Crit/Headshot Temporary Health Talent Idea

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
41

I thought you were asking for a method that buffs the talent without affecting the current weapon balance. In any case, your suggestion also favours weapons with faster charged attacks.

I’m not a daily visitor, so I miss out things. I mean, I haven’t seen much of the other stuff but from the riposte thread + this, I have the impression that you have in your mind, an ideal of WHC as a riposting fencer, and these influence your suggestions in trying to improve his bad talents. When I mentioned “your ideal gameplay”, I wasn’t accusing you of suggesting the change for the rapier specifically, I was pointing out that your suggestions are influenced by this ideal, because right now, I still don’t see a need for the charged attack interaction.

I mean, there’s really nothing to be said here. For the dual wield weapons except DD, I’m still indifferent between your suggestion and cleave, which I’ve been saying all along.

My point is the 1st charge level of the Rapier is more spammable. I only brought in the 2nd after you were talking about spear heavy 2.

42

Yep, and the Rapier’s first charge would give less. Its 2nd charge is slower than these other heavy attacks.

With Riposte that is. I wanted one talent changed for that so it wouldn’t be forced on anyone.

There isn’t a need for anything. The only career out of Saltz and Kerillian both that struggles with thp is BH. I wasn’t ever addressing a ‘need’.

It’s superior to cleave if you can land headshots with the dual wields because it doesn’t require as many targets. It requires two targets, only one if it’s not killed by one weapon in the dual wields heavy. Fighting elites you can’t cleave? It’s superior. Fighting elites you can cleave, but there’s not enough enemies for cleave thp or your weapon can’t hit five of them (Dual Sword’s heavy can’t)? It’s superior. Fighting a boss? If skilled, it’s superior. Forced to use mobility enhancing heavy attacks to skirt the edges of a horde when kiting? It’s superior. These things happen all the time.

It sure is and it would still give less thp than the full charge and other weapons’ heavy attacks as mentioned in the original post.

43

This has to be a hard no from me. IDK if it’s been said before, but for me, anything that encourages certain types of attacks outside of what the combat calls for feels bad. For example, Slayer’s DR talent that requires you to heavy charge. Feels super tedious to maintain. Spamming heavies to farm temp seems like it would just be trash for most weapons.

I like the general idea of moving more thp into headshot and reducing thp from crit.

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44

But that’s what the current form does, as it encourages light spam for faster thp generation except on dual wield weapons. Increasing the return on charged attacks will make it so that the player is not encouraged to light spam more than they are to charge spam. Balances out roughly, numbers can be tweaked. With thp on crit/headshot currently if you’re low on health you often should light spam even if it’s not necessarily an appropriate attack at the time, simply for quickly generating thp. With the change, you would be rewarded for playing appropriately. You’re still getting thp on lights, but the extra on charged compensates for their slowness. Ideally I’d intend to not make them outpace lights but match.

45

That’s a fair point. I guess it makes sense then.

Do you think that fixes crit/headshot though? As compared to stagger/cleave, it would still be pretty bad with most weapons. I feel like crit/headshot would only work on single target weapons that don’t hit hard enough to snipe a lot of elite kills. I.e. crow bill and 1H axe. Outside of those two weapons I don’t really see a niche where it works.

46

That’s fine but what about the points I raised above in this comment?

Do you agree? Do you disagree? If you do, why? I personally would like to see better counter arguments than “I don’t see really see it”.

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47

Agreed on elf 1h axe, 1h sword and DD. I’ve mentioned that weapons with fast charge attacks + low cleave are the ones that will benefit the most.

True, then I’m still in favour for a numbers increase as a buff instead of affecting weapon balance.

Agreed. However, you’re fighting horde 90% of the time, and cleave is simply more reliable.

