Misleading Descriptions

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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I know this has been raised plenty of times before, but there are a lot of talent and trait descriptions in this game that do not do what they say they do. It seems like it ought to be a relatively straightforward thing to fix, so let’s give this another go. Here is my best attempt to compile everyone talent/trait description that does not match the actual effect:

Hunstman

Makin’ It Look Easy
After scoring a ranged headshot Markus gains 25% increased critical hit chance.

Starting off with a minor offender. It’s 25% crit chance until your next critical hit.

Grail Knight

Virtue of Heroism
Power level of heavy attacks increased by 25%

This is a damage increase, not a general power increase. In this case I think the talent should be made to match the description, and Virtue of the Ideal should be changed to be a damage increase instead of power. That would help balance these talents against each other somewhat. Ideal is way too overbearing on that row but now I’m straying from the main topic…

Ranger Veteran

Last Resort
Bardin gains a 25% power increase when out of ammunition

Another minor one. It would be nice if the description mentioned that it affects your final shot before running out as well. I doubt most would assume that to be the case just from the description.

Iron Breaker

Under Pressure
Drake Fire damage increases from -80% to 120% and ranged attack speed reduces from 100% to -50% depending on overcharge. Removes overcharge slowdown

I believe thre should be a “+” in front of 120% and 100% there. The wording makes it sound like you have 20% of normal damage and base attack speed at 0 overcharge, and 120% of base damage and 50% less attack speed at max overcharge. In reality I believe you have 100% more attack speed at low over overcharge, and 220% base damage at max overcharge. Any suggestions on how to reword this talent to be more intuitive would be very welcome.

Slayer

Adrenaline Surge
On max stacks, Trophy Hunter grants cooldown reduction for Leap

Not entirely inaccurate, but a bit unintuitive compared to its actual effect. In reality it seems to greatly increase cooldown regen rate, though I don’t know what the values exactly are unfortunately.

Dawi Drop
Increases attack damage while airborne during Leap by 150%

I’m fairly certain this is actually a general power increase, as it affects the stagger power of the leap itself. It’s difficult to test if it also increases cleave, but I’m fairly certain it would based on its other properties. It makes a pretty big difference to the effectiveness of the talent, so describing it as an “attack damage increase” is definitely misleading.

Waystalker

Kurnous’ Reward
Killing a special or elite enemy with Trueflight Volley restores 30% ammunition

Another one that’s not really inaccurate but doesn’t convey the full effect well. Would be better as something like:

Each special or elite enemy killed by Trueflight Volley restores 30% ammunition

Handmaiden

Dance of Blades
Dodging while blocking increases dodge range by 20%. Dodging while not blocking increases the power of Kerillian’s next attack by 10%

It’s 10% power for 2 seconds, not just on the next attack.

Witch Hunter Captain

Fervency
Animosity grants Victor guaranteed melee critical stikes for the duration

The description probably ought to mention that it also removes the 25% crit chance bonus granted to team mates as well as your own ranged weapons.

Bounty Hunter

Open Wounds
Critical hits cause enemies to take 20% increased damage for a short duration. Does not stack with similar effects.

Would be helpful if the description made it clear that it affects the critical shot itself as well.

Blessed Combat
Melee strikes makes up to the next 6 ranged shots deal 15% more damage. Ranged hits make up to the next 6 melee strikes deal 15% more damage. Melee kills reset the cooldown for Blessed Shots

I’m not sure about this one, but I’m fairly certain when this talent was first introduced it was a power increase, not a damage increase. I’m not sure if that’s still the case though. Does anyone know for sure?

Battle Wizardd

Fire from Ash
Killing a burning enemy reduces the cooldown of Fire Walk by 3.0%

I may be wrong but I seem to remember there being an internal cooldown added to this at some point? If so, it should be listed in the description.

Unchained

Chain Reaction
Burning enemies have a small chance to explode on death

I believe this talent only procs when Sienna herself gets the kill, whether by the dot itself or other means. In this case I think the talent should be changed to match the description. Though honestly this talent in general is a bit of a mystery to me. I’m not 100% sure what its proc conditions are exactly.

Fuel for the Fire
Each enemy hit by Living Bomb increases power by 5.0% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times

I doubt anyone would guess from reading this description that the talent affects the power of the Ult itself. Might be clearer if “each enemy hit” was changed to “each enemy in range of Living Bomb when activated”. I’m sure the description could be adjusted more elegantly than that though.

Across Career Issues
The two bleed skills, Flense and Serrated Shots, could probably both do to have their stack limit listed in the description.

Of course there’s also the hidden +5% crit chance career passives for WHC and Shade.

Lastly EP is actually 7.5% rather than 7% though that is kind of neither here not there.

Traits

Hunter
Critical hits increase attack power by 25% against targets with the same armor class for 10 seconds.

Would be helpful if that description made it clear that it affects the critical shot itself as well.

