What is the maximum number of Warhammer specials that can be alive at a time?

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What is the maximum number of Warhammer specials that can be alive at a time?
Posted On: June 4, 2023

First-person shooter co-op games usually limit the number of special units that can be alive at the same time, to avoid overwhelming the players with units that can easily wipe the team. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 has a console command, z_minion_limit (default: 3), that sets the maximum number of “special infected” zombies that can be alive at any given time. This number is 3 by default to give at least one player on the team a fighting chance.


I want to know what this value is for Vermintide 2. How many specials can be alive at any given time? (Where beyond that maximum, the AI director will no longer spawn specials.) Is there a limit for the same special-unit type, or for disablers, specifically?


Please mention any differences between the difficulties (especially Legend and Cataclysm), between the game modes (Campaign and Chaos Wastes), and if the “Seek and Destroy” deed modifier is applied (described as: “specials spawn with much higher frequency and in larger numbers”).


In Vermintide 2, what is the maximum number of specials that can be alive at a time?


Question from user galacticninja at gaming.stackexchange.com.


Answer:

In Vermintide 2's conflict_settings.lua, a file containing all the difficulty settings, we can see, under the header SpecialDifficultyOverrides [r. 637], the values for max_specials. These vary by difficulty.


In this file, the difficulties are named hard, harder, hardest, cataclysm, cataclysm_2, and cataclysm_3.


We can see how they correspond with the difficulty levels in-game from this table in the adjacent difficulty_settings.lua file [r. 367]:.


So max-specials in SpecialDifficultyOverrides only sets the maximum for difficulty levels for Veteran and higher, reaching, as suggested by galacticninja, two difficulty levels that can be (customized and) used in Weaves, from the Winds of Magic DLC.*.


Since Recruit is missing from the SpecialDifficultyOverrides class (not being a "special" difficulty, which makes sense), it must have a default value.


I think this default value is 2 for Recruit,† but it could be 3, as well.


The values for max_specials in SpecialDifficultyOverrides are:.


3 for Hard/Veteran and Harder/Champion;.


4 for Hardest/Legend;.


5 for Cataclysm/Cataclysm;.


6 for cataclysm_2 and cataclysm_3.


From the file it is also clear that the types of specials to be spawned don't change with difficulty, but the amount of specials of the same type does change slightly: from Legend difficulty onwards, max_of_same changes from 2 to 3.


Further down in the .lua file, there are some variations on this, called SpecialDifficultyOverrides_ followed by, among others, skaven, beastmen, chaos and combinations thereof, but they generally follow the same pattern (safe for the first difficulty sometimes receiving a max_specials value of 2 rather than 3).


The names refer to factions, but I'm not sure how these specific variables come into play: they might refer to specific maps. I'll look into that a little more.


* Somewhat corroborated by a table mentioned before the DifficultyMapping class in difficulty_settings.lua, called DefaultDifficulties, which doesn't mention cataclysm_2 and cataclysm_3.


† Mainly because, as mentioned later in this answer, there are variations on this table based on factions, that have their maximum lowered from the SpecialDifficultyOverrides's lowest 3 to 2.


The file enemy_package_loader_settings.lua points to a limit of 3 specials [r. 132], but the conditions (and the fact they are there to begin with) make this being the default seem improbable.


Answer from user Joachim at gaming.stackexchange.com.


[BACK]
What is the maximum number of Warhammer specials that can be alive at a time?
Posted On: June 4, 2023

First-person shooter co-op games usually limit the number of special units that can be alive at the same time, to avoid overwhelming the players with units that can easily wipe the team. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 has a console command, z_minion_limit (default: 3), that sets the maximum number of “special infected” zombies that can be alive at any given time. This number is 3 by default to give at least one player on the team a fighting chance.


I want to know what this value is for Vermintide 2. How many specials can be alive at any given time? (Where beyond that maximum, the AI director will no longer spawn specials.) Is there a limit for the same special-unit type, or for disablers, specifically?


Please mention any differences between the difficulties (especially Legend and Cataclysm), between the game modes (Campaign and Chaos Wastes), and if the “Seek and Destroy” deed modifier is applied (described as: “specials spawn with much higher frequency and in larger numbers”).


In Vermintide 2, what is the maximum number of specials that can be alive at a time?


Question from user galacticninja at gaming.stackexchange.com.


Answer:

In Vermintide 2's conflict_settings.lua, a file containing all the difficulty settings, we can see, under the header SpecialDifficultyOverrides [r. 637], the values for max_specials. These vary by difficulty.


In this file, the difficulties are named hard, harder, hardest, cataclysm, cataclysm_2, and cataclysm_3.


We can see how they correspond with the difficulty levels in-game from this table in the adjacent difficulty_settings.lua file [r. 367]:.


So max-specials in SpecialDifficultyOverrides only sets the maximum for difficulty levels for Veteran and higher, reaching, as suggested by galacticninja, two difficulty levels that can be (customized and) used in Weaves, from the Winds of Magic DLC.*.


Since Recruit is missing from the SpecialDifficultyOverrides class (not being a "special" difficulty, which makes sense), it must have a default value.


I think this default value is 2 for Recruit,† but it could be 3, as well.


The values for max_specials in SpecialDifficultyOverrides are:.


3 for Hard/Veteran and Harder/Champion;.


4 for Hardest/Legend;.


5 for Cataclysm/Cataclysm;.


6 for cataclysm_2 and cataclysm_3.


From the file it is also clear that the types of specials to be spawned don't change with difficulty, but the amount of specials of the same type does change slightly: from Legend difficulty onwards, max_of_same changes from 2 to 3.


Further down in the .lua file, there are some variations on this, called SpecialDifficultyOverrides_ followed by, among others, skaven, beastmen, chaos and combinations thereof, but they generally follow the same pattern (safe for the first difficulty sometimes receiving a max_specials value of 2 rather than 3).


The names refer to factions, but I'm not sure how these specific variables come into play: they might refer to specific maps. I'll look into that a little more.


* Somewhat corroborated by a table mentioned before the DifficultyMapping class in difficulty_settings.lua, called DefaultDifficulties, which doesn't mention cataclysm_2 and cataclysm_3.


† Mainly because, as mentioned later in this answer, there are variations on this table based on factions, that have their maximum lowered from the SpecialDifficultyOverrides's lowest 3 to 2.


The file enemy_package_loader_settings.lua points to a limit of 3 specials [r. 132], but the conditions (and the fact they are there to begin with) make this being the default seem improbable.


Answer from user Joachim at gaming.stackexchange.com.


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