hero charge it. The only reliable way to beat it, is to use overwhelming force. Once again, this means, Mass AoE spells like Flamestorm staff, fireball staff, and ults used in unison to counter-act the mass regeneration and meat shieldiness of the banner. Doing this, once again, pigeon-holds the character to use a very specific builds with no alternatives.

The knockback also seems to have the radius of the entire planet for some unknown reason. Not only is being interrupted the LEAST fun thing in this game, because it breaks your momentum and sometimes glitches your moveset. It also has the potential to knock you off a bridge or ledge, causing an insta wipe from a single special. This is unfair, and not fun. The radius of that knockback needs to be SEVERELY reduced, it’s ability to go through walls removed, and the knockback from destroying it needs to be completely removed, or at least, only affect the enemy, since this can give the charging class hero time to escape from the main horde.

If you’re fighting these guys in a horde, god help you, because they turn an entire area into a meatshield, which makes dealing with hordes nearly impossible on higher difficulties. If you’ve already lost a player or two, most often, this is an insta-wipe for the remaining players. Needless to say, this is NOT FUN.

Ideally, reworking this special completely would be the way to go, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

  • The archers: There’s not much to say about these guys, they’re just annoying and unfun. You can sort of dodge the arrows, but if you don’t, you just take dmg unless you have a shield, and if you have a shield, you can’t do anything against them because you’re probably locked in melee. Only ranged or dashing classes can really sort of deal with them, but at least they don’t have a lot of health. Still, every time I got shot by one of them, I never felt like it was my fault for getting hit. It always felt like a cheapshot or some artificial way to shave off some of my hp; it never felt like I made a mistake other than not seeing them sooner. But even if I had, unless I was the correct ranged class and was in a position to do anything about it, they’d just get free shots. I honestly don’t know how to fix these enemies, they’re just not fun to deal with at all. Maybe making their arrows easier to dodge. I’d have to think about it more.

  • Regular enemies: These guys are … okay. Their attack animations are a little clunky atm, and there seem to be some hitbox problems, but for the most part the regular enemies are acceptable. I’m gonna assume that the animations will be polished up on final release, and I like that there’s less of them and that each one you fight is a little bit more of a mini-battle, rather than massacring swathes of ratmen.

In conclusion, the beastmen need some SERIOUS rework to even begin feeling remotely fun to play against. Currently, they are the least fun part of Vermintide 2, in my opinion.

Any suggestions when it comes to the matchmaking experience?

The matchmaking system mostly reflects your playerbase. Your playerbase, reflects the quality of your game. If you’ve made a good game, your playerbase, with the right tools, will create a positive matchmaking experience. I.E. there will be a bigger pool of players to play your game. If the game is fair and fun, it will prompt people to band together to complete the goal.

Your two biggest issues currently with matchmaking are:

  1. The lack of moderation tools: This means, kicking and banning people. First off, I have to admit that the community of people that play this game, are generally pretty good, compared to other games. I believe that this is due to this game mostly being a COOPERATIVE game, instead of versus. But now and again, there’s always a player that comes into a game being uncooperative, being toxic, or just generally being too inexperienced for the mode. The host of the game needs to have tools to be able to deal with these players, and deal with them QUICKLY, because your run can end in a matter of 5 seconds during certain parts of the game if you’re unfocused and trying to votekick someone. Furthermore, they can instantly reconnect after they’ve been kicked. I won’t harp on EVERYTHING, since I’ve heard that you guys are working on a system of moderation, I just hope that you really sit down and think it through, because you’re about to release a VS. mode which will undoubtedly bring higher levels of toxicity to your game.

  2. There really needs to be some way to filter for the type of players you’re looking for in your games. There are times when I’m ok with carrying some noob in a Legendary match because I’m feeling generous and sometimes it can be its own type of challenge to carrying the run. However, there are times when I want to play a support role, like Battle Wizard and stun-lock elites for my team, or sit back and snipe specials as the elf, or be something OTHER than a hyper carry that’s forced to do everything. This presents a lot of problems because, currently, there are no ways to differentiate skill level past getting level 30 or achievement borders. Even then, achievement borders aren’t always an indication of skill as I’ve met some people with extremely difficult to attain character borders that sucked worse that noobs without any.

The point I’m trying to get across is that there needs to be a way to filter the type of people you want in your current game. The best way I can think of doing that would be to create a filter for “amount of time played” and “achievements unlocked”. I’ve played many games for many thousands of hours, and while hours spent is not the end-all-be-all way of testing true skill, it’s the BEST metric I have seen available for such determinations (and not just in Vermintide). Much like in real life, the more of your time you dedicate to something, generally, the better you are at it. So, I believe having the ability to set a “hours played” sliding filter, which would be capped based on your own time spent in the game, would go a long way to improving the matchmaking system. While, again, these are not the best metrics for the determination of skill, combined with the hosts ability to kick/ban anyone, I feel that this would create a more stead system for growth and development of lower tier players, and give enough control over the matchmaking system so that everyone would be happy.

