Weapon and new class discussion

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Hello all. I recently returned to Vermintide 2 after seeing the DLC for it. I played for awhile. While I do appreciate some of the changes, I still think Fatshark could do better. I shared my thoughts with Twitch Streamers, and the Discord. I think it has been discussed enough to give a start towards new content and changes (in the future)

I will first get you caught up. A lot of people (both in the Twitch community, and in the reviews) feel that 2 maps and cosmetics was not enough to make a DLC. People wanted actual new weapons, and a class. Personally me, I want a change to the existing weapons, and classes. I believe both can be accomplished though

One of the problems with weapons right now, is a lack of Armor Piercing weapons for the melee side. I am aware that you can Power Strike but, there are times when you do not have the room to do so. Also classes like Mercenary are not at 100% efficiency. It was designed with Horde clearing in mind but, all it takes is 1 shield, or 1 armored unit to interrupt you in a Horde. You have to stop what you are doing, and try to hit said enemy in the head or power strike it

My suggestion is change the mechanics to armor both for weapons and classes. Let us say in this example that a Chaos Warrior has an Armor Rating of 8. The Kruber Warhammer could have an Armor Piercing value of 10. This means the weapon will pierce, and do bonus damage versus armor. That is just an example. Of course other weapons would get a value

The current Armor Piercing tag could be removed for Damage over Time or something. The Armor Piercing Value will be displayed in the weapon pop up panel thing

As for the classes, I think they could receive an Armor Rating system. It would have to work differently than the enemies for balance purposes. It seems like at times that everyone takes equal damage (assuming same damage resistance). I would like to see a difference in classes

Example: Foot Knight can get an Armor Rating of 8, and Iron Breaker 10. This means before damage resistance is applied, Foot Knight can shrug off quite a bit of damage from melee weapons. This does not apply to Gunners or anything else. Damage Resistance would apply after the Armor is calculated

This would make classes feel like they have more of a purpose, and give them a unique place in the game

Now that I have explained that mess, I can move on to talking about the New Class. People wanted a new Caster. I think the game has the room for a Support class. So I decided to merge the two. I looked in to Warhammer lore, and found the Grail Knight of Bretonia. Kruber is of the Empire so it would add a new “faction” to the game

Grail Knight would be the starting Class. I am not sure on all Talents yet but, I worked out the Passives. I think the game could use a Class Capable of Sustained Damage. Shade is Great for dropping Bosses but, it does require you being behind the enemy. The Grail Knight will be the opposite of the Shade. It will do High Damage face to face

For the Passive Ability, it will get “In Service of the Lady” the Grail Knight will self ressurect as long as as allies are alive. Meaning you don’t have to rescue him. He will appear near an Ally. Revive time will be much longer than normal though. For the Career Skill, it will be “Valor”. Valor grants +20% Power to you. you can’t be Disabled, or Interrupted during this time

For the 2 skull things… 1 would be “Purity” +40% Curse Resistance. The other would be “Blessed Sword”. All attacks ignore armor and shields

For the level 5 Talent, I was thinking you could choose to call upon the legendary regeneration of the Grail Knights (as one of the options). You can’t use healing items, heal bonuses, or potions. I did a Google Search. Apparently Mercenary with Battle Scars, and Natural Bond, will do a full regeneration in 2 mins and 10 seconds. I don’t know how accurate this is but, for example purposes… Grail Knight will regenerate to full in 1 minute and 30 seconds

2nd Career will be Hermit Knight. The Hermit Knight will be a Caster Support type. I am still working on it but, the idea is that it will bring Holy Relics to battle. The Career skill will call upon a Relic of your choosing. The Talents will be different. Instead of the Career skill Talent being level 30 like all other classes, Hermit Knight will get it at level 5. This will allow the Hermit Knight to be “mod-able” with its Career Skill. It will get a choice of 3 effects. I am thinking one could cause allies to have increased Armor Rating (if the above mechanics are applied)

3rd Career will be Black Grail Knight. People were asking for Cursed Weapons with their own unique Traits… Having both a negative and positive effect. This Career will be a specialist in Cursed Weapons, and unlike the Grail Knight, will be much more of a “Leeroy Jenkins”

