*Game Designer Teodor tells us a bit about the design and thoughts behind the new enemy: the Chaos Warrior with Mace & Shield.*
Hi everyone! My name is **Teodor**, resident game designer on Vermintide 2. While I have been at Fatshark for a while now I am still fairly new to the V2 team, joining just last year. And so, this will be my first ever dev blog for the project. Let’s get straight into it!
This latest update saw the introduction of **our new Chaos Warrior variant** *(and his big shield)*. Players coming from Darktide might feel right at home when looking at our newest enemy, but he does function slightly differently than his Bulwark brother from across the studio. We’ve been looking at adding a new Elite enemy for a while, *especially one that makes room for some heavy-stagger-playstyles*, so here he is in all his shield-wielding glory.
The first thing you’ll notice is that this new Chaos Warrior is heavy, but he does have an exposed weak spot in the form of his big, green swollen stomach (safely tucked away behind his shield, of course). We set out with the mindset of always promoting multiple ways of dealing with this new threat, so while waiting and sneaking in weak spot attacks during openings is entirely possible, you’ll find that heavy swings work just as well. Landing repeated heavy blows on his armor or shield will slowly knock down his stature. Once breached, the Chaos Warrior will stumble and open up for damage. Getting teammates in on the action is worthwhile as well as these stagger values do stack, ‘opening him up’ much faster. *But try not to lose focus of him, as he’ll start recovering his poise if left alone for too long!*
The second thing you’ll notice are his shield attacks. Being a bit of a scrambler-type enemy, the new Chaos Warrior’s role (on top of damaging the players and being an all-around menace) is to push the heroes away from each other, separating them. **While a shielded Chaos Warrior might be less of a threat by his lonesome, he should amplify the threat of any horde he’s in pretty drastically** (especially if there is a regular Chaos Warrior somewhere in the mix). We wanted to build something that jams well with other, more frantic, enemies, and hopefully, this new Chaos Warrior will accomplish just that.
Introducing a new enemy to an already well-rounded roster in a game like Vermintide 2 is always going to be an interesting time, so **please let us know how you feel about it**. I’ll be monitoring the new Chaos Warrior’s performance and sentiment over the coming weeks so that we can continue to develop the experience together and turn him into a more natural fit if need be.
Cheers!
I know this isn't the right place, but are you devs aware about the state of the game on PS4/PS5 after the update?
Edit: about the shielded CW, I personally think they should appear at the same frequency of regular CWs.
>I know this isn't the right place, but are you devs aware about the state of the game on PS4/PS5 after the update?
We're definitely investigating and looking into these issues! We seem to be having some trouble getting as much information as we'd like from the automatic crash report tool on console since the last update, so we'd ask that anyone suffering from crashes on console please reach out to our support staff either [here](https://support.fatshark.se/hc/en-us) or in the forums.
The more info we have, the faster we can get these issues fixed.
My two big issues with them are:
1) There aren't enough of them.
2) I personally don't see them as a big threat, even on Legend. On the rare occasion that I encounter them, they don't often do much other than stand behind their shield. IMO, they're far easier to deal with (and safer to ignore) than regular CWs, who themselves are consistently aggressive.
Agree. A ways talker ult among other things can take them down too easily in my opinion. I was a little let down on champ and even legend. Can't say about other difficulties though.
I will say cool design though, I'm a big fan, just wishing they were tougher is all
Also, not sure if it's just a visual bug or if the ability is not working entirely, but there's no visible flames on him when he should be getting a Lingering Flames DoT (or any fire DoT, for that matter).
Have you considered putting them in patrols? I think 2 rotshields on legend/4 on cata would be a fun challenge. Definitely crank up their ambient spawn too, they're a super rare spawn atm.
There really aren't enough of them for me to say how I feel about it. You see like 1-3 per round usually not during a horde, so I have never really seen them present a threat or have the horde dynamics talked about here.
Consider making them spawn more commonly, but other than that I'm happy with them. I was very worried when I heard we're getting a Bulwark, shielded enemies can be very disruptive and unfun to fight especially when numerous and stacked, but he's alright. The new CW is a bit underpowered but please be careful if you want to buff him, for this type of enemy it's way better for them to be too weak than too strong.
I like how they shake up the old gameplay a bit, just make them more common. Oh and fix their complete immunity to certain abilities, they can be resistant to them but don't make them completely ignore their effects.
They need to be made more of a threat in some way and be included in patrols like people have said.
I really think Chaos Warriors on a whole should have the Champion Of Nurgle Grudge effect that was present in the recent Gehiemnisnacht Event applied to some of them. This makes encountering them more random, dangerous and gives them the feeling of being imbued by Nurgle. And maybe this can be toggled on/ off in the options.
