The playerbase is dropping fast.
And its not hard to understand why, this is a game made to grind, but if there is nothing to grind to people stop playing.
Just add some skins, that are already in the game files… stupidity beyond belief.
And add long term achievements (kill boss x 100 times on x difficulty etc) and weekly quests.
Quality and gameplay wise Vermintide 2 is still one of best game on market. its top tier product which lack some finesse to be perfect.
FS itself is to blame for current state of game, it was big mistake to launch Winds of magic without stuff they plan to implement in season 2. People simply didnt accepted new content without proper reward system, and new cosmetics to support their efford.
I personaly love new content, new dificulty, but when I get legend chest for completing cataclysm map its like someone kicked my bu*tt with leg.
Season 2 will revive the game, and bring stuff which was needed to be there on WoM relase.
PS. FS, if you are out ideas, ask me, im gamer for 30 years and Warhammer fan, I got alot of ideas to improve the game.
Ganeplay perhaps, but most certainly not quality. They release bugs the way other developers release cosmetics - rotating through them with every patch, retiring some only to bring back others for another shot at glory.
Its really confusing. They sold me the content I didn’t want, Then say they’ll give me the content I do want (Maps) for free. Cosmetics I want but I really like earning them in game and I’m worried that the implementation of cosmetics could lessen my enthusiasm for them. I’ll certainly jump in again and try it out but at this point i have more trepidation than excitement.
The grind is fine. In fact, I think focusing less on the grind and more on expanded game options is what this game really needs. Vermintide is and has always been about the gameplay. There really is no other game like it out there. It’s what made the first game so successful in its relatively niche audience. Adding more of a grind for loot and achievements is an artificial way to keep people interested, and even then the interest will only last until all of those things are obtained as well. Then we’re back to the same problem we have now.
Quickplay weaves (hypothetically), twitch mode, and weeklies are examples of expanded gameplay options. They’re all ways to keep the core gameplay intact, while adding new and exciting ways to change things up. Mods are the tried and true way to keep games alive (see Doom, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and any other popular dated game as an example), but they are poorly implemented in VT2 imo. Splitting it between official realm and modded realm sounds good on paper, but in reality no one really plays on the modded realm and it’s basically guaranteed that you won’t find a game unless it has been arranged beforehand. It also doesn’t help that Fatshark has seemingly given up on sacntioning mods.
Game is dying because the devs keep backtracking due to bugs/glitches that keep coming back + redoing the combat system multiple times while adding an expansion with features that most people weren’t interested in.
Having middling reviews for the base game and abominable reviews for the expansion can also drive away future players or returning players.
Devs need to make sure the base game is as close to 100% as possible when it comes to gameplay. Crafting/traits/modifiers need to be looked at as they are super old (buffs/replace ignored ones - do not nerf at this point). New maps or a map editor should also be focused on even if new assets aren’t being made. Skins/Cosmetics should have been pumped out a lot more often.
Even then VT2 is still a niche game and will probably not attract a massive fanbase imo.
The game is dying because virtually everything about it is not quite right.
The RNG way of getting red skins or weapons is not quite right, it just needs some bad luck protection so that you can’t go 200 vaults without getting the weapon you want.
The crafting is not quite right, in that you should be able to use your dust and scrap to get the things you want.
The Talents are not quite right as there is quiet a few that are virtually obsolete.
The Deeds are not quite right in that there is no reason to do them other than “A sense of pride and accomplishment”. (ouch)
and so on…
Even the game play isn’t quite right as there are still so many completely unjust ways to die due to faults with the game. Chaos Warriors gliding around(again) , Gutter Runner jumping backwards and sideways to stab you… etc.
Adding new content is ok as long as the foundations of the game are solid - and they’re not. Adding weeklies was gimmicky and ultimately isn’t quite right as they are largely pointless and often infuriating with a very limited novelty factor.
I have a big sigh when I think about all of the fundamental things that could have been changed - crafting/deeds/RNG/Cosmetics/armour matching helmets and so on - yet somehow we get Winds of Magic which was completely busted at launch and 2.0 which was even more broken.
The game isn’t dying, it’s being killed by poor direction and decision making.
More robust modding is just absolutely essential. Who knows if it’s even possible at this point, but they need to merge modded and unmodded realms, and get mod tools (specifically map making tools) out ASAP. At this point, that’s what will save Vermintide 2 - while they let the community blast away with insane maps and mods, they work to fix stuff, monetize through direct transaction skins, things like that. Let them work slowly on maps that advance the story (if they have a direction they’re headed). New maps they make should focus on creating unique experiences both gameplay-wise and in assets - that will functionally become an expansion for mods as well.
Along with this, introduce new free content like new enemies, items, and weapons. If they want to add new features, make it “consumable items” that we can buy with scrap or get from chests, or banners we can drop.
But mainly; mods. That’s the thing. If users can create content, the game could live for ten years, easy.
You do know they have to develop something to get them. Because as it is now, you probably still don’t have all hats, and adding some won’t keep anyone if it’s locked behind a 0.1% chance of getting it.
Thoses are the most boring achievement ever done. You want long term achievements, welcome the emporium where you’ll be able to get a full collection of fine cosmetics.
But yeah, thoses things are not magically done, they need work. So wait.
