The way it was set up in Vermintide 1 was fine. I’d guess that it was removed either because FatShark didn’t prioritize it, or they’re blindly following the general industry trend of removing anything that might possibly lead to hurt feelings. Sure, Fatshark, I’m sure some people got kicked for not having a potion-share trinket in Vermintide 1, but the industry REALLY needs to deciding which features to add or cut on whether or not it will hurt someone’s feelings.
Feelings will always be at risk in any human interaction. I’ve had a person try to get me kicked out of Church because I kept my mouth shut and wouldn’t respond to them when they were acting crazy and aggressive, my silence really hurt their feelings. I’ve had a person try to get me kicked out of school because I wrote a single extra page for a paper when there was no other way for me to express my thoughts. People will take offense at anything, and you can’t make rules trying to protect them from specific things, as they will just find something else to be offended by, it is an essential part of the human psyche.
By sacrificing real functionality to prevent hurt feelings, you make your game harder for your players to enjoy, and you don’t prevent the hurt feelings. Because people want to be offended by something and they will look for the bad and find it wherever they look. The internet is a great example of this, no matter how well a forum is moderated, people will still argue against things you didn’t even say, just stuff they imagined you said because they want to be offended and feel powerfully self-righteous for a few moments.
Destiny 2 cut out CLAN CHAT from their game. They still had clans, but no way to communicate with your clan members unless you friended each one and sent each of them messages or used a third party voice program. The designer said they took out everything but fireteam chat because they didn’t want any hurt feelings. And the result is that there’s no social aspect to the game. Clans are meaningless apart from the rewards they give to drops, and they lack that great feeling of being part of a big something that has added so much to so many great classic online games. All the awesomeness of being in a clan was flushed down the toilet so feelings wouldn’t get hurt. But sometimes getting your feelings hurt is clearly part of really feeling like you’re a part of something bigger. And people have already started writing Destiny 2’s obituary.
By trying to turn all games into a padded room, you’re going to ruin so much of what makes games great, you don’t really solve the supposed problems you want to solve, and you end up with unintended consequences.
For example, now in Vermintide 2, instead of getting kicked for having a wrong trinket, I get kicked for queuing into Veteran with a level 4 player, because the teammates can’t see that this is my fourth character and it is rocking all Orange 200+ gear and my main plays legendary difficulty. I was being polite to queue into Veteran instead of Champion because talents actually matter on Champion. I get no rewards but experience and scrap from playing recruit. And on Veteran my teammates kick me and hurt my feelings.
Now: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION HERE BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT
I don’t want you to add new stuff to make it impossible or harder for them to kick me. I just want you to provide the tools like inventory inspector so that they can see that I’m not a fresh level 3, that I have good gear, and make a rational choice to give me a shot. That’s a big important meaningful difference. That’s the difference between free men and authoritarians.