Heroes,
Welcome to update #5 for Vermintide 2. Introducing Geheimnisnacht.
Geheimnisnacht is the most ill-omened night of the year, and it is marked as an important date in the Old World’s Calendar. The veil between the living and the dead is especially thin on this night, and the Winds of Magic grow stronger. Only the strong and brave dare venture out after the sun sets.
To celebrate, the sun has suitably set across Helmgart and all the maps will be illuminated by Mannslieb and Morrslieb alone, plunging once bright locales in to dimly lit landscapes of despair.
We’ll have a limited time event quest on offer which rewards a new portrait frame, as well as opening up the once off-limits trophy room in Taal’s Horn Keep for heroes to showcase their progression through Vermintide 2. The Keep has, of course, had another make over to mark the event. Lohner needs to be kept busy whilst you’re off checking out the new vistas!
Features
- ‘Night Mode’ enabled for all the Vermintide 2 maps.
- Event Quest enabled rewarding an event exclusive portrait frame.
- The Trophy Room is now available.
- ‘Difficulty Banners’ added to the main keep area.
- The Keep has been decorated to celebrate Geheimnisnacht.
The Social Wheel
- Holding down the tag button over an item that can be picked up, such as Tomes, Grimoires, and Potions, will command bots to pick up the item. Bots can also be ordered to discard Grimoires by looking at the bot and holding down the tag button.
Fixed a case where the player could not access the social wheel whilst in ‘Set free’ state.
Crafting
- Green, Blue, and Orange Dust have now been renamed to Jade, Celestial, and Amber dust. These correspond to one of the Orders of Magic in the Old World.
- Added Bright Dust. Salvaging a Veteran item will grant one Bright Dust.
- Added the ability to upgrade an Exotic item to a Veteran item. Upgrading an item from Exotic to Veteran quality will cost 5 Bright Dust. An item upgraded to Veteran quality will retain its Traits and Properties, but these will be set to their respective maximum bonus. The item’s Power Level will be set to 300 and it will retain any skin currently applied to it.
- Extracting Weapon Illusions have been removed. Whenever a player is rewarded an item with a new illusion, that illusion is unlocked, available for being applied unlimited times.
Here’s a technical note - the way we handle weapon illusions, by storing them as inventory items, meant they counted toward your item limit. Some of you have a lot of weapon illusions, and were unable to open new chests because of that. With this new system of unlocking weapon illusions, and applying them without consuming them - these have now been removed from your inventory, freeing up space.
Enemies
- We noticed that the previous change to the Chaos Troll, where damage would interrupt its health regeneration, made it a bit too easy. So we have reworked the the way the Chaos Troll’s health regeneration works.
- Its health has been increased on all difficulty settings to 570, up from 475 on Recruit. Increased to 900, up from 750 on Veteran. Increased to 1200, up from 1000 on Champion. Increased to 1800, up from 1500 on Legend.
- The pause in its health regeneration, from taking damage, has been reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
- The Chaos Troll’s health passive regeneration has been changed so that it will regenerate increasingly more health the longer it avoids damage.
- Its health regenerated per second is now scaled over time - up to a cap, based on difficulty. Max health regeneration per second is now 4 in Recruit, where it previously healed 0.5. On Veteran it is now 7, previously 2. On Champion it is 14, previously 5. On Legend it is now 28, previously 10.
- The time it takes for the Chaos Troll to gain the maximum health regeneration is 12 seconds on Recruit, 10 seconds on Veteran, 8 seconds on Champions and 6 seconds on Legend.
- So on Legend, a Chaos Troll will reach the maximum health regeneration of 28 health per second, after not having been damaged for 6 seconds.
- By design, Bosses - like Chaos Trolls and Rat Ogres, are meant as a challenge to the team, and need to be defeated. However, some of them are fairly easy to outpace. That is why the game features Boss Doors - green flames which cannot be passed until the Boss has been defeated. In this version, we’ve added additional respawn points just before the Boss Doors, to make sure that defeated players won’t respawn behind a Boss Door. We’ve also made changes to how the AI Director works when players try to outrun a Boss. Previously, when a Boss entered play, most spawning of other enemies would stop. This lead to poor pacing when some players would run ahead. Now, the Director will try to spawn Specials to slow down players who outrun Bosses.
- Bosses will now drop a Loot Die when defeated.
- Reworked some of the visual effects around glowing eyes. Both Chaos and Skaven will have glowing eyes in dark environments.
- Increased the reach of Chaos Savages’ attacks to 2, up from 1.75.
- There’s a new visual effect for enemies on fire. They will burn over time until they’re extra crispy.
- Fixed an issue where Chaos patrols would turn and pursue players that were behind them.