The game is dying because people have others games. That’s a game life cycle. That you can only solve with more content to do.
Balancing, Making Craft great again will do little to bring back players or to make them stay. It’s kinda important to have them to have an healthy gameplay, but a lot of people do stop waaaay before ever needing craft and/or balanced weapons to start with.
Deed 2.0 would (because of the content replayability). Rewards also would.
The “not quite right” points ring pretty true here. There’s a lot of good stuff in Vermintide, obviously or we wouldn’t play it, but to play it is to willingly overlook some things. The problem gets worse when rather than the game becoming more solid over time, we get new broke stuff. And while I have really enjoyed the new maps a lot of the other aspects feel like they’ve been left to collect dust when they needed improvement. And instead of getting the content I wanted we got weaves. And a combat change that I get some people liked but it undid previous balance patches meaning we get to go rebalance the combat again. So rather than continue to hammer out the bugs and balance we start over again. And then of course with weaves its, not quite right.
It feels like they’re trying to change what Vermintide is sometimes rather than make the best version of Vermintide that they can. And I’m sure the developers wouldn’t say it that way . But we have a smaller development team trying to expand into features it doesn’t need rather than fix the ones that it already has. Yes the cosmetic expansion is coming, yes the crafting overhaul will be a thing. But why was this stuff not done before adding weaves. Instead of fixing the things we wanted they added new thing, and the new thing already needs fixing. They already have enough things that need fixing. Why not finish whats on your plate before you go asking for seconds? The result is they convinced me they need time to fix things but I don’t trust they’ve put themselves in a position to fix them in a reasonable time frame. Because I think they’ll leave things broken to work on other things that I don’t trust them to implement not broken.
Game was not balanced. Game was fun, and somewhat far easier than now. But Game was not balanced. At least, there’s a lot of weapons you can use in a useful manner now (you could use them as the game was easier before, but you still wouldn’t use a shield for example which was the least defensive weapon of the whole game ironically)
I do agree. Deeds for example is an old issue that was pushed back a bit too much. Crafting at least, saw some improvements (blue to green, red dust) waiting for a complete overhaul (like aethenor system applied to normal craft).
This is a reasonnable choice. Content draw people. The balance between new content and remade content is hard to get. I would have a new craft system but no new content to explore (be a mode or new maps) and I would not really care about the game anymore to be honest.
They’re trying to get a sort of replayable end game. Weaves didn’t make it (at least yet). But maybe they’ll in the future. Or maybe it will be another content. But there’s need to be some purpose and long term goal (not achievements like play 200 X, more like get a unique skin for your career, or unlock a new career, a new weapons or new gameplay options).
It’s not dying because of lack of grind, it’s dying because the same problems are being repeated. Feedback is not being heard much. 2.0 released in embarrassing alpha/beta build and game is full of bugs, even core mechanics are broken, weaves are broken, balance is fu*ked, enemies hitting players while attacking ground, insane running attack & tracking, no reward for endgame content/difficulty and the list goes on…
There is so much stuff wrong, that one could write a book about it and yet they are talking about how they also work on Versus… holy sh… That is the problem, not that we are lacking some tedious grind.
It would certainly be nice if they added some interesting weekly/daily quests, but that would not solve this.
It’s like them thinkinig how great idea it is to add 5 more pointless levels for heroes, and they even thought that it’s good idea to remove last talents to everyone… at some point I thought of it as hilarious, like this cannot be really happening.
Or here is the simplified answer 
That might be part of this, but all these incredible blunders when it comes to decisions on what to change or what to focus on, are major contributor to why it’s dying.
Even I’m getting so irritated by this mess, that I play much less. And it’s not even lack of content, I could do another 1000 hours in 1.6 probably. But here I’m sick of the meta builds and when I want to play something else it’s fuc… not working, can’t get the frickin temp hp, range weapons suck on certain class or something… and it’s not really fun.
Not listening to feedback, bad decision making, inability to fix bugs, constantly introducing old ones, not having test group, working on new stuff instead of fixing base game…
And there is many things that can’t even be excused, like ignoring the temp HP issue for months or ignoring the fakeInviteBoards and cheaterBoards etc. What is the excuse here ? There is none. Fake invites are easily solved, same for temp HP and cheaters can just get straight up banned. Most of the cheaters were super obvious, with insane scores on very high weaves, or doing em in solo, duo etc.
Is it some sort of hidden suggestion on how to improve the game ? 
From 2 million sold copies- however it was counted -, we’re down to under 2K average player count.
Does it get any deader than this?
Did you play Assassin’s Creed multi recently ?
I’m not going to do any suggestions any more, unless they ask for them. Currently making suggestions proved kinda waste of time and energy.
But I will try to make post with some major bugs that kept pissing me off in past month, despite that being possibly wasted energy also.
So you’re wasting your time and energy ranting instead ? Does it achieve more ? 
Of course it does, it does same thing for me as it does for everyone else 
Whatever suggestions you make only ensures that FS excludes it as possible solution.
I did suggest that minotaur killed under the oak could also work in weave, it did get implemented.
Since the beginning, there was suggestions to :
Development takes time. And now, there’s no new content fast enough. This is the main reason that we lose players. Between each dlc release we see 8 / 9 months and this is too much.