Warhammer: Vermintide 2 News

Today we've put out patch 2.0.15 into an opt in experimental branch that we'd love for you to test!

To install the Vermintide 2 - 2.0.15 Experimental patch, please:

• Right-click Vermintide 2 in your Steam library sidebar 
  
• Select 'Properties' 
  
• Select the 'Betas' tab
  
• Go to the 'Betas' tab
  
• Expand the dropdown and select:
  2.0.15_beta_1.4_gb_download

A 1.4GB download for the patch 2.0.15 Experimental branch should then start downloading. If the download does not start automatically, please restart the Steam client. 

PROGRESS WILL BE PERSISTENT BETWEEN THE TEST AND LIVE GAME

We've been listening hard and working harder to bring you this update which looks to tackle issues that are high on your priority list.

These include the way in which enemies spawn in to the playing field, the sounds that accompany enemy behaviours, and we're looking to alleviate those situations in which enemy density around your character might go against established conventions.

There's a bunch of other fixes and tweaks in this update, the notes of which can be found below.

• Fixed various UI strings.
  
• Various crash fixes.
  
• Fix for missing localisation for one of the paintings.
  
• Fixed bots taking damage when they are teleported to you/a team mate whilst mid-air.
  
• Enemies, notably the Chaos Spawn and Rat Ogre (but this does apply to all enemies) will slowly nudge players who find themselves stood within the enemy unit, through expiration of a cloak ability or other such means. This fixes situations where enemy AI could not reach the player stood "inside" them.
  
• Fixed battle wizard career ability fire trail going further than the player travels. Fixed fire trail not appearing if player jumps over a gap in the navmesh* (*the path on which AI can travel)
  
• Fixed fire bombs not aggroing patrols if they step on the fire, now applying dots to enemies to alert them.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Achivement "Ride Together, Die Together" could not be completed on Legend difficulty.
  
• Changes the backstab trigger to calculate on clients instead of server
  
• Updated all hidden spawners on all levels to try and combat facespawning issues.
  
• Updates to enemy considerations to try and fight hyperdensity.
  
• Updates to horde spawning, primarily targeting ambushes.
  
• Fixes issue where the host hear the backstab indicator when bots are being backstabbed
  
• Refactored all explosions which should result in better syncing of explosions across host and client(s).
  
• Updated how sweeps are calculated for:
  • 1h Swords, Kruber and Sienna
    
  • Dual Wield Daggers, Kerillian
    
  • Dual Wield Swords, Kerillian
    
  • Spears and Shield, Kerillian
    
  • Spears, Kerillian
    
  • 2h Swords, Kerillian
  This should reduce the chance of getting Phantom Sweeps when playing at low fps and/or very high attack speed.
  
• Added Push/Block angle to weave melee weapons. An issue caused these to not display properly as an option that could be selected.
  
• Gors no longer use their kick attack since it telegraphed very poorly.
  
• Reduced the speed of the Gors attacks by approximately 10% across the board.
  
• Adjusted beastmen jump/climb up timers to reduce snappiness.
  
• Fixed missing sounds on Kerillian's Shield+Spear.
  
• Fixed missing sounds for Bardin's hammers.
  
• Overhauled the sound mix to improve enemy specials awareness.
  
• Packmaster now announces when he enters the playing field.
  
• Fixes hordes spawning without the horde music and ambience.
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies using the combo attack (Plague Monk etc) wouldn't face their target.
  
• Beastmen and chaos ambush horde music now triggers earlier to give a better indication for the player when they are about to be engaged.
  
• Beastmen and chaos horde ambience has been changed to the same effect.
  
• Beastmen Standard Bearers no longer engage patrols when they put down their banners.
  
• Fixed a case of super fast Gutter Runner behaviours. Seemed to be an interaction between assassin rats and edges in terrain/geometry. Keep us posted!
  
• Fixed cases where ULTs with knockback could be rendered unable to knockback for the remainder of a match.
  
• Fixed some situations where patrols spawned too close to the player.
  
• Fixed an issue where Chaos Warriors sometimes could hit player that were very close behind them when performing their overhead cleave attacks.
  
• Fixed an exploit with Fire Walk and Slayer's Leap which allowed some solid objects to be passed through.
  
• Fixed an issue where clients would deal more damage when they were the original cause (Sienna venting for example).
  
• Bulwark' Talent - Fixed an issue that caused the bonus damage to enemies you stagger to be applied to ranged attacks. Now only affects melee attacks.
  
• Sienna - Battle Wizard - Flame Walk - She can no longer target her flame walk whilst airborne. This is mechanically unchanged, but previously you could target whilst airborne but you couldn't use the ability.
  
