Career DLC's and their cosmetics

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Feedback
1

Seeing as FS has announced the next career coming, it might be interesting to discuss once again what the general forum goer thinks about the issues and what alternative concepts could be possible. The choice is obviously Fatshark’s and looking at SteamDB and the two added unknown packages 7th Octobre 2020, it may very well be done already (then again, this could be something completely different or nothing at all as there are other/older unknown packages).

To give some ideas I will shortly present the current set-up as well as quickly brainstormed (which is an awful word -_-) potential alternatives. For discussion’s sake we assume that the price for both together (career/weapons and cosmetics/challenges) is fixed at 10 $ (or whatever it was for GK).
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Scenario A - As it is

Most likely scenario as it has been proven to work. The career will be available for a low price while those in supporting mood can spend more.

  • Pro: generally it works, people have the option to get the gameplay relevant parts for a cheaper price
  • Contra: with more than double the price the cosmetics are very expensive and people expect stuff to be for free “as all other careers have challenges and cosmetics coming for free”, leads to reviews in the wrong DLC; makes later packaging slightly problematic

Scenario B - One DLC

The cheaper variant will be removed and there is only one DLC which includes everything at the higher price.

  • Pro: Everything contained in one package and no complains about DLC for DLC
  • Contra: No choice, many people are simply not interested in challenges/cosmetics and have no cheaper option now, so they either skip or have to fork out more money; will look weird for future buyers that the first career has two DLCs while subsequent careerrs have only one (although historically explainable)

Scenario C - Switch Content 1

Cosmetics will still be sold separately, however the accompanying challenges will be transferred to the cheaper version without reward.

  • Pro: As challenges for magical reasons are content it might please some people, very similar to Scenario A and functional, GK DLC could be changed without larger issues
  • Contra: with more than double the price the cosmetics are very expensive and people expect stuff to be for free “as all other careers have cosmetics coming for free”, leads to reviews in the wrong DLC; price seems slightly more expensive since challenges are not part anymore

Scenario D - Switch Content 2

The cosmetics and challenges will be part of the cheaper version. However, potential new weapons will be sold separetely.

  • Pro: People have accepted weapons as separetely sold content in the past better; could also be sold without being a DLC for a DLC unless the new weapons are strictly restricted to the new class
  • Contra: It looks weird if career DLCs are handled differently and in this case GK can not be changed to accomadate; makes later packaging slightly problematic; people wanting only the gameplay relevant elements for cheap have to invest more as weapons are now separate

Scenario E - Pooling Cosmetics/Challenges

The career/weapons will still be sold as cheaper version while the new cosmetics/challenges will be included in the GK cosmetic DLCs. The price of said supporter DLC will increase with each release of a new career (however less than the sum of two cosmetics DLCs, so instead of 6+6 , it would be 9 for example).

  • Pro: Can be declared better as supporter pack and early buyers get more for their money; as later cosmetics will be added for “free” if already purchased, FS might make more money this way as people are slightly more willing to buy a “complete” package which may also include career cosmetics they are not interested in
  • Contra: Less choice, if I only want three careers and respective challenges/cosmetics I can not buy them without getting stuff I’m not interested in (although this is the same for the base game).

Those are just some potential alternatives, there are obviously more. With this said, what would you prefer personally, what would you consider the fairest for the average user and what would be the most economically for FS? Poll only refers to personal Preference:

What career DLC model would you personally prefer?
  • Scenario A
  • Scenario B
  • Scenario C
  • Scenario D
  • Scenario E
  • Multiple Scenarios acceptable (see comment)
  • My way (see comment)
  • We don’t need new careers, we need a Hammertime gameplay mode

0 voters

Backlash-wise, I don’t think it will make much difference with either scenario. Some people seem to have no toilet at home and will take any chance to take a dump on the game and/or the developers.

So, with all said. Take the chance to voice your opinion (or to ignore the thread, viable choice too).

2 Likes
2

I think the ideal scenario would be:

New career + new career locked weapons = 1dlc
New challenges = another dlc
Cosmetic rewards = another dlc

The issue with the above though, is that we start to seperate everything, i’m not sure thatls the best thing for fatshark per se, but could be good for the customers.

I also find it difficult to answer on your poll, as you are asking 3 questions.

Let me try and answer it here.

Personal preference: the model i Listed at the top.
Most economically for fatshark: bundle it all into 1
Most fair: like they did it currently for GK.

3

I would assume that this would cause even more backlash or at least bickering than what we saw for Grail Knight.

How am I asking three questions for the poll?

1 Like
4

Oh i didn’t see. you actually asked the question inside the poll.
I saw the 3 questions above that, mybad.

I still answered the poll indirectly in my comment.

How would this cause more backlash? Let’s say GK was 10 euro’s total. This would then be, for example: 2 euro’s career; 3 euro’s challenges; 5 euro’s cosmetics.

