Vermintide 2 - Patch 2.0.12.1

Hotfix: 2.0.12.1

  • Fixed an issue with Quickplay matchmaking

Heroes,

Welcome to patch 2.0.12. In this patch we are introducing updates to the Beastmen and new votes to Twitch Mode. There have been changes to the following Beastmen: Ungor, Ungor Archers, Gor and Standard Bearer.

You can read all about Twitch 2.0 over on our blog.

Along side new votes covered in the blog post, we’ve introduced additional options for the game mode:

  • Increase the amount of enemies spawned by Twitch Votes
  • Toggle on or off the mutator votes.
  • Increase the duration of mutator votes.
  • Ability to disable item votes as well as all beneficial votes

Beastmen Patch Notes

Today introduces the first phase of Balancing the Beastmen. We’d like to get these changes out to you, whilst we continue to work on bug fixes and other core game tweaks. Thanks for all your feedback thus far, and know that further feedback will be taken on board for future phases of balance where needed.

Ungor:

Ungors were the first enemy type with a new combat behaviour for Vermintide II, namely “Skirmishers”. Roaming enemies that engage the players with slightly longer reaching weapons and use evasive movement. Something we have wanted to try for a long time to create a more dynamic combat environment. Unfortunately this disrupted the flow of combat too much so we have decided to change the behaviour of the Ungors to better reflect the other roaming/horde enemies in the game.

The Ungors will now try to fight closer to the heroes and can no longer attack between their own allies with their spears. They also will no longer use backsteps to try and dodge out of the players melee range.

It should now also be easier to visually identify these apart from their Archer colleagues.

Ungor Archer

Ungor Archers have received the same changes as the regular Ungors aswell as some further tweaks to their archery. Ungor archers now have tattoos that should help distinguish them from their spear wielding fellows. In addition to this, whenever any archer spots the players and starts firing arrows at them, they will call out, alerting the players of their presence on the battlefield. They have also had their innate accuracy reduced significantly, especially on lower difficulties. Dodging arrows is now easier across the board.

Gor

Gors have had a new pass on their looks and will now appear lighter and should be easier to distinguish from one another.

Gors have had their damage reduced for all difficulties. They now deal 25% less damage on veteran difficulty, and 10% less damage on all subsequent difficulties.

The number of Gors in Beastmen Hordes have been reduced by roughly 25% on all difficulties.

Standard Bearer

The Standard Bearer has had the radius of the inspiring aura reduced from 25 to 15 meters around the banner.

The escort of the standard bearer now scales per difficulty and has been reduced across the board.

The escort of the standard bearer now scales per difficulty and has been reduced across the board. Down from 4x Gor, 2x Ungor across the board to:

  • Recruit: 2x Ungors
  • Veteran: 2x Ungors, 1x Gor
  • Champion: 2x Ungors, 2x Gor
  • Legend: 3x Gor, 1x Ungor
  • Cataclysm: 4x Gor

Also fixed an issue for all breeds where different armor types for different body parts did not allocate properly. Headshotting standard bearers with ranged attacks should now deal significantly more damage.

Dark Omens

Investigating we found some unusual behaviour in the Meteor event on Dark Omens which would result in an overwhelming number of enemies spawning. The end event has been tuned down across all difficulties and should now be more consistent. This is the first take on fixing the issue of inconsistent difficulty spikes of events. We’ll be looking at Convocation of Decay and Fort Branflakes next.


Additional Notes

  • Waystalker talent ‘Fervent Huntress’ now properly refreshes when already applied
  • Fixed a bug when fetching armor types for enemies. See Standard Bearer note.
24 Likes

I’m not yet sure this was necessary to remove, fixing slotting issues and the removal of attack tracking from them would have been better imho.

I don’t think anyone had a issue with this.

That’s good.

I think we had this in the beta, I distinctly remember archers having a loud callout when they spotted you. Guess it didn’t make it into the game upon release…

Looking forward to see how they look now, they were much more cattle-brown in the beta as in the released game.

Could we get actual number comparison before-after this nerf?
What about them sometimes ignoring the damage reduction due to enemy numbers?

Not sure about this yet.

I don’t think this ever was a problem.

3 Likes

I look forward to trying these out. I’m not sure if the Ungor back-dodge needed removal, though.

8 Likes

The problem with the ungor dodge is that it’s basically a random miss chance. You can’t prepare for it, see it coming, or do anything about it. You just swing and miss no matter what. That’s not a fun mechanic, is it? I can fully see why it was removed. Something like that might have a place on an elite enemy, not mobs.

2 Likes

Noice, looking forward to trying out those changes

Personally…

a) Ungor behaviour was the same type of problem as the silent packmaster coming through the horde. IMHO, forcing LOS requirements for his spear poke would have been enough.

b) I had no issue with the precision of the archers, just the fact that there would often be no alert and that they could be very hard to spot when at extreme range - especially if triggered by someone else.

c) The standard bearer escort was not a problem provided there was no horde, IMHO, the reduced range would have been enough, even for the horde scenario, in most locations.

