An "analysis" of stuff

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Before I begin, I wish to congratulate Fatshark on their dedication to this IP. Not only that, but what they have made is both an amazing and unique experience, that needs to experienced. I think Fatshark has accomplished everything they set out to, e.g create a co op experience; with a compelling atmosphere. I also would like to preface this, by saying, that this is no way undervaluing Fatshark’s accomplishments. Consider it a mere critique of their design.

1)Enemies:

I am going to split this section into three main subsections; Skaven, Chaos, Patrols, and finally Bosses. Reason being, is that they deserve more depth, rather than a general critique.

Skaven, are by far the most generic enemy within the setting, luckily they managed to add chaos to the mix; thus shaking things up a bit. However, chaos too suffers from the same symptom, in that they quickly become generic; and lose all identity. Consider this, outside of the special units, what is the main difference between chaos and skaven? Personally, to me, both factions operate the same. Both factions use the same tactic, in that they swarm you. The only thing that really stood out between the two, was the sound queue that is played, when a horde spawns.

Skaven:

Skaven in general behave as they should, like skaven. So to summarize, they are fine. However, special units need to be relooked at. Specifically, hook rat, storm vermin, and assassin. For the record, Fatshark has finally addressed both the warpfire and flamethrower specials; so good on them. Many people have already said enough on the aforementioned units, so I wont go into as much detail. But, to reiterate, being able to ignore collision, and or having stupid thick armor; I’m looking at you shield vermin, is not fun.

Chaos:

As of me typing this, chaos behaves exactly like Skaven. In that they will always swarm you. Chaos, me thinks, should not behave like skaven. They should be far more scary and tough. I am not able to put my finger on it, but chaos just needs to be a bit tougher and intimidating.

I had an idea, of decreasing chaos troops, while increasing their strength. Basically less chaos, but make them more stronger. It is ludicrous that chaos troops, even with the gifts of the dark gods, are able to go down so easily; they die just like skaven. They shouldn’t be sliced like butter, they should be far more durable and stronger.

Bosses:

It pains me to say, but bosses are too simplistic and boring. Once you figure out the patterns, it’s always the same. Dodge, kite, and use bombs; or follow it up with a ult. There is no dynamic to a boss. The AI needs to able to counter players who are able to kite a boss, while having teammates attack it from behind. The AI needs to also be able to punish players who cheese the boss, by using ranged.

I believe both troll, and storm ogre, are decent attempts. For example, storm ogre will always try to isolate the team, forcing the fight to become dynamic, meaning players will always have to come up with different tactics to outsmart this menace. However, the fight is quickly trivialized, once you realize the flames don’t do that much damage, and you can cheese him.

Troll is also pretty interesting, in that his regen can completely change the dynamic of the fight. His range attacks can also isolate teammates, thus forcing the team consider different tactics while facing it. Again this fight is made trival, once you relize you can just use the same tactic. Get someone to kite him, while the team focuses him down. Or you can kite and range him to death. Thus enter cheese strats.

Chaos spawn, rat ogre, and the rest are flat out uninteresting. Both suffer from a boring design. In that they will always focus a singular person down, while the team whittles its health down. Thus enter cheese strats, how far can we abuse or exploit this AI flaw.

Patrols:

There is no way around this, patrols are not fun. However, not in that they are hard, but in that they are not as intimidating. First off, not enough troops patrol a map, meaning there is no sense of fear, urgency, or vigilance while traversing a map. This seriously needs to be looked at. I wish for the devs to consider the following; put multiple troops in a level, give each patrol a fixed route, or make it dynamic, and buff them.

2)Loot:

Recent efforts at addressing the loot issues, are very appreciated. So don’t take this as me being entitled or whatever. Loot still needs more quality of life changes, and a couple of revisions. For starters most traits are not meaningful enough, and are generic. Reds, in general, are not unique enough to warrant such scarcity. Properties are uninspired and dull, adding minor changes to gameplay.

In short, loot fails to enhance the fun in gameplay. And instead, becomes a dull, boring, grind that gives you arbitrary incrementals.

3)Early game:

Not much can be said here, early game is fun and interesting. You are always leveling up, and receiving weapons and items, that can increase your power level.

4)Endgame:

Okay, remember how I said early game is fun and interesting? Will once you reach end game, you soon realize just how grindy the game is. End game is all about repeating the same maps over and over again, grinding for stupid rare reds, and hoping to get a hat; and or fancy skin. In short the end game does not have any substantial content, for players. Many a player have already spoken at length, regarding this issue; so I will only be repeating the same thing. To summarize, it’s not fun and is grindy.

Ether deeds need to become their own mode, or players need to get them at a faster rate. Otherwise end game is just not fun, and is tedious.

5)Difficulty:

This game quickly becomes easy, once you master its mechanics. Personally, this is a problem that needs to be remedied. The highest difficulty, legend, is made trivial through proper teamwork. Hence,“teamwork” you can succeed in this difficulty, with proper teamwork. As long as everyone knows what to do, and understands their role, then all is okay. Honestly, this is an issue, legend should be far more difficult.

Legend should require far more, than just “teamwork”. If I can complete legend both solo, and with a random dysfunctional group, then there is a problem here. The highest difficulty, should require coordination, communication, and a refined understanding of the mechanics. In other words this mode should be unforgiving, hence unforgiving; fair but ultimately unforgiving.

6)Level design:

Honestly, the level design is pretty solid. All maps have a coherent direction, and a simple to understand layout. Of course, certain maps will benefit from a couple of quality of life changes, but at present; it’s fine.

