Hotfix 5.5.5 - 4th of June

Versus

• Fixed a couple of crashes related to unspawned or unselected characters
  
• Fixed server crash that'd occur when players leave during hero select before being put on a specific side
  
• Versus Voip Clients won't be in voip chat anymore when they have voice chat disabled
  
• Bestigors won't crash dedicated servers while charging through Chaos Warriors anymore.
  
• Fixed server crash in character select related to a player friend joining a game after another player leaves.
  
• Fixed frame perfect server crash when player hot-joins at the same time as a Pactsworn character die-die
  
• Fixed two crashes for Gamepad users caused by UI shenanigans.
  
• Fixed server crash when a player hot joins during a small window when a match finishes
  
• Defrosted the Globadiers' frozen hands and instead will do the reload animation at the end of the cooldown.

Hotfix 5.5.4 - 31th of May

Versus

• Disabled Crafting and Spoils of War for Legacy UI
  
• Lowered base movement speed of Bile Troll slightly.
  
  General
  
  
• Fixed crash related to gaining the boon "Ranald's Mighty Gamble" and swapping from a higher power level weapon to a lower power level weapon.
  
• Fixed a crash occuring when bot loadouts and clients are not in agreement on which loadout the host should use.
  
• Fixed a bug where Outcast Engineer skips the first two shots when shooting. Also, tap shooting works again.
  
• Fixed the temporary mod fix. It should really be fixed now.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur if you salvaged an item equipped on a different loadout
  

Hotfix 5.5.3 - 30th of May

Features & Tweaks

• Limited loadout manager mod error logs to one unique log per level.
  

Fixes

• Fixed a Crash when a player activates an ability during the end of a game.
  
• (Versus) Fixed so Ratling gunner can't shoot through a monster.
  
• Fixed various crashes in Versus.
  
• Temporary mod fix for UI Tweaks in Versus when attempting to render an ammo counter in team portraits as Pactsworn.

Make sure to tune in to our twitch channel[www.twitch.tv] tomorrow at 16:00 CEST to catch a stream with our developers! Join our Host Tom as he talks with Product Owner Erik and Design Director Joakim about the current Versus Alpha, the new changes and additions made since then, answer questions from the community and they play a round or two of Versus!
Welcome to the Returning Alpha Test, or RAT for short! Starting today until June 9th, you’ll be able to hop on Versus straight from the main Vermintide 2 game! Simply make sure to pick ‘Versus’ from the main menu to enter the Versus lobby and access its matchmaking. This test is open to all owners of Vermintide 2 on PC, so tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets, get everyone in here!

Last test was our first time opening Versus to our entire player base and it was overall a great success! We saw great reception and got invaluable feedback from all of you, and we’re really hyped to see you guys try out the changes and the newest additions!

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the latest Versus Dev Blog, where we go over our thoughts and takeaways from the previous Alpha Test:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/552500/view/4139441932569145653

As said in our previous announcement, this test shall see the first iteration of one of our most highly requested features: Playable monsters! For this test, we’ll be starting with the Bile Troll.

When it’s time for a Monster to spawn, one lucky member of the Pactsworn team will get to spawn as the Bile Troll and wreak havoc on the Hero team!

The Bile Troll is controlled in a manner similar to Heroes. Tapping Attack (Default: Left Mouse Click) will result in sweeping light attacks. Holding Attack will result in heavy unblockable attacks with the Bile Troll’s axe. Pressing the Career Skill button (Default: F) will let you puke acid bile on your tiny foes (The Bile Troll’s puke ability has a cooldown!). You can also crouch with the usual crouch button (Default: Left Control).

We have a new map for you guys to test out during this Alpha: Against the Grain! This classic map has been adapted from its Adventure version, similar to how the previous two maps were adapted, changing parts of the level, adding more objectives and overall tweaking it to make it more fitting for Versus.

We’re very curious about how you guys feel about this map in the context of Versus! The team wants to really nail not just this map specifically, but also in general what works and what doesn’t work for Versus maps, so please give us all your feedback!

We’ll have this as our only map at first but we’ll be adding the previously tested maps (Righteous Stand and Screaming Bell) to the map rotation later on during the test.

