So desperately needed fixes are postponed until season 2?

[JayJay]

@BizarreSalp

FROM BEFORE LAUNCH (literally as soon as I saw that Pactsworn image with the empty space) that we’d get to fight Beastmen.

I remember that, thinking: ‘he might be onto something.’

I have to share a situation i think many have seen similar ones since 2.0:

My group is in a medium sized room (think a little smaller than righteous stand right after the barracks, before going up to the ramparts), one covering the front door in melee with me covering him with ranged and two holding the back door, can’t remember which map. There is one small wall blocking view from both doors, with a litte extension in going to the 2 player defended door.
What happens is 7 gors spawing from behind that little extension because no one was looking there for a couple of seconds. I was seeing it happening as i turned around from the one guy (horde was barely existing anymore) to see how the other two were doing (stupid elves and their 6th sense, i guess).
No hole in the wall, floor or ceiling, no barricade they could have climbed over. They spawned there out of thin air, quickly one after the other. A.I. director stopped what he was doing shortly after me looking there, but too late, i had already seen it.

What now follows is a very bad paint (the red circles could be bases if our characters were tabletop figures, blue is beastmen):

It was mind-boggeling to see it so clearly. The system determined that if no one is looking there, it would be good to go to spawn enemies, even if a player was standing literally 1 meter away from that spawn point and with no clear entrance for enemies.

Skaven use all the various little holes on the map when they ambush, rotbloods are spawing relatively far away in full groups, and beastmen appearently spawn out of thin air where they want.

I think they are somehow tied to that ‘no one is seeing the spawn point’ rather than distance. That may be to make their spawn behaviour to be the middleground between skaven and rotblood horde spawns, but in reality it’s very buggy and not that thought out (as harsh as that may sound). There is no rustling like skaven do when climbing out of their holes, they just heavily breathe down your neck as their horns are already stuck in said neck (we did not loose the run, gladly). There needs to be a limit on horde spawns going more in the rotblood direction, with some distance to the group.

I had time and fiddled around with Paint 3D, look at this even worse version of the above:

[Drakonhammer]

@JayJay

Skaven use all the various little holes on the map when they ambush, rotbloods are spawing relatively far away in full groups, and beastmen appearently spawn out of thin air where they want.

Yeah, I’m beginning to think beastmen are colonies of very aggressive dustmites that come together the moment they are not being directly observed.

[mashmonster]

I did not read the thread.

However, all this talk about Fatshark not pushing out more changes beyond simple bug fixes due to the leaderboards and seasons made me want to respond.

And my only thought is this:

Who actually gives a rat’s ass about the leaderboards anyway? You get NOTHING from your position on the leaderboard as far as we are aware of at this point in time. So they may give out portrait frames in the future.

WHO CARES?!!?!

The seasonal format is stupid and accomplishes absolutely NOTHING in terms of increasing the value proposition of the game when it comes to replayability.

[DeMasked]

The competitive element that was brought in with Winds of Magic only restricts the game, the player and apparently the developers who somehow thought this new game mode would be good.

I already stated many issues with Winds of Magic during the beta and on it’s release I refused to buy it to support the complete incompetency of the developers behind a half baked, ill thought out, messy expansion that isn’t really even complete due to lack of oversight.

Weaves could have been some sort of random dungeon generator where you’d have a vast amount of hand tailored levels featuring the different winds and objectives in which case said winds/objectives would all be balanced well and scale well with difficulty increases + there wouldn’t be some abrupt break between the initial level and arena following said level.

This option could have augmented the base game in a supportive way in that the current adventure maps and difficulty increases available didn’t change the actual environments at all. They lacked randomness besides spawns.

Sadly the competitive element forced a completely new progression system, 120+ levels to throw match making / player base on it’s head, poorly scaled difficulty, timed levels (pro or con for people) and a lack of incentive in helping others climb this ladder of chaos.

Beastmen being completely janky when it comes to spawns/audio/attacks/design combined with 1 exclusive beastmen level that has to borrow Skaven/Norscan specials because said Beastmen lack specials is yet another problem. More so when our 5 heroes see evidence of the beastmen killing skaven enemies with the dead rat ogre - yet apparently welcome the skaven/norscan specials/patrols later on in the level because… that makes sense to these developers.

