Hey everyone!
We know its been longer than anticipated, but this update is probably the biggest we've ever done and more like an entire expansion (although a bit rougher), only rivalled by Legion Rising.
Focus on this update was to bring weapons on a new level and to a state where we can be happy about that aspect of the game. After armory, we plan on doing upgrades to the other 2 big elements, enemies and classes. Here is what's new!:
Key Features:
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New REDGUARD Weapons:
Rayon Elite LW/7
Laser SMG
EVO XS
SMG
Honorary Dominator
Shotgun
PPQ-H
Handgun----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New RAIDER Weapons:
'Spike' Fireball Cannon
Sprayer
'Leviathan' Heavy Harpoon
One-shot weapon
Stoner Carbine
Assault Rifle Carbine
Two-Z
Dual-wielded SMGs
Shooty
Full-auto handgun----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New SAT POLICE Weapons:
Super 90
Shotgun with Strobe light
Shock Grenade Launcher
Electric Weapon (Remodel)
P20 Competition Dual
Dual-wielded pistols----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New MACHINE MILITARY Weapons:
ML-10 Recoilless Rifle
Explosive launcher
R2000H Anti-Material
Heavy anti-material rifle
X1500 Ion Rail
Experimental Ion Railgun
X1200 Particle Obliterator
Explosive Ion weapon
X500 Handgun
2 Shot Ion handgun
CR-18
Burst Handgun----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New RESISTANCE Weapons:
HS-50
Recon Start (Remodel)
FA-7 Acid Pistol
Damage-over-time handgun
New Weapon Menu
- The weapon menu has been completely remade!
- Improved stats and perk displays
- Attachments now show their full name
- New ammo range damage falloff graph
- New tooltip for ammo types with details
- New tooltip for ammo/weapon technology
The stat side will see some more work but its already an big step forward!
New HD Weapon Images
- All S2 weapon images in the menu use new HD versions!120 New Weapon Technology Perks
- Weapon perks system has been completely overhauled and extremely expanded!
- How it works: Weapons generally have 3 perk slots
- In most cases, 2 of these are filled with a random Tech Perk based on the weapon's technology
- Each technology has a different pool of perks. A Laser weapon will get laser perks.
- Perks are unlocked by dealing damage as before
- Earlier levels are now unlocked faster
Now when you pick up a weapon, you can compare and make informed considerations about which weapons to go for. You will notice that picking and inspecting a weapon will have a very new feeling and depth to it.
New Conversions
- Technologies can also have rare 'conversion' perks- These can add an additional twist to the gun!
New Unique Weapon Perks
- All non starter weapons now have at least one unique weapon perk- In the above example, the rifled third barrel is a Honorary dominator unique perk
- Unique perks are always on the weapon and always at the same slot
- In some cases they are unlocked early, in most they are unlocked as third option.
The unique weapon perks often come at the end of the leveling, so you can 'discover' a weapon by fully committing to it. You'll see something new that you wouldn't otherwise by just casually picking up the gun and then putting it away again. For weapons where it is key to the identity, the perks is usually at the first levelup.
New Weapon Variants
- 15 New weapon variants have been added
- Weapon variants now have their new floppy disc images
- The floppy discs represent the user manual
- Varied existing variants have been reworked
Huge Attachment Update
- Tons of attachments have been added, for over 80 total!
- Most existing attachments have been reworked or improved
- Let us know which attachments you do and do not like and which should be changed.
- Attachment costs have been reduced slightly, the last attachment costs more
- Weapon Rarity also affects the cost less than before
- Attachments now rarely use uncommon or epic rarities for consistency
- Legendary and Divine attachments have been added
New Switchable Ammo Types
- Weapons can also now have multiple ammo types- All ammo types have tooltips
- You can get a new type either through the 'Ammo Switch' attachment, or from the Tinkerer shop
- Ammo types can be switched in the menu or while playing
- Each weapon type has at least one alternative type, the common types have multiple
- Some ammo types can offer drastical changes, most offer a small twist in effectiveness.
Ammo types are intended as a slightly uncommon element of which you keep discovering types over time. They are not essential to play, but offer a nice layer of mystery, discovery and depth.
Other Weapon changes
- Weapon experience required has been reduced especially for the first level- Pistols can now gain variants through perks
- Explosions can now critically strike with critical strike chance
- You can now eject the weapon when the spare ammo is empty
- Tons of fixes regarding action saving, save and load, weapon swapping and level changes
- Many weapons have been tweaked
New Legendary & Divine Weapon Variants, Attachments
- Weapons can also now have Ultra and Divine variants- These are super rare and heavily boost stats!
New Camera
- The camera is now a bit more zoomed out- The camera allows scrolling out further outwards
- The camera has a more shallow FOV, meaning it has less perspective
- This makes the screen estate much more consistent.
Improved Player Collisions
- It should now be harder to get stuck or get blocked on rampsImproved Maps and Game Length
- The game was stretched out way too long, we trimmed varied maps- Many map improvements have been done
Increased Ranges
- Ammo ranges have been increased around 20%- Keep in mind that the zoom and camera panning distance has also increased.
