Sure. Once you learn to do it that’s far easier than dealing with boss horde and specials with a low monster damage setup and 200% monster damage. That also takes the same skills and then some.
Trying to ledge a boss with specials and a horde is not that easy to do. With multiple people ledging a boss is super easy tho.
It’s really not that hard solo on many maps. It’s just a tech you have to learn like anything else. Similar to learning to get revives using the triple slam on spawns and rogres. With just a little bit of practice, you can bait the boss into position, dodge once, and press your ledge buttons with a lot of consistency. And I’m not saying it’s so easy anyone could do it, I’m saying it’s a lot easier than actually dealing with the horde and specials and killing the monsters. Otherwise, why would you bother ledging? And if it’s easier, how are you going to invalidate a run that kills a monster w/ 200% then call a ledge run legit? It doesn’t make sense.
Edit: The reason I bring this up is that True Solo shouldn’t be about finding ways to technically complete a “legit” run for some sort of community bragging rights. It’s a test and display of personal skill. So imo, there really shouldn’t be a set of rules. You should watch a run and judge the amount of skill it took to complete that run on a case by case basis. Then you can be appropriately impressed or unimpressed with the other player.
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I’m not interested into true solo (you will understand why soon), but I have seen that, more or less 90% of true solo runs, are like “try untill AI/rng is your friend”.
Vermintide’s gameplay is not meant to be played alone. Can you do it? OF COURSE, but there will always be certain situations that represent an inevitable death (regardless player’s skill).
All this to say: for example I see that stacking Globadiers is often forbidden… and I can understand: win a true solo run with disablers is harder than dealing only with the gas. About this, some people reason: “Look, that guy needs to stack Globadiers, I’m stronger than him”… BUT, even if you play with disablers, how treacherous they were towards you? Because sometimes you can see an Assassin that just waits to be killed, alone in a far corner… sometimes it spawns on you, without sound, while you are fighting 100 elites.
I’m NOT saying “You should not play true solo” nor “True solo doesn’t need skill”… I’m saying that, IMHO, since the gameplay isn’t meant to be played alone, it doesn’t make much sense excessively focusing on rules (apart specific ones, like no cheat, no glitch, etc etc).
I see true solo runs like a personal challenge (if you like it) to build around you… not something that you can compare with other players.
Regards.
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Yes. Because you don’t have to alter game values in order to ledge monsters.
Again, see edit about the purpose of a true solo. If your purpose is to “technically” complete a legit run, then I agree with you.
I know ledging a boss is easier then killing it. I just think that you could either ledge or kill it normally, without using 200% dmg. Why do players ledge bosses? In my opinion its because it takes to long to kill, but if i can just increase my boss dmg and kill it without trying to position myself and not fuc& up my dodges or get slammed back by a chaos spawn off the void, then i would just kill it normally. It’s the same that i think using climbing mechanics and dropping as a legit strategy, even ulting off ledge packs of elites is fine, but this doesn’t mean i would agree that players can use 200% elite dmg. Idk if my explanation makes sense.
And ts’s are about personal skill, but there is nothing wrong with trying to make an official category so players know what to ‘work’ towards. Even with ‘official’ rules or categories certain players will always judge others and certain runs for being easier. I am not against true solo’s were you kill the boss without ledging and a true solo without extra boss dps will be more impressive then to ledge it, i’m just saying i think it’s a legit strat, just like using climbing mechanics etc
But that exactly is the crux of the matter here I am afraid
How do you define “legit” if there aren’t principle rules to focus on?
I am actually fine with not publicly posting my True Solo Runs, because it was never about bragging for me.
Just the satisfaction that I finished it is enough, but we/us should be setting ground rules for the future players.
Also I am absolutely fine with no rules at all, in that case I just propose then, that people don’t bash other peoples runs for not doing X or Y right.
Its either or
I see your point. But even with 200% elite damage, I would say that takes far more skill than just running to the end of a map speed run style and ledging everything. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa-xkLHQiko.
And I completely agree 200% monster damage is easier than normal monster damage. For sure. Just in order of difficulty for most builds i see it as Normal>200%>ledging. I’m simply using this as an example to show how problematic it is to have rules for “legit” true solos. There are many other examples. Such as reroute spots vs. cheese spots vs. 1 slot spots. IF you say 1 slot spots are legit, then a player could run through some maps from 1 slot spot to the next and technically have a “legit” true solo while another player is “disqualified” for briefly using a cheese spot one time. There are many more examples, monster damage is just the first one I picked.
