Yager, the developer behind Spec Ops: The Line, as well as several free-to-play online games, is shutting down its latest project - The Cycle: Frontier . Frontier was a spin-off of The Cycle, a beloved game with a modest fanbase that ultimately wasn't financially viable . The ori
The original game was a co-op PvE shooter, but Frontier was among the first to adapt the extraction shooter genre to a science-fiction environment. The PvEvP Frontier had a decent active audience when it launched in June last year, but the hype has died down since. Unfortunately, Frontier is also going to suffer the same fate its predecessor did, and it's also because it simply doesn't make enough money to be sustainable.
Yager broke the news in a Steam post, confirming September 27, 2023 to be the last day servers will be online, just over a year after launch.
I'm pretty sure online multiplayer shooters are heading for some sort of demographic crisis, because the death rate must be outpacing the birth rate at this point. The Cycle: Frontier, a PvPvE extraction shooter that released on June 8 last year is shutting up shop for good, even
I'm pretty sure online multiplayer shooters are heading for some sort of demographic crisis, because the death rate must be outpacing the birth rate at this point. The Cycle: Frontier, a PvPvE extraction shooter that released on June 8 last year is shutting up shop for good, even though it still regularly hits player counts of around 2,000 and its lead producer once told NME he had "bet [his] career" on making it... Read more.
Greetings, Prospectors. Today we sadly have to deliver difficult news that we are sharing with a rather heavy heart. Despite our best efforts and meaningful improvements brought to the game since launch and up until the release of Season 3, the reality is that The Cycle: Frontier
Greetings, Prospectors.
Today we sadly have to deliver difficult news that we are sharing with a rather heavy heart.
Despite our best efforts and meaningful improvements brought to the game since launch and up until the release of Season 3, the reality is that The Cycle: Frontier is unfortunately not financially viable.
This brings us to the heartbreaking announcement: The Cycle: Frontier will be sunset on September 27, 2023.
This is a very hard decision for us, but after debating it for a long while, we had to accept this is the best course of action for YAGER.
You will find additional details on our reasoning, changes to monetization, and all the upcoming steps towards the sunset in this announcement.
The story of The Cycle: Frontier
When we started developing TC:F we wanted to:
“Offer an approachable F2P extraction shooter, where FPS fans of varying skill experience a satisfying balancing of tense high-stakes gameplay and rewarding progression.”
We first had two closed Alphas and Betas, with decent results. But we were not prepared for what happened next, as our final Beta and official release have been met with incredible success and enthusiasm. Big streamers caught wind of the game and started playing it before hundreds of thousands of viewers. Players started flocking en masse towards The Cycle: Frontier, which caused our servers to blow up and forced us to urgently upscale our infrastructure. In case you’re wondering, that’s a very good problem to have.
All in all, things were looking up for The Cycle: Frontier even though we still had a long road ahead of us.
The general behavior with online games after a good launch is a couple of nice weeks, then a dwindling interest, until stabilization after a few months. During perhaps one of the most important periods of a live game, we faced many challenges. One of them and perhaps the most crucial one was the increasing number of cheaters shortly after TC:F went live. Although we had tools and measurements in place, we quickly realized we needed to improve our anti-cheat efforts to be able to ensure a fair game experience for all players. By the time we got additional partners onboard for our anti-cheat efforts and could focus again on gameplay and performance improvements for The Cycle: Frontier, many of you had already been affected and as a result we saw a significant decrease in our player base.
Season 2 didn’t generate enough attention to kickstart the game again, therefore we’ve critically reviewed if the current state of The Cycle: Frontier was in line with our initial vision. In a word, it wasn’t, so we needed to correct our course. That’s why we announced the end of global mandatory wipes, along with the introduction of free loadout runs, loadout presets and changes to the early game experience, all in an effort to make the game more approachable. Just to be clear, this seemed to convince many players, and we saw an increase in our success metrics with the release of Season 3. Unfortunately it was still not enough to make The Cycle: Frontier financially viable.
Therefore, we are saddened to announce that The Cycle: Frontier will permanently shut down its servers on September 27, 2023.
What’s happening now
In the meantime, we will apply a few changes to the game and its dynamic, to make sure everyone can enjoy everything The Cycle: Frontier has to offer. These include the following:
You will not be able to spend money on The Cycle: Frontier before the servers close. We are also removing our bundles and Aurum packs from Steam.
On Steam, players who don't yet have the game in their libraries will still be able to install it, and everyone is able to play the game until the end of service on September 27, 2023.
The Special Offers in the in-game shop will still rotate daily and weekly but every item will receive a 95% discount or more.
The Premium version of Season 3's Fortuna Pass will be granted to everyone for free upon login. Levels can still be skipped but at a discounted price.
We are making our progression faster than ever.
All details available in our patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3685682069187446227
Refunds will also be offered to every player who made a purchase on The Cycle: Frontier in the past 14 days (from June 14, 2023 at 3am EDT / 9am CEST). Please check out our FAQ page for full details on that.
Also note that we will still provide customer support service until September 27.
Last point, we strongly considered making the game available to everyone, so that it can be enjoyed offline and possibly on private servers. Unfortunately, we had to come to the conclusion this wasn’t feasible. The Cycle: Frontier is a server-based game with a dedicated backend system, which doesn’t allow keeping the game somewhat available after being shut down.
What’s next
Working on The Cycle: Frontier has been an invaluable experience for YAGER. We were presented with the amazing opportunity to work on a unique project and on a large-scale online game. We also were fortunate to make the acquaintance and talk to many of you, to countless players, creators, and other developers.
This experience will not go to waste, of that we can assure you. We are making sure to learn as much as we can from everything that went right and, perhaps more importantly, from all our mistakes and shortcomings.
We will now shift our focus to new projects using all the valuable experience, learnings, and feedback we’ve gathered. Make sure to sign up to our newsletter, follow our official Steam page, and to keep an eye on our official website.
One very last point we want to mention: we are incredibly grateful for all your support and dedication. We do think we’ve created something beautiful but none of this would, or even could, have happened without each and every one of you. We are proud of our community, wish you all the best in your future endeavors and we hope to see you all again. Enjoy your time on Fortuna III and, as always, and now more than ever, don’t forget...
When will servers for The Cycle: Frontier be closed? We will close down our servers on September 27, 2023 at 9 AM CEST / 3 AM EDT. After that, the game won’t be accessible anymore. Why is The Cycle: Frontier shutting down? While the game garnered a lot of attention during the bet
When will servers for The Cycle: Frontier be closed?
We will close down our servers on September 27, 2023 at 9 AM CEST / 3 AM EDT. After that, the game won’t be accessible anymore.
Why is The Cycle: Frontier shutting down?
While the game garnered a lot of attention during the beta phases and had a very successful launch, interest dwindled over the months, and despite our best efforts and humongous improvements brought to the game for Season 3, it is now clear to us the game is unfortunately not financially viable.
Our decision is fully explained in the following announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3685681434321802502
What will happen to The Cycle: Frontier until the servers' closure on September 27?
We will be applying a few changes to the game for the last weeks until final shutdown. Here are some examples of what you can expect:
You will not be able to spend money on The Cycle: Frontier before the servers close. We are also removing our bundles and Aurum packs from Steam and the Epic Games Store.
On Steam, players who don't yet have the game in their libraries will still be able to install it, and everyone is able to play the game until the end of service on September 27, 2023.
The Special Offers in the in-game shop will still rotate daily and weekly but every item will receive a 95% discount or more.
The Premium version of Season 3's Fortuna Pass will be granted to everyone for free upon login. Levels can still be skipped but at a discounted price.
All forms of real money purchases have been deactivated as of June 28, 2023. You will be able to keep any Aurum currently in your possession to spend as you wish until the game’s closure.
Can I expect a refund for my purchases?
Refunds will be offered to any player who made a purchase in the last 14 days preceding the shutdown announcement (from June 14, 2023 at 3am EDT / 9am CEST). Please, take note of the following process:
Refunds will be automatically processed by Steam services without requiring a request. Please make sure to contact their customer support services in case you’re encountering any issue: https://help.steampowered.com/
What will happen to the Discord server and other channels?
We won’t take down our pages but will stop sharing new content on our different social media channels. The Discord server will stay up and running, but at a reduced capacity and with limited support.
Can I still get in touch with customer support?
Yes, our customer support services will be running until the official shutdown on September 27.
Can I get a standalone server for TC:F?
We explored the option to let the dedicated fans of TC:F continue to play the game, however due to the way the backend works it is simply not possible to handover a peer to peer version to you.
What's next for YAGER?
While this announcement is heartbreaking, we are taking all the valuable experience, learnings, and feedback we’ve gathered and shifting our focus to new projects.
Where can I find information about those new projects?
We will make sure to keep our whole community up to date as soon as we have something to share. You can stay informed on any news from YAGER by subscribing to our newsletter, following YAGER on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/developer/YAGER, and through the company’s Twitter account https://twitter.com/yagerdev.
Hey there, Prospectors. Community Team here, under some circumstances that are a bit different from our usual patch notes, since we have some news that isn't particularly grand: The Cycle: Frontier will sunset on September 27th, 2023. We do have an additional blog post that discu
Hey there, Prospectors.
Community Team here, under some circumstances that are a bit different from our usual patch notes, since we have some news that isn't particularly grand: The Cycle: Frontier will sunset on September 27th, 2023. We do have an additional blog post that discusses this in much greater detail and also includes a handy FAQ, but for this post, we will dive into the details of Patch 3.5.0, as it will be our final patch for The Cycle: Frontier. With this patch, we will disable all forms of microtransactions, adjust a handful of systems, balance some weapons, and we've also added some final changes that we hope players will enjoy. While we know that this Patch will be bitter sweet, we here on the Community Team want to extend a heartfelt thank you for all of the support and feedback you have given to us during the development of TC:F.
We hope that you will join us one last time for some prospecting adventures, onto the notes.
Changes
Weapons, Armor, and Inertia
There's a handful of changes here worth mentioning, so we'll take a moment to highlight them! Starting with weapons, after looking into feedback from our players, particularly also taking into account the feedback from 3.4's patch, we know that there are some higher level weapons that people would like to either use more or have seen too much of. We'd like to shake up the meta one last time for Patch 3.5. While these changes may seem minor as we did not do a major balance pass, we do hope that they will impact your choice of weapons that you bring into engagements.
ASP Flechette Prototype
Damage increased from 9 to 10
Voltaic Brute
Penetration increased from 30 to 33
Hammer Prototype
Damage increased from 24 to 25
Shattergun
Movement speed multiplier increased from 0.9 to 1.0
Gorgon
Damage falloff multiplier decreased from 0.75 to 0.70
KOR-47
Magazine size decreased from 26 to 24
Scrapper
Damage falloff multiplier decreased from 0.7 to 0.6
Next on the list of balancing updates is armor. We know that a massive balance pass on armor has been a big request from our players, but we unfortunately lack the means to be able to flesh the system out as much as we would have loved to. With Patch 3.5, we have made some minor changes to armor value in order to make the higher tiered gear feel a little more "worth it" in comparison to it's lower tiers. Those changes are as follows:
Armor Durability
Common, Uncommon, Rare
+100 Durability
Epic, Altered Epic
+150 Durability
Exotic, Altered Exotic
+200 Durability
Altered Legendary
+250 Durability
Helmet Durability
Common, Uncommon, Rare
+50 Durability
Epic, Altered Epic
+100 Durability
Exotic, Altered Exotic
+150 Durability
Legendary, Altered Legendary
+200 Durability
Epic Armor
Armor values increased from 25 to 26
Exotic Armor
Armor values increased from 30 to 33
Legendary Armor
Armor values increased from 33 to 35
Lastly on our list for this section is Inertia, which has been a hot topic with our players for a while now. During the PTS leading up to Season 3, we had made some very minor changes to the acceleration of strafe movements. This change was intended to be a small part of more substantial changes to bring grounded movement more in line with the direction of the game. However, with the game sunsetting and us being unable to expand on that further, we decided after some discussion that the best option was to revert those changes to allow for players to have fun with the Season 2 movement between now and sunset.