P.S. There’s obviously ways to grief using the host kick/ban feature, so I thought I’d address it by saying the implementation of a merit system, such as the one (as much as I hate to admit it) Overwatch, where people upvote their team-mates for good behavior / performance would go a LONG way to curb such abuse, and provide incentives towards a more cooperative playstyle. Combined with some sort of reward for having good standing behavior, and perhaps means to report abuse, each individual would be able to check how trustworthy a certain host is, and whether it’s worth their time to play with them.

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Was there anything you found frustrating while playing. If so explain what happened and what could be changed.

Ho boy, here we go:

  • You ABSOLUTELY need to change the loot system. It sucks. It’s a skinner box; it’s a grind; you’re not even taking advantage of it monetarily. So it’s not only evil, but also dumb. Loot boxes are being exposed for being akin to gambling, and even if you’re not taking advantage of this monetarily, you’re still perpetuating an addictive, unfun system of distributing rewards. Rewards, need to feel just as the word suggests: A REWARD, not a unending grind. Creating a system that rewards you for performing well or accomplishing certain challenges makes for a much better system than pulling that slot machine lever.

While you can still keep elements of RNG in your game, you have to make every item available to be gotten through a non RNG process. So for instance: Say I want to get a particular spear illusion for my elf spear. Instead of going through 1 million loot boxes, I should be able to set it as my goal for the week, and be given challenges through-out the week to work towards that goal. These goals should most importantly be REASONABLE! A week of grinding for one illusion, is NOT reasonable. It can have a time restriction, but that restriction should be something attainable in 1-3 days, max.

Likewise, there should be items that are only attainable through legendary challenges. Much like the 100 game helmets, but, again, WAY LESS GRINDY, just difficult! Fortunes of War, is a great example of this! That was a mode that was hard and pushed you to the limit, and you got an awesome reward for it. You can do the same thing for a cosmetic item, which would GREATLY incentivize cooperative play and higher end play.

RNG is a nightmare for completionists and fashionistas. Furthermore, you should NEVER underestimate how satisfying it is to be good, BUT ALSO look good while being good. This is not only more fair and interesting to play, but it incentivizes lower level players to play more, to get better, and feels a million times more rewarding than a food pellet after opening that 1000th loot box and finally getting that last illusion that you wanted. I can NOT stress this enough, the loot system NEEDS to change. If you ignore everything else I mention in this survey, then at least fix the loot system.

  • The crafting system needs to be reworked. I don’t know who originally approved of this RNG based crafting system or why they’re so dead set on continuing it when nobody liked it in Vermintide 1. As I’ve mentioned in a earlier comment, I believe the Weave crafting menu is FAR superior to the current system. If you add some dust cost to moving certain parameters around, this would be the easiest and most effective way to switch to a system that is fair and rewards exploration and experimentation for the regular weapons in the game.

  • Stop re-using assets (so blatantly) and actually create new content. The Weave, and VS. modes are not an acceptable method of adding content, because you’re not adding content, you’re re-purposing it, and I can guarantee you that it’s reception will be a dismal one. You know how everyone can tell when you haven’t prepared for the oral presentation of your book report in school? Well, gamers can tell when you’re doing a sh!t job at creating content for your game. DO NOT BÜLLSH!T US. However much you think you know about your game, I can guarantee you some nerd is locked in his basement who’s dissecting your code to find out the best build for a particular class is, or how to best utilize a weapon in way you would have NEVER imagined. And I’m not even trying to fluff myself up, I would not even consider myself that fanatical, I’m simply more knowledgeable because I have been playing games my entire life and for way longer sessions than most people. I can guarantee you that there are people out there who can do your job better than you can, so I suggest you don’t disappoint them. Because in the end, if you do good work, you will build a legacy. So who do you want to be? Just another 3rd rate developer who sinks a potentially great ip into the ground, or someone who can go toe to toe with giants like CD Project RED? In the end, the hard work will be worth it. I highly implore you to take you next projects, or DLC more seriously than you did this one.

  • Talents are still problematic. I don’t hate the new talent trees as much as I thought I would after hearing about them from a friend, but at the same time, I’m not particularly impressed either. You seems to have shifted some talents around. Somethings changed for the better, like the 25 level talents being moved to the level 5 is a good choice for lower level players. However there are still dead talents that don’t add enough or synergize well enough with the character they’re on.

