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

[DuranceVile]

I signed up during the first week of the trailer drop and still not getting a key is pretty ridiculous. I don't even mind getting my shit pushed in when learning a new game as monster. So long as it's fun and I understand the how's and why's then it's fine.

I'm in the same camp. I don't expect to be good at something right away and I'm willing to take the time to get better even if I got insta-banished for most games. Sadly, the 20 minute queue times for Teens suggests we're in the minority there.

I am seeing more and more Monster mains with 200+ games under their belt suggesting Monster is still an underpowered role and a good Teen squad will destroy them. I hope once they fix the borked audio things will get better. Not being able to track somebody once you hit them is one of my biggest complaints.

 

[DuranceVile]

Beta wave supposedly going out right now. Rolling out over the course of three hours. Hit those F5s.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Holy fucking shit I finally got a code.

 

[White Devil]

I still haven't.

 

[DuranceVile]

Holy fucking shit I finally got a code.

Nice. Curious as to your thoughts on the monster experience.

I still haven't.

There's still a few hours to go!

 

[BrunoMattei]

I played 4 matches altogether because of work. You really, really, really have to be aware of ambushes when you play monster. The #1 problem with it is tracking survivors after getting a hit. I don't know how to fix that exactly. Maybe lower the duration the monster can't move or is looking straight up? Increase the frequency of blood pools? I dunno but it's a bitch to track them.

Overall I really enjoy it. On my 4th match I got a 4K and the times I lost I understood why I lost and what I should have done differently. Unlike all of the other games of this genre, if the survivors got one objective completed (in this case, downing you with one of the stigma's) the game isn't over yet. In all of the other games if the survivors slam on the objectives and get even one done super quickly they get to steam roll and you lose bad.

 

[DuranceVile]

I played 4 matches altogether because of work. You really, really, really have to be aware of ambushes when you play monster. The #1 problem with it is tracking survivors after getting a hit. I don't know how to fix that exactly. Maybe lower the duration the monster can't move or is looking straight up? Increase the frequency of blood pools? I dunno but it's a bitch to track them.

Overall I really enjoy it. On my 4th match I got a 4K and the times I lost I understood why I lost and what I should have done differently. Unlike all of the other games of this genre, if the survivors got one objective completed (in this case, downing you with one of the stigma's) the game isn't over yet. In all of the other games if the survivors slam on the objectives and get even one done super quickly they get to steam roll and you lose bad.

Which monsters did you try? I've only played WART and Werewolf and I have been maining Werewolf the past few nights.

The tracking is frustrating to no end, but I wonder if that's intentional? The devs do want to have stealth be viable and not be a loop fest. (There are more loops than I think they realize right now, particularly on the high school map). They need to tone the poor tracking down a bit. I've seen some suggestions for a perk to increase the trails the teens leave, but I'd rather not to down the rabbit hole of patching busted game mechanics with perks again.

One mechanic I'm still on the fence about is the book of the dead. It's hidden in a lockbox in a random location on each map. It allows teens to revive a dead teen once per match. That's a huge second chance mechanic and I wonder if the teens really need that. Also it's entirely dependent on the dead players actually staying in the match. Afaik dead teens are free to leave the match.

I wonder how broken giving the monster the ability to heal a stigma would be?

Oh and big warning to former killer mains: unlike DbD, leaving a lobby counts as a DC and you'll be hit with the DC timer if you do it. Don't be like me and try to dodge a max level murder squad.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Which monsters did you try? I've only played WART and Werewolf and I have been maining Werewolf the past few nights.

The tracking is frustrating to no end, but I wonder if that's intentional? The devs do want to have stealth be viable and not be a loop fest. (There are more loops than I think they realize right now, particularly on the high school map). They need to tone the poor tracking down a bit. I've seen some suggestions for a perk to increase the trails the teens leave, but I'd rather not to down the rabbit hole of patching busted game mechanics with perks again.

One mechanic I'm still on the fence about is the book of the dead. It's hidden in a lockbox in a random location on each map. It allows teens to revive a dead teen once per match. That's a huge second chance mechanic and I wonder if the teens really need that. Also it's entirely dependent on the dead players actually staying in the match. Afaik dead teens are free to leave the match.

I wonder how broken giving the monster the ability to heal a stigma would be?

Oh and big warning to former killer mains: unlike DbD, leaving a lobby counts as a DC and you'll be hit with the DC timer if you do it. Don't be like me and try to dodge a max level murder squad.

Just Wart because his Echo-Location ability is great for a beginner. Curiously, his leap is completely shut down by weapons unlike the Dollmaster's leap when using puppets and the Werewolf can just howl to shut down that nonsense.

They should just delete all the vaults IMHO. I know this isn't DbD and if they're trying to differentiate it then they should really ensure it isn't like DbD and that fucking school and those vaults outside are a pain in the ass because of those vaults and (A) it's very easy to be kited to an ambush and (B) it's very easy to lose LOS.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Update: okay, so I'm a little bit more love/hate now. The fundamental problems are (1) tracking teens and (2) organized groups with weapons. These mofo's create weapons way too quickly and if some soyboy fag tells me that I'm not playing effectively and denying them from making weapons even when I get a down within the first minute of the match than I will chloroforms this faggot, take him to South America and ditch his naked ass in a pit with cannibal rapists hat have every STD known to man.

