Yet another Weaves & Seasons feedback topic

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
1

So here I am to speak about weaves in order to improve them as they could become a great mode (it’s already an interesting mode to play).
Pros, Neutral and Cons. I’ll try to stay a bit short so you can get feedback and move on to discussion =p

First, this mode is NOT for new players. This is kinda neutral, but as we have some sort of reset, which could mean every player start the same, I would like to point out that only a few new players will be able to get their hands on this mode by quick playing.

Q: How can I unlock the new map? A: You have to complete the Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Campaign before you can access the end game content in Winds of Magic . Q: How do I get access to play Weaves? A: You will need to play Dark Omens before accessing the Weaves.

Also note that the difficulty of thoses weaves can be really hard (Weave 26 will block some players), Weaves of death are also harder.
All this point to Weaves not being accessible “enough” to new players.
(which again is kinda neutral, it depends on what Fatshark wants)

Fixed Weaves. (Neutral)

As there are 120 weaves, and that they are redone every season. I think we can accept that fixed weaves are fine. You will only remember the “hard ones” and I think it’s fair to say that getting back to an old weave won’t make you magically remember all spawns (except again, for the hard ones).
A randomized “unranked” option could still be interesting for farming purpose. But not the end of the world.

Difficulty and Beta improvement. (Mixed and Positive)

Weaves are well made. It’s a HUGE step up from the beta were they were wonky in enemies number (either too small or too far). And really, I did see the huge work put in it. Congratulations.

Difficulty though, is still a bit strange. Weave of death is by far the worse offender as it’s probably the hardest wind. In terms of moving around and aggroing everything in order to escape thoses orbs. Enemies number could be tuned down accordingly.

Some “Weaves challenges” are kinda fun and hard. It’s great to see some weaves having this sort of challenge. And it’s great that ALL weaves don’t have it either.

Lack of replayability (REWARDS - negative)

The lack of replayability does not come from the “fixed” weave system. It comes from the abysmal reward we have when doing them. In order to bring some friends “up par”, we have to replay weaves. And doing so, earn LESS than a QP recruit map (WHY ?).
This bring us to the next point :

Grind issue. (Negative)

EVEN IF the grind is way more affordable now than it was (thanks for that). There’s still a grind issue.
Up until around 25 were you will max a single character with a single melee weapon and a single ranged weapon. You won’t be able to switch your character and/or build easily. This is the MAIN issue.
Why ? Because when playing with friends, either you have your “always available” team of 3 others players. Or you don’t. And if you don’t, well, you can only play your current career, as everything else will be underpowered for your current weave.
Therefore you have to find people that actually DON’T play your character.
Which bring us the issue that’s it’s HARD to find people past 15/20 in Weaves matchmaking, because there are simply too much stuff to have in order to join. (aka needs a host, need 3 others players, needs a character that no one have already because you can’t really switch and still be useful)

On how to solve ?
Well, I actually don’t really know. While keeping your system I guess that once a weapon is maxed, a weapon in the same slot could be maxed in your other characters. Or less aethenor needed to improve, or actually giving more aethenor for replaying weaves. Or another solution. But this narrow a lot the players able to play and improves their weave.

Seasons and seasonnal rewards. (Neutral)

Well, 3 months for a season is simply not enough at all given the grind needed. (or mostly the need to finds players doing your weave). Which is why I would refrain going on “seasonnal frames”, except if they are “easy to get”, like finish 10 weaves and available by another mean after a while (thinking of Lohner’s shop). As collecting thoses cosmetics is a huge appeal for many players.

Another good idea would be to “freeze” the ladder for Season 1, but still have the weaves availables to be completed for the frames, instead of removing them entirely. (which would mean we could replay and enjoy past content easily even if you discovered the game during season 9, which also mean more replayability)

Seasonnal content is still a good idea. And having weaves changing accordingly is fun.

Rewards

Another thing about rewarding this mode would be to make thoses skins available for the normal game =p

Pinging @fs-bigras in order for this feedback to be seen. As it’s an open conversation after all.