The acceleration values for walking, sprinting, and braking deceleration have been increased back to Season 2's values in order to remove the inertia of movement.
Aurum Generation, More In-Match Activities, and Increased Rewards
To make sure players can have fun in the final patch and are not hindered by Aurum, we wanted to increase the Aurum generator's values in order to have it output much more Aurum than previously. At level 1, before the patch, players could earn about 6-7 Aurum over a 24 hour period. Players can now expect to earn around 200 Aurum over a 24 hour period. If your Aurum generator is maxed out, you can expect to generate a little more than 2,500 Aurum per week. We hope that with this increase to Aurum, you will be able to skip Crafting Timers with ease among other things. Additionally, and because we will no longer offer in-game purchases from this point forward, both the Bundles tab and Aurum Offer tabs have been removed from the game. You can of course spend your Aurum that you earn in the game on insurances and skins that are in the rotations. When it comes to progression and rewards, we've made a few changes worth noting:
All IMA Recipes have been made roughly three times easier to craft by costs, time, and materials.
The quest prerequisites for those items have been removed.
In addition, Laser Drills have been brought back to Bright Sands by popular demand.
The Season 3 Premium Fortuna Pass has been awarded for free to all players who did not purchase it before.
Fortuna Pass Level skip cost has been decreased from 150 to 10.
The daily actions cap for the Fortuna Pass has been greatly increased so that players can fully experience the final Fortuna Pass.
Increased acceleration of Fortuna Pass XP for every action (player kills, creature kills, Faction leveling, Quarter Upgrades, etc.)
Increased rewards for all Job completions.
Faction reputation gains from selling Materials to factions have been quintupled (x5)
K-Marks gains from selling Materials to factions have been quintupled (x5)
Daily Gear Crate has been significantly upgraded so that players can reliably get high quality gear/weapons (up to legendary at maxed out status) every day. Note that the quantity of distributed gear/weapons is also increased.
Other Changes
Developer Credits have been added to the game
In-game newsletter has been disabled
Bugfixes
Fixed a stuck spot with a rock formation near East Caverns on Bright Sands
Addressed an exploit at Pinnacle Labs on Crescent Falls
Raised collision mesh present between Rock Pools and South West Collection Point
Fixed an issue with faulty reverb being present at a specific location within Nutrion Farms Processing on Crescent Falls
Fixed an issue with the "Veltecite Poker" melee weapon being misaligned at the weapon preview menu
Fixed an issue with Noise Trap Birds and their audio not properly being synced up when being triggered
Fixed an issue with the "Your Civic Duty" campaign mission's UI
Fixed an issue with the "Dangerous Science" campaign mission's UI
Fixed an issue with the "Time to Punch In" campaign mission's UI
Fixed an issue where the "Not Enough Space" message was displayed when stacking certain items with enough backpack space available
Hello Prospectors! Patch 3.4.0 has been cooking behind the scenes for a little while now, and it's finally ready to be served. Complete with seasonings, a tall drink, and a few changes that might catch your interest, we're following up on some changes from 3.2 and 3.3 while also
Hello Prospectors!
Patch 3.4.0 has been cooking behind the scenes for a little while now, and it's finally ready to be served. Complete with seasonings, a tall drink, and a few changes that might catch your interest, we're following up on some changes from 3.2 and 3.3 while also addressing some issues that have been highlighted by our community. On the menu today will be additional AI changes, a balance pass on some of our early game weapons, the usual stomping of a few pesky bugs and exploits, an adjustment to Tharis storm cycles, and yes, an adjustment to Progenitor Slags. We recently discussed in our Discord Server that we're taking some time to focus on repaying technical debts and relooking into systems to have more flexibility with our code in order to make things more smooth, however a lot of these things are not necessarily "player-facing" so we will use these notes to focus on changes that you will see and experience directly within the game. As always, be sure to let us know what you think of the new changes after you've downloaded the new update, and we will continue to monitor and address them as soon as we can. Onto the notes!
Balancing/Weapons
Weapon Balance, my old friend, it's nice to see you again! As a fun fact from our data, the three weapons that are the most requested to receive a balance pass are the Manticore, AR-55, and C-32 Bolt Action. This is something that we are always investigating and keeping tabs on behind the scenes, but after our feedback from the 3.2 patch, it seemed there were a few weapons that needed a bit more than just a damage value changed, so we've made a few more changes to lightly poke the meta to encourage a nice mix of weapons and keep things feeling fresh with your encounters. The vision that is planted in our brains here is to make sure our early game weapons feel like early game weapons without nerfing them into the ground or making them unusable in engagements with higher-geared players. However, with a TTK this short, sometimes that perfect balance can be hard to find. Having said that, minor changes are the plan for this one, let us know what you think!
Manticore (MK1 & MK2):
Magazine size: 24 -> 22
Headshot multiplier: 1.5 -> 1.4
AR-55(Rusty, MK1 & MK2):
Projectile speed: 36400 -> 34200
PDW (Rusty, MK1 & MK2):
Increased hip shot spread by 15%
Damage falloff multiplier: 0.7 -> 0.6
C32(MK1 & MK2):
Damage falloff multiplier: 1.0 -> 0.7
Matchmaking Changes
We've heard your feedback that something just doesn't feel quite right, and we've noticed it in our matches as well. In order to address it, we've done some deep dive investigating to answer a few questions: Is matchmaking working as intended? Is "beginner matchmaking" working properly? Now this covers a really wide range of variables and not every player's reported issue can lead to the same outlier in the way our game matchmakes, but we've made some major changes to the way our matchmaking registers and removes players on a server, to prevent server over population, which we believe should fix squad separation issues as well. We intend to continue keeping a close eye on this topic, so please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know if you experience or notice any differences!
Anti-Cheat Improvements
Fighting cheating is our number one priority, and we are aware that for some of our players the current state of the game is not ideal. As with every patch, 3.4.0 will contain various backend improvements and tweaks to our anti-cheat formula. In addition, we have added new systems to the game to help detect and prevent the kinds of cheats we have found to be the most common. While we would love to go into detail about exactly what is being changed, any info we give on our methods is unfortunately information that can be used to circumvent those methods. Regardless, we do expect that these changes should have a noticeable effect on the state of the game, and we will be monitoring them closely after they go live and adjusting them as necessary.
If you would like to contribute to the games anti-cheat efforts, reports are always one of the most useful resources at our teams disposal. Simply sending a report in-game can go a long way, and you can also make use of our #reports-and-appeals channel in our official Discord server if you would like to give some more detailed information to our anti-cheat team or would like to include a video clip with your report.
We hope these changes go a long way towards improving your experience on Fortuna, until next time Prospectors!
Changes
Insurance payout timer has been increased from 45 minutes to 6 hours in order to combat a known item duplication exploit
This one is a significant change for us, and we discussed methods to address item duplication in a way that was quick and impactful. This change will ensure the game instance has shut down and all players have left the instance before dishing out insurance reimbursements.
Additionally and for clarity, players participating in this exploit will receive a ban if they are found to be duplicating items. Don't give into the temptation!
We've adjusted tuning of creature proximity senses as a follow up from patch 3.3.0
We've adjusted Crusher and Marauder aggro so that disengaging with the fiercest of terrestrial creatures isn't as difficult. No more Jeffs launching interplanetary acid bombs across the map as you run away clutching your last stim
Storm cycles on Tharis Island have been shortened by lowering the time between storms from 25 minutes to 21 minutes to make forging feel less tedious. Duration of the storm remains unaffected
Slightly increased the probability of receiving Progenitor Slag as a byproduct of forging from 10% to 13%
Decreased the required amount of slags for final safe pocket upgrade from 3 to 2
Windfall's Shop received some swanky new images to showcase item bundles
Bugfixes
Weapon, melee, and consumable textures should no longer disappear after using a throwable consumable. For real though this time
Fixed an out of bounds exploit above Green's Prospect Garage
Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Osiris Research Center
Fixed an out of bounds exploit near the lab at Rock Pools
Fixed an out of bounds exploit at Pinnacle Labs
Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Favela
Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Skeleton Observation Site
Fixed an unintended area near Waterfall Labs
Fixed an unintended area near Korolev HQ
Fixed an unintended area near Rock Pools
Fixed a "stuck spot" at Root Rock Tunnel
Fixed a "stuck spot" at Fallen Tree
Fixed a "stuck spot" at a specific building near Hay Fields
The Howler took a few more aviation lessons and should no longer get stuck on environmental objects
Fixed several hiding spots that could be abused by using certain emotes in bodies of water.
Fixed an area where players could clip through and hide on the Laser Drill
Fixed an exploit that allowed players to climb to the top of the dungeon on Crescent Falls
Adjusted a spawn point on Tharis Island that was a bit too close to AI creatures
Fixed a damage mitigation bug that could occur with the Jungle Bandit archetype
Fixed a rendering/collision issue with a vehicle in Pumpkin Fields
Fixed an issue that allowed players to move while emoting
Fixed an issue with some keybinds not being present when using an AZERTY keyboard. Don't get caught inspecting your weapons too often now though
Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash in the event a Player Report came back with an error
Fixed a exploit regarding Free Loadout Runs and claimed insurances
Fixed a collision issue with a tree root near Pumpkin Fields and Starport Landing Pad. We're prospectors, not termites
Fixed an issue with a weapon's weight being affected by the ammo weight reduction perk.
Fixed an issue with the explosive damage perk reducing damage from storm strikes and fauna damage
Fixed a visual issue with the "Top Tiktok Howler Creators" decal on the station
Fixed an issue where a player would be redeployed to the same map if foamed while disconnected instead of being sent back to the station
Addressed missing localization for the "Email" textbox in the Newsletter (DE, ES, FR, IT, JP, KR. PL. PT, RU, CN)
Fixed an issue with faulty SFX when attacking Blast Ticks with a melee weapon
Fixed an issue with the Fortuna Pass displaying incorrect rewards when skipping levels using Aurum
Relocated a mysterious floating rail at Favela to its proper location
Fixed an issue with broken armor UI still showing the broken icon after being repaired
Fixed an issue causing Error Code ## with some players when dropping
Fixed an issue with squad separation not functioning as intended. You should only see parties of the same size deploying to the planet in Trusted Matchmaking
Known Issues & Things We Are Working On™
While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes and address these as soon as we can.
We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
We are investigating changes to the process of selling items smoother.
Deysnc Issues - we are cautiously keeping an eye on this topic and working with players where possible to investigate these instances.
Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
Additionally for those of you who read our little messages at the bottom, Patch 3.5.0 is scheduled for June 28th, so no need to wonder which Wednesday it'll be! Also, you're wonderful and don't ever forget that.
As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Hey there Prospectors! If you've been wondering if today is a patch day or if this week is patch week, the answer is yes! Patch 3.3.0 is coming in hot and in typical fashion, we're going to dive into the details of what awaits us in this new patch as well as tackle a few Known Is
Hey there Prospectors!
If you've been wondering if today is a patch day or if this week is patch week, the answer is yes! Patch 3.3.0 is coming in hot and in typical fashion, we're going to dive into the details of what awaits us in this new patch as well as tackle a few Known Issues that we're still currently working on. Did I mention the word patch yet?
