VHS another asymmetric slasher game (free to play) - Surely, this one must be solid after so many failures? Spoilers: the balance sucks and the devs are faggots

[biscuitscilia]

Just a correction: the lawsuit did not end the support of the game. That's a narrative the devs created and they were successful enough to trick a lot of people into believing. What actually happened is that the devs chose to neglect crucial issues with the game, delaying everything by saying that "We're doing an engine upgrade and cannot add more content in the mean time." Then the engine """"""""""""upgrade""""""""""" happened that had no real noticeable difference aside from slightly different lighting, they added the single player challenge mode, a last desperate list of bug fixes that still didn't fix crucial problems, and that was it. Jason X is in the game, fully complete, only thing he was lacking is a unique music theme like the other Jason's. That was it. The dev's excuse for not adding Jason X "It would take several weeks of Q&A and not worth it."

This is how he complete he was. I.E. FULLY completed. And the Q&A line is laughable because the devs didn't Q&A shit just like Behavior and Dead by Daylight. The reason they abandoned the game is that it wasn't as profitable for them and they wrung it dry and moved on. The excuse that they can't make any changes is further invalidated by there being a sub-optimal Switch port they crapped out a year later.

Ahhhh okay that explains some shit, I figured the licensing lawsuit shouldn't have effected the game that much, since it was an agreement made before hand. I thought it just made it tricky on what they could or couldn't use but this makes me real worried about the Texas Chainsaw game they're making. I hope they're not just jumping from IP to IP to make shovelware garbage like that Predator game that got shat out recently.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Ahhhh okay that explains some shit, I figured the licensing lawsuit shouldn't have effected the game that much, since it was an agreement made before hand. I guessed it was just make tricky to see what they could or couldn't use but this makes me real worried about the Texas Chainsaw game they're making. I hope they're not just jumping from IP to IP to make shovelware garbage like that Predator game that got shat out recently.

The TCM game is being developed by the publisher of F13, Gun Media, and Sumo Digital that did other things. Illfonic was the other dev of F13, they also made the woeful Predator: Hunting Grounds. The big question is who was at fault with the F13 game? Gun or Illfonic? Or maybe both? We will be finding out soon when the TCM game is out.

The funny thing is that I was playing Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle and it's a fun free to play game that's on mobile. As I was playing it I noticed this:

The free game was able to work around the lawsuit by inserting incomplete code in the game before the lawsuit cut off date and then add new content later. Is this just a "playful wink and nod" to the people at Gun Media or could it mean something more?

 

[DuranceVile]

Just a correction: the lawsuit did not end the support of the game. That's a narrative the devs created and they were successful enough to trick a lot of people into believing. What actually happened is that the devs chose to neglect crucial issues with the game, delaying everything by saying that "We're doing an engine upgrade and cannot add more content in the mean time." Then the engine """"""""""""upgrade""""""""""" happened that had no real noticeable difference aside from slightly different lighting, they added the single player challenge mode, a last desperate list of bug fixes that still didn't fix crucial problems, and that was it. Jason X is in the game, fully complete, only thing he was lacking is a unique music theme like the other Jason's. That was it. The dev's excuse for not adding Jason X "It would take several weeks of Q&A and not worth it."

This is how he complete he was. I.E. FULLY completed. And the Q&A line is laughable because the devs didn't Q&A shit just like Behavior and Dead by Daylight. The reason they abandoned the game is that it wasn't as profitable for them and they wrung it dry and moved on. The excuse that they can't make any changes is further invalidated by there being a sub-optimal Switch port they crapped out a year later.

There's some Canuck black magic going on over at BHVR that literally all their competition up to this point have imploded.

 

[ChucklesTheJester]

There's some Canuck black magic going on over at BHVR that literally all their competition up to this point have imploded.

I said it once, I'll say it ten more times. They wished on a god damn monkey paw, and all 5 fingers curled at the same time.