Whether you played the last Alpha Test or you’re just curious, here are the highlights of the main changes done to the game mode since the last test, including the Balance Changes done to both Heroes and Pactsworns alike. Please note that the balance changes mentioned here will ONLY affect Versus! As we’ve said before, we will never affect the balance of the PvE game modes of Vermintide solely for the sake of Versus’ balance.

Loadouts
The recently added Loadouts feature will also be available in Versus, with its own separate slots! We’ve also included two pre-made loadouts for each career, designed by our developers, to serve as a starting point for new players or those who just don’t want to bother making brand new loadouts for Versus and just want to jump right in!

Temporary Health will now decay faster
As healing items are limited in Versus, we don't want THP to be the only way to stay alive, nor do we want it to invalidate the efforts of the Pactsworn team. We will evaluate these changes during this test, but please let us know how you feel about them.

• Increased the rate at which Temporary HP decays by 20%
  
• Increased the amount of Temporary HP lost per tick by 50%

Pactsworn Choices Tweaks
We’ve added a weighted system to the RNG choices offered to Pactsworn players when they’re about to spawn to reduce the chances of multiples of the same special being present at the same time.

Warrior Priest

• Nerfed the duration of Shield of Faith (Career Skill) from 5 seconds to 2 seconds
  
  • We are working on getting the correct tooltip in.
• Unyielding Blessing talent now makes the shield last for 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds.
  
• Damage of Shield of Faith explosion is lowered against all enemy types except Monster.

Ironbreaker

• Nerfed the Gromril Curse talent: now also makes the cooldown of Gromril Armour longer (from 20 seconds to 30 seconds).
  • We are working on getting the correct tooltip in.

Sister of the Thorn

• The Deepwood Staff has received an internal cooldown of 40 seconds specifically affecting lifting Pactsworn players. The rest of the staff functions normally, but you can’t lift up an enemy player until the cooldown has expired.

Reduced damage of all crossbows.


Warpfire Thrower

• HP has been increased from 25 to 50
  
• Damage has been increased from 2.5 per tick to 3.0 per tick.
  
• Knockback has been increased.

And that’s about it for now! We’ll be monitoring your feedback on the new changes and additions, alongside everyone’s thoughts and feedback on Versus as a whole! Hope you guys have fun this week!

• Voip is currently not functioning as intended in Versus. We are investigating
  
• The mod 'UI Tweaks' is currently causing crashes. Please disable until resolved to avoid issues.

• Added 3 more loadout slots to all careers.
  
• Increased the duration of the Skulls event buff by 50%. Get crazy for longer! Suffer from withdrawal less often!
  
• Added an option to quit the game directly without going to the main menu.
  
• Added an option to rebind the Chaos Wastes miracle keybind (Default: i)
  
• Implemented a way to patch sanctioned mods until they are updated by the owner. This should increase the lifespan of sanctioned mods, most importantly abandoned ones.
  
  • Loadout Manager mod no longer gives bots adventure items in Chaos Wastes.
    
  • Loadout Manager mod can also no longer overwrite the player's versus loadout with adventure items.
  (Chaos Wastes) 'Taal's Roar' boon: Increased radius by 67%. Increased stagger power against armored enemies by 67%.
  (Chaos Wastes Skulls Event) Event boon rarity reduced from 60% chance to 37.5%.

• Fixed an issue with unreachable respawn spots in the Citadel of Eternity.
  
• Fixed the host crown icon failing to display on the Holseher's Map in the Chaos Waste.
  
• Fixed a bug where using the Hide HUD option while posing did not hide Grail Knight quests.
  
• Fixed the Twitch mode "More Info" description text going out of bounds and overlapping with search Tab.
  
• Fixed the "Curse of tainted blood" effect on the player's health UI going out of bounds until the player stayed idle for the curse recovery.
  
• Fixed a localization issue in all languages.
  
• Fixed the Bloodthirster Frame in Lohner's Emporium of Wonders having an outfit icon instead of a frame icon in its thumbnail.
  