Passive Ability will be “Curse of Mousillon”. A Black Grail Knight’s health, is Temporary Health. All cursed health is converted to Temporary Health. Can not use potions, healing items, or be effected by Heal bonuses. Career Skill will be “No Retreat!” increase the Temporary Health Gain from Strikes. If you die while “No Retreat!” is active, you will self ressurect, with a lower cool down (than Grail Knight)

1st Skull will be “Cursed Weapon”. Gain 2 Temporary Health each Strike. 2nd Skull will be “Embrace the Curse” Cursed Weapon health degeneration, becomes health regeneration

As for the Weapons… This was thought of with the change to Armor, and based on lore. Grail Knights only ever used a 2H Sword, and a 1H and Shield. The 2H Sword in the art work does not look as nearly as long as the Empire 2 handers. This leads me to believe it is a variation of the “B Sword”. Using B because it is a curse word. “B Swords” were longer than some Longswords but, shorter than a Claymore (about 44 inches). The 1H swords are long which leads me to believe that it is a Longsword

So the Grail Knight get the Longsword and Shield, or the “B Sword”. Longsword and Shield has the longest reach of the 1H Weapons (shorter than a 2H though). It will get Versatile, High Damage, Powerful Block. The 2H will get Versatile, High Damage, and Charge. Charge will be a new weapon tag. Fully Charged Power Strikes will count as a Critical Hit, at full bonus

The Hermit Knight will get the choice of Shield and Holy Relic (ability to do damage at range), or Longsword and Shield

The Black Grail Knight will get the same as Grail Knight, except that it will be the cursed version

All careers do not get a ranged weapon slot. The base 5% Crit will be +5% power instead. All weapons for the Grail Knight, do not roll Critical. This will gear it towards that Sustained Damage. Given that this will be the opposite of the Shade, there is no weapons that will attack groups. You are a Single Target attacker at all times

They will get a Relic slot in place of the Ranged weapon though (Holy Item of some sort). Think Slayer but, not a 2nd melee slot

Ok I will stop there and let everyone process this. At a later time, I will make a post of the new weapon ideas I had for the existing classes. I had some ideas for the new Charge tag. What do you think so far?

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I really, really don’t think that changing armored units and shielders will help the issue. It’s going to make hordes feel far more anemic. Shieldvermin do need a major rethink, but… You know, I could continue, for instance I could say that regular stormvermin have already been made pathetic enough, but here’s the simple fact - Corpulentmegalodon hardly managed to hammer together a game that’s largely based on concepts they already spent years developing, from V1.

The last thing you want them to try to do is to try to overhaul something as fundamental as the way armor works. In the scenario they read your thread and have an epiphany and get to work doing something along the lines of what you suggested, I guarantee you’re gonna want to travel back in time and shoot yourself in the head before you press “post”, because it won’t be a pretty job.

In less flowery terms, if you suggest things, always think about how easy it will be for shartfart to break the game. Ease of implementation is key. I mean, you saw what the talent system ended up being. We have a problem - the new enemies are an obstacle for melee weapons. The way people currently solve that issue is the real issue - the ranged meta.

It’s obviously not the intended result of buffing horde numbers and adding Chaos Warriors (stuff like pyro ult spam or shade ult spam or any other kind of ult spam DO seem to be the intended result, however). Softening these enemies up to melee combat will make them feel even wimpier than they already are, and it’s not gonna deal damage to BH xbow, to pyrobeam, and the like. And changing how damage reduction works on player characters is the last thing we want slimdolphin to fiddle with, because that at least works - and it does, in fact, make the classes feel sufficiently different.

P.S. Didn’t really have much to say about the new hero thing yet, but…

Shade is Great for dropping Bosses but, it does require you being behind the enemy.

Not really, actually. A melee headshot is how I’ve seen almost every Shade use her ult, as it’s almost better. It’s also more convenient. Making a class that’s better at being face to face… is a little redundant considering how the game turns anything towards you if it thinks you’re nearby.

