i feel that legend difficulty has been tweaked to a point where it is at a good place. if we’re asking for further tweaks to destroy the difficulty spikes (eg. boss + hordes + specials) that wipes groups, then in the next tweak you’re gonna have a similar thread, but saying that it’s too easy, please make it more difficult.
A boss alone is an easy target, and no problem at all, even under Legend. A horde along with a boss is usually also perfectly doable. A boss with a couple of specials or elites are fine, too. I think no one is complaining about these scenarios.
It becomes problematic and in many cases outright unfair when it is a combination of ALL of the above enemy groups, including several disabler specials, at the same time. Those are insane difficulty spikes that are completely random in an otherwise moderate or even lackluster difficulty setting.
OP perfectly described it in his starting post:
I’d rather have a constant high but fair difficulty instead of having a smooth run for 10-15 minutes, only to have a absurd difficulty spike which most of the time just wipes the group. This is not fun, this is not challenging, this is just stupid.
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It becomes problematic and in many cases outright unfair when it is a combination of ALL of the above enemy groups, including several disabler specials, at the same time. Those are insane difficulty spikes that are completely random in an otherwise moderate or even lackluster difficulty setting.
Yeah I do understand what you mean, but honestly? I absolutely love it. Those situations spawn the best clutches where we pull through by the skin of our teeth, or get eventually swarmed while heroically trying to use every trick in the books. If these situations are tweaked from Legend, I’d just love to see a higher tier of difficulty where the AI director is unshackled and can throw such stuff at you. They are what gets my blood pumping and hands sweating as I desperately dodgedance to a dropdown so I can get a revive or reload off.
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I’m not complaining about just a boss and horde. I’m complaining about those times when the director drops everything on you. It doesn’t happen every legendary run, but it happens frequently enough that it discourages me and my friends from running Legendary.
As a V1 veteran who soloed Cataclysm, and sleepwalks through Champion with sub level 10 alts, I feel like Legend should be accessible to me. And for the most part it is. But it is discouraging to win 3 fullbook legendaries in a row and feel like it was barely harder than Champion, then lose 3 legendaries in a row and not even being able to figure out what we were supposed to do differently to win.
If the game wants me to be able to deal with the entire enemy set all at once then at least make that consistent in every map lol. Right now the large group of legend players I know are just leveling alts or if we play legend at all anymore it is on a handful of maps that are least likely to abuse you, but it still happens.
Like the game decides to give you a boss/chaospatrol/horde/allthespecials in the rooms after the elevator lift on Righteous Stand. You are guaranteed a horde in that room because it comes after the gatelowering event in the courtyard, but the room also has a chance to spawn a boss (which could be an easy one or terribly annoying fighting on rafters) and a patrol as well (which glitches out way too much and you can’t hear it or it spawns on top of you) along with a ton of specials in a maze of bookshelves.
And if you get lucky and don’t have a boss and patrol spawn in that room, then you will most likely finish the map pretty easily. But if you do get those spawns then you most likely lose right there. I’d rather the map be more challenging overall, more consistent, than to have these difficulty spikes that make or break a run be a dice roll whether you even see them or not.
It really is a bit stunning how many people have replied to this thread without grasping my points at all. Thanks for your brilliant insight, brother, but we are in fact in agreement.
APART FROM THOSE DIFFICULTY SPIKES, Legend is in my opinion too easy. I want the “difficulty spikes” toned down so that it isn’t LITERALLY the entire enemy set at once. And I want the rest of the fights in general increased in difficulty so that it at least feels like I’m fighting the rats from Cataclysm and not the same old butter I’ve been slicing through since Recruit.
The AI Director was “unshackled” in meme difficulties from mods in V1 called Deathwish/Mutation. In V2 that difficulty you want is in DEEDS where you can double special spawn and hordes and turn all the ambient rats to elites. I do think Deeds should be replayable so that this difficulty is more easily repeatable to people like yourself who just want to be punished without a clear path to “How can we improve our play so we can actually master this stuff and learn to beat it flawlessly.” Skill-based games you should be able to master, like Dark Souls pros who can go NG10000 games with naked level 1 characters. When you git gud you shouldn’t really feel “desperate” anymore (desperate: “feeling, showing, or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with.”) you should be able to calmly skill yourself out of it.
I can already run 0 damage Champions, and that should be possible to consistently do on Legendary as well with enough practice. Any random mod maker will in a few weeks be able to make for you a meme difficulty that will put your face in the dirt over and over no matter what you do. What we expect from FATSHARK, though, is something that is a serious challenge, but also masterable, skill-based.
