According to Fatshark’s poll/statistics, Cataclysm is the least popular difficulty (8%), significantly trailing far behind the second least popular, Champion (19%).
Source:
In my experience, if playing with randoms or quickplay, it is rare to see a full Cataclysm lobby. I think the big reason for Cataclysm having very low player numbers is that it is paywall-locked through the Winds of Magic DLC. Cata has a restriction where you can’t invite non-WoM DLC owners to a Cata difficulty match. You won’t be able to start a Cata match if there’s a non-WoM owner in the lobby.
Allowing non-WoM owners to join Cata lobbies (provided that the host owns WoM) or removing the paywall restriction entirely (better) should significantly improve Cata player numbers.
You would have to make Beastman a free upgrade aswell, which would still make alot of people mad (for a while). The Cowmen just have a horrible reputation.
What this game needs isnt free cata, but keeping people interested long enough to reach it in the first place. The cost of WoM is trivial when you invested enough time to reach that point.
If you check the steam charts we are back to the usual 3k a day who play VT2. Every time a major update drops, like Sigmars Fanboy in December, player counts nearly double.
We just need, finally, a decent update schedule to boost playercounts. One update every (I nearly said new moon, but that would actually be the dream) four to ten months, or longer depending on what you are looking for, is just pitiful.
Little sidenote, since its seems fitting. The last map update was March 2020. That means the age of the game has doubled since we got our last map.
(RIP Maps. Mar 2018 - Mar 2020)
I agree with you, and I just wanted to hijack this thread for something semi related
Wtf are these statistics based off? Games played to completion over a specific time frame? How wide is the time frame?? Cata becomes less relevant over time?? Fatshark plsss release complete datasets if you share info like this
Legend being the most popular difficulty ain’t that surprising, however veteran/recruit still managing those numbers is honestly bit baffling to me.
On topic of cata being free, well I would not lose my sleep over it or you could just limit it to quickplay games only until you buy it but really as alluded by the earlier posts the bigger problem is the maintaining of players.
The content past 2 years has been really dry/inconsistent and even now fixing pretty game breaking bugs like BW burn dealing stupid amounts of damage is clearly not in the top of the priority lists, nor was moonfire or sott for the matter.
The game needs more updates and more consistently. I’m pretty sure we were also promised more communication about stuff like this but at least in these forums its barely noticeable. Cata playerbase at least in the EU area has been decently healthy and really good whenever there is update released.
To have fun on Cata, you need other people to play with. With abysmal player numbers, it is rare to see a full lobby on Cata if playing with randoms / quickplay. This is not good even for the player who bought WoM, who is restricted from inviting non-WoM owning friends to join them in Cata matches (either Chaos Wastes or regular campaign mode).
Nope. It’s the other way around. There is literally no point on making Cata paywall-blocked and further dividing the playerbase. What is the advantage to the player who owns WoM on keeping Cata paywall-blocked? Nothing. It just further restricts you from getting players to join your lobby.
No need for that, IMO. Beastmen on maps could work just as it currently does (depends on host WoM ownership).
It’s one of their dlc contents made to earn profit. No one will buy WoM for Weave nowdays, so it’s for the weapons, Beastman, and Cata. If Cata were free and all WoM could offer were few weapons and Beastman, the price can’t be justified; not that it is well-justified atm because of how dead Weave is but even more so if Cata were out of the table.
What I believe should be done is to realse Weave as free since it doesn’t hold any value as a merchandise anymore, and lower the price of WoM with the rest of the contents. Asking Cata to be free sounds very much like against Fatshark’s revenue, making it sounds like asking too much and a bit unrealistic.
The game grants enough content for hundreds and hundreds of hours. Compared to the money it costs thats much more and better than in other games.
To be cata-rdy youll need hundreds hours of playtime on Champion and Legend. WoM costs just a few bucks. I see no problem or unfairness in spending them to FS after such a long playtime.
No, it is just because there is no extra loot for playing Cata and it is a good thing because thanks to that you can find almost only good players whose want more fun playing Cata there.
