The end all solution to Weaves

[SirKruber]

I’ve thought about this for a long time and I think I finally figured out a way to fix Weaves to where it wouldn’t be near impossible to find open games or to upset the Fatshark devs who worked so hard in hand crafting these maps.

1.) The 40 hand crafted maps and the 8 different wind modifiers can stay but having them scaled up to 160 will need to be completely removed. The way the difficulty and damage scales appears to not be fun for anyone and end game content is supposed to be fun.

2.) Ranked Weaves will be renamed to Random Weaves. So, instead of a long list of Predetermined map/wind combinations, you will get any one of the 40 maps with a random wind modifier. This would make matchmaking 100% easier as it would work similar to QuickPlay. Of course, if the host wants to keep their lobby private for solo, duo, or trio Weaves then they should still have that option especially if they are trying to get on those leaderboards.

Why?

By making Ranked Weaves completely random, it would hopefully deter certain players from cheating or “cheesing” the high end Weaves to get placed on the Leaderboards. Remember the issue from Season 1 where one person could essentially skip all the Weaves and just join a friend at Weave 160? Wouldn’t be a problem in this scenario.

3.) Quickplay Weaves would be renamed to Custom Weave Map and it would be a non-ranked Weave game mode where players can choose the map and the wind and essentially practice. Sort of like a training mode. Could also add an individual scoreboard for the player so they can see their own improvement in Weaves. This scoreboard would only show your own score and not the scores of your teammates.

4.) Difficulty - End game content in most other games means challenging and having massive replayability. There would only be 2 difficulties: Legend and Cataclysm. By only having 2 difficulties and a small map pool with randomized wind modifiers, it would hopefully increase the chances of people finding groups. It would also remove the horrendous damage scaling in higher end Weaves where everything one shots you and are then forced to cheese the game to win.

5.) In order for all of this to work, enemy spawns need to have some randomization. Fixed enemy/boss triggers can still be placed on the maps but in order for the game mode to be more enjoyable and replayable, there needs to be some degree of randomness.

6.) Place new mechanics in the game like flipping a lever to release a random Lord boss to fight for extra essence and points for scoring. These would be optional objectives that are not required but will give a boost to you and your teammate’s overall score.

7.) Since these Weaves would be completely randomized in Ranked, there will not be a set number you need to complete. Each Random Weave would give you a score and you can continue to complete more Random Weaves to add to your score. Replayability.

8.) Leaderboards - reset instead of frozen due to scores being additive

9.) Seasons - 6 week long intervals. Since Random Weaves would be completely randomized, there is no need for shuffling them every season. Since there is no outrageous damage scaling due to increase Weave numbers, no need for constant rebalancing. All Fatshark would have to do is stop the leaderboards to give out rewards then reset and restart for the next Season.

10.) Rewards - End of Weave rewards are as follows:
Legend: 5 red dust / 1 random legend vault
Cataclysm: 10 red dust / 2 random legend vaults

There should be leaderboard rewards but since I don’t care about leaderboards, please comment with what you would like to see as rewards.

I just want this game mode to come alive with people who want to play it. As of right now, the majority of players do not want to play Weaves and the people who do play Weaves do not replay them after they get “finished” with them.

What good is end game content if people don’t play or replay it?

[BizarreSalp]

This is the best idea for Weaves I’ve heard in a long time. And you know what? I’d try this mode again if this was implemented - with one caveat.

Remove the timer, completely. I hate timers in video games. I can see time-based events being things, that makes sense. Like the timed barrels from VT1’s DLC map Khazid Kro. But not for this game mode. Instead you could just make it that after x amount of time you get a negative modifier to your score to encourage players to be faster if they want to compete.

As for rewards, yours might be excessively generous given Fatshark’s policy with making reds incredibly hard to get. But 1 red dust would still be a fantastic reward.

Good post.

[SirKruber]

@BizarreSalp

Remove the timer, completely.

I forgot to mention that but, yes, the timer would have no use in Weaves if the scores were additive.