• Fixed the icons for the equippable careers for the Bloodthirster Frame going out of bounds.
  
• Fixed a placeholder icon being shown for the Bloodthirster Frame when accessing it from the Featured tab.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies with Outcast Engineer's career skill attack charge sound sometimes not triggering
  
• Fixed "Piston Power" Engineer talent sound effect being heard by the non-engineer Host if their engineer bot had the talent.
  
• Fixed Be'lakor homing skulls curse not playing related sounds when outside of a Be'lakor node (due to weekly event, for example).
  
• Fixed Huntsman longbow not displaying an arrow when weave skin is applied.
  
• Fixed a bug where players were not able to apply weave skins to Bretonnian Sword and Shield and Bretonnian Longsword if they didn't own the Grail Knight cosmetic dlc upgrade.
  
• Fixed a Ranger Veteran infinite stealth exploit from using ability again before first one runs out. Huh, I'm getting Deja Vu...
  
• Fixed a bug where oil barrel challenge was completable in levels than other A Parting of the Waves.
  
• Fixed the Inventory Details screen failing to close while pressing the I/Esc on the Holseher's Map in the Chaos Wastes.
  
• Fixed a bug where Taal's Roar boon did not receive lower cooldown depending on missing health. Now cooldown is halved at 30% health.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anath Raema's Cruel Volley boon does not increase cost on moonfire bow
  
• Fixed a bug where subtitles were not displayed when enemy lords hold dialogues.
  
• Fixed occasional crash when switching loadout to a loadout with different weapons, and swapping a weapon.
  
• Fixed a crash when the game tried to remove a buff that no longer existed.
  
• Fixed crash related to being affected by multiple support or aura boons at once.
  
• Fixed crash for voip when getting broken connection to the host
  
• Fixed crash when throwing javelins or throwing axes and swapping weapons before it lands.
  

Versus is a free new Game mode for Warhammer: Vermintide 2! It’s an asymmetrical PvP+E pitting up to 4 Heroes against our AI enemies and up to 4 special players, what we call Pactsworn. A match will take place over several rounds, with each team swapping places between playing the Heroes and the Pactsworn each round. To simplify, each round the Hero team must play a regular game akin to Adventure mode, while the Pactsworn players have to stop them.

And for those who haven’t tried out Versus yet or want to know more, have a look at our Versus FAQ[forums.fatsharkgames.com]

Hotfix 5.5.1 - 24th of May

Fixes

• Fixed a network crash related to loadouts.
  
• (Chaos Wastes) Fixed crash if gaining "Ranald's Mighty Gamble" boon while wielding a level object.
  
• (Chaos Wastes) Fixed a crash on Slaughter Bay related to pathfinding.
  
• (Chaos Wastes) Fixed a host crash when Necromancer's skeletons walked into healing zones spawned by bombs with certain boons.
  
• Fixed the Tri-skull Crown missing its store icon on Lohner's Emporium.
  
• Fixed the pop ups for unseen rewards never showing up.

The time has come again to celebrate Warhammer through the Skulls event!
Between May 23 - June 9 you can rampage through the Vermintide in the Skulls for the Skull Throne in-game event. Earn new rewards by collecting skulls, or just participate in the carnage.

Together with the in-game event we also released Patch 5.5.0 - Quality of Life update. It contains a mix of improvements, fixes, and additions that should improve the experience across all game modes. See below for more information on the update and the in-game event.

Skulls for the Skull Throne, Blood for the Blood God!

• Loadout system for Adventure mode
  
  
  Personal Loadouts
  Loadouts are finally officially coming to Vermintide 2! This feature allows you save different combinations of gear & talents as loadouts that you can quickly swap between while in the Keep. Any changes done to your talents or gear while being ‘on’ a loadout will automatically save to that loadout.
  
  Bot Loadouts
  You can also mark one of your loadouts per character as a ‘Bot’ loadout, in which case whenever you are the host, the bots can use specific loadouts that you’ve tailor-made for that bot.

We want to give a shoutout to Squatting Bear for his sanctioned Loadout Manager mod, which covered these features until we could implement it ourselves. Thank you, Squatting Bear!

