As I stated in the Survey before it reset:
To me only the Visuals and some of the mechanics/objectives were at all interesting with Weaves.
Difficulty Scaling is bad. Progression is bad. Competitive Element is bad. 120+ Mini Levels is bad.
Could’ve been like Heroic Deeds (except better) but instead of random drops you just add another Resource to the game so you can “craft” a Weave or something.
At least we can ignore the argument with the competitive. Because the leaderboard is 100 % optional and you have to never look at it. As such it doesnt influence the Weaves in any manner. If someone is against competition they should first lobby for the removal of the after mission score screen or at least transfer it to be optional per person in the keep. Weaves have shown that co-operation works a lot better without this score screen. As such Weaves are a co-op mode because it asks for more and better teamplay.
Also the leaderboard has not more influence on game balance than the normal vanilla mode. Because otherwise Beastmen wouldnt have seen such a huge nerf mid-season. So that argument is a non-starter.
Wow I can’t believe you just spouted that nonsense.
The whole purpose of the Weaves and it being Seasonal (the original purpose) was to have the stupid progression system to slog through as you beat your head against the stupidity that is Weaves to advance up the 120+ Mini Maps (also influenced by competitive element) while dealing with terribly scaling difficulty because the devs chose the easy route when it came to difficulty.
OF COURSE the competitive element had an effect on Weaves. My goodness the fact that you cannot see that is beyond amazing. This is a nice example of the ripple effect. Fatshark threw a brick with “competitive player base” etched onto it into the pool that is Winds of Magic and said ripples brought about the Progression System, Seasons, and 120+ Levels.
edit: I’ll remove the additional laughter. But seriously… Seasonal Resets were planned because they thought that the VT2 player base would clamor to climb up the ladder - otherwise why have said Seasons?
It would have been cool if you understood what i wrote. But yea, it seems being against something takes away the ability to stay calm.
Read carefully. I said:
That using the competitive element as reason for dislike of the Weaves is non-sensical because then you would vehemently be against the score screen in adventure mode because that one is non-optional in comparison to the completely optional leaderboard. So yea, the leaderboard does not influence your gaming experience in any way. Unless you count new content every few months as something negative.
That leaderboards do not influence game balance more than vanilla mode. There is an influence like written it that specific sentence. But no, it is not the surpreme doctrine which dictates all game balance. Adventure mode is what determines game balance in nearly all aspects.
I understand that people are desperate searching arguments against something. But it would be nice if they think them through. Again, you disliking Weaves because of leaderboards is non-sensical. All the seasons mean is free content every few months. Not sure why you want to shoehorn in something else.
“Because the leaderboard is 100 % optional and you have to never look at it. As such it doesnt influence the Weaves in any manner.”
Leaderboard = Competition
Competition = Progression System + 120+ Grind Levels + Seasonal Reset + Cosmetic Rewards (which I don’t really care about - just added those in as I’m sure they’ll add more for Season 2)
Base game stat screen at the end of the game is simply a stat screen. The Green Circle’s to me are pointless and the stats could be a bit more detailed in some cases when it comes to emphasizing more defensive playstyles. The Base Game Stat Screen’s only influence pertaining to said Base Game is entirely psychological for a minority of players who chase the Green Circles. That is all. It otherwise does not effect the game whatsoever compared to Competitive Element in Winds of Magic.
I understand that the Fatshark Defenders are desperate enough to avoid Logic and Common Sense at all costs because that would mean facing Reality and the fact that Fatshark seriously messed up in releasing a half-baked expansion that wasn’t released at all for the base game fans but for another player demographic entirely.
The entire Progression System was Ranald’s Middle Finger displayed to all players who already had to deal with and grind through VT2’s shoddy Progression and Item System which relied on an Archaic Crafting System that STILL wasn’t updated on Expansion Release despite a ton of talents being reworked.
edit: Removed some clearly over the top wordage.
Anyway Fatshark can also keep the leaderboard. It doesn’t add none problem… it’s one more features for who loves these things. Rather some veteran groups could have another reason/final goal to play. The real problem are the weaves:
they split the community in 120 different levels. Or you have a group, or you can’t play them. Moreover the group must be always the same, because if a night you don’t play and your friends rather complete some weaves… these friends must repeat the same weaves (without any reward), or you will be very fu***d. And also with quick play, nothing will change. 120 levels are still too much for this numerically poor community;
Fatshark (once again) has choosen the wrong way to increase the difficulty. But apart the insame number of enemies (already enough to force a cheesy and boring strategy), if almost every enemy will one-shot you (archers cut off 80hp), we will have a frustrating and boring gameplay. We will have useless careers/builds/weapons. It transforms the skill in grind.