Essentially the balance of the talents still sucks. I’m gonna preface this with: 5 days is not long enough to adequately test every talent, with every combination, especially if the crafting system is fighting you in the first place, but… In every character class I played (and this is in reference to Cata difficulty) there was always only 1 effective build that dominated the playstyle. For example: The pyromancer’s old talent for +50 temp health on ult was removed and replaced with Burning twins and Blazing Echo, which is basically the same talent except, with Burning Twins you get 2 projectiles 100% of the time, and Blazing Echo you get it, maybe … 50%ish, if I’m being generous, and it’s still the same effect, essentially. Yes, you might be able to double stun a boss, 50% of the time, but imo, that’s not enough reason to chance not getting double dmg on him, or a horde, or killing 6 monks/berserkers or 2 elites instead of 1. The Exhaust talent is fine, Burning Twins talent is ridiculous and almost a guaranteed pick, and Blazing Echo is just a complete waste. If you replaced Blazing Echo with the +50temp hp one, I would have a legitimately hard time deciding on which to take. And that’s how all talent selection should feel like, instead of: “This one is the obvious choice.” Almost every single talent tree feels like this in regards to end game content.

I highly recommend revising the talents again, and putting more effort into theory crafting good builds for the role they’re meant to play. Because right now, it seems like you’ve taken away as many (if not more) good ways to play a class as you’ve added. In general, ask yourself the question: Would this build work and contribute greatly to a game of Cata? If not, it’s a wasted talent.

  • Temp HP: I have 2 issues with this. I’ll start with the most glaring one from a previous patch. Ranged TEMP HP. This needs to come back. Ranged classes are the MOST fragile and least effective at generating temp hp in melee situation. Almost every single ranged class uses their ranged abilities for dealing with high priority targets like stormvermin, specials, maulers, etc. yet they get only the temp HP talents for: killing blows, and stagger. What weapon on sienna allows to generate high amounts of stagger temp hp? Temp hp on stagger is almost worthless unless you’re playing a specialized shield class. More melee oriented classes, will almost always out dmg you against elites in melee stealing the much needed temp health. So, you’re expected to expose yourself by using a ranged weapon, kill specials, and also stay alive just as readily as a melee character. This.is. BAD! You have no idea how many times I’ve taken a split second dodge shot from waystalker to kill a special about to snag my teammate only to be rewarded by a clan-rat plinking me in the back. What a super fun way to play the class!

You guys clearly have range oriented character, you need to bring back a satisfying reward system for performing well as a ranged class. You don’t have to revert to the old system, but you can’t have no temp hp generation either, it’s just not fun, and not fair. Whoever on your dev team thinks that the only fun way to play this game is by getting Carpal Tunnel by mashing your left click through a horde of rats in melee, is wrong. I want to the choice to be able to get Carpal Tunnel by spamming left click from a distance, as well! Maybe having half of the generation of temp hp of the chosen talent for melee kills can also apply to ranged kills, and double for special, or elite kills. This could only be applied to pure ranged classes, like Waystalker, Hunstman, Ranger Veteran, Bounty Hunter, Pyromance (although, you’d have to tweak her a little because pyro’s super beefy right now). I feel like this would make these classes way more enjoyable to play than they currently are.

Secondly, the other temp hp issue pretty much bleeds into the first one. Ranged classes have non-synergizing temp hp generating melee talents. There is NO REASON for ANY ranged class to EVER have the +temp hp on stagger talent. NONE. They don’t have strong melee talents, they often choose lighter weapons so they can rely on dodges more effectively. Even if someone like Huntsman Kruber chose to wield the shield and sword or mace, the stagger they generate wouldn’t nearly be as powerful as, say, a Foot Knight or Ironbreaker which both get better defensive talents allowing them to have more stamina or stagger force, and the + temp HP on stagger is already completely under-powered compared to classes that can readily dispatch elites, or those that have access to +temp hp per enemy hit. This ABSOLUTELY needs to be fixed in the coming patch. I thought this would be self-evident, but here I am, writing out this colossal survey.

  • (Ranged) hitboxes: This has been a SUPER annoying problem ever since version 1.0. The nature of the game is fast paced and action oriented, this means that you need to be able to hit targets on the fly, while kiting, dodging, and jumping. This means that landing a headshot is SUPER hard when being even a pixel off, as you’re calculating the drop rate of your arrow that’s supposed to hit a Blightstormer that’s casting from across the map, means that your group is potentially doomed or not. Hitting numerous Stormvermin in the head (or otherwise) as they’re bobbing and weaving is nearly impossible without just getting lucky or being 1000% focused. Even then, you’re likely to dish out for friendly fire. Trying to hit a stormvermin in the back of the head is probably the most annoying thing I can think of in this game. It would not break the game to have these hitboxes have an ever so slight buffer so that it’s not so impossible to consecutively land headshots for careers that utilize them, like the Huntsman or Waystalker. And it wouldn’t really affect any other class since most people do body shots anyways. AND it would create new high-risk, high-reward character builds which could contribute to the variety of play.