They(a incompetent(maybe one might say lazy) dev team) wished for a successful game. Now when ever some other team makes a game like it, that new dev team no matter how stable, level headed, or competent they look, suddenly fall under the curse of the monkey paw, and suddenly we find out they all lost over 90 IQ each. Might all go to the bill Cosby school of date rape, and drugging. Can't code, or take feedback with out chimping out. abandon the game because it turned out to be a cash grab/they stopped caring, and or make baffling decisions that make you question if they play the game.

In other words they become BHVR with out a monkey paw to wish on.

Now hold on, you ask. " Whats the downside to wishing on it?".

Just look at the fandom the game has around it. It makes FNF and FNAF look like well respected, and mentally sound communities.

 

[BrunoMattei]

So about that grind...

I would say the grind is about as bad as playing DbD without the BBQ perk for killer. I've put in about 50-ish matches just this week. I'm half way through the Blood web... Er.... Journey to unlock perks and mutations. I'm around level 40. If you play without any point offerings and no one else uses one you're most likely not going to earn even 1 aura point... It'll take 2 or even 3 matches the higher the level you are to even earn one single aura point.

I'm looking at how much more I have to go unlock all of Wart's perks and get all of his mutations or at least the good mutations and I thought it would take about 30 matches but it's looking closer to double that.

So roughly, it's going to take somewhere around 100 matches in all to unlock all of the perks/mutations on ONE monster. It's debatable if this is better or worse than DbD. Once all of the perks are fully unlocked for one monster than their teachable perks are available for everyone else BUT you still need aura points for every individual monster to assign those perks so there's still a high level of grinding there. It probably won't be 100-ish matches to get what you want except for specific mutations or tier 3 perks. I fully expect Hellbent (the devs) to add a battlepass that reduces the grind. If they address the issues then I might buy one. It depends.

Some of the mutations are just clear upgrades of your base abilities but the perks aren't as necessary but they are massive QOL upgrades. Wart has two of the best perks in the game: Lethal Weapon which at tier 3 does 12% extra damage for every attack. No one knows how much of a difference this actually makes but every little bit helps. Let's say it takes 8 hits to kill one guy and Lethal Weapon makes it 6 hits or even 7 hits, that's pretty significant in a game like this. Easy Target just shows you when 3 of them get together which is always helpful. And Werewolf has the best QOL perk Scream Fest that stuns the little bastards for longer when they're in the vicinity of someone who gets hit. Right now, using Wart's leap to catch up, the little bastards are always just that far away where I cannot capitalize.

Edit: regarding tracking. I still think it needs adjustment especially when you didn't get a hit. But I find that it helps immensely that when you get a hit, try to follow the blood trails, and use the monster's leap and/or the Wolf's run to immediately try to catch up. This is something you must do with Wart. I've seen people use Dollmaster and teleport to another doll somewhere else on the map to catch up. Frankly I don't know how Dollmaster players are able to track them. I want to try the Kinetic mutation with Wart that reduces the cool down on his leap by 25% but removes the shockwave. I feel like the Kinetic mutation would help when they have a weapon and running away while trying to bait you. Plus I'm using the Acid Armor mutation that gives you 5% speed boost. Honestly shocked that they can hit Wart out of his leap. I'm not saying they should get hit by the shockwave but trying to leap at them at point blank and they just whale on you at just the right distance is incredibly frustrating.

 

[BlazikenLover]

Just a correction: the lawsuit did not end the support of the game. That's a narrative the devs created and they were successful enough to trick a lot of people into believing. What actually happened is that the devs chose to neglect crucial issues with the game, delaying everything by saying that "We're doing an engine upgrade and cannot add more content in the mean time." Then the engine """"""""""""upgrade""""""""""" happened that had no real noticeable difference aside from slightly different lighting, they added the single player challenge mode, a last desperate list of bug fixes that still didn't fix crucial problems, and that was it. Jason X is in the game, fully complete, only thing he was lacking is a unique music theme like the other Jason's. That was it. The dev's excuse for not adding Jason X "It would take several weeks of Q&A and not worth it."