• Sienna - Battle Wizard - Kaboom! - Now applies the proper burning effect on both the start location and the target location.
  
• Markus Kruber - Mercenary - Blade Barrier - Fixed an issue where the talent could not be triggered if you had the talent "Enhanced Training" selected.
  
• Markus Kruber - Mercenary - Walk it Off! - Now refreshes duration if Morale Boost is activated while the damage reduction is active.
  
• Kerillian - Shade - Vanish - Changed icon of the invisibility buff to indicate that Kerillian is under the effect of Vanish.
  
• Saltzpyre - Witch Hunter Captain - The Unending Hunt - Fixed an issue that caused the the ability to refund 80% cooldown rather than the intended 40%.
  
• Saltzpyre - Zealot - Heart of Iron - Fixed the talent from not preventing death if the damage taken is greater than the total max health of the player.
  
• Bardin - Ranger Veteran - Firing Fury - Now refreshes duration of reload speed buff if triggered again.
  
• Crit Counter buffs of Mercenary and Zealot now show when they trigger.
  
• Empire Longbow - When zoom is held, will maintain zoomed in state instead of flipping in and out after each shot. Should yield a smoother experience when using the longbow.
  
• Bolt Staff - Fixed an issue where the second level of charge for the spear had less cleave than the first and third level of charge.
  
• Swiftbow - Increased headshot damage of charged attacks.
  
• Longbow - Increased headshot damage of light attacks.
  
• Longbow - Increased Body shot damage of charged attacks vs Berserker-class enemies.
  
• Fixed issues where critical hits dealt less damage to certain enemy types with certain weapons:
  • Repeating Crossbows, Saltzpyre and Kerillian.
    
  • Blunderbuss and Grudge-Raker, Markus and Bardin.
    
  • Hagbane impact damage, Kerillian.
    
  • Fireball Staff, Sienna.
    
  • Bolt Staff, charge level 2 heavy spear attack.
    
  • Flamethrower heavy attacks, Sienna and Bardin.
    
  • Shield heavy attack slams, Markus and Bardin.
    
  • Dual Axes push attack, Bardin.
    
  • Flaming Sword claw attack, Sienna.
    
  • Greathammer, Bardin and Markus.
• Cermonial Dagger - Heavy attack 1 chains slightly faster into heavy attack 2.
  
• Beam Staff - Fixed sometimes not doing charged shot while holding right mouse button and left mouse button is spammed.
  
• Hagbane - Removed projectile penetration on charged shot to make sure it always creates poison cloud on impact.
  
• Fixed issue where the player wouldn't respawn or take a really long time to respawn in the final arena part of a Weave.
  
• Skittergate: Fixed a case of Skippergate.
  
• Skittergate: Fixed a cliffedge which had no hangledge and heroes whom fell there were just insta-killed.
  
• Skittergate: Bots should now behave a bit better around the ledges during the escape.
  
• Skittergate: Fixed various AI navigation and sticky locations.
  
• Athel Yenlui: Fixed a handful of sticky locations
  
• Tweaked the end events of the following missions:
  • Convocation of Decay
    
  • Fort 2: Electric Boogaloo
    
  • Skittergate
    
  • Garden of Morr
    
  • Engines of War
  The end events should be less punishing on higher difficulties, and slightly less challenging on all difficulties across the board.

Patch 2.0.14.1 just went live, which removes the Geheimnisnacht keep theme and fixes an issue with non-Latin fonts not displaying correctly in Latin-based localised game clients.

The Geheimnisnacht Event will still be running until 17.00 UTC at which point it will be disabled (no further patch required). This will also mark the end of season 1, as announced in our Season 2 blog post at which point the leaderboards will be frozen.

We will be taking another pass over the leaderboards to identify 'bad actors' and remove them - and sanction where necessary.

We will have news on Season 2 in the coming weeks, including the free Drachenfels content drop and the changes in place for the second season of the Winds of Magic expansion.

Geheimnisnacht is the most ill-omened night of the year and with both Mannslieb and Morrslieb full in the sky only the strong and brave dare venture into the dark. During Geheimnisnacht it's said that the veil between the living and the dead is thinner, and it's the perfect time to visit the Gardens of Morr to pay homage to the ancestors.

Geheimnisnacht will be live between October 28th until November 5th.

• Night Mode
  Once again during the seasonal event of Geheimnisnacht, all of the outdoor adventure levels will be bathed in darkness, with only the light cast by Mannslieb and Morrslieb to guide your steps. Players on both PC and Console will be able to experience the Geheimnisnacht night mode.
  
