Im not a VT2 vet, I havent played in over a year and I probably only got like 20 hours.
From all the reading I have done on VT2, it is a very polished game and I honestly expected a lot of the system i have read about to be incorporated.
Aside from actual guns, is there any improvements from VT2 or things that made it from there that makes this game better?
There’s not improvements, there’s sidegrades. This game is designed to have more ranged combat, and the gameplay systems reflect that. If you’re a fan of the first person melee (or even if you’re not, but like slick feeling melee combat) moreso then shooting, VT2 is for you. If you’re more into shooting with melee combat to compliment it, then DT is the game.
There are two gameplay categories of comparisons I think.
One is related to progression and mission selection. Progression systems is hands down better in Vermintide (and for sake of comparing I’ll just compare the base game). VT2 had a lot more different builds between the 15 base careers, which added a lot of replay value. Loot and item level was shared between characters, making it less grindy to level up. And of course I’m crafting launched in a more complete state. You can pick what mission and what difficulty to rub, and “deeds” gave a manual way to add mutators to missions for better rewards and challenges. In every metric relative to progression, VT2 even at launch was much better than DT and it only got better from there. I really hope DT can catch up.
Two is in terms of actual missions and combat - it’s a little bit more of a mixed bag and they are different.
There is a lot of stuff that in principal for combat might be an improvement, but a lot of it needs fine tuning before it will get there. Sprinting is a nice addition but isn’t executed that well. Some tweaking and it could be great. I actually like toughness more as a mechanic than temporary health, and combined with corruption adds an interesting element that I like. Again, it will need some tuning to really shine, but it has potential.
I do think the ranged combat adds a great layer of complexity to how you approach certain engagements and work through the levels. It is a different dynamic for sure.
In terms of level design, I think the use of lighting and verticality makes fights a bit more engaging in many ways. There are some cool spaces to fight in whereas VT2 levels often felt very flat outside of ledge and drop points. There’s a bit more dynamism to the fights. Or it could be that I have 700 hours in VT2 so it all seems very straight forward to me now.
I don’t really remember much of Darktide now, so forgive me, but I’ll be giving you a breakdown of the features Vermintide 2 had since you said you haven’t played in a while:
Why is this feature important, because it allowed players to bypass the random nature of gaining new weapons from lootboxes. Additionally it provided players the ability to try out new weapons on the fly without being restricted to a dull setup for a prolonged period. Here’s how it works: you’re giving a basic version of that weapon, called “blacksmith”, you can then grab that basic version and expend resources to make an enhanced version, and then you spend extra resources to upgrade to different tiers - highest tier is red but orange is fine. You don’t really need to get perfect rolls or anything. Just having the base power level get increased is more than enough, as power level affects the essentials of your weapon; such as cleave, stagger, and overall damage. Furthermore, if you so desired, you can just use the “blacksmith” version to experiment with a new weapon.
This system worked well, encouraged experimentation, and allowed players to actively try out new weapons. I must emphasis though: the lootbox system of getting new loots sucked. Crafting alleviated it immensely.
In Vermintide 2 you had an ability to select which maps you wanted on which difficulty you desired. The freedom of choice was there. If you wanted to practice on a map on a certain difficulty so you can get good at, you could do that. If you wanted make progress at unlocking certain challenges or achievements on a specific map, you could do that. If you wanted to memorize book locations without running it in public, you could do that in private lobby. Sure, you can play quick play if you wanted to for random maps, but the game still gave you the option to play how you want.
For example, I like running Righteous Stand on Cataclysm in Public, since the map is short, sweet, and doesn’t take much time for me to beat with random Cataclysm players. I sometimes have to respond to family so choosing a short map like that is great for me. The fact that I can do that is a testament to player choice.
In Vermintide 2 you can display your hard earned achievements through banners, trophies, and paintings. I liked this feature since it incentivized me to continue playing the game so I can get a new trophy or banner to showcase in my player hub. It’s fun and cute! Most people don’t really care about that stuff when joining my hub when I host; as they just rush to portal for mission, but it fills me with so much joy when I walk around and appreciate those cute trophies in my keep!
Vermintide 2 has a lot of quality of life functions in its setting page. My favorite one is Enabled Crosshairs. I like it because it lets me disable the annoying crosshair for melee. I have it on for Ranged, but I have it off for Melee. I’ve played this game for so many hours in this manner.
I brushed on this a bit in Map Selection section but aw man; I can not overstate how useful this is. Some days I just want to play by myself with bots on Cataclysm and not have anyone join me.
You have this currency called Shillings and there’s so many way to earn it; Dailies, Weeklies, Events, Challenges, and so on. It’s very easy to stack a bunch of these coins and buy whatever non-cash cosmetic you want. It’s quite player friendly centric and not as intrusive as the premium currency from Darktide.
My favorite mode in this entire game bar none. It’s fun; players get access to boons that progressively transforms them into power machines - boons also radically change how a class is played in interesting ways. Completing challenges associated to Chaos Wastes also unlocks cute cosmetics! Furthermore, the randomness in level layout, boons, and weapons; leads to each run being fresh and never being dull from the last.
Obviously I was going to mention this at some point when talking about Vermintide 2. Each class has different ultimates that effectively changes your gameplay. Meaning if you get bored of how one class plays out. You can switch to another one, and so on, and so forth. This is fantastic as it ensures that the game doesn’t get stale for me.
Conclusions: there are probably a lot more features to talk about, but those are the ones that came to my mind in how I felt that Vermintide 2 did better than Darktide.
