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[Persus13]

The one other player on recruit is likely because recruit rewards are pretty bad once you get above 100 hero power because the reward chests you get for completing each mission are tied to difficulty. Higher difficulties net you better quality chests and gear. Once you start playing Veteran or higher you'll find more people. I imagine the Chaos Wastes are also drawing more people to play that instead.

Blocking and dodging definitely becomes more of a thing at higher difficulties, but I think nenjin can explain that kind of thing better than me. There's also some characters where its more useful than others. Bardin and Kruber both have weapons and abilities that reward blocking more, whereas my Saltzpyre build tends to be more of a stay back and snipe specials style character.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, tried another round with four players, was a lot spicier (maybe it scales down if you've got bots?).  Was playing the pyromancer lady, overall a lot more fun, I think I get the idea now.

[nenjin]

Don't worry about chests, just open em whenever. You'll get more than you need, eventually. Nothing really matters until your Hero level is 30+. Then gear starts dropping at max power level and you can actually start going for the traits and talents that work for your build. Up until that point, just use whatever has the best power rating, don't worry about the traits and properties it rolled, try out the weapons, find the one that jives with you. Dismantle everything you're not going to use so you can build up some resources for crafting when gear stabilizes and you know what you like and don't like.

IMO Champion is where the game starts getting fun. Mostly because the damage forces you to start paying attention, playing better. In Recruit and Veteran once you have some gear you can largely just face roll through everything. Champion and up is where the enemy density, enemy health and enemy damage forces you to start playing smarter, picking good fighting ground, staying near your friends, making space around yourself to fight, doing crowd control, being Johnny On The Spot killing specials, etc and so forth.

Blocking and dodging specifically are what I like to think of as insurance polices. There's many attacks you must either block or not be in the path of if you want to survive. Basically any attack an armored elite or monster or boss throws your way. Dodging helps you get out of the way, and you hold up a block while dodging just in case your dodge wasn't timed well, you misread things, etc...but by and large you shouldn't be in a position to be stuck, blocked or not. You should always be moving as you attack, keeping up a wall of steel around yourself to stay safe, getting the best position on the horde to continue safely blendering them, forcing the AI to constantly reposition in an attempt to hit you rather than actually swinging on you, and using dodges and blocks (and push blocks!) to keep yourself safe while you do so. The absolute worst way to play VT2 is to stand still. The second worst way to play is to constantly be moving forward and never checking your flanks. On higher difficulties, that is the death of you.

Vermintide is largely a game about positioning. Not a lot of that becomes super relevant until the game is challenging enough you can't ignore it. At higher difficulties the enemy will eventually start swarming you and you'll get pushed back, and you have to learn to manage a horde of guys, always trying to avoid getting surrounded, knowing when to give ground and when to push through. At higher difficulties the amount of things you need to respond to goes up as the AI attacks faster and more relentlessly. So doing things like battering back the horde in front of you, pushing away some guys at your side, then turning around and blocking guys behind you eventually becomes second nature.

Among my regular VT friends and I, we consider anything less than Legend teaches "bad habits" because you can Ricky Rambo through much of the game. When you bring that mentality back to Legend, you get your ass handed to you. I'd personally advise you to play at the highest difficulty your current Hero Power allows.

Should also just mention: all the loot you're earning from doing the Chaos Wastes does not apply to the Chaos Wastes. That gear only comes into play in the normal campaign/story missions. But you are earning XP and leveling up your character and the Talents you unlock do apply in the Chaos Wastes.

edit
Re-reading, just so I can put it into perspective....one friend of mine has had 0 Damage Taken runs on Legend NOT playing as Ironbreaker with Gromril Armor. And he's right up there in kills with everyone else. I'm worse than average when it comes to DT in our group but it's not uncommon for everyone to finish with sub 300 DT. To us, DT is really we the stat we pay attention to at the end of the game.....(mostly because the fucking Waywatcher takes all the green circles 95% of the time when one specific guy plays her.)

[Zangi]

The game gets a lot better once you get past recruit and veteran.  They are sleep inducing to me.

You really only start needing to learn the game at champion and even then, you can pick up bad habits that won’t work in legend and beyond.  Though, I hear that champion tends to have a concentration of tryhards who cannot cut it in legend.

[nenjin]

Big oof but it's true. Or you get people that know they can't hack it in Legend, so they speed run the fuck out of Champion which makes for a pretty shit team play experience.

[Draignean]

Big oof but it's true. Or you get people that know they can't hack it in Legend, so they speed run the fuck out of Champion which makes for a pretty shit team play experience.

I keep trying to get people interested in playing this game but they either can't slog through the really boring early game, or get turned off immediately by the gut-punch that is the jump in from Champ to Legend. :/

I'm not great (and I'm probably actively bad now that I haven't played in... a while) but there was very little better than the feeling of pulling a victory out of seemingly impossible odds. Getting to the point where you can do that, however, is a pretty significant investment of time.

[nenjin]

I keep trying to get people interested in playing this game but they either can't slog through the really boring early game, or get turned off immediately by the gut-punch that is the jump in from Champ to Legend. :/

Yeah, I've seen a few hardcore gamer friends get thrown at Champion as soon as they were able and it kinda broke them. Which is a shame. There is so much joy to be had in mastering the game. But you either got the bloodlust or ya don't.

Getting to the point where you can do that, however, is a pretty significant investment of time.

I think it was around the 400 or 500 hour mark where things truly clicked. There just a lot of behaviors and reactions you literally have to get beaten into you for them to stick. We were actually talking about it today at lunch, I think it'd be hilarious to get the backstab swoosh sound on my phone so I could walk up behind my VT friends and see if they have any Pavlovian reactions to it.

