Developer Blog: Versus Alpha Test - Lessons Learned and Takeaways
In this dev blog, Vermintide 2’s Design Director, Joakim, talks about the takeaways and solves that Fatshark learned from the Versus Alpha Test.
Greetings Heroes and Pactsworn,
Hope you had a great 6-year anniversary! My name is Joakim and I’m the Design Director for Vermintide 2. In this dev blog, I’ll provide an update on the Versus game mode by following up on the recent Open Alpha Test. Actually, we dubbed it the Great Open Alpha Test, or GOAT, as it was preceded by the Closed Alpha Test, or CAT. Tradition now mandates that we can’t have a next test before we decide on a good animal acronym. Suggestions are welcome.
First off, thank you everyone for playing and supporting the game! The GOAT was active at the same time as our Anniversary event, from March 7th to March 17th, with Versus being available from the (new-ish) PC main menu. The test saw some polishing and balancing, it featured a new Versus map - Righteous Stand - and supported our DLC careers.
All in all the test was successful, but unfortunately, it was quite unstable in the first days of play, requiring five hotfixes to resolve the stability issues.
After 6 years Vermintide 2 consists of a lot of moving parts, and as the previous test had been on a separate beta app the integration of the game mode into Vermintide simply proved trickier than anticipated. Apologies for all the inconvenience it caused for your Quiet Drinks - but hopefully this should have been one of the biggest production hurdles, and we expect things to roll out smoother now for any future binging in Helmgart.
With that, cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the rats of statistics!
The GOAT saw just shy of 24000 players fighting across 39529 rounds in 9345 games, compared to the 3600 players in CAT. The tweaks to balance and scoring were successful in reducing the number of games ending in draws on both maps - only 0.4% compared to nearly 7% in CAT. With Righteous Stand we also wanted to test a longer, three-section map over Screaming Bell’s two sections, and we saw match times averaging around 30 minutes toward the end of the test. Overall you seem to approve of both the map and the longer playtime compared to the previous test, and we’ll take that into consideration going forward.
The balance tweaks and the introduction of the DLC careers had a definite impact on the Hero meta, with the top ten most-played careers shifting slightly as a result:
| | CAT | GOAT |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mercenary | Mercenary |
| 2 | Battle Wizard | Ranger Veteran |
| 3 | Ranger Veteran | Waystalker |
| 4 | Waystalker | Warrior Priest |
| 5 | Witch Hunter Captain | Iron Breaker |
| 6 | Bounty Hunter | Necromancer |
| 7 | Handmaiden | Handmaiden |
| 8 | Ironbreaker | Footknight |
| 9 | Footknight | Pyromancer |
| 10 | Unchained | Bounty Hunter |
Grenades and sniping weapons continue to be the core of the weapon arsenal against the Pactsworn; handguns, crossbows, longbows, and bolt staff are in the lead, while brace of pistols seemed to perform well, specifically for Saltzpyre.
From a Pactsworn perspective there was little change in terms of pick rate and longevity compared to the CAT: the Globadier still outperforms as a safely hidden damage dealer whilst the Warpfire Thrower could do with more buffing to increase usability and appeal. The Gutter Runner saw a slight uptick in picking, which may be a result of the general open layout of Righteous Stand, and the Packmaster players were probably having the times of their (short) lives, happily lurking by the cliff sections in the third set (or in the second set’s labyrinthine sauna spots).
With the GOAT being available to so many players we saw lots of good feedback on the forums and in our social channels, all of which is much appreciated. The survey made an appearance in the launcher as well and we got a great turnout of over 1500 responses. Huge thank you for all your responses and feedback, it makes all the difference going through your answers and tracking how things are improving over different tests.
Last time we did the survey, for CAT, we ended up with a majority of Legend and Cataclysm player responses. A goal for GOAT was to get more responses from Recruit, Veteran and Champion players, and/or players with <60h playtime, and we… mostly accomplished that. To our 8 Recruit players; thank you, but we need to make sure even more of you find your way to the survey next time.
In general, all of you seem to have a really good time in Versus, with 84% of you rating the game mode between 7-10 in “fun”, and with Cataclysm players being overwhelmingly the most positive to both Versus and playing Pactsworn. Looking at the mid-to-negative responses, the majority of these mention balancing and stability as the biggest issues we can improve on.
So what do the feature requests look like at this point? Well, nothing has really changed from CAT, with the most common requests being balancing the teams further (special shoutout to Warrior Priest and Life staff this time!), adding Pactsworn talents or abilities, designing a training area for Pactsworn and implementing both some form of matchmaking and private game options.
Oh, and also to add a playable boss. But we’re working on that, so don’t you worry.
We’re also aware of frustrations with getting a random Hero when joining into a game, as well as having too many Globadiers around at the same time, and we’ll look into these things as well. The next test, Animal Name Pending, will be a fun one I reckon.
Appearances aside, we are working on other things aside from Versus. For instance, we are finally working on a loadout system and hope to have that out together with the next test. But what about the Ubersreik 5, you may ask? What’s in store now that Karak Azgaraz is saved (again), Sienna has a penchant for the undead and Lohner is receiving unexpected guests? Whale, we can’t reveal anything about the future just yet, so you’ll just have to wait and sea what it holds for oar heroes.
But not for too long, we expect.
Thank you for these past 6 years and for your continued support. In a year we’ll meet up again to try to find that door to the Obese Megalodon (though if Queen Kerillian was a door - she’d be the best door, obviously).
Joakim, and the Vermintide team