Principle of True Solos / Community Rules

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Mod Discussion
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I want to spark a discussion for the community to once and for all settle the basic principles of a true solo.
What is appropriate and what isn’t.

To me it seems like there are not enough basic principles or not set in stone.
To me currently there are to many grey areas that everyone seems to apply however they see fit, while it should be self-explanatory that this shouldn’t happen as "Principles or Guidelines’’ are supposed to be an assurance for both (forbidden and acceptable behaviour) alike.

Not all of us are active on discord (for whatever reason) to take part at this discussion.

This shouldn’t be something that is discussed behind closed doors amongst a few individuals.

I mean a mod could solve all of this really until that is going to happen we need a few principles of what is acceptable and what isn’t.

To often I see people being lectured over principles that make little sense to me and has never been publicly announced anywhere.
Get the community enganged in these discussions instead of turning a blind eye to those who don’t understand.

Make it cristal clear what the functions are that play a major role here and explain why it is or isn’t acceptable to speedrun for example.

People say this is cheese, you can’t do that but playing with 200% Boss damage for example is somehow accaptable but using specials to fill slots up so you have less specials spawn (I am paraphrasing here) isn’t acceptable.

There is a reason why I am writing this. You can’t make guidelines and then make them fit to whatever is or feels right to you and not accept other behaviour that doesn’t fit into your viewpoint and cast out other runs.

My question is, where do you draw the line?

I could argue that you take X amount of damage more than RunnerA therefore you hit the threat_value quicker, resulting in overall less enemies being spawned.

It’s going to be a back and forth argument without a consensus.

For me personally 200% boss damage isn’t acceptable, basically anything that seperates the true solo run to much from the basic VT2 game.

Then there is the controversial topic of Macro usage, whatever your opinion might be on this, for me also not acceptable but hard to restict. (mod could solve this)

It’s either cristal clear and same rules applicable for every run or none at all.

Please discuss

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Interesting topic. To offer people a better basis for discussion I’d seperate two areas of concern here:

  1. Breaking the game’s integrity by altering values in the game files, e.g. enabling 200% boss damage or disabling certain specials from spawning etc.

  2. Player behavior that takes advantage of the game’s inherent mechanics and/or systems, e.g. not killing Gas Rats to block other specials from spawning in or wall gliding to abuse the enemy slot system behavior etc.

In my opinion, everything possible under 1) should not be considered true solo. In fact, I’d consider it cheating right away. Players should play the game as it is. The issues under 2), however, are worth a discussion. Here, you could make arguments for ‘glitchless runs’ or for the opposite. But which behavior is ‘really’ exploitative? Healing yourself while dashing or dropping down a ledge? Fighting off of a safe spot? Killing monsters by ledging? Farming gas rats to avoid assassins? I don’t know actually.

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Personally i think that adjusting values is not considered true solo. I don’t mind if players do it, but it should be a different ‘category’ or called true solo 200% boss dmg.

The gas rat stacking i find is also not allowed. It’s hard to draw a line tho. Like kuli mentioned, is dropping down a ledge to heal allowed? Etc. Personally using ledges and climbing mechanics are fine, heal dashing or dropping is also fine, but once you start using things are obviously making the game alot easier like gas rat stacking or using spots where enemies can’t hit you then that wouldn’t be allowed. Using ‘cheese spots’ just to create space even if you don’t stand in them is also cheating in my eyes.

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I was being vague on purpose for the reason of hearing people out before making my own list.

I would say none of these you listed can be considered gamebreaking.

However, what I do consider gambreaking is deliberately changing timing, spawning options or increase damage.
Of course the big NO-GO for me is glitching (if its using out of bounds glitches or spots where enemies have no pathing to)

What I would not consider deliberately gamebreaking but kind of a gray area is messing with special spawns by leaving specials up as it A) takes a special slot that is otherwise not occupied for very long, thus delaying special spawns B) If you do that with Blightstormers specifically they take a value of 20 in the threat value (max on Cata is 70) and just for reference a boss takes 32.
So just by that you can mess with enemy spawns by not killing a Blightstormer and thus reaching the max threshold quicker

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I’m very much in this mind:

Jsat once said,

“Set the tweaks to what you find challenging, and then adjust from there.”

