New Gameplay Mechanics

• Emote System - Part One

  • We’ve added an emote system for quick communication among teammates in multiplayer

    • Players can either:

      • Emote during action

        • Select your desired emote which will then populate next to your name plate on the left side of the HUD on your teammates screens, as well as above your head

      • Use an emote as a map marker

        • By doing this, you can communicate what action you want to take in a specific area of the map

  • Current Emotes include:

    • Extract!

    • Fight!

    • Injured!

    • Need This!

    • Yes!

    • No!

  • Expect this feature to become more robust over time. We’ll continue to make improvements in future updates!

• Gear Upgrade Machines

  • Find these machines out in The Overgrowth — There will always be one or two per map. Pay Bright Blood to get an upgrade drop, this will randomly upgrade one piece of gear by +1, one time

    • The gear upgrade drop will be un-interactable if the player has no upgradeable gear

    • In multiplayer, any player can use the Upgrade Machine, but each player will need to collect the drop from it independently

• Obelisks

  • Find obelisks out in The Overgrowth

    • Bloodletter Protocol Obelisk

      • Pay to activate these Bloodletter Protocol Obelisks which will summon a wave of enemies. Gain hp for each enemy you kill

        • In multiplayer, players within radius of activation are given the buff, and the Obelisk is disabled for all players after activation

    • Armor Obelisk

      • Pay Bright Blood to interact with the Armor Obelisks to drop an item that will recover all Armor shards and add +1 to players max armor

        • In multiplayer, any player can use the Armor Obelisk, but each player will need to collect the drop independently

• Updated Amp Rulesets

  • Players will still have their two level 0 "default" amps that they can purchase via loadout. But now there is a wider pool of amps that can drop in the world instead of it always just being the player's equipped amp

New Mods

• Staggering Bloom Amp Affix

  • Amps that have an area of effect deal 20% more Stagger damage

• Mini Drone Amp Affix

  • Summons a Mini Drone Ally that deals 5 DMG per shot

• Nano Drain Holobyte

  • Apply 1 armor shard to the player temporarily for 3 seconds after executing an enemy

• Shatter Armor Holobyte

  • When an armor shard is broken, inflict all nearby enemies with Crystal

• Threaded Edge Holobyte

  • Blade attacks that hit 3 or more enemies have an 15% chance to heal 5 health. This includes Blade Specials

• Ally Bolster Amp Affix

  • Ally max HP and duration is increased when another ally times out or is killed

• Laced Bitwire Holobyte

  • When HP falls below 45%, gain armor shards. Cannot gain more than max armor shards

• Kinetic Converter Holobyte

  • Perfect parries have a 40% chance to reset Blade Special cooldown

• Lofi Tape Holobyte

  • When your Blade Special is on cooldown, gain 35% more melee damage

• Impact Rivets Holobyte

  • Deal 30% of Strike damage to an enemy when they are knocked back

• Reflective Neuropathy Holobyte

  • Enemy takes 50% of Strike damage when hitting the player

• Danger Focus Holobyte

  • At 50% HP, gain 30% damage. Damage scales with less HP

• Drifter’s Locket Holobyte

  • 100% damage inflicted on enemies, 100% damage taken

• Syphon Amplifier Holobyte

  • Blade Special cooldown reduced 10% on kills

Balance Updates

• Note - expect additional balance changes with our August update!

  • Vendors:

    • In-Run Vendors that sell gear now take Materials as currency instead of Bright Blood

    • Hub Vendors now have increased Gear Level upgrade Material costs

      • Level +3 - 8 > 20

      • Level +4 - 15 > 30

      • Level +5 - 20 > 50

    • Re-rolling gear affixes with a Hub Vendor now increases material cost by +10 per level up to 50 materials

  • Characters:

    • Characters can no longer find gear outside of their preferred gear set as drops.

    • Buffed Soldier Perk’s Light wave projectile DMG from 25% -> 150% of Blast DMG.

