A suggestion make the beastmen fit better into VT2's storyline

I’ve been discussing with a lot of friends in these past days regarding how the beastmen are present in the game at the moment. They currently spawn in every map except “Into the Nest” and “Skittergate” and when they do they are very predominant, up to maps where we’ve had them for the whole map, final event excluded.
I’m very unhappy about the situation, as their presence makes little to no sense in most of the old maps, and even people less attentive to the storyline have agreed with me they feel a bit off.

So after some thoughts this is my suggestion:
Have no beastmen spawn in the maps more directly involved with the Helmgart storyline: these are “Righteous Stand”, “Convocation of Decay”, “Hunger in the Dark”, “Halescourge”, “The Screaming Bell”, “Into the Nest”, “The War Camp” and “Skittergate” for the main campaign, both Bogenhafen maps, and “Horn of Magnus” and “Garden of Morr” for Back to Ubersreik.
For the record, Fatshark has said that their plan is currently not to have them on the lord maps, so my suggestion would have them remove them from 4 additional maps of the Helgmart campaign (and a fair bit of the DLC ones).
To offset that, I suggest they could make Athel Yenlui a full beastmen map, like Dark Omens. Whatever (or whoever) interfered with the Bridge of Shadows is gone from the map already by the time we get there, so, story-wise, having it as a mostly, or totally, beastmen map would fit.

The remaining maps:“Fort Brachsenbrucke”, “Against the Grain”, “Empire in Flames” , “Festering Grounds” and “Engines of War” are all outside of Helmgart (or Bogenhafen, or Ubersreik), and having beastmen there would not be as disruptive. As many people have observed, lore-wise, the beastmen are opportunists, so it seems reasonable that in less populated towns/areas, they happened to join the pactsworn for a bit of fun.
I would still suggest to rework the way they spawn a bit, to have them appear in small, possibly specific sections of the maps, where it seems most likey to encounter them, instead of having them to appear in random sections, or for most of a map, stealing the pact sworn’s spotlight.
The most suited sections in the example maps would be:
The area around the ford in “Fort Br.” from the dropdown to the tunnels.
The first part of Against the grain, up to the oak hill.
I’m actually a bit conflicted about Empire in Flames, maybe have them around the outskirts? outside the city proper? Or have them as a continuos, but mixed presence across the entire map event excluded. Or maybe no beastmen at all, I’m unsure.
Festering grounds is full of forest bits.
Engines of war too (it even has a herdstone!).
You got the gist.
I believe Drachenfels will have beastmen this time, and i think their presence will be the focus of our return, so all in all I believe we’ll have no shortage of hoofed enemies to fight.
In any case, some specific new lines to aknowledge the beastmen presence in these maps would do much for immersion (“Beastmen in Ussingen, the heresy” or “I’ve seen many towns raided by the herd, bun nothing on this scale”)

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The beastmen shouldn’t be appearing in any maps. They should have had their own string of maps that WoM was supposed to bring over.

Based on the trailer, I was expecting to fight a very specific Beast Lord who was abandoned by his human parents and then later grew up and ate his parents.

I was hyped, and then the ball was dropped, lost, and forgotten. Now we have this pre-alpha mess that everyone’s complaining about.

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I don’t mind them appearing on old maps, as lore wise that can fit easily. Beastmen in Warhammer have always been able to be part of a Chaos army, so some tagging along with the Rotblood horde when it showed up in the Helmgart region fits well enough.

I agree they do sometimes pop up in some strange places though. There’s hardly any reason for them be in some parts of some maps, while it’s very logical to find them in other parts more, like forests. Maybe their presence can be adjusted to avoid and favor some spots a bit? OP made some alright suggestions to that.

What really irks me, however, is just how often they appear. It might be coincidence or bias, but sometimes it feels like they make up half of all the enemies I fight. Maybe they could be toned down in frequency of appearance? Like ~25% of total maximum? Clan Fester and the Rotbloods should story-wise make up the biggest part of our enemies, after all. Suddenly fighting nothing but Beastyboys can be a little weird considering the story and background.

So, suggestion: Maybe spawn-wise make them appear as a part of the Rotbloods instead? Like make them take up ~25% of all units in the Rotblood parts of maps (like a percentage of roaming enemies being gors, one wave of the horde / ambush being beasts instead of fanatics, etc.) instead of having them be their own third faction? Beastmen have lesser unit variance so that would solve the monotony of their parts of the map as well (like 5 standard bearers sequentially…). Would also reduce the Sorceror & Leech spam in Rotblood parts as well.

If this approach is chosen there could still be parts where it is Rotbloods only (like Skittergate) or Beastmen only (like parts of Athel Yenlui), where fitting, as well off course.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all the Skaven specials in Dark Omens as well… Chaos mages showing up there fits well enough. But lone Skryre weapon wielding Ratties and lone Hookrats showing up there? Wut?

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I’d be hugely disappointed if Beastmen appeared on only a few maps; they’re children of Chaos and don’t follow nobody’s rules! They’re really not just forest-dwelling beasts, though, they crop up anywhere they can get a foothold - in cities they often live in sewers. Granted, those are usually just called Mutants and not Beastmen proper, but there’s no reason there couldn’t be Beastmen, as it’s just kind of a sliding scale; all the way from secret cultist who pretends to be a regular, good person, to mindless Chaos Spawn.

The weird thing isn’t that they’re suddenly in older maps but that they weren’t there to begin with. Beastmen go wherever they’re not kept out, and they’d be drawn to a burning city like flies to honey.

On top of that, it seems like it’d defeat the purpose of adding in a new enemy faction to only have them on like . . . one map. And yeah, it would have been great to get more maps in the DLC, but that’s a different topic.

Like @TmanDW says, though, they seem a bit too common, especially with the issues of being broken and silent so often.

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I just want them to spawn a little bit less. But that’s 100% because I hate swinging into them and watching Gors tank hits like Maulers.

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This is the crux. As they weren’t designed with them in mind, they don’t really fit in most of them. I’m all for having them in future maps, i loved dark omens. I just think they should be there in a way that feels realistc, and doesn’t break immersion: Helmgart is not exactly where i’d expect them to pop up, and being in the convocation undergrounds or in the mountains to hatch mutant trolls? NO.

I think the key is patience: having a new roster in their inventory is a great asset for fatshark. I want them to make good use of them in the future. I really don’t like how they are being used now.

EDIT: I like the chaos hordes, but if we got them into VT1, retroactively, i’d be equally pissed. Only because we have a new enemy doesn’t mean we have to shove it in the previous maps.

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I love this idea very much, though I see and understand the point of @Para-Medic.

So: for me it will be a very accaptable compromise if we were able to “switch” beastmen on and off via the level selection! So everybody could be happy and make their own decisions to engange them on certain levels or not.
It does feel very weird/odd that they suddenly appear on the old maps after so many playthroughs. This is one of the reasons I haven’t bought WoM (yet), because I feel beastmen were forced into some levels were they don’t “belong”.
Don’t want to step on someone’s toes lore-wise, so @TmanDWs idea would also work out for me, from what I have seen so far.
Would rather have the option to switch them on/off or implement them “smarter”!

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100% agree with you and @Para-Medic. The reason I made this post is that the previous one

wasn’t very well recieved. So after some thought I came up with this suggestion, to make as many players as possible happy. I’d be satisfied with a switch (while we can switch WoM off, that’s not the optimal solution) as imho having them on the weaves, dark omens and future content is gameplay enough.