3 Likes
2

This is good suggestion. Also, 30% damage scaling each weave should be gone. Make Cata tier 3 Weave enemy has same attack damage. Trash mobs should not one shot kill players

2 Likes
3

I don’t consider fixed Weaves “fine” just because they are redone every Season (IF they are even redone every Season, that s). It just seems like a massive waste of time when they could just inherently be randomly generated.

Why spend copious amounts of developer time and effort making 120 different, individual Weaves every 3 months, when you could just have them be randomly generated, you know, one of the main highlights of the actual game and reasons why it has managed to find replayability, a department Weaves is lacking in?

Not only that, but there is a finite amount of variation you can possible make manually. At some point, once we reach Season 6 or whatever, Weave 97 will be exactly the same as it was two Seasons ago, except one group of Elites was replaced by another.

The replayability will only get worse the more Seasons we get into it.

Fixed Weaves are also the number one offender when it comes to the queue times, as everyone are queue’ing for different Weaves.

Again, I feel like making the Weaves fixed is overall negative, and making themrandomly generated would just fix some many problems with it, there’s almost no reason not to do it, including:

  • The devs don’t have to spend ludicrous amounts of time making new Weaves.

  • It would fix the queue times.

  • It would have more replayability in the long run.

Perhaps Weaves are well-made on a technical level, but there’s still some things you can scratch your head at.

For example, a lot of people have reported that once you reach the higher level Weaves, even one hit from Slave Rats can take away 90% of your health.

That’s absurd.

Saying Weaves lack replayability only due to the lack of rewards is just not true.

Sure, when there’s 120 different Weaves it’s not like they’re in short supply, but once you’ve already played one, you have no reason to go back and play it again, even if you “don’t remember it”.

Agree. Making Amulet progress shared across all careers was a great move - the next step is to make weapons shared as well.

Fully agree, 3 months is way too short for a Season, and not just due to the aforementioned problem with fixed Weaves.

Some miscellaneous points:

  • Progression Reset every Season (Very Negative).

  • Leaderboards (Which, I personally find Negative, but is more Neutral).

2 Likes
4

Because, again, it would not be as competitive as they want it to be. Competitive require them to be “not random” at the core. Now if they ADD this option (as I did propose it myself), it’s okay. But 120 weaves is still a lot to do.

Randomizing them would also remove the incentive to “go up” in the ladder of weaves or do you randomize a specific level, therefore you’ll get the same issue, as I’ll QP into random weave lvl 23 when you’re QPING into Random Weave lvl 21. Therefore it should really be another option that’s not ranked.

You’re right. And it was reported by @SpaceJellyKing a post above yours. No worries =p

You have reasons to go back (or at least I have). Helping a friend, want to challenge yourself, farming (which is not doable at the moment). Providing a good reward to this COULD indeed improve replayability.

Well I didn’t really feedback that point as there’s probably nothing to feedback. Some people enjoy it, majority do not care about it. It’s still a mode where you try to reach further, which is something interesting.

This is an issue that’s mostly specific to the grind part. If grind was fast, and/or not needed, it would be a non-issue.

1 Like
5

Assuming you can find people do all of them with you. I haven’t bought WoM yet, but most of my friends haven’t even bought the older DLCs, I don’t think they’ll buy this one.

Also I think what FS wants, competitive weaves, and what most players want, replayability, are at odds here.

Honestly I’d rather just have it work the way I thought it would when they first announced them. You pick a starting difficulty (Rec, Vet, Champ, Leg or Cata), you get sent into a random weave, if you beat it you have the option to return to the keep or getting going. The weaves get harder and harder (in terms of AI director, mechanics etc., eg eventually having multiple mechanics per wind or perhaps having two winds combine even later) until you wipe. Boom, it’s actually cool.

This right here is a prime example why we don’t need fixed weaves, if most people don’t care about leaderboards why bother having them be fixed in order to enable that?

People were already annoyed about versus mode being announced as this is a pve game and I’m actually looking forward to that, I like that kind of competition (and pvp in general). Weave leaderboards I couldn’t care less about and I’d rather have randomness/replayability than fixed weaves with leaderboards.

