Try out the Versus Alpha from May 30 to June 9!

Developer Stream - Friday 16:00 CEST

Make sure to tune in to our twitch channel 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!

Heroes and Pactsworn!

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://www.vermintide.com/news/developer-blog-versus-alpha-test-lessons-learned-and-takeaways

New addition: Playable Bile Troll!

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).

New Map: Against the Grain

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.

Gameplay Changes

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!

Hotfix 5.5.2 - 30th of May - Patchnotes

Features & Tweaks

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%.

Fixes

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.

What is Versus?

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

Versus! The Returning Alpha Test is now live! Hotfix 5.5.2