Cosmetics! 150h in game, hundreds of opened boxes- not EVEN ONE cosmetic item... This is absurd

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
42

But that’s not what you said before. You’re moving the goal posts, though maybe not consciously. “In the pre-launch stream alone they flat out lied about the available cosmetics stating there would be obtainable portrait-borders through difficult heroic deeds.”

That’s future tense. If they add that a month from now it’s not a lie. If their stream directly says it will be in AT RELEASE I’ll gladly concede if you have the link to that statement. If not however, your comment here again just illustrates what I’m talking about. Especially if it’s already in, just stupidly rare like other cosmetics.

I saw that. They didn’t say it would be in, they said you already could but that it would be almost impossible to meet up. Agreed they directly lied.

There ARE cosmetic options. They just drop extremely rarely. Ludicrously rarely. Considering it’s been a big talking point and not fixed on a just released game I’m betting it’s not a simple value change but instead a bug in the code somewhere that’s difficult to fine. On the other hand they could indeed just have stupidly low drop rates. But to say they are not in at all with current crap drop rates would be a little disingenuous. With the current drop rates we literally have no way to know how much cosmetics are even in the game.

Still a problem, but a different problem from what you just said.

43

I’m not sure if they said it was currently in or would be in but I hadn’t intended on changing any goal posts, simply used poor language. On the same vein, fatshark saying there would be MORE cosmetic options when there appears to only be one per class is also poor wording as they don’t have more options then the first game.

Additionally I don’t believe I ever said cosmetics are not in the game at all, they’re in, but the rates are absurd and they appear to only drop from commendation chests. Considering it is a feature they actively advertised as being expanded upon from V1 to the V1 playerbase that enjoyed their hats, I, and I imagine others, were expecting more.

44

I definitely agree that the current situation regarding cosmetics is quite poor. Likewise I agree that, given said situation, their statement would be poor as well. Excepting of course if it’s bugged, that would be the one thing that would be understandable I wouldn’t harshly judge.

But right now we simply don’t have enough information to be saying anything like them being lying considering the pitiful drop rates behind a specific content type only the tiniest % of players is doing in the first place. Especially since we already know helms exist. So the only remaining to be verified is cosmetic armor.

But let’s play complete devil’s advocate and say that the remaining unknown, armor, only has 1 per class atm (plus a 2nd for those who own the first game), I think it’s realistic to assume that they did not design that system specifically just for the single armor set. More is undoubtedly planned even if we assume none is in now. As such I will save my condemnation based on time frame AND cost (should be free, at least a few of each anyways).

I have a 3 month policy for games. Beta/Release shows me potential. Month 1 gives me an idea. Month 3 shows me how they will support the game. And depending on the team size and track record that may extend. The Fun Pimps and 7 Days to Die has had fantastic support for example of their game. They have long iteration times, but continue adding more and more to their game. I will condemn them for their atrocious console release, but their continued progress on the PC version at the pace they can manage has been more than satisfactory.

45

My theory is that when they added reds and cosmetics into the loot table after the pre-launch beta they did it poorly and there’s an issue occurring.

46

Most likely. Via Tech Support and QA on both social media software and video games I’ve seen some pretty outrageous bugs, including some monster bugs that defied 100+ man hours without fix or were “baked in” difficult to change OR resided in hazardous to modify code. Most of those just get abandoned as unfixable until some future complete revamp. I know of bugs and vulnerabilities that have laid sleeping for over a decade (17 years and in the much used .net framework no less). Intermittent bugs, network bugs, and vulnerabilities are the worst in general best I know but some others can be tricky.

With a low % RNG bug there are multiple things that could cause code to fail, but only at low %s, in which case testing for it would be a nightmare. As well the client/host environment being involved, as it’s shown to be in some other bugs, could make it stupidly hard to find as well. A surprising amount of other potential vectors exist as well.