Let's talk about a big topic - AI Creatures. You've sent us videos, screenshots, we've talked about it directly with players, we've collected feedback on it, it looks like a lot of our Fortuna fauna have been fighting back and in a lot of strange ways. While we may poke fun about a potential Strider uprising happening, they're not working as intended and we would like to start by apologizing for any situations with this topic that have caused you trouble. We've been working quite a bit on peeling back the internal workings of them so that we can figure out what happened and make a sizeable dent in what has become a fairly complex bug. Additionally, you'll find our usual list of bugfixes that we've scooped up along the way, some impactful, some minor, all bugs that need squashed! With that out of the way, let's settle down the surface so that if I want to crawl on all fours like a new creature roaming the surface, I can do so with the confidence that the Striders will think I'm one of them. Onto the notes!
Changes
AI Creatures
We should start by saying that a lot of our changes have gone into the senses of our not-so-friendly friends. They react to a variety of actions, such as sight, proximity, and sound. Some creatures even have what we call "Shared Senses", which means if you alert one of them, they can attract other nearby enemies and point their attention towards whatever they may be alerted by. In this case that would be you, the player! One important change we've made is that creatures will no longer be triggered by sound created while crouching. While you can technically be crouching and be spotted or crouch walk into their proximity range, their ability to detect you won't be caused by sounds made from crouch walking, this should allow you folks that have tried sneaking past an enemy as carefully as possible only to be targeted anyway to feel a much greater reward in approaching these situations cautiously. We've also added more on our end internally so that we can tune the proximity ranges of every creature and their variants individually with ease. These proximity changes have been tuned for all creatures except for the Howler, as we would like to avoid the Howler triggering purely because it flew too close to you while you were safely hidden. On the topic of shared senses, we've made some adjustments here and there to prevent an unending chain of monster aggro. Here's the short version:
If a creature is alerted by a player, its Shared Senses will trigger and alert another creature nearby.
A creature activated by another creature's Shared Senses won't trigger its own Shared Senses and won't activate another nearby creature.
A third creature can be alerted by the fighting caused by the player, which will in turn activate another creature through Shared Senses.
As a note, Striders always have Shared Senses active. They work together in groups, through thick and thin! If you're trying to sneak past Striders, alerting one of them can still alert the rest of the group if within Shared Senses range.
The goal here is to improve your interactions with the creatures so that you feel less punishment for trying to get by through situations that on paper sound totally doable by improving a few areas and tackling situations where chain-sense-reactions occur. It is important to note that we are still very much invested in this topic and monitoring lots of encounters with the E in PvE. Will this change create more fairness around the topic of AI Creatures? Have you found that this change has made it easier to use stealth to get past enemies undetected, or have you noticed any other effects of this change on gameplay? Give it a try, continue to share with us any strange encounters that you see so that we can all stay synced on the state of AI Creatures, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.
Stash Size and Player Quarter Upgrades
You don't have room for your belongings, we don't have room for ours, we hear you loud and clear. Something that we've noticed is that players need more stash space during the early game and less stash space during the end game, this is due to the early game being very hoarder-heavy, collecting things that you know you will need for upgrades while also cramming anything into your backpack that you might need later down the line. While we know there is lots of room for improvement and features we'd love to add, something we wanted to do was adjust and revaluate how our Stash Space Upgrades are distributed within our Player Quarters. We've reshuffled these values and while the beginning and ending stash sizes remain unchanged, upgrades that will increase your stash size more significantly will now happen much earlier in Upgrade tree. Here's a detailed table with all of the values that have changed:
Quarter Upgrade Level
Previous Stash Increase
Previous Stash Total
3.3.0 Stash Increase
3.3.0 Stash Total
Change of Stash Size
Base
0
90
0
90
0
1-1
10
100
15
105
+5
1-2
10
110
15
120
+10
1-3
10
120
15
135
+15
2-1
10
130
15
150
+20
2-2
10
140
15
165
+25
2-3
10
150
15
180
+30
3-1
10
160
15
195
+35
3-2
10
170
15
210
+40
3-3
10
180
15
225
+45
4-1
15
195
10
235
+40
4-2
15
210
10
245
+35
4-3
15
225
10
255
+30
5-1
20
245
10
265
+20
5-2
20
265
10
275
+10
5-3
20
285
10
285
0
Twitch Drops Compensation
Oh, for the love of Drops! We've run a handful of Drops Campaigns from launch until now, and while they have for the most part gone smoothly, we do know that there are some edge cases with players out there who have Drops that were permanently unclaimable. While we will continue working with all parties involved to resolve these issues, we have additionally created what we're calling a Drops Compensation Crate. This is a crate that will be manually delivered by our Community and Player Support teams while we work to improve our campaigns so that these errors occur less. Here's what you can get if you're one of those impacted players:
20 ICA Scrips
20 Korolev Scrips
20 Osiris Scrips
10,000 K-Marks
1x Blue Shield
1x AR-55 MKII
1x Scarab MKII
10x Blue Stims
Our goal here is to cover a fair portion of the lost "randomized' drops, while also being mindful of our economy and the factor that not all players are missing the same drops. So, we carefully calculated the worth of what could be missing and what you can get for the trouble. To claim yours, please have all proof of Twitch/Game Account and Drop ownership ready and send it to our Community Team or our Player Support (https://thecycle.game/support-station) and we can compensate you once we have verified that you have unclaimed drops in your account. Additionally, we will be keeping a close eye out for false claims and taking action in that event, so no funny business! Please only reach out if you have unclaimed Drops in your Twitch Inventory. For any Drops that contained in-game cosmetic items, please reach out to either of the roles mentioned so that we can continue to address this topic and make sure that everyone who put time into earning those Drops does receive the item they were meant to have. Thanks and our apologies for the technical difficulties.
Miscellaneous
Further adjustments and additions to our anti-cheat detections and preventions
Added UI element to Jobs & Mission tab to indicate when rewards can be claimed
Implemented reward animation for items claimed from Delivery Station
Howlerbusters Top 10 leaderboard has been added to Prospect Station
Revamped some tooltip descriptions for items to give better hints towards how to find certain items like Howler syrinxes, resin guns, shock absorbers, shard slicers, sample containers, etc.
Added UI indicator in the inventory screen for armor that has passed a certain durability threshold to better remind players to repair shields and/or helmets before deploying
Added popup indicator will display if setting changes require a game restart to take effect
Added some missing localizations for a few of our UI elements
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue causing some players to receive Error Code ## when dropping to Fortuna
Fixed a bug that caused some items from the "Fortuna Veteran" DLC pack to not properly appear
Fixed a bug with the howler's animations when transitioning from it's sleeping state to its combat state
Fixed some buggy map geometry near Osiris HQ on Prospect Station
Fixed some heads from the Grim Hunter skinset having misaligned meshes
Fixed an issue that caused a sound effect to be spammed too often when repeatedly inspecting the "Tempest's Blade" melee weapon
Improved contrast on the description text for Spray cosmetics so that the names are easier to read
Fixed some lighting issues in the Storm Pillar area on Tharis Island
Fixed some faulty collisions on the stairs in Osiris Labs
Fixed an exploit that allowed players to get into the Fortuna's Favored Bar without unlocking it first
Fixed an issue causing items to occasionally be unstackable in the forge if all 5 slots were occupied
Fixed a small bug that caused the lamp posts in Korolev Quarry that caused them to look too bright
Fixed an issue with the safe pocket UI sometimes getting slightly cut off
Fixed an issue where the localization would not properly update for one of our graphics settings
Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause the head on the "Cave Explorer" Prospector to clip through their helmet
Fixed a spot in Jungle where players could sometimes fall through the map
Improved some visual issues with the fences on Prospect Station
Item meshes will no longer disappear when switching between consumables and weapons. Finger guns are fun but not practical for prospecting
Fixed issue with missing gun and melee weapon meshes.
Landscapers have made a round with grass glue to fix floating plant textures and filled a few holes in maps
Kawaii weapon vanity will now display properly in match on Mk II and Prototype weapons
Fixed an issue with unpurchaseable attachments disappearing when purchasing and equipping a Loadout Preset
Fixed an issue that caused Scrips to disappear from Stash when equipping a Loadout Presets that contains a higher amount than available
Monarch player archetype will now be equip able from the player customization menu
Fixed issues with the Monarch player archetype and Cave Explorer basesuit items
Stuck spot behind the drop pod near deploy terminal on the station has been removed
Fixed several stuck spots, out of bounds areas, and spots not intended to be accessible
Lightning will only strike the surface of Tharis Island and will no longer strike inside of caves
Vadim Tanayev visited an oral surgeon to have his tongue properly relocated inside his mouth
In the unlikely event that a player falls down through the map, they will be teleported back to the surface thanks to the power of science, magic, friendship, or whatever deus ex machina device of your choice.
Players will no longer spawn within aggro range of creature pathing.
Fixed shader glitch when using epic settings with DirectX12 enabled
Fixed VFX on Gorgon holographic if player is idle during a match
Fixed issue with Howler loot disappearing before its intended timer ends
Howler will now drop items when killed as intended
Free Loadout gear can now be equipped when un-equipping "Your Loadout" reaches exact item capacity in the stash
Red kill markers will only display when Elite Strider's health is fully depleted
A tailor visited Badum to help his clothes fit a little better
Added missing timer bar for Player Quarter upgrades
HexCage vanity skin will display properly when dropping the C-32 Bolt Action from loadout
Fixed an issue causing failure to load player into station and be stuck in loading screen when launching the game on Steam
Updated animation when unequipping scanner to better match correct unequip speed
Fixed faulty textures when viewing trees near Jungle Thermal Ponds when observing from a distance
Prospector model will now hold the Party Blade melee properly when viewing in the character preview screen
Known Issues & Things We Are Working On™
While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes and address these as soon as we can.
We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
We are investigating changes to the process of selling items smoother.
We hear your feedback about matchmaking and your experience with other players that you're encountering and are investigating all instances surrounding the topic.
Deysnc Issues - we are cautiously keeping an eye on this topic and working with players where possible to investigate these instances.
Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
CPU usage spikes seem to be back for some players.
Some keybinds can be unbindable on AZERTY keyboards
As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Hey Prospectors! When there’s something strange, in the neighb- yeah okay, I’m not doing that again. You get it anyway, we’re gonna talk about our Howlerbusters event. After all, our challenge ended over the weekend, which means you could stop shooting those big nasties, but also
Hey Prospectors!
When there’s something strange, in the neighb- yeah okay, I’m not doing that again.
You get it anyway, we’re gonna talk about our Howlerbusters event. After all, our challenge ended over the weekend, which means you could stop shooting those big nasties, but also probably shouldn’t, especially if they’ve caught your scent.
More importantly, that means we have our final list of winners, our big pantheon of who will be crowned the best Howlerbusters on Prospect Station. Wanna know if you made the cut? Sure, I guess we can share that with you.
And the winners aaaaaaaaaare
Congratulations to all of you! Your names shall be etched forever on the timeless bastion that is Prospect Station - more news about where specifically in a future update.
If you didn’t make it to the hall of fame, then despair not, for we have an additional surprise for the remaining hunters out there. Prospectors who have killed at least 10 Howlers during the challenge will each receive a special cosmetic reward as a participation prize. Expect to receive that in our next update!
If you're unsure of your personal tally, you can still check out our full leaderboard on our official website.
Full leaderboard: https://thecycle.game/howlerbuster
Hope you enjoyed this little competition, Prospectors. Keep an eye out for what we have in stores for you!
Until then, take care of yourselves, enjoy the surface, and...
… oh why do I have this random tune stuck in my head right now? Na na na na na~
Hey Prospectors! We've had a quick hotfix today to take care of a few issues that arose with last week's update. Here's a short log of what we've looked into! Changes Increased the drop rate of Howler Syrinxes, after realizing even the most dedicated Howlerbusters were having tro
Hey Prospectors!