    • Rondo was a bit too tanky for their intended playstyle - Reduced starting armor of Crow B from 2 to 0.

  • Enemies:

    • Rebalanced Elite enemies HP

    • Complete rework of exterior enemy compositions. Trimmed a lot of enemy complexity down and tried to retain size to around 3 medium units and fewer variants. This is to avoid enemies merging into interior more complex comps

  • Mods:

    • NOTE: We wanted to try pushing some weaker Holobytes and Affixes to be more punchy and rewarding, especially if they required the player to perform a skill challenge like parrying or employing successful charged attacks in this update.

    • Holobytes:

      • Riposte Flare: +20% DMG -> +40% DMG from successful parries.

      • Curved Grip: +30% Attack Speed -> +50% Attack Speed from successful parries.

      • Strikestone: +15% -> 25% to Amp charge from successful parries.

      • Impact Implosion: 25% Strike DMG -> 50% Strike DMG dealt from explosion when performing a charged attack.

      • Stun Charger: +25 -> +75 increased battery.

      • Ally Duration: Re-enabled Ally duration as a Holobyte to support Ally builds. Increased duration increase from 10% -> 50%

      • Trigger Spring: 30% -> 50% increased Firerate.

      • Doppler String: 25% -> 50% chance to duplicate a summoned Ally.

      • Battery Caps: +20% -> +40% to Battery.

      • Grip Glove: 15% -> 100% increased amp charge from attacks.

      • Cluster Bomb Impact - 8% -> 35% of Blast DMG dealt from each projectile.

      • Burst Capsule - 1 -> 2 increased Stamina pips.

    • Affixes:

      • Steady Shot: Increased DMG from 100% per sec to 300% per sec and reduced charge time to 1 sec from 2 sec

      • Buffed Ally Spike mod radius and damage scaling. (Base damage stayed the same)

        • 0% -> 2.5% of Blast DMG per level.

        • Radius scale 1.0 -> 4.0

      • Re-enabled the Corundum synergy mod to function with the new Armor system. When the player has more than one Crystal affixed Gear, they will gain +1 armor shard.

    • Status Effects:

      • Player-side Status Effect Buffs to:

        • Bleed - Increased Ticks triggered per sec and damage scaling per level.

        • Burn - Increased Ticks triggered per sec and damage scaling per level.

      • Adjusted enemy inflicted status effect build up.

        • Hack

          • Hits to Build Ups - 3 -> 2

          • Lifetime of Build Up - 5 -> 8

        • Burn

          • Lifetime of Build Up - 5 -> 7

        • Bleed

          • Lifetime of Build Up - 5 -> 7

        • Rot

          • Hits to Build Up - 3 -> 1

        • Crystal

          • Lifetime of Build Up - 5 -> 7

  • Gear

    • Root Hash Hack - Previously, Root Hash Hack Ally duration was tied to the same duration as the aura radius. Now Allies will stick around up to 60 seconds so you can catch an army of them and lead them to battle!

      • Increased duration of Root Hash Hack from 10 sec to 60 sec (+5 per level)

    • Increased Gear Level upgrade costs:

      • +2 - 5 > 5

      • +3 - 8 > 20

      • +4 - 15 > 30

      • +5 - 20 > 50

    • Weapon Buffs:

      • Dual Knives

        • Increased Dual Knives base multiplier from 0.07 to 0.1

      • Heavy Axe

        • Increased Heavy Axe base multiplier from 0.22 to 0.3

      • Increased combo multiplier on a few hits for both weapons

  • World Tier Pacing

    • Changed World Tier accrual awarded for Multiplayer to match Single Player, instead of the XP awarded being less the more players were in the run.

    • Increased World Tier accrual gain from: Prism pickup, Miniboss kills, Boss kills, Drop Down Lab unlock.