Levels
- Many levels have been updated to ensure that enemies, players, and bots are able to properly navigate all areas without getting stuck. Many issues where certain patrol spawn points would spawn enemies in plain sight have been resolved as well.
- Fixed a few issues on some levels where players would be able to bypass large parts.
- Fixed an issue where the barn doors on Against the Grain would not properly remove padlocks and chains when opened.
- Fixed an issue moving down a ladder near the third Tome on Halescourge.
Audio
- Fixed issues with voicelines, when played behind you - especially for Surround configurations, would sound muffled.
- Fixed an issue where Saltzpyre played no voiced lines when being under friendly fire from Bardin.
- Added voice over callouts for Berserker enemies - Skaven Plague Monks and Chaos Savages.
- Added voice over lines for when players misses with a thrown bomb.
- Fixed an issue with Kerillian’s Glaives, where they sometimes would play the wrong sounds, or none at all.
- Fixed an issue where Kerillian’s voice overs would refer to Sienna, when reviving Bardin. And Saltzpyre’s voice overs would refer to Bardin, when healed by Kruber.
- Fixed an issue with incorrectly configured voice overs, where lines aimed at Kerillian by Kruber would play, even when Kruber was not in the party. And they showed subtitles as they came from Bardin.
- Changed Handmaiden Kerillian’s voice over laugh, because it sometimes sounded too much like Sienna’s laughter.
- Fixed a bug relating to how often story based dialogue played. You’ll now more often, and more consistently hear dialogue between the heroes.
- Fixed an issue where some dialogues that were only meant to play once per game session would be played twice.
Bots
- Bots can now crouch and are thus able to follow the player at places where they would before get stuck.
- Made bots less careful about friendly fire while shooting at specials that have grabbed players or at enemies attacking a helpless player.
- Bots that are ordered to pick up an item but cannot properly navigate to it, will still be able to pick it up.
Career Changes
- For Pyromancer Sienna, updated the Passive Abilities and Talents “Critical Mass”, “Shield of Tarnus”, “Blazing Equilibrium”, and “One with the Flame”. Reduced the amount of overcharge needed for each stack to 6, down from 8. This will allow Sienna to gain the maximum effect without blowing herself up.
- For Unchained Sienna, updated the Passive Abilities “Unchained Strength”. Reduced the amount of overcharge needed for each stack to 6, down from 8.
Bugfixes and Tweaks
- Fix for clients joining a hosted session from outside the game.
- Fixed so that melee sweeps that do not hit their intended target now correctly hit other targets in that sweep. This was one of the causes of “phantom swings”.
- Improved calculations to more precisely determine the intended target of a melee sweep attack.
- Fixed an exploit which allowed Kerillian’s Repeating Crossbows to shoot faster than intended when quickly switching between weapons.
- Altered the double click windows on inputs, this should reduce the occurence of unintentional swings when quickly pressing melee input.
- Fixed an issue with enemy outlines when targetted by Waystalker Kerillian’s Trueflight Volley and Pyromancer Sienna’s Burning Skull. This fix makes sure that the red “targeted” outline is always shown, even if the targeted enemy has been pinged by a player. This also fixes issues where dead enemies retain their red outlines. This fix was based on the work by prop joe and walterr, and their mods.
- Fixed an issue with Two-Handed Swords that cleaved through, or slid past armour on training dummies.
- Fixed an animation issue with Two-Handed Swords push attacks.
- Fixed several issues with Drakeguns and Drakefire Pistols where they wouldn’t glow correctly when overcharged.
- Fixed an issue that affected the Career Skills of Pyromancer Sienna, Bounty Hunter Saltzpyre, and Waystalker Kerillian. When jumping onto a ladder shortly after activating their Career Skill, their skill bar would be depleted but no skill being cast.
- Okri’s Challenge book should no longer glow, nor indicate available Challenges completed, for DLC that hasn’t been purchased.
- Fixed an issue where enemies could enter a state where they crowded around a player without attacking them.
- Fixed an issue where shield slams could trigger friendly fire voice lines.
- Fixed an issue where certain attacks, such as the bash with the Grudgeraker, could not damage objects in the levels, such as doors or explosive barrels.
- Fixed an issue where sound effects from being targeted by a Lord, Boss, or Chaos Warrior were only played on the host.
- Fixed a visual issue where arrows that did no damage would not stick to Chaos Warriors.
- Fixed a visual issue where a glowing sphere would be visible for a couple of frames when hitting an enemy with a fireball of any kind.
- Changed the Scoreboard so that the player with the least amount of damage taken gets the green circle - rather than the player who took the most damage.
- Fixed an issue where a player or bot that got killed while hanging on a ledge would not respawn.
