So I am one of those players that played a ton when the game first came out (250 hrs on release), but eventually quit as after all my time I had gotten 0 red drops and felt pretty frustrated with the game. I eventually came back with the expansion releases to check in and play some, but was never really enamored. So when I heard about Winds of Magic when it was announced I was pretty stoked as it sounded like exactly something that would get me back into the game. At the time I assumed Weaves would be modifiers (the 8 winds + the backwards level thing) for a “Weave Quickplay” variation that added increased difficulty, but would reward more xp (so like 3 tomes, 2 grims + weave = guaranteed emperors).
A few days ago I started browsing reddit and it was on fire and weaves were not at all what I was thinking and there was only 1 new map. So being the “casual legend player” I am I figured I maswell try the expansion, I don’t have tons of recent play experience (a few dozens hours as Merc ult spam from a few months back), so this may be fine for me as most of the complains are mechanics based. I even thought the weave concept was neat (albeit I still didn’t understand why my quickplay idea didn’t exist as well).
After 26 hours in the last few days I have to say I am beyond disappointed. At this point there is no chance I will ever buy another Vermintide expansion ever. The first 2 were pretty big cash grabs, this one has the most content, but it feels half baked and somehow even more overpriced.
Weaves: I have completed the first 23 weaves so far using Handmaiden. Weaves are pretty clearly balanced for 4 players, running any less is a massive detriment as their are no bots, but every single weave is basically its own queue system. The playerbase is already quite small, but now we have another system that has technically 120 different queues. I mean hell even finding a group of people NEAR your weave # is hard, let alone running any weave you have already done has basically no reward. The amount of essence needed to level multiple weapons (not even classes or characters), just weapons is pretty staggering, let alone with how oddly specific some weaves are the desire to change weapons is paramount, but basically impossible to do.
With 120 weaves clearly you aren’t meant to only use 1 set of weapons / characters as you can max build by the ~20th weave, so I can’t comprehend why I am heavily unrewarded for running earlier weaves to help players (did I mention the playerbase is absurdly small). Also with 120 weaves the difficulty feels all over the place (weave 12 and 23 spring to mind), who is supposed to complete the 100th weave, let alone the final 20?
General Combat / Beastmen addition: Unless I am missing something, the game is simply harder then before (Beastmen, talent nerfs, THP nerfs, stagger). With the addition of Cata, I don’t really understand why you would want to buff the lower tiers of difficulty, isn’t that the entire point of adding an additional difficulty? Let alone the amount of bugs is pretty staggering (I have been hit by so many rats climbing up mid their climb animation its infuriating, also the density stacking of Beastmen is laughable).
Talents: Goes with the game being harder, unless I am missing something most characters got heavily nerfed. THP feels brutally nerfed (the ol Merc Kruber feels terrible now) and having so many variations of THP talents (that are class specific) feels terrible and highly limiting for weapons / builds for classes.
Maps: Why is there only 1 new map for a $20 expansion? Oh I sort of assumed it would be because of Weave Quick…Moving on.
Crafting: Why is crafting still complete trash and a total grind? As someone who has extremely minimal reds the sheer amount of crafting resources required to get decent stats is mind boggling, let alone with the addition of Cata I assume optimal builds are even more relevant.
Summary: I figured I would continue my trend of checking out the newest V2 DLC, even with reddit on complete fire. After 26 hours I am now completely done with any monetary purchases involving V2 and probably with V2 itself after this week. The sheer quality / money for the DLC’s is complete garbage. With WoM I have finally hit my breaking point with forgiving the stupidity of decisions and seemingly lack of insight to what people want in new DLC such as New Maps, Modifiers on maps that are a part of a quickplay system that give additional rewards so as to change the experience while playing the same old maps, did I mention new Maps?.