Now that the nagging of many here in the forum has been given way, and the beastmen have been dead annoyed, it would now be possible to introduce a new level of difficulty.
The effort would be low, just like with Cata at that time, some values high and undo the last nervs. I liked the enemy’s ability to dodge, this could be extended to other enemy types. Then it would be great to add blocking and/or parrying for enemy types.
It would be at least a compensation for some players looking for more challenge.
Since Legend and Cata are now much easier to play, this new level of difficulty should not harm anyone. Please don’t make the mistake of introducing new boxes or successes with them, otherwise the howling will start again, because then everyone feels obliged to play the new difficulty level and then be challenged again nervs.
I just think the fact that the opponent types can fight more intelligently makes sense for the development of the game principle. For me, more class is more important for opponents than more mass.
This conversation is going to keep happening, and people are going to continue to be disappointed on either side of this argument, because Vermintide 2 in its current state just can’t provide a happy medium. The game needs an overhaul of its core mechanics in order to justify the things you’re asking for. I’ve wanted an overhaul for the longest time - when the first beta for WoM happened I was loving it for what it seemed to be working towards, but it seems like maybe they just couldn’t commit to it.
You would need to reduce enemy numbers, the over-reliance on temp hp and infinite ammo, the traits/properties and how much value critical hits offer, and then all of the bugs atop that. Then, absolutely you could have more complex enemies, more dynamic requirements to deal with them, more punishment for trading hits and taking damage, etc. I would love that. That’s not the game we’re playing, though, and it won’t ever be. I’ve been slowly accepting that.
If you’re still feeling like it’s worth trying to play(I wouldn’t know, I don’t bother so much these days), maybe DWONS has been updated for Cataclysm by now? Alternatively, Deep Rock Galactic has a pretty great difficulty curve and loot/cosmetics aren’t tied to difficulty.
Cata was never meant to be the absolute hardest difficulty for the highest-tier players. It might be too easy now, I know Legend is back to feeling pretty dang easy for me when I run solo. Beastmen might have been over-nerfed, or maybe they just need a bigger roster to provide more tactical challenge.
Balance in general, though, can’t come until the three enemy factions are closer in balance to each other - which they weren’t before. Skaven and Chaos were easy and Beastmen were hard (a lot of which was due to bugs, but it was still the case). This led to a weird situation where no one could get the level of difficulty they wanted, higher or lower, because there was no parity between the three. Bear in mind that the current nerfs to them could be reverted in some ways when the bugs are cleared up, as well.
But you’re never going to get an apple out of an orange. This is a game about fighting hordes, so it’s not going to have duels. :S
This game’s going to turn into Diablo 3 if FS just lazily adds more difficulties, besides only a relatively small portion of the community plays Legend. Your more average players seem happy in Recruit, Veteran or Champion depending on skill levels/preference. I personally find anything below champion just feels like god mode is enabled, there’s no challenge in the slightest. Champion can be fun to help newbies out or mess around with silly builds, but it still feels fairly easy most of the time. Legend is where the fun is at for me. (i don’t factor cata in, since it’s DLC)
During peak hours in the server browser, I see loads of Recruit/Vet games and a moderate amount of Champion games up, as for Legend, i only see a handful of them in comparison to the other aforementioned difficulty levels.
Legend is still significantly harder then it was in 1.7. If it doesn’t feel that way, it just means your own skill has adapted upward even farther.
Why not just have twenty tiers of difficulty?
My point being, difficulty is completely subjective, and although I’m quite content barreling through Legend now I have no intention of getting into CATA (more because I don’t care for monstrous difficulty than it’s paywalled) and having extreme difficulty causes it’s own problems - look at people playing 100+ weaves moaning about it being “block simulator coupled with keep-the-Battle-wizard-alive”. I don’t own WoM Early Access DLC so I have no real experience myself, but I do follow others comments.
As CATA has no more reward than Legend, then I suggest people looking for more difficulty/challenge can find it in the modded realm where CATA 2/3 difficulties are modded into QP maps, and you could always mod in Darkness of Heresy, Tzeentchian Twins and Back to Basics.
Or dislocate a couple of fingers or something.
I think a lot of the concerns raised by players is because of the feel of the game being misconstrued as the difficulty of the game.
For myself, the game either feels too easy bar far, or too punishing by far. Either I gambol through Athel Lenui getting all books and stamping everything into the floor - or I get kerb-stomped into the ground in under a minute by some AI director smack-addled spawns. There appears to be no in-between.
