Ramblings of a ratslayer

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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So after some 600h on this game, I though i’d give some feedback about the game. Obviously I like it, initially I just wanted a hack n slash game to tide me over last year’s christmas season. And boy did Vermintide 2 deliver.

Best sound design in a game I’ve come across, you can triangulate the location and movement of enemies by mere sound and it is so innate.

I have no big gripes with the game now that anticheat doesnt disrupt the game and crashes dont really happen on my part anymore.

Things that in my opinion do need some attention are:
-the range difference between two handed and one handed weapons seems too small, I’d personally like to see a range reduction on all one handed melee weapons
-hit or no hit with certain animations: chaos warriors and maulers especially, quite often it looks like the hit wont connect, yet it does. And sometimes you feel like it should and it doesnt. Isn’t really latency dependant since this happens also when you’re hosting. To a certain degree there’s alot of waving weapons in the air and stuff connects in this game, both on player and AI side.
-BOTs should tag stuff at times, specially a witch hunter bot should atleast tag the elite or monster it’s bashing.
-BOTs should use potions. Maybe have a check at a monster spawn if the human players have grimoires, if yes, drink potion.
-The way BOTs deal with hookrats that have someone hooked, the bots should be more eager to use a ranged weapon to diffuse the situation instead of trying to melee.
-Deprivation heroic deed means that no barrels are spawned in a map, so you cant obtain one of the grimoires on Against the grain.
-Deprivation heroic deed means no ravaged art is spawned.
-Heroic deed drop rate is too low in my opinion.
-Hookrat hooking, say you are in a hookrats range and the hookrat starts the attack and 5ms later you use a dash of your choice moving you out of a hookrats range, you still get caught.
-Doing many deeds in a row ends up stacking deed modifiers that shouldnt be there. I’ve had many times literally constant special spawns on a simple deed without the higher special modifier. The rate is to the extreme where specials spawn instantly after you’ve killed previous ones.
-The way enemy shields work: specially the stormvermin’s shield hitbox seems bigger than it looks. You can have a weapon come from a direction that seemingly does connect with the head of the vermin, yet is blocked by a invisible hitbox of the shield.
-Back to basics deeds reward is entirely dispropotional to the fact how tedious, annoying and how long it takes to finish one of those.

I’d like to end this post on a positive note so I’d like to say that the ‘A quiet drink’ has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time in a game. Also the weekly events in general have been fun, I hope we get at some point to pick our poison regarding them.

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If it’s alright, I’d like to help address at least a few of your points! Sorry for the long-winded response and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong :slight_smile:

First Few Points

I like your approach of wanting to shorten one-handers as opposed to extending two-handers, but there is a certain balance we have struck; I find that most weapons are already sitting pretty and feel good to wield. I’d only want to change range if there was another reason than because they are short.

This is a good point; it happens quite a bit. A good way to counter it is to not try and out-range things and instead dodge to the side, but that’s not a solution to your point. Then again, I’m not sure FatShark can do a lot about that unless you want the Chaos Warriors to have weapons the size of trees to get the point across :stuck_out_tongue:

I do get where you are coming from, though. Let me ask you: what would a solution look like in your mind? The ones I come up with aren’t realistic, so I’d like to hear it from you.

Next Few Points

I wholesomely disagree, but not because I don’t think it would be useful. I disagree more because the game is meant to be played in a group. If the bots were fully functional, there’d be even less reason to play quick play.

As to the potions; I’d really rather they didn’t :stuck_out_tongue: given the remarkably unintelligent things they do with their ultimates, I’d rather have the ability to use 4 potions over the course of a big fight than drink one and watch my Sienna do the same while getting whacked by a patrol so she dies because she wasn’t blocking.

Very good point. Never gotten deprivation on Against the Grain, so I never thought of it :stuck_out_tongue:

Having no art on the map makes sense, in a way. They did say no spawns… but I get what you mean :slight_smile: plus, it’s not all that big of a deal to miss out on art for 1 mission.

This is still being addressed, if I’m not wrong! Have hope :slight_smile:

I think the key here is to dodge to the side; out-ranging them is practically not an option. It’s why they are more deadly when you hear them but cannot see them… you don’t know which direction you need to dodge in.

Last Few Points

I think I’ve seen this one come up before… It can also carry twitch-mode into a deed or a deed into twitch-mode, I can’t remember which it is.

They block practically everything that isn’t coming from behind them, but I’m sure you know that. The triangle that is the shield isn’t intended to be the hitbox, it’s intended to telegraph the situation the Shield-Vermin is in. If they have it out-front, they are shielded, and if they have it to the side, they are vulnerable! I think that the major point to take away is that when the look vulnerable, you feel comfortable swinging from all sides, right?

What if the shield was the size of the hit-box? When their block was broken, 60% of their body would still be covered and we likely couldn’t see their head from a 90-degree angle to their left!

Yep. Really, it’s not the Deed’s reward which is the… reward. It’s the challenge/achievement progress. Needless to say, I agree wholeheartedly!

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A few comments:

At the beginning, the difference wasn’t there at all (particularly, between Arming Sword and its relatives and Two-handed Sword), and was changed to its current state because the players asked for it. While there is a reach advantage in real life for a two-handed weapon compared to a one-handed one, it’s surprisingly small. According to a quick personal test (arming sword equivalent vs. longsword, feet planted, no bodily extension) it’s around 10-15 cm, or 4-6 inches. So I think the difference is quite fine; it’s noticeable but not huge.

Some of this may be due to FoV settings. Turning your FoV high distorts your vision somewhat, affecting the perceived reach of both enemies and yourself. I guess that could be fixed partially by distorting your view of your weapons in addition to the environment, but that would make it even harder to get used to than it is. Other than that, it’s pretty much a question of getting used to things and learning the apparent and real reaches, whether it’s about FoV distortion or not.