Some companies abuse the idea of how hard things are and are pretty sheit about it, I’m looking at you Bethesda, but having had to tackle reproduction, isolation, and non-code based workarounds/fixes has taught me a great deal of respect for such issues. Understanding some very novice coding and constantly interacting with the coders and engineers even more so.

And I promise you they all know they are on a pressure cooker and an invisible time line of fan patience. Us crazies with 100+ hours already are the tip of the spear only. And it’s rough, they just got through crunching to get the game out and now all the things are on fire and broke and they are exhausted and making more mistakes than ever due to said exhaustion trying desperately to patch everything back together. And during all of that, the producer is trying to keep scope and priorities in check and keep things running smoothly while generally receiving irritation from everyone around him they have to be a semi-authority figure on.

47

As you say, these posts are the tip of the spear from the diehard players that have hit a point the rest of the community will hit in a month. But if it isn’t addressed by then, the player-base will just evaporate.

48

That’s a little hyperbolic tbh. Game is fun. People played Left 4 Dead 2 for many hundreds of hours and mod support/dedicated servers are right around the corner. It’ll make an impact on the most die hard players and people hyper obsessed with customization, but that’ll still only be a small or at worst moderate %. Game has a well built and solid core loop that is functioning well and that they just fixed the biggest problems with. (albeit higher difficulty spawns seems to have gotten broken to be easier than they wanted lol).

I mean if we want examples just look at Killing Floor 2, 7 Days to Die, The Witcher 3 (some fair problems at launch), Elder Scrolls Online, etc. So while I agree with you it’ll make an impact, I would step away from inflating it too much. Especially with dedicated servers time and mod support incoming. That’ll be a good time window seeing as tons of people will return for that.

Even your previously mentioned No Man’s Sky hit top 10 on steam like a year after it’s release when they released a big update. That’s considering it’s playerbase after release really did evaporate due to one of the biggest negative backlashes in gaming, so even then it’s not the end of your game’s potential success :). Vermintide 1 was certainly called dead many many MANY times. Even Battlefront 2, with one of the most negative receptions in gaming, still made tons of profit and has alot of people playing it.

Speaking of sales, Vermintide 2 already outsold the original on all platforms and it’s rated positively on steam. It’s already a smash success for them. Everything from this point on is basically just to support their game properly. Considering how long they stuck with the first game, I’ve got no real worries. It’ll get there, they have the track record.

49

I should have elaborated I meant addressing the issue of a lack of end-game content not just low droprates.

50

First of all, I want to thank you for being reasonable. I would not have typed all the things out I had if I thought you were not :). Really it’s a testament, this is the first time I completely and totally disagree with you to the extreme 100%.

Many successful games have “no end game content”. Let’s get out of the way those you’ll dismiss out of hand despite being valid. I know you’ll just dismiss any PVP game and games with significant PVP alternative modes, so we’ll go to other things. Left 4 Dead 2 played by people for years with no “end game content”. But you’ll prolly dismiss that as well with calls of it’s price or steam promoted. Nonetheless these still illustrate that you don’t need “end game content” but instead a game that’s fun to continuously play! Two different things.

Also, seeing as “end game” in Vermintide is basically 100+ hours, we’ll say that any examples need people to play them for as much as that to hit end game, since that’s the line we are drawing here. Though realistically alot of people don’t play most games that long. The old rule was 40 hours per game was a good purchase, for a $60 game mind you. I digress though, lets continue. Heck I’ll even walk halfway to you and acknowledge that legendary difficulty and deeds are not end game content, which is of course debatable btw.

Games without end game content by these metrics: Payday 2, Shadowrun Returns triology, Killing Floor 2, Rimworld, Planet Coaster, Cities Skylines, Stardew Valley, Eurotruck Simulator. Skyrim, Terraria, Fallout 4,
The Witcher 3, Borderlands 2, Kerbal Space Program, Farming Simulator.

