[PC] Vermintide 2 - The Big Balance BETA - Update #2

  1. I care about content which is why I purchased the game. I would expect that by playing the game I would have access to all content. Red doesn’t take any fun out unless you equate easy with not fun and hard with fun. I’m not inclined to do that and I’m sure most casual players wouldn’t either. My concern with red is that it is content which part of the game which should be accessible no matter what “difficulty” I opt to play in.

  2. We wouldn’t know until we found out now would we? Who “has gotten all the reds” anyways? What about cosmetics? There would not be a result to this question unless all difficulties rewarded equally with only difficulty itself changing. Let’s presume everything from recruit to legend dropped identically and had identical chest graphics (these matter), how many would bother playing legend anymore if playing legend only led to higher potential for failure? I’d love to do a study on this but past studies have shown that humans gravitate towards the easier option most of the time. They must be motivated in order to pick the harder option. That’s what the loot is, motivation. Without it, people would opt for the easier path.

You’re making false equivalences basically. One does not equal the other.

You also avoid replying to my point of how your fun justifies taking away another person’s fun. It doesn’t and you know full well it doesn’t.

Try harder.

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It’s not like you want that one Tetris song, but you just cannot clear 4 rows at once, is it? You get cosmetics from commendation chest and you get those on all difficulties, don’t you. Quicker on legend, yes, but still not “locked”. You get reds from champ chests too.
And yeah, I know a couple of guys who has all the reds. I myself have all the reds I care for (a couple of chars only).

I think it is you who make false equivalencies. Balancing things intrinsically tied to an average difficulty feel of a career/her/build whatever. That means tuning some things down while tuning other things up. The game already has an overall difficulty level setting for people who just want to chill out, so why attack the balancing changes when you can just switch to champion or whatever?

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Refer to point 2.

Anecdotes are worthless in any sort of sampling. “I have X so others have it too” is not representative.

“Balancing” is intrinsically tied to changing something in a manner you want and against a manner in which someone else wants. This in a nut shell is what someone asking for buffs or nerfs is calling for. Something they favor to be favored and something they disfavor to be punished. You’re making false equivalences by attempting to link this act of active sabotage of other’s fun with “difficulty” which you assert is something everyone wants. My dissent already disproves your theory that everyone likes difficulty.

I will attack the changes as a paying customer because these changes affect me no matter what difficulty I play on. A case in point is the ammunition changes, from recruit to legend the ammo changes take effect, my shots were halved; that affects me regardless of the difficulty I choose to play on. Changing to champion does not magically restore the ammunition capacity that I lost due to the nerf.

In this case my fun has been reduced because someone thought it was their right to impose on me how they think my game should be played. How does this work?

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Yeah, everyone’s out to getcha!

I don’t - not my theory. But if you play the highest difficulty the game has with me (e.g.), than you’d better be good, otherwise it is you who “sabotage” the fun out of my game.

It does, however, reduce the number of targets you can spend it on.

I’m pretty sure there is a clause in the license agreement that says something about the “as is” nature of the software you’re buying, so yeah - I also think that developers have the right to change their game with updates.

EDIT:
Like this VT2 EULA for example states:

8. Patches, Updates and Changes
You acknowledge and accept that from time to time, Fatshark may patch or update the Game for any purpose, including but not limited to resolving software bugs or other issues, rebalancing the Game or adding and/or removing features in the Game.

However you can always

9. Termination
This License is effective until terminated.
You may terminate it at any time by destroying the Game with all copies, full or partial, and removing all of its component parts.

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  1. Snipping bits and pieces out of my reply to distort the meaning. How nice of you.

  2. That does not change the fact that count was lowered.

  3. Ah it’s the EULA defense now is it? Notice I am asking FatShark why they are listening to the complaints of others (which is presumably what their “balancing” is about as one developer noted himself that he agreed with the “ranged meta” complaints after several months of them). I am, however, attacking the complainers. There is a difference.

Note that EULAs aren’t worth much anyways and that under consumer protection laws I do have the right to request a refund of the product I purchased is not the same as the one I receive because of whatever reason.

However, you’re side tracking and refusing to answer my original point. Not that I expect an answer as I don’t think you’ll acknowledge that either you have a right to ruin other’s fun or they yours in turn.

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  1. Doesn’t make my points false - still not my theory that the game should be difficult, you’ve mistaken me for someone else.

  2. So the actual number is more important than what you can do with it?

  3. You’re questioning developers’ decisions - it’s what everyone does around here. I call it whining.

If your point being that OP stuff is actually good and nerfing it takes all the fun out of your experience of the game, then yeah, I hadn’t realised there was anything to answer to - it’s your opinion in the end. I just have a different one. I think the ‘over’ in ‘overpowered’ kinda gives away the essence of the problem.

Look how much text we posted, but where are the actual proposals? You want the game to stay unchanged? I think this is out of the question at this point - you would be going against the grain here.

