I love this game, but Rat Ogres pushing you off cliffs needs to go

This game rocks, and even when it’s brutally hard it feels fair. With one exception.

Several times now while playing with a friend in Chaos Wastes, Rat Ogres have spawned in an area with narrow pathways and basically instantly wiped our run out of existence. Power level, player inputs, defences - nothing matters, because their heavy attacks basically guarantee they will fling you off the cliff. This gives them a literally unblockable one-shot attack no matter difficulty or power, and in some areas I am not even sure if it’s avoidable at all.

I’m fine with dying to heavy damage or bad combinations of elites since those can all be played around, but having your team flung off a cliff by undodgeable attacks no matter what you do and instantly losing your run just sucks all the fun out of the game.

Could you please make it so that they just fling you next to the cliff, and not off it, or something to that effect?

-Addendum- Before the inevitable git gud posts, the reason I bring this specific instance up is because it is the only occurrence in the game that feels more like a dice roll than a skill check. Everything else in the game that kills us when playing duo leaves me with the feeling of “oof that sucked, but if we had handled that better we wouldn’t have died”. But with Ogres on narrow walkways, I can’t even begin to imagine how you’re supposed to solve the situation. Basically: “Hard situation but I can do instead to survive next time” = Good challenge. “This situation is rare but just ended my run randomly without anything I could to stop it” = Bad gaming experience.

Or you know just go somewhere else to fight him.

9 Likes

Most of the time, getting knocked off a cliff is one’s own fault due to bad positioning. I would like to see FS make bots immune to being cliffed, though. Lost count of how many CW runs have been ruined due to bots dive-bombing a boss on a narrow pathway and immediately getting knocked off, in spite of my best efforts to bring them back toward a safer area.

6 Likes

Yes.

No.

Dodge dancing is a skill you need to learn to deal with monsters. You can’t get cliffed if you position right.

4 Likes

In regards to leaving the area: This has happened in long, narrow winding areas with drops to each side, and a point of no return drop at the start. It is at least not intuitively apparent how to leave the area when it spawns and fight somewhere else.

In regards to dodge dancing: Yeah, that looks effective, but also like something (as you write) you have to specifically train. Is it really good design that you potentially need to do something like that even on your very first run of Chaos Wastes, or even on Recruit difficulty, if you’re unlucky?

As I tried to make clear in my first post, the reason I bring this up is because it’s something that basically amounts to a intuitively unavoidable, one-hit KO party wiping mechanic, regardless of difficulty settings or power levels. There is nothing else in the game, in my experience, that would require you to look up a YouTube tutorial to get through a run on Recruit.

Why is this a thing that needs to be defended? I don’t understand how it increases the enjoyment of the game in any way.

Yeah you’re right we shouldn’t have to get better at any mechanics in the game and just hold W and click M1 sometimes to kill the enemies yeah this is a good suggestion

2 Likes

…What is it with this community? I said multiple times this isn’t about the game being hard, or not wanting to improve. I’ve played both Vermintides on most difficulties. How do you even begin to equal “This particular thing can wipe a duo at Recruit difficulty with no intuitive solution at all in specific circumstances” with “I just want to hold W and click M1 to win”?

There might be a sensible argument that chaos Wastes in general has too much dead space in its levels, in thet you can get walloped by a Troll/Roger off the edge in almost all levels, and you can get picked up and flung off the edge by the Spawn.

Point that @Perteks made is sound though, just move somewhere safer to fight them. There’s usually quite a large amount of time to find somewhere more sensible to fight as the monsters take time to get close enough.

1 Like

I agree that it is sound advice, if this was a thread asking for advice in handling rat ogres. It’s not, it’s a feedback thread with “hey, this thing in the game I encountered doesn’t feel in line with the rest of its difficulty scaling”. Whether I personally can handle said situation or not, isn’t really relevant and I honestly don’t understand why this is being treated as some kind of whine/complaint thread instead of feedback.

If we’re talknig about randomness causing unfair wipes then I think Assassins take the crown there.

180degree Rat Ogre slams are annoying, and getting punted off a cliff edge isn’t anywhere near as high frequency as the official Assassin wingsuit-pinball flying death™.

2 Likes

That’s actually one of my biggest gripes with the cw level design. Not because of getting ledges but because the maps feel so artificial and “unreal” in comparison with the adventure maps or even Weaves, considering the context.

As for the topic at hand: getting thrown around by monsters is a mechanic I would not like to miss. It becomes only a problem on the narrow walking paths and removing it from the whole game to remedy a situation occurring fairly rarely and is avoidable (either through picking a better spot, nuking or dodge dancing) is not a good trade in my eyes.

2 Likes

Well yes.
I prefer the design choice that makes it so, after getting yeeted off a cliff, brings to asking yourself “what could I have done better ?” to the one that makes you think “I should bring more firepower.”

So this is what we’re telling you. It definitely is about wanting to improve as I personnally don’t get cliffed without it being my fault - exactly the same as eating a Chaos Warrior’s overhead.


I need to add something here though : it can happen that you get yeeted by a monster and ricochet off the ground over 100m, until either you collide with something or get cliffed. That is not ok, but unfortunately also not fixable as this is an engine-related issue.

1 Like

Rat Ogres are actually pretty predictable to fight. They can be kept in place by well timed dodges. @Saryk has already posted you a good guide for it. I can assure you, it is possible to fight the good 'ol roger in the 3x3 m square.

Vermintide 2 can be very frustrating and punishing, but it is the more so rewarding once you master its mechanics!

3 Likes

Oh yes. Took me a while but the feeling of getting in the perfect rhythm not ti only keep the monsters where you want them but smacking their ugly heads while they just hit air, exactly like you want them… It’s really good. And worth the rocky road it took getting there.

1 Like

Thing is if you get yeeted of the cliff its pretty much 100% the players fault here and not the mechanics. Only caveat in wastes is illusionist which is known to cause some stupid interactions.
But as pointed by others, really good players can solo rat ogre in few feet square.

3 Likes

You solve the situation by not fighting in such a perilous position. If you have absolutely no choice but to fight in such areas, position yourself away from the edge so that you can’t be flung off and do your best to pull the monster somewhere safer. Rat ogres in particular are very easy to pin in place if you have nowhere to go, it’s something that comes naturally with playing the game for a long time. I never practiced it explicitly, it’s a technique that comes into play subconsciously after you’ve met them enough times and have learned how they behave.

If it’s a normal ogre you can just knock it off easily enough with explosives and abilities. If it’s a chest near an edge, you might want to clear the area around it first and find a good spot where to run, in case it spawns a dangerous monster/mark combo for fighting near edges.

Lastly, avoid using invisibility talents. They lead to aggro dumping, that is to the monster losing track of you mid-attack and insta-switching to someone else while the attack keeps going. This is an excellent way of getting your team ledged/killed, if your goal in the game is to become a professional griefer.

3 Likes