How do you feel about the grind in Vermintide 2?

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 General Discussion
1
  • I like it
  • I like it but I wouldn’t want it in Versus for Skaven
  • I don’t like it
0 voters

In computer games, grind means to repeat tasks many times in order to make your character more powerful, get more useful things, etc.

Specifically, in Vermintide 2 this is about making level 35 in order to get the most power. You could add weapon rarity to this although I don’t know whether having the only loot boxes done right in the whole gaming industry qualifies as grind.

Personally, I don’t like grind, I wish Vermintide 2 was like Left 4 Dead in the sense that a new player would have the same power and a player with 100 hours, the only difference being actual skill.

But I did talk with some people who like grind. As is right now, I’m thankful for the amount of grind, I think in about 50 hours I was level 35 with every character. Now I have 180 hours and still play despite having no room left to progress. Because the only real progress is your skill, not your XP or you doing more damage now.

However, this question has a 2nd question inside it: would you also like grind for versus?

In the campaign, if I don’t like grind but other people like grind fine we can have grind. But as far as versus only is concerned, I think having grind in versus will objectively hurt that game mode.

I would love to have a talent tree for Skavens exactly like we have for the Heroes. But a lot of people are going to be discouraged from playing versus if you have to reach level 35 to play at maximum efficiency otherwise you are at a disadvantage compared to other players.

I can understand the appeal for this in singleplayer/co-op modes, but for multiplayer having to level up so that you can stand on equal ground against other players is simply no fun.

Vermintide 2 isn’t Call of Duty where there’s 32 people on the map and even if you have a crap weapon you can kill someone when they are not looking. But a 4v4 that’s pretty tight. I’m not sure someone would want to play a 4v4 knowing they are at a disadvantage until they make level 35 with the Skaven.

So you’ll likely have a lot of people starting versus (long after launch), their Skavens being level 1, enemy Skavens being level 35, and they are like kiss you goodbye.

But that’s my opinion, what are your thoughts on the matter? Ultimately the choice is of the developers, but I’m curious what the community thinks about this. I’m in favor of talent tree but not grind.

2

Personally I don’t like it. I feel like I don’t want to go into higher difficulties because my lower power/lack of talents would end up making me a loose link in the team. This is compounded by leveling up feeling like a slow process.

Additionally my Sienna is only level 17. I’m kind of dreading having to level her up and not sure the best way to go about it.

Lastly is my Kerillian. Even moreso than Sienna, she’s at level one because personally I do not like elves, but I feel like even if I wanted to try her out getting her to level 30-35 is such a monumental task I might just not try her out, compared to characters I already have leveled.

The gear grind in comparison feels a lot better. Once you get to power level 300, you can get a weapon you want, upgrade it to orange (eventually red), and roll until you get the things you want on it.

3

Never bothered me.

I bought Vermintide to play it, and grinding for careers, levels, and gears just means I’m encouraged to play the game even more as I get more the more I play.

It also avoids overwhelming new players with way too much choices

4

I haven’t had any problems with the grind. Given the solid gameplay I am perfectly content to grind away hour after hour in this game.

5

I have no problem with the grind, but the crafting process is tedius. It’s like 7 steps to just change stats on an item, and there’s still the Chest opening process. zZz

Would prefer Athanor with some challenge/grind for each stat. Possibly tied to difficulty.

6

I didn’t mind the level grind until I already was on legend and it felt detrimental to the team for not being on max level. But I then waited and used double xp events to get the last two to lvl 35. Also if you know some good people and can just run along while they would be perfectly fine without you, you at least only feel not very useful instead of a liability.

Didn’t mind the gear grind although waiting for a specific red was frustrating at times. Targeted grind would have been my preference instead of rng crap.

Really enjoyed the grind for okri’s challenges. Especially the 100 games per career. Forces you to play different playstyles and now I’m at least competent enough to do legend deeds full book runs with all careers and almost all weapons. Wouldn’t go to cata+ with everyone though.

Didn’t enjoy the grind in weaves. But that’s because of the implementation of the game mode.

7

Personally one of my favorite elements of L4D is how pick up and play oriented it is, and having a bunch of busy work picking perks and unlocking them would really play counter to that for VS. And fun in general, like its just supposed to be for goofing and fun. Which is why I hope they work up some kind of gas rat limit, it becomes annoying when it just turns into a game of sniping gas rats that are players instead woo. I wanted people to enjoy hanging the elf as a packmaster as much as I do.

8

You can wait for some events to level up your characters. During events, all EXP is increased by 100%

9

It really takes little time to level up although it can feel daunting while you are going thru it. Once you are in the swing of things it becomes a non-thing. Levelling in DT didnt phase me at all and I have barely played it compared to V1+2.

However, there should be NO grind in vs at all.

10

I wouldnt mind if double EXP was a lot more common at this point as far as the EXP grind goes.

Gear grind AKA farming chests&dust i honestly have no problem with at all.

…

Crafting though, the crafting is horrible.

11

My biggest gripe is the lack of duplicate protection when obtaining red items you can wind up often getting 5 copies of the volley crossbow and no longbow and if you want to unlock new skins good luck you can get almost 1 hundred reds and still be missing some weapons more than 500 and be missing a number of skins.

12

Timing was I think Vermintide 2’s open alpha versus’ mistake.

They made the open alpha at the same time when the double XP bonus was in full swing. Giving people with non-level 35 characters a choice: do I play campaign/chaos wastes to get to level 35, or do I play versus to see what this new game is like? I will not have another opportunity for both.

I know a few people who only played a few versus games to see what is like then grinded campaign/ chaos wastes to get to level 35 while that double XP bonus was still in effect.

13

I don’t mind the grind too much. Though the experience rewarded for finding Grimoire, Tomes and Dice could be increased, it feels a little lackluster currently.

14

Grinding is the worst part of the game, and I really think red dust should be a daily reward at this point to entice new players.

15

The way I would go about grind is simply: skins & unlockable missions.

Instead of level-up and power. Maybe add more of “you need to beat these many missions to get this cool skin” or “you need to beat these missions on legend to unlock this character” or “you need to beat all these levels on champion to unlock this mission”.

Feels like it motivates played to play to unlock those missions and skins. But without making the player weaker in the process.

Vermintide was inspirited by L4D, and what makes L4D so appealing that is still played over a decade after is that it’s a no non-sense game. You start the game. You play. No need to grind 10 hours for that item with +3 damage or do those tasks to increase your level and such. Things to artificially inflate the game. Unlockable missions or skins is fair game though. As they are a testament of “if you are skilled enough you can get this”.

16

No need to make it a straight copy of the L4D forumla…but indeed, reducing the grind significantly, at least for EXP, would not be out of place at this time.

And honestly, possibly look into raising the difficulty ever so slightly for the lower levels to even out the curve a bit.

“Edit”

…10 days, oops-

17

Please remove, I forgot I had already done a post in this thread.

18

Adding higher XP gain at higher difficulty levels will only cause low level players to join higher difficulty games only for the XP, even if they cannot handle it.

Perhaps the whole XP should be doubled just like in event games to 1600 XP per match. I still don’t like grind, but that one would at least be more reasonable. Or maybe increase the Mission Success / Tomes / Grimoires XP.