I would like to play more Weaves but there are currently a few small issues which keep me from doing so. Not sure exactly what Fatshark’s stance is on the Weaves but if we take Lohner’s comment from “A Quiet Spell” as metareference:
"Olesya’s still not happy about the state of the Weaves, but having only five operatives and a wealth of horrors to tackle means something’s always going to fall by the wayside. "
then they are at least aware of the general issue (not that it would be hard to notice). Considering the long runtime of Season 4, they are probably weighting two scenarios: dropping support for the Weaves completely or tackling at least some especially low hanging fruits.
In general I agree with you that there are indeed some low hanging fruits which they should be able to tackle with minimal effort all targetting the peripherie of the Weaves and not the actual maps themselves. Although I have a different focus than you, namely Ranked Weaves. But I can include some of your points in my list:
- Allow Quickplay Weaves to be played alone as well as in team. There is very few reasons against such an option. If there are people who despise the presence of other humans and prefer the glory of bots, they should be allowed to play this way.
- Timer for Quickplay Weaves should not be removed completely but should rather become an option as well. So people can chose to play with timer or not. If people chose the timer for Quickplay Weaves then they will get a bonus on the Loot Chest at the end.
- With the Timer as a modifier it would already be a potential improvement for the rewards, additional granting loot dices from monsters (one of the Weaves staple) the reward should be sufficient.
So now to the stuff which would be more interesting for me which would be better accessibility to the Ranked Weaves:
- Add a modifier to allow joining during a Ranked Weave (like it was possible in Season 1). Because right now the most annoying part for playing Ranked Weaves without pre-made team (which not everyone wants to) is waiting in the Weave lobby hoping that randomly other people appear missing exactly this Weave while being invisible as soon as you start. Using the modifier will disable leaderboards.
- Add a modifier to allow playing without or at least increased timer. This would allow different strategies than just cheese and dps. Using the modifier will disable leaderboards.
- Add a modifier to play Ranked Weaves Singleplayer WITHOUT disablers. This alone would give Ranked Weaves a niche as single player content. I know that this would make it far easier but tackling high Ranked Weaves alone is difficult enough. Using the modifier will disable leaderboards.
- Allow joining Weaves ± 10 (or 20) from your current highest Ranked Weave so that you are not stuck on waiting for more people on that one specific Weave (which may either be annoyingly hard or regularly crash).
All of these changes would significantly improve the progression through the Ranked Weaves at the cost of leaderboards. Those caring for leaderboards can still play the intended way. But as leaderboards currently have no reward attached to them they are kinda superfluous. Yes, Frames would be easier to get as well but nobody should be stuck up enough to care for people getting some frames a tad easier then the current iteration of the Weaves allows.
In addition to the changes in accessibility there are one or two other low hanging fruits which should be tackled.
- Switch Season 1 and general Okri’s quests. The current order is inconsistence and the Season 1 challenges make much better general challenges. Yes, the chance to get the purple frame will vanish but once again nobody should be stuck up enough to care for not getting a frame unless it is tied to Steam Achievements.
- I would also like to call attention on an issue which plagues Chaos Wastes equally: Weekly Quests and Longterm Okri’s Challenges - Change needed - Vermintide 2 / Vermintide 2 - Feedback - Fatshark Forums (fatsharkgames.com). The far lower compability of quests and challenges with the Weave game mode in comparison to the vanilla mode. Let Weaves count for the 100 Champion games as they are shorter but harder in general. Add some critters to the maps. Add one single Art and Tome spawn in the level-end-arenas. Let monsters drop loot dices. All just minimal changes which would increase the compability to quests and challenges. Right now if people have minimal time and care for quests (and probably they shouldn’t) they will never touch Weaves or Chaos Wastes because they can’t complete all Weekly Quests in these modes.
I have obviously no idea about programming but I would consider all the suggestions in this post as low hanging fruit which only need minimal amount of effort. The most work i would consider for the “no disabler” modifier and of course the Q&A for bug searching and smashing. I have left out suggestions for larger changes but there are ideas as well concerning leaderboards, rewards and Weaves presentation. But for now we should concentrated on the low hanging fruits.