@BizarreSalp

As for rewards, yours might be excessively generous given Fatshark’s policy with making reds incredibly hard to get. But 1 red dust would still be a fantastic reward.

It was just an idea. Red dust would be fine. The major problem with Weaves is too many maps across too many difficulties making it near impossible to find groups to play with plus the fact that the damage scaling turns most people off from it. I haven’t found 1 single person who enjoys the huge damage multiplier in high end Weaves nor anyone who continues to replay them after they finish them.

If Fatshark wants this game to have replayability then they need to make drastic changes. Plus, by removing the damage scaling, Weaves could be continued to be played long after Fatshark stops supporting the game. Leaderboards would be pointless of course but the game mode would still be open with far less maps and easier matchmaking.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thread. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time trying to figure out how to make Weaves more available and less frustrating.

[Romucha]

Well, while most of ideas are good and reasonable, there are some questionable decisions.
Fisrt, renaming Ranked and Quickplay Weaves seems unnecessary.
Second, randomness in Weaves kills the entire competitive aspect (aka groups of people do the same thing to figure out who’s better), makes leaderboard existence pointless and brings “Weave fishing”, described here by a developer.
Here’s the part describing Weaves:

@fs-bigras

Weaves

• People have been asking for more ways to play the game, we wanted to bring a new game mode to life. We believe that Weaves, with difficulty scaling, a shorter in play time mode will push you to try new weapons, careers and tune your gear differently, and then keep tweaking your kit depending on the weave you are trying to beat.
• Each weave is curated, meaning all elements within them that would normally be random in the base game are no longer. This causes the weave game mode to feel like more of a puzzle the higher difficulty you reach, making you question “what should we do and how should we do it in order to solve this?”.
• Weaves are unlocked sequentially, completing a weave unlocks the tier above it. The intention then is to make each Weave progressively more difficult to a point where even our most stalwart players can not complete them. The endless challenge provided by the weaves comes from this scaling difficulty. Towards the top end of the leaderboard we fully expect players to be learning every detail of a weave to be able to complete it, and in doing so move onto the next challenge presented to them.
• The decision to make weaves as handcrafted challenges opposed to making them randomized, like Diablo 3 rifts, for example, is very deliberate. While the truly randomized Weaves would work up to a point, there are a few reasons we decided to go down a different path. The combinations are limited, and if you play long enough you start identifying good and bad Weaves when you step foot in them. This leads to so-called “Weave fishing”, where you load into Weave after Weave, ditching any that are less than the perfect randomized value. We wanted to avoid a player experience where you matchmake into a level and everyone leaves or you burn hours rerolling levels until it’s the combination you were hoping for. Which is at best tedious, and at worst is the reason you stop playing for the rest of the season.
• We wanted to move away from this and instead try and see if we could build interesting and challenging handcrafted versions of Weaves which would cater more to the fact that Vermintide 2 is a much more mastery based game. We think you could play Weaves much like you play a From Software game, where you enter blindly into a new challenge, you have no idea what’s coming at you and initially struggling at being able to respond to what the game throws at you. After you fail a couple of times you start identifying critical moments in the Weave; “I will get attacked by berserkers at this point, then a gutter runner will spawn that I have to deal with”, then the mastery aspect kicks in where you learn to deal with these different challenges one at a time until you have a 100% clear rate against this specific scenario.
• Why no random mode outside the leaderboards? It is an interesting idea we have also been talking about, we wanted to start with the static weaves see how that impacted the matchmaking experience at scale and then iterate on that design based on that information.

Will FS reject their own ideas and turn Weaves from mistake of game design into something else? I doubt that.
The end. Decent ideas, though.

[SirKruber]

@Romucha

Second, randomness in Weaves kills the entire competitive aspect

It wouldn’t as the scoring is additive based on how many successful weaves you’ve completed. The system works really well in Battlegrounds despite it being a PvP game mode but with different maps and objectives. By keeping Weaves random, it gives everyone a fair shot at ranking and not allowing people to essentially skip 159 weaves just to get on the leaderboards.