- Fixed an issue where the animation for weapon based Career Skills could become stuck if a player was downed while using the skill.
- Fixed an issue where Medical Supplies could be used up without applying the healing if used on another player that is on low health and gets downed while getting healed.
- Fixed an issue where the challenge “Feed Me, Sinner!” wouldn’t properly trigger.
- Unchained Sienna’s arms, in first person, will now properly match her equipped cosmetic skin.
- Fixed an issue where the Glaive “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” incorrectly showed the name and description of “Greenleaf’s Kelthrax”.
- Fixed an issue where the effect from Ranger Veteran Bardin’s smoke grenade would end prematurely if another smoke bomb was triggered while the first one still was active.
- Fixed an issue where in some cases the item property “Damage Reduction vs Area Damage” would not reduce damage from some sources, like Poison Wind Globardier damage over time.
- Fixed an issue where damage from a Chaos Sorcerer’s Vortex would not be reduced while having a equipped “Damage Reduction vs Chaos” property.
- Fixed an issue where the push attack of Executioner Swords, and Two-Handed Swords would trigger the talent “Build Momentum” for Foot Knight Kruber.
- Fixed an issue where the push attack of War Picks would trigger the talent “Miner’s Rythm” for Ironbreaker Bardin.
- Fixed an issue where shooting with the pistol of the Rapier and Pistol, would break block for the duration of shooting when playing as a client.
- Fixed an issue where shooting with the pistol of the Rapier and Pistol when blocking could cause you to get stuck in a blocking state.
- Fixed an issue where blocking with a shield after an attack could cause the blocking animation to play twice.
- Fixed a broken animation on Bardin’s one-handed charge attacks, which could sometimes get stuck.
- Fixed several cases where charging Career Skills could cause players to not go into a ledge hanging state on low framerate, and instead die or go out of bounds.
- Fixed an issue where Mercenary Kruber’s Talent “Inspirational” which increased the temporary health gained from 25 to 40, instead of the intended 45.
- Fixed an issue with the Trait “Off Balance” where the tooltip was displaying the incorrect values. Updated tooltips new reflect the intended behaviour (20% damage taken for 5 seconds). Note that the functionality has not changed, only the tooltip.
- Fixed an issue with the trait “Opportunist” where the power level increase was not applied as intended.
- Fixed an issue with Zealot Saltzpyre’s Passive Ability and talents that give bonuses per 25 health missing where the amount of buffs, and the breakpoints where they activated, would be incorrectly calculated when having boosted max health. Carrying one or more Grimoires will now also be correctly handled. For example; having +20% health (max health 180hp) and no damage taken, and one Grimoire (reducing max health to 126hp) will give two stacks, as 54 health is missing from your total max health. Taking 21 damage (putting current health to 105 health) will activate a third stack, as 75 health is missing from your total max health. This will also allow a health boosted Zealot on very low health to have 6 stacks active instead of 5, as would be the maximum otherwise.
- Fixed so that Sienna bot no longer does friendly fire with Conflagration Staff’s charged attack.
- Changed the Overheat effect so it’s not so bright.
- Fixed an issue where Beam Staffs could trigger on-hit procs on the first damage tick. The beam staff will now correctly begin to trigger procs on the second damage tick for an enemy to prevent being able to sweep through a horde to quickly trigger procs.
- Fixed a crash when you shield slammed a barrel.
- Fixed an issue where Bödvarr Ridspreader could get pushed of his platform, plummeting to his death if players used abilities or threw grenades during his monologue.
- Fixed an issue where the animation to draw bows and aim with crossbows and rifles didn’t get scaled when having an attack speed buff, such as after having drunk a speed potion.
- Fixed issues where the sound for charging attacks made by bots or other players would be played as if it was the local player charging the attack. Most notable when someone used a Beam Staff.
- Fixed a crash that could occur if a player left the game while carrying an explosive barrel.
- Fixed an issue where the game could crash if a player left the game at the same time as a held torch was removed.
- Fixed an issue where animation speed could go out of bounds when stacking speed and charge bonuses as Battle Wizard, leading to a crash.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when the Chaos Spawn throws a player.
- Fixed a crash that could happen if a Ratling Gunner bullet hit deep water.
- Fixed an issue where the bolts from the Repeating Crossbow would clip through the lid of the weapon if the shot was affected by Bounty Hunter Saltzpyre’s talent “Prize Bounty”.
- Fixed an graphical issue where Crossbows could abort and restart the reload animation if under the effect of an attack speed buff.
- Fixed so that players only respawn in front of boss doors if it is active or will be activated in the future.
- Fixed crash that could happen if a player that is pounced by a Gutter Runner disconnects or leaves the game.
- Fixed Kerillian’s bows not zooming when aiming.