Other than that, good, especially making them easier to distinguish. I’m looking forward to trying it this evening.

3 Likes

Very nice changes, can’t wait to test them. Jumping on now for some games. Good work fatshark and thanks for listening to the feedback. The darkness of the Gors was a real problem, I can probably turn my gamma down now :joy:

7 Likes

I guess since they nerfed player back-doging it makes sense not to have enemies do it or new players will think they should do it too?

It’s still totally viable to back dodge since 2.0, just not against all enemy movements.

6 Likes

Fair. I find side dodging is generally safer however, especially for people new to the game who don’t know the enemies/their attacks that well, unless we’re talking bosses where you need back-dodges to avoid certain attacks (like the rat ogre slams).

On that note, last I played often the regular enemies (maulers, CWs) would slide after you when you back-dodged, has that been fixed? That was the main thing making back-dodging bad.

2 Likes

Enemies who attack on the move will continue their trajectory when dodged. That’s the design intention at least.

3 Likes

I never found it that troublesome; in a horde situation, perhaps, but you could predict if you were coming straight at one and he wasn’t readying an attack that he was going to dodge. If you kept going forward you’d usually still hit him.

Anyway, just tried a solo run on Dark Omens (Legend). Felt good! It was still challenging, but Beastmen felt much more fair. I really, really like these changes, they make the faction feel more in line with the others, difficulty-wise. They still feel like they hit hard, and they attack quickly, so they are still threats. The hordes don’t feel as incredibly beefy, though, but still somewhat tough, as they should.

The coloration changes are wonderful; I think they look more fitting in the setting overall, much easier to tell apart, and ARCHERS in particular look fantastic. I WAS ENJOYING SMASHING UNGORS IN THEIR HORRIBLE LITTLE FACES JUST LIKE I’VE ALWAYS WANTED!

7 Likes

Looking forward to trying the patch tonight. I had already pretty well adapted counters to some of the “jank” associated with the Beastmen so I’m glad that things still feel balanced. Heavy handed nerfs would’ve been a bad thing.

2 Likes

What about with dodge distance modifiers though? Sometimes it feels ridiculous how far they can move. Is the idea to never have back-dodging viable vs moving attacks even with dodge distance?

Edit: Decided to boot up the game and take a look by doing an Against the Grain (keep in mind I was host, and I don’t have WoM): It’s definitely feeling a lot better again than the earlier patches, apart from the odd bug here and there. The hits I ate this time were definitely due to having not played the game a while and thus being out of practice, as opposed to bugs. All in all I was pleasantly surprised.

Sans beastmen Legend felt like pre-WoM (too easy to me, esp. since I’m not lvl 35 on my characters yet, but that’s what Cata is for. Maulers and CWs melted in mere moments under CC which I don’t like). The bots also weren’t getting wrecked as bad as before (even if I do still much prefer live teammates to them). It was hard testing how well back-dodges work as I instinctively side-dodge instead of back-dodge in most situations, but the times I did back-dodge I didn’t have any fanatics, marauders, slave rats or clan rats slide after me, but that could’ve been luck/timing. I did see a few CWs slide after bots on a back-dodge but it wasn’t anything too ridiculous apart from one CW that managed to move side-to-side and around a buddy of his with far too few footsteps to not be ridiculous and then smack Saltzpyre, but that was it.

There were a few minor bugs otherwise like enemies popping into existence and then back out again in plain view, a moment where the bots froze at the top of the drop down at the far end of the barn (but I recall that happening pre-WoM too) and a moment where a berserker did a rat ogre impression with an absolutely ludicrous leap toward the bots, but that last one got a laugh out of me.

Got the flame sword and bolt staff as drops which was neat, but by Sigmar, a basegame crafting rework can’t come soon enough, rerolling them was not good.

I’ll have to comment on beastmen separately if I get into a game with them later. Glad to see they’re being worked on and made more distinct - have you guys considered making the wargor stand out a bit more too? He’s not as intimidating/special-looking as you would expect him to be.

Anyway thanks for responding @Fatshark_Hedge .

4 Likes

Ungors more like men then goats, I think they have more brain left to use. This is why :smiley:

1 Like

Looks great! Will have to try it out tonight.

Thank you. This is a good step forward.

1 Like

Hopefully this is not too much nerf. Will play test some tonight.
Dark Omens Cata twitch mode here we come!

You gonna be on tonight @BizarreSalp?
And did you get internet squared away?

1 Like

I’ll be around tonight, no idea what’s with my internet. Just have to hope it’ll cooperate. :S

Yeap, Beastmen are way better now. GJ :+1:t2:

3 Likes