As much as I enjoy reading all of the posts in this thread you people do realize it’s to late right? It’s way to late. Fatshark screwed up bigtime. They cannot repair this dmg. They had the feedback for months and choose to ignore it. Now they reap the rewards. Best thing they could do is to just MAN UP, Apologize for this unsatisfactory result and go from there.
No amount of “new experimental betas” is going to fix WOM however. Listening to a small group of people instead of it’s largest most faithful fanbase was what birdperson would consider “A **** move”. It was a catastrophic failure
I’ve played around 100 hours of the closed extended and open beta for WOM. I left alot of feedback and criticism on many different things. I also reported as many bugs as I could find while playing.
I mainly tested Cataclysm since that was the only thing that interested me and I could finish those runs with some effort put into it. I am one of those people who where heavily against STAGGER in any interation they could think of because I KNEW it would affect combat and make it clunky and slow and tedious which would ruin the core feel of the game. It’s almost like they didn’t care.
In the main game I have over 1100 hours played, mostly on legend/deeds or just for shenanigans since I CBA doing anything on modded realm.
That’s my background.
Now to get real.
Winds of Magic is a cluster **** if anything. I KNEW THAT WEAVES WOULD BE POINTLESS. I KNEW THE STAGGER CHANGES WOULD NEGATIVELY INPACT THE GAME.
And lo and behold, Winds of Magic at 36% on Steam Reviews. MOSTLY NEGATIVE. That’s not good. That’s freaking horrendous. I’m happy I didn’t waste my money into it. And I never will. It’s not worth it. Just to be clear, it’s not about the money. I could easily afford it even with it’s asking price of 16,79€. It’s about sending the message.
So what did they mess up with this game?
Version 2.0 for Vermintide 2 is what truly started it all. The changes to combat, the stagger changes along side talent changes turned the game into something completely new. And I’ve heard some people honestly saying “but this is just abit more like Vermintide 1!” NO! IT IS NOT! I’ve played that to much to know that as the game stands now Vermintide 1 is a much better game than Vermintide 2.
Then came Winds of Magic. Let’s adress it’s core features and reason around them.
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The Beastmen - At first glance this is actually a welcome addition. It’s fun when they put more enemies in and not only that an entire faction. That’s great! And that’s where the fun ends.
With this games hyperdensity, which got alot worse with the Beastmen, came a new breed of annoyance. The Beastmen in combination with the Stagger changes, hyperdensity, lag (To some, I was not affected by lag at all). dodge changes, long range near unavoidable charges from enemies. Fighting them became so tedious it just didn’t feel good. Not to mention they where clearly unbalanced in comparison with the Skaven and the Norsca Chaos. (In the lore I believe that Norsca Chaos should be more powerful than the beastmen since they carry Nurgles blessing but I could be wrong about that). Preferably I would have seen Chaos as the heaviest to fight against and the Beastmen a middleground. However, I still liked the Beastmen as a whole. I didn’t like them to 100%, But maybe 55-60% which is still better than half.
Beastmen are simply put: Acceptable -
Cataclysm - Why this is behind a paywall within the expansion is beyond me. I could be wrong about that aswell since I havn’t been playing this game at all and uninstalled it out of spite for what they did. So if I am please correct me. But from what I understand I need to buy Winds of Magic to be able to play Cataclysm and if that’s the case it’s a massive middle finger from Fatshark in my face. So I have to pay for a bunch of stuff I don’t want just to access this one thing? No thanks.
Cataclysm from a balance POV felt ok. During the beta it was abit overtuned during certain betas and really enjoyable during others. Another problem with Cataclysm was the fact that someone at Fatshark seriously thought “Oh there’s no special reward, it’s the same as Legend. But do it for the challenge”. Then there’s not point in running 3 Tome/2 grim runs on Cata? Why do that when I can simply do that on legend if I need vaults? Such a blatantly stupid idea from Fatshark. No reward, do it for challenge. That’s not motivation enough sorry. I need to actually see that my effort was rewarded. That being said, Cataclysm is still a great addition to the game, if I didn’t have to PAY FOR IT. This seriously should have been with the 2.0 patch and not Winds of Magic. It should have been added for free to the base game.
Cataclysm is simply put: A shame… -
Raised leve cap - Yup, we all got that. Thanks. Still slightly annoyed by the fact that my lvl 500+ Sienna suddenly cannot spare a few of her overlevels to instantly go to 35. But sure I can live with that. It doesn’t make any sense but I can live with it. No big deal here really.
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The New Progression System - OH BOY. Grab the popcorn and saddle down kids because we are about to dive deep into the main poopstorm that is WEAVES aka the badly scripted Greater Rift clone from Diablo 3 with a leaderboard that only the top 1% care about. Or as I like to call it, a huge waste of potential.
