I am going to try to summarize it as much as possible but without failing to emphasize the context. Edit: In the end it’s a tremendous wall of text.
I know Fatshark since Vermintide 1. An innovative game with a melee combat system never seen before and set in the world of warhammer fantasy. This game came out in October 2015. It came out with a good price for the fun and novelty that it offered at that time. Despite the existence of left 4 dead since 2008, the combat system together with the world of warhammer made this game a perfect combination.
An item system that rewarded effort in matches and adjusted difficulties so it could be a challenge if you wanted to. You could choose map and difficulty with a private host. Cooperative of 4 people or with bots if necessary. I seem to remember that there were already bots back then. Achievements to get to give more gameplay and an object system with perks and blessings as we have now.
The game had a prize system in which, when you finished a game, depending on the difficulty, you were likely to get a better prize. And the maps had additionally distributed some tomes and grimoires, which if you got them all, you got a guaranteed prize of a random maximum quality object. In addition, there was a mission system to get items as a prize if you met the weekly requirements and they varied.
In addition to all the low price, as I have already mentioned, it was very good for the quality of the product. This encouraged the outlay of the community in the collector’s version, in paid skins and in not hesitating to pay for each small expansion that added new maps, however few they were. A way to reward the work of the company and its employees. Expansions of between 5 and 10 euros and skins of less than 5 euros. For the number of hours played and fun, it was worth the expense and contribution.
When vermintide 2 was announced, most of us fans had our mouths watering. Classes per character, up to 3. Characters now level up and have talent trees. New weapons, new maps, better graphics and a new crafting system.
How lucky to have found a company that you can trust and that knows what the players want. Vermintide 2 brought everything that Vermintide 1 had good and improved it. There were only 2 things that he didn’t exactly keep up with and they got worse. One was the prize system at the end of the games, which, having a greater randomness factor, did not guarantee the best prize even if you played on maximum difficulty and got all the tomes and grimoires. And the other was the crafting system.
In the first game you could choose a perk and play it by spending a material, until it touched the percentage that interested you. First you changed the perk and then the percentage. You could modify the objects 100% as you liked. With all the farming linked to have enough materials. There were objects of different colors like in the Darktide. The best objects were red, which had everything perfect with maximum percentages. And the previous ones, the orange ones, you could modify them.
In vermintide 2, you first had to max out the item’s power, which guaranteed the best base stats. In this case it was 300. And when you got that object then you could raise it up to orange. Subsequently to red after a patch. The red items had all the stats maxed out and you could gamble until you got the perks you wanted. In the case of the orange ones, you had to gamble until you got the perks and at the same time the percentages, which made you spend and take much longer. Merely by chance. The percentage chance of getting a red item was derisory and you had to farm many items and break them in order to be able to create the item you wanted. You also got 3 items per game instead of one. Which was a way to adjust the difference between v1 and v2.
Had to play many hours. First to get the characters up to level 30 and then equip them with the items you liked to adjust the build of talents and items to your playstyle. But you could do it. The time played was rewarded. And although I prefer the crafting system of one and rewards, the 2 allowed you to get the same but in a more expensive way. Keep in mind that each map is 30 minutes to an hour depending on the difficulty.
The deeds were added. A system that gave additional difficulty to the maps to have more replayability. And later a fifth difficulty was added. There was also a horde system, which also had V1, in which you had to survive all possible hordes. Although this was added in V2 with an expansion…
Vermintide 2 had the same price as 1 if I remember correctly. In both I bought the collector version and all the dlcs. It also added new dlcs with maps and new game systems with more or less success with a price somewhat more expensive than the standard dlc that had a price similar to that of V1. The 2 most important dlcs were the Weaves and the Chaos. They also added free maps, some converted from V1 to V2. With the dlcs also came new weapons and in one the beastmen came as new enemies. I forgot to mention that also from V1 to V2 new enemies and specials were added. The first had only the skaven while the 2 added the forces of chaos.