PvP is by it’s very nature unpredictable, unlike weaves are, hence why I’m looking forward to that.

If they add in random weaves as a second, separate thing I’d be happy. As it is now however the value of WoM rests entirely upon Cataclysm, beastmen, weapons and the new map in my eyes. The current iteration of weaves might as well be a weekly as far as I care.

1 Like
6

Mostly prevented by the grind system. I did agree =p

They’re trying a new stuff, and it’s fine. I’m not a competitive player, so I largely ignore leaderboards, and I can still enjoy weaves. There are 120 to do, which is large.

I can see a system like this, except for the part where you follow up with another weave. At least not without some sort of checkpoint. As one of the great things about the weaves is that you can play them fast (around 15 mn games).

I’m also looking forward to it. I was annoyed this could be in the main game. But as it was announced as another game, and also not having rewards for the “main game”, it means that you can ignore this if you want, and play it if you want. It also means that we won’t see a balance taking PvP into account rather than PvE.

Because SOME people like it, and it have no incendance whatsoever with your experience. I mean, right now, you and I didn’t finish thoses 120 weaves, so why care about randomizing stuff.
The “ladder” part is something that I find interesting as you have a specific goal of reaching the next one.
Something that randomizing can’t do (except if you randomize your current level of weave), competitive or not.

2 Likes
7

I actually don’t care about leaderboard.

I don’t care how many will be up on me or down below me.

Honestly, leaderboard on pve games shouldn’t be a thing in my opinion.

But if fatshark want to keep leaderboard, then they need to remove boosted player by cheater too.

Also, it seems cheating programs are free from banning unless fatshark investigate one by one.

Look at sole ~ quad. There is a lot of cheaters now.

3 Likes
8

I didn’t think of that - I guess it’d be best if it stores the highest one you beat in each chain of weaves and you have the option to continue from those later.

Because based on the previous betas having to reattempt a hard weave multiple times is already mind-numbingly boring, whereas attempting a Cata map you never know what’s going to happen where.

9

I’m fine with this idea.

Well I mostly see that as having 120 fortunes of war (but all differents and fast) to complete =p

2 Likes
10

I liked FoW as a fun one off. Sort of a “hey come check this crazy thing out and it fits in with the lore of the BtU expansion as a capstone”. I never played it and thought “I want more of this instead of missions”.

Edit: sorry perhaps this reply seems a bit off topic. I mentioned it because the FoW enjoyment might imply that I like it on mass instead of it being good in that one situation.

1 Like
11

I haven’t really played weaves so far mostly due to aforementioned points, but I could see myself playing them with that kind of modifications. Great post

12

Here I’ve found some quotes from Robin which explains a bit the process of adding this mode.
This is probably a great insight at how and why this mode came to life. And also a great insight at the videogame industry as a whole.

Both those DLCs took our entire art and level design teams ~9 months (edit: this is from memory, more or less, it was too long is the point) each to produce. We simply couldn’t keep up with how fast our players wanted new content with that model and also fix bugs in levels. Further upping graphical fidelity in VT2 means making new maps takes even more time. The player dips between the DLCs in VT1 showed that they were a serious risk to the game’s longevity. Also, since Drachenfels wasn’t insanely well received it also showed to be a big risk putting all eggs in one basket like that. That’s why we instead have tried to find more ways to produce new content, not to not just churn out new maps but also new ways to play them, new goals to achieve and more and more differentiated cosmetic rewards.

We’re constantly trying to evolve, to become better, to try new things. It means some things will inadvertently not work, while others will. Looking at the numbers for Vermintide 2 compared to Vermintide 1, at least there seem to be some things working, but every time we explore something new it also takes a period of maturing to figure how to do it really well, even when it is ‘working’.

It also means some things just will end up abandoned and left at the roadside. Last stand was an experiment like this, we tried to make it work, but we just couldn’t get it to generate the appeal it needed to be viable for us to spend time on. Imo fortunes of war sort of made it work, but because of the ways it was different, was hand crafted and was an apex challenge rather than an alternative game mode (and because it had a clear end).

