We all know that the host’s CPU basically determines the difficulty and the rest is RNG. But even on the same host, rounds are sometimes so INCREDIBLY different in horde frequency and density, amount of ambient mobs, amount of elites, amount of specials and the combination they are spawned. Look at this, for example, a full book run on War Camp:
The game was spawning hordes and ambushes non-stop, specials ALWAYS spawned in pairs, always 2 packmasters, 2 gutter runners, 2 rattlings, 2 warpfires and there was hardly a point were it didn’t spawn at least 4 specials in very rapid succession.
Not that I am complaining per se, but I don’t see ANY consistency - and IF Legend is supposed to be like that, give me more and better loot.
I was in that run as well. It was absolutely crazy. Not a moment of respite.
No matter how much we fought, repelled and killed, the AI spawner just cried out, with a rebel yell: MORE! MORE! MORE!
All in all, it was a very fun, if intense, experience. Although quite taxing, mentally. I wouldn’t be able to play more than a handful of games like these (plus it took like 45 minutes).
But I have to say as well; the consistency is non-existent. We have played runs on legend with like 600 mobs in total.
And seeing how I have opened something along of 50 chests (mostly high tier vaults) without finding any red items I have to agree with my man Licious here; more and better loot if that how legend is supposed to be all the time.
My question isn’t rhetorical in nature, I am honestly interested what exactly Legend is supposed to be like according to the devs. Because I truly have the impression that the vast majority of people crying for nerfs or a harder difficulty haven’t played rounds like that. But should they?
Well, as far as I know (and this is a broad definition), Legend is supposed to be hard enough that only skilled players can complete it, and it should also challenge them enough to remain entertaining. It shouldn’t be impossible to clear, though, once you’ve reached the necessary level. Yeah, not much help there. Honestly, it should likely be somewhere in the middle of the extremes that people see.
This supports a thought that I’ve gotten (and mentioned before): It has started to seem that there’s something wonky going on with the RNG. It’s more easily apparent in crafting, through immediate, clear results and smaller pool of options, but it seems that the RNG may get “stuck” on certain results, probably depending on the random seed it’s using. If this theory is true, there are at least some random number seeds that are far more likely to produce certain results over others, resulting in e. g. rerolling looping through the same one or two Traits. If the seed gets changed, the results change too. If it’s true for crafting, it would likely be true for AI Director too, especially if it’s using the same seed throughout the map. That would certainly factor into one run being half-deserted, with nearly maximum wait between hordes every time and another being full of roaming enemies and hordes and specials attacking every thirty seconds.
Note that the above theory is based on anecdotal evidence and basic knowledge of (pseudo-)RNG mechanics only, and is not to be taken as certainty.
“True” RNG basically doesn’t exist, and is incredibly hard to create in software. I have no idea what solution is used for this game, but it is super obvious that it gets stuck on certain results when crafting, because I routinely get repeating results that should be one in a million or more.
The AI director runs on RNG as well, with a minimum-maximum time between hordes, and a special queue that is also based on RNG in the sense of how long it should wait to spawn, and also RNG on wether it should decide to spawn all available specials.
The double special spawns are also interesting. In my experience it’s either always double for the whole map, or single for the whole map.
To me, it is definitely not the average. I am keeping track and an average game has about 60 to 70% the mobs and elites. The specials were only a bit higher in the round with the screenshot, but the way they spawned was absolutely bananas, always 2 pairs of the same at the same time when they spawned. You also have to take into consideration that it was War Camp, where after you enter the camp, there are no more special spawns.
We also thought about that we were 4 tanks, but we really weren’t much slower because of that. Only one of us died and I think each of us only went down once, and we focused our fire alot. Even the boss (a troll, thankfully) didn’t live that long - and our horde clear was definitely above average, yet the AI bombarded us with a new horde or ambush almost directly after clearing the first one, and they just wouldn’t end.
I really wonder what the devs at FS have to say about that. That Legend is supposed to be hard, okay, that’s a given. But… the round really wasn’t THAT much harder, it was just sooooo much more of everything.
Didn’t the devs clearly state that there is no code in the game that may adjust spawn rates, RNG or in general difficulty depending on the host’s CPU?
I think it was somewhere on Reddit, someday I’ll find enough time to dig it up.
In any case, I’ve had absolutely mental games with endless hordes packed with specials and a boss in every possible spawn point… But then I stuck with the same host and the next game would have tiny hordes, no bosses, reasonable specials.
That happens to me on a regular basis, as I tend to stay with the same host until they disconnect, and it just seems to be very random.
They may have said it, but it can be literally proven to be true that the difficulty depends on host’s CPU. It is something you can try out yourself by deliberately overloading your own CPU and not only watching the AI spazz out, but the game spawning significantly less enemies.
Now, of coure there seems to be something going on that it vastly different from that, which descibres what we’ve all experienced. The point is: Is it SUPPOSED to be this way?
