Wanted to make a Weekly Event Mode thread for a while. And what better time could I choose then now where this thread will be buried in a day by the twentiest “GK totally new feedback” thread?
Act 0 - Preface
Currently we have three additional modes beside the main adventure mode. All of these have their function and personally I am against mixing them or taking parts of one and put it into another. Winds for example should never be part of the adventure mode or Deeds. They introduce new mechanics and increased challenges for those seeking it. It is consistent it is own lore.
Deeds themselves are the same game/adventure mode just a bit harder mainly by number tinkering. They are so far by any means complying with lore and should stay so.
Twitch Mode is just messy for people who want warnings of what thread is coming up next. Lore here is more unrestricted due to the wild mixing of modifiers. But the mode is not for everyone. Personally, I find it not interesting.
This leaves us with the Weekly Mode which has its own modifier. Personally, it seems to me that similar to Twitch Mode it is not restricted by lore, however can be used for a much more defined less messy experience. This is something which should be build upon.
Act I - Existing Modifiers
First, it should be worked over the existing modifiers. This should be looking at slight changes like adding a counter for the Curse of Comraderie before it nukes away the team or similar. Mainly, it should be adjusting the map pool for some of the modifiers. The bomb modifier is the best example as it can easily wipe you on a map like Into the Nest due to a long non-optional transport section. You could kill your whole team before to circumvent that but … Just reduce the map pool for certain modifiers if they pose a problem for said map.
Act II - Be promotional
A thing I never understood is why the Weekly Event mode is not used for promoting Vermintides own DLC content. Every four weeks the weekly Event could be about some of your DLCs in a very restricted manner. It would be long enough to make people still buy the DLC but is a chance for people to test out stuff and make them interested. Examples could be:
- Map promotion: The Weekly Event is on one of the DLC maps like Bögenhafen, accessible for all players for one week
- Weapon promotion: Playing the Weekly Event would automatically equip a DLC weapon (either BtU or WoM, not necessarily in the same week) for the character chosen. This would also lead to some interesting team compositions if each character is using a DLC weapon. However, you would need to program a function to override the users loadout.
- Character promotion: Only interesting later down the line, but you could make promo weeks where playing Weekly Event automatically gives you the DLC careers with a predetermined set of equipment and talents (or completely randomized). Would give people a chance to get a feeling for the classes but without the freedom to chose their own loadouts and it would still be only one week every three months or something like this
- Weave promotion: Give out some random Weaves, however with your maind adventure loadout. So people can get a feeling for the new modifiers and the difficulty of the Weaves
Act III - Be experimental
Another thing I don’t understand is why FS is not more experimental with the Weekly Mode. Just try out different stuff. You probably have done some yourself in your experimental week which you do not seem fleshed out enough. Doesn’t matter, just give a warning that the experience may be imbalance or could even crash. However, you would have to change the Weekly Quest from completing the Weekly Event to take part in the Weekly Event (three times or something like that). Also experiment on preset restrictions and with removing lore restrictions. Examples of all the thing mentioned above could be:
- Hammertime 1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J_19J3257A . This is explaning itself
- Hammertime 2: Every character starts with a hammer weapon. The character doesn’t have a hammer? Now, just for this weekly event they have! May result in some odd animations when Kerillian or Sienna hammer their way through everything. Moveset could be copied from other characters but you would probably need new animations.
- Getting Axed: Same as above, just that every character is using an axe. Not much to add.
- Fight Club: We know from Vermintide 1 that you have previously programmed fist fight animations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2IBtsnkiq8). Make a Weekly Event where everyone is fighting just with their fists. Makes for a very personal experience
- Extreme Weather: With Season 3 you have created the pre-conditions for such a mode. Build up on it. Increase extreme weather and give it modifiers. Example would be a blizzard which reduces your (and your enemies) movement and also sight. If you stand still you will slowly taking damage so keep in constant movement. Another example would be extreme sun where you have to spend some time in the shadow here and there or your Stamina and Dodge counter would constantly be drained.
- Character Twins: This would break balance hard, but would probably amount to one of the most interesting modifiers. Allow a weekly event where a character can be chosen mutliple times (or even has to). Granted, 4 Shades, 4 Sienna Conflags, 4 IB Flamethrowers, 4 Handmaiden Bleed Build, 4 Ranger Shotgun Builds, 4 Waystalker Hagbane/Trueflight or many similar set-ups would create unstoppable havoc. But once every week would deliver an interesting experience. You could make weeks focussing on different characters like a Saltzpyre week, a Sienna week etc to ensure maximum havoc.
- Balanced: This one would be a death to meta mod. Basic idea is that you give every weapon (and/or maybe hero/talent) a multiplier. Then you will look at your telemetry data from the last month and create a distribution file which you compare with a theoretical evenly distribution. Depending on the result the weapon would then receive a penalty or bonus multiplier. Example: You have six weapons, meaning in a balanced world every weapon should be used in a sixth of all games (16.6667 %). However, one weapon is used in 30 % of the games while two other weapons are only used in 5 % of the games. Result of the mod would be that the 30 % meta weapon would receive a penalty multiplier on damage/stagger etc while the sub-presented weapons would receive a bonus multiplier on damage/cleave etc…
- No range/range only: Limit access to range or melee, making previously easy encounters more challenging. Would need unlimited ammo for one mode though.
- Monster Festival: to lazy to search a better video, so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPw6-CrvOKk Due to the mechanics in Vermintide this cant be carbon copied. However something similar could be done. For example at every time on the map 4 to 5 monsters are active, ambients are still there but specials and horde are deactivated. To not make this a Handmaiden Dash party, we would need monster barriers. Since every killed monster will be instantly replaced by a new monster, you would nominate one Monster King for every section which has to be killed in order to remove the barrier.
- Last man standing: Basically a solo mode which could come in different flavours like making all horde but no specials or only disablers but no horde. However, as this is a coop game it is a less interesting modifier.
- Modding Madness: I am very much in agreement to keep every gameplay changing or cheat-like QoL (like Health bar special radar) mods out of the official realm. But truth is that modders are not very motivated to do something as their work will always just be tackled by the minorty on the modded realm (which shows that interest in mods is limited but at least existent). A compromise could be that once in a while one of the gameplay changing mods would be implemented as Weekly Event.
- FSs result from their own experimental weeks: Not sure what they came up with, but there are probably some interesting ideas which have been shelved temporarily or permanently for various reasons. They could be tested out here with a warning if necessary.
There are probably a lot more potential modifiers you could do. There is a serious of pitfalls to regard (aside from the work to make singular Weekly Events work) like adjusting rewards depending on difficulty of the Weekly Event (low for Character Twins, high for Extreme Weather or No melee), adjusting map pool, adjusting Weekly Quests from completing to participating. Another “problem” would be that it makes Deeds and Twitch Mode even more of a niche phenomena. However, for getting an interesting and varied Weekly Event Mode I think this problem is neglible. An additional problem is that depending on the number of modifiers it will take a long time before more popular modifiers return. This could be circumvented by adding a Weekly Event 1 and Weekly Event 2 choice in the lobby browser.
Overall, I think the Weekly Event is FSs freeest mode and the one with most interesting potential aside from the adventure mode. Bonus is that FS could slowly expand on the Weekly Event by adding a new modifier every (two weeks) instead of other niche modes like Deeds which would need an overhaul which is much more instant work in comparison to a work in progress for expanding on Weekly.
So yea Fatshark, be promotional, be experimental.
