The biggest cap on success is player skill- positioning, knowledge of combat mechanics and map layout…etc.
If you have a level 35+150 Kruber and have been playing cata for a hundred hours, you will be good enough for legend with any other character, even if you have never played them. Your skills translate and the playstyles of the classes are different but not vastly so. Leveling each character separately and having a power cap just forces good players to go back to difficulties that they find boring.
I would be happier if all characters were levelled simultaneously and the difficulties were gated by “complete X number of games on the lower difficulty to unlock the higher difficulty”. X should be a small number, like 5-10. People will naturally gravitate to the difficulty that they find most fun, where they are challenged without being constantly overwhelmed (being carried isn’t fun). The current system doesn’t stop bad players joining high difficulty games, it just forces good players to play at boring difficulties and grind for to reach some meaningless power gate.
I struggle to see the issue, lots of changes have been made to smooth it out a lot. Once upon a time xp was based on difficulty, nowadays every difficulty has the xp of old legend. Even back when that was the case, for me the item grind was way more tedious than the leveling grind.
I dunno I’ll admit it’s been a while since I introduced someone new to the game, but I honestly think anyone who’s not willing to spend the time leveling a single character to max was never gonna stay with the game long to begin with. Maxing all characters is admittedly a bit tedious, and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing some bonus, like maxing out a character makes subsequent characters you play get bonus xp, like maybe 25% bonus per maxed character so by the time you’re up to the last one you’re leveling at twice the rate of the first.
Any more than that and I think you’d just be throwing even more overconfident people into higher difficulties they aren’t ready for. Legend already suffers this quite badly by virtue of being the “loot farming difficulty”.
Sure, but I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of the average player leveling their second character… I also think you’re underplaying somewhat the differences in how charqcters play on higher difficulties, but that’s a side point and I don’t want to derail the thread so I’ll just leave it saying I get your point, but don’t fully agree.
I think you’re being idealistic here and underestimating a lot of players’ drive for character progression and loot. I think plenty of people are happy to be/aren’t aware they’re being carried. Some forced playtime before playing on upper difficulties seems appropriate to me, which isn’t to say it won’t be frustrating for people who pick up the game mechanics very quickly, but to say that overall I think it’s a net benefit to QP health.
That’s how it works now, but in the betas and perhaps even in the initial early access build (1 week before the full release), the amulet had to be leveled up separately for each character. Furthermore, back then you only gained essence from completing weaves once (subsequent completions returning a very small amount), so overall you were looking at an absurdly grindy and restrictive system. It’s frankly quite baffling that it took the outcry of the entire community to get that to change, and even then it was done so with some resistance and hesitation.
Yeah, i played beta 1 and 2. Character and gear progression in the weaves was ridiculous, especially when you’d already done it once in standard mode.
If i recall correctly, Fatshark wanted to reset everyone back to level one with grey gear in the weaves at the beginning of every season to keep everything “fair” on the leader boards.
The core VT2 gameplay is amazing, but it is really blighted by the amount ridiculous grind and rng loot and crafting systems. I hope Darktide is more streamlined so we can actually enjoy the game right off the bat instead of spending the first 40 hours playing boring difficulties way below our skill level and getting random loot, save that for a wastes-style mode.
Currently, the difficulty requirements are as follows:
Veteran: 115
Champion: 215
Legend: 415
Cataclysm: Defeat the 4 Lords on Legend
I’m of the opinion that we could either remove the Veteran requirements entirely, or ditch the hero power prerequisite for it in favor of completing a single match of Recruit (unlocks Veteran for all heroes). Running through Recruit successfully once is enough to grasp the absolute basics of the game beyond what the prologue already teaches.
The jump from Veteran to Champion, while not nearly as substantial as Champion to Legend, is still quite noticeable for a new player, so keeping a requirement of some sort is acceptable. However, I understand that Veteran can still be too easy for many new players, so I am not opposed to a small reduction in needed hero power. Perhaps lowering the power for entering Champion to the ballpark of 165 would suffice.
The mandatory conditions for Legend and Cataclysm seem fine to me.
I persuaded another friend to pick up the game in the sale and I’m pretty sure he’ll not be back.
He played for 3 hours while I was at work and his impressions were that the game is slow boring and lacks depth.
Being forced to play on recruit, I can see why he’d think that.
He’s the sort of person that would comfortably get into cataclysm difficulty if he’d stick with the game, I just doubt he will because of how boring getting there is.
I lived through that three times already. You tell a friend about this amazing, hard, but rewarding game that makes you grow as a player and the first seven hours nothing happens.