One of the biggest problems that fatshark had was always to fix bugs and some aspects that worked very well and that when changed they went back. The best itemization system was undoubtedly that of the weaves. Allowing you to make the builds and the items as you wanted at will spending a resource that unlocked the possibilities. The pity is that the weave system was poorly thought out and divided the community between the normal map system and the weave system. And that of weaves in turn was divided into hundreds of levels. But the “crafting” system was the best or one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Later they released one of the funniest systems I’ve seen in this game format with a roguelike touch that was with the last patch. Chaos wastes. Who has not played it, I highly recommend it. And with friends even more. The only but that I can put, is that if the normal games are already long, the chaos wastes are excessively long. And finally they have added the paid skins dlcs, with prices that go up to 10 euros and a new class per character with achievements, skins, etc…
Although they screwed up some things, and I’m not hitting all the sticks, the game provides many hours of fun with a lot of content and great depth. In addition to being private servers that are hosted by users, it allowed modders to correct all the little details that fatshark was not able to. From basic and essential QOL improvements, to balancing, hud tweaks, new difficulty features on the maps to having 10 Bardims slayers at the same time.
they promised private servers already in v2. The game came out in May 2018. They hardly gave information about the damage of the weapons and effects. Many talents did not work. The stagger system did not work as they thought or wanted. All this was fixed thanks to the modders with their mods and their datamining and testing. Except for the private servers. There were even mods that improved the behavior of the bots. Just a year ago fatshark copied many QOL from modders to add them to a hud adapted to both consoles and pc. But for the rest of the time the modders saved us. And many other details of things that did not work and were not fixed that I am not going to put here but that many people will remember. But the end result is what we have now. With some bugs that remain, but a great game. And despite everything there was a considerable improvement from v1 to v2.
However, there are things that I cannot understand:
-I can’t understand how Darktide having less content is more expensive than Vermintide 2 when it comes out.
-I can’t understand why Darktide has 4 classes compared to 15 for V2.
-I can’t understand why items, money and crafting material are not shared between all characters, while in V2 they are.
-I can’t understand why I can’t play the map that I want, when I want with the difficulty that I want. While in V2 I could.
-I can’t understand why I almost don’t receive prize items when completing the missions, and the other system to get them is a market which I have to visit every x hours to see if I’m lucky and the item I’m interested in appears.
-I can’t understand why a crafting system that worked the way it did, and without even using the Weaves as a reference, has now deteriorated to the point of being worse than the original version of V1.
-I can’t understand why the game hasn’t come out in early access when it’s not complete.
-I can’t understand why everything that has been improved since vermintide 1 came out has become worse in Darktide.
-I can’t understand why I pay more for less.
-I can’t understand why I can’t do weekly missions because the maps that appear don’t match the objective of the weekly mission.
And more things that I forget because I am already saturated with writing. But don’t get me wrong, the game is fun, just like its predecessors have been. But what has made its predecessors so good is how much they have improved on the base. The progression system, reward, difficulty, crafting, customization, etc…
The only thing I see that has improved is the combat system with the animations. The recreation of the world of w40k is incredible. And that’s it. Everything else I have the feeling of not even going back in time, but that a new team would have arrived and would have done everything from 0. Something like the stats of the weapons has had to be complained about so that the information was implemented.
And honestly, after seeing the second spoken word release from last week’s update, I can’t figure out why. I only get disappointed. That the RNG system of the maps is not mentioned, that the RNG system of the item shop is not mentioned, that the crafting system is not fully implemented and what is implemented is something that does not solve the problem at all. However we will have a “For the Emperor” and emotes in the main room. All this only confirms my bad feelings about the company and its priorities.
I think the vermintide community has always turned a lot towards fatshark and here we have received contempt. And the feeling is that the only important thing is the hordes of new players who didn’t know this franchise and who are happy to finally have a game that really respects the w40k environment. We have gone from a great game at a good price to a more expensive game in poor condition.
I have to add one thing. I have played many hours. But you have to keep this in mind. The game encourages you to play in order to have a character at level 30 in order to enjoy all the talents and abilities linked to the objects. Along with the weapons to be unlocked. So the cheat argument of hours played for price holds up to a point. In V2 and V1 for me it was fully deserved. But here, it is a path that must be traveled to see that the end is inconclusive. And of course I’ve had a good time many games. But many others I am walking the road to be able to enjoy the end and all its possibilities.
I don’t feel like playing anymore. I’m tired of repeating the same map 4 times in an hour because there are no more options with the difficulty I’m looking for. I’m tired of playing the same build and items because it doesn’t touch anything that would allow me to change it and make it viable for me. I’m tired of having to look at the store every time I finish a game, etc…, etc…, etc…
Peace and love