We've had a quick hotfix today to take care of a few issues that arose with last week's update. Here's a short log of what we've looked into!
Changes
Increased the drop rate of Howler Syrinxes, after realizing even the most dedicated Howlerbusters were having trouble getting their hands on some.
Drop rate during normal weather increased from 1% to 3%.
Drop rate during storms increased from 5% to 10%.
Toned down the loot table for Military Boxes found in the Osiris Research Center. They should now contain more balanced stuff overall.
Bug Fixes
Fixed part 18 for "Race to the Bottom". It can now be completed properly.
Fixed Orbital Cannon Beacons, they can be crafted at crafting stations again.
Changed how some data is recorded on our ends, to try and get a better look at our current performance and spawning issues.
Thanks for your time and patience, as usual. Have a great day and enjoy the surface.
Hello Prospectors! Community Team here once again to drop a virtual pile of papers on that corner of the internet to make up a little something we call Patch Notes. Yes, this first sentence was unnecessarily complicated and we won't even apologize for it. This time, we'll be talk
Hello Prospectors!
Community Team here once again to drop a virtual pile of papers on that corner of the internet to make up a little something we call Patch Notes. Yes, this first sentence was unnecessarily complicated and we won't even apologize for it.
This time, we'll be talking about Tharis Island, your feedback on MK II weapons, as well as some other changes that should push us in the right direction as we continue to navigate throughout Season 3. We've also got a hefty list of bug fixes for visual issues, localization issues, and a whole lot more. Come check out all we have in store for this patch!
Changes
Tharis Island
Grab your favorite space hammer and get ready for some space forging, 'cause the gates of Tharis Island are now open again! Notice how every word can sound more sci-fi when you just put "space" before them?
This map can be accessed after progressing through faction quests, and contains a very powerful tool known as the Alien Forge, which allows players to apply perks to their gear to make them stronger. Think of it as a crafting station within the map, so make sure to keep a fresh pair of eyes on the back of your head, as you never know who or what may be lurking around the corner.
As far as changes goes, we did some minor tuning to the creature spawning on Tharis - do take the time to share your thoughts with us after roaming the area to tell us how it feels now. Overall though, the bulk of the changes applied to Tharis are about the Alien Forge. We spent a lot of time reading our player feedback on this topic, and we do think we're ready to turn the forge back on and see what happens!
With that in mind, let's dive into the highlights of our Forge changes.
Alien Forge:
The Forge will no longer upgrade the rarity of gear when forging, because of this:
The outcome of forging will always give you the same quality gear that was used as a base for forging.
The forge will only accept Epic, Exotic, and Legendary gear; Rare gear will no longer be accepted.
Base ingots are used with Epic gear and give Epic results. Charged ingots are used for Exotic gear. Supercharged ingots are used with Legendary gear.
You cannot turn Exotic gear into Legendary in the forge anymore, but using Abyss Alloy makes it possible to get Legendary gear with perks on it. This gear can then be used as a base with Supercharged ingots to roll a new set of perks.
It is no longer possible to craft gear without perks on it. Therefore, when crafting gear, you will need to throw in at least one valid perk-bearing material in the required quantity.
In situations where more than one of the same ingredients has been put into the forge (in required quantity), only the first material will be used to reroll perks. Other identical materials will be ignored.
Faster Healing perk can now only appear on helmets, which means it is no longer stackable. The range of possible values for the perk have returned to its original state: Minimum +10% healing speed, Maximum +30% healing speed.
Badum's Final Questline
Our favorite (and only) bartender has been keeping busy since the start of the season and is now ready to offer some juicy opportunities to the more hardened of his protégés. In other words, Badum now offers a new questline specially tailored for end-game players!
These quests will require a good amount of grinding, but lemme tell you, the rewards will be worth it! By completing Badum's final quest, you will gain access to the Fortuna's Favored area, the most exclusive part of Prospect Station. Additionally, you'll be rewarded with a nice Karambit skin and the Tempest Prospector archetype, some of our favorite skins in the game if we're completely honest!
Enjoy the grind, Prospectors. We're interested to see who completes Badum's quest first. Sure, it's not a race, but it can be one if you want it to.
Crescent Falls
We've heard your thoughts on Crescent Falls feeling a liiiiiittle too crowded and have applied some changes as a response. Feel free to drop on that second and check how it feels, we're very interested in hearing your new thoughts!
For the future we would like to tune the different values of the map separately for solo, duo and trio squads. For instance, we're aware 21 solo players behave differently on a map than 7 teams of 3. This however was not possible for the moment, but this doesn't mean further changes won't happen in the future. We will check our data to keep adjusting our numbers if we see a need for that.
Crescent Falls player count has been decreased from 21 to 18, so you all have a bit more breathing space.
Increased the number of EVAC points on Crescent Falls from 2 to 3. That's only one more but also a 50% increase. Perspective is important!
Dropping with a group of 3 means you're looking at 6-7 spawn points for players who will likely stick together. However, when playing alone, you're looking at a much larger amount of spawn points and player engagements. A slight reduction could help alleviate this while we continue to investigate more permanent solutions.
"No Drop" Items
We are currently exploring a new solution to combat trading by marking items as "No Drop" items. We will be testing this out on Scrips for the moment, meaning those can no longer be dropped on the ground and given to another player.
Players trying to bring Scrips to the surface will be notified that, should they choose to drop with some, they won't be able to drop them on the surface from their inventory.
Dropping a No Drop item will result in it being permanently deleted.
Dropping your backpack will cause any No Drop items within it to be permanently deleted.
No Drop items can still be found in on the surface and can still be picked up, as long as they are generated by the game.
After being looted on the surface, No Drop items will never be droppable again.
Weapon Changes
Because we are still early in the season and the meta is still solidifying, we've gone through several smaller adjustments to weapons that have been deemed a bit problematic by the community. We will of course continue monitoring weapon balance after these changes, and you can expect more adjustments to pop up in upcoming patches. These changes are quite conservative for now, as we want to take a closer look at each weapon and see how they perform in their intended role, based on our usual feedback and data.
Those balancing passes will also include armor, as we're getting ready to tweak their stats and durability. After all, we're still looking at implementing armor degradation as a new game mechanics in the near future.
Damage Changes:
PDW damage reduced from 10 to 9.
PDW Mk2 damage reduced from 11 to 10.
C-32 damage reduced from 50 to 48.
C-32 Mk2 damage reduced from 55 to 50.
Rusty AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
AR-55 Mk2 damage reduced from 13 to 12.
Flechette Prototype damage increased from 8 to 9.
Headshot Multiplier Changes:
Manticore headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.
Manticore Mk2 headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.
Looting Experience Changes:
Slightly reduced the chance of finding a PDW Mk2.
Slightly reduced the chance of finding a Manticore Mk2.
New Prospectors
Our Prospector roster is expanding a bit as two newcomers are making their appearance for Season 3, ready to jump straight into the heart of the action. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Artillery and to the Jungle Bandit!
These are some of the nicest folks you will encounter in your adventures. Just... don't ever turn your back on them if you can help it. For, uh, y'know, reasons.
Miscellaneous
Before diving in the meat of the matter, we'd like to start with a quick clarification that left several of our players confused in a previous notice. To keep things simple, please note that matchmaking algorithms based on gear score values are only used for Bright Sands. In other words, gear score is irrelevant for both Crescent Falls and Tharis Island.
While drops in TC:F are meant to be somewhat uncertain, we definitely understand how frustrating it can be to constantly die due to an total imbalance in weaponry before you have a chance to react. To combat this, but still maintain some sense of tension and uncertainty about what you might encounter during any given drop, we will be implementing a form of gear score in combination with a Kills/Deaths ratio when determining a player's Matchmaking Rating calculations. This doesn't mean that you will only see players wearing the same gear as yours in a match, that would limit the nice feeling of overcoming unlikely odds, but it will help keep players more fairly matched and make it less likely that new players will be constantly overpowered while they are learning the ropes.
We are keeping a close eye on the matter and might adjust the systems as we see fit going forward.
Project Fireball Part 7 - Heavy Strider kills needed during the storm on Bright Sands has been reduced from 12 to 6.
The UI for certain shop images have been spruced up.
Fixed terrain near Geothermal Plant area to prevent gear from disappearing in the mud, which was frankly revolting.
Evac ship pilots have received some additional training on bringing Prospectors back to the station safely. Players should no longer clip through the floor when moving instead of evacing.
Fixed a typo in the description for the "In A Deep Dark Hole" mission.
Re-centered the area to call evac around the evac pad between Sparking Pools and Korolev Island HQ on Tharis Island.
Fixed a launch error for some users on the Epic Games launcher.
A disclaimer has been added to the Loadout Preset description that altered gear perks are not taken into account.
Adjusted item mesh for Letium Bio Samples needed for Research Costs Part 5. These should now look different than Sample Containers to prevent any confusion.
The Elite Crusher has visited a laryngologist and its mighty roar can be heard Crusher Caverns agan.
Crusher de-aggro time has been readjusted to be more in line with its intended behavior.
Adjusted rewards from daily Supply Crate packages so there is less overlap with items obtainable through Free Loadout Runs.
Increased the max stack size of Letium from 10 to 20.
Players will now hear an audible cue when armor reaches 0 durability. The shield should play a "shield breaking sound" for both players. Information is power.
Improved the Howler's ability to fight Prospectors who are standing on higher locations. Insert reference about having the high ground.
Added some missing localizations.
Keycards will now be obtainable through Free Loadout Runs, as intended.
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue where Prospectors would appear only as a backpack to other Prospectors. Not quite what we had in mind when we told you to go bag some enemy Prospectors.
Fixed an issue where unknown errors would occur when trying to equip a loadout preset.
Fixed an issue with the Howler staying stuck in investigation mode near buildings. The alternative was to give them a pipe, a magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat, but we went with an actual fix instead.
Fixed an issue with the Howler pushing players out of the evac ship. In other words, we've applied a nerf to the power of Y E E T.
Fixed an issue with Prospector heads disappearing when mixing archetype heads. There are, after all, better ways to stay ahead in the fashion game.
Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not affecting some creatures.
Fixed an issue with players getting stuck during the Supply Crate step in the tutorial missions.
Fixed a UI issue for the Blood Freak skin.
Fixed an out-of-bounds exploit on Tharis Island. We're bound to find them all, eventually.
Fixed an issue with some SMGs being audible far beyond their intended range. Imagine how loud those shots must have been for the ones doing the shooting.
Fixed an issue where the flying droids in the Prospect Station would sometimes, uh, randomly explode. Yeah let's not talk about that.
Fixed an issue that caused the "Osiris Research Center" and "Korolev Quarry Building" locked rooms to not properly reset.
Fixed an issue with rendered shadow for a building on Crescent Falls between Nutrion Farms Processing and Favela.
Fixed an invisible collision issue near a cave in the North Uplink area on Bright Sands.
Fixed an issue with assets failing to render on potato setups lower spec machines.
Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not stacking properly.
Replaced missing tooltip for currency items when redeeming a code in game.
Backpacks will now properly have their weights reduced when placed in a backpack with the weight reduction perk applied. Please keep an eye out for "Backpack Clicker", our next idle incremental backpack-stacking game. (Just kidding. Unless?)
Fixed a visual issue with the Kawaii Scarab skin. Try saying that 10 times very fast.
Fixed a visual issue with the Rebel Reporter Chest piece.
Fixed an area where players could get stuck between Windfall's shop and the launch terminal on Prospect Station.
Adjusted captions to match spoken words from voice lines.
Adjusted collision boxes for the "Tech Ball" on the station between ICA and Osiris.
Fixed and issue with the Golden Key melee weapon where it was not making noise in 3rd person. Random musing, but silent keys would be so very useful when coming home late.