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I don’t know why but Corpulentmegalodon, shartfart and slimdolphin made me chort coffee out my nose every time i came across one. i would think i was safe and wipe my nose take a sip and there was another snort accompanied by more coffee…thanks for that.

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I completely disagree. Some classes don’t have great armor piercing but thats how it should be. You do NOT want to make every class have a perfect answer for absoutely everything. It’ll just make them all the same. It’s a team game and charge attacks are NOT that hard. Saltzpyre and Bardin (at least) have fantastic ways to deal with armor units. The armor in this game is not something that needs to be changed.

They already have this it’s called health and they have more of it for a reason.

They definitely already do. Maybe not all of them but certainly most of them.

Sienna’s bean staff is sustained damage, Bardin’s dual axes are sustained damage and Any dual weapon from Kerillian is sustained damage.

We already have that it’s called the shade and slayer.

I think you need to take another look at the classes because I don’t think you understand whats already in game. Your new class suggestion sounds grossly broken and honestly while many current classes are unique, some aren’t. I’m much rather them flesh out the classes they have than add a new one for no reason.

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I don’t think I can agree on any point with the Op here.

Erm. While not every weapon is necessarily good against armor, all melee weapons can deal with it. And while dedicated armor-piercing weapons (i. e. ones with light attacks that damage Armored enemies) aren’t that abundant, Heavy attacks and headshots exist on several weapons exactly for that. In fact, one of the best weapons in the game (Dual Daggers, both against armor and in general) relies on Heavy attack headshots to deal with any armor. Besides, there’s no problem in the armor piercing mechanics themselves, so there’s no reason to suddenly change them.

Dealing with that is part of your general skills. Deciding when to use which attack and where to aim them takes practice, but is needed when on higher difficulties. Also, Shieldvermin mixed with a horde are troublesome for anything beyond Flail, not just Mercenary or other horde-clearers, and Armored enemies in general interrupt cleave for almost all weapons.

The Tags themselves do nothing, they just give a few general pointers on the weapons’ capabilities. Weapons with good armor pierce would still need that Tag for its original purpose.

That’s why different Careers have different Hit Points and Damage Reduction. Your proposal would effectively double up the resistance of the Careers, so it would make for example IB even tougher than he is already, breaking balance completely. And again, nothing is broken, so no need to touch it. And the Careers are quite different enough already, I think. Some need to stay in the backline to avoid damage, some can keep dodging and weaving, and some still can take that damage. Not to mention all the different offensive styles and capabilities.

It’s very unlikely we’ll get a complete new character. I guess it’s always possible, but it’s a huge amount of work, and requires a ton of new assets (including work from all the existing voice actors) to implement, especially in a way that doesn’t feel just copied and slightly varied from the old ones. The party also has an existing dynamic (lore-wise), and a new hero would be hard to suddenly fit into that.

I won’t go into specific for your Career and ability ideas for the character, but I think your ability proposals are hugely overpowered. All of them.

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I agree with people on the Armor Pen part, so I’ll detail about your class

Feels a little immersion breaking and weird to me… Like, a lot.

I like that, makes him a really good clutcher and life saver. But I’d turn the 20% Power to 50% Damage reduction, and put Power on a level 25 talent.

This is absurdly strong. Bonus Curse Resistance is good, but this is too much, and permanent Armor AND Shield pen break all the games mechanic. This allow him to solo a SV patrol with any one handed weapon.

Wouldn’t put an existing trait onto a Talent…

Won’t comment too much on the other, they have problems too. But I like the permanent trmp health BUT permanent temp health on kill thing.

