Your image of consistency is to strict. The difficulties in Vermintide are not distinctive “lines”, they are “bands” with a certain width. These bands are overlapping and this is okay. The difficulty of an event is only problematic if it reaches over the average of the next difficulty.
And no CoD end event is not harder than an average Cataclysm run. That is why there is no problem within consistency. And yes, you need a certain width of each difficulty to create a better difficulty progression, so that you can train on harder maps. Because otherwise the gap between difficultes becomes unbearable.
Maybe it is too strict when it comes to finale events.
Game is punishing. If you fail the map, you earn actually NOTHING. Even “kills” for quests are not counted.
Therefore, It’s get “more” punishing, for a player to lose at the end of the map after 20 mn rather than during the map due to a random combo of AI director (which is less predictable, and therefore more interesting to manage).
Providing a difficulty spike which is not consistent with the rest of the map and also not consistent with the difficulty is an issue. Which is why I did opened a topic about some end game events a few months ago.
We’re speaking about legend players, and we all have more than 1000 hours on this forum. Of course this does look okay or easy by our point of view of very experimented players.
I train new players, or help legend players on a weekly basis (on the french discord and/or QP). And they just don’t like the experience provided by this specific finale.
I think the greatest problem in CoD finale is the special instaspawning BS.
When you hear the audio cue of a special you know for sure that a globe is already incoming, the assassin is above you, the ratling has already started to fire.
Put a delay between the spawning of the specials and the arrival in the ritual zone or just freeze them for some seconds so the audio cue is really a cue and not a mockery.
Well, it seems like after GK patch you DO earn “kills” progress when you wipe. I just found it when accidently got two-shotted by chaos patrol hour ago
Still, CoD event is definitely too big step up from legend difficulty and should be nerfed.
Edit: and you’re right. This is preventing some players from transition to higher difficulties. In my case, i never go to next difficulty before i’m 100% sure i can handle full book run on current difficulty even during hangover with my eyes closed and playing with one hand (with bottle of beer in other hand). Thats why with 945 hours played i still haven’t tried cata difficulty once, and looks like i never will until CoD nerf.
IMO the issue with Convo end is getting stuck to enemies or terrain, or both. There is plenty of small corners you can accidentally get yourself into without means of escape.
The way you cant walk into enemies now made this more visible and I don’t like the huge collision box (or whatever) around enemies.
Another is the fact that you cannot stagger climbing enemies. They will just attack immediately after standing up from the climb animation.
Of course changing either of those will change the whole game, but I feel both are a bit wacky at the moment. If enemies were not stone walls and climbing enemies could be somehow staggered (or anything similar that the game would technically allow) it would make convo ending, and a lot of other situations too, much easier. Then rebalance events is my vote.
It’s really hard to actually lock down exactly how hard it is but I will state this. If you random CoD in QP you will find it more difficult to beat that end event than you will for a random CATA map on average. This has a lot to do with the rest of your team but the cause of this doesn’t alleviate the problem.
You will likely need to be more skilled to beat QP legend CoD than the easier Cata maps
I have the Master Portrait, I’ve done Convocation on every single class on Legend and beaten it, and recently it has jumped dramatically in difficulty. I have done this event dozens of times in Quick Play groups on Legend. It sounds to me like most people in this thread haven’t actually played it recently with a Legend Quick Play group, it is damn near impossible. Like 10-20% success rate, tops. I don’t really care if you play on Cataclysm with a coordinated group, this thread isn’t really for you in that case because chances are you could beat anything anyway.
I play with a buddy of mine and have to group with randoms for the rest of the party, and that is a huge gamble on this map. Whereas that buddy and I could clutch/carry any map together, this one is nearly impossible to do that on. The biggest problem, and quite frankly my biggest gripe with this map is that you’ve spent 20-25 minutes getting to this end event (which isn’t honestly all that difficult really) and then the end is crushing. I actually wouldn’t mind making the rest of this map more difficult if it meant making this end event less punishing. For the record, I also believe Fort Broccolibush was nerfed too hard, it used to be very similar to the difficulty Convocation now has (once again, crushing) but now it feels like not enough is going on. Balance is very delicate here and it’s hard to balance for everyone.
That said, my primary problems (Legend QP):
Far too many elites. I feel like since a few weeks ago, I will look away for a few seconds and suddenly the platform will have 6 Stormvermin and 3 Chaos Warriors. This wouldn’t be a problem if there also wasn’t a constant horde streaming in.
Specials. Either tone down the number of them or make them unable to immediately attack you. I am mostly unable to respond to the audio queues to snipe at these guys because it feels like they are able to immediately disable someone or block of an area with fire / bullets / storm / gas. It once again feels far too punishing with so many elites and hordes.
Pacing. I remember this event having waves that had small breaks in between all of the action, I feel like I can no longer catch a break with this event. It’s actually exhausting. If a single person goes down, the event is basically over. This isn’t how any other level or event is on Legend.
Spacing. This is how the event was designed, I don’t wish for you to change it. However, because there is so little room to work with on the platform, and progress resets when leaving the platform, this makes the event further punishingly difficult. The acid pool in the middle also doesn’t help, but like I said, do not change this.