This is how he complete he was. I.E. FULLY completed. And the Q&A line is laughable because the devs didn't Q&A shit just like Behavior and Dead by Daylight. The reason they abandoned the game is that it wasn't as profitable for them and they wrung it dry and moved on. The excuse that they can't make any changes is further invalidated by there being a sub-optimal Switch port they crapped out a year later.

Thank you Bruno, I am glad someone remembers. Watching shit like matt's what happen and seeing the comments was painful because I was there and I saw them pretty much abandon the game.

Anyways, reading this thread makes me hopeful for VHS,hopefully it won't die within months of leaving early access/beta.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Anyways, reading this thread makes me hopeful for VHS,hopefully it won't die within months of leaving early access/beta.

The balance is definitely better than DbD excluding super high level Nurse players that have 7.1 surround sound headphones and are psychic on an autistic level. But the devs have a ways to go still with the balance.

Edit: I was horribly wrong about this take.

 

[DuranceVile]

The balance is definitely better than DbD excluding super high level Nurse players that have 7.1 surround sound headphones and are psychic on an autistic level. But the devs have a ways to go still with the balance.

Not to turn this into a DbD thread but I lost it in the dev Q&A when they said they nerfed Twins for being monsters at high MMR when stuff like Nurse and Blight just go on their merry way.

But yeah this game overall "feels" better balance wise than DbD does. There's more meaningful ways to not get tunneled out of the game as a teen, and the monster has more control over their fate. Balance is still off in a lot of ways, but that's why it's in beta.

 

[biscuitscilia]

The balance is definitely better than DbD excluding super high level Nurse players that have 7.1 surround sound headphones and are psychic on an autistic level. But the devs have a ways to go still with the balance.

I know you listed ambushing as a big balancing issue for the monsters but what about issues from the survivor's side?
I have a feeling ambushing the monster is going to be start of many, many, many ragequits.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I know you listed ambushing as a big balancing issue for the monsters but what about issues from the survivor's side?
I have a feeling ambushing the monster is going to be start of many, many, many ragequits.

I think the difficulty for playing as Teens can be reduced to this: map memorization so you know where the work stations and healing stations are. Good team work I.E. playing SWF (Survive with Friends). Then finally, unlocking and leveling up the good weapons. I think that's where the difficulty lays if you're playing Teen and those first 2 points are going to be the biggest issue because rando's can suck as we all know. That's just the nature of playing with a team of rando's.

Also, if you try to play the Teen and earn points that you think can then be spent on your monster of choice's bloodweb... Think again, you can't do that, the points you earn per side are unique to that side unlike DbD.

Balance suggestions:

As mentioned: heavily nerf the helicopter, the shock sphere, the eyeball and the solar flare. Here's how I'd nerf them: if you use these weapons you are exposed to the monster and if you get hit even once you lose the item as opposed to getting hit twice. The movement of the eyeball, shock sphere, and helicopter need to be massively slowed down and can only be used once instead of cancelled and being able to be deployed again and again and again...

That's the elephant in the room. The most major balance issue lies with those particular weapons.

Next I would reduce the amount of ammo they have. If you tap M1 to threaten the monster you don't really lose much ammo. These mofo's can just spam their weapons and still have plenty of ammo even in 1 v 1 situations. I remember chasing a guy with a flame thrower and he spammed that thing for a good 30 seconds not-continuously and he STILL had enough ammo to get me. I thought for sure "There's no way he can still have enough ammo." But the faggot had ammo.

All monsters need something to break through when the teens have weapons and are just turtling. That is the one thing I don't have a proposed solution for.

This is what worries me most: the devs have already cultivated a little echo chamber. Their Discord was honestly fine until the closed beta happened and then the floodgates were thrown open for the tranny jannies and pronoun faggots. Seriously, without any exaggeration, the day the closed beta happened there were suddenly power-tripping mods with pronoun bullshit in their names. It's like the faggots were waiting in wait to pounce. Unfortunately, criticism and frustration is being shut down on the Discord. The Discord is the most direct method of communication with the devs. Any points of criticism get shut down by this mob of woke tards "You did not play correctly. You're supposed to deny all 4 players from getting weapons in the first minute of the match." and "Teens are fine. Werewolf needs nerfs BAD!" and more nonsense.