I’ll just finish by :

  • Secondary passive (the 2 skulls) aren’t always 2, they go from 1 to 3.
  • Pretty sure people meant Ranged weapon with ressource generation like Overcharge, when they said Caster. Oh, and don’t put too much invisible information that change the game basics like “Can’t roll crit” or “Crit base bonus goes to Power”
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Response to Shade comments: I do recognize Shades go for headshots but, the full value of their damage comes from the back. That is what I meant. I see I failed to explained that properly. That is my fault

That is partly why I came up with the new Class. I recognized the way Shade is being used and I was like why not make a new Class, that does face to face damage? It is true you can make Sustained Damage out of Slayer and some others but… I mean true sustained damage

One of the goals I had in mind when I came up with the new class, is to make it the next tankiest class after Iron Breaker and Foot Soldier. That way you can make the 10 seconds of increased damage count. No block or pushing, straight 10 seconds of damage before having to retreat and heal (or play defensive)

Response to the Armor: I don’t think it would make hordes squishy. Essentially you are making it so people have a choice. If they chose to bring a weapon that doesn’t have armor pen value, then you are forced to keep to the old ways of going for the head. If you chose to take a weapon that has armor pen, then you have more freedom to do damage to armored enemies

By that I mean the pen damage. My original intention with the change was not to make every weapon OP against armor. I used Kruber’s Warhammer in the example so let me give a different one. Kruber’s 1H mace would get 6 armor Pen. That means it will get through the armor but, at reduced damage. The headshot would be worth more because of the reduced damage

That does limit you in some aspects. Kruber’s Warhammer for example, does not do cleave unless you Power Charge it, or wait for the series in the Fast Swings. The same issue would present itself with the new class as well given the single focus

Now to the final reply (parts of it):

I am aware that Foot Knight has more hit points. I am saying that the Armor should compliment the damage resistance. Let me try a different example… Handmaiden would get an Armor rating of 5 for example. That would fall under Medium Armor. Handmaiden’s armor before damage resistance, would allow her to take more damage. Skaven can do as much as half health in 1 hit (certain circumstances with damage resistance). That wouldn’t happen under the new Armor system. It would still be a lot but, not as much as before

I do understand what is in the game. Either I am not explaining it well, or you are not trying to understand me. I have discussed this in great detail with Twitch Streamers before I even came here to post. You can also see that I did bring the same discussions to the Discord

That is fine. If you feel that classes need to be fleshed out before a new one is added, then go for it. I do agree that it needs to happen. As I was saying with the Twitch Streamers, I think they had a vision with some classes but, they turned out to the be the complete opposite

We talked about Handmaiden in the Streams. They had Support in mind but, she turned out to be a Solo Queen. I think the game has room for at least some tools for the Team. Right now, none of that is present

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Thank you Winthiefow for giving feedback. It helps when people tell me what I did wrong rather than say something is OP

I am not sure how or why it feels immersion breaking but, if that is an issue I guess you can remove it from the class

That I am fine with. If you want to change it so it is +50% damage resistance, then that is fine. If you want to make the Power a Talent thing, I could see it being +20% to Lords and Monsters. Grail Knights in Warhammer Lore, mostly faught Chaos Lords, Vampires, Dragons, and what not. It would fit for lore and balance I bet

I had 40% Curse Resistance in mind because if you make it 33% then it is the same as a perfect roll item. I guess that is fine if it needs to be done for balance purposes… Reduce it to 33%. What if we took the shield thing out then, and changed it to Piercing? Make it function the exact same as Bardin’s Axes. That would allow it to get through the Armor on Chaos Warriors, some Lords, and Monsters

I am aware that Natural Bond exists. I wanted the Grail Knight to be the Specialist of self heal. Something stronger than Natural Bond but, not to a broken point

It is true that Temp Health exists in the game. The idea I had in mind for Black Grail Knight, was to sustain itself by constant combat. Temp Health starts to fade after awhile. I was thinking that would be the balance. If you made all of the Cursed Health, Permanent Health, that would be broken. With it being Temp Health, you would have to maintain it, or try to get it back later on

Oh if that is what people meant… I had at least an idea. I am still working on it. I was thinking for Hermit Knight, the Holy Relic could function the opposite of Sienna. It gets a full resource bar at the start. Each use of it drains the resource. The Talents or something could interact with it, to help with recharge in some form or another

Right that is why I said the items would not roll crit. That would make it visible to people that this class focus on raw power, rather then Crit. I figured between that, and changing the Crit chance, it would make it straight forward. All classes get a base +5% Crit Chance. I was saying to change that to +5% Power on the Grail Knight

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i think this post I made in the steam fourms had some pretty good ideas, some may have been already mentioned here though maybe.

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