Finally we get only 1 level that doesn’t even deign to have a boss of some sort despite the trailer setting such a thing up (same with Shadows over Burgertown) and both weapon skins and ravaged art being conveniently forgotten.

I am not surprised they would use Seasons as a complete crutch to buy themselves time from trying to fix their bug ridden game because whenever they do throw out patches it seems like old bugs just keep coming back. So why not wait for an eternity for 1 big patch to completely break the game?

At least we’ll eventually get Castle Drachenfels for free but we’ll see how that release goes.

[mw2544]

Leaderboards and weaves have nothing to do with balance changes being delayed. This is the pace Fatshark has always worked at. Since Vermintide 1. In Vermintide 2s entire lifetime there have been only 4-5 significant balance patches, typically 3-4 months between each one.

That being said, as usual, the amount/frequency of bugs in the game atm is being massively overstated. A number of things people think are bugs, are literal game mechanics. Yes there are still things that need fixing, but there is nothing game breaking, or even close to game breaking atm. Out of the handful of failed cata runs I’ve had in the past 2-3 weeks, not a single one was due to anything aside from player mistakes.

[SmokerT69]

I really hope leader boards are not the reason why fixes would be delayed. Last I checked, I did up to weave 60 with randoms and I was ranked around 400 in the world. That should give a clear indication of how many people actually play weaves. There’s less than 60 people in the entire world who have even got to weave 120 lol. And less than 40 who have passed it when you take out all the cheaters.

As for the tOp SeCrEt DiScOrD, again, no one asked for this no one even knew about leader boards or what the weaves really were until right around the beta test. At which point some people have been trying to help balance it and pointing out bugs. The rest didn’t even care and went back to normal adventure maps. I think I did maybe 10 weaves in the beta during that month and spent my other 90 hours in adventure maps, testing Cata and pointing out bugs there. I just find it funny that you’re still pushing the FS did this for the elite players when only around 10 of them even bothered to do weaves up to 120.

edit: Also, from the most recent patch notes,

@Fatshark_Hedge

In the coming updates we hope to release an update with a balancing pass for the Beastmen. The Vermintide 2 team is currently working hard on taming the beasts.

[RandomLurker]

@SmokerT69

I just find it funny that you’re still pushing the FS did this for the elite players when only around 10 of them even bothered to do weaves up to 120.

Look at it this way. What the elite players asked for and what FS intended are not necessarily the same thing. Based on the features put into the game (static challenge, cheaterboards, endless grind, aka an engine for epeen waving) it does appear that their intended audience was elite players/streamers since no one else would care about those features. The fact that they missed their target doesn’t change the apparent intent.

@JayJay

I have to share a situation i think many have seen similar ones since 2.0:

I have seen that happen with Skaven and Chaos as well. They can appear quite literally anywhere that’s not in your current field of view. They can also despawn suddenly (within the time it takes to shoot an arrow and before it hits!), and spawn as a stack.

I recently saw a Chaos Warrior on Fort Blackenedburger spawn in the middle of the path after the log bridge, went up to bash his head in and once I got in melee range suddenly he looked like this:

It turns out to have been an entire frikken chaos patrol that spawned in plain sight, stacked so perfectly (even using the same walk animation frames until I triggered them to use different attacks) that it looked like 1 CW.

That run naturally ended badly. And so did my VT play sessions for the next 3 days or so. I don’t have much patience for this crap anymore.

[Argonaut14]

@mw2544

but there is nothing game breaking, or even close to game breaking atm.

While it is possible as players to adapt to the current state of the game and complete successful runs, it doesn’t somehow mean the game is bug free.

within this thread are examples of ridiculous bugs that spawn enemies literally behind you, like some kind of pantomime villain whole stalks immediately behind the clueless hero with people yelling “he’s behind you!”.

Patrols actually spawning within two feet of you in plain sight.
Chaos Spawn moving underneath the map to attack players by popping up and down the landscape.

Beastmen horde spawns and behaviour, Double specials, triple banners, and the cocaine-fuelled finales are all balance and bug changes that have significant impact upon the run and do cause fairly regular wipes. Although players may adjust to compensate for such stupid things happening, it isn’t bug free by a long shot. The bugs aren’t being overplayed when they’re so obvious.

