Hey everyone! We know you have been waiting for a while for this update, but it was worth it.
CO-OP is finally out, the Commando (Raider) is back and so many things have been improved, its basically like an expansion, but let's have a look.
The Raider is back with a vengeance! Using a swift plasma blade with high mobility, the Commando is a nimble fighter capable of dealing high damage in the fraction of a second.
Online coop is finally live! High quality full dedicated servers and even a new matchmaking system! We highly recommend 2-3 players but we allow 4 players as well.
The new class evolution system is here! You now get unique class based super upgrades on boss kills, offering fun new expansions to each class!
We added a first version of the loop! Once you beat the last boss, the game restarts on a much more challenging alternative reality, giving you a real test for your build. This is a first draft and work in progress, let us know what you think!
Ability and Item upgrades from the compositor workbench have been overhauled. You'll have to make really hard choices about which item or ability to upgrade!
Dropped weapons and items will now be memorized even when leaving the level or even game, preventing the finding the same objects in succession. Class-based droprates have been adjusted, and higher rarity chances have been increased.
The Medical, Gambling, Black Market and Tinkerer shops have been completely redesigned and are brand new. They now offer different paths to develop certain builds and specialize in different directions, such as summons, melee combat and more.
We added the first version of localization support. Keep in mind that this will be improved over time and we will add ways for community feedback on the translations. German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, English are supported, more upcoming.
Finally out of the testing branch, our dedicated server based system is now live! We strongly recommend 2-3 players but allow up to 4 players right now. Balancing had been gradually refined in the test branch but will see some more tuning, especially around 3-4 players and in loop.
Keep in mind that this is the first public release and some bugs and further improvements are to be expected.
The current shops have been completely reworked. We wanted to add more build paths and synergies between the different components of the game, and the new shops now offer more options to plan and build around. Each of the shops has an array of completely new options, so this is a big amount of content.
It took quite some iterations to find the right role of the shops but we think the current one finally hits the right balance. Their spawn positions are still almost the same as previously, now with the improved options we will likely present them more often in the next update.
Item and ability upgrades have been overhauled and gotten a lot of improvements, reworks, replacements and more. It is much more viable now to experiment with upgrading different type of items and abilities and see what kind of builds result from that.
The first version of the new Loop is out! This will need feedback and a new balance for loot drops, as such this is just the first iteration. When you beat the last Boss, the game starts from fresh with much more lethal opposition.
Each stage will have an alternative style in loop (later floors will get updated soon). Loop is the very first iteration and will need your feedback. The next update will do further tuning to loop.
Previously only the low difficulty had "instant death" protection, now we added a similar instakill protection in other difficulty modes.
Every class has received a set of powerful class evolution upgrades which you can obtain on boss kills!
Evolution upgrades are very powerful and last for the rest of the run. Evolutions are an amazing system because it allows doing some really powerful and "out there" things which are completely unique and not shared (unlike items, weapons and perks). Riotguard can get a special dash, summon attack bikes, do a lightning punch and much more. Gunner can choose between a metal storm turret, ammo supply spider, fire aura, popcorn box and other cool things. Make sure to give us feedback if you feel some options do not work as well as they should. Evolutions are also moddable, so for the first time its possible to extend the base classes without making a new class.
Known issue: Due to a technicality, you can get the same perks again if unlucky. This will be fixed in the next patch.
The Raider is finally back! Commando benefits from the peak of our skillset and has gotten a lot of good stuff. His first weapon kit adds him 2 new melee attacks for people wanting to go all-in on close range, but he also has mobility and raider-esque options. With the raider kit, you can get a random class starting weapon as example.
We also experimented with a blade reflect ability where you can reflect shots, and gave him a combination of the classic stim pack and the shaker. To spice things up, he also has 2 different types of dashes now, one is a rapid double dash which is quite fun and synergizes well with the dash blade attacks from the experimental blade kit. Resonance so far has been very good and we think you are really going to love the new Commando!
We were split about making both chrono classes into two seperate classes or one big class. After varied testing, it seemed like virtually all components from both could be combined without losing anything critical. The Interceptor now always has Telefrag but uses 2 charges on a short cool-down, same as the classic teleport, however only consumes shields if you actually do a Telefrag attack. Fusion blast stays as the core with its two activation types.