Player want the feeling of fighting through overwhelming odds rescuing their companions, battling through the “End times”. A lot of people equate this feeling to the difficulty, but increasing enemy HP doesn’t work (beta 1, 100k damage runs), increasing special spawns doesn’t work - cue hook rat/assassin gangbang, increasing enemy reaction time and attack speed doesn’t work (cue Beastmen nerfs) and changing talents is questionable (looking at you RV, HS, Pyro…)
So as @Osrali mentioned, the deep mechanics need an overhaul and I suppose the stagger mechanic might’ve been the fundamental change that was required but I don’t think so as people are still polarised between “Too Easy Steamrolling everything” or “TOO HARD can’t complete a run.”
So instead of people talking about harder difficulty, maybe we need to have a think about tactically challenging situations. This means a recoded AI director as tweaking the current parameters is not really working.
I think a deed overhaul would greatly help those at the very top to stay challenged. Let us pick all the deed mutators freely just as I can select map and difficulty. It’s hard to believe even the most elite players would ever find cata + vanguard + more specials + no pickups or whatever too easy. And even if they did, it’s just not possible to ever make these people “happy”. Look at the games going on any one night: more games on the lower difficulties than highest (for me at least, ymmv). As a developer, FS has to balance pleasing their most hardcore fanbase, a minority, with a greater majority who just like slaying rats.
I tend to agree about “tactically challenging situations”. Frankly, I think this just means we need more enemy variety or other variables that change up gameplay. Rather than reworking the game mechanics to change how we play, do it organically by creating enemies who counter our tactics. In a sense Fatshark tried that with things like Ungor Archers, Wargors, and skirmishing Ungors, but it wasn’t fine-handed enough. The problem was that Beastmen wouldn’t attack you in a new variety of ways, they’d attack you in all the old ways (but better than other factions) with new gimmicks thrown in - and things like getting poked by enemies you can’t see just can’t be a thing when they have no collision with each other and hyperdensity is a factor. Cutting numbers wouldn’t fix that, either, as you’d have this issue even if there were just ten enemies trying to come through a doorway.
Wargors were overtuned at first (perhaps now undertuned, not sure) because their radius was so big and they were glitched and over-tanky (meaning that skillful play of headshotting them before they could get in range didn’t really work). However, they do force us to use tactics other than pure deeps, and to give ground. Same for Ungor Archers, they force you to adopt new tactics.
A skirmisher-type enemy is a good idea, just not for every low-tier chaff unit, IMO.
I think the simplest way that Fatshark could implement new enemy tactics that can help higher difficulties is to simply give some enemies a passive effect. They could just be recolored existing enemies - say, a plague monk with a green aura that causes ticking damage to nearby heroes. Or a Stormvermin with an aura that protects against ranged attacks. Or a Chaos Warrior with a chilling aura that slows you.
And as you climb higher in difficulty, these variant enemies get more common. Maybe not hordes of them, but you’ll see them regularly.
Beastmen were just wrong because every faction must have pro and cons, while they overshadowed the others two.
Apart this, there has not been other nerf. Legend is still much harder than 1,6 (in fact most players can’t handle it) and Cataclysm feels very funny and balanced (and meant to few players). And there are also Twitch Mode and mods for an harder challenge.
To add another difficulty needs a lot of time and resources. If you still find the game too easy… Simply you have beat it. Search another one. We can’t balance the game for every single player.
I really think this is the way to go if you want an even harder difficulty.
I wouldn’t want to try a back to basics/no pickups/more specials twitch-mode 15/10 double size spawns/only negative modifiers cata weekly (pick your poison) game (if you overwrite the deed with cata weekly. If you do not want to use the overwrite, weekly plus hardest twitch mode on cata is the way to go).
That would be (imo) the hardest difficulty you can get on live, and i honestly doubt someone could say that that would still be too easy (or even doable with an high win rate, not to say doable at all).
You can go even further beyond with mods, if you want. So there really is no limit if you want to go full deathwish mode.
The game provides enough opportunities to increase difficulty without the need of yet another higher base game (well tbh, only WoM owners) difficulty.
I think some players forget that this is a very challenging game, in the scheme of things. Sure, the default difficulties (and Cata) may not be that hard when you’ve got two thousand hours of playtime. But that puts you in an incredibly elite category. The game isn’t easy; you’ve just gotten extremely good at it.
Here we go again.
Ahem
HeroicDeedsWeeklyChallengesTwitchModeModdedRealmStupidWeavesFortunesofWarCommunityMapsOhWait…
Need I say more?
I’m not asking everything to be done over again. Only the game mechanics that were already in the game will be implemented in a new level of difficulty. Blocking, Dodging, Pushing, was or is in the game, parrying would be something new, but this might be extended to some opponent types. I’m not talking about balancing the game here. I already understood that most of the players seem to want to get on your nerves and can’t handle new game mechanics.