Secondly, expand the range and hitboxes for picking up mundane items and switches and other activatable items. I can’t believe this STILL isn’t a thing. Have you ever tried to pick up that F-ing canonball on Fort Brachsenbrücke? Or those god damn keys for the grim chests? The hitboxes for these and pretty much anything else you can pick up are OBNOXIOUSLY SMALL, and should be expanded a considerable amount. For instance, the hitboxes on Bardin’s new axes after he throws them are the size of mini-van, and while I don’t think everythign shoudl have hitboxes that are as big as that, something smaller but similar to it would go a long way to not making picking up items so annoying. From what I remember, this didn’t used to be the case for V1, everything felt, more or less, appropriate but for whatever reason it’s different in V2.

Fixing the hitboxes will help to contribute to a seemless pace of action. It may seem a relatively nit-picky thing to talk about, but it’s actually incredibly important, because fluid gameplay is at the core of this game, and anything disrupting it, is a huge problem in my opinion.

-Speaking of small things affecting fluid gameplay: getting stuck on geometry! Now I understand that this will be a much harder thing to pin down, so I won’t waste too much time on this issue, but there are certain parts, specifically on slopes that if your character is backpedalling, they’ll get stuck on seemingly nothing and can get caught. I don’t know how much of this can even be fixed because I’m sure it’s some sort of engine issue, but if there is a way to look into this, I would advise it.

-Iceskating enemies: A problem from the old days. Still here, still annoying. I’m fairly certain this is an animation glitch, but it should be addressed because many a matches have been unjustly ended by an ice skating Chaos Warrior overhead.

-Shields: I understand you just put in a new stagger mechanic in the game to incentivize their use, but I do not feel that this is the correct way to go about it, or perhaps, not the complete way. I’m sure that I’m not the only person who has mentioned this before but, Shields trade maneuverability for defense. Still there are certain attacks, like Chaos Warrior overheads, or monster hits that can either completely eat through your stamina bar, or directly damage you through your block if you don’t stack +%reduced block. This is a VERY simple problem to solve, imo. Remove the chip damage from boss monsters and give the shield bash a much greater threat counter. Also, prevent the ability to be grabbed Chaos Spawn as it’s impossible for the shield bearer to optimally keep threat and dodge the move effectively, OR, keep the grab, but allow Bardin to stick the shield in the Spawns mouth to defend himself. How cool would that be!? Bardin being grabbed by a Chaos Spawn while defending his team-mates but still giving the spawn hell as it tries to chew on him! Now that truly sounds like a valiant Dawi thing to do! If bosses break the shield bearers guard, the stagger on the shield bearer can last longer than usual, allowing the boss one direct hit to the player, unless they’re just far enough away to use their shorter distance dodge to avoid it. This way the shield bearer isn’t invincible to the boss.

What is your purpose, really, when you’re playing defensive? To give your teammates a better strike at the enemy. How does the current shield wearer do this? He (or she) doesn’t. Bardin is the only person who’s able to effectively taunt off any enemies from his teammates that might be in trouble, but even so, it’s on a HUGE timer, and otherwise, there is no reliable method of keeping agro from mobs. Well, if shield bashes and slams were themselves tiny taunts, this would make the shield a million times more valuable, and it wouldn’t be super overpowered because of the range and movement limitations. This would also give a reason to ever take +shield block/push radius. Say that, any mob shield bashed would keep it’s agro on Bardin (or whoever the shield bearer is) for something like 5 seconds, and could be reapplied so long as the player had stamina to shield bash. This would give immense utility to team oriented tank players, without making them too OP. It’s literally their role to absorb as much damage for their team as possible. The more mobs they pull onto them, the harder it will be for them to maneuver or keep blocking the enemy hits, but the less pressure there would be on his team-mates which would then have the freedom to dispatch the assailants, or snipe specials or elites. This can also work for a boss but on a smaller scale, for instance: 3 shield bashes or slams and you’ve got his attention for 5 seconds, giving your team the opportunity to deal damage to it, or to deal with other threats, once you have no more stamina, you disengage and let your team deal with the boss until you can pull it off again. If you stay on the boss too long, you face the challenge of your guard being continuously broken and the shield bearer becoming overwhelmed.

