I've had heated arguments with Soulslike devotees that hate even the idea of difficulty options, but considering that this particular game has a voluntary difficulty setting right there on the proverbial tin, what the fuck?
I enjoyed Vermintide 2 even while being not very great at the higher difficulties (helped having experienced companions in premades) but I knew what I was getting into, and yes, as a voluntary difficulty choice, things being really brutal and having to really strive to survive was indeed part of the fun.
I think, ultimately, the most toxic of want basically the impossible: they want to stand on a mighty gatekept hill of superiority with all the plebs/scrubs/npcs/noobs/whatever beneath them, but at the same time they don't want to actually be challenged in a way that might humble them.
I think a big chunk of it is; Normal people cannot cooperate with others.
Like, Vermintide, Darktide? Pretty niche games where cooperation is both necessary and enforced by special disabler and assassin enemies.
HD2, success also required cooperation, but it reached a massive audience and most of those people... just... don't... communicate. They don't ping, they don't use chat, they don't use voice. They don't even passively stick together. I worked out, it actually makes things exponentially worse when you have players that don't cooperate, because they trigger every patrol and spawn, they don't cover or protect each other, the players aren't making use of all their strats together. If you're all together you're rarely ever not going to have some gigantic bomb ready to go. BUt if it's four people running off alone they're gonna get overwhelmed even by minor threats. And since they don't know how to cooperate they don't know they have to cooperate, so when they get absolutely ruined by something that would be trivial for a squad working together they can only think that the game is being mean and punishing them.
It's sad and pathetic. How did we get to the point where people can't even stay together and point at interesting things? We talk about alienation so much but this is it; People cannot communicate or cooperate at the simplest, most basic level.
I've played such bideo bames for decades, and I've seen so, so many "main characters" that couldn't even entertain the thought of cooperating with others, at best accepting having disposable sidekicks.
"I'm great at the game so i'm going to run to the other side of the map alone and do objectives"
27s later
"Why didn't you jerks help me when i was getting killed by that monster i quit!"
And even if john helldiver is good enough to run off alone they never, ever think about whether the rest of the team can manage when they're at 3/4 instead of 4/4.
Vermintide 2 has so many communication hotkeys/shortcuts it baffles me people don't call out threats and whatnot more often. People with natural bond who don't pick up tomes when another person has health duping/sharing is one of my pet peeves. I shouldn't even have to ask.
Champion is secretly the hardest difficulty (more than legend or cataclysm) because that's where all the """"solo carry"""" players congregate.
I've had heated arguments with Soulslike devotees that hate even the idea of difficulty options, but considering that this particular game has a voluntary difficulty setting right there on the proverbial tin, what the fuck?
I enjoyed Vermintide 2 even while being not very great at the higher difficulties (helped having experienced companions in premades) but I knew what I was getting into, and yes, as a voluntary difficulty choice, things being really brutal and having to really strive to survive was indeed part of the fun.
I think, ultimately, the most toxic of
want basically the impossible: they want to stand on a mighty gatekept hill of superiority with all the plebs/scrubs/npcs/noobs/whatever beneath them, but at the same time they don't want to actually be challenged in a way that might humble them.
I think a big chunk of it is; Normal people cannot cooperate with others.
Like, Vermintide, Darktide? Pretty niche games where cooperation is both necessary and enforced by special disabler and assassin enemies.
HD2, success also required cooperation, but it reached a massive audience and most of those people... just... don't... communicate. They don't ping, they don't use chat, they don't use voice. They don't even passively stick together. I worked out, it actually makes things exponentially worse when you have players that don't cooperate, because they trigger every patrol and spawn, they don't cover or protect each other, the players aren't making use of all their strats together. If you're all together you're rarely ever not going to have some gigantic bomb ready to go. BUt if it's four people running off alone they're gonna get overwhelmed even by minor threats. And since they don't know how to cooperate they don't know they have to cooperate, so when they get absolutely ruined by something that would be trivial for a squad working together they can only think that the game is being mean and punishing them.
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Mandatory cooperation games seem to have a sort of curse like that when they get popular enough. MOBAs with teams come to mind.
It's sad and pathetic. How did we get to the point where people can't even stay together and point at interesting things? We talk about alienation so much but this is it; People cannot communicate or cooperate at the simplest, most basic level.
I've played such bideo bames for decades, and I've seen so, so many "main characters" that couldn't even entertain the thought of cooperating with others, at best accepting having disposable sidekicks.
Yeah. I hate that.
"I'm great at the game so i'm going to run to the other side of the map alone and do objectives"
27s later
"Why didn't you jerks help me when i was getting killed by that monster i quit!"
And even if john helldiver is good enough to run off alone they never, ever think about whether the rest of the team can manage when they're at 3/4 instead of 4/4.
Vermintide 2 has so many communication hotkeys/shortcuts it baffles me people don't call out threats and whatnot more often. People with natural bond who don't pick up tomes when another person has health duping/sharing is one of my pet peeves. I shouldn't even have to ask.
Champion is secretly the hardest difficulty (more than legend or cataclysm) because that's where all the """"solo carry"""" players congregate.
Getting DOTA flashbacks....