Wouldn’t a solution be to integrate Cata+ and DWONS and modded difficulties into the official realm ?
I agree that this doesn’t fix the very real powercreep problem, as adding bigger numbers is not a solution, but if we can agree that Cata is the new Champ and Cata 3 is the new Cata, and just overall flatten the curve ( 
), we can get the learning curve back.
Problem with that is that ye olde DWONS’ challenge level does go down as overall character power level goes up, and this is detrimental to the handful of players who do play at this level. I am not one of them, but I do sympathize.
I think the solutions lie in reworks :
- Rework some mechanics like adding a cap to damage a boss can take in a certain amount of time, without removing the boss killer career’s niches. I do think that the way BH works is OK, as he needs some skill to headshot and a Concoction to optimally stunlock a boss ; the fact that a Chaos Spawn is more challenging than Skarrik isn’t. I might be linking this all over the place but this is the kind of rework I have in mind. Nurgloth is definitely a step in the right direction, though I would have implemented phase 2 (or 3 if you consider 1 and 2 to be different) a bit differently.
- There already are softcaps in the game, as in you cannot stack more than 10% attack speed without resorting to talents ; and in this way I think FS did a nice job. Swift slaying is still overwhelmingly proeminent on offensive weapons but I think it is from a lack of offensive traits for melee weapons - it is the only one in fact.
- Tone down some weapon numbers : I know the mentality of releasing OP premium content to have it sell is quite tempting in the industry (looking at a game like League of Legends where champions are overtuned the first 2 weeks and then nerfed to a ‘balanced’ state) ; but I do not think this applies to Vermintide. This is a coop game, not a competitive elo-farming game, and as such I do not feel the need to get green circles. I doubt many players do. I play whatever looks or feels nice, and I play to have fun ; and my idea of fun is not to steamroll on a map nor to follow a player who is. The challenge of this game is the reason I play it, and knowing when I clutch a run that what I did was cool cause I couldn’t have done it some months ago feels great. That feeling fades away if I managed to clutch not because I performed well but because I am abusing Most Efficient Tactics Available builds.
I’m not saying meta builds are a substitute to skill, but they do lower the skill floor and it feels like cheating on an exam (on a semi-related topic, I have the same feeling about double XP weekends) : players are skipping bits of the learning curve while being carried by overly efficient ways of playing.
I might be butthurting about this, all I’m writing is my opinion.
In any game, there are bound to be more and less effective ways of playing, but I have to agree that the bottom line of this thread is this one :
Not everything has to be good (and I don’t think many things are bad), but some spikes in the power chart can be and are being abused, and I think they should be hammered down a tad.