Hey everyone, we wanted to update the community about the latest gameplay patch as well as fill you all in on what’s been going on with the team during the latest development cycle.
As always, in the days following new patches, the team will be closely monitoring performance to squash new bugs that pop up.
UPDATES FROM THE STUDIO
- While the Vietnamese branch of Red Jake Studios was out of the office for the Lunar New Year, the Coronavirus appeared in Asia, with confirmed cases arising in the city of Red Jake Studio’s offices. The disease impacted some team members’ travel arrangements, but thankfully, all team members are now home safely. Our thoughts are with those affected by the virus, which has resulted in the largest quarantine event in history (approximately 46 million people at the time of this writing).
- One team member was in and out of the hospital with a health issue. Thankfully, the team member is making great progress on their recovery, and is easing back into work.
- Development on new assets, the community server tool, map editor, and new map have steadily progressed. We’ll have additional details and launch dates for these features as they approach release.
- The team is coordinating with Dreamhack to reschedule Tip of the Spear’s indie rumble appearance for later in the year to allow for additional polish and development. The staff behind Dreamhack is absolutely top-notch, and their passion is incredible.
- Going forward, the team is opting to develop bigger patches over longer periods of time like the one rolled out today. This allows us to tackle more work with each patch, and also allows the team extra time for QA.
Despite some unexpected obstacles, the devs have absolutely crushed it and delivered a major update we are very excited to share with you all.
We apologize that external communications slowed in order for the company to prioritize team members’ health and well-being. Rest assured the Red Jake Studios staff is always reachable via email or social media for urgent needs, and game development is always progressing, even if things seem quiet externally. The team has continued to read and monitor all social media chatter. We remain committed to regular engagement with the community, and will always deliver at least one blog post per month during Early Access.
NEW PATCH – EARLY ACCESS VERSION 1.6
A new patch, version 1.6, is now live! The update includes a new game mode, major updates to the medic class, considerable refinements to sniper rifles, a re-balancing of explosives, and numerous quality of life fixes. Read on for more details.
GENERAL UPDATES:
- Deathmatch added as a game mode. Includes three maps at launch: Airbase, First Fall, and Narco’s Den.
- Switching from from Prone to Crouch and Prone to Standing is significantly faster.
- Round stats are now retained when players leave and rejoin a room before the round ends.
- “Auto run” can be enabled via Scroll Lock key.
- Death screen now features a fixed, rotating third person camera view until players respawn or are revived.
- Smoke from smoke grenades now renders at all distances to ensure concealment from sniper scopes and binoculars.
- Chat removed from spectator mode.
- The CTRL key can be held to use a weapon’s integrated grenade launcher.
- The CTRL key can be held to use the medic syringe.
MEDIC UPDATES:
The Medic class has received a massive update in this patch. We heard the community’s feedback loud and clear, and have made the syringe a standalone gadget.
- Medics now equip the syringe as a standalone gadget to administer aid (as opposed to using an action button to revive teammates).
- Medics can now restore teammates’ health to 100% with a jab of the syringe.
- The Medic’s crosshair turns green when a teammate can be healed or revived.
- Medics can revive teammates while running (just look at your teammate’s body and press the heal button when the crosshair turns green).
- Medic revives are significantly faster.
- Revived players’ screens turn blue to indicate they’ve been revived.
- Revived players now come back with 100% of their health.
The amalgamation of updates to the Medic class creates a new tactic, medic chains, for teams to leapfrog their way to objectives by reviving dead teammates and leveraging the spawn armor from revives. Medic chains add a new level of depth and provide a crucial element that was missing from competitive play.
SNIPER RIFLE BALLISTICS:
A number of enhancements were made to the Sniper class to increase its lethality at long range:
- Improved shot registration for sniper rifles.
- Increased velocity for all sniper rounds – round velocity now matches the real life values of the respective sniper rifles.
- Range elevation adjustments are now unique for each weapon.
- M21: 800 meters maximum elevation adjustment.
- .50 Cal: 1,000 meters maximum elevation adjustment;
- L96: 1,200 meters maximum elevation adjustment.
- Reduced accuracy when shooting unscoped/from the hip with a sniper rifle.
- Removed crosshair when shooting unscoped/from the hip with a sniper rifle to improve pistol utilization and emphasize sniper rifles’ purpose for long distance engagements.
EXPLOSIVES REBALANCING:
Loadouts featuring explosive weapons were rebalanced to add greater depth to the Assault class and reduce spamming of explosives.
- Removed the standalone M203 launcher from the Gunner class.
- The standalone M203 gadget cannot be equipped if a player‘s primary weapon has an integrated grenade launcher.
- The M4/203 and F90(G) were removed from the Gunner class.
- The Gunner class only carries 1 RPG.
- The Gunner class now has 3 frag grenades (down from 6) and 2 flash bangs (down from 5).
We will be keeping a close eye on 40mm grenade utilization now that it is exclusive to the Assault class.
BUG FIXES:
- Fixed performance issues for AMD FX Series hardware.
- Resolved server crash bug (caused by claymore cap not properly resetting at the end of some rounds).
- Resolved miscellaneous fatal errors.
ROADMAP PRIORITY
The development team is prioritizing the following roadmap items:
- Community server tool (host and manage your own server)
- Community map editor (use pre-existing terrains and assets to create your own levels)
- New assets for the map editor
These are ambitious features that the team is carefully crafting and thoroughly testing to ensure they are stable upon release.
New maps are also in progress, with Viper’s Nest entering testing soon. We will have a preview of new assets and the Viper's Nest terrain in the coming days. Here is a sneak peak of some work in progress:
