Vermintide 2’s progression system has issues, I think it’s awful and what I’m suggesting here would ultimately serve as a band-aid instead of a different, more effective solution which may need an entire rework of said system.
Players progressing through the game have to go through a painful grind to be able to even play the same game and players who are maxed out cannot play the game on an even ground as newer players.
This alone creates a divide between players, the game’s difficulties are balanced with different power levels in mind.
Maxed out players are left completely unable to put themselves on even ground as new players, and this makes playing lower difficulties unappealing and less interesting.
Vermintide 2 has to be the only game co-op focused game in recent memory I’ve played that does not allow older players to put themselves on even ground with newer players, DRG, Monster Hunter and even BL 3 allow you to have fun with newer players without the need to create a new save.
So please, give players the option to lower their hero power either at their choice and then subsequently allow them to increase it back to normal when they want to play higher difficulties again.
I imagine that what is ask for takes a good amount more work than I may realize, I do ask you to consider it though.
Hm, I don’t think it would take to much work honestly but you never know absolutely. I mean there are already power caps in place which are global like the Recruit 100 one. There is also the Deed which limits hero power and to a certain extent do the Chaos Wastes also cap your hero power. So it is technically possible on a global level.
Other than that I would think that Fatshark should be able to create an item (Ring/Charm/Trinket) that has effectively -300 Item Power. That should allow you with some micro-management to reach any power level you wish for by equipping white items and red items together with the minus power.
Out of curiousity: What is the source for the request? Tutoring new players, playing with friend new to the game, revisiting the lower difficulties again? As said Recruit is basically capped already and for Champion I would assume most people who get there are around the 300 Hero Power you can get by simply equipping white equipment. So this seems to mostly target the inbetween of Veteran difficulty which has a far higher cap than Recruit but you have no way to get below that one.
I mean there are already power caps in place which are global like the Recruit 100 one
I thought this might get mentioned, the issue is that you start out the game at 15 power or something like that and slowly make your way up. People new to recruit, veteran or champion are never going to already be at the power cap as they’re still progressing. Even simply equipping blacksmith weapons does not allow me to put myself on level playing ground.
Out of curiousity: What is the source for the request? Tutoring new players, playing with friend new to the game, revisiting the lower difficulties again?
It is all of these things and a slow realization of minor frustrations/inconveniences after having played this game for oh so long.
The idea of making equipment with negative hero power also sounds interesting, I’m all for it if it works.
It looks like the max you can hit on Recruit is 300, then Veteran 500, then Champion 600.
I think just having a menu option that allows you to lower the caps by increments of 25 would be the optimal solution.
If you’re with a friend who’s just starting the game on Recruit, 300 power is godly with all red items and all talents compared to having no talents, no items with any bonuses, and 15 power, or whatever you start with.
You can not go lower than 355 without wiping your save. Just blacksmith weapons aren’t going to solve anything on top of you not being able to flex whatever weapon skins you like.
Why would you need to be on “even ground” with newer players?
There isn’t any competition between players, so, if you want to play with new players and help them learn the game and progress, then there is nothing stopping you from doing that. It is easy enough to hold back during the mission to allow the new players to experience a challenge but be able to go “all in” if things go south.
Most experienced players would still be able to sleepwalk their way through a Recruit or Veteran mission with a 0 power rating character, so, there still wouldn’t be any incentive for them to do it. Especially as there would also be no reward for doing it either.
Reducing power helps for obvious reasons, that’s the key stat to almost everything that matters.
I tried out using the blacksmith items at 5 power each and deallocating talents by right-clicking on them. That’s what I would do for now. If you do that, I think it might be enough to significantly nerf yourself so that you can play casually without killing everything in sight too easily or taking away from your friend’s experience.
AFAIK, you can’t have zero power level if already at level 35, so I’m not sure if zero power level would “still be a cake walk” for all players. Especially since power level affects a lot of things: the damage you deal, if your attack staggers an enemy (and by how much), and amount of enemies you cleave.
Also, even if it is still a “cake walk” it does not necessarily mean that it’s also “unappealing and uninteresting”. It won’t harm if an option to reduce power level for low difficulties is made available. Anything that can help make the game more “appealing and interesting”, especially when playing with new players is welcome.
I believe this type of gameplay is the “unappealing and less interesting” part described by OP.
when the first closed beta to vermintide 2 hit, almost all veterans from V1 got utterly bodied in the lowest 2 difficulties, sure they did adjustments and it never made it to the live version in that state but were talking about people me included who had 1k hours in v1.
so i totally can see how people underestimate the importance of the powerstat, it just messes with your head if your greathammer can’t cleave 3 clanrats
There’s some focus on the “unappealing and less interesting” phrase I wrote earlier.
To put it more simply, being absurdly overpowered isn’t fun, especially when it takes away from another’s experience as @Ensrick said.
I said at the beginning that this suggestion is a band-aid solution. Don’t expect it to fix this game’s difficulty progression.
I think your advice here is misplaced, the grind I’m talking about is the hero power & weapon power which creates a divide between players. Red weapons and circle hunting isn’t relevant.
Being overpowered isn’t fun, right? The power system makes it impossible to not be overpowered on low difficulties, and that’s an issue. The progression system uses recruit, veteran and arguably champion as mere stepping stones for a player’s journey rather than treating them as “actual” difficulty modes.
An ideal solution would be to remove the power system entirely from the campaign mode so that the different difficulties are consistent instead of them becoming easier when you get more power.
Fun fact: Nurgle’s rot deals more damage to players the lower their total power is, while it deals only 1 damage per 10 seconds when maxed.
I call it nonsense.
It takes mere hours to get ilvl 300 gear.
This game does not really have a “campaign”. Yeah, the story is there (and it is good), but I doubt that many play V2 for campaign.
It’s much easier to get your buddies to your lvl if you prefer to coop.
Besides red items in all slots & a meta build is not what makes one a desirable team member.
I have a friend who’s played this game on and off for years with different people; currently at 30.6 hours. Not a single level 35 character and only one veteran item from playing a couple of Legend missions with me a few times. Mostly played on Recruit or Veteran. As I browse through the lobbies, I see the majority of people are still playing below Legend, and in those lobbies, nobody seems to have full power gear, though it’s all private by default now.
If you hop into a recruit lobby with all your red gear and start killing everything, you’re going to ruin people’s fun. Believe it or not, my friend finds Recruit somewhat challenging; probably because he pours about 10x the number of hours into other games. He has 30 hours in this game, which is pretty much how long it takes to finish a short story-driven RPG; and it used to be a long RPG was about 20-25 hours back when he used to play RPG games.
Don’t try to trivialize the amount of time and effort it takes to get 300 power items. I played this game exclusively for about 150 hours to get red items for every slot; I started playing Legend book hunting at levels 20-25 with most characters. at about 1200 hours in now, it doesn’t seem like it took that much time, but for your average human being, that’s a lot of work if the game starts getting repetitive after you’ve played every campaign mission several times on Recruit and Veteran.
it took me about two week’s to be maxed out on power, and i certainly wasn’t the first among people i know… (talking all heroes) i dunno how you can even make a point about one hero.
sure talking about reds it takes time, but reds are novelty anyway…
also i feel like you seem to underestimate the flow of new players, games sell copies every day, and obviously the number who never stay long enough to get to the endgame is alot higher than those who do
cuz they got what they wanted from a game and move onto the next…
that does not however, prove that it takes too long to get to max power