Also this would be ‘my personal’ prefference. For fatshark this would probably not be interesting to do.

5

All in one DLC with a fixed price. Makes everything crystal clear. The more options you have, the messier it gets, the more explaining has to be done, the more nitpicking will be.

People who bicker about paying a cocktail’s worth of money for a DLC to finance a game-as-service model have yet to acknowledge this century’s state of the video game industry anyway.

2 Likes
6

Just avoid separating it now to avoid the backlash, people are going to complain about something (probably price) no matter what

If you go back and look at the subreddit and especially Steam forums, a lot of people were upset over the separation and confused they didn’t get any cosmetics from the base DLC. Best to minimize the reasons for people to complain

7

I think I mostly disagree. Sure, it’d be simpler of course, but…

Plenty of games that have received long-term support with paid DLC can after some time, become incredibly expensive just to get the (currently) full gameplay experience.
If older paid DLC doesn’t become cheaper or free (through bundles, editions or updates), then the total cost just keeps increasing and will inevitably drive potential new players away.

To use 2 other games as an example here. Dragon Ball FighterZ and Street Fighter V
In order to get all the gameplay out of the videogame I want I’d pay

  • €140 Dragon Ball FighterZ (All season passes, which is all characters)
  • €30 for Street Fighter V (Champion Edition)

A game’s price-tag that only keeps increasing is going to scare off a number of potential new players. Accessibility in price-tags is something that must be considered as well.

1 Like
8

I would agree if the game and DLC weren’t constantly on sale

1 Like
9

Right, I completely forgot how often it goes on sale.
Definitely the best part of VT2 pricing.

10

I liked the way that the Grail Knight DLC was sold. The core experience for 4 dollars is fine. The only people that got bent outta shape over the full 10 dollar cosmetics package were the idiots that didn’t spend the time to read the DLC description.

That said, I’d like Fatshark to provide some clarity on how Vermintide 2 will be monetized. In season 2, premium hats paid for new maps and re-worked weaves for the entire community. Was this model abandoned? I expect the next career will be paid DLC and Chaos Wastes too. Is this correct? If I am not getting ‘free’ content for everyone when the next set of premium hats are released then I’ll probably only buy the ones I really, really want. Also, could ‘loyal’ buyers get a discount on the careers? I’d like the 1st career you buy to be 10 dollars, the second 8, third 6, fourth 4, and fifth 2. Ten dollars for people that main a single character, but 30 dollars for all five of you want everything, not 50.

1 Like
11

I like the current model, i get that some people labeled it “dlc for dlc” but i disagree heavily with their outcry, for the price of a 2 liter coca cola bottle you get a new class, with its own new weapons, thats a day 1 deal for me.
Besides theres always the chance they could later on add more cosmetics @ uncle Lohner’s.

12

It doesn’t matter to me as I only bought the GK base career.

The challenges and cosmetics are not the reasons why I play.

I also have no plans on buying any of the other careers for heroes that I don’t normally play.

Unless of course, it’s something extremely different than what is currently available. For example, if Sienna is a Gold Wizard for whatever reason then I would be interested in checking that out. Otherwise, I shall faithfully remain a Kruber fan til the day I die.

13

So what have we learned here?

  1. Pie charts are BS. Apparently, they have run out of actual colours like …. I don’t know …… red, yellow, purple, a saturated green, …… The only thing going for them currently is the pie.

  2. As nearly majority proven, we absolutely need a Hammertime gameplay mode or at least as Weekly event

  3. So far it seems that FS’s initial DLC approach is - according to this totally community-wide-representive and fault-free poll - well receipt or at least generally accepted.

3 Likes
14

Is this sarcasm?

I would hardly call 13 voters a “wide-representative and fault-free poll.” :wink:

15

Thing is, the DLC for GK worked really well I think. Surely people were annoyed that the achievements were cash-locked but it was clear as day before it was launched.

Messing around with it now will only cause even more people the soil themselves in rage as the change from GK will tilt them.

A minor tweak might be to have a couple of achievements bundled with the Career, and a LOAD of achievements, skins and frames bundled with the “full set”.

The point being, there needs to feel like a larger value for money received from the full bundle. The skins and achievements need to include some more cool stuff basically.

1 Like
16

If people like the challenges so much why not just add more to the base DLC? The rewards do not have to be cosmetics but could give an emperor vault instead. Coming up with a dozen or two challenges shouldn’t be a problem. Or more even. Players need thousands(I don’t have any data but 1000-2000 chests sounds about right) of vaults in-order to setup their builds, collect deeds and the illusions for their weapons.

Also

That’s the thing, it isn’t free. The base careers have challenges and cosmetics which you have already paid for by buying the game, hence the price makes sense and Scenario A is fine as it is.