In General ranges are increased but shorter range weapons will still not be able to shoot offscreen although more range upgrades now exist also. Long range weapons can shoot around screen border. Since enemies are tied to these ranges, we are touching these very slowly at a time
New Menu Design
- Still work in progress, but most menus have gotten a visual upgrade
- Varied elements also have gotten extra animations
- This was done for most menus and will be further improved over time
Many UI improvements across the board
- Most of the elements in the game have been touched, at best check it out for yourself!- Improved weapon levelup, item and weapon pickup popups
- Improved the enemy healthbars to show ranks better and be more readable
- More work needs to be done but this is an important step.
Improved Feedback
- Some parts of the UI have gotten new animations, especially the weapon frame- Enemy hitflash has been made snappier
- Enemy healthbar now shakes on hits for better feedback
- New systems have been setup for better feedback on actions:
-- New muzzle glow effects
-- New laser pointer effects
-- New character particle effects
- New sound system for object collisions (work in progress)
New Status Effects
- You will start seeing more status effects with proper sounds, VFX and buff icons
- This is an important step for the core gameplay ruleset but more work will be done there
New Ground Loot UI
- You can now see items and weapons with icon and name on the groundNew Credits menu
- You can now see the credits in the Universe Tab menu
New Tinkerer Shop Upgrades
- Weapon Mastercraft
- Ammo Fitting
- Upgrade Kit
- Divine Ammunition Total conversion
- Path of the Weaponsmith
Shop Tweaks
Weapon shop costs:- Epic: 1500 > 1200
- Legendary: 2500 > 2000
Enemy Tweaks
- We focus more on enemies in the next 2 coming updates- (Rank bonuses are added on top of each other)
- Rank 1 enemies health unchanged from +30% +500
- Rank 2 enemies health from +125%+500 to +30%+1000
- Rank 3 enemies health from +300%+500 to +150%
- Rank 3 enemies max shield from 2000 to 4000
- Rank 2 and 3 enemy magsize, firerate scaling reduced
- Escalation 3 enemy damage +10%
- Changed enemy spawning to be more specific to floors
- This means less low level enemies spawn in the later levels
- Shotgunners movement speed reduced (also their Rank ones are much weaker)
- Riotshield has reduced health
- Riotshield speed reduced
- Remade arena master taser to shoot straight instead of auto lock-on
- Increased environment prop armor values to increase bounce chances
- Alarm wheel does not cancel the spawn if sight is interrupted
New Sharper Image
- Increased sharpness of the entire game visuals noticeably!- Increased sharpness of TAA noticeably
New Color Grading
- Added subtle color grading for better colors and contrast
New 'Screenshot' Setting
- Added expensive setting for post processing, which has Screen Space Global Illumination- Inefficient and not recommended for gameplay for most people but looks good
- Adds more realistic fake ray tracing like shadowing
New HBAO
- Ultra and Screenshot setting have Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion now enabled- Improves shadowing and definition of assets in the environment
New Shadow Cascade Quality
- You can now have noticeably sharper shadows by using the shadow cascades on 'Normal'- The previous setting is equivalent to 'Low'
- Make sure to set it back to low if you don't want a small decrease in performance
New Enemy Glow & Blob shadows
- Enemies/Player now have a glow effect similar to S1, making them easier to see in the environment- Enemies/Player now use blob/drop shadows, making them more grounded in the environment
More Performance Improvements
- More improvements have been done, especially Low settings have been trimmed GPU wise- Main menu performance has been improved
Better Loading Times
- Loading times have been reduced by around 30%
New Entity Spawning
- You can now finally also spawn gameentities with a button in the F3 menuNew Conditions
- Check for weapon category (SMG, LMG, Faction ..)- Check for weapon technology type
- Check for current ammo of magazine (last shot..)
- Check for current ammo of magazine percentage
- Allow weapon selling
New Results / Effects
- Replace ammo type- Add ammo type
- Change weapon rarity, change actionrarity
- Add attachment to character/weapon (muzzle glow, laser etc)
- Added option for random weapon perks and tech based perks in weapon config
New Stats
- Pellet count- Damage Falloff Distance
New Ammo Stats
- Alert range- Backside hits
- Ammo gained
New Projectile Editor
- You can now create custom Projectiles- Homing, Curving, Grenade, Cursor target etc
Config Cleanups
- Weapon configuration is much easier to navigate- Game Entity is much simpler to navigate and understand
- Fixed shoot ammo only shooting one projectile from ammo and not using range properties
- Status effects, Ammo and Explosions had configs cleaned up and are ready to be used!
Known Issues
- For some people the depot dosnt update changes until restart- Editor info tooltips are often not displaying as they should
Note:
- We were testing the new environment on Test branch but feel its not ready yet for this update
General Known Issues
- Pickups sometimes lack sounds- Sometimes you can switch ammo types without ejection
- In some hotkey constellations, the display shows a black icon
- The attachment menu is still showing over the weapon stats
- Burst weapons gain too much heat
Bugs
- This patch has been longer on Test branch than all others and a ton of things have been fixed, overall this should be the best state yet, but that does not mean there are not a good bunch of new bugs which slipped through. Remember to post in the respective channels!
Alright, this is it!
Focus for next time will be a good iteration over the classes and a big enemy update.
Since this update took longer but also had a lot more things than anticipated, we will likely try do a shorter update where we polish up the classes to a good state and then do the big enemy update, while doing a class progression update afterwards, not to forget multiplayer of course.
We'll likely do a roadmap update or another dev post in the near future.
Let us know what you think!
We hope you enjoy!
- Team FFG
Changed files in this update