@fs-bigras

The combinations are limited, and if you play long enough you start identifying good and bad Weaves when you step foot in them. This leads to so-called “Weave fishing”, where you load into Weave after Weave, ditching any that are less than the perfect randomized value.

I don’t agree with this and think it’s absolutely bonkers.

First, choices would not be that limited. You have 40 maps with 8 different possible winds.

Second, it would take a long time to “fish” for a particular Weave meaning that if other people are playing at the same time as you then their score will get higher while you’re stuck looking for an easier Weave. Which is why completing each Weave gives an additive score.

Finally, there could be a penalty in leaving Weave missions as there is in Battlegrounds. This would eliminate the so-called “fishing.”

Fatshark did say this though:

@fs-bigras

~… we wanted to start with the static weaves see how that impacted the matchmaking experience at scale and then iterate on that design based on that information.

The current matchmaking for Weaves is non-existent. You have a gazillion maps across 5 different difficulties with only 3k total players at any given time.

I think it’s a great time for Fatshark to revisit Weaves before it loses complete support or Weaves would be even more dead than it is now.

[Sevensreturn]

Why are we still trying to save weaves? If introducing RNG elements and increasing replay value is the goal, why aren’t we just taking winds and event mods and fixing Deeds finally? Weaves are DLC gated, tied to non RNG and leaderboards, tied to a progression system that doesn’t translate to the rest of the base game that everyone is actually invested in.

Why is the answer to make a bad game mode mediocre instead of make a good game mode amazing? And I’m not trying to just negate any issues weaves have, but its been exactly what I said back in the beta. If weaves are bad they become a dev sink to try and get this thing to work, other things that already need work go longer without it. And here we are.

As long as there’s a leaderboard, cheating will still be a thing, and if you add RNG at the very least its gonna be about spawn rolling. Some winds are going to be more preferable to others and some spawns are going to be better. To the point of groups possibly just ditching a run on spawn because it wasn’t “the good one”.

On an actual proactive note. Winds are fun beyond just their means as challenge. Even if ranked weaves are going to be gated to legend and cata, QP weaves should be open to all difficulties so newer and less experienced players can enjoy them (as well as get value out of them since they have to be paid for).

[SirKruber]

@Sevensreturn

To the point of groups possibly just ditching a run on spawn because it wasn’t “the good one”.

@SirKruber

Second, it would take a long time to “fish” for a particular Weave meaning that if other people are playing at the same time as you then their score will get higher while you’re stuck looking for an easier Weave. Which is why completing each Weave gives an additive score.

@SirKruber

Finally, there could be a penalty in leaving Weave missions as there is in Battlegrounds. This would eliminate the so-called “fishing.”

^^^^

@Sevensreturn

QP weaves should be open to all difficulties so newer and less experienced players can enjoy them (as well as get value out of them since they have to be paid for)

@SirKruber

3.) Quickplay Weaves would be renamed to Custom Weave Map and it would be a non-ranked Weave game mode where players can choose the map and the wind and essentially practice. Sort of like a training mode. Could also add an individual scoreboard for the player so they can see their own improvement in Weaves. This scoreboard would only show your own score and not the scores of your teammates.

Because it’s end game content. Less difficulties means less games equals faster and easier matchmaking. Besides, Legend isn’t that hard when you’re fully leveled. The Athanor and Essence can remain the same for easier leveling and build making.

We just don’t have the player base for 5 difficulties and 160 different map combinations. It needs to be a smaller pool for matchmaking purposes.

[BizarreSalp]

Really, it looks like the current iteration of Weaves fails on nearly every aspect that Fatshark aimed for;

@fs-bigras

People have been asking for more ways to play the game

. . . did they? They may have access to more information, but most requests I’ve seen are for more core content like maps.

@fs-bigras

will push you to try new weapons, careers and tune your gear differently

The mode as it is punishes you heavily if you want to do this.