I agree with this. It’s very easy to go, “X, Y, and Z isn’t REALLY true soloing,” and I think that discourages people from trying true solos. I know this, because I’ve fallen into this trap myself. My first TS wasn’t done because I thought it would be fun, I did it because I felt I had to in order to prove myself based on some weird set of restrictions the community deemed “appropriate.” It’s the wrong reason to TS, and while I TS for myself now, I think saying X thing isn’t valid while Y thing is, even with guidelines in place, can perpetuate this environment where it feels very gatekeeper-ish (which already exists).

You can’t make guidelines and then make them fit to whatever is or feels right to you and not accept other behaviour that doesn’t fit into your viewpoint and cast out other runs.

I agree with this.

It’s easy to start cherry picking and making exceptions because “this player is well-known/has already done x content/is playing with this build.”

I would question, “Why does it matter?” All TS’s are looked at in relation to other comparable ones. I would not compare a 100% boss damage TS to a 200% boss damage one. Just as I wouldn’t compare a WHC billhook TS with a WHC falchion TS.

As a community, unless we’re hosting some form of competition, I feel it is not our place to set some “restriction” on TS’ing in order to either downgrade or upgrade others’ work (and let’s be real here, these are what these guidelines do without the context of formal competitive modes). Some people TS in the community, some don’t. That’s for them to decide and not for the whole to decide that their runs are “illegitimate.”

For me, the only thing I like to see is a) tweak transparency, and b) no cheating (despawning/splicing/etc).

We, as TS’ers, should be lifting people up to do more of them, and not imposing things that keep people “out,” especially in this area where people will hardly reach an agreement.

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I don’t think anyone is against using tweaks to learn, it’s very hard to jump from 4man cata to true solo, and tweaks can help you with that.

This doesn’t mean an ‘official’ true solo run can’t have restrictions. Using tweaks to help you practice is completely fine, it just wouldnt be considered a ‘real true solo’.

But you are correct that restrictions don’t really matter if there is no competition, you mostly true solo for yourself, i just find it should be defined as i see true solo vids sometimes without mentioning 200% boss dmg like it’s considered ‘normal’.

Edit: i can’t read, you said tweak transparency :frowning:

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It’s not about people being discouraged by to harsh rules from TS’ing I would argue that to lenient rule could have the exactly same effect.

I don’t think it’s a big secret that there are cheater or lets say questionable TS-runs out there.

Now imagine seeing this from a perspective of a less experienced player.

You are blown away by it at first right? You don’t understand whats going on which rules apply nothing it just looks amazing to you at that moment.

To make it short, there need to be some groundrules that legitimize runs and flag illegitim ones.

Because finishing a TS is still impressive no matter what. It’s quite the achievement.

We as a community should accept the legit ones as being amazing actually

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A question: do you think true solo ‘rules’ should also be applied on certain classes/talents/ weapons?
Or just make seperate categories for each?

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Not really, tbh. I watched a TSer and was like, “Oh man, I want to do that!” and just…kind of looked at the default settings when I click “true solo” mode in spawn tweaks and off I went. Decided playing hagbane at 200% boss damage was a bit too much and didn’t do it again. I feel we as a community get stuck on “what of people who want to learn???” instead of thinking if people want to learn, they ask, question, experiment, and find out what works for them. There’s a very good TS’er out there who is in no way part of the community and no one questions his methods.

I’m a part of these Discords that discuss these things regularly, but while these people are my friends and peers, I still disagree with them, lol.

I feel if restrictions are imposed, I agree with Mattie here:

Or just make seperate categories for each?