---

This is without mentioning the pigeonholing of the classes by the talent trees, and the imbalances caused by the new talents.

There is little point continuously bemoaning the causes of the change in direction of the game, or the completely cretinous decision making that led us to this point - as customers we can only hope that the end of season 1 is going to be a monumental patch like the BBB 2.0 or something and we might actually get a working product. I think we might realistically get a massive bug/balance patch prior to Christmas so we can test all the changes for the console players. Can’t possibly give THEM a shonky alpha build or there’ll be repercussions.

When it is actually “Fixed” we might find the whole thing is pretty damn easy again. If we go through all this to end up with gameplay almost the same as 1.6 it’ll be Comedy Gold… if it wasn’t so depressing.

Can we just give it up with the Weaves already? I’d rather have the Geheimeimnichnacht and Pub Crawl maps all the time and make the Weaves some kind of once-a year thing.

[Sno]

Had a Left 4 Dead 2 LAN party last weekend. Four raptors with guns mowing down hordes of Louis. Feels like it hasn’t changed in 10 years and yet is still just as fun to hop into today.

I don’t know even what kind of game this will be in a month from now. Really kills the excitement off for me.

[mw2544]

I didn’t say there weren’t bugs. I said there weren’t game breaking bugs. You even quoted it… You act as if the list of things you just rattled off happens in every run, or even multiple times in a run. I havent seen a patrol spawn in my face in weeks. It has happened a total of twice to me since WoM came out, in hundreds of runs. Beastmen hordes are literally the easiest hordes on Cata because there are no shield units, no berserker units, and only one type of elite that is just a higher health stormvermin. Double specials isnt a bug, at least not in Cata. Banners arent a bug either. If you are still struggling with banners at this point, it is a learn to play issue. The finales are all scripted spawns that you can plan for. The only one that is remotely difficult is Convocation due to visibility issues.

Gamebreaking bugs are things that you absolutely can not prepare for, or manage in any way. Invisible units, disconnects, crashes, invulnerable units, etc.

Careers are in the best state they’ve ever been in. There is actually a significant differences between playing one career vs another, other than what career skill and how much health you have, and wether you have a dodge distance talent or not.

[Thunderherald]

@mw2544

That being said, as usual, the amount/frequency of bugs in the game atm is being massively overstated.

I’d say getting hit through block is a game breaking bug, and its no secret Vermintide is unstable either. There are early access games with fewer crashes, and Vermintide 2 is a full release with an"expansion!"

I don’t really think what you say here holds water.

Here’s just a few on top of my head with varying degrees of bad:

• Terrain causes enemies, bosses especially to sometimes disappear entirely during attack animations (these spots are still scattered around maps, around uneven terrain especially)
• The AI director sets a “stage”, which sometimes resets as you enter an area - enemies disappear and new ones respawn before your very eyes! Its like you’re playing a deck of cards, but with the snap of a finger it changes.
• The infamous “spawn in a single enemy behind you”
• Invisible gas from Gas Rats (happens under specific conditions, I think but can’t say for certain. My suspicion from encountering this repeatedly, is that it has to do with very uneven terrain - say the gas rat hits the top of a standing torch. speculation.)
• Vanishing tomes
• Unbelievable bot behavior (this includes so many strange things)
• Bombs disappearing or phasing through the world?
• Phantom strikes
• Patrols stuck in one spot, standing ontop of each other in its entirety
• One player can be put into two different lobbies, being able to talk to all 7 (assuming full parties) but only playing in one. The result? The other 3 players in a different lobby will not be able to finish their round. Doesn’t happen often, but it happens still.
• Dead silent enemies, not a clang of a single piece of armor, not a footstep(lump in specials here too)
• Horde music on loop ad infinitum, presumably due to stuck enemies
• Broken respawn locations, Fort Brachsenbrücke to this day still sends players who die@the river crossing to the final event. This happened in Vermintide 2’s betas, and is STILL happening.
• visual bugs related to players being downed or grabbed by specials

On top of all this, in addition to countless minor bugs, the game has fundamentally flawed systems in place, like crafting, like heroic deeds, like the lobby browser not allowing friends of friends on steam to join you in the keep without friending you or starting a game… and this is nowhere near everything.
I’ve friends who’ve talked to me about bugs I’ve never seen or experienced, or even heard before - like items disppearing, crafting and inventory menus locking up and forcing them to close and restart, lots of nonsense with anti-cheat… its like there’s always something new.

