Agree, but they just need to gate it to level 30s. Same with the STANDARD Maelstrom. Gate it to level 30.
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Hard disagree, the only way I’d see something like an item lvl gate being sensible is if the crafting system is reworked into something that actually rewards player agency and time investment instead of being born under the right star as suggested by BFCInsomnia.
Depending on how you slice the pie, if you’re a casual player playing 2 to 4hrs per weekend you’ll be able to go in after 1 to 3 months of playing weekends (not total time). Under 100hrs of playtime at the fastest, and a little over at the slowest. I don’t see what’s so ridiculous about that when it comes to restricting access to a gamemode that was put in place to placate us sweatlords in the firs place? Actual sweatlords would be able to access the board with or below a month of playing the game too.
Of course this is assuming if we go for only games played and not successful runs I admit. That’s a spot where I’m willing to compromise, and I’m open to reducing the number too. The 100 was just a spitball suggestion.
If I had Swedish fiber or only played premades/privates I’d probably agree. But I don’t live in Sweden or play premades/privates as often as I should. Otherwise I don’t see what’s so problematic about adding measures to gatekeep through skill requirements for endgame diffs.
Firstly, I did say in my opening post that I generally don’t have a problem with babysitting bad players, it was a fact of life prior to the update. My problem is with newbies that probably didn’t even bother playing vanilla T4s and T5s before hopping on the Auric board, and just haven’t even learnt the basics or even the map layout.
I was pretty patient at first, hand walked them, and provided friendly pointers wherever I wasn’t forced to block by belligerent responses. My general thoughts on this generally aligned with most of the pushback noted so far in this thread too. At this point after nearly a month’s worth of games though? It’s getting tiring, I don’t mind putting up with bad players, at least they can block/dodge/melee, and generally keep themselves alive in 25 to 50% of all fights.
It’s folks that haven’t even bothered to learn the game before doing the equivalent of trying to solo what in this game should be treated as a raid dungeon in an MMORPG. Here I’m starting to get salty due to the sheer volume of these encounters I’ve been having since the patch dropped. I understand that Auric isn’t even, technically, that hard but this is on a whole other level other than just putting up with mediocre and incompetent players. I’m tired of acting as a glorified tutorial section NPC for folks that probably didn’t even bother paying attention to the meatgrinder tutorials. I’ll still understand that they’re people and go out of my way to carry them and show them the ropes whenever and wherever I can, but I just want to play the game man! Like let me grill, bro!!
I understand, and I don’t mean to get in the way of that. My core contention here is that we need a proper onboarding process to enable this through proper ingame systems and mechanics instead of taking the current lazy path and offloading the process on other people just trying to enjoy the endgame.
I’m tired of the current status quo being, metaphorically, letting the newbs willingly drown themselves in the deep end of the pool while dragging down and, often, also drowning anyone else swimming there at the time. I want to enjoy my time at the pool, and not be someone else’s lifeguard and swim coach.
I mean, another issue with your suggestion is just how FS impliments things, because if they add a 100 Damnation map gate, everyone will have to do that again. Not once has FS added something that accounted for retroactive gameplay. 100 games on each career in V2, yeah… prolly would of had 9 of those, but it got added in 2 years later so womp womp, now its just something im too lazy to bother with.
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Hey man, I get it. My recommendation is to find some chat group (discord or your preference) and just run with premades. But I think its unwise to over-lock the ability to ferry lower ranks into the difficulty tourism view of the upper tier of the game. I want players to come here, loose to the madness of it, and say “holy cow, people actually can play this?” for the more competitively minded (people like me) this kind of experience is exactly why I started grinding to get good enough to play damnation in the first place. I wanted to know if it was even possible. Now I’m one of those people who say its not that hard. But I remember how hard it was when I was a rookie and how exciting that was. That’s why I am opposed to additional restrictions beyond level 30.
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This. I’d wager a majority of players who only run Auric have been playing the Tide games since they started in 2015, that’s a lot of practice. Playing with newer players is really fun IMOP, exactly because they make silly mistakes, it’s like having another modifier.
However, a big issue is that material and experience rewards aren’t the same for difficulty 4 and difficulty 5, as it was in Vermintide. This incentivizes people who are still grinding to play on difficulty 5, and leads to more upset when you fail. Ideally no one would care if they died on an Auric mission.