Slowmo is now the default specialization ability and as such remains as well. Interceptor also has a new mechanic, Time Rift, in which a rift appears at fixed intervals at a random position around you. Entering the rift grants 4 seconds of improved temporal ammo, regains shields and has potential bonus effects with other abilities. Rift is also a great foundation for future expansion as it has fun core components which allow for rich interactions. All in all, Chrono Trooper got more depth and choices, while Striker basically remained (although a less game breaking). Let us know what you think!
All the classes have seen varied areas of improvement and polishing.
Class loot weightings have been reduced. This was sometimes too extreme and reduced weapon variation.
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!
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!
We have setup nearly the entire game for Localization with Update 12. This was a lot of the work of this update and an important step towards the completion of the game.
Initial Languages support:
Many things have changed in the UI and menus across the board. Its best to have a look for yourself ingame!
The weapon menu also has seen some changes, most importantly, we added a text display of the weapon perks, making them much more easily digestible and giving them much more impact than before. All tooltips for all perks had to be remade but it was worth it.
Varied fixes on stat displays stat bars, tooltips and more.
We did many improvements for controller support. You now have a visible selection in the main menu and in the ingame menus which makes things very easy to see now. Many smaller bugs were fixed. However this is still work in progress. Up next we try to fix the remaining button issues and add aim assist.
The chat has gotten many improvements, making it more usable. It no longer fades away completely after 20 seconds which was a big bummer. There are many small improvements around it.
The new font is "DDT" and in testing. It has a condensed (low width) style which allows showing a lot of information on tight space, but still has very bold and impactful bold styles for a sci-fi look, similar to the classic Eurostyle.
Finding the perfect font has been insanely hard and we tested many dozens. Finding a combination of cyrillic + western support, condensed, a fitting sci-fi style and multiple weights is finding a needle in a haystack.
The new font also has the advantage of displaying virtually any languages outside of Asian, Indian or Arabic signs, which has benefits for the Global chat, where you will see much less empty letters.
We have thrown out the remains of a third party solution on the music playlists as well. This allows solving some issues which were not findable before. Now the only remainder of third party audio middleware is on some menu button sounds.
Nearly All techs got improved bullet trails and look higher quality now
We updated to the brand new Unity 2022 LTS (LTS standing for Long Term Support, the supposedly most stable version), so we will not have to update anymore anytime soon, as this actually supports direct X12 now. We are still on directX 11 at the moment however.
As a cause you might want to update your graphics drivers as this is very new. This also might fix some older issues you might had (or cause some new ones) but overall it seems quite stable at this point and fixed varied things for us.
Many code and systems improvements have been made under the hood and a ton of issues have been fixed.
We are adding a first version of saveable variables, which can be saved as result and checked in actions as condition. Int, float etc. These are uniquely saved outgame and persistent. This means you can make persistent systems with actions, such as (some random ideas)
And other things we haven't thought off.
You save them like "Save variable = int 3 un result"And check for them like "If saved variable myCustomLevels equals 10" > do stuff.
The editor got some UI improvements.
The key configurations have been cleaned up a bit to be easier to read and understand
Damage graphs of unused technologies have been fixed (Psy, Curse, Vortex)
Categories no longer have a main category and then subcategories. Categories are now one component which can be parented to another. This means you can make new categories and add them to our existing ones.
This means you can now extend categories such as ammo types, or weapon archetypes with your own. If you have been hard-blocked by a category somewhere, this should now be usable. (One exception are attachment slot types, which have special requirements.)
The F3 Debug menu in tutorial has been refreshed a bit, mostly on the entity side, things are much cleaner now.
Entities also now have icons for easy finding. Scaling on different resolutions is also improved across all editor tools. Known issue: The button to save a class is hard to click, you have to click the left hand side of the button.
Varied new icons and sounds have been added for usage, same as VFX
Sadly due to the localization change and the old editor localization being set-up incorrectly, we lost all editor tooltips. We see to port these over when we have time in the near future but it is quite an effort. We'll think about the best course of action here.
We are now pushing towards the 1.0 launch version and putting full focus on iteration and quality. We will follow up with a fast update with more improvements, and will also now spend time on the outgame progression elements. We also want to iterate on where and when the shops and chests spawn now that they are reworked. We also have new weapons upcoming, a pass on items and attachments and much more which will further increase quality of the game. More work on bosses and environments is also upcoming. We'll keep you updated.
Commando Artwork by Vireyn