Okay, it appeard you are either physically unable or unwilling to understand the differences.
You are using some impressive brain acrobatics to tie “Competition” to all those stuff. If you think the Weaves are grind then you haven’t played them. In the first place, there is nothing to gain from them (which is something which has been criticized) so there is no point in grind. They are merely for people seeking some challenge and some good co-op play. I dont even know how one could call it grind. I think I have one million unused Athanor without even trying. And just for fun i leveled up ALL weapons on the dwarf and still have this much left. That you have to start from zero is to get used to the different crafting system as well as some meak lore reason. The seasonal reset is a side effect of us getting free, new content every few months. They could also leave the old Weaves in addition but it would just bloat it to much. Although I am sure they will land in the Weave quickplay further increasing the map pool. The 120 Weaves is a result of the hand-crafted approach which frankly works a lot better than the A.I. director throwing rng after rng. It has better pacing and provides a fairer challenge. So no, all these things would be there without the leaderboards as well. Again, I have never looked at the boards. They are optional and stay optional. So the argument to dislike Weaves because of an optional elements is still non-sensical. And if you refuse to provide actually arguments it will stay that way.
On the other hand, the base game stat is forced upon you unless you actively close your eyes for 10 seconds at the end of each map. And the hunt for scores has killed more than one party. This hunting behaviour is something you dont see in the Weaves. In there people play as group and cover each other. And dont rush into the nearest horde or waste ammo to steal kills. So yea, the score screen heavily influences behaviour in adventure mode. This is significant enough that we had several threads in the forum about this.
But okay, you appear heavily emotional invested into your position against WoM. Did you even buy it or are you basing your points on second-hand information? Seriously, next thing you tell me is that FS should apologize to the community or what? At least then, we can all see that you really are acting out of emotional hurt and we can value your past and future posts correctly. Your point about defending Fatshark sadly falls completely flat, as it is easy for anyone to see my post history here and in the steam forum where i have criticized them often enough. But I chose to do it where they actually failed to deliver which is most prominent in the technical part of the game.
For the sake of the actual good thread of the OP, I will cease communication with you here at this point in order to avoid derailing the thread. You are free to answer to this post with another kind of “witty” (or provoking, or slightly insulting, or setting yourself higher) post, showing your well-educated nature. But for once, please, think stuff through.
The first point is a matter of presentation of the Weaves. It has to be adressed though. And there exist solution for this. We just have to wait if FS chose to work them out. And I am pretty sure, they will. From my own experience I can say that there are people who replay Weaves quite often to help other players and as I have done most Weaves in public games I can also say that you can find people for specific Weaves. The point about the rewards is something which i expect for Season 3 or 4 latest. If they manage to adress the point for Season 2, I dont know.
The 120 Weaves for the active Season are not that much of a problem. I expect Weave mode to split into two tabs in the future. Tab one is Weave quickplay where you will be transported into any Weave of chosen difficulty but you cant chose which. Weaves of older seasons will transfer over to the quickplay pool increasing the replayability with each season. It will be lackluster at the beginning though. Tab two is the active season where you can chose the Weave you want to play. It needs an overhaul in the presentation in my opinion.
From the beginning the Weaves have been designed as an interative system. FS would have done well to say that at one point. If you follow the lore and look at the current design, you see that they have planned farer ahead already. But some stuff like quickplay was just not possible in Season 1. That is why they said they have to weather the storm. Because this outcry is pretty much in their calculations. Weaves is something which was meant to gain momentum later on.
If Competition had nothing to do with Weaves then why have Seasons? Why have a Progression System that you’d have to redo for each season (for the most part)? Why the ridiculous Difficulty Scaling? Why the 120+ Levels? Why have a Leaderboard?
If Weaves was truly about Co-operative Gameplay then why not simply add a Resource System in which case you can then Craft Weaves and then for Match Making only show the kind of Weave it is so then you’d have like what… 7 Variants as opposed to 120+ levels?
Weaves could’ve been what Heroic Deeds tried to be but failed.
