Content Drop - Tools of War

Rejects!

Here are the patch notes for the Tools of War Content Drop which just went live on Steam, and will be out shortly on the Microsoft Store.

New Features

Blessing Details

• You can now see Blessings you haven’t earned yet for Re-Blessing at the Shrine of the Omnissiah. This will appear in both the Weapon Card details view and the item list that appears in stores, your loadout, or at the Shrine itself.

New Weapon Marks

• Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword - Force Sword with a focus on single target damage and precision stab attacks.
• Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword - Force Sword with a focus on horde management. When charged with Warp Energy it cuts through groups of enemies with increased power.
• "Brunt's Pride" Mk II Bully Club - A more basic Vanguard and Relentless move set that can be mixed up with slaps and punches.
• "Brunt's Basher" Mk IIIb Bully Club - Send opponents flying with tanky uppercut swings or strike them down with lethal Strikedown combos.
• Munitorum Mk VI Power Sword - A Power Sword with a more varied moveset.
• Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer - A Thunderhammer slightly more capable of dealing with several enemies. It can cleave through multiple light enemies before dealing the obliterating blow while activated.
• Gorgonum Mk IV Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber - An even heavier Heavy Stubber. Hard hitting, slow rate of fire.
• Achlys Mk VII Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber - A relatively light twin-linked Heavy Stubber that has increased mobility and is preferably used at a shorter range.
• Agripinaa Mk VII Combat Shotgun - An accurate and fast-firing long-range Combat Shotgun with a boost to weak spot damage. It can also be loaded with a powerful and hard-hitting single-shot slug round.
• Kantrael Mk IX Combat Shotgun - A powerful and aggressive Combat Shotgun with a wide spread and high damage. It can also be loaded with an incendiary round that sets enemies ablaze.

New Conditions & Condition Combos

Shortly after the deployment of Tools of War, new mixtures of Conditions will be seen for the next month as we try out a variety of combinations together. Each week will see a different combination, and the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) will also see their own mixture. We'll be regularly reading feedback on these conditions and their combinations, so please let us know what you think! The combinations we will we trying out are:

• Shock Troop Gauntlet - Specialist spawns are doubled and spawn in waves.
• Ventilation Purge with Snipers - Fog covers the mission, and snipers will guard random locations in the mission.

Dev Note: The enemies that appear in Darkness/Ventilation Purge conditions have been tweaked to use shorter distance requirements for line of sight checks, so enemies are now more affected by the lack of visibility.

• Darkness with Hunting Grounds - Darkness covers the levels, combined with hunting grounds hounds that spawn in waves.
• Darkness with High Intensity - Darkness covers the level combined with a higher intensity of enemies.
• Darkness with Low Intensity - Darkness covers the level combined with a lower intensity of enemies.
• Ventilation Purge with Snipers + High Intensity - Fog covers the mission, and there is a higher intensity of enemies, in addition to snipers guarding random locations in the mission.
• Ventilation Purge with Snipers + Low Intensity - Fog covers the mission combined with a lower intensity of enemies.
• Hunting grounds with High Intensity - Hunting grounds with higher intensity of enemies.
• Hunting grounds with Low Intensity - Hunting grounds with lower intensity of enemies.
• Shock Troop Gauntlet with High Intensity - Specialist spawns are doubled and spawn in waves, coupled with a higher intensity of enemies.
• Shock Troop Gauntlet with Low Intensity - Specialist spawns are doubled and spawn in waves, coupled with a lower intensity of enemies.

Armoury Exchange

Grendyl has ordered the Armoury Exchange be moved closer to the Shrine of the Omnissiah, noting inefficiencies in the previous layout. Rejects should save their energy for tackling heresy and not running between the Armoury and the Shrine. (The Armoury Exchange has been relocated and can now be found next to Hadron’s crafting station)

Updated Features

Engine

• AMD FSR has been updated to version 2.2 - with improvements across the board, particularly with ghosting. You can read more about FSR 2.2 on the AMD blog.
• Added a new RTX Global Illumination setting.

