Here’s my subjective opinion:
Fun has been nerfed. “Grind” (being the opposite of “Fun”) was unintentionally buffed as a result. (Also buggy, unpredictable and downright crazy WTHwazzat were tweaked to significantly higher levels for hopefully unintended reasons).
30 bucks is cheap as hell for a game, I spend that much on a splurge lunch, but my time?
Feels like a waste of time. And that is not where you want a game to be, no matter what the balance of X vs Y or the state of various bugs. I’ve played alphas and betas with so many bugs that you needed a flyswatter to start the game, and they were still “Fun”.
One of the things I liked about Vermintide I was the fact that it was just “Fun” to play, at any level, even if you died horribly. Even if you died horribly on multiple attempts. That’s why I logged over 1000 hours on it, and I know a lot of people have WAY more. Because Fun = Replay. (and DLC purchase you know.)
Somehow Vermintide II has lost that familiar feel of “Fun”. I certainly wasn’t expecting some kind of E-Sport competitive nag-fest. I was actually hoping for more of the same as Vermintide I, but with sprinkles on top. Instead, I’ve gotten an earful of complaints and accusations about this build or that build, this weapon or that weapon, this tactic or that tactic. Most of it is pretty contradictory by the way, and just indicates to me that those players can’t be having that much fun if their game experience can be totally ruined by someone using a weapon or build they don’t approve of. To be fair, I don’t blame them, I think they are just frustrated and fun deprived. I find myself biting back similar comments. (Or maybe they just have issues with perfection and control, I’m not going to judge how they want to spend their time, I just don’t want to share in their angst.)
“The Balance” is an entirely separate but confounding issue. I couldn’t care less about “balance” and green circles in a co-op game. It’s supposed to be co-op team based, but I guess that got lost somewhere in the shuffle? I suppose the idea fails to occur to many people , that in a team based game, if there is supposed to be a primary level of competition, it should not be inside a match between the team members. Maybe, I dunno, between teams, or against the games itself? The game experience does not feel very cooperative lately.
Add all to this that I’m not really sure why a developer would attempt to balance stuff like weapons and talents until the bugs and wrinkles are ironed out of the combat and spawn systems, and this latest patch has become a rather demoralizing experience.
In short, Nerf Grind. Buff Fun. Sc__w Balance.
No I don’t have specifics. I’m not a game designer, I’m a game consumer. I know when something is “Fun” and when it isn’t. I am probably an experienced enough game consumer (Kids, I owned an ORIGINAL PONG console, new out of the box, so shut up and listen to Grandpa ramble.) to differentiate between my expectations based on the previous version, and the actual experience of the current version, and if it deviates to a significant degree. It has indeed deviated. Significantly. (Significantly just means Noticeably, stop getting excited and raising your hand, it is not the same as Majorly.)
As far as “Challenge” is concerned, my expectations would have been that Champion is roughly analogous to Nightmare, and Legend is roughly equivalent to Cataclysm. That has not really been my experience so far, but to be fair, it’s pretty hard to tell with the level of unpredictability in basic combat mechanisms.
I’m not really basing my opinion so much on “Challenge” (Surely, if “Fun” is subjective, then “Challenge” must be as well.) The level of “Fun” should remain the same from Recruit to Legendary. Only the “Challenge” changes. “Challenge” is not the same as “Fun”, it is a sub-component. You can have “Fun” being “Challenged”, as long as the “Challenge” lies within a predictable/expected curve. That has not been my experience. The level of “WTHwazzat, that was unexpected!”, and “Why/How did X happen, it is so far outside the normal game experience it must be a bug/lag!” have recently ruined the idea of “Challenge” as a significant component of “Fun”.
If you have to break “Balance” (whatever the hell that means in a coop game) to fix “Fun” do it. At least until the combat systems and spawn systems are solid. I’m tired of refusing game requests from people who went back to Vermintide I, or god help me, L4D2.
Post Script:
I’m sure there are some players having “Fun” somewhere. You lucky rascals. I’m sure some of you even have enough time to have fun playing AND browse the forums. So good for you, you legion of pedantic, banal …, err I mean fun-loving, sincere, forum followers who are certain to point out that you subjectively are having more fun than a Slaneeshi tentacle spawn in a Bretonian bordello. I applaud you.
And I applaud your originality in refusing to post your own “I’m having lots of fun” topic and decide that it’s a much better idea to pile into this clown car and engage in an epistemological debate about what constitutes “Fun”.
For those who can only respond with L2P, you should consider getting therapy for those nasty anti-social tendencies. Also maybe learn how to comprehend written text and compose a cogent response I suppose. Whatever. I’m out of liquor.