[umiman]

Big oof but it's true. Or you get people that know they can't hack it in Legend, so they speed run the fuck out of Champion which makes for a pretty shit team play experience.

I keep trying to get people interested in playing this game but they either can't slog through the really boring early game, or get turned off immediately by the gut-punch that is the jump in from Champ to Legend. :/

I'm not great (and I'm probably actively bad now that I haven't played in... a while) but there was very little better than the feeling of pulling a victory out of seemingly impossible odds. Getting to the point where you can do that, however, is a pretty significant investment of time.

Haha, this reminded me of my review of this game way back in the day.

------------------

I wish I could recommend this game. Some of you are probably thinking "lol you played 149 hours, clearly you liked it". But as I look back on it... yeah, perhaps I did.

But you know who didn't? All my friends. Friends who played tonnes and tonnes of the original Vermintide 1. And I can summarize why:

1. The progression in this game is utter trash. You need to spend dozens upon dozens of hours grinding the same maps over and over again just to level your character. And it's not rewarding at all. You have to then repeat this with every single character you want to play, up to 5 times over. So many of your most important skills are locked behind your level (especially level 20) and it makes playing unlevelled characters on the difficulty you want to play tedious and ridiculous. Nobody who's used to playing on Legend wants to be forced to grind on Champion or Veteran difficulty for a hundred hours. And good luck playing with your friends when they have to go through all that but are nowhere near hardcore enough to do so.


------------------

It was definitely my biggest issue with the game. So few people can actually be arsed to grind so hard on so many different characters just to get to the fun part of the game.

[nenjin]

Those are legit complaints, to a point.

I'd struggle to find a MP Coop game that doesn't eventually devolve into "playing the same thing over and over again for the sake of progression."

For me, every game eventually comes down to "do you just like playing it?" We used to run Left 4 Dead maps hundreds of times back in the day for literally nothing; we'd gotten the achievement the very first time we beat it.

Around 200 to 300 hours in VT2, you've likely leveled every character. Around 400 or 500 hours, they ones you enjoy the most are probably wearing all reds.

VT2 does have a few progression saving graces. You only need to level each character once, not "once per career." So if you level to 35 on Kruber, all 3 of his other careers have all their talents unlocked.

Secondarily, the Necklace, Trinket and Charm gear slots are shared between all characters. So once you find good ones playing as character X, character Y can equip them.

Thirdly, crafting resources are shared between all characters. So when you've got a decent stockpile of materials (and the three aforementioned other slots covered) rolling up a decent weapon isn't too onerous.

I don't mind running a few Vet and Champion runs until a friend is Legend ready for a new character. The real burden is on them. For the others, it's just a few too easy rounds kicking a bit too much ass. We usually take it as an opportunity to play classes we don't play very often. For the person leveling up a new class though, it's rougher. Because you'll immediately start playing Legend as soon as you're able, which means at a low Hero Power. And that actually makes the game harder for that person until their power level comes up. They deal less damage, stagger and cleave less than other players at a high hero power, because of the buffs enemies get on that difficulty. That I've found is actually the most discouraging thing for new player, is getting thrown into Legend and getting their asses absolutely kicked for dozens of games until they get their hero power up.

But yeah, my group long ago crossed the Rubicon on having anything else to play for other than the sweet, sweet release of exploding rat skulls.

[Draignean]

You really need to stop making me want to pick this up again. I kicked this habit years ago.

[Kagus]

Oh, what blessed irony to revive the thread for this...

Fatshark have just officially revealed the DLC career for Sienna and, well... It's a doozy.

From a gameplay perspective, I'm psyched as hell. From a narrative perspective... I'm right and proper vexed, mate. Very curious to see how on earth they plan to rationalize this between the characters.


Or have we just finally reached the point where they've really jumped the Fatshark?

[Criptfeind]

Vermintide has never struck me as a very narrative focused game, sure it's sorta there in a "if you squint a lot and maybe fill in most of it yourself" sorta way, but has never been important to my enjoyment of the game, so I'm totally on board with the Doylist reasoning that necromancers are sick and hell and it's a fun idea to play as one. If a Watsonian reason is required though I've read online (in relation to this question) that in the old lore there's a spell that allows a slain necromancer to possess a nearby person, this does not kill the person, just suppress them until the necromancers spirit is removed. Which gives a decent seeming reason why the others would work with the possessed Sienna instead of killing her, they all need to survive the vermintide and there's hope that afterwards Sienna can be restored.

Dunno if that's what fat shark will go with, but it seems reasonable.

[Loud Whispers]

I thought the necromancer Sienna was just shitposting

[Kagus]

Vermintide has never struck me as a very narrative focused game, sure it's sorta there in a "if you squint a lot and maybe fill in most of it yourself" sorta way

I mean, sure, Left 4 Rats has never exactly been hugely focused on story... But that said, it does have some strongly-defined characters; ones which certainly increase my enjoyment of the game. And while there's a lot more wiggle room in the overarching lore of the setting to allow for wizards suddenly picking up necromancy while still nominally fighting for the good guys, the individual characters being okay with this is considerably more of a stretch. Salty and the Krubs in particular seem like pretty tough sells to just go along with this flip, even with their relationship to Sienna that's been built up over the years.

Very curious indeed to see how they plan on writing this to get everyone on the same side.

I thought the necromancer Sienna was just shitposting

Some of it was, to begin with, but now we've moved from shitposting to full-on sharkposting. It's legit.

[Loud Whispers]

Some of it was, to begin with, but now we've moved from shitposting to full-on sharkposting. It's legit.

Deep concern writ on his face

This just won't be the same anymore