“Grind” as in initially the Athanor System (while better then it was in Beta) you still need to unlock Talents, Passives, Weapons and so on and so forth - all of which the player already had in the base game. Then you have the additional “Grind” when it comes to advancing up the 120+ levels in which case each level you have to wait for a full party of competent players who would be fine with re-doing a level if it failed. I’ve heard instances of people waiting for 20+ minutes for ONE person to join. That time sink to me is also a “Grind”.
The 120+ Levels do not scale per player plus you can’t have the crappy Bots with you either (something that may be fixed in Season 2… though not Patched in to Season 1 because “Competition”). I’ve heard from one player how they needed 2 shields, Zealot and Battlemage in the higher levels because enemy damage was insanely high - that is a poor way to scale difficulty and I have mentioned that issue multiple times but Fatshark chose the easy/lazy way.
Leaderboards and Competition influenced Weaves. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any need for a lot of the “features” in the new game mode. Base Game Stat as I stated is merely psychological impacting to those who care about seeing how amazing they did or how bad they did - it doesn’t effect anything else of the gameplay. Green Circles doesn’t make Adventure Maps have Seasons, insane Difficulty Scaling, grindy Progression System and 120+ Variants of re-used maps that makes match making insanely stupid.
I played Winds of Magic during the Beta and based on the many flaws that I saw + the vastly ignored feedback that should’ve resulted in an extended Beta + Later Release Date I did not buy the expansion because I will not support incompetent Developers who didn’t see the very obvious flaws in their product.
And yea… an apology in a newsletter for forgetting their base audience when it came to Winds of Magic would do well to salve a lot of the negativity surrounding the game and company. With the additional promise of more updates/news shared to the community at a more often pace would enforce that bridge when it comes to trying to heal the obvious rift between the majority of fans and Fatshark. Apologies are fine. Humility is fine. Developers make mistakes and unless you are some AAA publisher like Bethesda (Fallout 76) you can admit fault and try to restore any semblance of trust between the company and the fanbase.
I am not responding out of Emotion but Logic. I see an obvious flaw I will indeed point that flaw out - if anything I am acting completely without emotion because whatever joy or enjoyment I’ve had for VT2 has been continually battered down by Fatshark. I still somewhat enjoy the gameplay (despite bugs/glitches/imbalances) and have a slight hope that Fatshark will be able to learn anything.
If you wish to cease communication that is up to you. Sure some of the responses have been rather snarky and I apologize for that. And yes I have thought things through quite well. The bugs, glitches, imbalances are a manifesto showing Fatshark’s abilities when it comes to VT2.
This is the type of thing that really gets me mad about the WoM expansion. You say weaves are really fun, but then, when you explain it what i hear is, WINDS are fun. You’re right they are. And they could have been applied to the base game, or in the deed system, or in any other way than the stupid weaves. Crafting, yeah it is better in the weave system than the main game. Because they didn’t bother to apply a better crafting system in the main game and slapped it into weaves instead. Again putting good things into a bad system. So rather than being able to give compliments to the good things I gotta sit here and trash weaves because the fixed 120 fixed spawn hacked out maps are the bad part with a bunch of good stuff attached.
So yes there are a bunch of good game elements that are attached to weaves. And we should bring those into the core game and jettison the bad part of it which are the weaves themselves.
Yeah, its proof they arent incompetent but there is some management somewhere saying oh no don’t give them that put it here they’l like that and then we’l force them to buy the expansion and everyone will love it so much (they have to its got all those things they wanted in the base game) so much they’l be happy to have spent the money and gotten the fix.
Oh they wanted it in the base game, what entitled “users”, lets just remind them they are having fun wrong and they need to be more mature about this.
Oh boy I bet those execs over at EA and Activision feel like this after they’ve strangled a small puppy.
This is the type of thing that really gets me mad about the WoM expansion. You say weaves are really fun, but then, when you explain it what i hear is, WINDS are fun. […]
So yes there are a bunch of good game elements that are attached to weaves. And we should bring those into the core game and jettison the bad part of it which are the weaves themselves.
Fair enough. I can get behind that.
My main “problem” with weaves is: if you really break weaves down to their core gameplay its just shorter maps with new mutators.
Deeds are ? Normal Maps with Mutators.
Weekly Events are ? Normal Maps with Mutators.
Twitch Mode is ? Normal Maps with Mutators.
Weaves are ? Normal Maps (parts of it) with Mutators.
The only thing that Weaves really provide are new aesthetics aside from being another gamemode with just some mutators. And i still think , even with the upcoming season 2 , that weaves will not be more interesting with the changes since they will remain yet another mode of existing maps with some additional mutators.