I agree.
Otherwise a kaboom bw true solo will be the fastest true solo ever completed xd
Every player knows what they are doing to intentionally make TS easier. I’ve done runs with OP builds, runs with gas rats cheese, and runs using reroute spots. I know when I do these things that I’m “cheesing” the game. However, at the time I did the runs, that’s where my skill level was at. I’ve also seen a lot of runs with people pushing with horde up which allows them to deal with the AI director way less than someone who stops and kills each horde as it spawns. All of this stuff is completely subjective and specific to a run. That’s why I advocate for no rules and just make it the hardest you can on yourself.
I agree. I never (publicly) bash true solos. But also, if you use an exceptional amount of cheese, you can’t be surprised when people comment on that if you post the run for public review/criticism.
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I understand.
First off all i think tweaking stuff from the base game is not allowed. Using it for practice reasons is completely fine.
Mechanics ingame are fine, unless you use invis to speedrun. You abuse special slot system and let certain specials live. You use spots where enemies can’t reach you, even if you use them to create space etc. Using obvious broken weapons or talents, clear example: old bw.
But technically using all those game mechanics i mentioned is considered completing the map, just my personal opinion on what i think would be allowed and what is obviously cheating.
In terms of category there could be:
True solo tweaked (with set true solo tweaks, like 200%)
True solo glitched (cheese spots, oob)
True solo glitchless (just use game mechanics, which would include gas rat stacking, broken builds, etc etc.)
Plus seperated by each hero and weapon.
I think most people agree on not using cheese spots and glitches, i woudl say tweaks aswell. But game mechanics like gas rat stacking, or ledging, or kiting a horde for a while etc. Are very hard to control and put rules on, those will always be subjective, unless there is some kind of competition where the host will ‘ban’ certain talents or weapons etc.
Even if there are rules on no gas rat stacking, players will maybe do it unintentially or it will be super vague on if they did it for a minute or not, so i think unless it’s a competition, everything counts as ingame mechanics go and people will judge your ts based on their own ideas of whats allowed
Ofc I wouldn’t be surprised if I posted a cheese True Solo that people bash me for it.
Then again who decides what is cheese and what isn’t?
Like isnt taking a certain amount of damage to mess with the threat_value also kind of a cheese.
It’s just hard to draw the line when you don’t have guidelines
Then you could argue what you for example would consider cheese other might actually be more lenient with
Aye. I agree with what you and Mattie are both saying. But if you make a set of rules, there will always be a way to cheese within the rules. As we’ve all alluded to, there are a million things you can do to “cheese” the mechanics of this game. Making an all-encompassing ruleset is basically impossible. Likewise, having a different “category” for every run is no different than just putting what was in the run in the description of the run.
I say just do a run, put it in the description, and let the community have their opinions on it. The fewer things you do to cheese a run, the more credit you’ll get for it (unless you post on reddit). I don’t really have a problem with that system. The only thing I have a problem with is people saying a run is/isn’t a true solo. If there are no bots or splices (that’s something we can all agree on) then a run is a True Solo. How impressive the run is, comes down to what any individual chooses to do within that run.
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I decide it because im the true solo police!