@fs-bigras

This causes the weave game mode to feel like more of a puzzle

People have already solved the puzzle, which is to pretty much use the same strategy for every weave and cheese it. And the timer means you can’t really experiment a lot in a run unless you just want to give that run up for lost.

@fs-bigras

“Weave fishing”

I feel like that would actually be preferrable to “almost no one playing Weaves”. As it is, Weaves are already tedious and people stopped playing them entirely as a result of how they came out.

@fs-bigras

After you fail a couple of times you start identifying critical moments in the Weave

This almost worked, except this didn’t work out like a From Software game. As it is, again - there’s kind of “one-size fits all” strategies and exploits that mean you just run that with minor variations until you win.

Randomized weaves seem something they acknowledge, and if they do want this game mode to be more than a waste (and maybe even redeem what is considered the worst DLC) slightly they may want to do this. It currently IS a dev time sink, as they shake it up every season, which has to take at least some time. Implementing what the OP says would mean they could actually utilize those resources elsewhere.

But I do agree with @Romucha that it’s unlikely Fatshark will implement these changes. They seem to have a vision of what they want this mode to be, even if most players don’t share it.

[Incandescent]

@BizarreSalp

They seem to have a vision of what they want this mode to be, even if most players don’t share it.

honestly I think it’s more that they just don’t even care to spend further resources on it…unless they can find a way to re-monetize it perhaps

[SirKruber]

@BizarreSalp

there’s kind of “one-size fits all” strategies and exploits that mean you just run that with minor variations until you win.

It also doesn’t apply at all once you reach the threshold of getting one-shotted by everything because of the ridiculous damage scaling in the upper weaves. Just watching videos of it makes me cringe like why?

I just feel like it was mimicked after Diablo’s Rifts just as a cash grab not realizing there’s not a lot of kids playing Vermintide. It’s a popular game mode for the young adolescents the same way Battle Royale appeals to them.

You can’t just take a game mode that’s popular and push it into a game with a completely different audience. That’s not how it works.

@Incandescent

honestly I think it’s more that they just don’t even care to spend further resources on it

True. Weaves is as dead as the Weekly Event and Heroic Deeds.

I had found 2 people to play Weaves with last season and, well, they gave up because it was a “BS mode.” Their words. They said there was too many maps, crappy matchmaking, horrible damage scaling. Fatshark did say if the mode isn’t working then they would look at it again.

Still waiting on them to say something

@Incandescent

unless they can find a way to re-monetize it perhaps

I hope not. I’ve already bought it once and it was already dead. The changes I want would keep the game mode small and easier to find matches while needing little support from devs in the future for when they decide to just focus on Darktide 24/7 which we all know is going to happen once the last career drops.

This will be my last post about fixing Weaves. If Fatshark don’t want to do anything with it at all then I’m postponing on buying Chaos Wastes because it sounds EXACTLY like Weaves but less maps. I don’t care if they don’t use any of my suggestions. I just want them to take another look at it and to try something different.

Balls in your court now, Fatshark.

[Incandescent]

yeah there’s been multiple good suggestions and valid feedback regarding weaves, deeds and weeklies but FS seems unwilling to do anything with any of it

I’d like to say they’ll look at it once they’re done with DLC but…my inner cynic says it’s all just gonna get abandoned unless the community does the hard yards for them

[Sevensreturn]

@SirKruber

I hope not. I’ve already bought it once and it was already dead.

Weaves were dead halfway through the beta. The majority of the feedback listed all sorts of suggestions (many of them involving RNG). Exactly what everyone said was going to happen did and other than a matchmaking fix and the walking back of seasonal progress reset (and gross that they thought that would be fun or acceptable).

As stated earlier the issue with fixing weaves is the same with crafting and deeds. They have a bunch of stuff that could use an update or fixing and at this point who knows when or if they’ll get around to what.

Yeah when they talked about CW it sounded like a game mode. They keep talking about how hard it is to develop for this game and difficult in asset production but they so rarely seem to focus on using what assets they already have to max potential. I’m back I’m willing to give CW a shot but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see Weaves 2.0 .