I really don’t want for Cata to be cursed like Legend.
Also to be able to play Cata you must spend at least few hundreds hours in the game and that means you must really like the game and if you like the game so much you probably buy everything just to support devs.
I actually doubt that Cata is so low because its behind a paywall. V2 playerbase is a low but stable one for years, its unlikely that many of them havent bought WoM by now.
When i still played the game i have met people who stayed on Recruit and Veteran on principle, because they just wanted to relax when slaying rats. But i had also friends with like 3k hours in the game who finished the most challenging official content but couldnt be bothered to play Cata because its just more bulletsponge with less options for breakpoints. This was also my reason to not play Cata. I would rather play legend and help other players get emperor boxes.
Maybe the population for Cata will rise a bit, but since red weapons are highly sought after by many people and standard Cata games do not get books, most of those people will try Cata and then go back to legend. I have absolutely no hope for Cata being popular at all, unless they make it free and give better loot.
If they don’t want to remove the paywall entirely, they could just loosen the paywall restriction to be like the one implemented in map DLCs. In map DLCs, the DLC owner can invite anyone to join them in their DLC map lobbies, regardless of DLC ownership. Whereas, WoM Cata has a weird restriction where you can’t invite non-WoM DLC owners to a Cata difficulty match. You can’t even start a Cata match if there’s at least one non-WoM owner in the lobby (if you attempt to do so, you’ll get a reminder to “kick” the player who doesn’t own WoM first).
They could make Cata be like a DLC map, and WoM owners can have people join them in their Cata lobbies regardless of DLC ownership.
My question is:
What is the advantage to the player who owns WoM on keeping Cata paywall-blocked?
Your response that “WoM costs just a few bucks” and about “problem or unfairness in spending [money] to FS” does not apply to a player who already owns WoM. They’ve already spent their money.
I repeat: What is the advantage to the player who owns WoM on keeping Cata paywall-blocked? Nothing. It just further restricts the WoM owner from getting players to join their lobby, making their purchase have less value.
So, you like playing Cata with bots? Interesting. See: No one joining in Cata bots suck, where people complain that no one joins their Cata lobbies, and that bots suck.
Based on Cata player and lobby population, it is unlikely that most base game owners have bought WoM. WoM’s Steam reviews are “Mostly Negative” and it is 2/3 the price of the base game, being the most expensive DLC. Potential buyers are gonna be turned off once they see those reviews and the price tag.
At least from responses when this question has been asked in the past, seems like a lot of people are afraid that “players who are not ready for Cata will ruin the lobbies”
That’s because the most people do not know how to play with bots (and with other players too). It is a team game but it seems that many people think that they can just go anywhere and others (bots) must cover them and survive.
I have an old computer so I can’t record Vermintide 2 in reasonable quality. But I once made a video on how to make Cata with bots and all tomes. At that time, I was still a bad player, but I still managed it easily even at 30 fps and lags. You just need to use your brain in this game.
You get clowns charging around like a chicken with it’s head cut off in Legend doing all kinds of stupifying things and generally being a massive hinderance.
Having CATA behind a paywall stops these dolts rampaging around like a toddler with a handful of sh*t, plastering it all over everything near them.
Having been gifted WoM by a friend solely for the purpose of playing Chaos Wastes in Cata, I have no strong opinion really on whether it should be free, although my argument here is that you’d let every baboon loose in cata if it was free, purely so they could get frames and so on.
A paywall is no defence if the baboons have $20. I actually think these type of players are more interested in red illusions and easy wins, so stick to legend.
If cata has to be walled then it should be
“complete 100 legend games to unlock” or something similar. All quick play cata players would benefit if the gating was skill-based and free rather than pay walled.
Its not like you never see the occasional trolly person or elf who decides that doing 1000 points worth of team damage is fun for some reason. Sure its way more rare in cata but just the fact that farming is so much more efficient in legend will still keep most of the bad apples away.
Honestly the positives might even be better in the long term when more people actually want to try doing cata games and learning. The lobbies can be really quiet nowadays when its off-hours and especially in 2 game modes.
