Please Don't Keep Cata Locked Behind a Paywall

I want to express my love for Cata. It really reminds me when I moved to Cata in VT1 and went to my friends “I just need this one map, help me please?” and then spent the next 200 hours becoming a Cata fiend. I hope it works this way for me in VT2, as well!

HOWEVER!

I have large concerns about Cata being locked to DLC owners.

Weaves, sure, why not? It’s a separate game mode and for sure, what would qualify as “expansive content.” Cata, however, is not. In a game where end game for many is the skill ceiling; keeping Cata locked behind the DLC paywall is effectively cheating players from development. $20 USD is nothing to sneeze at, and it does, in essence, effectively divide QP groups.

ME: Let’s do some cata!
MY RANDOMS: Oh, I don’t have the DLC, I’m sorry, I’ll have to leave. :frowning:

If monetary profits are the motivating issue (I understand Fatshark is a business, first and foremost), it would perhaps be a good middle ground for DLC host owners to be able to unlock Cata for their non-DLC owner clients (much the same way DLC maps have worked in VT1 in the past).

Fatshark has been quite generous in their DLC policies in the past, is there a reason this one is mostly locked behind a paywall?

Please, let me play Cata with my friends who can’t afford the DLC.

19 Likes

It’ll stay locked behind WoM.

Weaves only interest a small minority of players, cataclysm and new weapons is where much more of the actual interest is at. If they seperate it from WoM, WHO in their right mind would pay for the lackluster, pandering content in this “expansion”?

Nobody.

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I’m well aware why Cata is most likely locked behind WoM.

However, the least helpful opinion is the one never shared, and I try to be as objective in my feedback as I can. Hence, I post it to the forums (much the same way you do!)! :smiley:

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This forum isn’t for feedback, we know as much.
Gotta go to discord for that.

Here we just argue mindlessly among ourselves with no real context or insight. :slight_smile:

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Let us host weaves as well, otherwise it’s a dead feature, one even owners can’t have fun with

Its okay just run with the bots…oh nvm.

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I’m sorry to say this, but WoM dlc is bad thought.

  • Cataclysm locked behind “paywall”. Cata isn’t a “new content”, it is the same game just harder, we are talking about “modified numbers”. And if this is a bad move, making that every player into the lobby must have it (and not only the host), it is an even worse move. We have fragmented community, friends that can’t play with us and a dead qp.

  • Waves aren’t Vermintide, they are a mod apart. So they should not linked with “main contents” like weapons and maps. I can understand (but I can’t justify) that if waves were a stand-alone dlc, noone would have bought it… but before invest resource in something, you should investigate if it’s a “wanted thing” or not.

  • One only map.

With your contents, I would have done this:

  • 10/11$: 5 weapons, 1 map and Beastman;

  • 5$: waves.

But IMHO the best solution would have been this:

  • 13/14$: 5 weapons, 3 maps and Beastman;

  • NO waves.

Cataclysm always free.

Scottz0rz had a good thread on this a while back about dividing the content up into smaller purchases, which I think makes the most sense. I may have actually bought something the way he had laid it out.

Ultimately big gameplay inclusions probably should have remained part of the base game and left paid content to maps and cosmetics. Dropping costume packs for people to nab may have been more efficient for them, and I wouldn’t have necessarily minded it. Dropping a few dollars for cosmetic stuff every month or two doesn’t seem that bad for a company not asking for a lot of coin in general, I could have been convinced to support them while they work on bigger projects.

It’s not like people haven’t been clamboring for this stuff since the game launched. I guess it depends on what Fatshark wants, though.

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This was a thing, way back when, during VT1. Some costumes were kinda meh recolors, but some–like Saltzpyre’s Estalian Leather and Sienna’s Wyrmskin–were A+ additions, and I paid for them gladly. FS has mentioned, in the past, they weren’t a big fan of overly done microtransactions, so locking this content seems like a strange step for them (but on the flipside understand why they did–not that Cata is P2W; more like P2L [ha!], but it’s hard to say as a developer, you’re fostering skill development when you’re locking the means behind stronger skill development).

Generally I like giving FS the benefit of the doubt, and I’m totally willing to buy whatever Verm content the team puts out so I can host friends, but I’m so heartbroken I can’t bring people into Cata without them paying for it.

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A few people made the argument that if weaves were offered as separate DLC that a bunch of players would have skipped them (put me on that list). And I don’t know that I would enjoy just a cosmetic patch, I think incorporating that stuff into content releases is what really makes it rewarding. Achievement based cosmetic unlocks like the legend outfits 100 helms and BtU achieves where you use the weapons to unlock the illusions. Those are the type of cosmetics tied to gameplay that I enjoy.

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I think that’s a fair argument, although if they keep tying them to content updates I don’t care about then I can’t get them because they aren’t worth buying the whole thing for. Perhaps they could just do both, if time allowed?

I sympathize with their lost dev time regarding weaves but if they aren’t worth it standalone perhaps that was a sign they should have reconsidered it during the betas. At this point I guess it’s just hoping enough people are willing to pay for the whole pack. I hope they made enough back from this.

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More to the point, Legend and below has become a toxic cesspool as all the good players have moved on to Cata or quit, and there is no one left to teach maps/carry people/set a good example. Runs always fail and everyone blames each other and the toxic behavior spreads.

If the game dies, this division of the community will be why, not the content.

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Pay for the product. Sry but Cata is a part of the new product and if a developer earn money to release new stuff its ok. And its a low price.

  1. He has already paid for the product.
    2)The game is 29.99. The DLC is 20 dollars. This DLC does not have content equivalent to the price of a full game
  2. Separating the community with this paywall where the only incentive to engage in it is nothing other than the challenge and one weapon for each character (no cosmetics, no rewards, no incentives at all) for an already lowly rated DLC is a bad and raw deal.

This would be a hard sell even to a person that’s not a penny pincher.

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I paid round about 50 Euro for the game + all dlcs, played 1000 hours. Thats 0,05 Euro per hour and after WoM release i will play more hours. You dont only pay for the released content, you also pay for the comming content.
For me its a financial support for the developer because i love the game and i want support there work. Change perspective.

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  1. Your perspective means very little for measuring the objective worth of a product for somebody who is on the fence.
  2. I already own the dlc.

I can not convince somebody to pay nearly the price of the game to get the DLC. This is especially true for the new players attracted by the sale the game recently had. Open your eyes.

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