Winds of Magic - Season 2 Blog Post

Comparing FS to EA is a gross exaggeration. Companies have to make money, as anyone should obviously know. However, the business practice in how that’s done is what garners criticism or praise. EA will make you pay $60 for a half-baked title, still has plenty of bugs and performance issues,gating people by bottlenecking how experience or in-game stuff is earned,lock a 1/3 of the game behind MTX or make it pay to win, and overall treat it like a mobile game where it heavily incentivizes paying.

Vermintide 2 released for $30, has tons of replayability, is on sale periodically, has affordable DLC that is also on sale periodically, has been trying to improve the game despite having releases(DLC and otherwise) with issues, releases free content like the drinking map which had a ton of voice lines and was amazing, reworked talents to try and improve the game, and more. They’ve tried very hard to stay away from paid loot boxes, pay to win, or any of that. The biggest complaints right now for 2.0 is bugs and some balance.

There is no comparison. It’s like apples and oranges. Are there things I’m not pleased with? Absolutely. But ahead of us we have 3 free levels to look forward to, Lohn’ers Emporium of Wonders to get a bunch of free in-game cosmetics to earn, and depending on how the quickplay weaves turns out, that could also be interesting considering I currently don’t care for weaves(But I know people who enjoy it). Adding some MTX for cosmetics is a problem in what way? They’re not “Overwatching” this with lootbox MTX. You just buy exactly what you want of the cosmetics that will be that way. There is still a mound of free content for an already inexpensive game with inexpensive DLC.

27 Likes

I think it must be tied to the Bogenhafen weeklies; I’d guess you get a shilling for each one you completed. Hopefully this might include other past weeklies and such, so long-time players actually do get a leg up. :slight_smile:

I’m cool with real-money cosmetics, and this is an exciting roadmap that again has me feeling good - honestly, once Beastmen get some tweaks, I’ll feel it’s in a decent place. Not a good DLC, but not a bad one, either. Weaves are just kinda dead-weight to me, one of those random game modes every Battlefield DLC feels the need to throw in and you never touch, though unfortunately it’s a sticking point.

In terms of content, though? Getting Drachenfels again is such an amazing peace offering to those of us unhappy with WoM that I feel pretty dang good about it.

And damn, going back to Drachenfels . . . Catrinne appearing . . . This is addling kindling to that Genevieve fire! LOL

My only question, the thing that gives me pause, is if some of the real-money purchasable cosmetics might be ones already in the game code. If so . . . that’s gonna wrankle a lot of people wrong. So please let these be actually new cosmetics we haven’t seen before.

1 Like

But this is my opinion and what now? Besides, I wrote that they are beginning to be and not that they are already. Read with understanding please.

Yes, exactly the same like with WoM, but price was lower. What the difference? And now you will be able to buy something for real money to this half-baked and full of bugs product. Cool

I don’t care about comparisons. Many games has tons of replayability, is on sale periodically etc (Battlefields?) I see the practices that are starting to be applied. After all the WoM cesspool that broke out, you can see that the FS did not learn anything. Well, maybe one, they learned from Tencet how to do business on naive fanboys lol.

And one more.
I would be glad to be able to support the studio, but for a job well done and honestly, not for pathetic reaching out for the money that is done along the line of the lowest resistance.
I remember those awful recolor only skins from Arrogance Lost. As I see they haven’t lost this arrogance lol

This is another very delicate bomb-disposal exercise, although I think that the bomb has already gone off.

IF the paid-for skins are things like the Bardin’s Eyepatch advertised in the release trailer, stand by for ANOTHER massive backlash from an already frosty community. Putting some of the hats in the game people have SEEN and PLAYED WITH in the modded realm, even played with in the Official Realm when there was a bug bleeding things from one to the other is going to get a lukewarm reception. Putting the old skins from VT1 in a shop to buy for VT2 would be just rude. Putting hats people have played with in the modded realm in a paid-for cosmetic shop alongside skins people have paid for in VT1 and need to pay for AGAIN to have in VT2 and there’ll enough Salt to poison everything in the Pacific.

I did sigh a bit with the news we’re revisiting more old DLC from VT1, although new maps are always welcome IF THEY STAY and don’t vanish in season 3. It makes me a little melancholy that for the next year we’re only likely to see Karak Azgaraz and a return to the Reik as content. Again - let me keep those maps and don’t make them seasonal.

Finally, and something of a bugbear of mine - I’ve got enough scrap to rebuild Taals Keep as a replica of the Disneyland Castle, complete with enough dust to shoot a replica Tinkerbell directly off the cliff into the canyon, sparkling with green,orange and blue dust as she goes.

I’ve also got pages of Deeds I can’t be bothered with,

Can we please fix what we’ve got now?

[edit] If I buy a Skin for Kruber, can I wear it as any class?

