Stop Nerfing Cataclysm

That’s an interesting theory. My theory is that people who thought Cataclysm hordes were spongey didn’t do much damage. Pre-changes, Dual Daggers was still one of the highest DPS weapons. In fact, high DPS weapons were the highest DPS weapons. It just required you to fight alongside teammates. At no point in this meta were people topping damage charts with a 2H Hammer or any such stagger weapon. Any decent team could chew through hordes. However, their stagger resistance made them much more dangerous to deal with. This means instead of just spamming light attacks, you actually had to watch enemy animations and react appropriately with dodges or blocks.

This was the official response on cataclysm, for everyone’s reference and further discussion:

Cata should be for people to play beyond the progression (as in, progression will help you reach and beat legend, but not Cata). Cata should require a well functioning team. Cata should not be something you qp into and randomly clear. Cata should be HARD but since our mastery scale is what it is it’ll probably be too easy for the ultimate top tier of players. Cata should be something a freshly progressed and legend competent player sees, tries and dies horribly in, then grinds their skill and mastery of the game until they and clear it and has that Matrix-moment when they wake up and goes “I know kung-fu”. Yes, my analogies are on point!.

Basically Cata should not be the most insane challenge ever concocted in the Vermintide experience (modded or not) but a peak challenge that require you to master the game, co-play, clutching and all.

But hey, we can totally change that.

For me, at least, randomly cleared means you can clear it with randoms, but your success isn’t random (ergo, people know what they’re doing), just to lend my perspective, and has been my experience in the cata games I’ve had so far.

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Hordes were managed just the same as on 1.6. The only difference was having to push attack constantly when fighting Beastmen because of how they behaved with Stagger.

The changes they made are more than welcome in my opinion. The vast majority of players still find straight up Legend to be hard.

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So how do you feel about the difficulty nerf? Do you think the difficulty was where it should be? My perspective on appropriate difficulty is probably skewed, so I would like to hear your opinion.

I’m unable to play until Monday so have not tried it since the nerf, so can’t say until then (played yesterday, but can’t today).

Pre-nerf I thought it felt fine, and was actually pretty pleased with Cata when it was released with a ton of shields in phase one beta. I’d had some successes with randoms pre- and post-release that were smooth as butter, and some spectacular fails with some pretty hefty pre-mades! For me, my satisfaction in Cata doesn’t necessarily come from green circles (as I get few), but from really solid front and backlining as a team! I love playing that way and it makes things feel cohesive. This is how successful cata pubs happened for me, whether we knew we were doing it or not. It just happened because it felt safer! :smiley:

That being said, I’d probably still find it difficult as I’m not the strongest player. My stance on Cata is this though:

Cata should be quite difficult for the legend competent, and I feel since the nerf, legend will not prepare people coming out of legend for cata (Cata felt more doable pre- this patch, and coming off of cata, even though I found legend harder than 1.7 legend, intuitively felt it wasn’t helping me build Cata skills). However, Cata should not be geared towards the upper echelon of players. Cata 2 and Cata 3 are now available in adventure maps in modded realm, and updating DW and ONS should be where the next progression lies.

I’ll probably have further thoughts when I get my hands on it when I’m not slammed IRL; if FS doesn’t balance it further.

FURTHER NOTES ON LEGEND PREPARING TO CATA:
My concern with the nerf stems from this: Learning to control hordes. If I can, easily, rip through hordes without control on legend, I will need to build this skill for Cata. This wasn’t something I knew about until I had people having me do holding ground exercises in modded (and was something I had to go back to after WoM as I was struggling so badly with it). Being punished for excessive back dodges was a really hard pill to swallow, but after getting over the initial salt and tears, realized I’d come out stronger for it and could see some of the change happening.

However, I realize my mindset can lean a bit “tryhardy” and understand that’s not for everyone.

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My understanding is the current changes made hordes have 2.25 stagger resist for both Legend and Cata. I think this should resolve some of those concerns. My concern is that there doesn’t seem to be enough difficulty increase between Cata and Legend.

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Event wise, or intensity wise? Friends have mentioned event special spam feels Onslaught-y (like Fort), but horde frequency needs tweaks. Knowing your skill level, what do you feel would be an appropriate middle ground to appease say, a player capable of what you’re capable of, and a causal weekend player of some skill level?

I think the changes to hordes was a step in the right direction. It was far to grindy before for my liking. Everyone is going to have different opinions, but nearly all feedback since the first closed beta until now has shown that people are pretty negative to the combat changes. Putting the hordes back to 1.6 might help with that. Just have to wait and see. I’ve done a few games now, Cata and Legend. It’s still way harder than the pre WoM version. With nearly a 50% QP win rate for me in Legend.

I couldn’t disagree more. Don’t gors do 75 damage on Cata. That’s a 1 shot most of the time XD Also, elites only stagger on crits or headshots now. Besides big boy stagger weapons. Have you actually tested it yet? The new patch that is.

Also, I don’t get the Onslaught references. I was able to duo Onslaught or even run it with bots in 1.6. Meanwhile parties are wiping on vanilla legend in WoM.

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I’d imagine Onslaught is being brought up due to the fact that it amps up pretty much everything (particularly horde frequency—and is why I brought it up). Between Cata and Onslaught, I still think Onslaught is far more exciting.

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I think something that doesn’t get brought up a lot (and is relevant to challenge) is just the general tweaking of enemies that has made them more aggressive. I feel like that’s the main source of damage I take from hordes anymore, and perhaps also why backstab audio cues are messed up (often seems to play just as enemies hit me instead of just before).