Heroic Intervention
Assisting an ally under attack restores 15 temporary health for both players.

It should really be more clear what “Assisting an ally under attack” exactly means.

Opportunist
Increases push strength by 50% when used against an attacking enemy.

It increases the stagger strength of all your attacks, not just pushes. Just to be absolutely crystal clear here, the description should match the trait, not the other way around. Opportunist is a brilliant choice and if it were relegated to only pushing it would lose its already fairly niche position in the meta overnight. Just fix the description please FS.

Wrap Up
Woooo that kinda sucked to type out. I’ve probably made a few errors and there are certainly a number of things missing, so please comment any corrections/additions so I can add them to the list! I just figured trying to gather all these in one place might help get them addressed. Also just continuing to beat this drum generally.

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Yup,there is an internal cooldown for it now

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It’s 0.5 seconds, if memory serves.

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Lol, it seemed I misunderstood the wording on quite a lot of those talents as well…
I’d agree with everything mentioned here - this game is a jumble of various interesting but seriously convoluted mechanics which are just not explained in-game.
The very fact that you need a bloody excel spreadsheet to just get breakpoints speaks volumes.
I would suggest on working on an in-game compendium that’d explain all the tidbits, something like vermintannica, but bigger, better and encompassing the excel sheet somehow. But given that the devs are probably mostly working on the new 40k game and other priorities are probably more important I don’t think we’re getting it any time soon.

Is there a difference?

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Yes there is.Damage is just damage,power increases damage,cleave,and stagger power.As for how damage/power stack with other damage/power buffs,I dont know deep enough.

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Precisely what DameArstor said.

I’m not 100% on this, but to my recollection they’re all additive, with the possible exception of enhanced power. Note that power vs properties on gear affect stagger and damage but not cleave

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Shade has a few things like the above going too, mostly about how infiltrate greatly boosts the damage of any hit you use to exit the ability with and how cloak of mist changes that.

I gotcha!

Shade

Infiltrate
Kerillian becomes undetectable and can pass through enemies. Lasts for 5 seconds, or until she attacks.

→ Kerillian becomes undetectable and can pass through enemies. The invisibility lasts for 5 seconds or until she attacks. Any melee attack dealt before the time is up gains a great damage boost.

Alt ver.

Kerillian becomes undetectable and can pass through enemies. Lasts for 5 seconds or until she attacks and any melee attack used to end the effect early will deal greatly increased damage.

Or something like so? As for cloak of mist…

Cloak of Mist
Infiltrate cooldown reduced by 45%. After leaving stealth gains 100% melee critical strike chance for 4 seconds but no longer gets a damage bonus on attacking.

->Infiltrate cooldown reduced by 45%. After leaving stealth gains 100% melee critical strike chance for 4 seconds. No longer gains a damage boost for the first attack from stealth.

(This one i got from the wiki and just rewrote slightly towards the end)

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While I think that some are a bit to nitpicky, I’ll give this an up simply for the effort needed to write it down.

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Good thread, I’m gonna quote one of my replies in relation to inconsistent wording in talent descriptions.

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I agree some of them are very minor. Was trying to be thorough and put myself in the shoes of a relatively new player reading these descriptions. What would I think these things do from reading the description vs what they actually do. Obviously some are much more problematic than others though, and in general the power vs damage differences are not obvious to most, so simply using the terms power or damage correctly for each talent wouldn’t in and of itself make it intuitive for new players to know what’s what, but at least it’d be internally consistent.

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Nitpicky descriptions are important to make clear when something is not performing as intended. You have to be clear when you are informing the player, especially when using keyword descriptors like power.

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If you wouldn’t mind editing your post to roughly match the format of my original post I’ll incorporate it into the OP.

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Cheers for that. One thing before I add it to the post though. Isn’t there also the matter of the guaranteed critical hit for the base Ult but not for the CoM version?

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Slight tangent - I looked into modding this game for like 10 minutes and was like “ugh I can’t figure this out right now” but does anyone with knowledge of the matter think it would potentially be easy to make a mod that just updates the descriptions / weapon tags? We could do a community sourced description update mod, try to get it sanctioned, and then maybe Fatshark would have an easy time incorporating it into the base game?

My particular pet peeve is how all the stagger talents tell you about the weird conditional 20% and 40% bonus damage you get whether you take the stagger talent or not, as though it’s part of the stagger talent, but in reality that’s part of the base game, and you still get bonus damage on stagger with level 1 dudes with no talents.

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Especially good point about the description of stagger-damage talents. That mess of a description is completely incomprehensible for new players.

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Are you referring to the damage boost the ability has on the attack used to exit stealth? It seems to be coded as a crit just like the GK holy swing/stab. I just call it a damage boost though.

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Shade’s infiltrate grant Strength boost and also forces the next melee strike to be a critical strike.

Dawi Drop gives Power, boosting everything during the leap.
Blessed Combat gives Melee Power and Ranged Power.

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