Put them in tiers. 200% boss runs aren’t compared to 100% runs, they’re just different categories/types of true soloing. We can’t say “this is deviating from base game” as an excuse because true soloing is a deviance from base game. The game is balanced for four and not one. I don’t think 200% vs 100% makes a run any less amazing or an accomplishment.

Those are my thoughts, at least.

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I agree with you. Nothing wrong with practice and giving players the tools to learn.

But 200% does make a map easier, killing stuff faster makes a map easier. I would say i think 200% boss dmg is mostly used just because it’s tedious fighting some bosses and if you decide to true solo as a fk with shield then your probably gonna be stuck hitting a boss for 20 minutes.

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From my understanding, that’s when 200% is used. If you’re not running heavy DPS/bosskillers, 200% turns on, but what that is is :woman_shrugging:.

I take people at face value when they’re using it. Really not the biggest deal in my book.

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I think I know about the TSer you are talking about and it’s the same guy that I said is fishy.

And yes I agree

200% boss damage TS should be seperated from classic TS runs, that’s fair I think

But several other questions are still open though:

What travel distance is acceptable so that you don’t despawn enemies?

Can you use specials to damage other enemies? (specifically Blightstormers, Globadiers, Warpfire Throwers and Rattling Gunners)

How many specials can you keep alive in each difficulty if any? If none what is acceptable timeframe for specials to stay alive?

List goes on

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It’s not the same person, hah, I promise! I love his work, just wanted to point out he does his own thing and doesn’t need the community to dictate when his work is legit or not.

What travel distance is acceptable so that you don’t despawn enemies?

Does that work in adventure maps? Some enemies like assassins, blights, and leeches sometimes appear and then…maybe kill themselves out of bounds unintentionally.

I’d question you further on “what’s cheese?” People say handmaiden invis is cheese, but you know, it’s in the game. It’s made to get out of tight situations. That’s my point, I feel line drawing can get a bit…personal in terms of decisions, and idk if there will ever be agreement. Because then we get into “using invis the right way,” etc; which feels a bit too close to shaming, in my opinion.

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Isn’t that just an invis issue? If so i would say seperate category. Invis is pretty cheesy overall.

Yes. Kinda hard to avoid a blightstormer from sucking in enemies.

Can keep them alive during horde for example, but you have to kill them when you have the chance.

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I disagree 200% boss damage makes a map hell of a lot easier.

With 100% boss damage on Legend or Cata without the right amount of DPS you are prone to risk 1 or 2 horde spawns inbetween.

That makes a huge difference honestly.

Also the chances are higher of you taking more damage due to that mix which makes a difference.

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Yes i know. I said it does make a difference. I’m just saying if you go fk with shield you’ll probably survive the hordes anyway it’s just a tedious process of killing them, but i do agree it makes a map easier.

Edit: i still think default boss dmg is considered a real true solo, even if you are using a tank career. What i meant is that 200% boss probably came because its just annoying and boring to smack a boss for 2 dmg per swing and then clearing a horde again etc etc

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Well could choose a map where you can throw bosses off then?

You don’t have to fight them all the time.

Offtopic: But sword and shield pushstab to heavy do more than 2 dmg I am pretty sure. It’s still abit tedious but doable

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I was exagerating about the dmg.

Throwing off bosses when solo can be difficult depending on which boss and which area you try to ledge it, but it’s doable and a legit strat which i would consider acceptable.

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Is it really a more legit run to ledge a monster than to tweak monster damage? Which takes more skill? Pressing F or bombing near a ledge or dealing with monster pressure + Horde + Specials? This is the problem with any ruleset. Everything is situational. For a counterpoint, running 200% monster damage on shade takes less skill than ledging a monster because you can just 1 shot them.

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Well I would argue ledging a boss takes positional knowledge, awareness and timing IF and thats a big IF, IF you don’t use prespots such as Fort Brachsenbrücke near the Second Grim where you can walk on the wooden log and make enemies follow your path for easy ledging

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