First of all: 4 classes at release is just not acceptable in my own opinion vs 15 in V2 at release. Should have been at least 8. 12 ideal. People will max out and discover everything about just 4 classes in 1-3 months. What after that? Number of subclasses in V2 (with all their issues that FS should have learnt from till now) at least carried the longevity of the game for a long time. It was months before I got bored of all elf subclasses and moved to another character etc. Here: only 4? That can’t be release-ready game.
Now to address elephant in room. I have been with V1/V2 since their releases. I will tell that to people who belive Fatshark words of aiming to release extra class per quarter: Don’t.
It took them 4 years to deliver 4 subclasses to Vermintide 2. 4 years for 4. They didn’t even manage to release final 5th subclass for Sienna character before they abandonded V2 for rushing Darktide release. Do you seriously think that after Darktide release when the will fight balance, UI, bugs, glitches, working on new maps etc. they will be able to release new class regulary once per quarter if previously it took them over year for one in V2?
Fatshark promised many features, many things in V2. Usually with “we are thinking about X in future” or “we would like to add X somewhere in the future” or “we definitely heard you and I passed this X to team” etc. Years passed for many (making WoM play with default maps better, adding WoM skins, fixing useless traits and bonuses on gear, reworking some subclasses and their talents etc.) such promises and maybe half was done.
So don’t get your hopes up and I recommend to try being more assertive and send clear message to FS that 4 classes on release it’s not the minimum we hoped for.
Though everything here is my personal opinion by years with V2 didn’t teach me to have high hopes for post-release schedules.
I have to agree with the class limit frustration, especially since they already have a starting subclass. I feel every class should start with at least 2 subclasses, even if they have to be leveled separately instead of being able to swap between them with the same character
Imagine if a hero shooter tried to pull this with classes.
An important distinction is if the extra classes are a crutch for not realizing the customization system Fatshark had fantasized of. If the classes at launch are as they were intended to be, and are far more rewarding than V2 careers, I wouldn’t mind them taking their usual horrible pace with extra classes.
However it’s more likely that the class system they intended didn’t happen for whatever reason, and they’ve decided on the extra classes as a content bandaid. In which case one per quarter is pretty miserable, and I wouldn’t expect them to stick to it.
All the QoL changes we got over the years that mattered were born in the modded realm. We don’t have that in DT. The new careers took forever to release and even longer to balance and bugfix. Some still to this day wait for some final touching. Even the balancing was initialized by moders, and only touched up by FS.
Lets hope that as soon as their thirdborn is finally alive and well, they are able to actually take care of it, instead of rushing into the next project and neglecting it like they did with VT2.
That all sounds great on paper, but is confusing in terms of what is being done.
If the classes at launch are truly detailed and deeper than careers then adding a one per quarter at the same standard is far more work then they’ve been able to demonstrate achieving up until this point. If the classes are effectively careers, then the game will launch in a really ugly place, because they focused too much on live service? There’s a lot we don’t know but none of this looks good.
Y’all need to stop worrying about classes. Fatshark will deliver there because it is a financial incentive for them. They have a lot of low hanging fruit by porting things from VT2 over here (like the psyker is) and there is further incentive for skins.
What yall should be worried about is maps. They require a ton of work and there is going to be little to no reward for Fatshark to make them.
Vermintide wasn’t made with the additional classes in prevision
Heck even a year before they released Grail Knight they were still saying that additional careers were not on their plan, just as the additional Character was.
Now for DT, they expressively stated that they wanted to do it. And that they weren’t adverse on doing Additional Archetype
That’s a good point (and thank you for linking the interview), and I truly believe that the devs are putting their soul into the game, but the company as a whole has a pretty bad track record in regards to this.
Furthermore, as a finishing touch on the interview, they do mention both game pass (hinting at deadline with external pressure) and Victor says that he is stressed about the launch date (timespan 2:17:40 - 2:18:00).
Just like with V2, they don’t seem to be on par with what should be done at this stage. Just like in V2 they will likely have to make priorities due to it. If that’s the case and they release more classes as per schedule they will (if the previous statement is correct) have major delays when it comes to other parts of the game, and if other parts of the game have to be prioritised (due to game-breaking bugs, server issues, or what-not) the classes would likely be delayed instead.
They aren’t though…we’re basically getting 4 “careers”. Identical amount of levels and talents as a career is VT2. The only extra detail there is is choosing one out of three voicelines per class. There’s really nothing new here and a huge step back from VT2 as far as release date content is going.
First, they still haven’t decided if all future classes will be monetized or not. Even though they could make a literal killing on purely cosmetic DLC. Like making a Death Korps of Krieg skin for Veteran.
But second, whether that’s 1 class for each character type or just 1 class for 1 character type each quarter. They haven’t actually answered that most important question.
There may have been 15 careers in VT2, but half of them were garbage on release and the viability was uplifted on all weaker careers over a year and half after release. On top of that, at least half the passive talents were garbage too. Even now, 19 careers, all viable, but the passives have 2 rows that are general ones (THP and stagger). Many of the higher passives are utter garbage.
Compared to the above, we indeed have only 4 careers in DT, but the passives and choices behind them provide a bigger variety. Significantly more weapons, meaningful passives, much bigger variance if we mix in the weapon traits. I could try multiple builds on my Zealot by lvl20 and i wasnt even trying hard. Thats something you simply dont have in VT2. And i didnt get to the juicy stuff (i finished the beta at lvl26 on my zealot so no lvl30 passives).
I meant useful variety. And natural progression. If i remember correctly, you had to hit lvl15 for the THP passives, until then you were struggling greatly. And the passives in most cases were garbage. Many of the careers were garbage because of it. Sure, DT has the same 3 passive choices every 5 level, but you are not locked to temp health regen on lvl5, you are not locked to stagger talents at 15. And the passives on my zealot were all meaningful, i was constantly torn between them, what to pick. My 2 friends said the same for their pick, veteran and psyker. The only passive we felt mandatory was the auto-highlight specials/elites on the veteran. Compared to that there are tons of no-choice tiers in VT2 because either one of the passives are too strong, or all 3 are garbage and you can pick any without much impact. Also, keep in mind the weapon traits, the weapons are significantly more impactful in DT, enough to influence your passive picks.
Yeah, sure. They barely did 1 subclass per year in V2 and didn’t even manage to do last one for Sienna but now they will do 1/quarter. Also every time fatshark promised something: they always did it on time /s (they never did).