Many of us have spent a buttload of hours getting used to specific timings; I know that I often would find myself putting my back to an enemy because I had a good idea of how long it would take that enemy to react and start an attack, and I’d have time to react. Now, they react faster, and so too do horde enemies around you, so when you push enemies on the left side, enemies of the right are preparing an attack faster than we’re expecting, and fast enough punish you for being sloppy.

Personally, I think it’s great. I feel like this, more than anything else, is making things more dangerous.

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I have to agree with this.
Cataclysme needs to be the over the top difficulty.

I’m not saying it’s too easy now, or that I don’t have any difficulty, far from that.
But it’s less fun.
Hordes are significantly nerfed and feel almost like ine Legend.
You just need to spam clic like crazy = win
Before that you could not spam a smuch, needed to push, to parry more, watch at the ennemies, a mix of that depending of the situations.
Now it’s just brainless with no skill, and a bit boring when it’s only about the hordes.

It’s still hard with random players, but cata is not intense 100% of the time now.
My games yesterday were completely different, we died most of the time, but loved it.
Now we do better, and yet, it’s not as enjoyable and does not feel as rewarding.

I’m pretty sure a full optimized team of skilled players can now steam roll maps if luck i also on their side.

People complaining about the combat changes will never play cata anyway, evne made easier.
New Legend was alwready too hard for them.

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I think legend is fine where it is or possibly could be nerfed a bit. Cata elites aren’t particularly challenging because they are still super easy to dodge. The difficulty in Cata really comes from those beefy hordes that spawn with monsters and/or multiple disablers.

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Hmm. I don’t even think it’s necessarily about appeasing me or other players of similar or higher skill level. In general, I would just like to see players improving their own skill level instead of fatshark reducing the difficulty to meet existing skill levels. Especially because they haven’t even given people time to adjust to new mechanics before they decided it was too hard for the community. I’ve been playing with a group of about 15-20 different people, and watching how much we’ve all improved since the “beta” was released makes me think that cataclysm really won’t be considered difficult within a month or two. Nerfing Cataclysm to the point where casual “weekend players with some skill” can enjoy it right now will quickly lead to a situation where it’s as easy as legend was before WoM.

Every cataclysm game should always cause this reaction :

:smile:

Well that’s the thing, and had a discussion in discord about this this afternoon.

Disclaimer: I dislike live realm with a certain amount of passion and am never happy playing live, even with Cata. As such, I tend to be motivated by goal setting versus loot, which leads to the point below.

Many people don’t see Cata “for the personal development challenge”, whether that’s disappointment due to lack of loot or due to the fact they can’t complete it. They just don’t buy that that’s the case for Cata and what it was made for.

Mostly, however, the game mechanics and talents have changed, and for those with many hours, that’s a very harsh and upsetting learning curve. Humans—or every living creature, even—don’t like change from their daily routine. Hell, for the first week, I was telling a friend, “I’m sorry, I hate it all,” even though I played 80+ hours of beta.

For many, games are a power fantasy and way to unwind. It’d be interesting to see how many of the community fall into one mindset or another. In addition, I’d estimate most players play “casually” and it is, in a way, up to Fatsahrk to appease them as despite entertainment, games are still a form of business and need to turn a profit. No one likes being told to step down a level to something they previously found easy.

It’s very much a double edged sword, and is why I usually suggest middle grounds as there’s no appeasing everyone. The best that can happen is somehow marry these two player bases, at least for live realm.

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Sooo…it’s still pretty damn hard then?

You literally just said that a skilled team of players with good communication needs some luck in order to make it really easy.

And yet at the same time you claim it should be harder. Lol what?

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Indeed xD I’ve been at it all night. Found a good QP group and they all stuck around for nearly 8-10 games or so. One person swapping out here and there. We managed 1 clear and 4 close tries. As in very close tries, Last pillar on Convocation of Decay and got unlucky with specials. The other 5 runs were just brutal wipes. Everything seemed to be going ok, dropped down a ledge, horde spawns, 12 SV and Bannerman with his crew show up and all agro on 1 person. Just ruin his day :joy:

One of the matches had 7 banner boys show up in the span of 3 mins. We literally couldn’t push forward. We had to time it with our shouts to make a path and destroy the banner. HM was dead… We were even getting 2 banners and I think at one point I’m sure we had 3 banners down at the same time. Or it was 2 and just as we got 1, another dropped. It’s really crap when that happens in tight hallways where you’re pretty much just forced into a battle of attrition.

So yea, I’d say Cata is still plenty hard enough.

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KF2 and L4D2 are horrible comparisons to this game. Both games are progression based in their level and difficulty design, and both games are mostly balanced and designed around single target ranged weapons. L4D2 has no concept of roles either, as there are no careers, classes, talents, weapon sets, or really any distinguishing features at all between which character you play as game to game. That being said, prior to this nerf, it was still more than possible for a single player to dispatch entire hordes by themselves on cataclysm. But it required positioning, knowledge of movement and enemy behavior, and an optimized loadout of weapons, talents, and stats. Anything less than that, and you are going to struggle, which is the point of the hardest difficulty in the game.

As far as the rest of your statement… If you dont know how to dodge and deal damage efficiently, you shouldnt even be playing Legend, let alone Cataclysm. Id rather have teammates that competed for the green circles on least damage taken, and who didn’t die and rarely went down, than anything else.

You know that RNG can sometimes troll any game. :slight_smile:

Well after some experimentation on Cata it feels way different and significantly easier. I cannot say i am a fan of this. Cata should be very challenging! I understand legend being toned down and i enjoy that and it makes sense for the average player. Cata is not for the average player and should not be balanced as such.