They should boost the rewards on heresy to be the same as damnation, this naturally insulates the top difficulty so it can be balanced purely for challenge and fun, without putting arbitrary level restrictions on players. If you’re still leveling, you can play heresy and still progress just as fast as you would on damnation.
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I feel the pain, but overall disagree with gatekeeping. When you run into players that do well, send them a friend request. Next time you see them on ask them to join you, and you will build a group to have fun with. 2 good players can pull 2 randoms through auric missions, so even if you can’t get a full group going you will still be far better off.
An item level requirement is just going to make people run terribly unoptimized setups until they get to the gear they want. “Sorry I hate the chain-axe and suck with it but its the only high level item I have”
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sure agreed!
That’s the quickest way to make sure that veterans jump the ship. Like I sure as hell would not re-grind 100 games on standard damnation.
If anything needs to be done is to make sure that “faming” difficulty stays in the damnation/heresy ballpark.
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I don’t see the issue with having one set of missions with strict entry requirements. Why does the Auric board have to remain wide open, purely so that “John Darktide” can style on people with his level 24 zealot and prove himself epic and cool? How about we make use of the enormous selection of difficulties and missions, and just have a few that are specifically for people with experience at Damnation level.
John Darktide, master of Vermintide, who can play blindfolded, can still style on people in regular Damnation, I just don’t see why its so “unfair” to have one selection of missions that require you to have actually prepared for them first?
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Gatekeeping is bad and elitist. Help people get better, if only by example. Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. You (the generic You) aren’t the only person who bought this game to play, to enjoy and to get better.
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From a general game design point, you’re not wrong, and most other times I’d totally agree with this stance.
From game’s fictional perspective however, and as part of the greater franchise this game comprises, the character’s lives are fundamentally worthless, they’re labelled Rejects, their gear is scavenged from the dead on the battlefield, and the characters are repeatedly told their only hope for even the most minimal place and status in life is to push themselves to ever greater challenges against a literally insane and otherworldly foe that everyone assumes will kill them sooner rather than later. These are not Battle Sisters or Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, they’re certainly not Astartes or even just Guard regulars. The players in Atoma’s depths aren’t any different to Wagner’s convict-troopers in Bakhmut, where all types often got jumbled together and thrown into the meatgrinder in pointless and stupid ways that adhered to orders but not necessarily military reality (or where their deaths served to highlight positions that could be engaged with crew served weaponry).
Zeal is it’s own reward. Let Faith trample Reason. Lack of Faith is tantamount to Treason. Faith needs no Excuse. No man died in the Emperor’s service that died in vain. There is no greater honor than to die for the Emperor’s cause. The Imperium endures through faith and sacrifice. The game and universe slam these messages into the player at every opportunity. Zeal leading to early (and unnecessary) deaths is a cornerstone of the 40k universe, openly celebrated by the Imperial Creed as a beautiful, right, and just thing. Why would you deny your fellow Pilgrims a beautiful and righteous Death in the Emperor’s eyes?
Have you read anything I posted on here besides the title?
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There is a difference between players who lack some expirience but trying their best and complete noobs who jump on the highest difficulties.
Indeed, so it’s a pure arrogance to think that people must carry and teach you, and the problem it’s not a singular or rare cases, it’s a common thing now there 32+24 lvl party with malice frame (no, not for a fashion choice) on damnation maelstrom. I’m not even saying such people often don’t think they are doing something wrong, either way they would progress trough the game naturaly, watch or read guides/subforums/discord etc. till they will have some consistant winrate. So they don’t need your beacon light or something, lol. And there is also such thing as tunnel vision, wich will go away only after some ammount of hours.
There is just no such problem in V2, cause Cata was paywalled.
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Players who care will gather information about the game.
I simply dont see it. Players around level60 still shooting bursters next to you and when you tell them you can push it, they cant even comprehend it.
It should be gated. I am not playing to coach somebody. Probably you wont even meet them again.
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The game needs more gatekeeping.
If the gear crafting worked, an item requirement would make more sense, but going into Damnation with two base items at 200 still makes you a liability.
Also, I keep seeing people say this game isn’t difficult. I’d like to see you run damnation on console, 30 fps mode, base sensitivities, level 19 psyker as their first character with no headset in pubs. This is what someone on reddit said they are doing right now.
They can’t figure out why they keep losing. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe.
