[UPDATED AT 2.0.10] What is wrong with Vermintide

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Hi everyone. WoM has changed the gameplay and data (old beta section, poll, feedback section) say that the majority of players hate how current Vermintide works…

Everyone has his opinion, no doubts, but imho there has been a misunderstanding: we could consider the STAGGER as the hot theme… but it is just a little slice of the cake called “Where is my old game?”.

In my opinion the problem isn’t the harder difficoulty, but the type of difficoulty. Currently I feel that the game is unfair because too random; I feel that, regardless our skill, we can’t avoid certain hits or we can’t win certain situations.
There are some unfair/broken things that must also be fixed in Cataclysm, but the problem becomes more serious if all these factors, that I have written below, are present in Legend. Legend should be a difficoulty that let to farm the experts players also in quick play, but now you almost need a premade like you was in Cataclysm. No farming = no progression = dead game.
Let me explain it better.

  • Unpredictable damage: we can’t see or dodge certain damage. Why?

    • Gameplay itself (damage while pushing/dodging): we had dodge dance. Maybe it was a little bit too easy, but it was fun, dynamic and it needed rhythm. Now what do we have?

      • We can be hit while pushing. Simple. We push away first line enemies, but often the “second line” can just hit us;
      • With the current dodge window, how can we dodge safely? We can see first line enemies’ attacks and we can dodge them… but we can’t see the attacks from concealed enemies into hyperdensity. Other damage taken.

    • Enemies just spawn on our back and they don’t emit sound. There is little to say, we can’t do anything;

    • Unpredictable attacks: sometimes we haven’t the time to react;

    • Tracking: why must we be accurate with dodges, while enemies have a magnet? Totally unrealistic: they seem to be mounted on a pole;

    • Phantom range: some enemies hit us also without… hitting us;

    • Aggresive enemies: this is just a factor that increases the problem.

  • tHP doesn’t exist: this point is heavily linked with the previous one. We can’t dodge certain attacks and we haven’t the tHP to tank them. tHP is fundamental because “exchanged hits” is (sadly) a Vermintide 2 mechanics.

    • tHP on cleave simply doesn’t exist. We MUST NO use it, regardless build or weapon;

    • tHP on crit/headshot is too random. Before, with certain styles, it was a “winning bet”; currently it is just a risk (we choose it if we haven’t a better option);

    • tHP on stagger is strictly linked to some (few) weapons. Or we use that weapons or we don’t gain tHP;

    • tHP on kill is the only decent talent… but just good, not great. If the game spawns mainly Skaven hordes, we will not gain nothing. And we must compete against our teammates to “steal” Elites.

  • Various bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDZVHTHTWSg (thanks @LightKross)

    • Hit registration problems;

    • Bugged sound: both for Specials and for enemies that attack us from our back;

    • Enemies spawn on our back;

    • Enemies can walk through walls;

    • Enemies disappear and appear in another location;

  • Final events: in 1.6 they were a little bit easy, but now we have the opposite problem. Certain events are still balanced. But other ones are unfair. Not hard, just broken. The game vomits on us an infinite number of hordes, elites and specials (while we must complete the objective). We haven’t the space to valorize our skill; there isn’t strategy or tactics. There is just a mess where we must hope that our team “has the numbers” to do enough damage and that every teammate does perfectly his job and that we have enough luck. Still hard with a premade. Totally inconsistent in Quick Play.

    The hardest ones are:

    • Convocation of Decay;

    • The Screaming Bell;

    • Fort Brachsenbrücke;

    • Garden of Morr;

    • Engines of War (the parth with the explosive barrels);

    • The Skittergate (only when IA get crazy and it spawns only Monks);

    • Dark Omens, the worst one.

    Moreover they literally destroy the pc. I have an average pc that let me to play Vermintide at 60fps… but guys, for example during Screaming Bell event, I drop to 15fps.

  • Beastmen. Vermintide’s factions are meant to have pro and cons. While Beastmen just overshadow the other factions. Ironically, if I wanted maximize my victory chance, I should restart until I don’t see them at the start.
    Moreover they are boring to fight.

