For those of you are fine with an easy “it´s only cosmetics” explanation but the game is fine.
Yes it´s a fun base game itself that can make addicted.
But am i wrong if i think many parts of the game are build around the MTX and have an deep impact to the game?
Just a few points they are just obvious:
limited random missions with random side objects (2-3 for each diff level at a time)
because of this, timegated sidemissions they depend on collection scriptures/grimiors
random shop to buy weapons (wich is very limited and change every hour)
random placement of materials/scriptures/grimiors
no account wide shared material/coins
no shared weeklys between characters
no weaponcrafting at all how it seems like because “it does not fit the theme”
penaces that are so hard or enojing that drvies you to buy instead the MTX stuff
Just to name a few of much more points … and who knows what are the future plans.
This is kinda standart framework for a F2P model to come and can be switchet to without to much efford or changes needet.
Fatshark has always had weirdo design choices that lend themselves to microtransactions but don’t ever actually have microtransactions with them. The loot system in VT2 was literally lootboxes, but it was never monetized. Not saying they couldn’t do a 180 and make everything P2W, but these types of systems are nothing new to Fatshark, and they’ve never monetized them before.
Very good summary. It all leads players to excessive grind to force FOMO on them. Omg, I didn’t log in, how I lost in shop rotation. Omg, I didnt log in, will be able to do weekies. Omg, I didn’t log in, did I miss great weapon on contract rotation?
Exactly my concerns. It seems like the premium currency is just sitting as the perfect solution to speed up grind. Obviously it’s all a free choice though so it isn’t horrible practice! /s
You are right with verminte2… i belive they hade plans to do this for real money. I belive the only thing holding them back to do this was this massive backlash desaster with star wars battlefront 2 a few month released before.
Agreed. They just do things differently. Instead of pickable rewards a la MMO style or quests or such, you get your Random Lootcrate / Random Emperor’s Gift and be on your way.
Instead of the established shop with all items present in low gear quality, you have it filled with several rarities and levels above and below your own, but it’s all random.
You get your crafting system and you can replace and reshape everything, but you still rely on the dice.
Fatshark being Cultists of RNGesus, the Unpredictable One: Confirmened.
The Random Shop stuff isn’t really so exciting, that it should cause you FOMO.
Early in the Pre-Purchase Beta the shop refreshed not just every hour, but also every mission. Clearly the design idea being that after every run or two you’d have new chances to get some different gear. Here I also have to state that early on the shop partially stocked some more powerful stuff.
Anyway, they changed it to an hourly change, because the other version of it seemed to bug out for some people. And I guess they picked 1 hour because they figure, it will be enough time to do 2 full runs or 1 run after seeing something you like, but still lacking some cash to get it.
Unless you play on Sedition or Uprising, most of the time 1 run is all you need to get the necessary currency.
Then where in the shop do you see it?
The boosters, the item drops, the purchasable account wide weapons, the lootboxes?
None of that in the game and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to come.
Or let’s put it that way - That’d be a first for them in 10 years of Fatshark being Fatshark.
Yup, it was the same time the big international backlash went of on battlefront 2 for EA and Fatshark, being small studio knew they couldn’t monetize lootboxes back then as pepole would eat them alive and boycott the game, if huge IP as Star Wars did pretty much die becasue of it.
But I am sure plan was to monetize lootboxes. Their management seems to be looking for any possible ways to become big and rich (themselves, not studio)
They’ve pushed in a premium currency that will leave you with a remaining balance to just sell skins. The crafting isn’t implemented and will rollout through December (allegedly). The game is very grind heavy relating to gear and a typical model for live service games is to allow you to speed up your progress by essentially buying it. Why do people like you have such blind faith in the company?
It is becasue we can’t max out stats on weapons with anything else. You need to get great near maxed rolled White/Green/Blue and then upgrade it on crafting station. Every hour you are not logged in you might have wasted god-rolled item.
I logged in yesterday in middle of night cause I couldn’t sleep. Didn’t even plan to play, just killing time. I go to store, 2 minutes till rotation and what do I see:
Lasgun XII with 85%-90% rolls on every single stat. White.
If I didn’t log in I wouldn’t have god-rolled XII right now.
It’s not blind, for a lot of us it’s based on over a decade playing their games, reading their announcements, watching their dev streams. Call me naive but I’m willing to confidently bet store will remain cosmetic only, and the only other thing we’re likely to get charged for is new classes.