Though, I think there’s something to what you say - but its not “massively overstated”. Undoubtedly people are fed up with bugs, crashes, game mechanics not functioning as intended, souring their opinion, and are likely to have an increasingly negative view. But all of this above? Its too much - and there’s more.

These days, having a similar amount of bugs comparable to Bethesda games is not a good look nor will it do wonders for reputation.

@JayJay

It was mind-boggeling to see it so clearly. The system determined that if no one is looking there, it would be good to go to spawn enemies, even if a player was standing literally 1 meter away from that spawn point and with no clear entrance for enemies.

I’ve seen exactly this, the representation you made rings an eerily true tone. It would indeed appear the director deems it “acceptable” to spawn in enemies outside players field of view.

@SmokerT69

I just find it funny that you’re still pushing the FS did this for the elite players when only around 10 of them even bothered to do weaves up to 120.

We both got something to laugh at then. The blatant disregard you show for other fans of the franchise who got shafted and ignored while being lead to believe they were listened too and engaged with(pffh, like 5 posts over several weeks, so much insight ), not just left to argue among each other for weeks is quite otherworldly. Community hero indeed.

And yeah, a bounty board has been requested since launch. People have been dying for a way to work towards a specific goal and not rely entirely upon RNG.

But what did we get? Leaderboard.

Speaks volumes, like it or not.

[DeMasked]

@Thunderherald

@SmokerT69

I just find it funny that you’re still pushing the FS did this for the elite players when only around 10 of them even bothered to do weaves up to 120.

We both got something to laugh at then. The blatant disregard you show for other fans of the franchise who got shafted and ignored while being lead to believe they were listened too and engaged with(pffh, like 5 posts over several weeks, so much insight ), not just left to argue among each other for weeks is quite otherworldly. Community hero indeed.

And yeah, a bounty board has been requested since launch. People have been dying for a way to work towards a specific goal and not rely entirely upon RNG.

But what did we get? Leaderboard.

Speaks volumes, like it or not.

The fact that Winds of Magic and the Weaves game mode went the competitive route either indicates that FS wanted to try and bring in another crowd of players or that it was meant for a minority of players who wanted the ultimate challenge.

In any case yes they clearly disregarded the majority of players who bought a co-op pve game which had zero competitive elements except the stupid green circles on the stat screen which should’ve been removed a long time ago or at least added stats to help certain defensive builds stand out in their own way.

Grim Dawn’s latest expansion released a game mode called The Shattered Realm which actually gave rewards for the base game’s use + only competitive element was a score for the character. Zero leaderboard or seasonal crap. 3 level followed by 1 boss level rinse and repeat to see how far you get as difficulty continues to scale. 73 customized levels that are completely randomized with some only being seen in the higher difficulties - unlike Weaves which are completely static with repeat levels.

GD also has a Bounty Board for objective/reward based gameplay although I’m not sure if the rewards were updated as usually they were a waste of time except in certain cases for grinding reputation for factions. Probably could use some tweaks in this regard.

Vermintide 1 Bounty Board was quite well implemented when I checked it out. It gave players a real tangible goal to work towards rather then rely completely on rng.

[geekhaven]

What you consider ‘non game breaking’ is what from what I can tell many of us consider game breaking. Especially when you stack the frequency of individual bugs and having them stack together.

I mean my computer doesn’t punch me in the nuts every time I load vermintide 2 but 1 in 4 runs being ruined by some combination of bugs occurring concurrently seems pretty game breaking to me. Even when the run isn’t failed the experience has been ruined. I don’t feel satisfaction at overcoming a bug riddled run, just exasperated frustration and resignation.

[mw2544]

Unless we are playing completely different games, I have no idea what combination of bugs you claim are happening multiple times per run. If you are upset about the balance of the game, that is one thing, but suggesting the game has experience altering bugs happening consistently throughout every run is just not true.