The problems with organized groups is that they can just bait you to use your ability to counter a weapon and just run away, use their weapon a little bit to bait you or keep you at bay, and then go in for the kill. There's not a lot you can do and the community seems split regarding this: some say you do have options but you're just not playing correctly and others just admit teens are overpowered at the moment.

Personally, and ironically I must add, the most effective strategy is to get an early down and camp that guy and make it really difficult for them to pick them back up. I've discovered with Wart you can use the Echo-location to determine if they're nearby and go feasting. Then if you're suspicious you can use the armor while feasting. The perk that increases the amount of rage you build while feasting comes in handy here. Ideally, you want to keep the guy down or down him again if he gets back up or have full rage and get another down. Getting a guy out of the game greatly increases your chances.

Edit: once I started applying this strategy of getting a down and camping the guy and either downing him again or going after anyone trying to pick him up I 4K'd in 5 out of 6 matches. And the match where I lost I still got 2K and it would have been a guaranteed 4K had the last guy not found a book of the dead. I think this might be a thing that only Wart can effectively do because of his armor and echo-location although I think Dollmaster can also do something like this.

And BTW that perk that shows you two survivors that are close together has never once proc'd for me. I don't know if it's bugged or I'm just not meeting the required conditions.

 

[DuranceVile]

I start counting down in my head when a match starts when committed chases aren't safe anymore, usually around 40 seconds. I've legit had teens with a weapon around the 30 second mark banish me. It's insane how fast they're crafting things. I would definitely lean on teens being too strong right now. Teens using comms and coordinating attacks will blow up the monster the majority of the time. I'm still holding onto the optimistic view that this game is still in beta, EA is likely a few months out, and they seem to be listening to feedback.

It looks like MMR was implemented in the last patch. Definitely feels like some light shade being thrown at BHVR by their explanation that MMR is based off personal performance+match results. You can technically win a match and still lose MMR. I'm glad the system allows for more "skilled plays" than DbD does.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I'm very close to getting the echo-location that shows their movement (not a silhouette but actual movement) for a second which is just a clear upgrade over the base echo-location. That and the one that shows which one of them have weapons are just immediate must-have upgrades. All I need are the upgraded perks that increase damage on life loss on hit and how much you gain from feasting. Then I need to dump points into the werewolf to get the perk that increases duration of stun after getting a hit.... And then do that grind all over again when the game goes live.

It's funny, I had a match last night where I got into a chase and downed a guy within about 2 minutes. So not super fast but I checked every single workstation on one side of the map and couldn't find anyone. By the time I got the down and used echo, all 3 mofo's had weapons. But camping a downed guy does something different: it forces the other 3 teens to come to you rather than just wait and ambush your ass. In this case, when I got the down and camped, I probably forced the guy to stay down for about 5 minutes and got a hit on a guy and then went back to deny a pick up. Eventually they got me but I had a hunch and stayed in the room where the pick up was taking place. My instincts were correct and when I re-spawned all of them were right in front of me and I managed to down the same guy again and then got 3 hits in a row on the others. I think they were pretty mindfucked. And one by one they all went down. Feels good to not have to fucking worry about Unbreakable.

Unlike DbD, teens cannot be picked up in a fraction of a second the longer they've been slugged.

 

[DuranceVile]

I'm very close to getting the echo-location that shows their movement (not a silhouette but actual movement) for a second which is just a clear upgrade over the base echo-location.

That's one thing that bothers me a bit. They advertise the mutations as being sidegrades to the base power, but there's usually at least one of them in each category that's a straight upgrade. I mentioned the werewolf howl mutation that lets her do a zero cast time howl when she dodges a weapon. There's really no situation where I wouldn't want that.

Unlike DbD, teens cannot be picked up in a fraction of a second the longer they've been slugged.

AFAIK the only thing teens can do to increase their recovery bar is collect lumas when they're downed. In my few Teen experiences, it's very RNG dependent. Lumas are either right next to you, or all the way on the other side of the map.

 

[BrunoMattei]

This is good for Teen and Monster players.

Edit:

I made a level 90+ SWF mostly ragequit.

The little faggot at the bottom made sure to taunt and tea-bag me but karma bit him in the ass.

My thoughts: IS the MMR working? Look at their levels and then look at mine? Does this game have the same exact matchmaking problem as DbD where a group at a way higher level than you can be matched to you because one guy is close to your level? It seems like it.

Some Teen weapons definitely need nerfs. The Shock Sphere is massively OP and the only way to counter it is runaway and then duck into a corner to juke them because the guy using the Shock Sphere can't turn as well. The helicopter is a bitch and a half. I saw a faggot deploy the helicopter, I armor up with Wart and they just dismiss the chopper and then get to re-deploy it after a couple of seconds. This cocksucker was able to do that 3 times. Maybe 4 times? I lost count. There's no real counter to it other than desperately run away, use Dollmaster's teleport, or use Wart's acid armor. Thankfully I had the mutation where I get the armor back quicker.