If you and I are talking about the same difficulty spike phenomena, then you don’t even get those spikes every game of legendary. From my experience since patch 1.04 it is about 50/50 whether the game will drop everything on you at once in certain spots of the map. So if you’re being sincere, then you should ALREADY want Legendary to be more difficult, you should want those spikes every game, and you should be bored by the rest of the map - and this is what “gets your blood pumping” in the first place - the change from boring to ridiculous, because a “spike” by definition has to be a big increase from the tedium.
I think it is possible to make a difficulty that is consistently challenging for experienced players but can still be mastered and run flawlessly with enough skill.
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meme difficulties from mods in V1 called Deathwish/Mutation
How exactly were they “meme”? They, especially Deathwish, were invented because people wanted to push their limits.
What you are talking about is fully mastering a difficulty which is its own reward, like running a 0 damage Cataclysm map in VT1. And that is all fine and dandy, and if they want to make Legend in a consistently challenging difficulty where that is possible, I’m all for it.
But mastering such a difficulty also made the game predictable. You felt like you were always in control. That is what is happening in the “NG10000 lvl 1 Dark Souls”. Its predictable, you’re in control. And that is not what I’m looking for in the highest tier of difficulty for Vermintide.
Having insane spikes that demolish a team that is usually running through a map has kept the game refreshing, at least for my group. We can run through half a dozen full book legends in a row without anyone even getting killed, but then we are suddenly assaulted by these spikes that remind us why we are playing this game. And I dont want that experience to be a mod, unless the mod becomes an official gamemode. Having the developers add a higher difficulty gives a carrot for the players. Players want to beat it because it was put in the game. A community will form around beating that difficulty successfully, even if it for the first 20 hours slaps them in the face. In mods, people just uninstall the mod because they dont have anyone to compare their experiences with.
At the moment Legend is, like you’ve said, too easy for veteran players except for the spikes. And while I agree with your statements that Legend should be consistently challenging, I believe that means we’ll need a fifth difficulty where the top 0.1% of the playerbase gets to have their arses kicked through such spikes. And in the current format Heroic Deeds aint it.
talks about 0 damage taken
shows screenshot with Ironbreaker
wtf
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try it.
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The biggest problems with legend difficulty wise are pure rng based and it isn’t fun.
Main offender is bosses in stupid spawn locations which was mentioned BEFORE beta by the players who went to test. Putting bosses in tight spaces is just bad game design, even more so when the horde and special timers line up at the same time, usually near the start of a map (grain any one?). This trickles down to all difficulties. I’m sure brand new players on recruit thing they’ve just had a fair and balanced experience when they’ve faced the above bs on their first run within the first 3 minutes of a map . . .
The other thing that makes legend difficult (apart from WHO you’re playing with) is the insane special spawns where it will suddenly throw every special at you once or twice in under a minute. This is amplified by the fact that we’re missing the other chaos special (the one that throws the halescourge stuff at you) so you’re more likely to get double leech or double storm (casting at you out of los).
Legend right now is run through the map dealing with everything easily until you get screwed by RNG or you have to stop for a scripted end event.
I’m sure the fix for power will make it more difficult again but will we be back to square one where you need certain weapons to be able to just get through the level?
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it’s really funny how you say this, and some threads are complaining about sienna or some other classes being OP and able to one shot everything or carry the whole team… but i don’t see them boasting or complaining about it in these threads.
lol.
I despise IB and it’s playstyle. So no, thanks. Same goes for Slayer, by the way. Ranger all the way - let’s hope they buff him soon. I won’t play a Bardin where I can’t make use of my aiming skills. That would be a waste. So I stick to chars with Handguns, Crossbows & Longbows as ranged weapons - Sienna is the exception, as vent-kiting is just satisfying af.
The issue is not Beam being op, the main problem is that people think Beam is necessary for Legend because it’s unfair. And yes, Legend is sometimes unfair. So the root of that issue goes deeper than complaining about how broken Beam currently is (it is).
Maybe you just need to accept that you’re not good enough for legendary instead of trying to selfishly change it
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To be honest I feel Legendary is fine the way it is…if people are passing it why would you want to remove things like patrols? lol it’s still doable even with the patrols. I personally enjoy the difficulty spikes and do not think they should be toned down like you’re asking…it’s called legendary because people learn how to fight through random spikes and not just have a repetitive game. It’s what makes it fun, I personally like the challenging moments that come through out the map and like the feeling of being able to overcome them. It’s hard to overcome them 100% of the time but that’s what makes the times you do pass it more satisfying.
It seems the only reason why you want difficulty spikes from patrols and specials removed is because they’re too hard for you. Why should everyone else who likes difficult challenges have to suffer because “its too hard” for one person?
Yet another threat to leave from you, lol. Ever hear the story of the Boy who cried Wolf?
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IA direction is simply crazy… specials spawned number can to double up between two games.
My only critism on legend is the enemy spawning out of thin air right next to you as it looks pretty stupid having them teleport in.
Also this is a big problem, I agree.