48

It’s a buff that doesn’t intend to make it competitive with a talent that works with almost every weapon out of the box. It intends to simply make it more interesting (stagger thp is already fairly weapon specific, even Flails are better with cleave thp). The goal is to make thp on crit/headshot add something meaningfully different from the other thp talents to the game. A more detailed explanation can be found in this post: Crit/Headshot Temporary Health Talent Idea - #26 by Velsix

It would actually be pretty good with the Greatsword since you want to almost always be doing heavy attacks with it (1 heavy headshot would be 6 thp, which is more than cleave max, and requires only one enemy). Flail too for the same reason. WHC arguably benefits less since Killing Shots and light chaining is super powerful, but BH with Falchion wants to use heavies for example. It’s not going to get more thp than cleave on average, but it would be more versatile because it’s less attack dependent (with cleave thp you usually want to only do a specific attack chain). Elf 1h Sword has fast heavies and crit chance on them, so it would be fairly decent.

Simply increasing the return effects weapon balance more. DD and Rapier benefit the most out of that by far because the difference between their light attacks and the speed of other weapon’s light attacks is greater than the difference between their heavies and the heavies of other weapons.

At no point did I say weapons should be changed for the sake of a thp talent. I brought up examples of changes I had suggested in the past for Kerillian’s weapons to prove that I did not only think of things from a Rapier perspective.

Depends on a player’s skill.

50

Oops. I forgot to indicate that I am replying to Sleezy. My bad. Sorry.

51

Let me restate my point. I don’t think it should exist at all and here is why: if you’re playing to do single target damage, on kill would be the correct talent (especially if it’s balanced for skaven). If you’re playing to do multi-target damage, then cleave is the talent. If you’re playing a high control weapon, stagger is the talent. There is not weapon that’s a “headshot weapon” because you want to headshot with pretty much every weapon. So as it’s designed, crit/headshot will either just be flat better or flat worse than kill or cleave. I mean, you could also remove cleave/kill if you wanted but it’s whatever. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really change the gameplay and just adds another wrinkle to balancing careers.

Yeah but then it’s just a slight buff to cleave thp because you’ll almost have to headshot at least one mob in your swing unless you look straight at the ground. Is the idea of a high finesse talent working best with flail/g-sword really seem like the right design for a talent?

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52

Did you read the post I linked about it being a step in between cleave thp and on kill thp with a focus on switching between both tasks, which is logical for weapons that aren’t breakpoint focused and frequently switch between both single target damage and damaging hordes? So that with this talent, you could keep always doing your optimal attack for the given situation while having optimal thp generation but at the cost of having to land headshots?

This differs from cleave, stagger and kill as they all almost always encourage a specific attack or at least attack chain for thp generation, which isn’t always logical at the time in combat, but best for thp generation. Think shield bashing a horde for thp, or push spamming. Think cleaving multiple CWs for cleave thp with the Greatsword’s heavy when still on full stamina (push attack would be better for dps). Think switching to Dual Axes on Slayer to make a bunch of thp with cleave when on low hp.

The idea is that thp on crit/headshot would be versatile and not attack dependent, and would switch between what kill and cleave do, but at the cost of requiring skill and being more micro-intensive than the other thp talents (a trade-off even in the hands of a reasonably good player, meaning it is still a choice).

Irrelevant. The point is rewarding skill. You already have three easy thp talents. Let there be some skill ceiling left.

I have explained many times how the idea would effect gameplay. Address the points I made directly.

Edit (17/03/2021): With very few exceptions, all melee weapons want to cleave enemies, stagger enemies, kill enemies and headshot enemies. Some weapons are better at cleaving, some are better at staggering, some are better at killing and some are better at headshotting. If crit/headshot adds nothing to the gameplay, then no thp talent does.

So now it’s too strong? I fail to see what is wrong with it working with those weapons, nor does it work better than Rapier light spam. If anything, it makes it usable across more weapons. It’s hardly simply a slight buffed version of thp on cleave. All you’d have to do to make it further distinct from thp on cleave is make it only count for the first target in the cleave hit.

53

When would kill not encourage optimal attack chain? You get thp by killing. You do optimal attack chain to kill.