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I think the aforementioned Pilgrims would find ample challenge in regular Maeltrom and regular Damnation.
anyone who uses that mod as a justification for skill is getting downvoted, I have a +130 vet and some monkey was bitching about my 30+2 zealot despite me scraping him off the foor regularly.
If you use level as indication of ability, I do not and will not play with you period, its a sh*t metric, do better.
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its the darktide version of GS, and GS was a bad metric in wow. Example, I had a server first clear of nax x in Wrath using sunwell gear, my GS is bad, but the gear is legit better than leveling prebis, despite being a lower ivl, so using ilvl is a crap metric.
I see people using gear checkers to deterime item power and its pathitic, damnation is clearable in greens (blues) the damage difference between 60% and 80% is realisticly neglibible thats coming from someone with 530+ weapons and 150+ curios.
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You do realize that standard maelstrom reaches all the way down to Malice right? Its SUPPOSED to be accesible to non-30s so they can get a sense of just how nasty stuff can be. Without that we get even more twits who pick up all sorts of bad habits because they don’t think anything can challenge them. Then said twits jump into a Maelstrom - or even a gauntlet hersey - and not only get utterly destroyed but take the entire group down with them.
The only difficulty that needs to be locked - if any - is the auric missions. And that is most definetly not behind a gear gate or a level cap. Because lets face facts. If you get lucky with the group even Damnation can be a snoozefest. Especially now when 3/4 of the classes and so much equipment is grossly overtuned. As long as those three stick together they could leave the 4th guy dead for the entire run and complete it without sweating. I would say a literal test - as in how well someone executes the needed skills - with a group of bots might work. But that wouldn’t matter long term because we all know that 12 hours after it was put in - if not before - someone would leak a cheat sheet with all the answers and soon enough all the idiots will be able to basically copy & paste their way through. Same with any sort of minimum damnation missions/ penances/ etc. Either they will get buddies to carry them and/or give them positive votes or just keep beating their head against the wall until they fail their way in. The people who will suffer - especially in the later - are the people who could finish damnation runs but end up saddled with 1/2 or more of the group being twits who basically sabotage the run. And nothing is quite as painful as failing for the umpteenth time because you got saddled with “That idiot” yet again. Such is a VERY quick way to tank the game’s population past the “in trouble” stage right down to the “on life support” or even “to be sunset once whales milked” times. Something I don’t think most people here want. Right?
Frankly I think the only real fix would be to nuke the whole Discord bit and premades. Simply put as long as the “skilled” (and I use that term grudgingly) players keep to themselves in their gated community while hoovering up the capable fresh 30s that catch their eye, the ones who don’t get noticed are going to have a rough time finding capable people to run with. Its akin to the old EQ days when only clerics could really heal past a point. Basically finding a healer for any group could take literal hours of asking with a less than 50% chance of success because all the clerics were either already in set groups or had been vacuumed up by big guilds. It took Verant and McQuaid getting a size 60 (American) boot out the door and SOE making druids & shamans viable raid healers (and if you want to talk salty tears that single change created an ocean of them) to break that vicious little cycle.
In our case the “clerics” are the players who, theoretically atleast, have the knowledge and equipment to allow a group to go into higher difficulties and actually survive long enough to do two things. One, realize that their previous “I Me and My” playbook is utterly and competely useless when even a “normal” elite can chew their face off and hordes are not longer speed bumps that can be ignored. Two, assuming that one took, they need to basically relearn how to play the game with three other players who have different capabilities but the same goal. If, and since we’re talking people doing the less-stupid thing everything is a big if, those capable people can be dispersed among the general population of the game it might be the thing that causes it to reach a critical mass. That being a slightly better than 50/50 win/ lose rate for PUG’s at Damnation or higher. Because with more wins comes good things that encourage people to keep playing. Better gear obviously along with the plassteel to upgrade it for the useful blessings is obviously part of it. More important is players having the confidence that queing for something higher teir isn’t just asking to spend 15 minutes or more being the AI directors punching bag. That confidence in turn comes from both knowing that they have the actual ability to really contribute AND that there is a good chance that the other three players they land with do to.
Will it happen? About as likely as the Imperium adopting hate-crime laws. Gamers have a well-deserved and long-standing reputation for being self-centered jerks who love to gate keep along with a host of other unsavory habits. But hey, I can dream about a time when players actually give two kraks about more than their own egos.
I did an auric t5 today with a friend, a bot, and a 25 ogryn, sure it took
45 min but we cleared it.
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