Why would Convocation of Decay, of all missions, be the most difficult by such a huge margin? The second mission of the game. The only other mission that comes close is Enchanter’s Lair, which is rightfully difficult. Please, tone this one down a little bit. Thank you for your consideration.
CoD’s event is unreasonably difficult on Legend. I don’t have a problem with the progress decay, only with the special and elite spawn rates. I find it very difficult to win if a single person in the party isn’t properly equipped with special killing potential, for example Slayer or Grail Knight (which every quick play currently has). I love this game, but I despise this event. It is an immense waste of time and effort.
I would recommend at the very least a 25% reduction in special spawn rate, maybe up to 50%. Also lower the number of elites.
The issue of failing as soon as one team member goes down seem quite consistent in the critique of the event. I think it’s a simplified explanation of what happens during the event. The issue isn’t that one member of the group is incapacitated or dead but that the spawns keep coming non stop, even though you are not progressing in the event.
It’s a negative circle of 1) revive, 2) no progress, 3) large threats keep spawning, and on and on the circle goes. If you revive you don’t progress the event and you diminish the threats. If you only focus on kiting and threat management you can throw in a revive or two, but you wont progress and if you choose to progress you’re likely to do so alone or with one teammate while ignoring your respawned teammates.
This kind of event with constant spawning is not only seen in CoD but was the cause of most wipes on Skittergate as well, before it was reworked slightly. It was too hard to keep up with the spawns and try to salvage the situation (get your team up) at the same time.
Fort Brachs and Athel follow the same pattern but with less threats a way more favorable verticality in relation to the spawns and spawn locations. Fort can be traversed safely no matter what you have chasing you and it’s hard to get cornered in Athel unless you stop moving.
tl;dr My suggestion would be to look over the spawn cycles in relation to the intensity that is commonly used throughout the adventure maps. If no one is actively disrupting the ritual, maybe the spawns should slow down or stop. If they are slowed down presently then maybe you should look into tuning those numbers. I think create a more reliable difficulty in the event and it would offer a similar experience to both pre-mades and QP groups.
That is something I could get behind. An introduction of a “recovery” function. Stopping the spawns would be a bit to much as you just drop down, kill the rest and wait for respawns.
That emphasizey my point. The bands are overlapping and that is good, because the gap between difficulties is less stark. The even is harder as the easier maps as you said, but not harder as the average cataclysm run.
I did legend convo yesterday with a friend who didn’t play for years (has 80hours aprox) and got back into it, this was our 4th game and an unchained joined aswell. we completed the event, my friend died towards the end (pretty much expected cuz new), i kited into a corner so i died when the event was completed. It’s not as hard as people make it out to be, yes 2 players died, but that was all due to our own mistakes.
Edit: i also agree with @Adelion . events being harder then others is fine. It makes sense aswell, it’s all a big campaign which lead to boss maps which in turn lead all to skittergate. I don’t expect skittergate to be easier then screaming bell.
Is the difference between events to much? debatable. But there being a noticeable difference in difficulty is fine and should be expected.
And no, i don’t see convocation as being harder then skittergate in a qp setting.
Yep discussing if the difference is too much between events is a balance discussion, just like weapons or talents are. So the same discussions will keep coming back.
Also your thread has alot of good arguments made in it, from comments and yourself. i recommend people to check it out.
That’s wonderful man, glad you got lucky with it. Try it more than once with different teams and report back to us, like I said, my success rate has been about 20%. I have done this mission around a dozen times since the Grail Knight patch. I almost never fail any other mission on Quick Play.
CoD is absolutely more difficult that Skittergate, however, Skittergate is far more of a pain in the ass to lose. It’s far longer a mission. I’ve beaten Skittergate many times since the patch, I feel like Quick Play groups are far better prepared to fight the last boss than they are to do the Convocation final event.
In my experience, I can usually tell if we’re going to fail during the end event in CoD if a party member goes down a single time before the event, for any reason. If you can’t handle the lead-up to the end event, it’s assured that you can’t handle the event itself. No other mission is like this. Bring this one down a little and buff the other ones a little, that’s my advice.
From my exprience in random lobbies is that it’s very hard. I always mention in chat before the end “this part is hard so be prepared” and the other players usually agree with me.
Of course your team comp and skill levels can make or break this event, but I feel like there might be something else going on.
Usually if we’re getting over run I’ll drop off the platform and start to kite the enemies, but recently I did this level again and we have no Chaos Warriors spawn, no disabling specials and very few stormvernims spawn. We didn’t drop off the platform at all and it was really easy.
What I’m trying to say is, I think there might be some kind of randomness as to which enemies and specials spawn which is making it, most of the time very hard, but in a few instances pretty easy. It might be something to look into.
tl;dr:
Is there a level or randomness to which armoured enemies and specials spawn, that might be making it either very hard or easy depending on luck
does it get harder the longer you are doing the event / if you leave the platform
Yeah man, it’s gotten harder. I used to think it was a hard event but I wouldn’t have even called it the hardest but now it’s obscene. There’s something going on here.