In conclusion, I hope the devs at least read some of my feedback and consider some of it. Of course I am not so egotistical to think that they would read the entire thing and agree with all my points, lol. I just hope that some of it is at least considered. Finally since this is on a community board, I would like to know what some of you think. Do you agree? Disagree? Are there certain points that you wish to elaborate on?

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“Skaven, are by far the most generic enemy within the setting”
if im not mistaken, it’s a trait of skaven, having tons of marching bullet meat and no tricky tactics. Pressure through numbers. While northlanders prefer brutality over tactics and/or numbers, and they both do not have predisposition to be tactical and smart.

what is the main difference between chaos and skaven?
Size, design, numbers, damage, type of enemies.

I also think that maybe, you find enemies generic, because you, for example, have played for 12 hours every day and you know every move that enemy will take and it starts to getting boring because you’ve seen this every day, for so much time. But maybe i’m wrong.
But anyway, if you just implying to improve AI, that would be problematic, because improving would mean players would have to spend more time to wipe horde and clear corridors(esp. in game where too slow=dead, too fast=faster dead) and since players come to play “l4d with melee” and not “For honor”. But i’am all in for ai improvement, just not making enemies too smart.
For example, that northlander should instantly run at heroes, as soon as they see them, while skavens should consider a little bit, seek help from others and then start to run at heroes.

About bosses. I would like to remind you, that this game is not about “only pro’s should play this game” For average players some parts can be challenging, while for you it’s easy peasy. Just dont forget about that. But i would agree that bosses need some improvements:
Bosses needs some kind of state, where their pattern should change and become more dangerous. And improve existing moves, that are too easy to counter, as soon as you recognize how to counter them(like spawn grab(for example make spawn interruptable only when it screams or something)
Countering something of players kit, is like coming in kindergarten and brake everyone’s toy, because it’s too easy for you. But implement some moves that include to deal in certain situations??(like tank in l4d tossing giant rock)?? yes!
countering? no. Big F. NO.
And there should be no punishment for using range through bosses, or through ai. Player use range because of balance issues of range>melee. Using range is far more superior in every term, especially on bosses. Its better to improve melee and balance range(not nerf though).
I, personally find troll a bit too long to figth. I would gradually exchange step, where you have to deal damage to procide to the next stage, on,f/e,troll getting stronger and faster with each stage.

Patrols. I agree, though i would not do anything with them for now, since they, sometimes, appear out of nowhere, stuck or traverse through one-way corridor, without any other way to continue level.

some traits are good(head shot trait, speed trait, basically, all that reward you for skill or/and talent build) some will brake heroes(bh+ammo crit+Volley crossbow=inf ammo) but many are useless. So yeah, rework is desirable.

Also, what about talents and skills?
Persenaly i find some talents\skills useless, boring and/or lazy.

“To summarize, it’s not fun and is grindy” welcome to Vermintide

Difficulty
Again, Average player, not pro players. I would also like to see some statistics of how many people complete legend with party and pugs. And making legend harder is same as locking whole content, because “you no git gut”. It would not only hurt game, but also devs pockets.
It should be hard, it should be fair, but not “Possible if you have party of 4 good(if not еру best) players, who spent 300+ hours”

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Thanks for the nuanced response. I can concede a couple of points. First off, thinking for a bit, maybe you are right. Legend should not be locked off to people, it shouldn’t be super difficult. However, if not buffing legend, will you at least agree that they should introduce a harder difficulty? Or at least make deeds its own mode?

I just find legend, in its current state, lacking.

“About bosses. I would like to remind you, that this game is not about “only pro’s should play this game” For average players some parts can be challenging, while for you it’s easy peasy. Just dont forget about that.”

Sorry, since I only exclusively play legend, and sometimes solo certain maps, I tend to forget that.

“Bosses needs some kind of state, where their pattern should change and become more dangerous. And improve existing moves, that are too easy to counter, as soon as you recognize how to counter them”

OOooh, now this is interesting! This I agree with a lot. Maybe a berserk state, where the boss just goes crazy and does all types of random attacks; each pattern inconceivable from the last.

“And there should be no punishment for using range through bosses, or through ai. Player use range because of balance issues of range>melee”

This I disagree with, bosses should at least have some way to deal with cheese strats. Either by using range, like troll or storm ogre, or by jumping at the player. For example, if a player is using range to whittle down a rat ogre, the rat ogre will grab a giant rock from the ground; and throw it at the player. Or it will jump straight at the player, really anything to make the fight a little bit interesting. Chaos spawn is okay, I guess, they just suffer from the usual stuff that a rat ogre suffers from. In that you can just use cheese strats to defeat them.

“Patrols. I agree, though i would not do anything with them for now, since they, sometimes, appear out of nowhere, stuck or traverse through one-way corridor, without any other way to continue level.”

Yeah, patrols are bugged at the moment. I wonder how patrols will be, once they fix them.

“To summarize, it’s not fun and is grindy” welcome to Vermintide - cheeky comment is cheeky :stuck_out_tongue:

Finally, I too am interested in statistics regarding legend. Specifically, the win/lose rate of legend players. I think such data will put a lot of things into perspective.

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Shameless bump <:

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i am pretty new to the game so i cannot comment on everything said here but i feel the “difficulty” problem could be overcome by something like “greater-rifts” in d3 where you can select infinite higher difficulties based on the highest you already successfully mastered.
Would also create a way to really compare builds and effectiveness

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Ooo, an interesting idea.