As pointed out before, VT2’s loot system, heck even VT1’s loot system looks like it would be perfect for boosters etc. Yet they’ve never happened, and after a lot of exposure to the company I’m confident they won’t happen here. Fatshark just has some weird sadistic love of heavily RNG loot/progression systems. It’s how they be.
Lay into me all you want if I get proven wrong, I’m very confident I’m spot on here.
It’s not blind faith, again they’ve always had RNG heavy systems that are perfect for monetization, yet have never actually monetized them. Fatshark just has some weird obsession with RNG. Again, they definitely could change this stance and go full P2W, but they haven’t yet, so there’s a good chance they won’t now either.
I’d have assumed the unfinished nature of the game but ready avenue for egregious monetisation might have shaken your faith, but we will have to see I guess.
I really hope you are right an i am wrong.
But this does not denie the fact the game could be so much better without building it around MTX (at least it looks to me this way).
This is just common salesman practice … give something free (penace), something cheap (in game coins) and then make the contract (MTX). This is such a simple concept but still works after 30 years …
If there’s anything they’ve been dodgy on it’s monetisation of cosmetics, which isn’t to excuse how scummy this cosmetic shop genuinely is, I’ve definitely lost respect for the company, but it wasn’t a huge surprise by any means either. VT2’s launch was honestly in a worse state and just as ripe for monetisation. Everything that’s happened with DT’s release in entirely within FS’s normal parameters (and mostly painfully predictable, TBH), though if you can believe me the communication in general has been significantly better than with the early days of VT2. Paid boosters or grind reducers would definitely not be anywhere near those expected parameters.
You’re right though, we’ll just have to wait and see.
My dude, the battles we have fought over the years over FS’s love of unfettered RNG grind, oh boy It’s pig headed and genuinely baffling, but I genuinely don’t think it has anything to do with intentions to monetise. They just genuinely believe this is the way to get longer term engagement for their games.
I actually haven’t noticed how many there are in the game currently but I’d be pretty confidently to bet against you there. Most likely just a lack of foresight and another thing that will have to be hastily fixed when DLC careers get released.
I’ve been reading up a lot about VT2 release and life cycle in the last few days and honestly it seems the devs have learned nothing. Saying this is “normal” for FS is a bit concerning now on title 3 in a franchise. (“spiritual sequel”)
Again, it’s honestly better in a significant number of ways, but yeah it’s definitely not improved as much as probably any of us vets would like. Even the most long term fans have spent a good amount of time frustratedly screaming on these forums about waiting months for hotfixes or just incredibly bizarre design choices they’ve made.
Even if i did not noticed this, this is even worse if you think about manupulation of a player.
Just think a moment about the hub layout. Where do you spawn in the hub? wich way ist the shortest the leads to the weapon vendor?
So every time you spawn after a mission you would see a short time the sign to enter the MTX shop.
Just simply because it is the shortest way and i don´t the MTX vendor was not placed on purpose where he is.
I don’t have blind faith, I’m going 100% by precedent. The precedent by Fatshark has been set since their very first game and it’s been like that every release from them.
The precedent is cosmetic items as purchasable option, but not game altering purchases aside from content DLC.
This has been the case for all three games. There never was a booster or an advantage to buying any of their extras other than content DLC.
And?
Vermintide 1 and Vermintide 2 were also grind heavy. Vermintide 1 was grind heavy and didn’t even have much in the way of monetized content, expansion DLCs included.
You got 1 weapon or item for every mission you played and that was only going to be of good quality or possibly red if you did all the grimoires as well as all the available pickups (like those loot dice).
As for the premium currency: So what?
Because the full crafting system isn’t in yet, which yes admittedly sucks completely. But it is what it is.
I’m also not sure if the available crafting is bugged. I think it is.
When you upgrade a weapon in quality level, it doesn’t only show that one perk or trait will be added, it also shows in the upgrade menu to the right that more stat points will be added to the available attributes.
But clearly this doesn’t happen. Seems unintentional to me.
Again, nothing to do with faith.
I am not conflating anything with each other as many do, I judge their past actions and their current actions and I judge all these individually against each other.
I see, that they messed up the release with a number of technical issues. That is bad, but happens.
I see, that they have the same cosmetic store from Vermintide 2 ported over. Expected.
I see, that the technical issues include a number of bugs, crashes and performance issues. Expected.
I’m an adult, so I know:
They will have several different teams.
The programmer team doing the base code. This one is responsible for the bugs, crashes and performance.
The designer team. This one is responsible for the microtransactions, specifically what they are and how they look.