8 Likes

As much as I am happy for this DLC and updates, if there’s one thing I learned from all these experience (especially WoM updates), then it’s the fact that everything may go south in one fell swoop at any given point in time. I learned to set my expectations below the bar to avoid being disappointed.

Will this bring back old players (like me) to the game? I really hope so.

FS, I’ll be really blunt. I like you guys, but please don’t F this up. You only got one shot at this. xD

2 Likes

I’ve tried to hold my tounge but I just…can’t anymore. WoM is just…not coming to Xbox or Ps4…because a few vocal PC players? Once again NOTHING about console in any way. I’m starting to think it simply is going to be PC exclusive and that is it. I realize that for console they have authorization to go through and crap but if they had STARTED it earlier then we would have at least had pre orders and a damn release date by now instead of “when it is ready” some expansions in fatshark’s have taken YEARS to stabilize. So PC gets a playable version, semi playable to some people. And meanwhile console gets nothing for years while they fix every single little bug?

1 Like

I dunno, QP weaves is exactly what I wanted. I’m hoping it means QP like the normal map type QP however, in that you have RNG encounters/the AI director and not that you get a random scripted weave, otherwise I don’t think it’ll help that much.

As far as resource sinks I’m still hoping for a basegame crafting rework in the vein of Athanor with better rerolling, properties and traits.

The returned bugs and beastmen will need to be thoroughly addressed by at the latest S2’s launch date, else I imagine many people who aren’t happy atm aren’t going to give VT2 another chance in the future.

4 Likes

I’m fine with paid for cosmetics as long as there truly are plenty of non-paid for ones, and as long as none of the recoloured versions of basegame helms to match armour (eg the red/black plate armours) etc. are paid for items.

The thing with slippery slope is that it isn’t a problem as long as they don’t go beyond cosmetics, it only becomes a problem when they do. GW2 is a good example of not turning pay to win, they’ve had a cosmetics store since launch and most of the stuff there is convenience/skins. The convenience items generally aren’t cost effective, but you can still save up gold for the premium currency if you want them.

The only thing that is bad in GW2 is that there’re a lot more cosmetics for certain things (namely gliders, mounts) in the store than available in the general game (even via achievements etc.), but again, you can save gold for premium currency. As long as the ratio of free:paid cosmetics in VT2 doesn’t get too skewed toward the latter it should be alright, or if they do something annoying like lock all the major reskins behind the paywall and leave only recolours for the non-paying crowd. I still want a set of skins for completing Cata on each career like the red/black ones. Purple please ^^

There’re already paid for cosmetics for VT2 in the form of the collector’s edition skins (although there only Sienna’s looks really neat, Kruber and Bardin’s are decent but not my favourites).

Which reminds me, I’d like to have a way to finally repair the keep, get rid of all the gaping holes and so on. Fire and explosion (and Saltzpyre)-proof Sienna’s quarters etc. I’d love to see it get renovations eg whenever you unlock a difficulty banner for the base Helmgart levels, but this is a more minor want in the grand scheme of things right now.

3 Likes

I’m with you there, having something to work towards will be awesome.

11 Likes

Where did you get this?

Here’s the statement on console from Julia

6 Likes

I never wanted VT1 maps in VT2, and I still don’t. However I understand I am the minority in this and it is what it is. Drachenfels maps where my favorite in the whole of VT1 anyways so if I had to choose 3 to make it in it would be those.

1 Like

They only mention the castle and for free so I don’t think it will be more than that map. Also remember what theysaid about the last time they converted maps from V1.

Edit: *two maps, castle and dungeon.

They’ll add the Castle when the S2 starts, then the other 2 maps.

I hope the maps will not be a port of VT1…
If I wanted to play VT1 I’d play VT1. I want new story/new locations. Still they said all new maps, I guess we’ll see.
What about picking up WoM’s story? Did we fixed the weaves or didn’t we? How did we survive the meteor? What will happen with the beastmen now? (except, you know they being apparently flinged into the past, replacing the pact sworn as our enemy)

2 Likes

And weapon illusions too?

3 Likes

First of all: Free Drachenfels maps is a huge gesture, thanks a lot for that even though I already dread pubbing Legend+ on Summoner’s Peak (V1 Cata Sunday PTSD) :smiley:

Second: I can see paid cosmetic DLC as beign somewhat controversial with some parts of the community but if you strike a right balance like with V1 this is fine. Just make sure the cosmetic items we pay for look really cool :wink:

Third: Lohner’s Emporium better be as close to the Quest & contract board as possible. That and the crafting QoL improvements from the shrine were great feature whose absence in V2 honestly nobody in the community really understands. But better late than never I guess.