  
• Geheimnisnacht Keep Theme
  Lohner has once more been inspired by the Cult of Morr and decorated the entire keep with hundreds of candles. Or he has something untold with a ghost or two.
  
  
• A Fanged Infection
  Last year during Geheimnisnacht a mysterious Vampire portrait frame appeared and spread between the players. Rumors circling that the same infection lives up once more during Geheimnisnacht. Display your fangs proudly.
  
  
• Thematic Challenges
  Only those brave enough venture out into the night during Geheimnisnacht. If you are successful you will be rewarded accordingly with a new portrait frame and painting. During Geheimnisnacht you never know what is out to kill you.
  
  
• Wraith's Revenge - Weekly Event
  A vengeful revenant stalks your party. Look straight at it to make it slow down. The catch? It's invincible.

• Fixed a game crash observed when oil barrel blows up in client players hands.
  
• Fixed a crash when using game-pad in the lobby browser.
  
• Slayer Leap - Leap will no longer be cancelled by taking damage.
  
• Shield Weapons - Shield Weapons now have a larger angle of blocking ranged enemies and boss attacks that deals damage through block (Rat Ogre smash, for example). Uses the same angle as effective block radius. Damage is still dealt if you are attacked outside of your effective block radius.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Sienna's Flaming Sword's first heavy to not trigger the Battle Wizard talent "Immersive Immolation".
  
• Fixed buffs not being applied to healing.
  
• Stopped traits and buffs triggering reload on ammo gain to stop animation cancelling itself.
  
• Fixed various miscellaneous crashes.

2.0.13.1:

• Fixes an issue where the game would crash if all players died at the same time, and the spectator camera didn't know who to look at

Welcome to patch 2.0.13. This patch includes a batch of fixes and tweaks, ahead of Geheimnisnacht which arrives in Vermintide 2 next week.

Be sure to stop by our Fatshark Stream this coming Friday the 25th of October for details on this year's Geheimnisnacht celebration, the end of which marks the end of Season 1.

• Removed weapon forging tutorial text that is placed on the amulet if amulet is already introduced.
  
• Fixed an issue where the icon for a thrown bomb wasn't visible when playing the prologue.
  
• Fixed Kerillian's career skill weapon not cloning the material settings of the original ranged weapon.
  
• Fixed shielded rats having no set armor category which caused some players dealing inconsistent damage to them.
  
• Fixed Throwing Axes not playing reload animation in certain conditions.
  
• Fixed unlocalized strings in Athanor weapons menu.
  
• Drakefire Pistols - Fixed an issue that caused a brief double venting when venting shortly after using an attack.
  
• Fixed so sun flare is not visible through the first person unit ( weapons/shields)
  
• Solved an instability caused when too many sound sources are created.
  
• Fixed debug string seen in Weave lobby browser.
  
• Fixed some cases where the "all players must be present" hints (such as elevator levers) wouldn't show for clients.
  
• Game clients should now see correct Weave level names in the UI.
  
• Weaves objective markers (with the blue outline) should now be unique on weave levels and not seen during regular campaign missions.
  
• Tweaked audio within the 'Azyr' Weaves for stability and performance purposes.
  
• Fixed crash that could occour on all Azyr winds levels.
  
• Fixed issue with incorrect sound playing when selecting a talent on last talent row for the first time.
  
• Fixed clipping in the Repeater Pistol's startup animation for its secondary fire.
  
• Fixes issue where the player would get the wrong hero.
  
• Fixed bug which could result in Sienna becoming permanently invisible.
  
• Fixes an exploit that lets the players instantly complete a map.
  
• If an error is experienced retreiving leaderboard data, this error should no longer force the player to close the game.
  
• Added missing materials on the Weave version of the Doomwheel prop.
  
• Bots no longer need to be in the Bridge of Shadows to be considered alive at the end of the level.
  
• Fixed an issue where Zealot would gain large amounts of temporary health when triggering Heart of Iron while having the talent Holy Fortitude.
  
• Fixed the Gutter Runner dealing damage to wrong target when Ironbreaker taunts the unit before it jumps.
  
• Enemies falling off edges now properly award Weave progress.
  
• Fixed Weave weapons sometimes not having correct traits and properties if the same weapon type is used in multiple careers.
  
• Fixed Huntsman passive and ammo on headshot traits reloading the weapon if you had 0 ammo in reserves instead of 0 ammo in the clip.
  
• Fix to prevent players teleporting a short distance after being dragged by the Packmaster.
  
• Fixed 1h flaming flail 2nd heavy attack charge animation sometimes not playing.
  