See what I’m saying here? Problem is “no end game content” is a phrase thrown about by players and testers that is an emotional term that doesn’t mean what they say. What they mean is “I want more things to do, I want more carrots on a stick”. Honestly? That’s an unfixable problem. If someone feels like they need more carrot on a stick you simply will not be able to keep up with them. They will devour content faster than you can release it. 100+ hours in the month it launched alone for instance! No development team in the world could even dream of coming close to keeping up with that pace or anything even close to it.

You can’t win that battle, therefore you don’t even try to really. It’s not worth allocating resources to. And the irony is those players usuaully come back anyways for new releases later. MMORPGs make their trade off of this cycle. Instead you spend your time focusing on the other 80% of the players, the ones you can actually keep.

51

vermintide 3 please

52

Fair enough, I want more things to do then to just grind legendary for a sub 1% chance at gear I don’t just turn into scrap which I also have no use for. The game has an end-game in a technical sense as you can just keep replaying maps forever.

53

There is only a single game I know of, in the history of gaming, that is not reliant on PVP for a 100+ hour loop that still manages to deliver that carrot and stick as a persistent goal on top of having satisfying core gameplay not unduly hurt by said carrot and stick and isn’t an MMORPG. Every other example I can think would even partially qualify is also either $60, subscription, or has invasive microtransactions.

That one game is Warframe, and it took it years to reach that state and might still fail your qualifications…not to mention it has microtransactions.

54

Monster hunter 4U managed it with the modular hunts that dropped alternate appearance armor and unique weapons as well. Honestly I was expecting the heroic deeds system to be something similar instead of fairly rare single use items. Missed opportunity there in my eyes unless its being reworked and the current system is just a stopgap measure.

2 Likes
55

That is the kind of feedback I like to see. It’s specific, it’s detailed, it clearly illustrates what you would like and they can easily verify the advantages of it. I believe if we had more constructive feedback like this, their job would be 100 times easier.

Because normally they have to jump through hoops like the following for things like the “end game” comments: How Gearbox's 'Truth Team' outwitted Borderlands feedback - Polygon Parsing feedback is surprisingly hard lol. Good feedback is worth it’s weight in gold. And even then it’s not always realistic to iterate on some of the feedback you get, even if you agree with it.

I know I’ve been saying alot of things “from an informed opinion” but I want to be clear I consider myself to know prolly less than 5% of the core fundamental elements of game design. I’ve invested hundreds of hours of research, I’ve played games I’m not personally interested in, I’ve broken down entire systems to try and see how they work, I’ve done networking, tech support, QA both in and out of industry, small amount of coding, etc. 2 Decades of effort. But after all of that I still feel like I know less than 5%.

Dunning Kruger is a @#$@. Basically, ignoring the negative context, it takes proficiency in the same subject to realize how much of that subject there is to learn. IE how bad you are at it. And the more I learn the more I realize I still don’t know. I’m informed for an average user, but an absolute child compared to veterans of the industry in their fields. Life just seems to be like that :).

56

I like that their solution to the complaint of skag valley being annoying to run through was to instead make it fun to fight through. Creative thinking in action.

2 Likes
57

whenever people ask me what it is i tell them:

noobs think they’re pro, pros think they’re noobs

1 Like
58

Its more like pro’s can’t understand why noobs can’t just be pro’s as well

1 Like
59

taken from wikipedia:

“Conversely, highly competent individuals may erroneously assume that tasks easy for them to perform are also easy for other people to perform, or that other people will have a similar understanding of subjects that they themselves are well-versed in.”

that’s true!

60

That’s actually one of the more difficult parts of knowing tech or game knowledge, especially in a customer facing role like tech support. The vast vast majority of people once they become proficient, and I mean like 90%, lose empathy for the customer because of this Dunning Kruger disconnect. Because they can no longer even comprehend how the person cannot manage such “simple” things.

They can almost become as unreasonable as those with little to no knowledge :(.

61

That’s nice and all and I’m sure none or at least few of the people commenting here play for the loot. But if it’s in the game it’s obviously frustrating if you don’t get it.