Properties is nice actually, but some little thing make it strange, like berserker having is own propertie (power vs berserker) and hookrat being a “monster”.
This is not the only thing that make me think we need a rework of it. If they add, in futur, 2 new factions (undead, greenskin, deamons,…) "power vs ___ " gonna give some trouble with new faction.
So maybe delete those :
-power vs chaos
-power vs skaven
-power vs infantry
-power vs armoured
-power vs monster
-power vs berserker
And make this instead:
-power vs elites (berserker count as elites)
-power vs specials
-power vs boss
-power vs foes
-stagger power (melee only)
-cleave power (melee only)
For distance weapons they can add:
-max ammo
-reload speed
-attack speed
Some new traits can be nice instead of picking opportunist by deduction on some weapons:
“taking domage make your next 3hit be critical”(melee only). (vent doesn’t count and friendly fire as well)
“stagger an enemis increase the next stagger power by ___%”(melee only).
“push an enemis increase your cleave power by __% for the next hit”(melee only).
“reload increase your attack speed for ___seconds”(distance only).
“headshot increase reload speed for __% can stack 3 times to increase the effect power. all stacks used when reload”(distance only)
“when heat is above half you used +__% heat but deal + % dmg”(heat weapons only).
I’m not the guy that normally goes off about traits and properties, but the system has quite a few flaws and the culprit’s name is “Breakpoints” or maybe hero power.
The different power types are supposed to be so you can’t be good against everything (like, you could invest power to 1-hit KO a Stormvermin, but would never be strong enough to 1-hit KO a chaos berserker because of it).
In a perfect world, players would ideally specialize in taking on specific foes, so having a property like Power versus Elite would defeat that.
… but it’s defeated in-game anyway!
Traits also have a huge issue of either being bad or breaking the game. I swear to you I’m not the guy that goes on about traits, but considering how everything either breaks the game or is so bad that it makes the game unplayable has me agreeing FS should probably chuck it all. Critical hits can’t break the game if there are no traits that proc on crits. Breakpoints can’t break the game if all weapons have a set speed and power that only changes with talents and power level.
There is a separate problem Reorx. The game makes it incredibly difficult (without certain mods, even then it’s tedious) to actually find break points. Even weapon damage itself is a bit awful to work with, and as you brought up, even if you do know the breakpoints, rerolling and moving stats around is a nightmare in and of itself.
Something I’d consider, consider experimenting with to see if it works is actually removing +damage against X category properties. Just, outright remove it. Then, take every weapon, and specialize them into 1 of 3 (give or take) categories. Anti-unarmored, anti-armored, and anti-monster explicitly. Then just rebalance each weapon to specialize in one role (E.G. anti-unarmored/horde), or generalize them to be very versatile in several categories but not exactly best in class. Something like a Greatsword should beat out the 2hh and executioner sword in cleave easily because that’s kind of all it does.
But this basically fixes a handful of problems. It removes hidden breakpoint confusion, makes it easier to understand what a weapon does with the tags given the weapon, makes it easier to balance at all difficulties, and hypothetically opens up build variety if new, interesting properties take the place. It might also open up other weapons that normally aren’t used. If I remember correctly, VT1 didn’t really have +damage against X properties. You had something like 3 of those traits and that defined the weapon as the build of the weapon. And I feel that approach is more balanced, more intuitive, and promotes build variety better than the current situation that basically demands building around hidden breakpoints.
I think the issue is kind of fundamental to how Vermintide 2 was built. I totally get what Fatshark was going for - it’s not a bad idea on the face of it, having these cool traits and properties and we can tinker with them. But the user interface had to be really solid to support this. We needed to basically have a points system like the talents - where we can just freely swap our points around to try new builds.
But they also wanted to have something of a looter game feel, and when we’re leveling we kind of get to experience this because you’ll often find yourself using a weapon with random traits and properties that therefore plays a little bit differently than the last one.