Fixed some icons in the Fortuna Pass being misaligned.
Fixed an issue that caused kills with Howler grenades to not count towards kill quest objectives.
Fixed an issue that caused suppressed Manticores and Scarabs to sound extremely similar to an Asp Flechette. We know Osiris likes cutting costs, but reusing weapon sound assets was a bit ridiculous.
Fixed a wall decal in Prospect Station that would sometimes display on Prospectors that stood right next to it. We have no further explanation to provide.
Adjusted some misplaced assets in the Korolev Faction Building.
Fixed multiple collision issues between ICA and Osiris faction HQs.
Finally called an exorcist and fixed an NPC that would sometimes clip through walls near the Korolev Faction Headquarters.
Fixed an issue where the takeoff alarm for the Laser Drill would sometimes be too quiet, making the whole alarm idea rather moot.
Fixed some visual glitches that would appear near the entrance to the Player Quarters.
For the sake of privacy, fixed players sometimes being able to see through the walls on Prospect Station.
Fixed some rocks on Tharis Island that would sometimes having no textures on low graphics settings.
Fixed issues with asset loading distance on Crescent Falls.
Adjusted audio effects applied to certain voice lines for consistency.
Fixed a localization issue in RU with distinction for words "outfit", "costume", "suit", and "chest".
Fixed a localization issue where Polish strings of text could be seen in Russian localization.
Fixed an issue with the C-32 Bolt Action not properly showing the Hive weapon skin in the weapon preview list when selected using the MK II weapon type.
Fixed a few weapon previews not being properly aligned for prototype weapons.
Fixed an issue where some quests would not properly showcase progress while on Fortuna.
Fixed a clipping issue with Vadim on the station. The man has finally learnt how to sit.
Fixed the Blood Freak prospector skin, so it can be equipped.
Known Issues & Things We Are Working On™
While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes for our next planned patch.
Creature behavior might still have some issues that we are currently investigating.
We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
We are investigating changes to the stash & making the process of selling items smoother.
Deysnc Issues - we are constantly having an eye on it.
Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
The Howler does not always drop loot, which is quite rude.
Your weapon model can become invisible. While invisible guns are cool, this is on our to-do list to fix.
Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
CPU usage spikes seem to be back for some players.
As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Hey Prospectors! If there’s something strange on Fortuna III, if there’s something weird and it looks scary, who you gonna call? Howlerbusters! Wanna join the fight and be immortalized on Prospect Station as one of the best Howler hunters in the prospecting business? Then you’ll
Hey Prospectors!
If there’s something strange on Fortuna III, if there’s something weird and it looks scary, who you gonna call?
Wanna join the fight and be immortalized on Prospect Station as one of the best Howler hunters in the prospecting business? Then you’ll be happy to know we’ve brewed a special community challenge for the bravest trackers among you!
Howlerbusters
The authorities on the station are getting pretty wary of the new threat that’s known as the Howler. Too many reckless Prospectors have now fallen victim to their deadly antics, and they’ve called for a bit of population control as a response.
The incentive? A shot at eternal glory among your peers. In other words, the 10 Prospectors who will have killed the most Howlers during the challenge will have their name on a special leaderboard on the station. You know what to do if you want to grab that fame boost!
The challenge will be up from now on until Sunday, April 30 at 11:59 PM CEST / 5:59 PM EDT. The results will be shared on our channels in the week following the end of the event. We will also provide you with leaderboard updates every Monday & Friday!
Leaderboard can be found here: https://thecycle.game/howlerbuster
Hope you ain’t ‘fraid of no Howlers, ‘cause trust me, they won’t be afraid of you!
Your best Howler memories
On top of our community challenge, we will also be holding a cool TikTok giveaway and competition. The rules are simple: record a cool and funny moment related to the Howler and publish it on your timeline, tagging our official TikTok account in the process.
Official TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecycle_frontier
Our teams will then look at the different videos and decide on their 2 favorites. Those winners will be announced in a special stream on our official Twitch channel and will be added to the special Howlerbusters leaderboard on Prospect Station.
Renown’s not good enough for you and you’d rather have a more substantial reward? We hear you. That’s why every participant will be sent a surprise code as well, keep an eye on your TikTok DMs once the event is over!
Entries to our TikTok giveaway will be accepted until Sunday, April 30 at 11:59 PM CEST / 5:59 PM EDT.
You now know what to do. Time to bust some Howlers everyone!
Until then, take good care of yourselves, don’t cross the stream, and see you on Fortuna III.
Hey Prospectors and welcome to yet another one of our articles! So you really know the drill by now: it’s Thursday, which means it’s time to talk about Season 3. Now I can already tell what you’re thinking right now. Season 3 is already out, for a full week even, and I’m sure you
Hey Prospectors and welcome to yet another one of our articles!
So you really know the drill by now: it’s Thursday, which means it’s time to talk about Season 3. Now I can already tell what you’re thinking right now. Season 3 is already out, for a full week even, and I’m sure you’ve already become full-fledged experts on the new season. And you know what? Fair enough.
But we’re not done juuuuust yet. There’s still some stuff we haven’t talked about in our previous articles, plus it’s not like you’ve been everywhere so far, I’m sure there’s some places you’d be in-Tharis-ted in visiting, eh?
Terrible puns aside (I regret nothing), let’s tackle the last few things related to Season 3.
Our story so far
First things first, a few words about this first week of Season 3. The launch of our new season was pretty smooth and, if what we’ve been hearing is to be believed, you’ve all been enjoying it a great deal. We’re so very glad to hear that and hope you will continue enjoying our game for a good while!
Of course, no road is complete without a few bumps, and we did run into our own array of issues along the way. Fortunately, we were able to fix most of these problems rather quickly. Apologies for the inconvenience!
We started with a quick hotfix soon after launch: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/6195304802943151049
And already had our first patch yesterday: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3727332756615993089
There’s more where that came from of course, so don’t worry and keep those reports coming!
One thing we hadn’t mentioned before launch was our own version of the classic battle pass formula, what you all know by now as the Fortuna Pass. With Season 3 live and kicking, its full contents can be explored freely by our players, but let’s take a quick moment to check what it does contain!
As usual, the Fortuna Pass boasts 100 levels of progression chock-full of prizes and goodies. The first path, completely free, is already pretty tasty. But the other path is even juicier, so make sure to check it out!
Both paths can be completed at the same time and, together, allow you to get your hands on:
14 weapon skins
2 new Prospector archetypes
3 melee weapons
4 weapon charms
4 sprays
3 banners
2 emotes
1 drop pod skin
And a grand total of 975 Aurum
You know what to do. Go and complete that Pass!
A cheap yet valuable welcome
In case you’re hungry for even more goodies – and honestly, I can’t blame you there – we have some more stuff available for you.
We have a sale going on to celebrate the launch of Season 3. It will last for one more week, during which our Welcome Packs are all 25% off. Quite the opportunity!
Last thing, you must have noticed Tharis Island, our third map, is not open for prospection just yet. We’ve made it unavailable for now, to make sure everyone can have a proper fresh start in Bright Sands and Crescent Falls first.
However, time is ticking, and the Forge slowly rouses from its slumber. As such, Tharis Island will open its doors on Wednesday, April 19th, allowing the bravest Prospectors to add special perks to their gear.
And that’s all for today! We’ll be talking more soon, you can be sure of that. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, have a great day and enjoy Season 3.
Hello Prospectors! We hope you've been enjoying Season 3 and that you're getting your fix of the early game grind. We've really enjoyed playing alongside all of you! (If anyone can find an extra Sample Container for me, I would greatly appreciate it - ty ty). More seriously, we k
Hello Prospectors!
We hope you've been enjoying Season 3 and that you're getting your fix of the early game grind. We've really enjoyed playing alongside all of you! (If anyone can find an extra Sample Container for me, I would greatly appreciate it - ty ty).
More seriously, we know that for some unfortunate Prospectors, there's been issues with CPU usage, with vanity items not showing up, and some other visual/technical issues. That's why Patch 3.1.0 right here is dedicated to fixing some of these pesky bugs that made themselves known during our Season 3 launch. A huge thank you to all of our players who reported issues, helped us create tickets, and made us aware of these issues. The next Patch, 3.2.0 should have some more interesting details, but in the meantime, if you're in the mood for some technical chatter, let's dive in and get to work!
Miscellaneous
Fixed the "Rattler Crossing" spray vanity item that didn't match its icon.
Fixed the "Trooper Boots" item that didn't match its icon.
Some items in Windfall Shop's display area were distorted/moving on their own. We fixed these weird instances of sentient haunted items.
Fixed the incorrect UI image for "Authority Operative - Gloves".
Fixed the material on the Honeycomb charm. We want it to look sweet, (get it? 'cause honey?) but it was much "shinier" than intended.
On the Fortuna News Network TVs, a Prospector archetype was incorrectly referred to as Unbound Synth. We sent FNN more accurate information about "The Tempest."
A tree near Woodcutter Camp has been adjusted to be no longer climbable. Knocking on wood it remains as intended.
An exploit near Southeast Uplink on Bright Sands has been fixed.
Turned off flashlights that were staying on after death (while realistic, it was unintended).
AI Fixes
Last known position bug was fixed where AI would constantly get an update to your position
Fixed AI seeing through bushes and some other Geo (This is linked to the last known position bug)
Fixed sense time out so AI will get bored of looking for you quicker (linked to the Last known position bug).
This will continue to get tuned in future patches
Reduced hearing Sense and Shared Sense to reduce mobs being pulled in from very far away for unknown reasons to the player
Increase aggro range slightly, this is so that the AI combat Roar/telegraph happens sooner and the player has a little more time to react
Increased far sight slightly, so AI are still fairly inquisitive when they are looking directly at you
Bugfixes
The 100% CPU usage issue on Prospect Station has been fixed. Huge thank you to our players for making us aware that this was happening!
Debugged the tutorial questline randomly locking up and preventing progression.
Fixed an issue causing creatures to occasionally not spawn inside the Crusher Caverns. Back to no pain, no gain!
Some archetypes did not have the global base suits they were supposed to have.
Some items in a keyroom on Crescent Falls could be looted without using a key. We called a better locksmith and this has now been taken care of.
A hole in the ground in Comms Tower has been filled with collision dirt. No more sudden falls! (Also, "filled a hole with dirt" is one of my favorite patch notes entries so far.)
Fixed coatings that did not properly display their patterns.
Fixed cosmetic items vanishing or not showing in the player's inventory.
Multiple "Rogue Thrill Seeker" base suits were not properly appearing in the character customization screen. Now they are.
The "Gambler - Chest" item will now appear in the character customization screen.
Collecting packages from the Special Deliveries tab won't cause infinite loading anymore. Sure, that was making those deliveries very special, but that wasn't exactly the point.
A faulty collision box in Fallen Tree on Crescent Falls has been fixed.
A faulty collision box near Hay Fields on Crescent Falls has been fixed.
A faulty collision issue near Lagoon on Bright Sands has been fixed.
Applied a fix for players experiencing a black loading screen on startup. After all, a game is better when it can be played!
Fixed a stuck spot in Prospect Station near one of the drop pods.
Fixed a bug preventing players from previewing Authority Operative cosmetics smoothly.
Some floating grass in the swamp has been glued back to the surface, thanks to our special Green Grass Glue™. No, we're not making an ad for this one.
As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Hey Prospectors! We've just applied a quick hotfix to take care of the following issues: Took care of unruly monster aggression. Creatures shouldn't aggro you from the other side of the map anymore. Fixed some matchmaking issues. Fixed a problem with in-game stuttering. Made it s
Hey Prospectors!
We've just applied a quick hotfix to take care of the following issues:
Took care of unruly monster aggression. Creatures shouldn't aggro you from the other side of the map anymore.
Fixed some matchmaking issues.
Fixed a problem with in-game stuttering.
Made it so players who got the Authority Peacekeeper bundle actually got all the items from the pack, as it should be.
We are still looking into some remaining known issues, including the freezes on launch, amongst others.
Thanks for your patience. Have a great day and enjoy Season 3.
Season 3 just started for The Cycle: Frontier and the surface of Fortuna III never looked so inviting. Want to jump in? Then grab yourself a free pack first, before dropping to face the dangers of the planet! The Fresh Fortunes Pack comes with a weapon skin for the C-32 Bolt Acti
Season 3 just started for The Cycle: Frontier and the surface of Fortuna III never looked so inviting. Want to jump in? Then grab yourself a free pack first, before dropping to face the dangers of the planet!
The Fresh Fortunes Pack comes with a weapon skin for the C-32 Bolt Action Rifle, a weapon charm made in a special alloy and a snazzy set of clothes for all your Prospectors. The perfect set to dazzle your opponents with your best looks!
The Fresh Fortunes Pack requires the base game The Cycle: Frontier to be claimed. The pack is available for free until April 13, 2023. After acquiring the pack, log in to the game before April 30, 2023, to claim its full contents. Packs that have not been claimed by April 30, 2023 will expire.
Kintsugi C-32 Bolt Action weapon skin that can be applied to any C-32 Bolt Action you own
Abyss Alloy weapon charm
Leather Thrill-Seeker chest piece
Leather Thrill-Seeker gloves
Tan Thrill-Seeker boots
The pack is delivered to Delivery Station in your player quarters and needs to be claimed in the "Special Deliveries" section.
Season 3 is the best of times to start your prospecting career or dive back into the game. Plus, you'll be looking as swank as ever with this stylish Thrill-Seeker set. Now that mandatory wipes are a thing of the past, new and returning players can expect to join existing players on an equal footing with a rebalanced economy and a lot of new content to discover, like the arrival of the monstrous Howler, the introduction of Mk.II weapons and the possibility to drop with a free loadout, graciously provided by the different factions.
Want to know more? Check out our dedicated article with a full overview of Season 3: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3686799728494602258
Don’t forget the Fresh Fortunes Pack will remain available to grab for free until Thursday, April 13. After grabbing it on the platform, you have to log into the game before April 30 to activate its contents.
What are you waiting for? Go get it, get it now! It's free after all!
See you on the surface, thrill-seekers, and remember – Fortuna Favors the Bold!
Greetings and salutations, Prospectors! What is there to say, apart from WELCOME TO SEASON 3? Actually, there’s still a few things to talk about, so how about we do just that eh? Season 3, full speed ahead This is it; servers are back online and filled with all the content from S
Greetings and salutations, Prospectors!
What is there to say, apart from WELCOME TO SEASON 3?
Actually, there’s still a few things to talk about, so how about we do just that eh?
Season 3, full speed ahead
This is it; servers are back online and filled with all the content from Season 3!
The first thing you will have noticed with the start of Season 3 is that we went through a global wipe – our last mandatory server wipe in fact. From now on, everything you do and acquire is here to stay, until that gets lost on the surface after a brutal encounter with a Howler that is. Choices matter, but in the form of “don’t get killed, my friends”.
Apart from that, we have a large array of new and updated content to offer you all: the aforementioned Howler, weapon variations, Free Loadout Runs, new campaign missions, an updated Prospect Station and a good pinch of rebalancing and bug fixing. If you want to know more, everything is available in the patch notes we’ve published earlier today. Go check’em out if you haven’t already!
But better yet, don’t hesitate to jump into the game right now and experience all these changes yourself. Fortuna III is your oyster, and there’ll be enough pearls for everyone!
48h stream, starting now
We’re having a biiiig livestream to celebrate the release of Season 3! We’ve been live for a while now, technical difficulties aside, but now the pace is picking up and we have a lot to discuss with you all!
We’ll also have a few dedicated slots for some of our partners. They’ll be running around Fortuna III causing general mayhem and having a good load of fun. You know where to go if you wanna see some surface action!
The full schedule is available right here. Don’t be shy, we’ll be waiting for you!
New arrivals in the shop
By the way, we currently have a sale going on for our packs, both old and new. Here’s a quick list of what good offers you can nab as soon as today:
New packs – Offers available until Wednesday, April 5
Lastly, we will also have a new pack available in the shop. And because we understand that you may not want to spend a dime on it and keep your money for the packs mentioned above (right?), this one will be completely free!
More information on the Fresh Fortunes Pack giveaway will be available very soon, so keep an eye out on our channels.
Don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Nothing else to add here. Just go and enjoy Season 3.
Until then, have a good one, keep an eye on the skies, and welcome to the Breakthrough.
Hey Prospectors! Here we go! Season 3 is here and we have some biiiiig patch notes to share with you all. But first, a word from our devs! Have a good read! NO MORE WIPES The final wipe is here! Players will start Season 3 completely fresh and on an even playing field. Season 3 w
Hey Prospectors!
Here we go! Season 3 is here and we have some biiiiig patch notes to share with you all.
The final wipe is here! Players will start Season 3 completely fresh and on an even playing field. Season 3 will be taking you back to the start of the campaign where your prospecting journey began - except you now have all the knowledge of a seasoned, hardened Prospector to carry you. This, however, will be the last of these so-called mandatory wipes we have planned. Our game has been completely overhauled for a permanent progression system, and we will (after this wipe) no longer be forcing you to reset your progress within the game. You will of course keep any Aurum and earned cosmetics associated with your account. Welcome Packs that were previously purchased will also be regranted to you upon logging in for the first time after this last wipe. As a result of this new era, we've updated our in-game texts and descriptions to reflect this change. We could talk about what happened to the Storm Divers, why all of those flyers have mysteriously disappeared, or why the storm has suddenly gone back to normal. But the work of a Prospector is never done and that's a conversation for when you're older. Now get out there, veteran greenhorn, and earn your K-Marks!
FREE LOADOUT RUNS
Free Loadout Runs are coming! If you've found yourself low on K-Marks or maybe you're just starting out and learning the ways of Prospecting, consider grabbing a Free Loadout Run provided by the various factions. On the Deploy menu screens, players will now be met with an option to select your Prospector's Loadout of gear equipped from your stash or select a free randomized loadout put together by one of the factions. If a player has no gear equipped from their own stash, the free loadout option will be selected by default. If you have a loadout already selected from your stash, your prospector loadout will be selected by default. Note that if you choose to take the free gear, any previously equipped gear will be transferred to your stash, assuming there is room for everything. There is a cooldown on how often you can use a free loadout since it takes some time for the factions to put together what they're willing to give you. A timer will be visible on the loadout selection screen to let you know how long you'll have to wait before another loadout becomes up for grabs. Once selected, these loadouts will function the same as the normal loadouts you're used to. Take the gear down to Fortuna III and, if you survive, it's yours to keep. If you don't make it back without needing to be defoamed, that gear belongs to whomever is able to bring it back to the station.
Each faction should provide Prospectors with at least a weapon, armor, backpack, ammo, and health consumables with a chance for extra goodies to be thrown in by way of a 2nd weapon, weapon attachments, additional consumables, crafting mats, keycards, or helmets. Those greedy factions won't be too eager to give away anything too useful however, so these loadouts will more often than not contain white gear with much smaller chances of getting green or blue items for free. These loadouts may not turn your trips to Fortuna III into a walk in the park, but they should give you an extra boost if you're down bad or don't want to risk losing your hard-earned gear while learning the basics.
LOADOUT PRESETS
This is a long requested feature and we are happy to finally give players a way to equip everything they need for their planet-side ventures with one click. You can customize your preset loadouts with your favorite or most-used gear in the stash section of your inventory. When selecting a preset loadout to equip, any weapons, armor, helmets, ammo or other consumable items will be equipped directly from your stash. Any items that are not your stash will be purchased from the appropriate faction HQ automatically, with a popup asking you to confirm said purchase. New descriptions and UI sections have been added to properly teach you how to assemble and equip a preset loadout. When viewing a preset loadout before equipping, icons will display which items are currently available from a player's inventory, which items need to be purchased, and which items are unavailable. Use this feature to quickly get back into the action between runs and spend less time running between the faction shops to pickup the gear you need to achieve prospecting glory.
A NEW THREAT: THE HOWLER
The Howler is a flying insect-like monster that has emerged on the surface. This large and in-charge addition to the game aims to generate new drama and new player stories by overlapping with other events and happenings in the game. As part of our direction to create a game that is as suspenseful as it is fun, we hope that the Howler will add a new layer to the game in a variety of ways. The Howler is our first roaming creature, traveling through the skies from place to place. When it's idle, you can try to sneak past it or remain motionless, in the hopes that it won't hear you. However, once it's ready for fisticuffs, you'll experience a new type of PvE challenge that we'd like to say is somewhere between the Marauder and the Crusher in terms of difficulty. But we wouldn't quite call it a boss encounter either. One thing we know for sure, is that you won't have a hard time finding it, as you should see and hear it coming with relative ease.
In addition to the Howler, a new in-match activity has made its way to you: the Howler Nests. These nests contain Howler eggs that react to sound by simply exploding and expelling a toxic fume into the air that you'll want to steer clear from. However, if you're quiet and patient, there might just be something worth bragging about inside some of those eggs, assuming you can get your hands in there and survive to tell the tale. We hope that this new organic and reactive element will offer new ways to traverse areas of all three maps that were once free of... what
To top it off, both the Howler and Howler eggs will drop unique items that can be used to complete new quest missions, upgrade your player quarters, and craft new items. As a result, you'll be able to create your own Howler Grenades, new throwing weapons aiming to recreate the Howler's signature move: its disorienting shriek. They affect both Prospectors and wild creatures, and we can't wait to see how you put them to use. Sure, we could have just introduced basic flashbangs into the game, but where's the fun in that eh?
The Howler will also come with it's own brand new questline that you will be able to complete with Osiris, are you sure you'll know how to use that?
Consider rallying other Prospectors on the surface if you're trying to take down a Howler in the early stages of the game. If you can put your hunger for gear aside, you and your new teammates might be able to take it down before anyone else. Although considering the usual human greed, we can't promise everyone will remain friendly after the Howler loot has dropped.
THE WAR ON CHEATING
As with every update, Season 3 comes with plenty of backend improvements to our anti-cheat detections and preventions, some big and some small, to help make cheating even more difficult than it already is. For the sake of security we can't go into exact details here, but these changes include better methods of automatically detecting cheats, better tracking tools for our support team to investigate suspicious players, and more obfuscation measures to make the actual development of cheats more difficult. We have also worked closely with our friends at BattlEye to make sure that the game is in top-top shape for the release of the new season.
Since we know Season 3 will also have many players returning to the game, we will give a quick recap on some of the major improvements we've made to our anti-cheat systems since Season 1:
Shielded Matchmaking: Helps give our Trusted players an added layer of security, and makes the creation of alt-accounts much more difficult for cheaters.
Cheating Victim Compensation: Automatically compensates players who fell victim to a cheater once that cheater is banned.
Data Obfuscation: Makes the creation and development of cheats more difficult and time consuming.
A Dedicated Anti-Cheat Team: Closely monitors and quickly reacts to any new threats the game might face.
Third Party Tools: We have worked closely with anti-cheat specialists like BattlEye to add additional layers of security to the game.
Revamped in-game reports: Makes the process of sending reports much smoother, and gives our team more data to investigate cheaters.
And many more backend improvements to our anti-cheat systems...