Dev Note: We have added a new mode where we mix baked DDGI probes with the runtime-generated probe following the player. This is the new "Low" mode, and the old low is now "Medium"

Psyker
Quelling of the Perils overhaul:

• Lower quell times for passive Quelling, effectively twice as fast now.
• Lower quell times for active Quelling, effectively 0.5s faster across the curves
  • (min/max Peril quell time from 1.5s -> 4.5s to 1.0s -> 3.0s)

• Shift current Peril scale to not scale quell times as aggressively; previously, Quelling picked up speed over time, making high-Peril quelling more effective than low Peril Quelling. This curve is now more linear.
  
• Increase passive Quell speed on non-force weapons; they get a 25% reduction.
  • This returns the non-force weapon passive quelling to the same levels as before the 1.0.30 patch, but with the central changes to Quell speeds, the difference between force and non-force weapons is more sensible.
  • Force weapon passive Quelling baseline is 12.5s, and non-force lands at 9.5s. Was previously around 24s for both.

• Clean up and simplify curves, ramping, and min time fractions, making quelling a more straightforward and deterministic experience regardless of current Peril amount.
  
• Added a new setting under Interface -> Accessibility -> Peril FX Intensity, which allows adjusting the intensity of the audio and screen space Peril effects when playing as a Psykinetic
  

• Tweaked the Pox Hounds, so they are easier to stagger with melee weapons when they are disabling a player.
• Changed enemy Dreg and Scab Flamers melee attack from a shove to a kick.
• Added variations to the Pox Burster sounds.
• Tweaked the Dreg Shotgunner so they will follow players when engaged in melee combat to make them easier to lock in melee.
• Added more damage falloff to Shotgunner shots (from 15 metres -> 8 metres).
• Reduced Shotgunners and Assaulters toughness damage, normalised some aim duration, and shoot cooldown values across all difficulties.
• Increased frequency of hounds in hunting grounds.
• Fixed the Bulwark stationary melee attacks enable/disable shield blocking to match the animation.
• Fixed, so Bulwark heavy staggers disable shield blocking to match the animation.
• Changed the Bulwark shield push attack not to deal damage.
• Fixed Bulwark stagger animation durations to match the animation better
• Changed, so Poxburster explodes accordingly after getting staggered multiple times after triggering the fuse.
• Slightly increase the number of enemies that spawn during mission objective events.
• Increased explosive barrel damage, especially vs Monstrosities.
• Increased fire barrel damage and duration (Duration changed from 8 -> 15).
• Removed high stagger from fire barrel explosion, so enemies don't end up outside of the fire area
• Increased how many of the same specialists can spawn on Heresy and Damnation difficulty.
• Increased the number of specials able to spawn in coordinated strikes on Heresy and Damnation difficulty (4 -> 5 for Heresy, 5 -> 6 for Damnation).
• Tuned down the amount of Dregs that spawn as roamers.
• Reduced the roamer aggro range when hordes are triggered across all difficulties.
• Reduced default minion shoot alert radius from 20 metres -> 12 metres in all missions.
• Changed so Poxburster explosions can damage barrels.
• Fixed an issue where the Pox Hounds pounce push was dealing 1 damage to nearby players.
• Fixed VO for tagging Dreg Ragers.

Weapons

• Added a new wider crosshair for the Lawbringer Mk VI Combat Shotgun when a weapon special shotgun shell is loaded.
• Tweaked the coil glow of Plasma Guns not to follow Overheat strictly for less sudden shifts in the glow intensity when reloading or venting.

(De)Buff Icons

Blessings

• Added icons for weapon Blessings to be displayed during gameplay in the buff icon row. Blessings with a duration or condition will display an icon when they are active and give the bonus.

Dev Note: We don’t display icons for Blessings that give a passive buff as these Blessings are always active, and hence the icon would always be showing, not giving you useful information and making the buff icon list more cluttered.

Buffs

• Negative buffs (debuffs) now appear in a separate row with a red frame, and some have new icons.

HUD

• Damage over time effects like bleeding, fire, or Soulblaze should now give red hitmarkers on the crosshair when such an effect kills an enemy.