This is why i suggested that the basic mutator gamemodes (deeds , weekly , weaves) should be combined in order to create a even greater mixture of all the existing mutators in the game. Rework the deed system by combining it with the weave and weekly event system in order to get just 1 new “Mutator Gameplay” mode out of it. Use the spot in the Keep that was for weaves before in order to access the “Mutator Gamplay mode” with matchmaking and stuff … i dont see a reason to split the small playerbase into basically 3-4 gameplay modes all providing just some mutator gameplay.
Sadly weaves are already here, Fatshark can’t just remove them… But I agree. Weaves are just little parts of campaign, with a very bad accessibility and an unfair difficulty. It would be simply great to have weaves and deeds modifiers free to be applied on normal maps.
And good bye weaves mod.
This is part of my problem with the leaderboard, competition and fixed elements of the weaves become the issue. Because with those stipulations attached it has to remain a separate mode which has more issues when considering how to balance it and manage match making for it. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the player numbers were large enough to accommodate that kind of variance but I don’t know if that is the case.
This is where it gets into that “just because you don’t want to do leaderboards, doesn’t mean others don’t” gets to be a bit of an issue. Because its fine if it accommodates a substantial portion of the player base. But if it only serves a small part , and for the rest is presented as undesirable content then it’s a problem.
Its been frustrating to see new good things added to the game in a way that splits the player base rather than giving more variety to the core game.
For all I care they can safely remove the leaderboard. Luckily, it does not influence the actual gameplay of the Weaves themselves.
Personally, I could also live very well without Weekly Events (at least in current form) and especially Twitch mode. However, they all have their differences and justification to exist since most additional modes to a certain degree cater to premade groups (especially Deeds due to missing lobby browser).
Weaves are in that regard different. They can be played in public lobbies (although it takes currently ages to find games), they are shorter and in theory slowly scale to higher difficulties. And most important they are hand-crafted in comparison to the rng you have in every single other mode. And this is what makes them feel special and different to me. The hand-crafted approach has a lot of advantages while bringing some disadvantages . The hand-crafted approach is also independent from the leaderboard. It has more to do with getting a better difficulty scaling since A.I. director does not run rampant.
The biggest advantage of hand-crafting is that you can provide scenarios you will not encounter in the vanilla game with the A.I. director. Reason for this is that you have to put shackles on the director or 90 % of all games will end in tears. But it means certain scenarios like an ambush by 6 rattling gunners can not happen. On the other hand, in the Weaves you can encounter such scenario and while you can survive this the first time, the Weaves have a certain try again attitude to them. They provide information by replaying while the vanilla mode provide informations by sound cues and restrictions of the director (like boss spawn points and timers).
The challenge is different and then we get to the point where it is a matter of design philosophy. Some people say an expansion should bring more of the same. Other people, including me, say an expansion should bring something new while feeling familiar. 120 Weaves are a lot of content. Even when you neglect the replayability that will take some time to get through. Okay, to be fair, lets say the first 80 are realistically doable without getting to bull**** damage numbers. Still a lot of content, where you can experience new stuff without it getting to repititive. Due to hand-crafted approach two different Weaves feel more different than two different Vanilla games.
In this regard, I will plead that FS keeps the hand-crafted approach for the active season. For all I care, they can add the rng to the quickplay. Consider it a compromise. So, like I said, hand-crafting has certain advantages and brings something new to the table. The rest of the Weave design is just a result of the hand-crafted approach. 120 Weaves? To provide enough content due to missing rng. Shorter missions? Result of the scaling difficulty so you dont have to replay 30 minutes each time.
In this regard, I dont think they mix well with a deed overhaul, also because of the shorter mission length which is needed to a certain degree. What the Weaves need though is an overhaul to the presentation and the accessibilty (not the actual levels themselves though). The latter has slightly be addressed with quickplay. But it will not change much, at least not for the matchmaking of the active season. While, I personally, don’t care I think it would already be enough if you get some kind of reward tied to the Vanilla mode, like playing 10 Legend Weaves gives you a red weapon of your choice (I actually made a thread about “Weave Boards”, it adresses different problems of current setup and suggests solutions). Increasing Athanor is not a good reward and I don’t understand why people asked for it. I think I have over a million unused Athanor without even trying, and just for fun I upgraded all Dwarf weapons and half of Kruber’s. So more Athanor is useless to me and also to most people. One could see, it will reduce grind. But if you play the Weaves you have enough Athanor after reaching Weave 30. So, personally, I would argue, that if there is grind it is miniscule.