These could be inherent in the weapon themselves, the class, or be a selectable talent for more build options. You can choose which you think is the better option, but I think having it be inherent to a shield or class, is the way to go, and you can make shield enhancing talents to bolster their effectiveness. This is the basic tank/dps dynamic, but in an action team-oriented game! I understand this is sort of how it’s supposed to work, that enemies that are pushed are more likely to go after the person who’s pushing them, but I would wager to say that with a shield, it needs to be absolute, given the massive trade-off in power and movement that you sacrifice. Furthermore, this would create a really interesting build opportunity for +% stamina reduction to block, or can be combined with opportunist for more stagger builds. AND this would ALSO be a viable option against the Charging Beastman elite. Without that chip dmg protection though, this is a only a half measure. I urge you to consider these changes because I really enjoy using a shield, and can only see it becoming more fun to use with these changes.

-Balance Berserkeres: Right now, berserkers are out of control on Cata. They have as much hp as an elite, they’ll down a squishy in like 3-4 hits which take them literally a second to perform, and they’re almost completely stun proof. Often times there’s no chance to even react before you’re hit like 3 times in the back because the first 4 monk hits and first … like 5-6 hit from berserkers are their fastest volley. If anything, their move set should start out a little slow and then fly into a volley, so that the player at least has a chance to react before they’re smashed with a combo. Again, I know they’re supposed to “berserk” and ignore pain or whatever, but honestly, they should be stagger-able by a shield, or with certain talents or certain heavy weapons. The executioner sword staggers them, but a shield doesn’t? That doesn’t make sense.

  • Gutter runner insta-pounce: Self-explanatory. This bug’s been around for a long time, and it still hasn’t been fixed. Gutter runners will sometimes jump at incredible speeds, and other times at the intended speed. FIX THIS. It’s really fücking annoying and unfun.

  • Gunner and Fire-rat stagger: If you want gunners to be almost impervious to stagger like they’ve effectively become, then you need to bring back their long wind-up time so people have time to re-act. Currently, they’re just around the corner and ready to unload and can’t be stunned by a lot of ranged weapons and most not armor piercing melee weapons, and they fück up your ranged aiming so that even if you’re trying to kill them, you can’t, there’s literally NOTHING you can do to stop them. This forces the player to use only certain weapons and essentially limits the amount of available tactics at your disposal. Pretty much same thing with fire rats, except their fire deals almost no friendly fire dmg, so you’re just stuck there taking dmg from everything, which, again, really doesn’t make sense, since the fire totally roasts slave rats and clan rats after the Fire rat explodes, but apparently not when it’s actually firing? It just feels like there needs to be 2 stages of that particular special. 1) The prep stage where they’re sitting in the back, charging up their attack, and 2) Some method of dealing with them once they’ve spun up and are firing. Stagger was a good tool for this, because maybe you weren’t able to kill the rat completely, but at least you could reset it to stage one while you deal with the horde, but now, it’s just like a giant “Fück you, I’m here, and now I’m shooting you and you can’t do anything”. Not fun. I understand you needing to buff the gun and fire rats, but this has gone TOO far.

-Spawn If you’re going to make the Chaos Spawn super fast, and essentially a better Rat ogre, you need to give it like a lower health pool or something, because it’s ability FAR exceeds any of the other bosses. Unless you predict his attacks, there’s no way most people are going to react fast enough to deal with them. I have seen this time and time again, especially when it shows up in corridors, or places that are hard to maneuver in. Compound that with a horde, or specials and there’s almost no way to deal with them other than: BURN HIM DOWN. This is especially impossible in Cata for the average player, ESPECIALLY with people who join with red latency.

-Tomes: Please, fix the tomes falling through the world, this is an issue that’s been around since day one. It needs a fix. Furthermore, why are potions tradable, but books aren’t? Bombs and potions are tradable, but grims aren’t? I kinda understand that you might have wanted to put in some element responsibility to the player that picks it up, but in reality, this is just annoying. Most noobs I play with, have to constantly be told to pick something up if they’re the more appropriate class to carry a tome or grim. This wastes time, and apparently does nothing to reinforce the behavior of them needing to be the person to pick these books up, I would rather pick the book up myself, then hand it to them and not break the flow of progression throughout the level. It’s INCREDIBLY frustrating for people like myself to have to command 3 other people to play the game.

-Voice chat: I heard there’s going to be something done in this area, I just hope you also mute the character voice overs at the keep and not just on a mission so that people can have conversations in the keep to discuss and prepare for a level, without Saltzpyre asking Sienna “Why does the elf count her kills?” for the bazzilionth time, while you’re trying to explain something. And I hope you’re addressing the volume issue with most mics being WAY too quiet in game. I use a Blue Yeti usb mic and a lot of times I’m told that I’m quiet, where as, every other game, I’m told to turn it down. This is a problem for many MANY players that I’ve met over the years in this game and should be addressed.

