FREE New Map: The Well of Dreams - Live now! Skulls In-game Event - Patch 6.6.0

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Heroes!

It’s time to shed some blood and harvest some skulls! Today’s update marks the start of this year’s Skulls in-game event, alongside double XP, the release of our newest level, tons of bug fixes, and a mix of updates and tweaks that include Quality of Life changes, minor balance changes, and some improvements to the Bots’ AI logic!

Skulls for the Skull Throne

And blood for the Blood God!
Starting today until June 1st, the Skulls for the Skull throne in-game event will be active! Collect skulls while playing Vermintide 2 to complete challenges, but beware of the power that comes with it; drawing the Blood God’s attention too much might spell doom if you can’t keep up the carnage for long…

Completing the event challenges will earn you a brand new portrait frame!

Community challenge: 400 million kills!

For the duration of the event, each enemy you slay in Vermintide 2 will increase the kill counter! If the community can reach the target of 400 million kills in that time frame, you will all unlock a new set of Crimson illusions for the following weapons:

• Kruber’s Halberd
• Slayer Bardin’s Dual Axes
• Kerillian’s Spear
• Saltzpyre’s Volley Crossbow
• Sienna’s Flamestorm Staff

You can check the status of the kill counter here.

Event shop: Previous years’ rewards!

Lohner’s shop has once again opened up with the goodies from years past! If you’ve missed the reward from previous Skulls for the Skull Throne Vermintide 2 events, you can grab them for shillings here for as long as the event lasts!

Keep in mind that this year’s rewards can only be obtained by completing the challenge!

New map: The Well of Dreams

Alongside the Skulls event, this update brings you a FREE new map: The Well of Dreams!

This map is the conclusion of the Verminous Dreams campaign! Race against time through the Warlord’s stronghold, the Skaven-infested temple of Athel Lithri, to stop the verminous scheme and the dangers of what they could do with a Warp Bomb if they manage to make use of the Well of Dreams! If such a thing exists…

Quality of Life improvements

Patch 6.6.0 also brings some features and tweaks based on the feedback we’ve received over time! For starters, we’re chipping away at the issues with Bots underperforming, and this update has seen an improvement on the bots’ ability to stick with the team and revive players.

Additionally, you now have the option to purge unwanted boons in Chaos Wastes by selecting them in Holseher’s map in between Pilgrimage missions. No more getting punished for randomly getting a boon that cripples your Wastes’ build!

And finally, for a bit of flair, the victory screen in Adventure missions has been revamped with a glorious parade shot of our successful heroes! Soak in each victory, it’s well earned! Your Hero will be posed in your currently equipped Weapon Pose.

Without further ado…

Patch 6.6.0 patch notes

Balance changes

• Temporary Health changes: This patch sees a lot of changes to how Temporary HP talents are handled in the game. The aim is to balance the talents against one another and make them more well-rounded, while also finding room for more focused playstyles that use them to their full potential.
  • All classes have had the third talent on the first row replaced from the Heal Share talent to a Temporary Health talent.
  • Heal Share is now a necklace trait. It has replaced Hand of Shallya.
  • All four Temporary Health talents have been renamed to have a unified naming scheme across all careers (similar to Stagger talents.)
    • The talent that gives Temporary Health based on amount of enemies hit is now named 'Carve'
    • The talent that gives Temporary Health based on critical hits and headshots is now named 'Sting'
    • The talent that gives Temporary Health based on stagger is now named 'Second Wind'
    • The talent that gives Temporary Health upon killing an enemy is now named 'Execute'
    • Carve: Hitting enemies beyond the cap of 5 now grants half THP instead of 0.
    • Execute: The amount of health received has been adjusted on a per enemy basis. In general, Skaven enemies should give more THP than before, while Chaos enemies should give less than before. Chaos still gives more THP than Skaven overall, but the differences are not as pronounced.
    • Sting: This Temporary Health talent was rebalanced fairly recently, and has therefore not seen any changes in this patch, apart from getting a new name.
    • Second Wind: Decreased the amount of Temporary Health gained from staggers, based on stagger strength. Weak staggers were reduced more than strong staggers.
    • Second Wind: Attacks that kill the enemy now give THP, using the minimum possible stagger value.

• Sister of the Thorn's Deepwood Staff lift on Chaos Warriors with Shields now last 4 seconds instead of 8.

Features & Tweaks

• BOT Changes
  • Zealots will now be healed by bots when they are on their last wound.
  • Bots will prioritize reviving at maximum interaction distance rather than trying to stand on top of the player
  • Bots will sometimes attempt reviving while being targeted by enemies. Threat level by enemies targeting them, as well as their own revive speed is taken into consideration.
  • Bots will check for other players to follow if the player they are following hasn't moved for 20 seconds.

• Enabled the Skulls event, including double XP, Lohner's time-limited event shop, 400 million kills counter, and new Event challenges at Okri's.
• Chaos Wastes changes:
  • Loot rats now have a chance to drop Pilgrim's coins.
  • Obtaining a boon that is part of a Boon Set now increases the likelyhood of other pieces of the set showing up.
  • You can now view all of your current boons on the Pilgrimage Map.
  • You can also 'purge' individual boons to remove them while on the Pilgrimage Map.
  • Added 27 new Weapon Illusions of Bitter Dreams as Weekly Expedition rewards!*

