I realise I’m going to get a lot of flack for this post. I know that many veterans think the game is too easy (I’ve seen many complaints about it) but the game as it stands is crushingly difficult for new players even on the lowest difficulty.
I have been playing for the last few days so while I’m by no means an expert, I’m not totally green. Most of my characters are in the 5-to-10 level range and between 100 and 200 hero power.
However, it seems that the difficulty has been upped quite a lot for the full release to the point where it’s far beyond what a group of fairly new players can handle, never mind people who are brand-new to the game with only level 1 characters and default gear.
Most of the groups I’ve been in today have had people saying they’ve never won a game and it’s not hard to see why. Brand new players really shouldn’t be losing 5 or 10 games in a row even on the lowest difficulty, it’s just going to cause them to stop playing because it’s really not very enjoyable.
There are only that many basics to learn to win recruit… without those basics you wont win, and wont help another team of 3 players that want to beat the map.
It is WAY harder if a team consists 4 totally new players, or if there are new players together with a few more experienced ones with 20h playtime.
What would you consider a good difficulty for totally new players? If there is even just 1 special spawn people die because they run around solo. The maps make the game hard too, and the damage taken is not really high on recruit, hold rightclick and youre pretty much safe.
Perhaps an indicator what special spawned, distance to your teammates and a big arrow that shows the way to the next checkpoint, which would totally ruin the game feeling.
To be honest, the best way to play for new players would probably be a private match with some bots, you know why? Unexperienced players make the game so much harder for a new player and his team. A bot that stays near you carries you through the game. I hope you get my point.
This isn’t a normal FPS game. If you didn’t play V1 or L4D there is a rather large learning curve. Horde survival games aren’t your normal FPS, team work is more important than anything else. Reading you team mates movements and guessing where they are going, because who wants to talk to these people!? Is super important.
First, let me say that I love V1 and V2 (from my 15 hours of beta) - but I agree its a tad too hard for new players… I get some people love to just punish “noobs” and gloat how l33t they are, but why does having an easy-mode Recruit level somehow take away from the challenges that can occur at Vet+…
Making a game that is easy for new/crappy players, but having more challenging levels/mode for skilled players just allows everyone to enjoy it…
i would agree that this game has a steep learning curve for new players. it’s even worse if players do not have experience in fps games.
it’s also dependant on attitude. the game does not advertise itself to be a happy family fun friendly spoonfeeding type of game. it’s violent, full-on guts and glory. i’ve seen plenty of players who play 2 hours, decide they don’t like it, and complain a lot or just uninstall/refund. the players who take the time to understand and learn more, will be rewarded with a very rich experience like no other.
Maybe it’s just how you are approaching it. Maybe your party would benefit better from playing with more experienced played who know better the maps and how to call certain plays.
Playing safe, moving slowly and watching everyothers backs hardly goes wrong.
Use voice chat a lot and talk with people. There are few reasons I will quit after joining a room:
-Lag
-People not communicating at all
-People not communicating at all and sprinting far ahead/ lagging far behind
But it’s quite easy to find good teams. From someone who played stuff like league and pubg, V2 community actually isn’t toxic.
if you compare it with highly competitive games like league or pubg, i can see why you say this game is not hard.
try to put yourself in the shoes of a player that has never touched a shooter or an fps, maybe played sims for most of the time and is just trying out vermintide. doesn’t know how to move about or aim quickly, let alone have awareness of their surroundings. they’re going to find the game difficult to pick up.
Think of old school arcade games like king of fighters or even a simple pinball.
There’s no way you are starting into that and not getting destroyed.
Most games are mostly about individual skill. V2 is mostly about teamwork.
You don’t need to be aware of your surroundings if you have people looking around with you.
You don’t need to do anything by yourself.
But maybe I am wrong and the first barrier is in fact in acquisition of basics.
Then the only thing this game has that’s really harder than any classic FPS games is that it’s mainly melee. There’s less time to react as enemies are attacking.
While I disagree on more difficulty levels or nerfing enemies. It could help new players if there were “enhanced” visual cues for enemy attacks. Just so it is blatantly obvious what is attacking when and who.
Things like colored outlines, shiny weapons, auto-spotting enemies, healthbars and s* that just clutter up the screen and we would just disable.
I am pretty new to the game, as well as being new to the genre as well (survival FPS/TPS I suppose?). And the game has been pretty harsh on me even when I am playing on Recruit mode.
Coupling that with players who insist on picking up Grimiores even when they are going down really often, potion hoarders, hallway heroes, etc. I’ve only won less than 10% of the games I’ve played so far.
It is still fun for me, I guess. But I would say this is going to discourage a lot of new players to stay with the game.
I’m fine with the last two tier of difficulties to be hard, as they should be. But Recruit, and to a slight extent, Veteran modes should be easier. Look at them as a way to ease the players into the end game.
i don’t see it that way. i believe players have to focus on being self sufficient first, then realise that supporting the party actually makes for a smoother game. not having awareness of whether a party member is vulnerable to getting jumped from behind, that’s bad in my book.
let’s agree to disagree.
haha! welcome to vermintide. glad that you are having fun, i have been addicted to the visceral combat ever since i started v1. you’re gonna get a hang of it, then you’ll be carrying your groups in no time.
I’ve been thinking that recruit maybe should not have grimiores at all. Not sure how many people would read that as grimories are even more required in every other difficulty…
I do believe that the baseline difficulty level of any game which has challenge as an important concept should be a fair challenge to many people for a while. Celeste is a good example of a game which does difficulty settings very well imho. The system explains clearly that making it easier is not a part of the intended experience but still gives you the tools to do so, this is probably a good spot for mods to fill in VT2.
grims and tomes are optional. if your party is dying too much trying to get to a grimoire, communicate this to them and skip it. some people see it as part of regular play to get those extra chances at better loot, some don’t. i don’t think this needs to be changed, recruit is where you are supposed to learn this stuff.
You’re basically saying the game isn’t hard if you know exactly what you’re doing and use every advantage possible. That is, the game isn’t hard if you’re an expert. That may be true but it’s not really relevant to the discussion at hand. This was a bunch of new players who just wanted to play their new game and have fun.
I was playing last night with many players who were on level 3 or 4 characters who said they had never won a game and thought it was impossible. Given the low amount of experience you get for losing, that means at least a couple of hours of banging their head painfully against the lowest difficulty setting for next to no reward.
They were not having fun, they were getting frustrated, they were saying they hated the game. These are all bad things and unhealthy for the game in the longer term.
The easiest difficulty should cater to players who are new and know nothing about the game. It shouldn’t even be relevant to veterans; there should be other, more rewarding difficulty settings for those players.
Somebody who just bought the game should be able to pick it up and have fun with it and the difficulty setting at the moment is preventing that.
I think the biggest change that is causing wipes is bosses with specials and a horde happening at least once a level. I seem to get that every time I do a boss at least once and people who I assume are new to the franchise don’t know how to handle it. This is on recruit, I should mention.
I’m only trying to help people by giving advice based on what I did once I started and what gave me best results.
I don’t have a “get good in V2 in just 15 minutes a day” guidebook. Neither I’m trying to sell this game, if people aren’t having fun this can be for any number of reasons.
The problem is that players dont wanna learn what they need to do to win and how to play the game successfully. Instead the expect to be able to go into any game they buy mash buttons and get rewarded for it with easy accomplishments.
Is super important.