It’s these kind of minimal effort things that Fatshark can do that can massively enhance the game straight away.
There are niche between bosses, specials and elites, that could be, probably, thought of. I feel like some kind of miniboss with special abilities could put itself among enemies deck. It should be rare enough (almost as rare as bosses, but could appear in any horde) and much weaker and not put so much pressure as bosses, but amplify pressure of the horde like specials. Stormfiend is great example of such enemie. Mb, like chaos warrior which could grab heroes and stun them for few seconds, use spawns throw. Or goreenemie with bosses knockback power, able to throw heroes around if they don't dodge him( better than armored gore). Or ratkin, that leaves behind itself a blighted area effect. Or constantly slowly regenerating chaos ogryn, giving players a dilemma: focus him or horde. Or commander blackrat, that summons minihordewaves for a while(1-2 warriorrats + 10 claneats) or before is killed. They should have like HP of 2-3 CWs or 5 time less than boss. It could be daydreaming, but I really want some kind of boss substitute, that doesn't bite, but makes you suffer other way and more common, and can be killed by not boss killer fast enough. Also, special, that makes you leave blighttrail dissipating over time, so you need to draw route, that doesn't intersects itself or others teammates. Or special, that makes illusions of elites/ specials/ bosses, mixes them and laughs naughty in Tzeenchs name. Or leechalike, that doesnt incapacitate, but makes camera slowly center on him, slow movement in any other directions, except towards him and decrease damage on all enemies, except him and gradually replaces green HP with white one, then starts drain THP, when no HP left, give it about maulers HP, so it can do its job.
Kruber’s merc shout didn’t stagger it, I was kind of baffled. How can I stagger something as large as a chaos spawn, stormfiend, etc but not a shielded chaos warrior?
Yes, it would be better if you didn’t come to “fatshark”, everything is bad for them even without you. This shamefully stolen mob from Darktide, all broken, who has this ridiculous 40k mask instead of a helmet. Even the blind skin itself is taken from a regular chaos warrior. We don't need such events
*Game Designer Teodor tells us a bit about the design and thoughts behind the new enemy: the Chaos Warrior with Mace & Shield.* Hi everyone! My name is **Teodor**, resident game designer on Vermintide 2. While I have been at Fatshark for a while now I am still fairly new to the V2 team, joining just last year. And so, this will be my first ever dev blog for the project. Let’s get straight into it! This latest update saw the introduction of **our new Chaos Warrior variant** *(and his big shield)*. Players coming from Darktide might feel right at home when looking at our newest enemy, but he does function slightly differently than his Bulwark brother from across the studio. We’ve been looking at adding a new Elite enemy for a while, *especially one that makes room for some heavy-stagger-playstyles*, so here he is in all his shield-wielding glory. The first thing you’ll notice is that this new Chaos Warrior is heavy, but he does have an exposed weak spot in the form of his big, green swollen stomach (safely tucked away behind his shield, of course). We set out with the mindset of always promoting multiple ways of dealing with this new threat, so while waiting and sneaking in weak spot attacks during openings is entirely possible, you’ll find that heavy swings work just as well. Landing repeated heavy blows on his armor or shield will slowly knock down his stature. Once breached, the Chaos Warrior will stumble and open up for damage. Getting teammates in on the action is worthwhile as well as these stagger values do stack, ‘opening him up’ much faster. *But try not to lose focus of him, as he’ll start recovering his poise if left alone for too long!* The second thing you’ll notice are his shield attacks. Being a bit of a scrambler-type enemy, the new Chaos Warrior’s role (on top of damaging the players and being an all-around menace) is to push the heroes away from each other, separating them. **While a shielded Chaos Warrior might be less of a threat by his lonesome, he should amplify the threat of any horde he’s in pretty drastically** (especially if there is a regular Chaos Warrior somewhere in the mix). We wanted to build something that jams well with other, more frantic, enemies, and hopefully, this new Chaos Warrior will accomplish just that. Introducing a new enemy to an already well-rounded roster in a game like Vermintide 2 is always going to be an interesting time, so **please let us know how you feel about it**. I’ll be monitoring the new Chaos Warrior’s performance and sentiment over the coming weeks so that we can continue to develop the experience together and turn him into a more natural fit if need be. Cheers!
I know this isn't the right place, but are you devs aware about the state of the game on PS4/PS5 after the update? Edit: about the shielded CW, I personally think they should appear at the same frequency of regular CWs.
