That’s exactly what I am talking about. Nothing else.
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The issues with Bogenhafen DLC no filling up is likely as a result of less people buying the DLC in the first place as the maps were free.
I have first DLC but wont buy second for now as i disagree with their stupid changes and splitting playerbase. So I have played every day since the new DLC came out, mostly joined through lobby to ppl in keeps/QP . almost every game i could see guys with DLC (they had frame/new op weapons) and i have NEVER got a new map.
This change does not split the playerbase, no amount of repeating it will make it suddenly true. You just described how you’re still playing with those DLC owners even. Please consider the new quickplay map selection changes and the fact that DLC owners have probably played a **** ton of the dlc maps trying to beat challenges and unlock weapons, so for awhile those maps are going to be weighted a lot lower for quickplay.
Maybe try asking one of those people in almost every game you play, “hey can we do <insert new map name” next? I haven’t played it yet!" and someone will queue it up for you.
The change means that the new maps aren’t just handed to you for free with 0 effort, but you can still play them with marginal effort put in. That’s pretty freaking good compromise.
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That’s a load of bs, man.
If you really pug then you know that only 1 out of 10 games ends with people communicating/sticking for “hey can we do <insert new map name” next? I haven’t played it yet!"
I was talking about DLC quickplay mission being empty because pple can’t join them via quickplay.
It is splitting playerbase. It just is.
It must just be different for our areas. I’m in US-west and it’s pretty common for QP groups to stick together for a few rounds or run some deeds. I’ve been hosting dlc maps since it came out and people always join as well. I actually had to set it to private because we were trying to do the switches challenge and randoms kept hitting the wrong ones xD
Weell, i’m glad for you. In eu, for me, it’s different, that’s why I complain.
That’s a design failure of VT2 compared to VT1, in my opinion. VT2 actively disincentives you from staying with the same group if they’re not already people you regularly group with.
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How so?
There’s several issues with VT2 (again, in my opinion) that actively promote the “best” gameplay style to be to never do a map with the same group of random people twice. The largest factor is that all of the Okri’s Challenges are tied to completion of a map, and any failures or time spent prior to exiting the map via the Bridge of Shadows is “wasted time”.
Take the Ubersreik DLC here, for map completions you’ll need:
- 3 on each of the 5 heroes to unlock the weapons = 15 maps
- 4 on each of the 5 heroes on specific Lord maps to get the illusion = 20 maps
So that’s 35 map completions that are needed for just those 2 Challenges. But let’s not forget the 3 careers x 5 heroes x 13 maps = 195 completions for the Legend skins. Or the 15 careers x 100 maps = 1,500 completions for the hats.
For someone who’s solo-queueing and so doesn’t have a group of regular friends to play with, they have an efficiency incentive to leave after any map has completed and then join an existing game that’s already in progress towards the next map that they need to accomplish.
They could stay with the group, but the group probably wants to Quick Play because there’s incentive towards QP. If they QP, they’re not going to get the targeted maps that they need to make progress towards their current goal.
VoIP in-game is in a much worse state than it was in VT1, to the point where most of the time it’s not really even usable. So it’s not like you’re communicating verbally with your randomized team very often these days. We try to use the in-game VoIP, but you need to have your in-game sound and music settings down at around 20 with the VoIP at 100 in order to make out what someone’s saying. Odds are good that your random group isn’t even aware that you’re speaking. You could have a discussion in text chat about how you’re working on certain maps, but that’s iffy on whether you’ll be successful at convincing them to give up the sa-weet sa-weet QP bonus.
Speaking of QP, you gotta have that bonus right? It’s mandatory or people on the Internet will tell you you’re doing it wrong. So if you sit around with the same group to QP again to get that bonus, you might risk someone afk’ing to hit the restroom real quick, or get some coffee, or spend time opening that shiny chest they just got and reroll weapon properties for 10+ minutes.
All of this is valuable time that you could have been landing into another mission that’s partially completed. Heck, you could hit the Vermintide_lottery_001 and land in a mission that’s at the Bridge of Shadows and get your sa-weet sa-weet loot and progress for no more effort than the time it took you to load into the game.
