How I think we could fix Versus (a holistic look at the mode as a game designer)

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Versus Gameplay Feedback
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Hi! I love VT2 and play Cata regularly. I want to get into Versus but I keep running into a few structural snags that I think could be addressed in one way or another to make the gamemode something I want to return to over and over, like adventure.

To clarify, making a game is hard and these are my opinions, and in no way do I offer salt to Fatshark, just something I want to post in case other people agree/disagree (and maybe Fatshark will see it, who knows!)

Let me know what you think of these, and I will be explaining my thought process so they don’t seem random :slight_smile:

To begin
The most important thing here is that the gamemode is fun for everyone all the way through. I will be approaching this almost purposefully not designed competitively. I strongly feel like this mode should be fun far before it is balanced, although yes, consistent ruling and fairness are part of what makes a game fun.

The biggest issue is:
Everyone wants to be a rat, obviously, so the game mode will struggle with the heroes being fun.
Currently, I think there is friction with the mode being set at veteran level, although I understand that it makes the mode more approachable and fair at any level.

The second issue is:
A rolling ball of death will never lose to the rats. A single loss in your team is almost a guaranteed loss of the round. While VT2 has a death spiral effect, its not nearly as swingy as this. While yes, “skill issue”, I believe for the sake of fun we need a bit more padding.

Here is what I think is a possible solution:
I think the game should have boons and banes that can be voted for by the teams before the start of each round, like the Chaos Wastes. As each round progresses, the game mode upgrades itself in difficulty, although Players would be able to do a random weapon swap/temper at the start of the round in the waiting area, up to orange, over the course of the three rounds they get as heroes.

Rat buffs should not necessarily be buffs to their own efficiency, and should instead feature things like summoning in Storm sorcerers and other pactsworn elites/specials.

To me the key part of the rats having fun is that you get to mess with the Heroes!

Personally, I would rather have fun and lose than win and be frustrated. I think rats should get to vote on Weave, Twitch Mode, or Deed-like debuffs that last for a single round. Think about how funny it would be to disable the hero team’s HUD as a rat, or summoning a bunch of storm sorcerers. I personally wouldnt even care if i was dying constantly if i got to watch that. And, if I had chaos waste boons as a hero, i would feel a lot more confident handling something like that.

Give everyone three rounds, but hide the points
This is a step in the noncompetitive direction, but If i get a guaranteed 3 rounds of rat shenanigans and chaos waste boons with (effectively twitch mode active) i’d be very happy win or lose, because that sounds like an absurdly fun time.

Rats now get mild points for downing people, and heroes can still get points for completing obj’s, but potentially even mild points for killing specials (imagine 1 hero point to kill a special, and 5 rat points for downing a hero).
This would help abate the feeling like downing people does nothing as a rat, which it frequently does.

One more change please:
Change the monster specials to recharge based on how much damage you do so that people stop troll puke camping, i think it would fix that behavior.

Well, thats it! You may read this and think “well this guy just hates competitive games, so versus isnt for him”, and you may be right, but i think that for “serious gamers only” you could just get into a lobby with none of this nonsense enabled, and its still ultimately up to what Fatshark thinks the mode should be.

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I love this game, and Fatshark, hit me up if you are interested in what im thinking haha. I give you full rights over this idea, obviously.

I think my solution would get the game somewhere wacky without needing to futz over ult power, weapon balancing, etc. My suggested solution is to go full rat mode and make it ramp up in craziness. MAKE THE RAT GAME SILLY

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I personally have a lot of fun playing as the heroes and clowning on the rats. In fact, I’ve had more frustration playing as the ratmen - whether it be my teammates getting owned, or a pounce not missing that CLEARLY should have hit, or getting Warpfire Throwers at all.

I believe this is more for the sake of balance. Players cannot respawn in Versus, so every point of health matters. It would be heavily skewed towards the ratmen if you could just evaporate someone as a Gutter Runner - but right now I think it’s more skewed towards the Heroes, because:

This is true for any average skilled team, but the big problem here is that points are scored based purely on how many objectives are completed. Left 4 Dead versus scores based on progression through the level, and every dead player is points lost. This doesn’t apply to VT2 versus, which scores full points even if there is one Handmaiden left alive cruising through everything.

The solution is pretty simple. Multiply score gained based on how many players are alive. If there is one player left, their performance should have very little impact - this will encourage more teamplay. A team with 4 players for 80% of the level with 1 making it to the safehouse should score more points than a team with 4 players for 20% of the level with 1 making it to the safehouse, but currently both teams score the same amount of points, and that’s stupid.

Good idea!

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Thanks for sharing what you think! I think those are good points :slight_smile: