Hey everyone!

Originally the class update was planned to be a shorter update, supposed to add a good iteration or rework some classes, however after starting on some of the classes, level perks and the new switchable slots, it became apparent how the game transformed. It seemed to be the right thing to go all the way and bring it all to that higher level, so you will see a ton of changes in the test branch and the full update.

We also switched our content system to stream content (using "adressables") which means packing things in bundles, as opposed to loading everything directly. This was an important step but causes quite some issues at the start. So overall things did not go exactly as planned and we are sorry for the long wait for an update, but a lot of things have happened in the meantime, and we mean a lot.
So here we go!:

The Testing Branch is live!

Try the class update U5 - ORIGIN and let us know what you think.
Now is the time for your feedback on the revamped classes.
There are a huge amount of changes, but some things aren't fully final yet.
At best just try it out with a fresh set of eyes and let us know what you think!

You can enable the public test branch by right clicking your steam library game settings and going to the last tab, and enable the test version in the drop down menu!

U5 ORIGIN - The Big Class Update

Overhauling 12 classes was quite a huge amount of work but it did definitely pay off.
The class update is not supposed to make the classes perfect but give them all a clear foundation and well working core gameplay. We also don't say "specs" anymore, as these are really more like 12 separate classes with some shared elements and body frame at this point.
Some bullet points for the class update are below. It is expected to come out of testing this week, so last chance for your feedback!

- New Switchable ability slots
- Overhaul of 12 classes, tons of huge changes!
- New Eliminator class
- New Heavy Gunner
- New Rocketeer
- New Sniper
- Many level & graphical improvements
- Stat upgrades are back
- Varied attachment balance tweaks and others
- Tons of under the hood & UniversEdit improvements
- Fixes audio system and tons of fixes
- Many other improvements

Please write down your class changes wishlist in the poll here:
IN CASE OF STEAM BLOCKING THE LINK - PLEASE COPY PASTE IT MANUALLY TO YOUR BROWSER!
https://forms.gle/zRysjn71xcgCUQwS8

Other noteworthy things:

- Super boosted workflows and tools:

Our next level ingame editor UniversEdit has come a long way since the EA launch and even made big leaps compared to the start of the year, the workflows have improved dramatically and we also have become way more skilled at using it. Tons of things have improved under the hood and the power is steadily growing.

As example, we can now use UniversEdit while in the game, so it is possible to make changes while playing, save, and then just respawn the ability or weapon, and it will be updated. There are still some inconveniences and a bit laggy menus but we have achieved real ingame creation of game content!
This is not yet available for modding, some things need to be sorted out, but in general we probably have a 500% increase in iteration times since new years, and an similar reduction in bug creation!

- Pushing the boundaries

On the updated classes and new abilities, you will see a lot more things which are outside the box as we tried to push boundaries and see what kind of things can be done with the current tools.



New things that are in testing or are already achieved:

- Glaiving attacks, bouncing from target to target
- Charge up attacks
- Directional microwave emitter construct
- Placable gadgets which can be stepped on
- C4 which can be remotely triggered
- Neutrino bomb with a timed fuse
- Punching constructs for combos
- Thunder and warning poles you can stick in the ground
- TOW Missile launcher emplacements which can fire a guided missile Battlefield style
- Weapons jammer, blocking enemy weapons
- Seismic resonator which can retrigger explosion and used for knockback movement
- Rocket boosts with weapons
- Stealth or partial stealth effects
- Drone swarms
- Mind control
- Sticky Bombs which stick to enemies
- Slow Motion effects
- Delayed lock-on missiles
- "Hold" abilities, like targetlaser
And more

- Content / Memory Management

We are now using the "Adressables" system from the engine, which is a different way of handling content and bundling them in packages. The difficulty is that you can't have any object reference any other from another package, else both packages will be loaded, defeating the entire purpose.
This is also an important step as this makes adding more content (and mods!) not increasing ram cost. In some areas this also drives down overall loading times, as the game will not wait for content to be loaded anymore (that may not be used any time soon).

This system added quite some headaches and delays to the test branch updates but it seems to be mostly sorted out, and ensures that the project is more scaleable. Weeks prior we also had a spring cleaning and removed a ton of unused assets, reducing the game size noticeably as well.
The benefits for you are that RAM usage is now overall a lot lower, in some areas 50% from before. The game now comfortably sits way below 8GB RAM usage.
Our project cleanups also reduced the game size by 30% without losing anything!

- Graphical Improvements

Some more graphical improvements have been done in varied areas.
Some of these are not used everywhere yet, but these are all things which strengthen our foundation for the future. Varied points are listed below:

- Bent Normal Occlusion

By using bent normals to check on the lighting direction, unwanted glowing reflections are reduced, making things looks more realistic. You can see here that the underside of the vehicle does not strangely glow anymore.

- New Focus on ground details

Since most of the visible playing field is ground, we want to add more depth, detail and 3-dimensionality into the ground elements. Some maps already have more of that, but in varied maps there is still a lot of room for improvement. In the screenshot you can see a combination of varied new elements, decals, grills, border trims and more. In general, we all have become more skilled at environment creation and it really shows if you compare newer iteration to our first.

- New Decal shaders

Varied new shaders have been made, they are not fully in use yet but are a significant improvement
Wet puddles can now look significantly more detailed, but also new grunge decals now exist with both more variation and way higher detail and resolution. They can be combined and are based on world space. Grunge shader example:

- Occlusion

We also did some more tricks to shadow areas like the pipes in the oilrig area or deep holes better
and also did new occlusion decals and used more of them, which can shadow objects more realistically where they touch the ground.

- Micro Shadows

By using the bent normal technique, we also can now use micro shadows, which do enable more detailed occlusion at small details especially.

- Water

As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, so we are throwing out things like Unity terrain or plugin water and doing our own implementations. These will be more flexible and have no dependencies or breaking points we can't control. Also we think they will look better in the end. Here is our current new water shader (this has improved in the meantime again):

- Custom Terrain Material

The environment team has been developing our new foundation for terrain shaders which are very promising so far and will be the core of future outdoors areas. The terrain shader supports mesh blending, camera based render textures for things like snow trails, varied layers, tesselation and more.

We also worked on mesh blending techniques, which smoothly transistions between the ground and the asset and avoids sharp ugly intersections. Here a preview of the blending and worldspace biome effect (does not represent final terrain quality)

- New Floors

2 new floors are in development the moment, one is coming very soon "The Cooling Chambers", as alternative second floor, while the other is an alternative for the Arctic level, which is more military themed, but you'll see. We are also looking at some potential arena style maps, but this has lower priority right now.

- System Improvements

Now that the classes are much more engaging, it becomes glaringly apparent that the mid game progression is not at the level it should be. The class update already does tweak the curve of when things appear but this is only one part of it.

--Item Quality
Items at the moment are often quite lackluster.
After the class update, a focus will be to polish up items and make them into the core game sandbox they should be. Often it is mostly visual polish but sometimes the gameplay is simply not engaging. Playing with some of the new items makes it quite clear what the old items are just not on our new skill level and possibility space. Items are the core of Synthetik progression and due to them being lackluster, we tried compensating with shops and other things but that was a bit of a fallacy. Shops will also be improved.

As example, Power array now has a chargup time, sound, glow, laser targeting, screen fx and a buff, a huge difference from before where it just fired an ion shot. Some items have been upgraded a bit already like Power Array but more is to come.

--Item Synergies
We want to add an synergy system which links many items, to form a nice interlocking system of varied builds, planning and choices. Some examples which are already implemented:
- Shock net can electrify the spike strips, making them root enemies
- SAT masterkey fires incendiary shots when you have hot shot
- Field rations allows petting the dog for healing and granting a boost
S1 synergy items will likely also return in some form, like missile control boosting all missile items.

--Item/Ability Upgrades
We are doing an improvement of the system here as well, which will build upon item categories instead of being completely random and the same for all. The current system is too freestyle and unspecific even though it allows for some broken combinations. More info soon.

--Class Upgrades
There is also an idea of mid-run class upgrades replacing the focus perks, but we'll see..

- Multiplayer

Our fully dedicated server based Multiplayer is progressing steadily, it is playable for some time but it needs polish polish polish and as many fixes. It is finally the time where the team starts internally doing serious playtests and where we gradually clean up the issues and start balancing and implementing coop specific features.



Instead of reviving at the next map upon dying, we are trying out a revive mechanic where you trade health to revive a player. This is more punishing on the team and less of a negative feedback loop where the dying player keeps getting weaker and then dies more because he has become weaker.
This should create more tension, be more fair and hopefully avoid making coop significantly easier than single-player.

Our plan for online coop is to have a first public test branch version ready around the Enemy Update.
Right now its most important to fix and polish up the game to a good level and getting multiplayer polished before it's given out. S1 multiplayer very unstable at launch and prone to crashing, we definitely want to avoid this.

Brief Roadmap:

U5 ORIGIN "The Big Class Update"
- Expected this week! Last chance for your class feedback!

U6 HEAT
- Short in-between Update
- Full New "Cooling Chambers" Environment
- Environment Styles (spoiler in the thumbnail)
- Item & Upgrade System improvements
- ?

U7 LEGION "The Big Enemy Update"
- More info in a near future dev blog!
- First Multiplayer testing on test branch around that time





Thats all for today! After the class update has gone live, the enemy update will follow but we keep the enemy update talk for later.

Don't forget the class poll, we really act on your feedback so don't waste the opportunity!

https://forms.gle/zRysjn71xcgCUQwS8

! In case of steam blocking the link - please copy it manually into your browser !!

See you on the field, Androids!
- Team FFG