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As a WS main, this hasn’t made the game any harder for me. It’s a bit more interesting now, and I honestly didn’t even know about the scrounger change today. I still went top of all 5 of the games I just did. Top Damage, top Boss damage, top melee kills, top elite kills, top special kills, and top ranged kills on all 5 games. I’m pretty sure the Scrounger effect is still triggering on her ULT as well, so it’s 6 ammo back when the ULT crits with your bow out. Not as bad as before, was 9 ammo back during the 1 ammo on crit change, and 18 ammo back on 2 ammo per crit. So it has nerfed it a lot actually.

I’ve been using NB on her and the temp HP changes when healing has made her a god lvl medic xD She can always drink a potion or medical kit now to keep giving the party 20% more HP. While she may not be getting green HP back herself, her passive regen combined with NB heals her pretty fast. Mind you, this is really only useful if more than 1 person in the party is hurt. It’s great during high stress moments though when someone gets down and is on last life.

The changes have made the game more tactical for the WS, but I wouldn’t say harder. You actually have to pay attention now. I’ll be testing out some of the other classes hopefully tomorrow, been really busy with work this week. Haven’t even finished the event challenge for the new portrait.

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People are dropping like flies in my pubs thanks to the new stamina nerf, no longer can everyone just spam push-attacks in hordes forever unless they really specc the stamina for it / use a weapon with loads of stamina like shields.

This is good. People were asking for a difficulty increase, here it is. Now you actually have to put some thought into handling hordes, together with the new temp health changes.

I’ve had a lot more pubs with people dying due to attrition, as compared to previously where usually everyone was fine throughout the entire map until a wipe-scenario took place, like boss + disablers. This is good, it makes the runs much more interesting and dynamic, or at least that’s my take on it.

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I agree, I am loving this change. The game is playing a lot more like VT1, which is a good thing, I think. Mistakes should be punished, and good play rewarded. Though I will say, the temp health on kill talents are still pretty bad. Considering 20 temp health doesn’t even absorb a whole hit on Legend (unless there are a lot of enemies), and disappears in what seems to be ten seconds or less, they’re just severely under-rated right now.

I think if you want those talents to have any value at all, horde enemies need to give 1 temp health apiece. Let’s at least try it? I mean, that’s still half of what it was before.

Headshot/crit temp health talents also need a boost, I think. Maybe even doubling.

Also, isn’t it supposed to be 3 seconds before temp health starts to decay? It seems much shorter than that to me.

Natural Bond also seems kind of useless again. Note: Never put it on bots. They’ll just continually waste health items, even grabbing them before you if they’re really low. They get hit often enough they just never get back to full.

I really think the “halved healing from healing items” downside idea, instead of temp health might be reasonable. Temp health is just . . . well, it really doesn’t do that much except in the current fight. Right now I’ve just gone back to my old standby of “chance not to use up healing items” on every single class.

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So… have you actually play tested any of this, or are you just ranting about it?

my shade and slayer are specced for crit and cdr and still do that well. With slayer now I can keep ult up in big hordes but no longer stack it to ridiculous levels. With shade it still makes a noticeable difference but I can no longer run around ulting every 10 seconds. I’d say this is a great balance change.

Scrounger is still very effective on a crit build. I tried bounty hunter with Xbow and picked all the talents that used to be passives, maxed crit, and was still able to ammo sustain the entire level by playing with that in mind. I was no longer able to just run around spamming at everything in sight letting my passives do the rest. On Whc with brace of pistols and increased capacity talent and max crit I can ult for the extra crit boost and have decent ammo sustain while ult is active. And so on… Again a good balance change.

As for barkskin, news flash there are a lot of careers that can take a lot of hits- ironbreaker, foot knight, zealot, unchained… barkskin makes a difference for these careers. Now I’d rather have it balanced a bit different like say reducing 30% of the first hit every five seconds, but even this new version is useful.

You sound like someone who only plays a certain squishy ranged character and used to run around ranged meta spamming, and now that you can’t do that, you’re angry at everyone for “ruining your fun”. Well guess what, you can just move that difficulty setting on down to veteran and collect your ez wins there. Cosmetics and reds drop in commendation chests so you’ll still get that content you deserve for buying the game.

Vermintide at the hardest difficulty is meant to be challenging and require teamwork, as well as be melee focused. These are all things the devs have been clear on. Characters that are OP and can carry a team alone by mindlessly spamming endless ammo ranged attacks at anything that moves, on the highest difficulty collecting their legend vaults, is pretty obviously counter to that. If that’s the style of game you want and it’s gone now, that sucks, seriously those are bad feels, but I don’t think vermintide 2 was ever supposed to be that style of game.

Agreed to a sense, I just wish I could find out why my stamina was ‘suddenly gone’ oh wait it was an invisible something or a hit through a wall. These changes are great except when a glitch puts you in a situation that is done. Its a pub problem, but its not going to stop them playing legend just going to make it harder on those carrying.

I think that syle of play still rides in Champion, just doesn’t cut it in Legend.