It is the worst. You cant just take them to Legend, or Cata for a ride and show them what awaits. Even Champ would be enough for a new player. Recruit is a terrible joke, where it is possible to encounter a single special the whole run. Vet isnt much better.
VT End Times allowed players to start with the third difficulty. Something that destroyed you and made you realise there is still a bunch of difficulties harder than that. It was a great system. Nothing like the snoozfest that is forced on you in VT2.
I would certainly lower the power requirement for veteran. Recruit is probably a bit too boring for some. I would though, let new players play veteran a bit. As they DO need to learn the game, and veteran is kinda a good difficulty to see that.
Though I would probably accelerate the early experience : 2x XP is fine as the “free week end” proved. As one of the interesting experience is that you can tinker a bit your build.
Isn’t it -5/+10 already ? When you reach 300 power the lowest power u can get is 295. New item can get up to +10 from previous one IIRC. Its still weird imo. It should always be + and once u reach 300 power that should be the only number you get. Whats the point of gettin 295 power items when youre maxed.
Yup, items from chests you open or items you craft both follow that same -5/+10 range.
Weird to see people suggesting that making that worse would improve things.
Introduced another friend to the game this morning and for their first mission I threw in a deed to make it more engaging, if its stuck on recruit the least you can do is spawn more things.
I know why it’s set up the way it is, and certainly for legend/cata restrictions are important imo.
But honestly more should be done to speed up onboarding at lower levels:
XP should be faster (not having access to certain tallents is very limiting)
Gearing should be easier (to engage players in the stats and traits sooner).
Access to appropriately challenging content should be an option sooner (even if quick play still imposes limits)
Weaves could have been great if it wasn’t an isolated system, as they are more challenging sooner, gearing is easier and more straight forward (although changing gear/characters is way too costly for new players). I had a lot of fun playing my first weaves at the same time as another friend who’d literally just got the game, putting us both - by character power - on equal footing.
I do wonder how Chaos Wastes feel for new players, I’ve not ran them at low levels, as it’s a big time investment to ask of friends that often have limited overlapping play windows with my own.
Honestly I see no reason for why we can’t take people to higher difficulties if we ourselves unlocked them. The “override power req” rule could be that you need to be Steam friends so people won’t troll-torture clueless newbies with Legend diff in QP.
I completed a C3O match with a friend who only had 50 hours at the time. Not even super hard carried either, since IB can do a lot with just shields and good ult timing.
Recruit and Veteran are for new people, and with low power level. It is very crucial for brand new players to accustomed to the systems. Once you cross power level, try champion, as that is the default difficulty.
I’ve seen different opinions on this issue.
When I started playing V1 years back. The their first difficulty levels were challenging enough for me.
When I started playing V2 I started playing champion/legend almost from the start.
However there’re people, who find Recruit too difficult.
There’re people, who find Recruit too easy.
There’re people, who find Veteran too easy.
There’re people, who find Veteran too difficult.
There’re people, who find the difficulty gap between Veteran and Recruit to be too wide.
Yet, there’re people who find Cata to be too easy…
Different strokes for different folks…
I had a Champion run where some high level player had an unleveled fire mage in it, Sienna on level 1. Of course the Player had all the equipment to get to play on Champion because they had gold or even red trinkets and could just up the Weapon Power by just crafting high power gear already due to theur other lvl. 35 characters.
Still sucked with dmg and went down quite fast due to lack of talents too. No talents, no unlocked weapons aside the standart blue-prints to craft with are a big negative impact on the teamplay.
the only upside for the low level player: tons of exp on completing a map. at least 2-3 level up’s per map, if not at least 1 guarantied one.
I see the point though in the restriction level to be at least removed or drastically lowered to reach Veteran. Champion runs should still at least reach power level 300 via level and gear combined.
I’ve also failed to introduce some players to the game, who are bit on the try-hard side. They simply didn’t feel it after 3 runs and I suspect their impression would have been different if they had lost one or two of those first runs. At least I’m confident it wouldn’t have deterred them, considering they enjoy their soulsborne games.
In my opinion Fatshark should just remove the hero power all together and allow new players to start with champion (or perhaps even legend) right away like in Vermintide 1.
The progression which occurs in front of the monitor is sufficient. There simply isn’t a need to layer an artificial progression mechanic on top of it - or at least not such an extensive one. The duration of the grind put aside, it’s also silly that new players have to deal with breakpoints on Champion, which are worse than the breakpoints on Cataclysm for someone with full hero power.