And again, I don’t think the “fixed” spawns are a result of the leaderboards but of the hand-crafted approach which enables Fatshark to provide a better difficulty scaling and pacing as well as new scenarios the A.I. director can not give us due to its needed shackles. Remove the leaderboard and the concept of Weaves would stay the same. But we can argue all day what was first, the egg or the hen.
I think there are benefits or could be benefits to the hand crafted and fixed approach I just don’t think it represents the game most of the community want to play as the ‘core’ end game experience. They are a novelty and a epeen measuring contest and in that sense they fail to replace what is the core aspect of the game and all those other sweet fixes the big one being crafting system don’t come to what is actually the core or the game and people are left wondering… wait I paid for what?
Yeah i can see your point and for my personal taste its actually true that the handcrafted approach on weaves offer something unique. Me and my group got stuck on a perticular weave. It was actually fun to come up with new strategies and approaches (switching classes , changing routes and positions or tweaking gear for example).
But this fact would not stop a combination of weaves and deeds to me because i imagine a gamemode where fatshark does not have to scrap all the work they put into the weaves. Lets say you play a normal adventure mode run and the reward chests can drop “mutator gamemode scrolls” just like deeds are now. But you can actually have different styles of these scrolls … classic deed style maps , handcrafted weave style maps , special mutator maps (like some of the weekly events) and why not even add in some survival style mutator maps emulating a small version of “fortunes of war” with mutators. They could even go on and do some chain-maps , where beating the first part will unlock the 2nd and so on ~ until you arrive at the final map for some sweet reward.
This mode could also give a nice variety of additional okris challenges other than “complete weave 1-30”. And they could use the spot in taals keep where weaves are now to access this new system. Im all for it 
I sort of agree with most of your ideas (the randomized gamemodes with mutators like winds of magic) part, but everytime the idea of “mutators coming from boxes like deeds do currently” comes up, I feel obliged to comment on that:
No. Please &@#$% NO! The idea of a gamemode with mutators is actually awesome. But only being able to play that gamemode by being dependant of RNG drops which you need to play other gamemodes for is pretty near the worst possible implementation of that idea ever.
Make a gamemode and let us play it. Should not be more complicated than that! The ideal scenario that everybody (literally ever single last person that ever played or ever will play Vermintide) would be happy with: A mutators gamemode that plays any map (or a random one à la Quickplay) that lets you select any and all mutators (deed mod, weekly mod, a wind of magic, etc.) to apply during the run. And have a seperate button to activate Twitch mode on top of it (plus customisation options for that). Want to play a deed with more elites? Just select only “Vanguard” and nothing else. Want to play Twitch? Just flip the switch and go. Want to play Skittergate, but with everything on fire, tzeentchian twins, and no ammo drops the whole level? Just select it and have fun!
How could anybody ever object to that?! It would let everybody enjoy the full scope of the game, no frustrating RNG involved, it immediately solves the problem of a needed deed rework, it clears up the clutter of all current gamemodes, it allows FS to issue a more complicated weekly challenge through the same system as they wish, it addresses some of the major citisism WoM got, and incentivices people who were not interested in weaves as they are now to buy and enjoy WoM to the fullest still. Also it seems like it should be realistically implementable as well. (I am no programmer however.)
I can go either way on that one. I do agree when we talk about deeds currently that the drop rate and way that deeds are given is too RNG. But I don’t have a problem with crafting Deeds provided the infrastructure is there. Gating deeds/mods to a certain extent (and when I say gating I mean creating a process to earn them) can make them more rewarding/special, provided it is done in a fair and compelling way.
What if each clear dropped Deed augments or we could use dust/ essence to craft deeds. And then deeds could have increased rewards to make them more desirable. Depending on how good FS is at data collection they can see how each modifier effects clear rate to change how much each mod would award (this works even if we go full open mod availability). And for QP you can just check a little box if you want to be opted in for possible deed runs.
I can see why the RNG elements seem like a turn off. But I think part of that is because right now Verminitide’s RNG elements are SO UNREASONABLY RANDOM AS TO BE REALLY UNPLEASANT TO INTERFACE WITH. And maybe that is the takeaway. That its not worth chancing it to end in a way that making them craftable would lead to a situation like the current Deed/cosmetics situation, in which its so random you may never see the thing you want. I think it could be done right I just don’t know if it would.