    • They are simply faster, stronger and more resistant (not thanks HP, but thanks their stagger resistance: remember that toward a staggered enemy we can do +40/60% damage)… but they are NOT less numerous;

    • they are the faction most affected by bugs (bad spawn, bugged sound, strange behavior… and the other things seen above);

    • They are a meat wall (like fighting against an horde full of maulers or beat a wall with a spoon); too much stagger resistance that means toughness and the possibility of being easily surrounded;

    • Their spears can hit us while concealed behind hyperdensity;

    • They are too quiet: they just spawn/appear on us without emitting sound;

    • Banner guys and buffed enemies can block us in a tight place;

    • They have unpredictable attacks;

    • They seem a dark blob: we can’t distinguish what the individual enemy does;

    • Archers are just boring.

---------------------------------------------------------CONCLUSION (TL;DR)----------------------------------------------------------------

As already said, the problem isn’t the grade of difficoulty, but the type. Unpredictable attacks, be hit also while pushing/dodging, inexistent tHP, final events that just vomit on us the entire world without logic, enemies spawned on our back, some old bugs, Beastmen that overshadow the other factions… all these things don’t make the game harder, but just unfair. Both Legend and Cataclysm.

And if we meet these problems also on Legend, how it happens, we have the death of the game. Legend should let expert players to farm also in quick play, otherwise there ins’t progression, and without progression we have a dead game. Currently we almost need a premade also for Legend.

An “endgame players” without a group, how should he do? Should he rush Recruit to gain the DUST?
Should he play on Champion to gain Red Items? Where the % to drop them is almost non-existent and where we find lv15-25 players that they are RIGHTLY learning the game?! BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY Champion is too boring! An expert player can’t have fun there.
Fatshark, you can’t force people to find a group a year after the release of the game… not every one can do that.

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sigh

Do I EVER feel you man…

I cant speak for anyone but myself… but I am SURE there is a LOT more of us out there who arent SAYING anything. Thanks for taking the time to post it

Id say there isnt a SINGLE THING you listed here that ISNT a problem. It ALL IS!

Q: “Where is my old game?”

A: “2.0 Ate it”

sigh

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I finally managed to played more intensively in the last few days.
I’m a “vet” of VT1 (850 hrs) and I got 500hrs here.
I’m not a top notch player at all. I could manage some Cataclysm in VT1 (I tried also DW) and I could make my way in most of the Legend runs here in VT2.
Now I had to revert to Champion to relearn the rope and, at the same time, trying to get some loot.

ATM the problem is the plethora of bugs we got.
The stagger system has been a hazard, because it’s a complete overhaul of the combat.
But without a stable and (as most as possible) bug-free build, I cannot have so much fun as before.

Also, I don’t understand why they cranked up the difficulty , upping so many parameters: the number of specials, of hordes, the chaffs’ HPs, their attack speed and reaction, etc.

Aggro change was BS before and now it’s worse. Now we also get the magnetic attack, which sometimes bypass stealth too.

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Thank you for the support.

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Totally agree.

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Because the FS followed the lowest resistance line in this matter. Instead of quality they went for quantity with more bugs.

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True, they have just ignored the feedback.

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I 100% agree with everything you said. I don’t know who they rebalanced this game for but it wasn’t me. I LOVED the combat prior to this patch. Now I can complete 1 in 10 Legend QP games… where before that was my failure rate. Combat used to be harsh but fair, and if you were very skilled you could reliably handle anything Legend threw at you, thats good gameplay. This patch is not. I’ll keep suffering to see if things change, but I’m seriously considering just taking a break for a month and hoping they swallow their pride and give us Temp Health, Cleave, and Dodge back.

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Very well said. Sad isnt it? We love this game and lately, things have gotten a LOT worse

Seems all we can do is post our thoughts about it. Thanks for the post

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Totally true.

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So I’ve played maybe 50+ games since the patch and overall the experience has been simply bad. I have never refunded a game purchased before but this sort of nonsense is effectively getting close to where I am actually considering a refund which would be a first. Thoughts on the issues as follows:

Beastmen:

This faction is ridiculously overpowered to the point where it makes the game simply boring.

