I really like this game, the lore, the combat, the level design. One thing I am no big fan of is the reward system. After playing a 1 hour+ expedition, getting 3 chests and all you get is stuff to decraft into materials you dont really need anymore is not very motivating in my opinion. Does anyone feel the same or is it just me?
To differentiate red items from orange ones (at the moment, any orange item can be just as good as reds), it would be cool if red items would have i.e. some sockets (maybe 2-3). When completing an expedition on champion+ you would get a gem to set into these sockets which then provide some minor skill increase (like +1% movement speed, +1% atk speed etc.). The skill increase you get on the gems could be tied to the god influencing the expedition you just did. This is just an idea, but I think something like this would increase the long term motiviation for going through expeditions.
I honestly enjoyed immensely how they gave red items unobtainable trait combinations in the first game, but that is not really possible with current system.
So I agree with you that they should be made special and distinguisable from orange counterparts but I donât find the proposed socket system particularly engaging.
Maybe just have them be able to roll chaos wastes traits (some of them probably needing adjustments for adventure play)?
Thatâs a problem with looting system mainly, but that is also kicking a dead horse at this point.
I honestly donât see them changing the looting, reward system or the veteran items in V2.
Also I personally would prefer entirely unique skin rather than lighsaberizing an existing one.
The big problem with such a loot system is that itâs fighting two different battles.
On one side itâs the âcarrot on a stickâ for new players, and on the other side you have people who just want to play the game at the highest level their skill allows for enjoyment, instead of feeling like theyâre timegated with (soft and hard) power requirements and have to grind for hundreds of hours to obtain perfect gear so they can finally play how they want. (Even if you donât need to, the psychological pressure is still there)
The rewards in this game only really work for âmedium investment playersâ (theyâre too slow for casual players and too annoying/pointless for high investment players). Granted, thatâs probably where most of the money comes from, but most of the people Iâve been playing with for the last 1000+ hours donât give a damn about loot anymore and are glad that they donât have to spend hours rerolling and opening chests except when new DLC weapons come out. The only thing to really look forward to are rare red skins, but the odds for those can be so absurd that thousands of hours donât guarantee anything.
One could come up with plenty of improvements that theyâd personall like as rewards from the game, but I guarantee you that theyâd upset just as many other players for whatever reason.
So in essence you force players to play x amounts of wastes to gain combat stats that might be mandatory?
Honestly the last thing this game needs is more stats on weapons especially ones that are behind some type of grind wall.
I fully agree the item levelling / reward system could do with an improvement, but I heavily disagree with your suggestion of adding even more grind, and I super duper mega heavily disagree with the idea of a system that adds even more power creep, especially if that power increase is not distributed amongst the playerbase equally!
To start with: The grind itself has never really been the appeal of Vermintide. This isnât Diablo where the constant unending nummerical power increase is the driving motivation in endgame. Not that such a system in itself couldnât work - because many games do that - but Vermintideâs main endgame appeal and reward has always been the difficult gameplay itself and increasing personal skill / achievents. If you first need to grind a lot to get at the power level for which the endgame is balanced, thatâs a horrible motivator for new players⌠The same problem that already exists currently with item power level and reds / well rolled oranges being locked behind an RNG grind⌠Another grind on top will only exacerbate these problemsâŚ
And about the endless power increase: That is a horrible idea. Youâd make the game unbalanceable, basically. Do you balance the game around unlevelled stuff that hasnât been ground yet? Then the game gets ruined and lame for higher ground items. Or do you balance endgame around high levelled items? Then you add even more of a non-skill based grinding barrier to endgame which this game absolutely doesnât need!
If there is a reward added for long time endgame grinding, it can be cosmetic only. Anything that affects gameplay will simply harm the game greatly.
My personal imagined ideal endgame reward system would be to make items work much like the Athanor (power / traits are levelled by playing and with a clear and attainable maximum) and overhaul the reward system to award shillings (with more cosmetics in the Emporium) or cosmetics in themselves, and preferably without RNG. And lock a bunch of cool cosmetics behind engaging skill-based weapon-specific challenges.
Step 2. Add a new equipment rarity (Artifact or something) that would work like WoM Athanor equipment with freely selectable and rerollable traits and properties.
Setp 3. Create new crafting materials for Atrifact quality equipment that would require you to kill bosses on cerait difficulty in order to obrain some crafting component. Also add required crafting components as random map spawns (like V1 lore pages or Paintings to encourage exploration).