[mw2544]

@Thunderherald

• Terrain causes enemies, bosses especially to sometimes disappear entirely during attack animations (these spots are still scattered around maps, around uneven terrain especially)
• The AI director sets a “stage”, which sometimes resets as you enter an area - enemies disappear and new ones respawn before your very eyes! Its like you’re playing a deck of cards, but with the snap of a finger it changes.

Played close to 200 hours since WoM came out. More than 200 if you count the betas. Literally never seen either of these in any run on any difficulty, so I’m going to guess it is incredibly uncommon, or maybe a bad connection to host issue.

@Thunderherald

• The infamous “spawn in a single enemy behind you”

This isn’t a bug. This is lack of awareness. There are ambients all over the place. Lots of times out of sight until after you’ve gone past.

@Thunderherald

• Invisible gas from Gas Rats (happens under specific conditions, I think but can’t say for certain. My suspicion from encountering this repeatedly, is that it has to do with very uneven terrain - say the gas rat hits the top of a standing torch. speculation.)

This is an issue with client not getting proper updates from the host. Been an issue since launch. Will probably always be an issue. An actual bug. Yay.

@Thunderherald

• Vanishing tomes
• Unbelievable bot behavior (this includes so many strange things)
• Bombs disappearing or phasing through the world?
• Phantom strikes

I typically dont pick up books, outside of weekly, so I wont speak to that. I prefer unbelievable bot behavior to most unbelievable pug behavior, but thats just me. I do remember a weird bomb throw during a weave once. Assumed it was something I did, havent had any problems other than that. Phantom strikes is a client issue prevalent with high ping or bad connection. Not something they can really fix.

@Thunderherald

• Patrols stuck in one spot, standing ontop of each other in its entirety

Legit havent seen this in over a year.

@Thunderherald

• Dead silent enemies, not a clang of a single piece of armor, not a footstep(lump in specials here too)
• Horde music on loop ad infinitum, presumably due to stuck enemies

Most sound bugs are client side issues. Yes it would be great if the sound experience was perfect for everyone all the time, but there are plenty of ways to compensate for it, nonetheless.

@Thunderherald

• Broken respawn locations, Fort Brachsenbrücke to this day still sends players who die@the river crossing to the final event. This happened in Vermintide 2’s betas, and is STILL happening.

I guess this is a thing? Maybe I’ve had it happen sometime in the last 18 months? Not exactly what Id call a consistent/frequent game ruining bug though.

The rest of your complaints are quality of life issues. I agree that all of those things would be great to have addressed, but they arent bugs, or completely unworkable.

Almost every actual bug that you listed here though is something that has been prevalent since the beginning of the game. Some of them have gotten better, some have gotten worse. But this is my problem with all of these rage posts regarding bugs. Did people actually play the game before WoM came out? Or was the game just so mind numbingly easy for the last 10+ months that it didnt matter?

[Froh]

@Perteks

Oh yeah I forgot how stupidly dumb weaves are on higher levels.
Attack speed, not sure what you mean, even beastmen have normal attack speed (outside of dumb vertical, but that game always had problem with even slighty vertical attacks)

Enemies now attack faster with WoM big patch (and probably difficulty, I don’t remember).
In high weaves (cataclysm 2/3), it causes some issues :

• Enemies being faster, means, you have way less opportunities to attack between theirs (especially if they don’t attack exactly at the same time).
• You don’t really stagger them anymore when they are several of them, even with heavy weapons, which are already slow to begin with, and so, not reliable because of previous point.
• Enemies being staggered less by push makes your push attacks unreliable (you get hit during the small time between push and attack).
• Enemies replacing staggered enemies and attacking (sometimes in running attacks) is also a common issue.
• Recovery of staggered enemies is also faster, again, making melee a lot more unreliable than it needs to be.
• Of course, there’s also “damage resistance” (which makes your attack less strong, but that’s kinda okay, it’s not too spongy), and “increase of attack damage” (which makes you take some very strong hits from a little vermin)
• The dodge nerf (which WAS needed) also increase the unreliable melee. But as it’s fine now, I would like some change on other things.