Other Polish Items, Updates and Improvements

• Polished the Hatchling minions tethering functionality

• Leaper combat improvements: Sped up melee moves and shortened the delay between leaps

• Improved Shrine Menu UI: Now if you can’t afford a medkit or to revive a teammate, the option will be greyed out and display how much you need. Rather than having to click the button before being told you don’t have enough currency

• Players will no longer get the “upgrade at the shrine” prompt if all the bosses have been defeated

• Improved Crystal Croc Brute projectile SFX

• Added ice flows to interior waterways in Shattered Fortress areas

• Made various UI improvements for better Steam Deck performance and readability

• Made improvements to the Elite Crocbrute’s Behavior:

  • Cleaning up movement logic (should not attempt to move into spit range between attacks)

  • Adjusting combat data to account for scale difference with default Crocbrute

  • Added Line of Sight checks to close range spit attack

• Updated ally health bar colors so they’re easier to detect against regular enemies health bars

• Keys no longer drop from bosses and only local players will receive keys from chests they open

• The Roly Poly Grenade now follows the owning player when it doesn’t have a target

• Made adjustments to the Gold Bat’s slow projectile to improve telegraphing and damage radius readability

• Key icons now show up on the mini map once a key chest is discovered

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed issue where White Dirks claw drag VFX failed to trigger in drop down labs

• Fixed issue that was causing deadlock with the Elite Melee Dirk’s melee and ranged channels due to pathing and other restrictions if a POI has multiple levels of verticality

• Fixed issue where the “prism collected” stinger wasn’t playing in Drop Down Labs

• Fixed issue where players and enemies would get stuck in midair on the Arid Wastes tree trunks

• Fixed issue where Medigems were only healing the teammate that interacted with it

• Fixed issue where players weren’t shown the “death screen” before transitioning into spectator mode

• Fixed issue where Medigems were granting dead teammates HP

• Fixed issue where the player would sometimes get an empty prompt at the beginning of the tutorial level

• Fixed issue where in some instances the starting bunker shrine would deck inside socket blocks

• Fixed issue with the Arid Wastes Desert Society POI trapping enemies inside one of its pillars

• Fixed issue where in some instances Dro’s Boss Arena would be inaccessible to the player

• Fixed issue where the terrain between biomes wasn’t blending properly

• Fixed issue where invisible collision was present in some instances of the Shattered Fortress

• Fixed numerous issues where map revealers would deck inside geo

• Fixed an issue where the client would get charged for the telepad activation fee twice if they got disconnected from the host

• Fixed issue with the Jeweled Spire Bell Temple POI where the jump pads were oversized

• Fixed an issue with Ruined Outskirts Titan Sword POI having misplaced collision on the tree roots

• Fixed an issue with map revealers decking into hillsides in some instances

• Fixed an issue where sometimes socket blocks would protrude into caves

• Fixed an issue where player icons would take several seconds to load after exiting a boss arena

• Fixed an issue with loot corpses decking into the wall of the Shattered Fortress Ocean Ruins POI

• Fixed an issue where the Chemist vendor was misplaced on top of a stack of crates in the Arid Wastes Desert Society POI

• Fixed issue with loot corpses pushing into the side of the Shattered Fortress Bear Statue POI

• Fixed issue with the Dash Bash holobyte VFX not being visible to all players in a multiplayer lobby

• Fixed issue so that Maw's hands are no longer pathing blockers. Hatchlings should now just path through the hands or stop, no longer doing a little dance when a hand is around

• Fixed issue where opening the player inventory before receiving the End of Cycle Report disabled the ‘Ready Up’ button

• Fixed an issue where in multiplayer, clients were able to see Bat enemies health bars drop below the terrain after death

• Fixed an issue where occasionally, the HUD would display overtop boss cutscenes

• Fixed a long standing issue with Dirk Rifle Beam enemies damage not applying correctly. Now the laser beam will apply looped damage if it stays on a target

• Fixed an issue where slimes aggroed to a player will move slower when that player moves

• Fixed an issue where the Wholesale License EXE functioned opposite of its intended effect

• Fixed an exploit where clients could kill Root Hack Hash allies during the duration of the amp to spawn a new version with full hp and timer