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Please, revert changes to push-attack for Mace&Shield and Sword&Shield, and increase axe damage for small amount (both shielded and one-handed) so it could onehit kill fanatics.

The classes that were meant for melee are equipped with the tools and talents that give them an advantage to survival there.
Ranged classes mostly don’t have those, or have to pick tools and talents that make them ranged classes.

If they are forced to be in melee more, they should get something that doesn’t make them have to compete with melee classes, but support those. There are a few item traits that are currently useless, which could be re-tailored or outright changed to achieve this.

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Change NB so temp health drops slower (like with a permanent wound) and as long as you have temp health it ticks for 2hp/5s.

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Let’s see if you get the idea if you look at it this way:

People on veteran and champion barely have any use for red items. Orange items get the job done easily. If it is because you feel denied for not getting the “Pretty” skins available on red items, these are rewards for players working for them. Not for the casual experience. This is not taking anything away from you, it’s giving something to people who have worked hard to earn it.

People’s perception of fun is subjective. For a lot of people challenge IS fun. This is why games have difficulty levels.

Private games is definitely an option - if you’re not content with the way the game plays through quickplay.

The mechanic of “difficulty settings” is designed to let you play at a “challenge level” of your preference, as well as catering to desires of “casual fun”.

  • If you’re not very good, and/or just want some casual fun? - Play Veteran.
  • If you’re decent at the game, and/or just want a healthy mix of casual and challenge-driven fun? - Play Champion
  • If you’re good at the game, and/or want to fun through challenge? - Play Legend
  • If you’re exceptional at the game, and/or want fun via challenge - Play Legend Deeds or play with mods.
  • If you want an experience that is not available through quickplay - Set up a private lobby
  • If you want an experience that is not available through the base game - Play in the modded realm

Since it is a coop game, and it is experienced together with other players, the difficulty settings serves as a framework that people seeking fun through challenge, and people who seek casual fun that they can enjoy together - on equal footing. Hence the need for balancing.

If you just want to use the most overpowered thing in the world, and don’t care about balancing - the modded realm has options for that.

Except it goes the other way as well. A lot of people have fun via the challenge. People utilising unbalanced setups inadvertently ruin the fun for these people.

Difficulties and quickplay is there for the balanced experiences. Anything outside of it should be done in private lobbies and/or the modded realm.

Also there’s the issue of game identity. The Vermintide franchise has never been classified as a casual and fun experience. It has always been identified as a game that is fun through challenge and overcoming these through skill and/or cooperation.

P.S.
I’d love to see you review a game like Dark Souls.

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Sienna: Battle Wizard

10lvl talent, Lingering Flames
This talent is definitely need tune up. Only first dot remains present on enemy, and you have no ability to change it somehow. If it weak, it will remain weak. Most weapons applying quite low damage dot, and restricting you ability to stack dots. For example, Beam staff dot have highest damage, but if you will not use this talent, there will be much more damage from stacked dots. I think that dot should be the same for all weapons, with significant enough damage so it will kill targets, otherwise you or your team will kill the dotted target before the dot will make some significant damage to it. You have no all time in the world for dot to work. I think 900 damage for ranged (=beam staff), and 375/425 for melee will work, not sure about frequency.

Sienna: Unchained

**15lvl talent line: ** Natural Talent: Reduces overcharge generated by 15.0%.
Could work when getting hit too, since Conduit is better option for increased ranged potential.

More thought about talents here: http://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/thoughts-about-talents/28682

the thing is, you’re describing huge mistakes that are the worst case scenario for NB users. getting downed is something that an NB user should be skilled at avoiding - it’s kinda like playing a dps instead of a tank, because you know you can avoid big damage and don’t need a lot of damage reduction.

i love NB because it drastically changes one of the core mechanics of the game - i just wish there were more traits like it (do one for ammo, or shake up stamina traits)

here are 2 examples for people NOT running NB:

  • 2 people get downed and there are no medkits or healing supplies for several minutes. eventually they die because they don’t have enough hp and chip dmg from friendly fire/bomb throws/slave rat pokes just chip them down and kill them.
  • you reach an event / lord and are carrying 3 tomes, so there’s only space for 1 medkit. dps is extremely low, people eventually die out due to hits from boss and adds that spawn.

1hp per 5 seconds is huge imo. it also works well with some careers +30% healing (gives u back 2hp on some ticks) you regenerate really fast.

if you think about it, you are rewarded with 12hp every minute if you don’t get hit. doesn’t that sound easy? especially with the new dodge changes. on average, a run takes about 20-30 minutes, that’s 240-360 damage healed. if players that can keep “damage taken” stat below that number, NB’s great imo.

Agree, NB is a risk reward scenario. Its more reward now than it was but you have to have the skill to avoid the risk. Sometimes it doesn’t pay off, that’s a good risk reward scenario. if it always paid off their would be no risk.

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It would be helpful if Fatshark would give some feedback in some of the key topics before just dropping the next update, changing stuff and leaving a sh*tstorm for another 1-2 weeks.

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