It should have been okay if the “last frame” wasn’t placed at weave 120.
I would also be okay if some weaves were tuned down (a lot) like the infamous 63.
As thoses who are interested to continue playing a game with very restricted options when it comes to your build(s) will go on for leaderboards (as it happened), and the rest will stop early (without some of the more frustratring levels ever, as it also happened for thoses who reached 120).
If they were to nerf battle wizard, it would mean divide by 20 the players that even reach 120. (I’m stuck at 95 because my team is kinda tired, and probably frustrated by the gameplay needed to reach 120)
Difficulty is there. Fun is not. (and it was confirmed by the guys who reached 160 btw in reddit AMA)

I will probably try to find some players to reach this 120. But it’s next to impossible (I did find like 3 guys who still play 90+, the ones who all reached 120 don’t play weaves anymore for the most part)

=>
So here’s what happens in high weaves. You spend the whole run blocking. You use whatever you can use to makes hordes less tedious (it’s not a hp issue there, it’s mass + lack of stagger). You use Battle Wizard, which can reliably thin the horde, not taking in account mass. You don’t really have a choice here. This is the most reliable ult as it doesn’t prevent you to block during a small time, it does gives you mobility, and then you can kite (which is also the only way to kill the billion of enemies without spending 1 hour) your way to victory.
No other character can do this.

Some possible solutions for @fs-bigras or/and @Fatshark_Hedge or don’t know who is working on balance that COULD be doable BEFORE season 2 (not ALL of them are needed at once, but I try to somehow have a variety of actions that could make the season 1 a bit less frustrating) :

• Get the 120 “master” frame at 80 (or 90, the first weave with damage increase). Reduce the needed “last weave” before the increase of damage. This will still be a “challenging” frame to have, but stop before being too tedious. If you want to keep your 20 spaces that are on every other frame, that’s cool, get it to 100. 120 is too much.
• Change weave 63 for something with either more time or less specials at the end (we’re losing a lot of players there in our community), or less archers at the beginning. Trolls are okay.
• Change weave of invisibility to not have so many assassins (I think it’s weave 114)
• Remove damage increase from all specials.
• Max the stagger resistance/recover/whatever of enemies to cataclysm 1.
• Make hordes a breeze again, keep the difficulties for elite & specials (that could be another solution, not the one I would choose but maybe we can have a middleground there)

Others solution if you REALLY DON’T WANT TO TOUCH the season 1 weaves (but really, do something about it before season 2, it will make everyone happy, even if leaderboards are kinda changed because of this, this is really not important) :

• Keep the whole progress, including the current weave, as it bring absolutely nothing to reset people back to 40 weaves before. It took a lot of time for them, and they can’t always spend time in 3 months to play thoses 120 x number of tries game.

[harlekein]

@mw2544

This isn’t a bug. This is lack of awareness. There are ambients all over the place. Lots of times out of sight until after you’ve gone past.

Beastman will spawn behind you the moment you turn around. As was detailed by JayJay earlier in this thread.

Just because you aren’t aware of bugs doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

[mw2544]

Every horde spawns mobs from opposite directions… they arent spawning on the tile next to you. Just because you lack game awareness doesn’t make it a bug.

[geekhaven]

I’m glad your experience is smooth but it is not universal.

And no, I had not noticed many of these bugs playing pre-wom. Perhaps the added difficulty adds to the frustration and makes the bugs feel more harsh than they were but I don’t remember ever really taking hits through block or struggling to get my ultimate to trigger, or seeing enemies not take hits, or having enemies spawn regularly on top of or just behind a player or myself.

You can win these runs, its very doable (mostly, that 6 chaos warrior 8 maulers spawn on top of the group was a wipe before the blob had finished spreading out) but your not playing the game, your fighting the game… its not fun, its frustrating and it saps the energy to play. Good runs are there when the bugs aren’t all over each other but when an assassin rocket launches into your party and every one dies… for the third time in a night that’s not funny anymore. When bug issues become the norm and not the exception its not a ‘ha ha ha better luck next time’ its a ‘wtf again’.

Maybe your just that damned good, maybe the people you are playing with don’t have that issue. Maybe its that a good connection for me is 80+ ping. I don’t really care why it happens I care that it happens to often.

[harlekein]

@mw2544

they arent spawning on the tile next to you

They literally are.