  • Slow 2hd weapons: They just need to change. Most 2hnd weapons are simply not worth using because they’re PAINFULLY too slow. Specifically, the 2hd hammer for Bardin and Kruber, 2hd sword for Saltzpyre and Kruber, even Ex sword feels really slow until Paced strikes starts kicking in, or swift slaying. It’s almost mandatory to stack atk speed in order to use a 2hder, otherwise, a clan rat or some other low teir enemy can actually get a hit in before you complete your swing to kill them. This is particularly frustrating because I really want to play with 2handers more. I want ALL the weapons to feel powerful and useful for most situations, but, ironically, the big 2hd weapons that are supposed to be the best at mowing down large groups of enemies are the worst at the task without some sort of specialty atk speed build.

Ok, I think that’s all I can think of off the top of my head, but I’ll be sure to bring up any further suggestions when I manage to collect my thoughts on them.

Was there anything you found especially good or rewarding while playing? If so explain what happened.

  • The game is especially fun when you’re playing with a team that doesn’t have to be told what to do.

  • This is a very small detail, but I want you guys to know that I REALLY appreciate this, especially since I played the elf a lot. I really enjoy that I am able to shoot through the tiniest cracks and gaps in geometry to hit my targets. This is one aspect of really tight hit-boxes that I REALLY enjoy and appreciate. Most games would have huge hitboxes for geometry of the environment that stop your projectile even if the model doesn’t necessarily extend that far, but your game is REALLY tight on that detail. Sure there are a few places where that’s still a happens, but over-all, I’m very impressed. Pulling off a shot through a gate or a window, or a hole in the wall, makes for some of the most satisfying shots in my video game history. You guys did a great job on that!

  • I really like it when people specialize for a particular purpose and everyone works as a unit to go through the level, each person making way for the other to shine in the one aspect that they chose to be a specialist in. This almost NEVER happens. I think I’ve only seen this a handful of times throughout my entire 1500 hours in this game, but the few times it worked out… it was magical!

  • Hitting a fully charged fireball directly in a middle of a horde =)

  • Certain weapons have a REALLY good feeling when used, like the elf spear, or Krubers 2hd hammer, (if it wasn’t so slow).

Conclusion:

I really like the game. I’ve spent a lot of time, and had a blast with many different and awesome people in the community, and the only thing I want to see is for this game to succeed. With that said, I hope that some of the suggestions I’ve posted prove useful to the development team, and I hope that if anyone else has anything to add to this overgrown list of grievances, that they do so, so that the devs at Fatshark can better do their jobs.

TL;DR There is no tl;dr, if you care about this game, read it. @Yznerftamz need not reply to this post because I know he has nothing of value to offer this community.

Thank you friends, and I hope to slay some rats with you in the future!

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I think you’ve got a lot to say and it’ll take more time to read than I currently have; I’d love to come back to this and read the rest of it as I can. Also, I think this should be marked for Feedback to the WoM Beta due to the bulk of it being about cataclysm, but I guess there’s some other stuff in here, too.

Before I do, though, I’d like to mention that a lot of this post loses its merit when you say things in such absolutes and then follow it up with “I don’t want to talk to you so don’t come into my tree-house.” It makes you seem like you form opinions strictly of your own volition and then see them to be the equivalent of a tried and true theory… the reason I say that is because @Yzneftamz is a pillar (mis-tagged the lad, by the way) of our community and tends to contribute to those big conversations along with some other forum-giants and they usually hash it out as a group. Singling him out seems… odd.

There’s a long list of people I love hearing from for different reasons because they all contribute different viewpoints and opinions to a melting pot that we can use to help benefit and provide feedback to FatShark. Yzneftamz provides an extremely level-headed, well-balanced analysis to most aspects of the game and, frankly, I really enjoy reading his feedback/opinions on most topics. The fact that you’ve lashed out at him in the past for suggesting that you make a bug-report and you responded with Enemies spawning directly around you sorta makes me apprehensive to try to have a civil conversation with you.

Again, I’ll get back to reading everything and try to bounce ideas with you, but I hope that you are willing to approach other people’s suggestions more openly than you have in the past.

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I’ve read most of you post and it doesn’t come across as feedback, more of an angry rant. To which you admit it is. At the end of the day, this is not the place to post this feedback and against the rules. Beta feedback goes in the beta forum. You should of got a link to the forum with your email which would of gave you access. If not, message hedge and he can set you up, he is extremely busy right now. Otherwise you can simply put this in a word document and submit it to Fatshark like many of us do.