First of all I honestly do not CARE at all about leaderboards just to get that out of the way. Do I get anything from playing weaves to the main game? Oh, I get a frame, Yeah not interested. Not worth my time. Not to mention the weaves are such a massive grind it’s tedious. I’d rather grind in a more fun game like Deep Rock Galactic. Grinding there is actually fun. Wait there will be seasons so I have to grind AGAIN!? Why don’t you just spit on me while you’re at it Fatshark… The audacity to even consider such a thing. Just drop the idea. The Weaves where a complete and utter failure.
And to add insult to injury. I quite LIKED the new crafting system that came with the Weaves. ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT IT’S EXCLUSIVE TO THE DAMN WEAVES. Why did you waste this potential Fatshark? Oh and honestly I quite liked some of the skins on the weave weapons too. Do we get those in the main game? No? Well thx for nothing I guess.
Weaves are such a waste of potential and a massive waste of time IMO that I would never EVER put any time into it. And this was Winds of Magic main selling point. I’m not paying for that.
Imagine if we have had a reworked Deed system or Versus mode instead of weaves. How happy that would have made people in general. Fatshark sure has some wierd priority with their development.
Weaves are simply put: A Complete and utter DISTASTER -
New weapons - As far as I am concered only one weapon actually stood out and felt good to use. It’s pretty obvious it’s the throwing axe that Bardin got. I didn’t like any of the other weapons at all for various reasons. They felt bad, had wierd attack patterns and/or low to weak performance.
New weapons are simply put: A Shame… EXCEPT YOU THROWING AXE! YOU ROCK! -
New level - Havn’t played it. I don’t have the expansion so I cannot say anything about it. What I am going to say however is that only 1 level for the asking price for WOM is a disgrace. You should have added ATLEAST 3 new maps. At the very least 3 new maps designed for the beastmen in mind and with some lore to it. Guess that time went into weaves instead.
Dark Omen is simply put: I dunno, but only one level is not acceptable for the price of this expansion. -
Winds of magic - See point 4.
Now for the last point. The biggest change of them all that ruined the game.
STAGGER
I knew the moment they implemented it and from the first time I hit a rat in the face that this would not do well. It turned everything into sponges and with the hyperdensity and intensity of Cataclysm the hordes where the main threat. Not the massive amount of specials or elites, No, the hordes where the real threat because of how much they stacked on one another and the fact that they could take such a massive beating.
Also here’s the biggest flaw with Stagger. Why would I want to go up to an enemy and push him then hit them when I can simply MACE TO THE FACE!? What feels more satisfactory for you as a player? You don’t have to guess do you? I alongside many others who played the beta did point this out and the issues with the changes to Stagger. Turning a optional Crowd Control ability into a mandatory debuff. Just as I predicted it slowed the game down by a huge margin. It became boring to play. My teams 10-12 minute runs on certain maps suddenly turned to +30 minute runs. It became tedious. Nobody had time for that. I even left a suggestion that to keep stagger and make it viable only apply it to Elites as to make them more ELITE and remove it from the “trash” mobs as to keep them “trash”. And Fatshark KNEW what they where doing. They just choose not to listen to the many concerns that came up during the beta. And there we’re MANY concerns. They had this information, This feedback for several months before the release and they still managed to mess this up is nothing less than staggering.
All of this suddenly came to fruition with Patch 2.0 to the base game. People started to change their review to negative on the base game because they changed the game to much and in to short of a time span. Me included, I changed to negative because I didn’t like that Fatshark did to one of my favorite games.
Not only that. The moment Winds of Magic turned official and review started to roll in Fatshark quickly realized how massivly they has ****ed this one up.
This can most clearly be seen due to their reaction in the Patch notes quoted below:
That’s right, They changed the stagger changes to such a degree that they nearly reverted them. They realized that “maybe going against the majority of our fanbase was not really such a great idea”
Sadly they realized this way to late. Fatshark had every opportunity to listen and take in the feedback that was provided during the closed extended beta. And they choose to ignore it. They brought the game to the brink of destruction. They did this believing this is what the community wanted. But in the circumstances they created. It wasn’t. And in the process of doing this they ruined a perfecly good game and tarnished their reputation with it.
I will never ever again help Fatshark with any beta of any kind since I know for a fact. They don’t want your feedback. They will do whatever they want to anyway and it’s evident based on the results of Winds of Magic and Patch 2.0. And I feel strongly even giving them another chance at this point. That would be a massive stretch from my part.
Vermintide 2 was a great game. Maybe they have repaired it with the lastest patch but honestly it’s to late. You knew Fatshark, YOU KNEW. All I feel that is left to say about this once wonderful game is this:
Vermintide 2
1100 hours player signing off