• Chaos Wastes
  New boons
  We’ve added over 25 new boons to Chaos Wastes. We’ve got some exciting boons to add a lot of juice to your expeditions! New auras, new effects for your bombs, new actions triggered by your career skill, new effects triggered based on your choices during the expedition, new event boons, and more!
  
  Boon Sets
  This is a new mechanic that we’re introducing with this update. Certain boons are part of a ‘set’ of specific boons. Gaining all of the boons within a set in the same expedition unlocks a powerful effect for the rest of the expedition.

New boons introduced with patch 5.5.0:
These don’t include the effects found in boon sets, or some event-specific boons that might be popping up!

• 
  
  Weekly Expedition
  Similar to the Weekly Event game mode for Adventure, we’re adding a ‘Weekly Expedition’ mode in Chaos Wastes. These are Chaos Wastes expeditions with a specific Boon and a specific Curse that will affect every level of that expedition. Be warned, things get real bloody, real fast, in proper Vermintide 2 tradition. The specific Boon and Curse combination will depend on what we set each week, good luck!
  Each week, the first completion of the Weekly Event game mode will grant you a new reward based on difficulty, including shillings, chests, red dust, and one of a new set of runed weapon illusions: the weapons of Bitter Dreams, blessed by Lileath herself.
  Also, similar to the Weekly Event game-mode, participating in some in-game events might involve completing a special event version of the Weekly Expedition. Did you know it’s Skulls for the Skull Throne this week? Foreshadowing…
  
  Stability Pass
  We’ve also taken a stability pass at the overall Chaos Wastes game-mode:
  
  • Fixing several bugs
    
  • Chaos Wastes-specific levels to plug some holes, fix some issues, improve pathfinding (both of Bots and enemies)
    
  • Improve player Navigation, hang ledges, etc.
  You can read the full patch notes below!
  
  This was done mostly based on information from Community bug reports, so we want to thank you all for all the bug reporting you do! Your information and participation is invaluable.

• Weaves of Magic
  Winds of Magic Illusions in Adventure
  We haven’t forgotten about this! Owners of the Winds of Magic expansion can now use the illusions from the Athanor weapons of the Weaves of Magic game mode in Adventure Mode. Simply unlock the weapon in the Athanor and you will have the new illusion unlocked for that weapon!
  
  
  Weaves Game Mode improvements
  We’ve made some changes to the game mode to tackle some of the issues with the mode itself. For starters, bots can now accompany you in public Ranked Weaves, which should help with the biggest blocker for those lacking a dedicated 4-man group for Weaves.
  
  The second thing is that running out of time no longer ends the match prematurely. This is the second biggest issue we’ve seen that prevents players from properly engaging with the game mode. Running out of time still disqualifies your team from scoring for the leaderboards, but at least you can still complete the match!
  
  On the subject of leaderboards, the leaderboard will now default to showing friends’ scores only (you can still manually check the global leaderboards, though!).

And Blood for the Blood God! It’s that time of the year again when we celebrate Warhammer as a whole together! From May 23 to June 9, join your fellow Heroes in glorious carnage, slaughtering as many foes as possible!

We’ll be counting each and every kill from all of you, and if the community as a whole reaches 1,000,000,000 kills across all platforms and game modes before the event ends, you will all earn five new Khorne-inspired Weapon Illusions!
You can check out the community’s progress by going in here: https://www.vermintide.com/counter
New Khorne-y Portrait Frame
Collect 100 skulls, scattered across Helmgart and beyond, to earn this year’s event frame! Progress in this event challenge can be earned across Adventure mode and Chaos Wastes!
Did you miss last year’s event rewards? Fret not! For the duration of the event, you can visit Lohner’s Emporium to spend your hard-earned shillings on unlocking any rewards from last year’s Skulls event that you might’ve missed the first time around.
Without further ado…
Note: We’re still investigating the issue of patch sizes being abnormally large on our Vermintide Steam releases. We’re getting closer to a solution, but for now there might still be patches and hotfixes that have an abnormally large download and install size. We apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

• Added a Loadouts system, letting you save and quickly switch to and from presets of gear & talents that you've made.
  