 

[DuranceVile]

I think the difficulty for playing as Teens can be reduced to this: map memorization so you know where the work stations and healing stations are. Good team work I.E. playing SWF (Survive with Friends). Then finally, unlocking and leveling up the good weapons. I think that's where the difficulty lays if you're playing Teen and those first 2 points are going to be the biggest issue because rando's can suck as we all know. That's just the nature of playing with a team of rando's.

Also, if you try to play the Teen and earn points that you think can then be spent on your monster of choice's bloodweb... Think again, you can't do that, the points you earn per side are unique to that side unlike DbD.

Balance suggestions:

As mentioned: heavily nerf the helicopter, the shock sphere, the eyeball and the solar flare. Here's how I'd nerf them: if you use these weapons you are exposed to the monster and if you get hit even once you lose the item as opposed to getting hit twice. The movement of the eyeball, shock sphere, and helicopter need to be massively slowed down and can only be used once instead of cancelled and being able to be deployed again and again and again...

That's the elephant in the room. The most major balance issue lies with those particular weapons.

Next I would reduce the amount of ammo they have. If you tap M1 to threaten the monster you don't really lose much ammo. These mofo's can just spam their weapons and still have plenty of ammo even in 1 v 1 situations. I remember chasing a guy with a flame thrower and he spammed that thing for a good 30 seconds not-continuously and he STILL had enough ammo to get me. I thought for sure "There's no way he can still have enough ammo." But the faggot had ammo.

All monsters need something to break through when the teens have weapons and are just turtling. That is the one thing I don't have a proposed solution for.

This is what worries me most: the devs have already cultivated a little echo chamber. Their Discord was honestly fine until the closed beta happened and then the floodgates were thrown open for the tranny jannies and pronoun faggots. Seriously, without any exaggeration, the day the closed beta happened there were suddenly power-tripping mods with pronoun bullshit in their names. It's like the faggots were waiting in wait to pounce. Unfortunately, criticism and frustration is being shut down on the Discord. The Discord is the most direct method of communication with the devs. Any points of criticism get shut down by this mob of woke tards "You did not play correctly. You're supposed to deny all 4 players from getting weapons in the first minute of the match." and "Teens are fine. Werewolf needs nerfs BAD!" and more nonsense.

I haven't done it yet but I heard you can submit feedback through your account on their website. I'm going to give it a try.

I totally avoid the discord. It seems like it's populated by very young people and genderspecials who both get very uppity if you question balance beyond their groupthink. (they also have a bizarre obsession with Faith) As said before the acceptable opinion boils down to need to nerf WW, teens are fine, maybe nerf shock sphere.

Another thing I think needs to change is not only is the leveling experience super grindy, you have to devote time to playing every single character on both sides to get all the perks. This gets really frustrating when there's some obviously powerful perk combos (lethal weapon + werewolf's extra stun time, etc.) but you realize to get rank 3 of both perks is going to take likely hundreds of games to get.

The other problem is that you really only get meaningful XP if you do well. That's fine, but the level gap between a monster and a teen gets really obvious if the teen is higher. teens are packing top tier stuff and the monster has nothing, it'll be a stomp. And as a result of that you're leveling up slowly.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The other problem is that you really only get meaningful XP if you do well. That's fine, but the level gap between a monster and a teen gets really obvious if the teen is higher. teens are packing top tier stuff and the monster has nothing, it'll be a stomp. And as a result of that you're leveling up slowly.

You also don't get enough XP if you do too well and stomp on the Teens in 5 minutes.

 

[TurkishOreo]

I haven't done it yet but I heard you can submit feedback through your account on their website. I'm going to give it a try.

I totally avoid the discord. It seems like it's populated by very young people and genderspecials who both get very uppity if you question balance beyond their groupthink. (they also have a bizarre obsession with Faith) As said before the acceptable opinion boils down to need to nerf WW, teens are fine, maybe nerf shock sphere.