Want to edit this to say that cleave doesn’t always encourage optimal attacks. So an argument to remove cleave and replace it with a modified version of crit/headshot would make sense. I just don’t think the two really need to both exist. It creates a balancing problem where the power of careers is largely dictated by which thp talents they have access to. If all careers have the same talents, it becomes much easier to balance their toolkits.

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54

It’s not that it’s too strong. It’s that it will always be either too strong or too weak. It will either be better than kill/cleave or it will be worse. That’s because headshot works on all weapons. Cleave and kill are designed so that they work better on different weapons. The system just doesn’t work now because the values for kill are unbalanced.

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55

I mean, if you can explain how it makes you want to aim for heads more I’m listening, but I feel like you should be aiming for headshots regardless of thp talents.

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56

Please condense your replies. I made a single post, not three.

Fair point.

As if crit/headshot being on Saltz and Kerillian makes balance difficult at all. Simply replace healshare on each career with an appropriate thp talent.

This argument doesn’t say anything relevant to me. I’ve indicated several times that I don’t care about the balance. The idea is an attempt to make the talent more interesting.

And from the very first, original post in the thread.

I doubt you’ve read even half of my posts in this thread. I’d understand if you were saying that my idea was irrelevant because balance was more important, but you are somehow taking the idea as an attempt to make the talent inline with other thp talents.

Because you don’t get any thp or very little if you don’t headshot. Wouldn’t be very hard to remove the crit interaction all-together. Considering the headshot % of most players, including modded ones, with even single target-oriented weapons like the Rapier and DD, I guess a lot of people didn’t get that memo? The more likely conclusion is that headshotting isn’t something you should or need to always be trying to do to be effective.

A lot of the time aiming for a headshot requires more focus (this is a cost), and in the case of taller enemies, requires getting closer to them and placing yourself in a more dangerous position (for a lot of weapons, getting close to basic horde enemies and looking up at a high angle increases headshot consistency). Sometimes aiming for a headshot can take longer, and for some weapons it isn’t always worth it because the damage increase may not be enough to justify the effort. Additionally, Maulers represent a niche enemy where headshotting is not always beneficial (this is a single point, and not what the argument depends on, but is worth mentioning).

57

The suggestion is to remove heal share and make it a neck trait. Then have same thp talents on all careers. Although there is a reasonable suggestion to put crit/headshot on elf/salts and stagger on bardin, kruber, wiz.

That’s fine. But I do care about balance and think it is important for the longevity of the game as balance=variety and variety=replayability. I also think that’s a common sentiment among most players.

Buffed because it’s underwhelming implies you wish for it to be balanced.

It’s unlikely that anyone has as high a percentage of headshots as they believe they do or wish they did, but the game already encourages headshots via damage bonus. Saying people don’t go for heashots is a little suspect.

This just isn’t true. Headshots are more consistent at farther ranges for a lot of weapons due to hitbox angles. Aiming way up in the air is necessary BECAUSE you get to close to an enemy. The only reason you wouldn’t go for headshots is if you’re using a very high cleave weapon and the enemies are spaced in a way that would make head-shotting reduce your cleave. Very rare situation though.

I guess if I bought into your premise I could see how it would affect gameplay, but I don’t really agree with it. Impossible to find quantifiable info on that though.

EDIT: Headshotting from too far causes whiffing. So obviously I don’t mean completely max distance. But that isn’t ideal for cleaving bodies either.

58

I won’t be replying to anything on the topic of balance after this post.

Viable relative to the difficulty, underwhelming relative to the difficulty. Cherry picking. I am so tired of this. Make your own thread or stop replying to me directly. I want to have discussions about nuanced ways to make talents, and the game overall, more interesting and mechanically complex and demanding, ones that expand the skill ceiling in elegant ways. Creative ideas. Every single time I make a thread I usually get simplistic ideas that aren’t interesting. Boring. I have no interest in seeing the most common ideas that work on brute force regardless of how appropriate they are for balance purposes. Everyone knows of these ideas already.