Fourth: Regarding weaves I think there are two or three things the community would enjoy regarding them - ranging from rather easy to implement to somewhat labor intensive. These would be
a) Giving us Athanor weapon skins outside of weaves (maybe once we have maxed out a weapon in the Athanor, more incentive to play weaves or play daily!). They look really cool and it is a shame we cannot play with them on Legend or Cata.
b) Later weaves shouldn’t just simply be the first 40 weaves mixed up with the difficulty/damage turned up to 11 but unique combo of several weave modifiers. Eventually these would be similar to planned Cata deeds with 4+ modifiers then - just imagine playing a hypothetical weave 90 and getting the modifiers of the wind of Death, Shadows, Metal and Beast at once. That is very hard without getting into the imho cheap “everything oneshots you because of 1000% damage” territory.
c) I know you guys eventually plan on tackling a deed revamp and this would obviously be a huge task but: If you revamp deeds as mutators like many in the community requested it’d be awesome if WoM owners had access to all of the Weave modifiers as deed mutators, which - once selected - automatically turn the map into the design of the selected weave as well. Now I get that even though you have the assets and redesigned quite a lot of certain maps to fit these weaves designs, this is still a lot of work. However, it would imho pay off greatly provided deeds/mutators can be joined by random people via QP or server browser after the remake.

Fifth: Unrelated to this, but give us proper illusions for the WoM weapons, please :frowning:

i’ll try to come up with some more in the next few days but these should be all of my first impressions and suggestions.

2 Likes

Well that’s mostly good news, but I can’t say I’m impressed. It looks to me like FS has been taking lessons from the EA monetization school. The warning signs are out weighing the good news.

“Oops. Sorry, here you go.”

I’m torn between being happy AF at finally getting new content and being indignant that it took this long.

Maternal Figure Reproductive Activity Bovine Excrement. False scarcity is a prime tactic of price gougers and predatory businesses. Things are falling into place…

  1. Release repeatable grindy content that keeps people in game longer.
  2. Create a false sense of newness using easily permutated content that’s actually just the same stuff repeated again, aka weaves and seasons.
  3. Monetize the hype cycles with a predatory in-game store.

Somebody hired a new monetization consultant from the mainstream industry, eh? Do not listen to them. EA and Actiblizz are on the verge of losing major franchises because they keep pulling this crap - consumers are wising up and this is the wrong time to jump on that bandwagon.

Fatshark, be warned, if you go all predatory microtransactions, in-game store, advertising to me as I play, and all that , you will be dead to me, I don’t care how good the game is. I’m not going there.

11 Likes

Ok, that’s some sweet news! Looking forward to it, will probably be done with BL3 by then.

One quick suggestion — I happened to see few vids of crazy guys doing weave 160 and like, and I think just outright deleting their achievement is kinda harsh. Keep a copy of leaderboards from season 1 on a separate tab or something.

Hope you guys can weather the storm, and learn something useful for it. Even moreso hope that we, as a playerbase, can do the same %-)

2 Likes

I have to disagree because the warnings signs are there. WOM is entirely full of EA style design choices - repetitive content, high grind, easily remade content in place of genuine new material, minimum viable product used to tease people into purchasing (1 new map?!?!) before hittim them with a store. All that was missing was an actual microtransaction store - and now we’re getting that, and it’s also already confirmed to use at least one predatory business practice (false scarcity). Also, it CAN be cosmetic only and still be predatory and intrusive- see Guild Wars 2, or Anthem.

I have no problem with non-intrusive MT shops, for example like Path of Exile, but I have huge problems with shops where you are funneled to them with bling you can’t ignore, when the real money spenders glow like the sun while everyone else is drab and boring (like Guild Wars 2), where there’s nothing to earn but everything to buy, where there are annoying sales popups and coupons, with advertising, with crap that’s in your face whenever you log in and you can’t escape. When I play a game I just want to play. I want to forget about real life, about my bills, about money. When I originally was debating whether or not to buy VT the first thing I googled about it was whether it had an in game store or not - if it did, I would have stopped there and never bought it.

Keep the advertising out of my face and I might occasionally buy something I like. Act like a money grubbing corporate fiend and they will never see a cent from me again; no matter how good VT is, or any other game they one day make, there are other indy games and other indy studios.

5 Likes

New maps is definitely what the game needs, it gets boring playing the same old maps all the time and yes i know the drachenfels maps are from the first game, but i never played VT1, so they’re still technically new for me and others who didn’t play VT1. The new maps being free is a good thing, because it somewhat makes up for WoM being in a bad state (although it seems like FS intends to improve it) and freebies pretty much always boosts the player counts by a decent amount.

The emporium sounds interesting, since there’s very little reason for +400 hour players to play, except for fun and completing the more tedious challenges, like “play 100 champion or above games with X character” or the “ravaged art” challenges. I hope we’ll see some new bodyskins as well as new hats and illusions, because only having recolours/retextures are a bit on the boring side.

Payed cosmetics are fine, just don’t go overboard with them, i don’t want to see literally half of the new cosmetics being real money stuff. 10% payed and 90% earnable is a good ratio to aim for imo.

2 Likes