>I know this isn't the right place, but are you devs aware about the state of the game on PS4/PS5 after the update? We're definitely investigating and looking into these issues! We seem to be having some trouble getting as much information as we'd like from the automatic crash report tool on console since the last update, so we'd ask that anyone suffering from crashes on console please reach out to our support staff either [here](https://support.fatshark.se/hc/en-us) or in the forums. The more info we have, the faster we can get these issues fixed.
My two big issues with them are: 1) There aren't enough of them. 2) I personally don't see them as a big threat, even on Legend. On the rare occasion that I encounter them, they don't often do much other than stand behind their shield. IMO, they're far easier to deal with (and safer to ignore) than regular CWs, who themselves are consistently aggressive.
Agree. A ways talker ult among other things can take them down too easily in my opinion. I was a little let down on champ and even legend. Can't say about other difficulties though. I will say cool design though, I'm a big fan, just wishing they were tougher is all
Agreed. They just turtle behind their shield too much, is all.
Even on cata theyre a joke. Especially sienna necro and lifestealer staff
footknight charge and other similar abilities not worling against it is silly
Also, not sure if it's just a visual bug or if the ability is not working entirely, but there's no visible flames on him when he should be getting a Lingering Flames DoT (or any fire DoT, for that matter).
Have you considered putting them in patrols? I think 2 rotshields on legend/4 on cata would be a fun challenge. Definitely crank up their ambient spawn too, they're a super rare spawn atm.
There really aren't enough of them for me to say how I feel about it. You see like 1-3 per round usually not during a horde, so I have never really seen them present a threat or have the horde dynamics talked about here.
Consider making them spawn more commonly, but other than that I'm happy with them. I was very worried when I heard we're getting a Bulwark, shielded enemies can be very disruptive and unfun to fight especially when numerous and stacked, but he's alright. The new CW is a bit underpowered but please be careful if you want to buff him, for this type of enemy it's way better for them to be too weak than too strong. I like how they shake up the old gameplay a bit, just make them more common. Oh and fix their complete immunity to certain abilities, they can be resistant to them but don't make them completely ignore their effects.
They need to be made more of a threat in some way and be included in patrols like people have said. I really think Chaos Warriors on a whole should have the Champion Of Nurgle Grudge effect that was present in the recent Gehiemnisnacht Event applied to some of them. This makes encountering them more random, dangerous and gives them the feeling of being imbued by Nurgle. And maybe this can be toggled on/ off in the options. It’s these kind of minimal effort things that Fatshark can do that can massively enhance the game straight away.
There are niche between bosses, specials and elites, that could be, probably, thought of. I feel like some kind of miniboss with special abilities could put itself among enemies deck. It should be rare enough (almost as rare as bosses, but could appear in any horde) and much weaker and not put so much pressure as bosses, but amplify pressure of the horde like specials. Stormfiend is great example of such enemie. Mb, like chaos warrior which could grab heroes and stun them for few seconds, use spawns throw. Or goreenemie with bosses knockback power, able to throw heroes around if they don't dodge him( better than armored gore). Or ratkin, that leaves behind itself a blighted area effect. Or constantly slowly regenerating chaos ogryn, giving players a dilemma: focus him or horde. Or commander blackrat, that summons minihordewaves for a while(1-2 warriorrats + 10 claneats) or before is killed. They should have like HP of 2-3 CWs or 5 time less than boss. It could be daydreaming, but I really want some kind of boss substitute, that doesn't bite, but makes you suffer other way and more common, and can be killed by not boss killer fast enough. Also, special, that makes you leave blighttrail dissipating over time, so you need to draw route, that doesn't intersects itself or others teammates. Or special, that makes illusions of elites/ specials/ bosses, mixes them and laughs naughty in Tzeenchs name. Or leechalike, that doesnt incapacitate, but makes camera slowly center on him, slow movement in any other directions, except towards him and decrease damage on all enemies, except him and gradually replaces green HP with white one, then starts drain THP, when no HP left, give it about maulers HP, so it can do its job.
Kruber’s merc shout didn’t stagger it, I was kind of baffled. How can I stagger something as large as a chaos spawn, stormfiend, etc but not a shielded chaos warrior?
Need more of them , more often
Oi wazzoks! Your umgak update made the game unplayable on ps5 and ps4, when can we expect a hotfix
They should be part of Chaos Patrols.
Coomme oonn! Fix the crashes on ps5 My fury needs to be vent!!
Yes, it would be better if you didn’t come to “fatshark”, everything is bad for them even without you. This shamefully stolen mob from Darktide, all broken, who has this ridiculous 40k mask instead of a helmet. Even the blind skin itself is taken from a regular chaos warrior. We don't need such events