  1. toughness: the mobs are far more tanky than anything else in the game, effectively taking 1.5-2x the damage of a marauder before going down. They resist stagger to the point where they can swing at you while being hit, or while they’re knocked down. Bug or not, I have no idea but a forum search has yielded a bug report of this nature which seemingly hasn’t been fixed.

  2. phantom mobs: often times as a group when holding a choke point, mobs appear behind or to the side of you even when the group is closely together and killing everything in the chokepoint - seemingly, dead creatures are effectively getting back up or they are spawning behind or beside you and attacking without the player’s knowledge. This is the primary cause of the damage I’ve been taking which is simply unavoidable - something which is dead should stay dead. Another possibility is that as the mobs are so dark there’s no blood on them to indicate they are dead and as such they might even be passed over allowing them to run past the players and behind.

  3. range: beastmen attack range effectively outranges or matches halbard range. Their attacks also track the player through a dodge at times making damage unavoidable. Against chaos or skaven hordes, 4 players working together at a choke point should be able to destroy a horde without taking damage - against beastmen, damage is unavoidable due to their attack range which surpasses the attacks non 2h reach weapons.

  4. banners: These things are ludicrous the way they are. A banner patrol comes up, the patrol rhshes you then the banner is planted making the horde effectively invincible unless there’s a) FK charge to destroy the banner, b) HM dash, c) shade stealth - and the banner is in line of sight over flat ground. Without these conditions, a banner patrol is usually a wipe as the stat buff applied is insurmoutable (for example, gors being able to take 2+ headshot power attacks and not die due to a banner). Then there’s the issue of two back to back banner patrols planting two banners - this is effectively a guaranteed wipe.

  5. armored gors: the charge sending you flying and piercing block is ridiculous. This is effectively giving a semi elite mob the ability of a storm fiend - which was the only other creature that could send you flying through block. Having a few of these in succession and you’re guaranteed to have the team end up everywhere - of course then a horde follows.

  6. archers: They. Stagger. So effectively these are slave rat level mobs being able to stagger, at range, through hordes. what the hell?

Combat/Ai director:

The changes made to combat and the AI director have basically changed the game and made it artificially more difficult than it should be. Players who had mastered the old combat mechanics now have to deal with effectively a new game. As someone who has 1400 hours in the game, that’s not amusing.

  1. Dodge nerf; this was what allowed for recoveries so that players could kite effectively and have others revive or do the reviving themselves. This nerf effectively guarantees wipes that were salvagable before. Achieves nothing but makes it frustrating to players who might have otherwise completed a level but instead have to fail.

  2. increased special spawns: I wasn’t aware the idea of vermintide was to have the players deal with specials every 30 seconds. I’ve had games (notably in athel loren) where throughout the entire game there were specials active all over the map.

  3. end level spawns: On maps like righteous stand, masses of CW now spawn in the end, while I can understand this as being part of the achievement design (that says kill CW with the sigmar effect), dropping them throughout the stage is overkill; especially given there’s no corner to hold anymore either.

  4. legend vs cataclysm: legend should never have been touched given a new difficulty was released. Effectively legend would have become what champion to legend was before. Those who wanted a more difficult game could have moved to cata, those who didn’t want to could have stayed on legend.

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Great video. It shows perfectly what I have written.

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Totally agree.

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Agree with you for the majority of subjects. Me (900+ hrs) and my “Steam friends” could play Legend easily and with the better players could handle almost every deed on Legend.

Although I do think some of the problems you can counter with a good team.

Density for example can be avoided by good positioning and many times retreat to an area were you have more space.
But the problem is that you need a great team with voice communication. So Legend QP is no fun at all with randoms anymore. You fail 95/100 times. IMO this high density should only be in Cataclysm difficulty, not in Legend.

Then again, positioning is many times not possible when you want all books. You need to get in tricky spots very often and get overrun easily. Or you need to wait for a horde every time, defeat them and get a book. That way you know you have some time but is boring to play for many I think. Many people still go for the books alone and get in trouble quick (still talking Legend diff.).