If you'd like a more detailed look at how we're actively fighting cheaters in The Cycle: Frontier, please take a look at our blog post we made for The War on Cheats: https://thecycle.game/news-and-media/season-3-the-war-on-cheats
And finally here is a quick message from Toast, the Anti-Cheat Community Manager for The Cycle: Frontier:
"Anti-cheat is a constant back and forth battle, one that we are committed to continue fighting in our game. Even though our anti-cheat is in a better state now than it's ever been, we aren't done yet. We are already hard at work on more improvements to the anti-cheat that we will be releasing in 3.1, 3.2, and beyond. The team has already made great strides in fighting cheaters since Season 1, and I truly believe that Season 3 will be the best state the game has ever been in. I am super excited for you all to experience a much more fair and competitive version of the game, and I can't wait to see you all on Fortuna III. Until next time, Prospectors." -Toast
A NEW HOME: PROSPECT STATION UPDATES
Construction crews have been hard at work lately, giving our refuge floating above Fortuna III a facelift. On your next visit to Prospect Station, you will notice all the familiar hotspots have a brand new, if shadier, look. It's pretty likely that a hub for adventurous Prospectors more focused on surviving than sanitation won't be the cleanest place, but that doesn't mean we can't have some nice things. Take a stroll around the new storefronts and investigate all the new activity that will help give more life to the place we all call home. You will find new NPCs roaming about the station along with plenty of neat additions. Try not to get too distracted though, your main job is still Prospecting and surviving.
ECONOMY TUNING FOR NON-WIPING GAME
Removing mandatory wipes means we'll operate on an economy focused on the long term. Making adjustments to how the economy used to function was imperative. As a result, finding and obtaining exotic and legendary items will be much harder than before and early game can be adjusted to feel far less punishing to new players who are just finding their bearings on Fortuna III. We've overhauled many early game quests to feel less overwhelming (but still challenging), in addition to making late-game accomplishments feel much more rewarding. Players will have a chance, albeit a very small one, to find gear with a tier above the area they're in. Leave no stone unturned on the surface, as opening a weapon crate to find a Voltaic Brute, or checking a jacket to find a rare keycard should now feel like a true jackpot moment and get your heart pumping as you make your way to the evac ship. We do not want late-game players to have infinite access to the best gear in the game. Sure, unlocking something great should be a big milestone, but upkeeping high-level loadouts should be difficult, and bringing a full end-game loadout into a match should be a truly special occasion - this is what makes the infinite gear chase more thrilling. This required us to re-think how easily players can re-purchase gear that they have unlocked, and how often, as well as how deep our money sinks are running.
The new challenge for end-game players will be to maintain the ability to run the highest level gear when it makes the most sense to do so. Purchasing weapons from the factions will now also cost faction scrips in addition to their usual K-Mark costs, so completing jobs and quests for each faction will be more important than ever. The loot pool of items that can be found has been updated to encourage players to be more diligent when searching for goodies at various POIs to have that jackpot moment when finding a rare item.
NEW WEAPONS/AMMO: MKI & MKII VARIANTS
The arsenal of weapons available at your disposal will be expanded to accomplish a few different goals. First and foremost, the new versions of the weapons will help cover some of the gaps we previously had in the weapon lineup with LMGs, launchers, SMGs, snipers, and shotguns. This means you will find more rarities of different weapon types to offer more choices of what you can use on your journeys to Fortuna III. This change also gives players an opportunity to use their favorite weapon skins more frequently on more weapons that sometimes became obsolete as you progressed to higher levels.
You will see two different variants of some guns in the form of MkI and MkII weapons. MkI weapons will be lower tier versions of current versions, while MkII weapons will be higher tier versions of their original counterparts. There will be some differences between MkI/MkII and their current versions in the form of damage or penetration values, types of attachments you can use on each weapon, and types of ammo that will be needed for different tiers.
This will also allow us to make the higher tier guns rarer without diluting the weapon pool too heavily, and still give players the 'jackpot' moment if/when you find a rarer gun from a weapon crate.
BALANCING IMPROVEMENTS
Along with the aforementioned economy tuning, some balance changes needed to be made to accommodate the non-wiping systems. The biggest change you might notice is how quickly armor durability will decrease when attacked by other players and/or creatures during fights. This will make prospectors think twice about engaging potential enemies while affecting decisions about what armor is worth the risk for their goals for each match. Don't forget to repair your armor between matches if you want to stay fully protected during runs. We've also tuned some weapons following the addition of the new MkI and MkII weapons, but there will be more details on that in a later section of the patch notes.
Meanwhile, Prospectors will now have more choices for their methods of destruction (or protection) while exploring Fortuna III. Starting capacity of each prospector's safe pocket has been increased from 5 to 9 to help with progression through some earlier questlines and player quarter upgrades have been adjusted to account for those changes. Creature behavior and health have received some tuning to make them a bit less of a pain to deal with in some cases. Standard variants of Striders and Rattlers had their total health reduced and shouldn't be as spongy to damage as previous iterations. The range at which creatures are able to see and hear prospectors has been adjusted slightly along with the amount of time it takes to de-aggro from a target. Be more aware of your surroundings as stealth and sneakiness will be much more important than it previously was if you want to stay undetected.
We have also made some other smaller balance changes as well. Mid-air accuracy has been reduced for most weapons to help make the combat feel a bit more grounded, many key crafting components have had their crafting timers reduced, and there have been changes across the board to loot drops and rewards to help facilitate the new economy. It's more changes than we can realistically list here, so we encourage you to drop down to Fortuna III and discover them all for yourself.
MATCHMAKING UPDATES
Matchmaking is a topic that is often discussed in Discord, Reddit, and Steam forums. More importantly, it's one that we are not oblivious to. During Season 2, we switched things up from using average evac value to using K/D ratio as the main factor for determining the MMR rating used to place players in different buckets. We found that while this was certainly a step in the right direction towards making matches fairer, there is still room for improvement to avoid brand new players who have a good run from being unfairly matched with more veteran players getting blasted by gear far beyond what they have access to. While matches in TC:F are meant to be somewhat uncertain, we definitely understand how frustrating it can be to constantly die due to an total imbalance of weaponry before you have a chance to react. To combat this, but still maintain some sense of tension and uncertainty about what you might encounter during any given drop to Fortuna III, we will be implementing a form of gear score in combination with K/D when determining a player's MMR calculations. This doesn't mean that you will only see players wearing the same gear as you in a match, as that limits the ability to have score big 'come ups', but it will help keep players more fairly matched and make it less likely that new players will be constantly overpowered while they are learning the ropes.
Another big topic of feedback we received regarding matchmaking is how difficult it is to regularly survive when outnumbered during encounters with other players on Fortuna III. With Season 3, you will now find the separation of buckets based on squad size that was originally implemented for Bright Sands during Season 2, now spread across all three maps. This means that no matter what your skill set or what map you choose you should only see other solos as a solo, duos as a duo, or trios as a trio in trusted matchmaking buckets.
EARLY GAME EXPERIENCE UPDATES
We've made another pass on early missions in order to give new players a better overview of what to expect and the basics of life as a Prospector. This includes more detailed explanations of certain tasks and additional tips for features that should become useful when staying alive after gaining the trust of the factions and becoming a full blown prospector.
Returning players will no longer be required to complete the tutorial missions once they've been completed once. They will only appear when launching the game for the first time on a new account During the first drop and tutorial, Prospectors will now hear gunshot sounds to get them accustomed to more of the sounds they should expect to hear during their time on Fortuna III Popups and voiceover lines for early tasks should better inform users of what their goals should be The flow of the early game has been finetuned to make the process run more smoothly as players progress through each task Early game matchmaking has been significantly tuned to better ease new players into the game
SEASON 3 FORTUNA PASS
New Season, new Fortuna Pass! We've got 100 new tiers to grind through, complete with Prospector Archetypes, Banners, Weapon Skins, Sprays, Aurum, Resource Crates, and more! Fortuna pass is chock full of vanity like the last season. We still wanted to give you as many weapon skins as possible in addition to:
2 main characters with 1 extra variation each
Harvester and his twin BloodFreak - they never get along well
Bloodhound and Rebel Reporter - both willing to take any risk to bring you the latest news!
2 new emotes for color Fortuna even more
Three new Melee Weapons
14 weapon skins
Various sprays, charms, banners, and a drop pod
But that's not all!
Crates have been revised, we added some of the MK2 weapons and new ammo for you to test it out
XP rewards and bonuses were slightly tweaked
XP curve is now non-linear and later levels of the pass need a bit more XP than in season 2, but first 15 levels of the pass are not affected at all with this change
NEW PROSPECTOR ARCHETYPES
All prospectors will have a new customizable default base suit, chest piece, gloves, and boots that can be equipped from the character customization screen. Different from the previous seasons; you can now purchase/acquire single outfit pieces like base suits, chests, boots, and gloves. We will still have some of the outfit bundles available next to these new single (ready to mingle) pieces.
This season, we tried to be a little wilder to explore some different effects for almost all the cosmetic types. You'll see some see-through bellies running around with Unbound Synth, wicked melee, charms and weapons that look like they are taken right out of a Howler's gastric - or rather fun and progressive charms, melee weapons etc. We still would like to expand and improve on this! (you know what? if you press U - you can inspect those kick ass weapons, charms, and melee in match. All of our items have their rarity assigned! Get ready for some epic and exotics!
Unbound Synth: A prospector which is perfect for you! Our first less human, more android prospector with a few emotions (maybe none at all) and the strongest dedication
The Artillery: She will be joining the team very soon - after dealing with her internal reckoning
The Jungle Bandit: A sneaky one that thinks adding a couple of bushes makes him look visible - but in reality it just looks dashing! He'll be with us later in the season - still collecting some bushes to perfect it's outfit
Authority Operative: Without any communication with HQ, and without pay, even the Authority's commandos need to earn a living. Where better to put their skills to use than the planet's hellish surface?
FREE DLC PACK AVAILABLE MARCH 30
The Fresh Fortunes Pack DLC will be available for free download starting at 7pm CEST on Thursday March 30, 2023 (10:00am PST / 1:00pm EST / 2:00pm GMT). Keep an eye out for dedicated publication with all details on the pack and how you can grab it!
SEASON 3 SHOP BUNDLES
Like last season, we have 3 special season bundles, each one complete with a collection of clean cosmetics up for grabs!
Are you a fierce Howler Tamer, or patrolling through Fortuna with your buddies to keep the planet in order? Or rather - you just want to shine, be the most colorful out there to show you have no fear that forces you to be subtle? You will be able to get these beauties through Steam and Epic store - as well as through in game Shop under the Bundles tab. We tried to give you the best selections for you to decide your statements in this season. As per usual, there are many new items specifically made for the new season, you cannot believe how much fun we had preparing all those sprays and banners for you! Also do not miss out from all the new melees, charms and emotes! Some of them will make you spit your drink out!