Another thing I think needs to change is not only is the leveling experience super grindy, you have to devote time to playing every single character on both sides to get all the perks. This gets really frustrating when there's some obviously powerful perk combos (lethal weapon + werewolf's extra stun time, etc.) but you realize to get rank 3 of both perks is going to take likely hundreds of games to get.

The other problem is that you really only get meaningful XP if you do well. That's fine, but the level gap between a monster and a teen gets really obvious if the teen is higher. teens are packing top tier stuff and the monster has nothing, it'll be a stomp. And as a result of that you're leveling up slowly.

Maybe devs should give you a massive exp boost if you go up against high lvl teens or downlevel them so it's an even match up.

Edit: It's like any MMO where a high lvl player kills lvl 40 mobs for the lvl 20s, the lowies get more xp because of the lvl difference and the former gets cash for doing the taxi from the latter.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I'm starting to think that most of my issues with the balance are just problems with Wart. Are Teens grouping up with weapons? Use the Wolf's Howl and get a hit and try to get some pressure. Use Dollmaster's puppets, use the leap to get in and get a hit, or tank a hit with a puppet so that's one weapon gone but you're now exposed. Wart... Takes it up the ass. Use the armor? They just run away and it times out. Even if you use the armor and eat a weapon, they can still get you and the only thing you can do is hope to get close enough because of the armor and get a hit and then... Take it up the ass. This is where the Wolf's Scream Fest perk would come in handy, get the hit and use the leap to close in and get a down or get another injure.

But I've already invested so much time with Wart that I just want to grind and unlock his Tier 3 perks and then start over with the Werewolf. Hopefully, the MMR is monster specific so that my level 1 Wolf will not get annihilated.

Edit: there is no individual MMR when you use a different monster. Same exact problem as DbD.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Update(s): new waves of keys are going out. I discovered that you cannot play one monster, get aura points (that you use to unlock Mutations and Perks) and then use those points on another monster to unlock their shit just wow . You HAVE to play as that one Monster/Teen in order to unlock their shit. The grind is way worse than DbD in that regard. I'm doing slightly better with Wart once I unlocked the Toxic mutation where when you armor up and hit a guy you do 10% more damage and I (of course) paired that with the Lethal Weapon perk that does 12% extra damage. My strategy has been to use the Bombshell mutation that increases the period of stun when you leap and get them with the shock wave, armor up and get the hit for instant 22% more damage. So far I have noticed a difference and they do seem to die quicker.

That's the definitive one thing that Wart has going for them. For some reason the faggots insist that Wart is better than Werewolf and Werewolf is the worst of the monsters (!?!??!?!?!?!) while shyly admitting that Doll Master is probably the best. Curious what @DuranceVile thinks about that.

 

[DuranceVile]

You HAVE to play as that one Monster/Teen in order to unlock their shit. The grind is way worse than DbD in that regard.

Yeah... I figured that one out too. It sucks. It's one of the reasons I'm waiting until EA to play much more. The grind is horrible, you have to play every monster to get the perks you want. If they're going to reset ranks once EA hits, why bother trying to compete with the max levels?

For some reason the faggots insist that Wart is better than Werewolf and Werewolf is the worst of the monsters (!?!??!?!?!?!) while shyly admitting that Doll Master is probably the best. Curious what @DuranceVile thinks about that.

I would not be surprised if Doll Master is the best when played at a high skill level. He's the closest thing the game has to a Nurse-like character with map control.

Discord chat is all over the place when it comes to Werewolf. I've seen calls for nerfs and total reworks and definitely people saying Werewolf is the weakest. A lot of the complaints seem to revolve around how there's "no counterplay" against howl. I mean I've got quite a few hours on WW and the counter is basically hold W and split up. IMO the call for nerfs come from Werewolf shutting down fully armed teen squads sticking together, which is something WART is weak against. One thing I would put in the potentially weak column is that despite WW being labeled an aggressive monster, you really need to play cautiously and obsessively watch your cooldowns. I think a key to succeeding as werewolf is to pick battles carefully and break pursuit the moment you hear anything that isn't the teen you're chasing.