Step 4. Craft your new equipment and ignore the rng reroll system.
Itâs probably too late to expect much to change regarding the loot system. Iâm just really hoping they put something much better in Darktide. The worst parts to me are the hoop jumping you have to do via playing quickplay and book collecting, and the fact that there are only a few traits or properties worth using in any given slot. Swift Slaying being the only decent melee trait in particular annoys the hell out of me.
The looting of red items for newer players could be easily fixed with just the V1 quests and contracts board but this was said here since the release so I am doubtful weâll ever get it back for the second installment.
Somebody at Fatshark thought it would be a brilliant idea to create an item progression system where you expend crafting materials you have to grind for in order to make your equipment objectively worse in a game where having objectively better equipment is important for progression.
I always liked the bounty board on V1 better because you can grind to a specific item. Gave you a reason to check every day.
The item progression system took a huge step backwards when they replaced emperorâs chests with shillings in the quests in Okriâs book. The extra chests in there made it bearable to grind out red items. Now I donât even care since it takes too long.
I would like to have a reward - for solving a particular quest (e.g. complete again an Okriâs challenge (within a time frame), complete X deeds (within a time frame), regular quests ) - that would provide a single-use bonus that might include adding any item property for you (or party, but a lot more expensive), any consumable or any boon/trait for one level.
The cost of such a bonus would have to be proportionate to its usefulness (e.g. chain lightning property would need at least the Skittergate final challenge, while 25% not to consume a healing item could be any of the regular challenges), plus it could not be applied to the mission that is of higher difficulty than the one where it was achieved. The combo prices would be fine too⌠- Asuryanâs Wrath or Taalâs Twinned Arrow might cost at least two of the more difficult challenges.
These bonuses would be stored in a separate inventory and the player would have to activate them at the beginning of the game. The activation cost would be 0 for the first one, 10 shillings for the second one, 20 for the third one, doubling for each additional bonus activated, one instance per bonus.
If the player left the game within the first minute/while at the very start, the bonus would not be spent, otherwise it is lost, no matter what (including being kicked/host crashing).
I donât think Mannanâs Tempest for example in adventure mode is such a good idea. The forum is already filled with threads discussing how everything is OP.
The boons in V1 were only a small bonuses on the power lvl of about a property, I think +2 stamina was one for example.
What I think could work is a curse resist boon (not stackable with trinket), that would allow players who are not comfortable without it try different builds.
Of course it is overpowered - but that power is meant for chaos wastes where, if you are lucky and reasonable, can have someone wipe the finale, and if you are unlucky and/or unreasonable, you die easily even in the middle of the game.
The point is in the cost. Sure, you get the chain lightning for one game, but in order to get it for that one game, you have to do something really hard, preferably team based (Engines of War barrels, e.g., + Skittergate finale). And you have to do both of those at the difficulty where you would want to use that boon - i.e. no âletâs do it on recruit and apply it to cataâ.
P.S. I never thought of the rewards in VT1 as small, they were in line with the game. But they were also very easy to get, which is not exactly what Iâm proposing here - price scales with usefulness.
I never found loot system good in Vermintide. Neither as a beginner nor as a veteran.
On the other hand, Deep Rock Galactic had a very good progression system. No luck involved. I knew roughly how much grind I needed to unlock a new weapon, a new ability slot or a new ability for those slots.
Waves has a similar, cool unlock system but the base game needs something different.
Itâs very important to have the possibility to create weapons of the same type for different builds.
I can imagine a system with 2 properties/weapon. And when you unlock +3 attack speed, all your weapons with this property are automatically upgraded from +2 to +3.
Lohnerâs shop is perfect for skins as it is. Glowing skins might require some other form of grind, whatever.
All traits should be removed that the player cannot interpret without code breaking. Like the âinfantryâ property.
I would remove racial properties, too. The damage reductions are ridiculously weak and the damage vs properties need code breaking to use properly. Properties should be easy to understand without data mining. Racial traits would be even worse if they introduce undeads or other races.
The loot boxes are only good if you get something from it. For example new skins. So if you have 2% chance to get a random skin, you will get the box only with 2% chance, but the box gives you a skin with 100% chance. And the player no longer gets boxes when there isnât anything to unlock anymore.
Unless I misunderstood you, no.
The game has mineral and gold boost mutators, you can also target farm those resources that you need. You can use both of these things to greatly speed up progression if the mutators and biomes with resources you need line up.
In V2 you have no control over what drops for you except for which character it drops for.