As before I don’t care. That’s good for you. You can stop replying to me about balance now. There are many others that I’m sure that would like to hear about it. I’d rather not have to use the mute function but I’m not interested in reading more about the great needs for balance and will be at the very least ignoring anymore mentions of it.

You and anyone else can mute me as well if you do not find what I wish to discuss interesting. I respect that right and hold nothing against anyone that has different interests.

You can address my points directly or cease the conversation. I never said people flatout don’t aim for headshots. I said they don’t always do because they don’t always need to, and in many cases there is little benefit in doing so. I’ve seen most players play. I see most players continually bodyshotting a boss from its sides/behind because it’s safer instead of moving around to headshot the boss while still bodyshotting until they have an angle on a headshot. I see most players not going for headshots once an enemy is staggered.

Are you aware of how much critical bodyshot damage many of the finesse weapons do? A WHC with Flense + the Rapier + a high crit rate (which is a given) does not require headshots for effective dps on Cata. Nor does a weapon like Dual Daggers because of the bodyshot damage of its heavies being enough. Headshots are encouraged for melee but not by all that much. It’s mostly a thing for ranged weapons, and I bet even the average Cata player would agree with me on that. It’s generally not because the reward isn’t good enough, but because the bodyshot damage already is enough.

Finesse is tarnished by its association with criticals. It ruins the supposed balance of bodyshot damage weapons and ‘skill’ based ones. This results in players not needing to go for headshots outside of specific breakpoints because it averages out well enough. Why do I bring this up? Because with on kill thp, even with the finesse weapons, the player is rewarded too easily even without headshots, simply because the base bodyshot damage without crits isn’t that low. The dynamic of being forced to land headshots not just to deal damage, but to stay alive beyond dps checks is one I find very interesting, and would miss if it was gone. This is why one of the ideas lessens the relationship between thp on crit/headshot with crits (I would’ve gone all the way and removed it, but I was testing the waters). The final, cleanest idea can be found at the bottom of this post.

The full caps text is a bit much.

Headshot techs are a topic I find very interesting, and are a relief from the rest of this thread.
What you’re saying is only really true for the long reach weapons and certain weapon attacks like the Rapier’s charged attacks. Headshots aren’t as reliable at long distances because enemies move a lot, and often very quickly. Staying at the same distance constantly (close up) results in higher consistency (and overall less sudden movements like running attacks from enemies), even if the headshots are harder to land, and sets up subsequent headshots with attacks that move enemies back a little up very well. Enemies are almost always moving closer to the player, far more quickly than the player can back up without dodging which further decreases headshot consistency.
What you say would be true in a melee version of a shooting gallery, but those ideal conditions are not found consistently in games.

Me getting 2000+ headshots on Horn of Magnus in a Cata true solo is not due to me being some kind of absurd god-gamer, rather it’s because facehugging works. I believe this is a common misconception regarding headshots. It helps that I aim for headshots even when it’s not reasonable though, which most players don’t afaik.

This is the most recent iteration of the original idea:

  • Melee headshots on the first target in a swing restore 3 temporary health. Charged attacks that headshot restore double the amount of temporary health. Max 8 temporary health.

This should overall have all of the important details, with the exception of the Rapier’s partial heavy only restoring 1.5 times the amount of temporary health being an unlisted aspect, which I’m not bothered by.

Alternatively:

  • Melee headshots restore 3 temporary health. Charged attacks double this effect. Max 8 temporary health.

A bit more lacking in information but cleaner.

59

There are so many basic logical problems with this. Clearly you’re not interested in a discussion that could actually lead to change. Thus, replying to this thread is a waste of my time. Later bud! Keep pumping out the TS videos, btw.

60

I was interested in discussing ideas, not practical possibilities, as already indicated earlier in the thread.

You’ve only wasted your own time, and mine, by not reading my posts.

What does this have to do with anything?

61

Nothing. I just like watching them. It’s unrelated so I said “by the way.”