• Added a brand new victory screen for non-Versus matches!
• Added new Pactsworn conversations in Versus.
• Swapped one of the armours on display on a mannequin at Lohner's Emporium.
• Added more information to the error message for players who are temporarily or permanently banned from the game.
• Tweaked the new killstreak voice lines so that they don't show up as responses to previous banter and conversations.
• Added new banter voice lines and conversations for missing with a bomb. Can't let those get old, hehehe.
• Added several Packmaster voicelines from Versus to Adventure!
• Added the ability to join a friend's Cataclysm games via Steam or Lobby Browser even without owning Winds of Magic.
• Necromancer skeletons no longer rotate mid attack when commanded to attack a new target, instead they properly follow through with their current attack before switching.
• Necromancer skeletons now much less prone to stopping early in their running attacks, attacking nothing. Skeletons are now better at attacking enemies that are running away from them. Nothing escapes from death! Or so I've heard.
• Re-sanctioned the following mods:
  • Bestiary
  • Armory

Fixes

• Chaos Wastes - Made Belakor locusts much less prone to fail to spawn the Shadow Warrior. Added fallback to immediately spawn the crystal if the shadow warrior fails to spawn.
  • This fixes a softlock where the champion never spawned in some situations.

• Chaos Wastes - Fixed a bug where running the "Virtue of Audacity" & "Lileath's Blessed Destiny" boons made the Grail Knight consume both ability charges in one career ability use.
• Fixed the 'Being shot at by a Ratling gunner and being turned into Bögenhafen cheese, send help' voicelines not triggering. Heroes will now (sometimes) call out that they are being targeted.
• Versus - Fixed wrong text on Pactsworn 'Cover Me' social wheel option.
• Fixed a crash when joining a Custom Versus Game from an Adventure Keep, and then going to a Versus Keep.
• Fixed issue with gap at neck on Kerillian's Atylwyth Chanter's Robe when using headgear with balaclavas.
• Fixed Bardin's beard becoming possessed when using the Bakbok hat and playing at 35 FPS or lower.
• Fixed discrepancies between the first person and third person view of the 'Krodrengirhun' and 'Purified' Slayer skins and the 'Modryn Nightstalker' Waystalker skin.
• Fixed Chaos Warriors with Shields not showing a fire VFX when on fire or turning dark when dying while aflame.
• Fixed the glow from a charged bolt from Sienna's Bolt Staff not reflecting against environment surfaces.
• Fixed a bug where the host's nicknames for friends show up for everyone when their friends use their Horde ability in Versus Custom Games.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to play Cataclysm as long as one of the players in the party has the Winds of Magic DLC.
• Fixed Packmaster's death grunts SFX not playing properly.
• Fixed a bug where you hear hurt-grunts instead of strangle-grunts when you are the one getting hooked and hoisted.
• Fixed a bug in the Chaos Wastes map where the host icon always shows up next to ones own portrait even though someone else is hosting the session.
• Fixed the Grail Knight's "'tis but a scratch!" challenge.
• Fixed the "In the line of fire" challenge.
• Fixed the Sister of the Thorn's "Shall not pass" challenge. Now triggers off of hit instead of kill.
• Fixed a visual bug where materials for upgrading overlapped in the weapon inspect menu in certain conditions.
• Versus - Fixed a bug where the host Custom Games could see the enemy team's social wheel commands.
• Fixed a bug where the "Dazh's Peculiar Mirth" boon could permanently stay active if two elites are killed at the same time. Cheeky buggers.
• Fixed Warrior Priest players entering a crouch animation even though they are not crouching, if they block using the hammer & shield and then swap to another weapon.
• Versus - TAB menu in now displays the Versus level information instead of the Adventure level information
• Versus - Fixed a bug in Custom Games where the host player gets soft locked if trying to quit the game while with players from other keeps connected to it.
• Fixed a bug where the Huntsman exit stealth/surge sound plays on every attack while the surge effect from the ability is active, instead of just the first attack.
• Fixed a bug where the example text beneath the subtitle font size setting gets cut off in certain languages.
• Fixed a bug with the Handmaiden's "Gift of Ladrielle" talent where the disabled collision against enemies turned off at the end of the dash. The disabled collision now extends for the full duration of the stealth as well.
• Fixed "PUSHING & PUSH ATTACKS" text overflowing its button in the Handbook when language is set to Russian/Polish
• Fixed the input legend overlapping with the portrait in the inventory loadout selection when using a gamepad.
• Fixed Quickplay bonus not working in Chaos Wastes.
• Fixed some inconsistencies with Quickplay bonus overall - the Quickplay bonus will now be correctly applied if you as a player hit Quickplay to enter the match, regardless of what the Host did.
• The Forsaken Temple bugfixes:
  • Added some steps to cover a transition from grass to floor.
  • Tweaked a ledge near start of the level where enemies could die from falling just a few meters.
  • Added safety measures for bots to path properly to players stuck in hangledge around secret cave entrance behind the waterfall.
  • Added extra collision behind chest in waterfall cave to prevent players getting stuck.
  • Tweaked area where bots could get stuck close to the start of drained lake area.
  • Fixed a number of broken climb ledges.

Hotfix 6.6.1 - 22nd of May

Fixes

• The Well of Dreams fixes:
  • Fixed a softlock related to alarm bells.
  • Fixed enemies not spawning during the escape sequence.
  • Fixed some areas where Monsters could spawn that would have incorrectly set up Boss Walls.
  • Fixed some visual effects with the Warp Bomb at the end.
  • Added some blockers near a grimoire to prevent players from accessing it from an unintended path and getting stuck.
  • Fixed some places that would make enemies instantly die when spawning.
  • Added missing hangledges around portal and grimoire.
• Fixed a crash that sometimes appeared on startup when a mod failed to run.
• Fixed a crash when using the 'Neuter Ult Effects' mod with 'Penlight Lua Libraries' disabled whilst also disabling write access to the user config file.
• Fixed a crash upon reaching the platform by the river bed in The Forsaken Temple while the skulls event is active.

* Missed from original patch notes, added after initial post.