And there’s more. The Okri’s Challenges are almost all either a) Grinds or b) things that need a coordinated team. Since the random solo-queuer is going to be primarily rewarded for grinding, they tend to gravitate towards the most efficient manner of grinding.
Looking at efficiency of grinding, what is the absolute least efficient method of doing so? It’s starting in the Keep and playing a map in its entirety. Especially if your group of randoms didn’t instantly start the next match upon return to the Keep.
I personally play VT2 to hang out with my friends from VT1, and so I’m generally always playing every map from start to finish. I can certainly understand why someone would feel pushed towards grinding efficiently though.
I’m just over 700 hours into VT2, I play for a couple hours almost every day, and most of my heroes are less than halfway to their 100 champion/legend completions to get those hats. If I was skimming mission completions by leaving every match as soon as I hit the Keep, I’d be drastically further along in progress.
Why, just yesterday I loaded into an Engines of War map on the docks with the finale having just ended and the Bridge of Shadows was lit up. That was 30 seconds of non-effort instead of potentially 40+ minutes of a bad run that ends in failure and gives no credit towards anything.
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Appreciate the detailed response, you make some really good points. While I do try to eventually complete all the challenges I tend to just play for fun and make progress towards them at a slower rate, but I can see how actually trying to complete them in an efficient manner will make staying with a group difficult. I think that once the game has been around for a couple years the problem won’t be as bad… but that can make it pretty bad right now.
double super agree with the VOIP thing. It’s really frustrating, because voice chat in game should be one of the LEAST complicated things to have working right. It’s a staple in virtually every multiplayer game, and in most of them, it just works, no fiddling needed outside of maybe adjusting volume a bit. It’s not like it’s some new emerging technology, there’s literally hundreds of implementations that can be copied and used without needing a ton of dev time.
EDIT with regards to voice chat, they borked something with the BBB. Before that it would work okay-ish, ever since the beta I haven’t been able to get mine to work. I haven’t heard a single other person using voice chat since then either, so it’s super borked.
And Fatshark puts you deliberately into in keep lobbies first with qp.
FOR THE GRIND
One thing that the VoIP needs that would improve it dramatically would be a chat indicator. One day.
We’ve only been asking for it for 3+ years now.
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Some voip settings would be nice. I can barely hear most ppl that use voip and ofc my overboosted microphone is also very quiet ingame. Anyway, you dont need to talk in COOP game, right ? cough
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They’d have to tie it to the push-to-talk button, Steam’s API is lame and doesn’t have an option to transmit the information. That would be fine for the vast majority of use cases though.
I dont think quickplay is split. the only time it will split is if a lobby starts as a hosted match were a dlc owner pickes the map and your trying to que into it with qp. that might be fairly common for a few days because of the challenges and unlocks give it a week and i cant see it happening much at all.
4 people hit qp and each have different dlc it will go to the base maps you all have.
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I’d like to add something to the “wasted time” you mentioned - atm we spend HUGE (imo) amount of time from the moment we finish the map to the time we get into keep, and even more time to the next mission.
I think if FS would make Ragnar’s Bones v2.0 and last scoreboard skippable and/or we could choose new map in while the dice is cast.
I think this mandatory wait of ~1 minute every time you win/loose the map is detrimental to the overall (dynamic) pace of the game!
[quote=“Padds, post:36, topic:29593, full:true”]
I dont think quickplay is split.[/quote]
If you queue for qp and you don’t get in cause you don’t own the DLC, or if you own the DLC but don’t get people in your game cause they can’t join via qp or lobby.
If that’s not splitting i don’t know what is.
YES, it could be worse if pple who didn’t own DLC wouldn’t be able to join the game at all; I totally agree with it. The situation we have is better, but it’s still bad.
if you dont own the dlc it wont pick a dlc map for that QP , if you own the dlc and no one with it is queing you will not qp those dlc maps , you will still be matched but to a base map in both instances.
what you say is true for custom if you pick those maps , its not true for quickplay.
From my experience that’s not true.
I own Bögenhafen but not Back to Ubersreik.
When I’m host I do get Bödenhafen missions. If I qp into a in keep lobby only default maps have been selected ever despite me owning dlc and people owning back to Ubersreik in the lobby.
I very interested how you experienced it please do not forget if you where host or not.