• Fixed volcanic force not triggering on time with some of the charge spells, the fully charged timer didn't scale correctly with the attack speed and other buffs.
  
• Fixed a crash when Weave spirits chase a player that left / disconnected.
  
• Fixed grenade explosions not triggering if a client hits the dummy directly with the grenade.

• Added initial reload animations for the Witch Hunter's 'Brace of Pistols'.
  
• Tweaked shield position during block for Kerillian's 'Spear and Shield' to provide more visibility.
  
• Athanor UI now selects the first weapon in the list if current selected weapon is not in the weapons list.
  
• The Athanor UI tutorial has seen some polish.
  
• Improved Weave matchmaking. There was an issue with the second stage of matchmaking which caused huge delays and often times no resulting matches being made.
  
• Updated the lobby browser for gamepads.
  
• Added support for gamepad on the Weave end screen.
  
• Added spawn sounds for Ratling Gunner and Warpfire Thrower.
  
• Added more defined variations to Beastmen horde footsteps to make them feel more natural and less repetetive. This is married with adjustments to volume so they're easier to hear.
  
• Players can now use healing drought and bandages even if health is full if they are in a "wounded" state.
  
• Added ambush stingers in main-game (adventure) maps. This should result in less situations where things spawn silently.
  
• Unchained Sienna: “Enfeebling Flames” - now the flame visuals end at the same time as the DoT.
  
• Flaming Flail - Added a hit stop animation to the second heavy attack to make it feel nicer and cleared when you hit a large amount of enemies.
  
• Fixed order of team size filter options in leaderboard menu.
  
• Added more voice and SFX variations for the Minotaur:
  • Added more charge grunts and voice variations.
    
  • Added special attack and pre attack voice varations
    
  • Added short attack voice variations
    
  • Tweaked axe swing volume.
    
  • Made spawn sound more directional.
• Crowbill sound has seen a tweak, reducing the bass a touch.
  
• Tweaked Lohner's Catrinne referenced lines to play less frequently.
  
• Added sound to indicate to players if they or an enemy are burning within the fire Weaves.
  
• Torches, explosive grenades and explosive barrels can now damage the Beastmen banners.
  
• Added missing minimum stagger damage from ranged attacks to dummy damage calculations.
  
• Made power vs armor and power vs race, power level multipliers be additive rather than multiplicative. (result: if you have 10% power vs chaos and 10% power vs unarmored, then you will have 120% power power level when attacking chaos fanatic instead of 121% if they were multiplied together.)
  
• Made Saltspyre's 'Killing Blow' always deal current max hp as damage instead of base breed max hp.
  
• Implemented more robust behaviour around Steam outages. The game will not immediately close when Steam goes down for maintenance, or when there are networking issues that result in Steam not being reachable. As there are many corner-cases and nuances around the networking code, we appreciate bug reports if you see odd behaviour when it comes to issues with Steam.
  
• Many levels have seen dev assets and unecessary assets removed, and seen enemy spawners which were out of play or intersecting with kill volumes removed or updated. This should see some minor performance improvements:

Fort Brewstersmillions

• Made the cannonball VASTLY more powerful when dropped on enemies. This should make related challenges more feasible on higher difficulties.
  
• Fixed spawners (spawners outside the navmesh or intersecting with kill volumes). This should improve performance in those locations.
  
• Removed some unseen units.

Into the Nest

• Fixed spawners (spawners outside the navmesh or intersecting with kill volumes). This should improve performance in those locations.
  
• Removed some unseen units
  
• Updated occlusion culling.

Prologue

• Fixed an issue in the prologue where the dodge tutorial would always result in a jump when successfully performed.
  
• Fixed an issue where the icon for a thrown bomb wasn't visible when playing the prologue.
  
• Removed duplicate static units.
  
• Updated occlusion culling.

Halescourge

• Fixed spawners (spawners outside the navmesh or intersecting with kill volumes). This should improve performance in those locations.
  
• BirchwoodFord HailshamChandlersBMWMini has seen no changes in this update.

Screaming Bell

• Fixed deathzone that was reachable through regular play.

Taal's Horn Keep

• Fixed an issue where bots would spawn into the Keep.
  
• Updated LOD distances for certain objects & geometries.
  
• Updated occlusion culling.

Righteous Stand

• Removed duplicate static units.
  
• Updated occlusion culling.

[edit: notes updated to reflect that only explosive bombs will damage Beastmen Banners, not incendiary. Previously the note suggested all bombs would be effective]

Hotfix: 2.0.12.1

• Fixed an issue with Quickplay matchmaking

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

You can read more about the changes to the Beastmen in the following 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. 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.

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