Anybody remember Heroic Deeds?
After sinking just shy of four hundred hours into this game and getting all five heroes to level 30, I’ve got a pretty fat stack of champion level deeds lying around. I haven’t had much incentive to use them up, and there are two reasons why:
- They offer chests as rewards and I don’t need more loot.
- Most of them look more like they’ll be a giant pain rather than a fun new challenge.
Closer look at problem 1:
At this point in the game, I’m not looking for more Power; literally every piece of equipment I have on every career and every hero is at 300. I’ve got about a hundred orange dust and seven hundred scrap lying around, and that’s while maintaining a set or two of top level weapons for all five characters. No, I’m looking for Reds and I’m looking for Cosmetics. Because of this, the only Deeds I’m even interested in to begin with are the ones that offer General’s or Emperor’s Chests, which means the majority of them are just taking up space.
Closer look at problem 2:
I think Back to Basics, Abduction, and Sudden Death are just more annoying than challenging. With the small pool of available modifications, one or more of those three are on quite a few of the deeds I’ve got, so I don’t feel like doing them.
Compare, Deprivation is challenging and not annoying because it offers a new way to play the game. Getting killed when knocked down and not respawning when killed don’t change the way players play; they just punish mistakes more, and in a way that takes players out of the game for a long time if they fail.
Some possible solutions to problem 1:
Deeds need to give rewards that are still worth trying for in late game. The simplest solution to this is to make all deeds give General’s quality chests or higher, or possibly Commendation chests.
Other more complex possibilities might include some way to re-roll deeds, a way to spend a deed the player doesn’t want and get a new one. Perhaps a button like in the forge, spend some resource and get a randomized deed back, or maybe a way to combine deeds together. Alternatively, a way to do this with loot chests would also fix that, as chests the player doesn’t want could be spent to potentially get better rewards they might be interested in. Maybe we could buy random deeds by spending crafting resources, which would give players a late game resources dump that can contribute to getting late game rewards like cosmetics and reds.
Some possible solutions to problem 2:
Get rid of Back to Basics, Abduction, and Sudden Death, and introduce more mutations that increase challenge by changing the way the player must approach the game. Variety is the most important thing, so having a lot of mutations that aren’t that complicated is more important than coming up with really strange really drastic changes to the game. Identify some play styles and player roles, and think of ways to either accentuate that role, or make that role impossible, either of which will cause players to try new or unconventional builds when trying a deed, like how the one that replaces most enemies with Elites forces me to bring the high damage single target Axe instead of a Rapier, or the increased horde frequency one makes me bring an executioner sword and blunderbuss instead of a sword and shield with handgun.
Here are a bunch of suggestions along the line of simple changes that could mix things up:
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Hordes are replaced with a Monster. This one must be named “Kaiju Army” or something similar. Possibly “Carnifex Army”
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All clanrats, raiders, and stormvermin have shields.
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Chaos Warriors are 50% slower, but cannot be killed (except by falling).
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Armored enemies are immune to armor piercing. Only headshots, explosives, poison, fire, or falling will damage them.
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No healing items will spawn. (This will mean more potions, bombs, and ammo.)
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No potions will spawn. (This will mean more healing items, bombs, and ammo.)
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No bombs will spawn. (This will mean more healing items, potions, and ammo.)
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No ammunition will spawn. (This will mean more healing items, potions, and bombs. These four can replace Deprivation, and can occur on deeds in any combination, possibly leading to games where there are lots of nothing but bombs lying around, or nothing but ammo and healing, etc.)
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All melee weapons deal no damage, but can still stagger, block, and push.
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Headshots cause all enemies to explode on death like Flame Rats hit in their tanks.
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Hordes always include several random Elites.
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Patrols spawn nearly constantly.
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Blightstormers, Globadiers, and Ratling Gunners cannot be killed (except by falling).
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All specials are flame rats, all monsters are stormfiends.
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All specials are globadiers, all monsters are bile trolls.
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All specials are packmasters, all monsters are rat ogres.
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All specials are life leeches, all monsters are chaos spawn.
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All specials are gun rats, all monsters are Deathrattler. (These five would possibly all be mutually exclusive)
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Monsters spawn in pairs.
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Blightstorms with no blightstormers appear at random every minute or two.
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All enemies take 75% reduced damage from the front, but 25% increased damage from the back.
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No pick ups spawn on the ground, but ambient enemy spawns always include several sack rats.
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Berserker groups are much more common and are much larger.
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Star of the Sisterhood from Vermintide 1. All players share one giant health pool.
And of course, you’ve made a bunch of newer more interesting mutations for those Weekly Events and such, like that one where enemies split in two, that was awesome, or the one where everything is dark and the players get a torch at the start. Throw those in there too.
Speaking of, the weekly challenges could use a better reward system.