They went for a compromise and neither worked out well. The random stuff on weapons aren’t so impactful that it’s very apparent, and it’s just a hindrance after you’re at max power and want to start using specific combinations. It hinders even just trying new stuff, because it’s so hard to reroll to what you want, and then later you’ll have to roll back if you want your own setup.
There’s a lot of ways this could have been built differently, but I think it’s too much work to change post-launch, and frankly the effort probably doesn’t justify the reward (not even just financially for Fatshark, just in terms of the improvements to the game it would be somewhat slight).
So working within our current system? Just some buffs/tweaks. Properties are probably fine, but it’d be nice if we could reroll just one at a time and maybe while doing that it doesn’t lose your good value. Or hell, just buff the red drop rate. I’ve so much time in this game, but Ranald hates me so much. I get very few reds even on Emperor’s Vaults and they’re usually dupes of stuff I already have.
Traits - we could probably get some of the cool ones back from last game. That’d be nice. Some were a bit busted, but not all of the ones they removed.
I don’t dislike your ideas, but I think people get overly obsessed with breakpoints and make them out to be way more important than they are. I’m not saying they make no difference, but in most situations ranged special 1 shot breakpoints are pretty much the only one that’s ever likely to have a make or break impact on a situation, even then there are a lot of factors that are vastly more important.
Personally I wish they’d just include armory and bestiary into the base game. Using these mods and the dummies it’s mostly not hard at all to work out breakpoints that matter to you. I also quite like how in the current system you can kinda choose to spec a few different ways. You can spec power for the enemy type you most want to reach breakpoints for, or forego that for attack speed/crit chance/BCR, which can all be comparably impactful.
So yeah not sure I’m down for complete removal of power properties.
Well, i just gonna add some information to my post.
Power vs elites (chaos warrior, executionner, armored rat and berserker)
Power vs foes (skaven, chaos, shield weilder)
Power vs specials (ratling, flamme thrower, hookrat, assassin, leach, stormer and kamikaze rat)
Power vs boss (every random and map boss)
No longer power vs chaos/skaven/armoured/infantry/monster in the game.
This is not to make game balance or anything. Just to make the game more clear. Those elites / specials section already exist in some talents. And maybe something like, only one power vs … on each stuff.
And about reroll… i don’t know how to help… i’m full red item and have enough materials to reroll as much as i want.
I only want to help strugling people cause mods crashed the game and fatshark doesn’t want to make a proper stats page… so maybe just help new player and people with some change at the base problem… make stats more easily to understand.
There are numerous ways to help the problem, but the big thing with break points is you either make the breakpoint, or +power is literally wasted. Could throw it on anything else from stam shields to BCR and get more practical effect out of it. And without the proper tools to determine breakpoints, it’s functionally impossible for players to make educated decisions about properties. The lack of ability to realistically reroll until you have hundreds of hours in the game is icing on the bad design cake that is properties in VT2. Not exactly deal breakers, but not exactly good either. The solution of removing power would be one example, but another could be just going so far as to show how many hits it takes for the weapon to kill certain types and how much +damage you’d need to get it down 1.
There are ways to simplify the UI to make it easier to understand and more intuitive, and as BizarreSalp brought up, it’s hard to know both the cost and how good it would be. It might literally be easier to, simply, make a new game and fix the problems there, and also more profitable, while enabling modders to fix design problems of the older game, which many have. Unfortunately they keep breaking the mods with each patch, but such is the nature of, well, modding in general.
The end result is it’s a fun thought experiment, and might be a better side project of the game but certainly not something directly explored with all hands on deck. That’s simply unreasonable.
Agreed with pretty much everything you said. I do think rerolling is the major culprit that discourages experimentation. FS has said multiple times they were working on an Athanor style crafting system for adventure mode, so I’m still holding out some hope that we might see some progress on this matter before they move on for good.
It certainly is good as a thought experiment, though I do still prefer to try to keep it within the realms of possibility, which is to say try and find the solution that ought to be the least work to implement.