When using the slab shield, doing the short forward push with it should NOT drop your guard. I don’t even have the fingers and toes to count the number of times I’m trying to block/shove heavy swing dodge dance my way around a group of melee enemies and getting absolutely volleyed by 10+ ranged enemies in front of my shield when I hit my shove. I’m not swinging the shield, simply pushing it forward while it is still in front of me.
Also, remove “chip damage” to health from the game ffs, or at the VERY least from Ogryn and Zealot. It was removed from vermintide for a reason and it is really weird to see so many bad design choices that were either previously removed or never existed in the first place to be implemented here.
While we’re at it, get rid of the “readying animation” for weapons when you swap to ranged. There is already a time penalty on virtually every weapon(that also scales with weapon size) to steady/aim it when you pull it out so the swap animation is just an extra punishment that shouldn’t exist. I know the animation team probably put some good effort into making them but that was a bad call from the lead designer(s). This game is already much more punishing with the elite and special mobs than in VT2 and the added animation just artificially increases the difficulty and causes frustration.
This is supposed to be a fun, and challenging CO-OP GAME EXPERIENCE, NOT a cutthroat pvp e-sport.
One of my worries is when games have cash shops AND developer-induced “frustration mechanics” it normally means a solution is going to be sold at some point and I really hope that isn’t the case…