But jokes aside, true solos have a long tradition in vt, i have played A LOT of them so far and got into it by jsat. Most of the “rules” are coming from the community that got developed over time and from a lot of experienced palyers. I think there should be a line where a run is not a legit true solo anymore, i dont say it has to be tight but it has to be somewhere. 200% boss dmg might be the most discussed ruleset ive seen so far and from all my experience i can say that this is for sure legit in most instances. In the end YOU have to decide if you think its appropiate, for example: You play shade and put the boss (lord) damage to 300%. If you are honest with yourself you will see that killing the boss with one hit, while you can just walk up to the boss because you are invis, is not representing the threat level of a boss properly. Its about keeping that difficulty spike up in the majority of the runs and just saving some boring “attack the boss and repeat the same pattern for 10 min”. The idea behind this is that IF you can deal with a boss, a horde and specials at the same time for the duration of one horde you have proven that you can handle it and dont need to waste any more time. I can personally say that i did some testing recently regarding boss damage and in 90% of the cases 200% made 0 difference at all due to intensity (i could also kill rat ogres and a troll before the horde even came in). The next idea is to just save some time with low boss damage weapons because it proves nothing if you hit a troll with mace and sword for 30 min. Its basically just a quality of life improvement and creates some initiatives to try different weapons. And it doesnt matter if its in the “base” game because ledgeing a boss equals infinite boss damage. Its way easier than actually fighting him. This game is by far not perfect and there are a lot of unintendet mechanics that can be abused to nullify the difficulty but true solos are for YOUR skill in the first palce. Showing them off is fine but what you should think of is playing the game how you would play it with a full group. The problem of gas rat/stormer dragging or dragging hordes through half the map before fighting them came up when cata came out. The same ppl who posted “normal” (how you would play with a full group) true solos suddenly couldnt beat cata and had to use cheese strats, like the mentioned ones prior. This is for sure not unintentional and i dont think that its wrong to call it out if they even get posted on reddit.
So based on all my (and also others ive spoken to) experience i think there should be a line you should cross to call it true solos:
- No speedrunning, which implies fighting a horde close to the spot where it appears (an example: getting a horde right at the first point of no return (drop) of screaming bell and dragging it after the house before the entrance of the market place is for sure more speedrunning than true soloing)
- Not cutting runs together (self explaining)
- no cheese spots (there are a lot of them in the game and they are NOT intentional, rerouting spots still requires you to deal with enemies) - if you accedently enter a cheese spot for one second OR you didnt know it is one, its not a big deal, just move out of it right away
- Dont occupy the special slots with non disabler for the whole map (for example: ive seen runs where the player left 3 gasrats and 2 stormers alive whild basically just holding block and let the storms kill all the enemies in a map. The main threat of true solos are disablers and your ability to deal with them so try to kill specials when you get the chance, noone will judge if you leave a gas rat up during a horde because you prioritize other specials and fighting the horde, just kill them after the horde is done or you find some space)
- Dont overtweak: This one is a bit harder to clarefy, just try to think of “What is this supposed to show” before you tweak something. An example: You think about to tweak the lord dmg: Boss events are usually designed around endless waves which have to be kept under control, which is usually the main priority. You want to choose a value that keeps that reqirement and just reduces the time by a bit. So for example no dmg tweaks would lead to a 10 minute fight with 10 wave of adds, so its not rly a problem if you tweak it in a way that the fight lasts 6 minutes with 6 waves of adds.
Soemthing that would not be ok is a value that lets you kill the boss in 1 min with one wave because suddenly its not important to keep the spawns under cotrol anymore. Same with boss dmg, you want to give the hordes a chance to spawn because thats usually one of the hardest situations in a run (boss + horde + specials) and boss dmg should always be accounted for weapons/classes. Boss deleters usually dont need tweaks, or in the best case just a small one (shade, bh (hagbane ws)). Generally 200% boss dmg is accepted with everything else. During some testing of boss damage on cata i found myself dieing 1 time against a boss vs 14 times killing it with 100% boss damage (in that one case the boss was over 50% hp so that wouldnt have made a difference anyway). Like i already mentioned i could kill a rat ogre and even a troll with no tweaks when timing it perfectly with the horde (pulling it right afterwards). In most instances i got a boss, a horde came in and after i killed the horde the intensity reached its max value so NO enemies spawned anymore until the boss was dead, its just a time save there and not rly proving anything. There was one edge case where i couldve killed the boss during a horde but this is so rare that its not rly that meaningful. In the end you can play with 100% boss damage and grind until you get a run without a boss at all which is way easier than just using 200% and make it more consistent/ making low boss damage weapons less tedious. (when you play your first true solos there is a big chance that you might overtweaks the boss damage and thats not such a big deal, if you stick to all the other guidelines above and you see during the run “f*** the boss damage is a bit too high” and still clear the event and finish the map its more than ok, but learn from it and do it better the next time) - i would also like to mention that a storm fiend on 100% boss damage (even 50%) is a way lower threat than a rat ogre/chaos spawn/mino/troll on 200%
Also a small reminder, invis is sadly in this game so i wouldnt consider it cheesing, eventho its quite overpowered, especally in a true solo. In the end a true solo is to improve your skill and you will see that relying on invis wont make you better at a certain point (quite early tbh). Its ok to get into true solos but if you are honest with yourself you will see that its taking away a lot of the required skill/mechanics (talking about relatively low invis ultimates cooldowns).