Well then, why not play Champion?
We started playing Omen on Legend to get the weapons and look what the map is like. Well… we got to know the new difficulty very quickly :wink: . Tried a few more times and gave up on Legend. Tried other maps and we also got REKT! We just won our first Legend yesterday with only 1 or 2 Tomes and a Grim.
Then we played Champion difficulty and we could speed-run it to the end except for 1 or 2 hordes. Yesterday I checked halfway a map if we didn’t choose Recruit difficulty by mistake… and it was the new map Omen also!
The difficulty gap between Champ and Legend is huge and just plain stupid…

So if we want better loot we need to run boring Champ missions or have some challenging game play on Legend with many losses, and if we win we have poor loot.

This needs to be addressed soon because nobody wants to do this. I mean if you are a good player but not the best like me and my friends, you will have this huge difficulty gap. Maybe others don’t I don’t know. And I think many players fall in this category which this game will loose if Fatshark won’t fix this quick IMO.

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Not always. When spawn in your back, 10 beastman, from nowhere and without sound, you can’t do nothing. For me, that is the big problem. I feel the game more and more random.

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I’ve made a few observations and come to a few realizations about all of this. I play with mostly pre-made groups that are champion-level players and QP legend (mostly on my own in solo queue).

First the observations:

  1. Champion and Legend, on average, feel about 35% harder across the board for all the reasons listed in the OP (dodge nerf, stagger needs, special/elite spawn rate, horde densities, beastmen, and bugs).

  2. This difficulty can spike up to 50% or more harder as a consequence of AI director and the finale/terror events on certain maps. When you have a horde and then get multiple waves of 2-3 disablers or ranged specials all top of it all, it can be a real challenge.

  3. Wipes tend to occur in the following situations: Either horde + too many specials (warp throwers are an enormous threat now, as are double blightstormers) OR it’s beastmen horde meatwall + unlucky positioning. Sometimes you get pressed into a corner, and with the new dodge mechanics you simply can’t escape. If your team is split in anyway the “trapped” people will get pressed in by the beastmen and killed.

Now for the realizations:

  1. I’m not inherently opposed to this increase in difficulty. However I think it could be toned down, and I’d be supportive of that. But it being harder isn’t a bad thing, on one hand - as it does shake up the gameplay and add to tension.

  2. On the other hand, I’m finding it really, really hard as a mid-level legend player to farm full book runs on legend. Getting Reds for me (only about 1/3 of my weapons on all characters are reds) is a big play driver, as it is for I’m guessing the majority of players in the 50-400 hours of playtime range (i.e. most of the player base) - and that has been put further out of reach.

  • Before, I feel like almost any competent FPS player could work up to doing legend runs, even if still playing on a “casual” basis, and have a shot at getting reds and better loot. Now, it is significantly harder, and it’s going turn players away.
  1. Fatshark needs to get the bugs and broken mechanics sorted out ASAP, and then fine-tune the difficulty better. They reason for these changes was to give them more levers to adjust the difficulty. Well, they need to start using these levers now.

Finally, I’d like to suggest some tweaks:

  • Increase the dodge window slightly (not as high as pre-WoM), but more than it is now. Somewhere in the middle would be great (most people agree it was a little too easy to spam before)

  • Put the stagger resist back to the 2.0.3 levels (or somewhere in between those and 2.0.5 which increased them again). This will help dramatically with hyperdense hordes not getting staggered enough and taking phantom hits. Keep the stagger threshhold changes.

  • Turn down the numbers of ranged/disabler specials that spawn during hordes.

  • Increase THP generation. I’m fine with a middle ground between where it was and where it is now. But right now it’s just ridiculously low AND inconsistent feeling.

  • Adjust beastmen difficulty slighty. I like that they feel very different to fight against. Maybe all they need is just a slight reduction in their “numbers” during horde events. And make it so they can’t shoot arrows through their own units.

If the above was done, we’d have a game that was closer to pre-WoM while still carving out a role for stagger-based weapons. The gameplay would be a little less rigid (more dynamic). For people craving more challenge, what’s what deeds, twitch, cataclysm, modded realm are for. For the rest of us, we’d be back closer to the game we all know and love(d).

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I totally agree, anyway:

Also because on Champion you can’t farm.

Imho the problem isn’t be able to win or not, but the type of difficoulty. I could also win easily, but some things will remain unfair!

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True.

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Nice suggestion.