I’ve been playing Vermintide since the first one, what Fatshark has acomplished is truly amazing, its by far the best co-op melee game in the market, its a niche market of course, but hey, credit where credit is due. Jokes apart the gameplay is superb its fluid interesting and the A.I director most of times keep things fresh, making the same map feel different. Not to mention the very affordable price for a game that can be considered triple A.
However i’m afraid that Vermintide 2 is lacking in many areas, this game is clearly made with passion so do not read this as someone who is upset instead mildly letdown and I have in my heart the best of intentions, as I hope this game becomes better with each passing month so you guys can make money since this is not a charity but preserve the quality of a game that you guys clearly put your hearts on it. So here is my feedback regarding things that bother me in the game.
Communication: As a company i really feel out in the dark, theres a saying that silence is an answer but I don’t think that applies in this case, but we as a community need to know what you guys are up to even if it upsets some people. For instance, if you guys said that there was going to be no updates in the foreseeable future due to Xbox development, people would get mad for a few days and get over with, it’s understable you guys are not a big company, if you need to cease updates for a while just do it, but don’t lie or omit things from the community, it only makes people madder. Update the website, make the roadmaps, if there is a delay update it and inform us. Bad news is still news, and its comforting to know that the company is still working on the game, sure we may know that, but we need to HEAR it. Since the beta people have been complaning about dust conversion, I made a post ranting about it and I felt like some guy read it and said “ah f it, we gonna add it but we don’t need to say it.”
So however is responsible for the community outreach, make your paycheck worth. Because we have to dig out in the forums for some semblance of sign of life.
Make events more interesting
Summer event was somewhat a breath of fresh air for the game, but is still lacking, the keep decoration is cute but mostly useless, but we can enjoy useless things if more useful things were added, for instance: O got 3 oranges from my emperor’s legend chest, I felt like those 10 quickplays event were absolutely useless. Create a new type of crate. Like “Legendary Vault” or some sort that GUARANTEES at least one red, I assure you people will come back like flies if they feel they are rewarded enough. Some people feel that gameplay is rewarding enough, but many others feels like they have to have something to show for, that’s why reds are useful, don’t be shy to give out more reds and items, add exclusive event cosmetics and keep them for a month dropping, maybe even edit the enemies to fit the event (Christmas hats on enemies for x-mas event for example), like killing floor 2 does, its stupid yes, but a little stupid is fun sometimes.
RNG
Speaking of having something to show for, as a behavioral psychologist lemme tell you something about frustation. I Understand the hesitation to give out reds, since I believe that the company mindset is that if you make something really rare players will keep playing hoping that it will drop it. However I assure you that this concept only applies to a very small number of people who have incredible reslience, most players will play for hours and if they have nothing to show for it they will feel deeply angered and probably quit, this is frustation, is when an expected stimuli is not given for a determined behavior, with the industry right now people have a very low tolerance for frustation, since they can just go for another game. I have 2 friends in fact that this happened exactly as I described, after playing for hours on legend and not getting a single cosmetics and seeing a new player get 2 cosmetics in 4 hours I haven’t seen him playing the game in the last two weeks, thats some deep frustration right there.
As i stated before, make special crates that guarantee drops every once in a while, slightly increase the chance of cosmetics, I guarantee that if you do that you will see a spike in the playerbase activity, its not opinion, its behavioral science (mixing variable ratio intermitent reinforcement with variable time intermintent reinforcement is the best way to maintenance and strengthening behavior which in this case is playing the game).
Deeds
Speaking of behavior-reward, deeds feels useless, we have a shitload of deeds piled up and mostly orkri’s challenges and events requires quickplays, its something nice if you want to test your skills, but the reward is so meager compared to the difficulty of some deeds that we are simply not interested in doing, specially because NO ONE in my group (about 7 people) is fully maxed with reds, I think i’m the closer one to it with about 350 hours of gameplay my Bounty hunters is lacking a proper ranged red weapon, I have rangeds reds, but not the ones I really need. Also, there is no quickplay reward for deeds, so we can’t max our rewards for carrying tomes/grimorie, is simply not worth the risk and time consuming chore.
However, if you add a “deedplay” bonus along with better improvement with the loot system maybe deeds will become something cool, I’ve never seen someone say “cool I got a deed in my chest”, deed was very good on paper, but its simply not doing it.
I would seggest every deed drop at least 2 chests, one of them called “Honorable Commendation Chest” that gives a high chance of cosmetics drop.
These (Except the event things) are all very basic and doable things I believe, it may look like a lot of work, but I really believe this is will greatly improve the game, and if you keep players engaged and interested, every DLC will sell like crazy and everyone gains from it.
Lastly, add a Saurus warrior playable characters.
Seriously.
I’mma serious you guys.
I Hope you find this constructive and I do not wish to offend anyone by this post, I took my time today to give honest feedback for a game that I really enjoy and I wish I was playing it more, but most of my friends became desinterested.
