The best thing they could have done: Never, ever do versus, and use the resources that were spent on it to fix the myriad of balance issues, stability issues, QoL issues, bug issues that the base game has.
The second best thing they could have done: Treat Versus entirely as a separate side project, preferably with its own launcher, with 0 interaction between it and the base game.
Third best thing: Have them in the same game, but no interaction betwen the two modes whatsoever.
This is getting downhill from here.
Have some minimal interaction between the modes, but don’t try to force the PvE community into this toxic broken pile of shít through versus-exclusive items and such.
Or if you have that, at least introduce the Versus mode without 9000 game breaking bugs, including progress wipes.
WE ARE HERE:
Priorise a versus mode wanted by a loud but small minority over the base game, while the base game is barely playable, QoL is still dogshít after years, the menu system and command wheels are barely functional, weapon balance is nonexistent, most talents are not used because talent balance is nonexistent, rats still spawn behind people’s backs which is the #1 damage source in the game, no client side dodging or blocking still, loot system is worse than it ever was before the rework, the crafting system is still shít, the deeds are still shít, the weaves are still shít, the Chaos Wastes is just barely OK as long as you don’t play as Zealot. Adventure mode is good, aside from the lack of consistent difficulty across maps, or any sort of proportional rewarding of difficulty or length, but hey, people mass suiciding in the game and hosts disbanding when the QP rolls a trachery map or Enchanter’s Lair is no biggie, right? So we got Versus. With Versus-exclsuive items for the entire game to force it and you can bet it’s going to be the main focus of just about all events from now on. Balance is laughable, no SBMM, gamebreaking exploits, a blatant hacker here and there, with more to come for sure, premades with thousands of hours VS people who literally just got the game. A horrid netcode that makes Dark Souls look good and 150+ ping for everyone being the norm on the dedicated QP potato servers. Now instead of having one decent game with decently ironed-out issues we’ll get two broken heaps of shít with 0 chance for major improvement for either, because Darktide is Fartshart’s main project now. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Versus mode here is the case of giving someone enough rope to hang themselves, and they want to kill VT2 on purpose. Because just about none of the new players we got due to the 95% discount will ever get near this game again after trying versus, I guarantee that, and now the playerbase will be even more divided than ever before, matches will be harder to find, not to mention that the dimishing quality of the game will take its toll as well. Wonder how many people uninstalled because their Okri book progress got wiped with the update, or they found that they were locked out of the DLC maps THAT THEY HAVE PAID FOR!?
Don’t give me the “but iT’s fReE” bullshít either. I’d rather have the devs unfck the over 9000 issues in the game that I PAID FOR thank you very much, although, with or without Versus, given that a moderately talented highschooler intern could probably fix most, while Fartshart couldn’t for years, I wouldn’t have my hopes up either way.