• Chaos Wastes boon update: Added over 25 new boons and introduced the concept of Boon Sets.
  
• Chaos Wastes Weekly Expedition: Similar to Adventure mode's Weekly Event, embark on a Weekly Expedition with unique modifiers! Earn the weapon illusions of Bitter Dreams.
  
• Chaos Wastes Chest of Trials: Added a chest of trials for the Chaos Warrior with Mace & Shield.
  
• Chaos Wastes Chest of Trials: Did a balance pass on the infamous Ungor Warherd chest of trials. Should be a bit more reasonable now!
  
• Athanor Illusions: Made illusions from the Winds of Magic Athanor available in Adventure mode.
  
• Weaves no longer end on timeout.
  
• Bots are now useable in non-private Ranked Weaves.
  
• Changed the Weaves leaderboards to default to friends only.
  
• Temporarily enabled the Skulls for the Skull throne Keep decorations. You'll be seeing red for a while...
  
• Re-implemented the feature to re-connect to host on temporary disconnection. This was originally disabled because it could cause crashes.
  
• Added new voicelines for pinging monsters near you.
  
• Added new voicelines for pinging warpfire throwers.

• Fixed hotjoining client crash if the joining client replaces a Necromancer bot just as it uses its ability.
  
• Fixed a really obtuse crash in Chaos Wastes relating to the Coruscation staff and weapon shrines.
  
• Fixed players crashing in chaos wastes when completing a level after the previous host left during last map session.
  
• Fixed a small time window during loading screen where players in the game swapping weapons may cause the joining client to crash.
  
• Fixed the issue that caused voicelines to not trigger when picking up or dropping Grimoires.
  
• Fixed several issues with erroneous subtitles and mistargeted dialogue events that affected all characters.
  
• Fixed a bug where Handmaiden's 2-2 talent "Oak Stance" didn't grant non-host players the increased critical strike chance.
  
• Fixed an issue with the inspect animation on the repeater handguns that made the cocking hammers act all wonky.
  
• Chaos Wastes level fixes:
  • The Foetid Gorge: Fixed a misplaced killzone that players could walk into and instantly die.
    
  • The Foetid Gorge: Fixed an upgrade shrine and a boon altar that could spawn inside the terrain.
    
  • The Foetid Gorge: Fixed several spots where Heroes could get stuck in.
    
  • The Foetid Gorge: Fixed an issue where the event barrel could spawn in an unreachable location.
    
  • Count Mordrek's Fortress: Fixed some issues with Heroes respawning behind events when they shouldn't.
    
  • Count Mordrek's Fortress: Fixed the geometry around some stone steps to be smoother to navigate.
    
  • Bel'sha'ziir's Mine: Fixed several spots where heroes could get stuck due to geometry or invisible collision.
    
  • Bel'sha'ziir's Mine: Moved some decorations around in the Slaanesh version that could block movement.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Adjusted a couple of pillars that could make movement difficult.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Fixed an issue where enemies could not spawn in a certain spot due to a boon shrine.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Fixed several spots where heroes could get stuck.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Fixed a spot where players could hang from a ledge inside the terrain.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Fixed a rare issue where players joining half way would see a wrong, lower detail version of the level, making progression through certain parts impossible.
    
  • Cinder Peak: Fixed a rare issue where players joining half way would not see the gate open and thus couldn't go through it.
    
  • Slaughter Bay: Fixed an issue where the first respawn point available was too far from the level start.
    
  • Slaughter Bay: Fixed a spot where enemies would just fall over, dead.
    
  • Slaughter Bay: Fixed several spots where heroes could get stuck.
    
  • Citadel of Eternity: Fixed an issue where players joining mid-way would be missing some moving floors and stairs, making progression impossible for these clients.
    
  • Citadel of Eternity: Fixed an issue where specials could spawn on invisible stairs.
    
  • Arena of Determination: Fixed a spot where enemies would spawn dead. Enough pranking the Nurglites, Tzeentch!
    
  • Arena of Determination: Fixed an issue where the purifying torch from the Nurgle curse would spawn in an unreachable spot.