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Honestly I think the rule set should be as follows
Do as you please, make your tweaks known, people can decide on their own what they find impressive or not
Personally I don’t do TS for anyone but myself, I don’t need anyone to validate my stuff. Fully agree tweaks DO make TS easier than without but I can’t bring myself to care if other people use tweaks or not as long as they’re not dishonest about it.
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I think Ice’s rules are pretty solid, though I think you could avoid the issue of people trying to rules lawyer by just including a “don’t intentionally break the AI/spawner” line. We could probably sit down and write a 40 page pdf on all the specific stuff you should or shouldn’t do, but keeping in line with the whole “they’re just a thing to do for fun” argument (which I agree with), I think it gets a little bit much.
Most of the rules are pretty common sense stuff, like not speedrunning or standing in a safespot, those obviously aren’t any more a true solo than glitching through a wall on BW and finishing a map in a minute is (though if that does count then keep an eye out for my world first cata FoW true solo). I’m not a fan of the special stacking and I think it does kind of miss the point of doing a true solo if you’re breaking the spawner to remove a huge amount of challenge, but at least they’re still more or less playing the game.
Apart from that and standard rules that every single challenge run community follows (don’t use literal cheats, don’t splice runs, etc) I don’t think it matters enough to nail down specific strats and tech that’s alright to use. It doesn’t matter even then that much unless someone is claiming world first or trying to brag about a run in some other way, no-one really gets anything from uploading a kind of sus run, just a handful of downvotes on reddit and a few comments discussing it. They’re just what I prefer to do and watch, and would like to see more runs of. I find 30 minutes of kiting and gasrat noises super, super boring.
Also boss damage at 200% does for sure make runs easier, but it also means I don’t have to spend 10 minutes smacking a rat ogre, which no-one really wants to see either, so I think the tradeoff there is fine.
Question: you mentioned that tweaking finale bosses you should try and tweak it to not remove adds, which i agree. But on bosses in the map you think it’s fine to only have 1 horde + boss + special because you proved yourself already? So does that mean i could just go to into the nest boss, get 1 add wave and kill the boss?
In cases where a horde doesn’t spawn anymore while you fight a boss, i completely agree that it’s timewaste. But it doesn’t always happen? Also how does that excuse using increased dmg because you already cleared it once and you proved yourself, i don’t understand, isn’t it about consistency? Don’t ts’s always (mostly) fail because you failed to dodge the 30th assassin? I know for the easy bosses it’s sleeper, but for aggressive ones which are hard to kite in one place it does make a huge difference, and the longer the fight goes on the more mistakes you could make, more spawns etc. Which is what makes true solo’ing with shield weapons so impressive in my eyes.
What are dps killer weapons? I see you mention the obvious ones, but how about billhook whc which has high boss dps, is he allowed to use boss tweaks?
I’ve never tried a true solo, although if I can make the numbers in my favour and not tell anyone about it I might try it.
For me, someone who used to be impressed by true solo until I found out people were fudging the numbers to make themselves look good, explicitly declaring your rule-bending is all you need to do. Have it in big letters on your stream that you’re changing the game to the extreme to pull of a “true solo”.
Managing the specials to stop hook-rats spawning is within the parameters set by the game and although very cheezy is a viable tactic I think.
The length of fight of the boss might be a problem for those viewing it, but the length of the fight contributes to the difficulty. By buffing boss damage I think you’re shortening the boss fight and having less hordes and specials etc. The hidden buff is that you face less peril - less peril = easier run.
I’m not impressed by true solo’s any more, because people could be shitting on the rules and not tell you. It’s the same as getting the FOW legend frame by glitching it as BW > A truly hollow victory.
Intent would be really hard to prove, moreover that’s highly open to interpretation. especially for more complicated abuses… one example is abuse of intensity systems… it increases when you take damage, kill enemies or are disabled. If you can increase intensity high enough, you stop horde and special pacing… does that break the AI/spawner in the same way that special slot stacking and abuse of threat does?