Since a lot of people seem to have misinterpreted what I’ve been trying to say I’ll state it more clearly.

We’re not stopping making new maps . We’re just making other things as well so there isn’t literally nothing between the map releases. There was over a year between Drachenfels and Karak Azgaraz. Having gaps like that between new content is way too long for the health of the game (actually, it was even longer than I remembered it, my 9 months are likely off), so we’ve been trying diversify. The first step was to try doing 2 maps per pack, to have more frequent smaller updates, it helped somewhat, but it was clear to us we needed more content.

Besides the weaves, Winds of Magic does contain a new adventure map as well. It’s less than our previous two VT2 DLCs, simply because a lot of level design and art work went into crafting enough content to make the weaves feel varied enough to make the new game mode viable. We understand that the weaves aren’t for everybody so for those where it isn’t it may feel like “wasted” time, but that’s ok. Everybody doesn’t have to love everything, that’s why we also added Cataclysm, revamped all the talents for the base game, added more weapons and added a new adventure map. Hopefully though, we’ll have something for everybody.

You may not agree that we’ve followed the optimal strategy for the health of the game, but I hope that at least clarifies what I was trying to say.

It’s not “instead of mission”, it’s in order to find a recipe that will keep players between content. Seasonnal content, and weaves WILL be improved as pointed out several time by the dev team, and it’s up to us to provide feedback as constructive as possible to make it happen. (which is what I’m trying to do with this topic, and I’m glad that it is still respectful right now :p)

3 Likes
13

Yes I know why they did it. Though I disagree that its not instead of missions. “It’s less than our previous two VT2 DLCs, simply because a lot of level design and art work went into crafting enough content to make the weaves feel varied”. That quote right there states that the specific reason there were not more mission were to make weaves. But again that’s less on the topic of weaves as they are now.

As far as feedback I feel like its been the same feedback since beta 1. The work going into the weaves is solid, but the implementation has been abysmal. But as for how to fix it. Cosmetics and start rewarding players for replaying weaves/ playing random weaves. I get that there’s worry people will grind the easiest weaves, but that’s got to be better than not playing the weaves because they don’t consider it to be worthwhile.

2 Likes
14

Appreciate it!

We are looking into how to make things better for season 2 :slightly_smiling_face:

Yes we do want to have more things for players to earn, we are trying to find a sustainable way for us to make enough content to keep people happy

Cheers, glad it was appreciated

We have some ideas on how we can make it better going forward. It is not fun when you want to play but don’t have a group

Thanks for that :smiley:

2 Likes
15

Some possible solutions?

1)Chose a weapon set and career per character when you start.

  1. First 30 weaves upgrades Athanor, Amulet, and weapons by 1 for each weave in the set from 1‐30 completed (on all 5 selected careers)

  2. All weaves provide an essence reward that can be use to upgrade the other weapons and careers. It would scale from low to high as it currently does.

  3. Perhaps the Amulets should not be shared as they are now since you get so much for free.

  4. Completing a weave again provides diminishing rewards. 90‐80‐70‐60. At some rate of decline that makes sense. An alternative is to give us a chest reward from that difficulty, like a merchants.

  5. Matchmaking for weaves should let you see Matches up to +20 from your highest completed weave once you are past 30 and +10 before that.

Those would smooth out the experience for me.

16

@fs-bigras
Make it so that we can play with friends who haven’t bought the dlc. Like, right now. They won’t get anything material out of that, we’d have fun. If you are worrying about the leaderboards, just stop XD

What else could be better? More maps, less weaves in the future.

About fs-Robin’s post. FoW has been one of the coolest things ever, because it was fun, because it was cool, because it didn’t mess with balance, but mostly because it was a one time only challenge. The fact people had fun with it (lots) and never played it again makes it an odd choice for “endgame template of endless replayability”
(also, the fact it had an ending and no boring bits it’s why it was more popular than last stands. Weaves are too many not to bore, and is there an ending? Honest question, I really have no idea, oleysa’s dialogues seem to hint we’ll fix the mess, the mode doesn’t)

17

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.