Recent reviews by Yerome

Why is this DLC’s review score so low?
When Winds of Magic was released, it was accompanied by a patch, which made some changes to the core combat. These changes were not received well by many players. For a period of time the game was also riddled with bugs.

Many were not happy with the contents of the DLC either, especially considering the price. The developer has made some improvements since then, which I will go through in the review below.

The Winds of Magic (WoM) expansion includes:

○ Beastmen - 6 new enemy units
○ Cataclysm - a new difficulty level above Legend
○ Weaves - a new gamemode
○ Dark Omens - a single new adventure map
○ 1 new weapon for each of the five characters with some career restrictions
○ A lump sum of 500 shillings, and weekly quest cap is permanently increased by one
○ Standard Okri's challenges for the new content


The new map and new weapons
Dark Omens is the new adventure map, home of the Beastmen, which you need to complete in order to unlock Weaves gamemode and new weapons. Unlike the weapons in Back to Ubersreik, WoM weapons have some career restrictions. For example only Handmaiden can use the spear+shield combo. However in my opinion the weapons in this DLC have more flavour than the rather standard weapons in Back to Ubersreik.


Beastmen
If the host owns the expansion, beastmen can be found from most levels. The beastmen include 2 trash units, weak archers, Bestigor (elite), Banner bearer (elite/special) and Minotaur (monster). The most notable of the bunch is the enemy buffer Banner bearer, which forces the team to choose between pushing against the tide of enemies and retreating.

The beastmen have gone through a lot of nerfs, which have brought them in line with the other two races. I would say most players do not have affection for archers and minotaur’s quick turns, but all in all beastmen bring a bit more variety to enemies.


Cataclysm
Cataclysm is only approachable to players who have played the game for hundreds of hours. However if you are one of such players, in my opinion this difficulty in itself gives a strong incentive to consider this DLC. Cataclysm gives an extra layer of replayability to all old maps to players who have grown accustomed to Legend. Everyone in the lobby needs to own WoM in order to play Cataclysm.

Cataclysm doesn't have its own unique loot, so you will only be playing it for the challenge. You will get a Legend vault for completing a Cataclysm mission, but it’s customary to skip books in Cataclysm quickplay. There are some Cataclysm-exclusive banners and portrait frames, such as one for completing Fortunes of War, but that’s it as far as rewards go.


Weaves
Big part of WoM is the new Weaves-gamemode, which is a mixed bag. Weaves are split in two: Ranked Weaves and Quickplay Weaves. Everyone in the lobby needs to own WoM for these gamemodes.

Ranked Weaves consist of short missions of increasing difficulty. The missions use reversed pieces of old maps with a new objective (kill enemies, cap a point, deliver an item). Each mission is influenced by one of the eight winds of magic. The wind changes the look of the mission and adds a modifier, which adds a unique twist to the gameplay. In total there are 40 unique weave map + wind combinations each season, and they scale in difficulty up to the final ranked weave of 160. Much to the dismay of many players, cheesing is a common strategy in high-level weaves due to the absurd, and frankly unfun, difficulty.

Ranked Weaves are designed to be a semi-competitive mode with its own superficial leaderboard. Each unique weave is exactly the same (enemy and item spawns) every time you replay it, so it's possible to learn from your failures and optimize your play on a finer scale than in regular games. You don't have to be a top player to enjoy a competitive gamemode; Self-improvement and beating hard challenges are core motivations for many Vermintide players after all. However what you need for a good Ranked Weave experience is a premade group. If you don’t have friends to play with, you will have to rely on LFG-channels outside of the game. This gamemode is practically unplayable solo.

Few months after the release of WoM, the developer added Quickplay Weaves, which is a separate gamemode from Ranked Weaves. In this gamemode you queue into difficulty of your choice, and the game chooses a random weave map + wind combination. In total I believe there are 80 different combinations. Unlike in Ranked Weaves, in Quickplay Weaves you can play with bots and earn regular loot chests. Quickplay Weaves are a good option to enjoy the atmosphere of Weaves in a more casual way, but the downsides are its rather low playerbase and relatively hard difficulty.

Weaves has its own talent/gear-system, which is separated from the main game. In other words, you will have to start again from zero. You need essence (the new crafting material) to upgrade your weave stuff. Once upgraded, you can make changes free of charge. You can earn essence from both Ranked and Quickplay Weaves, and once you have completed the first ranked weave, you also start gaining essence passively from regular games. This passive amount can be increased by completing more ranked weaves in order up to around weave 26 or so.

The biggest issue of the new gear system is Weave power, which is basically the equivalent to Hero power from the main game. It throws off the scaling of difficulty: You start by hitting with a wet noodle, but once you power up the early weaves become trivial. This is a hurdle you need to overcome when you are first getting into Weaves, or if you are trying to get your friends to play Weaves. This system also kind of locks you into using the first weapons you invest in for a while. Weapons are shared between careers of that character, and the upgraded amulet (talents etc.) is shared between all characters.

Weaves have seasons, which last several months. Each new season comes with a shuffling of the ranked weaves, a new set of frames which you can earn in Weaves and leaderboard reset. Your gear progression carries over from season to season. Your ranked weave progression carries over only up to weave 40.

Anyone who loves logic puzzles is going to enjoy Snakebird.

The game's mechanics are simple to grasp, but the puzzles are far from easy. The difficulty might understandably turn away some players, and I have heard that the sequel Snakebird Primer offers a smoother learning curve.

The puzzles utilize the game's mechanics in clever ways. The solution to each puzzle can be figured out by carefully considering the role of each piece on the board. Most of the puzzles consist of invisible "milestones", so it feels like you are making progress as you are working your way through a puzzle. These are characteristics of a well-designed logic puzzle game.

Snakebird's colorful design complements its well-crafted puzzles nicely. I can highly recommend the game, but consider starting from Snakebird Primer, if you have little previous experience with logic puzzles such as Sudoku.