Tagging Yzneftamz like that is not cool. He’s probably one of the most respected members of this community for his level headed and unbiased feedback. Not to mention it’s a violation of the community guidelines.

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Now thats alot of textwall and sure it takes some time and effort.
I fully agree with most points youve argued but hey, ill rather surprised if fatshark ever implements QoL stuff and improvements. Because from what ive seen in a past year they just DO NOT CARE. Well made post though with such thoughts.

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Well, despite it’s angry tone, it is quite good feedback, and mostly justified too.

I think it is because of ridiculous new mechanic bounded with stagger: if enemy is not staggered, it have damage resistance. Basically, it make even weakest enemies “tough”. So you need to push your enemies before you hitting them to do damage :expressionless:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/bzg8ln/fatshark_changed_the_feel_and_flow_of_combat/
If I could choose, I would play current version of the game, because summed up, the upcoming changes makes it worse.

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For those wondering why this wasn’t posted in the beta forum. The beta users don’t have access to that forum anymore because the beta has ended

OP, I think you’re extremely condescending but there are some excellent points. Especially about having two loadouts now. My second gear set will just be a recreation of my old set. I don’t think that’s very interesting but it does give me something to work toward I guess

I think you harp too much on recycled assets. One of the only things I liked about Winds of Magic was that the environments looked fresh. New lightning effects, recolors, and a few new assets go a long way to making things look different and unfamiliar

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the shine wore off real quick for me, given that you’re running the exact same pathways to the exact same events in the exact same sequence each and every time you grind the one best bang-for-the-buck weave in your power range. the beta was only a week but i can do w15/31 in my sleep now…and i’m not even the slightest bit interested in what it looks like. it’s all about the grind

some weave mods introduce interesting gameplay elements like the pillars to vent curses and such, but most of them are just the same old maps with slightly different lighting and not really very interesting at all.

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well this is getting silly and I can’t see it going anywhere good, might be best to close this one down @Fatshark_Hedge

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You know how I know you didn’t read my post?
Because in the very first paragraph, I posted:

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Thanks man, I actually played around a little with some shield builds and they did help, but every enemy being so meaty still made it impossible to deal with specials. One hookrat and a teammate was almost always downed because the special killers were too busy dealing with adds, or have already used their ults to gain some breathing room.

I’ll have to go through some more of the comments in that thread to see how people feel or if there’s some useful tips to be gained.

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A lot of good points, from my short time in the beta I much prefer live. If not getting the WoM DLC lets you keep the fluid game feel of live, then i wont buy it.

Dodging off host is bad enough as it is, and getting ping under 90ms is a rare and wonderful thing.

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I didn’t read your posts. I read half of the first one. If it contains good feedback then why not offer it as such and no matter what you think about other forum users, frequent posters or not, don’t tag them just to s***talk. Use your own and his energy some other way for way more benefits.

I don’t know how many of the people posting stuff like this took part in the “big balance beta”. The stuff in the balance beta was awful. Truly awful (not everything). The end product came out as something way better though, even if it took some getting used to. This was not the end of the beta. The beta will continue with fewer participants and hopefully most things will end up in a good place. If you don’t think it will then don’t buy WoM, wait for the reviews!

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Oh I read it. That still doesn’t change the fact this is against the rules. And you tagging and calling out @Yzneftamz is also a forum guidelines violation. That’s why I’m not responding to your WoM feedback. You had an entire week to gain access to the beta forum which is now closed to everyone but internal testers. You can still submit this feedback to Fatshark without breaking the rules you agreed to when you got into the beta.

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You know what else is against the rules?

1) “Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.”

Oopie, I don’t think that’s very respectful.

2) Knee-jerk contradiction

Another Oopsie.

3) “Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.”

4) “Improve the Discussion”

Another Oopsie.

Over the entire 8,320 words; the 320 sentences that are in my review, you singled out 19 words; half of a sentence.

You haven’t contributed ANYTHING to the actual discussion of this topic, and have violated your own precious rules in the process. For what? So you you can try and change my mind about Mr. Sepheroth? It’s not going to happen. Just flag my post and leave, because it’s clear you or anyone else who has a problem with me not liking a particular individual in this forum, doesn’t actually care about discussing anything in regards to the actual game.

Oh and for your information I asked for Beta forum access 5 days ago, when the Beta just started, so don’t try and somehow pin my posting here as some sort of laziness on my part, because I did everything in my power to put it in the right area, but was ignored.