[Incandescent]

@Sevensreturn

I’m back I’m willing to give CW a shot but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see Weaves 2.0 .

this is definitely a fear most people, very understandably and justifiably, have

[SirKruber]

@Incandescent

@Sevensreturn

I’m back I’m willing to give CW a shot but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see Weaves 2.0 .

this is definitely a fear most people, very understandably and justifiably, have

If it is Weaves 2.0 then I’ll probably stop investing time into V2 and drop it for Darktide

[BizarreSalp]

If it is Weaves 2.0 I’m gonna consider really hard if I even want to buy the DLC - or Darktide. Even if they give us some cool new weapons, new modes are not what I want.

Maps! Just give us more maps, Fatshark! Or release modding tools so we can make them ourselves.

[SirKruber]

@BizarreSalp

Maps! Just give us more maps, Fatshark! Or release modding tools so we can make them ourselves.

This is what the community has been asking for since the olden days of V1 but according to FS, we’ve been asking for everything under the sun BUT new maps.

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld: WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

[Sevensreturn]

@SirKruber

If it is Weaves 2.0 then I’ll probably stop investing time into V2 and drop it for Darktide

I don’t know why you think it won’t end up the same way. If the plan is always going to be lets make new stuff and not sure up our old why would it go any better for Darktide. If the message is, we don’t know what the game fans want and rather than give them what they’re asking for we’re gonna go do this other thing instead. If they’ve tried multiple different pay models and don’t know which one works or why. What is Darktide going to look like.

Granted the best part of Vermintide is the base game so maybe you’re right.

[Sevensreturn]

@SirKruber

@BizarreSalp

Maps! Just give us more maps, Fatshark! Or release modding tools so we can make them ourselves.

This is what the community has been asking for since the olden days of V1 but according to FS, we’ve been asking for everything under the sun BUT new maps.

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld: WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

The base game sells well off of maps both times. I’m willing to believe that the monetization method of map based DLC maybe doesn’t work but maybe with the cosmetic shop they could change that. But maps so far are as far as I can tell the most popular content. How can what makes the game popular and what it is, not be what people want more of. Again I’m going to cite problems like core game infrastructure and game development direction being the problem.

This is why I point to deeds over weaves as the better end game solution. Players love the maps. BtU and the Drach maps as content updates as far as I can tell were the best content updates. It certainly wasn’t SoB (with only two maps and the color purple) or WoM (with one map and a garbage game mode). Deeds is the one that leverages the best assets of the game (the maps) and adds the ability to change the gamplay via mods. And it gets better every time new maps get added, and it utilizes the AI direction and all the game assets.

I have a really hard time believing maps aren’t the answer they’re the part of the game that’s been keeping VT running since the first game.

[SirKruber]

@Its_Havel

I’d bet they’ve been focusing on Darktide since right after V2’s launch. It’s not like the support has been anything more than mediocre and phoned in.

I’ve been wondering about this for a long time. Given the long periods of time before DLC started dropping and then slowly but surely the events started to become farther and farther apart until they just stopped.

FS claims they didn’t make any money off the map packs but if I remember correctly, I never ran into a single person in V1 who didn’t have the DLC maps. I bought every single one.

@Sevensreturn

I have a really hard time believing maps aren’t the answer they’re the part of the game that’s been keeping VT running since the first game.

Exactly. Player base always spiked once a DLC map pack released in V1 so Idky fatshark thinks they don’t bring in any money.

[BizarreSalp]

Presumably they have more intimate details of sales than we do, so we can’t prove they’re wrong. They might be right. But certainly, they don’t do much better launching random new modes that no one wants. I’d bet anything that a majority of people who bought WoM (and actually play the game) and keep it only do so because of the new weapons and Cata. Certainly very few love the quasi-faction of Beastmen or Weaves or, IMO, the worst (and ugliest) map in VT2, Dark Omens.