Uhhhh VT2 progression at launch was pretty trash man. No crafting, random drops and rolls only. Took like a year for them to fix that.
Vermintide 2 had crafting on launch. What are you talking about?
Whaaaaat the feck does Grail Knight Kruber look like with the shark hat. Did he shave his face?? That’s so cursed
Yeah I agree, but his helmet doesn’t match with white skin, it sticks out as a sore thumb being blue. So I have to use Shark helmet. Otherwise I just can’t stand Kruber’s poor fashion sense of not dying his blue hat to match with his clothes. This is why Slayer is best class, in my opinion. No matter what skin you use it’ll still work, fashion wise, because his awesome beard will overpower whatever goofy trousers Bardin wears. This is the power of Dwarf BEARD!
Mutators are not random drops every 100 maps that you can only complete with others by going on discord or queueing for another map to trap players in your world and asking them to come to play it with you.
Standard bearer didn’t make it into the game which is the biggest + I can ever wish for. Hope fatshark will never ever implement an aura buffer special. Those things are the biggest fun killers in every similar game.
Itemization of the different weapons seems far superior with the 5 weapon traits and the 4 extra modifiers. The 2 blessings seem to be far more meaningful and the chance to have 2 instead of one opens more possibilities… Potentially.
Depending on how they implement RED items it might have a bit more longevity to the end-game item grind hunting for the perfect arsenal that was over pretty quickly for hardcore players in VT2.
That’s about it.
I have to say that it might not be a fair comparison but by the gods, the art team really overdid themselves on the maps and general aesthetics of the game. This could also be called an improvement. (Apart from the cash shop cosmetics. They really clash with the setting and the story visually which is strange considering the amount of lore they can pull from that wouldn’t do that.)
I wound say the only improvement I appreciate is character creation and customization.
Other than that everything feel rushed.
super comprehensive. TBH, may just go back to Vermintide later - reading your post just made me sad at how Darktide regressed in pretty much every way.
You can make a zealot that sounds like Kerillian!
As someone who feels they cannot move back to Vermintide 2 after having played Darktide, I will try to compile my reasons for you.
Sprinting and sliding makes this game feel really fast paced, and I like it. With the right weapons, you can dance around enemies with finesse and it just feels so good. Whether or not you are actually moving as fast as in VT2, it still feels like you are moving faster.
I know you said besides the guns, but we really cannot just gloss over that. The gunplay feels fantastic. They had some experience coming from VT2, but it is still impressive that they made it this satisfying to fire most of the guns. The enemy accuracy hitting you while still in cover can use some tweaking, but that should not be too hard to fix.
Visual fidelity is much better. Good graphics do not make a good game, but hot damn this game looks good even on the lower settings I have to play on to get high fps. Tertium is a thing of beauty.
Adding on to the visuals, the enemy gibbing is a good step forward. The damage feedback that they put on enemies looks excellent and feels so satisfying, especially cutting things in half with a power sword!
People are malding over the cosmetics( and they have every right to do so), but I myself do like that the penance cosmetics slowly kit you out. Gives a good sense of progression to go from lowly prisoner garb to full inquisitor warband gear. It is a progression feedback that I never got from Vermintide 2 (besides the weapons).
Custom characters are a plus imo. I love the Ubersreik Five as much as the next VT2 fan, but making my own character in Darktide feels better to me. Sure we lose some deeper character building and more personal dialogue, but what qe got is good too. Playing VT2 for as long as I have, their dialogue was getting samey too anyways, it just happens sooner in Darktide…
Plus I enjoy seeing other people funny custom characters, so there is that. An addition to this is that there can be duplicates of a class.
It is in the Warhammer 40k setting. This is just an opinion really, I prefer sci-fi settings more than fantasy, shrug*.
The Psykanium having all the enemies out for you to test your damage is a good feature. I know you can do this in VT2 with mods but it is nice to see it being implemented in DT.
They are unstable, but I do appreciate dedicated servers, especially in such a fast-paced game like Darktide. Now they just gotta sort out the disconnects and crashes!
Another one that is just purely taste, but there is a possibilty we can buy a Death Korps of Krieg skin, and I am all for it. Hope they sort out their MTX pricing before that, though…
Adding to this:
There is a much higher variety of specials, spicing up the combat significantly.
There is also a higher variety of ordinary enemies.
The game has none of the annoying level puzzles or hidden books. They are easy to find and don’t hinder the gameplay as much.
Leveling, despite what “veterans” from Vermintide with memory loss claim, is much faster.
Awesome post, if I had not just played Vermintide 2 24/7 right before Darktide I would right jump back in!
It is a shame what FS did with Darktide =(
Right? Imagine learning from your past products going forward. So glad they wasted the development cycle of VT2 and all the turmoil just to reset the score and do the bare minimum all over again. Yay! /s
Id say its the same game, but with less. ATM
only 4 classes/subclasses atm
no crafting atm
no scoreboard atm
Im having a blast and enjoying it, but thats only going to last until I farm a Max power weapon. Without all 3 of the above points, end game is not really there
I thought of something else that is an improvement over VT2:
The blessings on weapons are way more varied and interesting the the traits on weapons in VT2.
In VT2, 95% of the time you just run swift slaying on your weapon. The other traits are usually pointless in comparison. In DARKTIDE, there are tons of interesting traits (blessings) and that you can get two of them allows them to interact in interesting ways. I think this system will get pretty interesting to experiment with once the rest of crafting system is implemented.
Opportunist all the way !
That’s part of the other 5% 