Update 9 is here with a lot of great improvements. We continue to push hard on quality and polish now. This update touched up the gear progression, weapons, environments and of course added the new weapon kits for classes.
The weapon kits are here! Every class now has 3 weapon kits with different starter weapons from different factions. The kits also come with other special benefits, offering a strong choice and playstyle change from the start. Two are unlocked by default to offer more choices from the start and the last is unlocked at level 20.
Many maps got big upgrades in gameplay quality (cover placement, enemy density, spawn placement) and also got upgraded in visual fidelity. We also have increased CPU multi-threading performance, and new Screen Space Ray Traced GI / AO for the high end.
The Machine Hunter was born from the AM Recon being transformed into a full-fledged class. As a Human Resistance soldier-type android frame, it relies on tactical cover usage and powerful ambushes to obliterate machine legion units with a variety of weapons.
We completely overhauled our loot system, giving us much greater control over quality and progression. Before, it was almost impossible to give better chests in the late-game, and a lot of things were left to chance, making it nearly impossible to gauge any player experience.
(At the moment, the random aspect has been reduced, but we'll bring it back after we've gathered more feedback on the current state.)
The stat upgrades now offer higher rarity forbidden upgrades that not only increase terror level, but also pack around double the power! Cursed and chrono chests are also improved.
We've ramped up the difficulty for higher escalations - especially for Escalation 3 - so you'll definitely feel the difference!
We've made a range of improvements to the core gameplay, but we're looking to make even more changes in the upcoming patch with a special focus on mid and late-game content.
A different method of healing also has been tested, using healing vials, which had worked well but was removed again because of a lack of hotkeys at the moment. This will likely be re-introduced at a later patch.
We've fine-tuned a variety of effects to make them more visible, or less distracting, while also improving the feeling of impacts. Here's what's new:
The environments have seen many improvements, both in terms of gameplay and visual fidelity. We’re continually improving spawn point and cover placement, as it has a big impact on the quality of gameplay. Up next is a complete overhaul of the Mainboard Floor, as well as additional polish for the Electro Power Plant and other maps. Plus, more awesome stuff is in the works.
A brand-new Software Screen-Space Raytracing effect has been added, offering significantly higher visual quality for the same cost.
Classes have gotten their new Kits and some awesome tweaks - and there's more work on perks in the pipeline! We've made a range of changes, fixes, and improvements to all classes.
Most Notable changes
Weapons have not been a large focus for this update but we have some solid tweaks based on community requests. Overall weapons should be in a good state outside of some outliers.
While we have a massive amount of weapons, some people felt like the early loot pools could be more diverse, so we shuffled some things around to make early loot more varied and get some little-used weapons more showcase.
Varied smaller tweaks and loadout changes have been done to handguns across the board.
There has been a pass on attachments with further refinements. Overall the state of attachments seems quite good outside of some outliers. With some further cleanup and plugging some holes, this should now be a really strong upgrade sandbox. Custom slot attachments will get a pass in the future also.
A good bunch of variants have been changed
Resistance G11
Explosive Crossbow *
Time splitters *
HE Crossbow *
Simple HE Crossbow
DKH Snub Revolver
Dual 9mm Storm
Tec-9
SK-9
Some cool new weapons coming in!
- Dual wielded Fusion pistols - Low recoil and big magazine size - Weak against unshielded
- Single shot crossbow - Fires large arrows - Great accuracy and mobility
- 4 shot crossbow - Fires armor piercing arrows with delayed explosive tip - Great accuracy and mobility
- Fast firing shotgun revolver - Powerful with a longer reload - Low spare ammunition
- Fires tear gas grenades - Slowing, reducing fire-rate - First impact at center staggers
- Single shot Healing grenade launcher - Heals 400 HP in a small area - Tiny ammunition reserves
- Anti-Material SMG with high caliber - Very high burst damage versus armored - Very Low ammo
- Good capacity assault rifle - Well rounded - Limited ammunition
- Compact Coil Gun, firing 4 coils - Increased accuracy and range - Versatile
- Heavy twin-barrel minigun - Strong firepower - Slows movement and item cooldowns
- Short barrel explosive shotgun - Solid area of effect damage - Low ammunition
- Chargeup burst Fusion - Accurate and strong against Shields - Small magazine size, weak against unshielded
Finally we had some time to improve the boss fights and do varied tweaks. Overall the Bosses should feel more polished and also more challenging.
For the damage and health scaling throughout the run, we reduced damage scaling to allow a slightly slower pace in the lategame and increased health scaling to reduce the times where enemies get killed in 0.1 seconds in the lategame. This should be a tweak in the right direction, but let us know what you think.
The lategame Chrono Squad has seen varied improvements to make it more balanced, more difficult and less punishing.
We made all sniper style lock-on units a distinct and clearly visible lock-on effect to improve on the readability of the gameplay.
The new Directives add varied new enemies to the game!
We added varied new voice lines, and especially added death voice lines for the first time.
Reinforcements coming in!
Two new items have been added, the Drone slices enemies into pieces and the disc bounces between enemies and stuns them, although with low damage.
Varied items have been removed from the loot table and put into the lost & found pool as bonus items, this reduces item amount but overall the gameplay quality has increased as you get good items more consistently. More work on items is upcoming.
Our dedicated server based online coop is now publicly accessible on the test branch. This is not ideally balanced yet and still has issues but greatly improved now over the first connection test. We expect co-op to be officially integrated in the next update.
Many improvements have been done for coop since the first connection test started.
We already support varied regions for networking, more are upcoming.
You can now ping things to mark them (most notably for coop).
Varied other improvements have been done
Mods now show their depot version to show when they were last updated in the enabler menu. Make sure to do a full save of your depot before you upload to be secure and also have your patch number updated.
Official depots are now Zipped for increased loading speed on HDDs. They can still be unzipped.
In our upcoming patch, we'll be turning our attention to the mid- and late-game, enemies, and bosses. We're also aiming to get updates out faster, so you can expect more improvements soon. Following U10, we'll be focusing on outgame progression and more. We anticipate Multiplayer to be ready by U10 or at the latest, U11.