That might just be a general monster rule though. I've seen people complaining about how monster has to basically break engagements all the time, in a way that extends games in unfun ways. I'd say they're right, and some of that points to teens having some stupidly safe options like helicopter and the eye.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Discord chat is all over the place when it comes to Werewolf. I've seen calls for nerfs and total reworks and definitely people saying Werewolf is the weakest. A lot of the complaints seem to revolve around how there's "no counterplay" against howl. I mean I've got quite a few hours on WW and the counter is basically hold W and split up. IMO the call for nerfs come from Werewolf shutting down fully armed teen squads sticking together, which is something WART is weak against. One thing I would put in the potentially weak column is that despite WW being labeled an aggressive monster, you really need to play cautiously and obsessively watch your cooldowns. I think a key to succeeding as werewolf is to pick battles carefully and break pursuit the moment you hear anything that isn't the teen you're chasing.

That might just be a general monster rule though. I've seen people complaining about how monster has to basically break engagements all the time, in a way that extends games in unfun ways. I'd say they're right, and some of that points to teens having some stupidly safe options like helicopter and the eye.

The Discord is just filled with faggots. As I said, the Discord was fine until the closed beta happened and the floodgates were opened for the pronoun people. Their mod Kyle (who I think is a dev, not 100% sure on that, he could just be the guy who goes out and gets them coffee at the office) is a supreme faggot as well and bans for any reason.

It's funny that I brought up how the Wolf's Howl can be used against groups with weapons and they're like "No, that doesn't work. They can counter that." They absolutely insist Wart can counter that shit... I believe these people play an entirely different game. Maybe a Russian NES hack of the game is what they play?

My strategy has been this with Wart: find a guy early, armor up and get a hit for 22% extra damage and try to get the down. It's difficult to gauge how quickly they can build weapons and it seems to be within 30 seconds someone is going to have a weapon. If I can get a down, use the echo location to see if there's a guy nearby and try to chase him away from the work station. Then I try to prevent them from picking the guy up or get another down. Hopefully you can make them waste a weapon on the armor.

I don't even bother running around as a Teen before transforming. I think over half the time you will not find a guy at a work station and it makes more sense to transform right away so you can move quicker.

 

[DuranceVile]

The Discord is just filled with faggots. As I said, the Discord was fine until the closed beta happened and the floodgates were opened for the pronoun people. Their mod Kyle (who I think is a dev, not 100% sure on that, he could just be the guy who goes out and gets them coffee at the office) is a supreme faggot as well and bans for any reason.

It's funny that I brought up how the Wolf's Howl can be used against groups with weapons and they're like "No, that doesn't work. They can counter that." They absolutely insist Wart can counter that shit... I believe these people play an entirely different game. Maybe a Russian NES hack of the game is what they play?

My strategy has been this with Wart: find a guy early, armor up and get a hit for 22% extra damage and try to get the down. It's difficult to gauge how quickly they can build weapons and it seems to be within 30 seconds someone is going to have a weapon. If I can get a down, use the echo location to see if there's a guy nearby and try to chase him away from the work station. Then I try to prevent them from picking the guy up or get another down. Hopefully you can make them waste a weapon on the armor.

I don't even bother running around as a Teen before transforming. I think over half the time you will not find a guy at a work station and it makes more sense to transform right away so you can move quicker.

The Discord seems like a bog-standard terminally online hive. As they say, yikes, not a good look. Echo chamber opinions and swarming against anything that doesn't match the groupthink. Since there's so many genderspecials in there, I doubt the mods will do anything about it. It says a lot that I'd rather interact with the subreddit over the discord.

Yeah I am really struggling to understand why the teen thing exists as-is. I've actually gotten right next to someone crafting when I transformed, but the animation takes so long that I may as well have just done it before. I'm really not sure what their design intent is with it right now.

 

[DuranceVile]

Yet another keywave going out. Check your spam folders just in case.

 

[White Devil]

Yet another keywave going out. Check your spam folders just in case.

Still nothing.