 

[DuranceVile]

This is good for Teen and Monster players.

Edit:

I made a level 90+ SWF mostly ragequit.

View attachment 2947075

The little faggot at the bottom made sure to taunt and tea-bag me but karma bit him in the ass.

My thoughts: IS the MMR working? Look at their levels and then look at mine? Does this game have the same exact matchmaking problem as DbD where a group at a way higher level than you can be matched to you because one guy is close to your level? It seems like it.

Some Teen weapons definitely need nerfs. The Shock Sphere is massively OP and the only way to counter it is runaway and then duck into a corner to juke them because the guy using the Shock Sphere can't turn as well. The helicopter is a bitch and a half. I saw a faggot deploy the helicopter, I armor up with Wart and they just dismiss the chopper and then get to re-deploy it after a couple of seconds. This cocksucker was able to do that 3 times. Maybe 4 times? I lost count. There's no real counter to it other than desperately run away, use Dollmaster's teleport, or use Wart's acid armor. Thankfully I had the mutation where I get the armor back quicker.

Hoo boy shock sphere needs a big nerf. It, the helicopter, and the floating eye curse stigma needs adjustment. Like you said the only counterplay is to run and hope you can put some distance between you and it.
I've dealt with an obvious group doing all of them at the same time.

As for MMR, I too have still run into level 90+ teens. The population is still tiny so I'm assuming it's just trying to find a match after a certain point.

I'd say looping in any form needs to go. Looping is incredibly unsafe for monster as it's easy to get ambushed. I've heard they're reworking the high school map and that's been the worst offender so far.

 

[BrunoMattei]

SShoxk

Hoo boy shock sphere needs a big nerf. It, the helicopter, and the floating eye curse stigma needs adjustment. Like you said the only counterplay is to run and hope you can put some distance between you and it.
I've dealt with an obvious group doing all of them at the same time.

As for MMR, I too have still run into level 90+ teens. The population is still tiny so I'm assuming it's just trying to find a match after a certain point.

I'd say looping in any form needs to go. Looping is incredibly unsafe for monster as it's easy to get ambushed. I've heard they're reworking the high school map and that's been the worst offender so far.

I had a match in the mansion that took forever because the last guy kept running away and healing. Even in the mansion map, a guy ran up to a window vault, dropped down, ran up the stairs and right back to the same vault. Thank god for Wart's leap or I probably would never have caught him. They should just delete the fucking loops. They're as pointless and annoying as breakable walls in DbD.

 

[DuranceVile]

I had a match in the mansion that took forever because the last guy kept running away and healing. Even in the mansion map, a guy ran up to a window vault, dropped down, ran up the stairs and right back to the same vault. Thank god for Wart's leap or I probably would never have caught him. They should just delete the fucking loops. They're as pointless and annoying as breakable walls in DbD.

They either need to delete them or they need to implement something like DbD's entity block when a vault is used abused. You're basically risking a stigma hit anytime you commit to a chase. It shouldn't be super predictable.

 

[BrunoMattei]

They either need to delete them or they need to implement something like DbD's entity block when a vault is used abused. You're basically risking a stigma hit anytime you commit to a chase. It shouldn't be super predictable.

I don't even go for it unless it's at the start of the match (which is still risky) or there's one guy left and he has no weapon. Fun fact: if you use Wart's leap (that stuns them if they're in the radius of the shockwave) and they're vaulting during that, then they're not affected by the stun. I almost got hit by a stigma because of that but luckily the guy was right next to me as he used his weapon and I was able to hit them.

 

[SITHRAK!]

Just signed up for the Beta because of this thread, will wait to see if I get in.

 

[biscuitscilia]

One of my hopes with VHS is that it could be the start of friendly competition with DbD. I've lurked both threads, and while I haven't played VHS, I've seen some fairly good signs that the game is an (imperfect) improvement over DbD. I think DbD is torn badly by gameplay styles and game design which makes balancing it tricky because of the latter. I can still have fun with the game when I'm playing with friends but even they get annoyed with it pretty quick.
Maybe competition from VHS can encourage DbD to start fixing their game. I thought Friday the 13th game would've provided that competition but that game got fucked hard by the licensing lawsuit and it's basically dead now.
I just want a comfy slasher game to play with my friends, bros. How is it this hard to get it right?

 

[BrunoMattei]

One of my hopes with VHS is that it could be the start of friendly competition with DbD. I've lurked both threads, and while I haven't played VHS, I've seen some fairly good signs that the game is an (imperfect) improvement over DbD. I think DbD is torn badly by gameplay styles and game design which makes balancing it tricky because of the latter. I can still have fun with the game when I'm playing with friends but even they get annoyed with it pretty quick.
Maybe competition from VHS can encourage DbD to start fixing their game. I thought Friday the 13th game would've provided that competition but that game got fucked hard by the licensing lawsuit and it's basically dead now.
I just want a comfy slasher game to play with my friends, bros. How is it this hard to get it right?

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.