CHANGES
DLSS 3 has been implemented and will be available for those with compatible graphics processors
To make them a more exciting end-game challenge, Laser Drills will now be exclusive to Crescent Falls. They may return to Bright Sands again in the future with some balancing tweaks
The Crusher Caverns have had a massive overhaul, the caves will now be a significantly more difficult end game activity that will take team coordination and top end gear to survive
Prospectors will now take a short ride on the evac ship before fully extracting. Enjoy the beautiful panoramic views of Fortuna III before returning to the Station, but don't get shot
New grenade with the Howler shriek contained inside will be craft-able using Howler loot drops
Added a new weapon inspection feature with new animations to let prospectors check out their cool skins on weapons and melee sets
Players will now have a chance to find weapons with pre-loaded attachments while looting different areas. The rarity of these attachments will determine its chances of spawning
Attachments, consumables, and items all have clear numerical values about how they affect different mechanics
New and updated questlines
Prospectors will now have the ability to redeem promotion codes and coupons directly from the game to receive promotional items without going to their store launcher
Names and descriptions of armor and helmets are now more descriptive of their functions to better fit with the lore
Weapon description texts have been updated to include distances at which the gunshot sounds are audible
Some crafting recipes have been updated to require Howler loot drops
Tharis Island will not be accessible or unlockable by way of campaign missions immediately at the start of the season. As a result, crafting or player upgrades that require items only obtained on Tharis will be temporarily inaccessible until April 19th when the Island will be globally unlocked
A new keycard has been added to the lineup of keycards available
Possibly related to the new keycard, a new way to enter and exit the Forge has been added to Tharis Island. The door can be dangerous so proceed with caution
Keycard availability and durability received an update
Keycards cost has been updated to include a script cost when purchasable from the factions
Player Quarter upgrades received an update to include higher K-mark investment and new recipes for upgrade costs
Gear durability and repair costs have been changed to work better with a long-term economy in mind
New ammo varieties have been added to the loot pool with unique icon for each variety
Fortuna Pass rewards and icons have been updated for Season 3
Badum's First Drop and Welcome Packages have received an overhaul to make the experience as good as possible
A hard limit of 10 million K-marks have been added to cap the amount of K-marks a player can own at any given time
Our favorite barkeep, Badum, will now give Prospectors a unique questline with rewards after completing the FTUE missions which will be available on April 19th
Improved the prevention of players spawning next to each other to give Prospectors more breathing room when they drop onto Fortuna III
BUGFIXES
Fixed a bug where the speed penalty would persist after switching items from a charged heavy melee attack without performing the heavy melee attack
Removed an invisible collision barrier that prevented players from interacting with Osiris faction leader
Items will no longer visually duplicate themselves when sorting inventory or moving items from backpack to stash
Removed unintended access methods for areas above East Caverns on Bright Sands
Invisible post will not stop you from approaching the Fortuna Pass booth on the station
Adjusted the UI display to prevent overlapping of contract screens when multiple contracts are claimable
A very specific tree in Jungle had some faulty animations that have been resolved by our in-house horticulturist
Weapons, tools, and consumables will no longer vanish from your hands when swapping between grenades and other consumables
Players will now be able to successfully leave a party after removing a friend from friends list while in an active squad
Map updates and removal of several exploit spots across all 3 maps
Many, many more bug fixes but too many to list for the sake of saving space
MISC
In-game notification system has been revamped to better notify players of the most important events and actions while playing the game
Players can now sign up for our TCF email newsletter without leaving the game and see rewards before signing up
New key art has been added to the loading screen
New icons and UI images have been added for new in-game items
Discrepancies in vanity descriptions for various items in Windfall's Shop and Fortuna Pass have been unified
Mission images have been updated
Visibility of tool tip information has been improved
Weight and stack sizes for some items have been adjusted
New Emotes, sprays, character cosmetics and weapon skins will be available from the Fortuna Shop and Fortuna Pass rewards throughout the season
End of season widget has been updated in accordance with no longer having wipes each season
UI Tooltips have been adjusted
New icons have been added to the Feedback section of the menus
Added a UI element to clarify that player's are able to return to a map at any time once it has been unlocked
KNOWN ISSUES
We are currently investigating an issue that causes some crashes when using NIVIDIA 40 series cards on the Epic Games Launcher. A fix will be pushed as soon as it is ready
Sometimes the Crusher Caverns can have issues spawning mobs (or spawn too many mobs), if you encounter this issue please reach out to a community manager with your prospect.log files
There are some cases where a player can get stuck on a Badum FTUE task. A simple restart of the game should resolve that but our team is working on a more permanent fix
Some of the emotes are not previewed correctly in various screens like Fortuna Pass, Special Offers etc. You can still fully see all the amazing moves and our little Leafling, Marauder etc in the station and in match but we will look into how to best preview them
Some of the new items with additional effects are missing an indicator on the icons to imply so. Once you go to the preview or see them in game - you'll be amazed (and we'll be fixing that little marker issue)
That's all for now, prospectors! Thank you all for your support and feedback over the previous 2 seasons, we hope that Season 3 will be fun, exciting, tense, and we cannot wait to see the stories you and your fellow Prospectors create when you drop back down to the surface.
Additionally, we're having a 48 hour livestream to celebrate the launch of Season 3. Stop by our Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/yager_development) and say hello!
Also don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
As always, don't forget - Fortuna Favors the bold!
Hey Prospectors! We’re getting there now; time is ticking, and the end of the month is here. Which means one important thing: Season 3 is launching as soon as next week! If you need a quick reminder of what to expect for the new season, we’ve prepared a small summary of all the i
Hey Prospectors!
We’re getting there now; time is ticking, and the end of the month is here. Which means one important thing: Season 3 is launching as soon as next week!
If you need a quick reminder of what to expect for the new season, we’ve prepared a small summary of all the information we’ve been dumping on you these past couple of months. Great way of refreshing your memory before the big day, or better yet, take a first look at all this info if you haven’t kept up with our updates.
Have a good read!
First info about Season 3 and the end of mandatory wipes
Where we talked about the removal of mandatory server wipes and the economy changes that would accompany that decision. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/5252919611947036646
Free Loadout Runs™ and matchmaking updates
Where we talked about dropping on the surface with free loadouts from the factions and how we keep finetuning our matchmaking settings. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3664276023008006263
The Howler, next big threat on the planet
Where we talked about the arrival of the Howler, a new flying monstrosity that's ready to wreak havoc. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3650765858468171758
The War on Cheats and all our progress against them so far
Where we talked about all our actions against cheating so far and how we'll keep fighting the good fight. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3650766491919086605
Upgrades to Prospect Station, the home of your dreams
Where we talked about how the station will get a nice facelift to look grimier, seedier but mostly cooler. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3650767125370207806
The introduction of Mk.I and Mk.II weapons
Where we talked about weapon variations that will be added to the game's arsenal. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3646264166720116302
Feedback from our recent Public Test Server
Where we talked about player feedback received from our PTS days a couple of weeks ago. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3672161126002083217
Oh, and of course, don’t forget our end of season event will be running for a few more days, until Season 3 hits the shelves with our very last mandatory wipe. It’s a great way to revel in pure mayhem and try out some of the rarest weapons, so don’t hesitate to jump in for a bit of fun! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3711568253850136114
Short one, but that’s basically it for today. Next time we meet, it’s Season 3 all the way. We’ll sure have a lot to talk about.
Until then, take good care of yourselves, enjoy the Storm Diving, and catch you all next time for Season 3.
Now calling on all the thriftiest Fortuna folks who love bargains and great deals! The seasons are turning, which means it's time for the Steam Spring Sale. And we've sure got some sweet goodies on our shelves, ready to send you straight into Spring with style! Two of our awesome
Now calling on all the thriftiest Fortuna folks who love bargains and great deals! The seasons are turning, which means it's time for the Steam Spring Sale. And we've sure got some sweet goodies on our shelves, ready to send you straight into Spring with style!
Two of our awesome DLC packs are currently available at a discounted price through the end of the Steam Spring Sale on March 23. With a 35% discount on the Prime Time Bundle, which includes more than 70 different combinations of head gear and masks, and a 40% discount on the Fortuna Veteran pack, there is no time like the present to grab some special swag and give your favorite Prospectors a fresh look for Season 3!
Oh, and don't forget to check out our end of season event that started on March 15. It will run for the remainder of Season 2, until maintenance for Season 3 and the final mandatory wipe kicks in. The new season starts on March 29, and we're excited to see all you Prime Time and Fortuna Veterans explore the bounds of Fortuna III very soon.
Greetings and salutations, Prospectors! We’ve just had an update today and, since the clock is slowly ticking towards the end of March, you all can guess that this will be the last update for Season 2. But this season isn’t over quite yet and that’s exactly what we’re going to ta
Greetings and salutations, Prospectors!
We’ve just had an update today and, since the clock is slowly ticking towards the end of March, you all can guess that this will be the last update for Season 2. But this season isn’t over quite yet and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. And if you’ve seen our patch notes from earlier this week, you probably know what to expect in this announcement.
Distinguished Prospectors, let me introduce you all to Storm Divers, our new end of season event!
Okay, so what’s this all about? Storm Divers is the little name that’s given to Prospectors who bravely (and perhaps foolishly) decide to drop onto the surface at a time where the Cycle is at its apex. Because yeah, that’s what’s happening here: the storms are raging strong and more often than ever.
For the duration of the event, Cycle storms will happen a lot more frequently, making the surface a lethal playground for those unwary of the elements’ fury. At the peak of each storm, lightning will strike strong, fast and, more importantly, often. Expect to up your dodging game as skies rain death if you want to come back from a dive alive. At least, each of these storms won’t last as long as they usually do.
Bolts of the violent electric kind aren’t the only gift you can expect from the heavens though. Plenty of meteors will also join the party as they land on the beautiful Fortuna III one after another. And sure, this will make the surface even more dangerous, but think of all the loot and riches you can get from those. After all, Divers aren’t putting their lives on the line for nothing!
The Storm Diver Survival Guide
Authorities are well aware that Storm Divers are taking considerable risks and are willing to support them in their endeavors. I mean, you’ll still pretty much do all the work, but at least they’re pitching in a little something for once.
Divers can expect to find a little gift on arrival whenever they plunge, as a gear crate will be available right next to their drop pod. This crate will contain a couple of items that will help survive the tempest, like night-vision goggles and storm-resistant armor. These will be entirely free, so don’t be shy and nab them as soon as you land!
And of course, I guess the best way to survive the apocalypse is to just not participate in it. The event will only be active on Crescent Falls and Tharis Island. As a result, Prospectors who don’t want to dive will be able to experience the game as they usually do on Bright Sands. We hope you will all appreciate the option to opt out.
A reaction from the station
You know what happens whenever something out of the ordinary arises around the planet: the factions want a piece of it and they’re willing to pay for it. New event-specific questlines will be available from the different faction leaders. These will come with their own flavor of permanent cosmetic rewards, so make sure to tackle them before the end!
The usual greed aside, the whole station is readying up for what’s to come and is willing to lend a helping hand towards courageous Prospectors. Crafting recipes have been adjusted towards the accessible side and crafting timers have been significantly reduced. On top of that, several armors, weapons and attachments can now be crafted using a new event-specific currency. Cherry on top, items sold to the factions will yield a larger amount of K-Marks and faction points than usual.
Everyone on the station is psyched up for what’s to come, and we hope you will be as well!
The last nooks and crannies
There are a last few details about the event that we’ve decided to cram into bullet points. Here you go, eat your heart out.
Tharis-specific changes
Reduced the amount of ingots required to use the Forge from 3 to 1.
Timers for the Forge have been drastically reduced.
Also slightly reduced the chance of side products appearing when using the Forge.
In other words, go grab your favorite hammer and start forging away like there’s no tomorrow!
Other general changes
All details about the event are available in Badum’s Codex.
Dawn, Day and Dusk phases have been shortened, so Night can reign supreme.
On that note, visibility during storm phases has been increased, for the sake of your eyeballs.
Prospectors will enjoy a 60-second grace period from lightning strikes after dropping on the surface, to make sure no one will be zapped while the game’s loading.
Loot tables have been generally adjusted to the event.
The “Incoming Storm” warning timer has been reduced to 3 minutes to avoid interface spam.
Added several voice lines related to the event to Badum’s repertory, so you can enjoy his beautiful booming voice that much more.
Added localization for event-specific text.
That will be all for the Storm Divers event! We hope you’re as excited as we are to dive into the bumpier side of Fortuna III.
The event will last until the start of Season 3, on Wednesday, March 29. Remember that this will be our last mandatory wipe, so go ham on your resources and enjoy your silly fun!
Until then, take care of yourselves, don’t get zapped toooo often and have a great day.