If you’re on PC, that can be done with the (sanctioned) mod Bot Improvements - Combat. I do agree that it should be a part of the main game too, though. (I actually seemed to remember that it was added to the live version at some point, but it seems probable that I was wrong about that, as it’s still in the mod description and I can’t locate it in recent patch notes.)

The same should be true for the first Grim on Hunger in the Dark. I haven’t had any chance to check it, though, because…

Yep. Although more than a higher droprate, I’d prefer for them to be craftable (and salvageable).

This is intended behavior, as far as I know. None of the dash-types make you invulnerable; they only put you into the dodge state, which means that enemies can’t track you. If you try to dash through a hooking hookrat, you’ll dash straight into their attack, and as you cannot block that one, you’ll get caught. If you manage to react faster (or predict the attack), though, and move past the rat before the attack part of the hooking animation starts, you’re safe and go through or past the rat normally. Similarly, if you dash to the side (the way you would dodge if you were facing the hookrat) you’ll evade the hook.

This is an old bug which may have resurfaced. If so, find your console logs from the sessions where this happened and attach them to a proper bug report. You’ll find instructions on the Bugs section’s post template (and please, clean away the irrelevant section of the template afterwards; it’s downright nasty to see the template untouched and unheeded in every third thread…)

As @Torantolis said, the shield is more indicative of a different enemy and their state than a protected location. I understand it’s somewhat annoying that you can’t trick your way past it even if it appears to be possible, but fighting the Shieldvermin isn’t a matter of precision but rather tactics. I do think that if one’s headshots (on range, usually) get blocked by the shield they shouldn’t be indicated as headshots, though. That’s just misleading.

It’s not the only Deed modifier that needs tweaking. Luckily, a Deed rework will probably come at some point (as it’s been on the table practically since the release), but when is another question. It’s likely it will happen after WoM, so don’t expect it too soon.

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For 2hd and 1hd weapons there is nearly no difference, 1hd charged attack have same range like executioner sword. I would suggest instead of changing lenght of weapon just drastically lower that slow effect when attacking with 2hd weapons, considering that a lot of weapon have opposite effect (they give you small speed boost to movement), even better if that speed change would be directional (like going with swing)

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I guess it’s not a range issue per se but the general lack of oomph two handers lack versus one handers. The slow attack speed/range and dmg combo vs one handers seems lacking.

You might be right, adjusted FOV abit and the issue seems trivial now.

You can use one of the event barrels there, so it isn’t a issue on Hunger in the Dark.

I don’t have a issue with getting hooked if you dash trough a hookrat’s range, but that if you dash out of its range and it still hooks you. When this happens, you can see the hookrats grabber stretch so much that it has invisible portions. Heres a picture of what i mean, made by yours truly with the same program ancient egyptians used to make hieroglyphs.

hookrat
hookrat1021×424 6.52 KB

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Others have given good answers, so I just wanted to comment on one thing; for shielded enemies, you really only have to push them a couple times and their block will go down!

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So to only address your final point (the others seem relatively settled); the Pack-Master doesn’t attempt a hook until your positioning looks like the following, also represented by a similarly ancient tool though likely by someone who doesn’t know how to use it all that well:
image

If you can reach him with a melee swing, you are way into his potential grab-zone. If you find that your blunderbuss can likely 1-shot him, you are also still in range.

If the Pack-Master starts a grab attack you would need to dodge 2-4 times (depending on the character) to out-range him. The fellow is a “reachy-boi” as some might call him :stuck_out_tongue:

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Not completely true; at last Handmaiden with certain weapons can dodge far enough backwards that they can get out of the reach. It may be possible with a few other weapons and a Dodge range Talent, too. Everyone else is outta luck, though, and need to rely on sideways dodging.

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I’ve seen a hook rat grab someone through 2 bosses that they were kiting, it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in game. Even the red outline to show they were grabbed, the player was a good 3 meters away from the rat, nearly on opposite sides of my screen. None of us were lagging, 50-90 ping all around. I think it was because the boss had knocked him back before he was about to be hooked.

I’ve been testing some hookrat shenanigans lately. I’ve noticed that dodging to the side will normally get you caught, just as dodging backwards will always get you hooked. Meanwhile, if you do a heavy attack and dodge, the hook rat can’t seem to grab you at all.

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I find that at least a little odd; I’ve always managed to dodge the hook with a carefully timed sidestep (or as my group tends to call it, “Booping the snoot”). The only times it catches me are when I either go too late, too early, or I don’t have a sharp enough dodge angle.

So I’ve noticed that Pack-Masters and Gutter Runners can affect the player during that time of “stasis” when you cannot act/are under the effects of something. Examples would be standing up from a hit by a Gutter-Runner, being released from a Pack-Masters catch-pole, or getting punted by a boss.

If I’m not wrong, the Pack-Masters hook also does some weirdly-overpowered things if you try to avoid it without dodging (like trying to just run away with a move-speed boost). Perhaps the game deemed that your bosses punting the player didn’t count sufficiently as “dodging” so it just auto-hooked the player?

Funny to imagine, though :grinning:

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Yarp, it seems that getting launched by something (boss swipe, Ranald’s Gift mutator, etc) doesn’t affect the hookrat grab in any way. I’ve gotten smacked by the boss and had the hookrat nab me as I flew past with what looked like a good 20ft grab.

The same is true for life leeches, they can nail you when you’re flying through the air.

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One of the few benefits of the Kruber FK charge is the ability to knock over a hookrat who is literally in your face. It is completely unreliable but you can quite often charge into it even as it’s making the grab to hook you.

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All aoe stuns will down them and release hooked teammates for around 5m radius.

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