And yes I know that with Deeds and Twitchmode you can make the game more difficult. But it’s different if you just spawn more enemies and have less life etc. or if enemies are more intelligent and get more or new abilities themselves. The challenge changes.
Honestly games are not only developed for the needs of the masses but should also give room for minorities. And like I said, I only demand to implement things that were already included in the game. Putting all this into a new level of difficulty shouldn’t be a big effort, I hope.
Those who don’t want a new challenge will not be concerned, as I said, you don’t have to be afraid that your game modes will be affected. So you don’t have to start again with how OP were the Beastmen etc. You can sit back and celebrate your victory.
And the argument to find another game, I could have given you exactly as you were dissatisfied. I will also be allowed to represent my interests here even if I speak for a minority.
to split the playerbase even more is suicide, they should consolidate the game modes not make more of them, though i do agree that removing the dodge of enemies was unnecessary
Exactly. We don’t need any more stupidity infused into this game à la Weaves.
Adding another difficulty is just that. Pure stupidity because it ignores the purpose of Cataclysm and all other difficulty modifiers while also suggesting that “Hey guys! Let’s split up the community again!”.
If you crave greater difficulty and have played the NEW Twitch mode combined with Cataclysm and Weekly Challenge then either play Modded Realm for even more difficulty controls or ask the developers to increase Cata difficulty.
Enemies getting new abilities/attack animations/etc… or difficulty specific enemies (which I asked for multiple times as that would actually add something unique/interesting to the game) both would require a ton of work when it comes to programming, animation, and QA when it comes to all the known bugs/glitches that we know Fatshark would introduce for fun.
The back dodging was just stupid and was forcing players to play few builds/weapons if they wanted to be able to deal with it decently.
As for new difficulty, there is no need to waste time on that. Amount of players who consider Cata easy is extremely small and if you smash whatever on top of Cata, then only top players will still find it easy.
If you want harder, then you can play ONS Cata already, or ONS Cata 3, and then smash 100 other mutators on top of that on modded.
There is no reward for Cata anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you official or modded realm and you can’t play anything harder then Cata with QP group so… you need pre-made anyway, and therefore jumping on modded realm is no issue at all.
= There is no need to waste dev time on new difficulty.
Hell yes… they should do Rare mobs, “yellow” kind of reskinned, juiced up elites with mini patrols and auras or something, that would be so frickin amazing.
This game already has a multitude of moving parts that seemingly get broken every time a large overhaul of anything gets pushed live.
But here, let’s try and add a few more new complicated systems into the game! I’m sure it’ll go over great!
Ridiculous arguments like that from the other side again.
The community is not shared. At least not more than it would do on its own. Or do you want to play Legend with recruit players ? Every level of difficulty should do justice to the abilities of the players, and weaves are a different kind of game mode that also serves such players. Even if both would not exist, people group together and there are many reasons for that, not for nothing there are friend lists and block lists. So this is total nonsense to take the split of the community as a counterargument.
Then the argument it would be wasted time for developers to work on it.
The biggest waste of time is when you, as a developer, put in some programming and work, and in the end you have to remove it from your game.
Re-using what you’ve already programmed, on the other hand, is effective because it doesn’t waste all the time you’ve invested.
And working on new and innovative game elements is certainly not a waste. The endless howling of the players that makes the developers do more balancing work, which is time consuming and unnecessary for a non-PVP game in my opinion, is rather a waste of development time. But since success is only measured by money and not creativity or artistic ambition, the developers have given in to your pressure.
So far so good for you.
I agree that bugs and technical problems in general should be fixed, but let’s be realistic, you can’t make money with that and that’s the work that’s the most expensive because all the code has to be checked again and again as far as I know.
So I say it again, I clearly wish for innovation and new things, but what has been in the game before can be reinstalled elsewhere, as they did with the maps of Vermintide 1 is useful, because effective.
I’ve already written in my previous posts why there’s a difference between mastering new game mechanics or just getting buffs or nerves.
I also wish for a reworking of the Deed system, but many people have been wishing for this for a long time now.
I think Twitch 2.0 is great, a little consolation for all the nerves.
Nevertheless, I’m sticking to it, a new level of difficulty that contains new game mechanics as a new challenge would be great. Friendly fire is also a game mechanic that is only activated at a certain level of difficulty, and you could continue to work on and think about this principle. I could also revise the already existing difficulty level to make the gradation clearer.
That would be again a time expenditure around existing to change thus, why not simply a new provide in the menu of the play a place was anyway under Cata kept free, there comes anyway still something. I hope it won’t just be more live more mobs more spawns, but really new abilities of the opponents.