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I feel ya. I usually host myself but even with host privileges it’s really rough now. I hope that FatShark comes to their senses and reworks A LOT of the problems still plaguing their game, though, I’m not gonna hold my breath.

Their reputation is more than lacking under the circumstances. But here’s to being hopeful! Maybe they’ll adopt some of the suggestions I’ve made, and I’d welcome anyone else to throw their two cents in, as I’m sure I’ve missed some problems.

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I just found a fun example of the new beastman special being terrible design.

Also, I would like to point out the in game chat from that clip. It’s a small glimpse into how people actually feel about the new enemies.
I also managed to grab a screengrab from one of my own games not too long back:

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A: Your comment responding to his comment is also falling victim to the same thing; defending yourself or not, if you are trying to peg @SmokerT69 for being hypocritical you fall victim to the same thing yourself. You’ve contributed nothing to the topic with that response.
B: If someone is being hypocritical, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. I believe the logical fallacy for what you’re currently trying to do is Appeal to Hypocrisy.
C: He was respectful. Saying “I don’t like RPGs” isn’t rude, it’s stating one’s opinion. You were respectful to everyone but Yzneftamz by actively excluding him which, inherently, is against forum guidelines.
D: In your response to me you said “I’m sorry but you’re wrong.” Mind providing some evidence? In the link I posted there was a show on ingratitude on your part when he tried to suggest that we could help make the game better. Stubbing your toe is the equivalent of a bug-report for your body; if your toe didn’t go “Hey, that really hurt plz change what you’re doing to stop it from happening more” you’d have no idea you banged your toe unless you were staring at your feet. Care to elaborate on how he contributed nothing by making a helpful suggestion?

It’s not that it’s wasted, it’s that we can’t understand your viewpoint because we disagree. Is all information wasted on those who disagree? I feel like fielding ideas/points is a way the community comes to an agreement about a topic. Posting to us instead of sending it directly to the Community Manager makes me feel like you are seeking our input, hence why we are providing it. I’m sorry if it’s not all stuff you want to hear, but as is life.

Sorry for the bulk of this being a summary of me catching up on my absence; allow me to properly provide feedback on a few of your points.

  1. I’d rather no armor be added to hordes; it encourages this anti-armor weaponry meta that we’ve fallen into. I can’t be excited enough to hear that a horde of non-armored folks is a terrifying challenge; that sounds like other weapon kits will be favored over the anti-armor ones.
  2. Hordes and bosses are meant to occur at the same time and gets spicy when specials are thrown in; that can be a run-ending combo on Legend if you don’t deal with one of those factors fast enough… the people wanted a harder difficulty, after all, so I’m excited to hear that one boss plus a horde is an absolute nightmare scenario. Plus, that’s exactly what most MMO fights are: manage the adds properly and you will succeed. In most fights, that’s the point of the boss fight. For every WoW boss you can name without adds, I can name one with them. That’s perfect for now; perhaps we hand this situation to the masses first and then fine tune it based on clears/performance levels? IDK, this just sounds like Vermintide 1 Cataclysm which was an absolute slog… but oh-so rewarding.
  3. The charging beastman seems absolutely brutal to fight against. I look forward to seeing them in action for the lower difficulties and how it might prepare a team for Cataclysm. I like how you’ve approached this topic with suggestions for improvement as opposed to just saying “make it better” with no suggestions on how that might be accomplished.
  4. Add complexity, not health. That seems like a you saying “make it better” with no recommendations how. It seems like the banner-bearers have made things considerably more complicated… and by the way, that’s what complexity looks like. You have to use specific tactics, characters, and kits to have a solution to the outrageous things the enemy can pull. The good part is that you only need 1-2 of them on your team to have a good answer to it. We’ll see how things pan out :slight_smile:
  5. The archers sound sort of harsh, but I think it will finally provide some favor to the “tank” classes for their shields. I’m a fan of that. I’d also be a fan of a Bardin taunting a horde so I can snipe the archers… sounds satisfying to me, but what I suggested might not work. Time will tell.
  1. This is not directly true; Titanfall 1 had a very cool matchmaking system but the algorithm to it was inherently flawed. I recommend you take a gander at it; some really cool technical explanation was given and a lot of work went into the construction of Titanfall 2’s matchmaking system. This being said, matchmaking is a construct of linking players together… not the players themselves. The exception is, of course, ifyou don’t want to play with them again and attempt to blacklist the player (which is a point you made and you are correct to want it).

I hope my summary of a few of your points wasn’t too far off base. I’m going back to do my own thing and try to find these silly Empire Points… They are Billions is hard.

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Judging by balance beta, there will be a few balance changes but everything will remain the same. I hope I wrong, but not much. This is my pessimistic look at this beta.

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