• Fixed an issue where the game would experience a fatal crash when exiting to desktop

• Fixed various environment bugs where there was misaligned geo in numerous places

• Fixed various environment bugs that were causing gaps between the ocean and the shoreline

• Fixed issue where Assassins weapons would remain visible after death

• Fixed an issue where enemies would experience an increase of speed when pathing towards a character at a distance

• Fixed an issue where enemies would experience an increase of speed when pathing towards their spawn point

• Fixed a misplaced interact prompt inside an Arid Wastes Wrecked Vehicle POI

• Fixed an issue with wolves continuing to path when entering stagger break

• Fixed an issue where multiple invitations from the same sender appear in the list after being disconnected from a Lobby and reinvited

• Fixed an issue with the Dash Soles affix so that it no longer is able to spawn with multiple upgrades causing the effects to stack

• Fixed and issue where sometimes Charge Beetles would remain stuck in environmental assets while doing their attack animation

• Fixed an issue where the training dummy was not being spawned at the beginning of the combat training tutorial causing a soft lock

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the Battleship POI would be pushed into the beach cliffside

• Fixed an issue where the Desert Dirk Rifle's animation would stutter when looking at the player without aiming

• Fixed issue where movement canceling the Gamma Claws blade special was causing the player to lose the ability to full combo, accepting only the first two inputs before resetting

• Fixed an issue where the post process volume for Drop Down Labs was affecting surrounding areas

• Fixed issue where there was a significant delay between returning to the hub and the after action report

• Fixed issue where the Overload Trigger Affix didn’t function properly with the Amp Charger Holobyte

• Fixed issue where the Blitz Battery and Blitz Blade mods health reduction would stack when upgraded by clients

• Fixed an issue where allies spawned by using the Root Hack Amp would not engage in combat

• Fixed an issue with the Roly Poly Grenade amp attaching to vertical surfaces

• COMMUNITY ASSIST: Fixed issue where swapping between two Crystal Rails with Corundum refills armor

  • Corundum now boosts max armor, but doesn't replenish. Also now need 2+ pieces of gear with Crystal to activate

• Fixed an issue where the line thick rails with Hack Status effect looked wrong / was causing the beam to disappear

• Fixed an issue where health kits were only healing a percentage of a player characters base health value. Now health kits will heal a flat 75 HP (+any modifiers) for every player character

• COMMUNITY ASSIST: Fixed an issue where important icons on the map can be hidden by extremely small amounts of Fog of War

• Fixed an issue where loot dropped from enemies could pool near the center of the map

• Fixed an issue where players were presented with the option to upgrade to Level 6 on gear even though 5 is the max

• Fixed an issue where hovering over steam friends in the multiplayer invite menu wouldn’t select the proper entry

• Fixed an issue where the world rank would stop at 19 instead of going all the way up to 20

• Fixed an issue with the Large Fortress POI’s jump pads were not carrying the player high enough

• Fixed an issue where sometimes trees would not replicate between host and client correctly

• Fixed an issue where sometimes clients would load into the Overgrowth outside of their proper location

• Fixed an issue where in some locked POI’s players could interact with items inside through the walls

• Fixed an issue where rapidly pressing the interact button would allow players to collect Medi-gems twice

• COMMUNITY ASSIST: Fixed an issue where starting and cancelling a run at the same time would leave players frozen in place

• Fixed an issue where hosts and clients were shown a different set of seed and variant after returning from a successful cycle

• Fixed an issue where sometimes enemies would spawn with their default mesh when summoned by Root Hash Hack

• Fixed an issue where Shattermouth’s would skate while moving on client machines

• Fixed an issue where the Threaded Edge holobyte was not functioning as described

Performance Improvements:

• Numerous optimizations which have drastically improved load times particularly loading into the Overgrowth

• Numerous optimizations which improved loading into the Hub from title and run, and loading into boss fight and back into the Overworld after a boss fight