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Yes, their sudden apperance could need a rework! I hope the playerbase and FS agrees to this!
I don’t have the feeling this gets much attention or is any focus point right now.
I feel that with WoM the game changed too drastically and too fast for players to catch up properly. Maybe it would’ve been better, if they’d released beastmen and weaves separately? So they have time to adjust slowly. We all know what happens when a major update is released ;)!
It feels like it’s burning on too many corners for FS to properly keep up. Although I found it a brave move to release all this at once. If you want to succeed, you have to make “mistakes”. Or at least try something. After the impact you then can fathom the consequences and react.

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If we just got a toggleable ability to pick which factions appear on maps, that’d be cool. Dunno how it would work for maps with scripted enemies or that are entirely one faction.

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I agree with you! An overall toggleable option to switch between factions would be interesting! Although it would mess with difficulty a lot. To fight f.e. only one faction on legend/etc. would give you the same reward? Different factions add variety, also in difficulty!
I think an overall switch-ability between all factions is quite suitable for the modded realm.

Official realm is split now either way (!) between WoM and non-WoM. You can switch beastmen on/off via the dlc option. For a party it might be a bit of a hassle restarting the game and add the dlc if you suddenly decide you want to play against the newly added faction.
I heard you keep the new weapons if you swith WoM off, so an ingame toggleable option could make sense and would be appreciated! Nothing’s messing with your builds!! There would be no harm done with scripted enemies and it might be easier to implement (but I’m no dev, so I just assume). Beastmen stay on Dark Omens.

I believe in this compromise/option and would love to read more opinions on this matter!

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imo the weirdest map to have them in is Hunger in the Dark. What in the old world do beastmen have to find up there? It’s basically a bunch of skaven and norscans throwing a plague shower for trolls and we’re supposed to believe the beastmen would be interested in attending?

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The whole helmgart mess is something I find hard to believe the beastmen would be interested in. It’s too organized a plan, and it’s a remote fortress, guarding the axe bite pass in the grey mountains from greenskin invasion. Having beastmen there would require a level of advanced planning and coordination that simply isn’t there.

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Honestly I disagree with that point. I buy them moving in with chaos and skaven (while largely ignoring the things the latter two do, like building the Skittergate), beastmen are opportunists and you have to remember they hate man, absolutely hate man, and everything the civilisations of man represent. If humans turn up to interfere with skaven and norscan plans the beastmen would be more than willing to turn up too to kill them, even if they couldn’t care less what the skaven and norscans are up to and whether or not the latter two races fail in their plans.

Envy is part of it too, as the chaos gods love humans and corrupting them, whereas beastmen are all already theirs so a lot of the time they’re kinda treated like old toys, barring ones like Morghur, Malagor etc who have more of the chaos gods’ favour.

I’d be for having them appear in reduced numbers however.

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I could see beastmen breaching Nulns defences and pushing towards Helmgart. Should they be in the city areas? Nah… but I have no issues with the being the forest or sewer areas. At the same time, B2U is fine as well, since it’s an illusion. Technically the chaos boys shouldn’t be there either.

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I don’t think it makes sense for them to be down in the sewers - what have they got to find down there?

A ruined city on the other hand is the perfect place for them to pillage and defile.

Beastmen aren’t in any way averse to attacking Empire cities if they have the numbers. Gorthor’s Siege of Hergig is a great example.

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I think one (at least very stylish way) cozld be that beastmen just invade other maps and start attacking everything. Including rotbloods and skaven. This makes lorewise sense and could be used to shake up gameplay by providing new situations/problems to solve.

And instead of having an outgame switch there could be hidden herdstones on maps where beastmen show up. If you destroy it no more beastmen will spawn. However destroying it might give a chance to trigger an extra minotaur/beastpatrol/horde etc.

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I like this idea.

And to that I would also say that we are introduced to the Beastmen when finding one of their weapons stuck into a Rat Ogre. Either we need an extra level, :D, to clear up why the pact-sworn and Beastmen are friends or they should not be friends.

The part about the weapon stuck into the Rat Ogre really got me confused for a while when I played as I thought the Beastmen would not be happy allies with the pact-sworn. But maybe I was overthinking things.

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