Well, of course I can only speak to my own experiences, but even when we move through the maps at a decent pace we average 50-70 specials.
Just did war camp and we had 58 specials, also usually in doubles. 3-4 at a time as well as some scattered ones.
And nearly constant hordes/ambushes throughout. Chaos warriors all over the place entire map through as well.
Just ran skittergate after that, had 68 specials and it felt like an “easy/slow” run.
But i’ve also experienced the odd game that had almost no hordes and less than 30 specials, though those are very rare for me and my group. Had one of those yesterday on empire in flames. no bosses, 2 patrols that were avoided… almost no hordes and 28 specials. felt like champion.
Jeah! Another Legend+ player!
Whats the host CPU ?
Because that’s exactly what me and my group gets, when I host the game. (8700k @ 5,1ghz)
We made comparisons, same difficulty, same team but the host cpu changed; when a friend is hosting with his old AMD FX Processor, we will get only 1/4 of specials and hordes, maximum!
I’m usually the host, and I recently upgraded my CPU to an 8600K @4.3 Ghz.
Can’t really remember what I used to have, but it was about 6 years old, but was high-end back then.
Didn’t notice any significant change to the difficulty after the upgrade however. it’s always been like this.
Most of the “easy” games tend to be when someone else is hosting (we’ve been experimenting with that a little bit). No idea what hardware they’re running, but I know for sure it’s worse than mine.
Are you telling me Legend isn’t supposed to be this hard?
We still win 90% of our legend games though… We really only tend to die to random RNG BS, such as double hooks followed up by assassins and leeches… Or 1-2 stormers blasting storms into cramped spaces from areas where we can’t see them, and then getting disablers on top of that.
Recently had a dude get pounced by a silent assassin, which got him caught in a stormer’s storm, and then he got hooked while inside of the storm. That was some grade-A BS right there
The other most common form of death is when we run with 1 random (we’re a team of 3 most times) and that person gets everyone killed in one of many different ways… (Pulls patrols… Out of position… Feeds the chaos spawn… Too focused on the green circles… You know the stuff I’m sure.)
Yep, I know. It’s pretty much what I meant with “basic knowledge of RNG mechanics”. There are methods of generating pretty close to true randomness, but they require (or are) specialized hardware, and rely on something external anyway.
That said, if the random seed is generated based on something happening on your computer (as far as my knowledge goes, quite common method), that may account for Legend feeling consistently different for different hosts. It wouldn’t be likely to have direct correlation with clock speed, but just certain setups. Human mind is wired to find connections between things even when there are none, and drawing one between the host CPU power and enemy frequency isn’t that far-fetched, even if it isn’t strictly true.
I don’t want to come off as arrogant but as far as I’m concerned legend is way to easy. I can usually clear a map with less than 200 dmg on average as fk. Always run with NB and generally never need a helping hand to patch me up. In general I’d say 80/20 clear rate with a bad crew and close to 100% with a good crew.
In my book legend should be much harder to the point of the almost impossible.
Legend should be reserved for the players with good skills, teams with good teamwork and communication and a bit of luck.
As it is now legend is a bit of a joke i think as you can get carried by the team easy, basically runnung with a 3 man crew or even a 3 man crew with a disadvantage. Heck you can solo on legend… how hard is legend then, rly?? Not much legend over it in my honest oppinion!!!
Following up on what i would have legend to be i’d also expect loot from said difficulty to be equally legendary
No matter if there is something in the code or not, this is not really up to debate and has nothing to do with confirmation bias. You can look up videos from Vermintide 1 where it has already been proven to be the case. You can easily verify it yourself by overloading your own CPU and see how vastly different everything is. Of course, there will still be variency based on the current “seed”, but there will overall be less spawns, AI will be less aggressive (and sometimes just completely bug out), hordes will be smaller and less specials will spawn. There might not be something deliberately put into the code (I guess nobody ever claimed there was), but this is how it works. There’s actually a pretty good post on reddit about it.
Legend is not that easy, you’re just that good. There are always players who will surpass anything the game decides to throw at them, and unless that’s the whole point of the game, it shouldn’t be balanced on those players’ abilities. There are people who run games like Dark Souls or Cuphead with self-imposed challenges, but they will always be in the minority. For most players, the difficulty as is is quite enough.
The same thing applies here. The majority of players are likely to end up doing mostly Champion runs, with occasional tries in Legend. Some of them will eventually reach high enough skill to move to Legend permanently, but not all. So for most of us, Legend is well enough challenge already, and there are Deeds to run too. If even those are not enough challenge for you, look at mods, and maybe remind the devs every now and then that some people want an additional level of difficulty still. If you cannot fathom that most people are not as skilled, I ask you to move to other games that challenge you more. We want as many as possible to be able to enjoy the game, and toning Legend’s difficulty up would just alienate players. The jumps in difficulty are already steep enough.