Feats

• Buff icons for various feats now always show numbers when applicable.
• Ogryn Skullbreaker feat "Raging Bull" now shows a buff icon while active.
• Psyker Psykinetic feat "Kinetic Deflection" now shows a buff icon while active.
• Psyker Psykinetic feat "Mind in Motion" now shows a buff icon while active.
• Veteran Sharpshooter feat "Camo Expert" now shows a buff icon while active.
• Veteran Sharpshooter feat "Deadshot" now shows a buff icon while active with a duration for how long the feat can be active.
• Veteran Sharpshooter feat "Demolition Stockpile" now shows a buff icon that indicates the duration until the next grenade is replenished.
• Zealot Preacher feat "Faith Restores All" now shows a buff icon with a duration for how long damage is recuperated.

Balance Changes

Weapons

Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer:

• Bumped default light attack impact mods:
  • vs. Maniac from 50% to 100%
  • vs. Infected from 75% to 100%

• Bumped default heavy attack damage mod:
  • vs. Carapace from 25% to 50%

• Bumped light attack first target Damage mod:
  • vs. Carapace from 25% to 50%

• Bumped light attack first target Impact mod:
  • vs. Flak Armour from 75% -> 100%
  • vs. Maniac from 50% -> 100%
  • vs. Infected from 75% -> 100%

• Fine-tuned Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer second light sweep spline to line up with animation/centre better (was a tad offset to the right).

• Increased light force sword damage (30-60 -> 40-80), second target (25-50 -> 30-60)
• Increased heavy-force sword damage (50-100 -> 60-120)
• Increased light stab attack damage (from 60-120 -> 80-160)
  • Improved Flak armour damage mod from 80% -> 100%

• Set Can Opener to only give brittleness on stab
  • Double the number of stacks of brittleness per hit (2-4-6-8 per stab)

• Increase stagger capabilities on stab, increase impact (15 -> 25 impact, set maniac, Carapace, and infected impact mods to 100% ), and ignore stagger reduction. Can now stagger everything up to Crushers reliably.
  
• Increase damage and armour pen on stabs:
  • Base damage increased from 100 to 200,
  • Flak damage mod from 80% to 100%
  • Infected damage mod from 75% to 100%
  • Carapace damage mod from 5% to 50%

• Reduce reload time by 30%
  • Reduce movement penalty during reloads

• Reduce wield time by 30%
  
• Reduced movement penalty across the board while shooting/bracing

• Reduce reload time by 30%
• Reduce wield time by 30%

Feat buffs and changes
Psykinetic:

• Warp Unleashed: Now affects ALL damage.
• Quicken: Now also increases Warp Charges generated from all sources to 2.
• Kinetic Overload: Removed and replaced with ‘Wildfire.’
• *NEW* Wildfire: If an enemy dies while affected by Soulblaze that you've applied, up to 4 of their Soulblaze stacks are spread between nearby enemies. The total amount of Soulblaze stacks on the new enemy cannot exceed the stacks of the dying enemy.

Sharpshooter:

• Exhilarating Takedown: Now also reduces toughness damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds. Stacking up to 3 times.
• Covering Fire: Now also grants a 10% damage buff to the affected ally for 3 seconds.

Weapon Blessings

• Weapon Blessing "Crucian roulette" is now calculated as it states, giving a stack for each bullet missing. Before, it gave a stack for every 10% of ammo missing. We have balanced this accordingly:
  • Adjusted crit chance gained from each empty chamber.
  • Stubrevolver:
    • Tier 1: 2% per 10% missing -> 3.5% per bullet missing
    • Tier 2: 3% per 10% missing -> 4% per bullet missing
    • Tier 3: 4% per 10% missing -> 4.5% per bullet missing
    • Tier 4: 5% per 10% missing -> 5% per bullet missing

  • Vraks Mk III Headhunter Autogun, Vraks Mk VII Headhunter Autogun, and Agripinaa Mk VIII Headhunter Autogun:
    • Tier 1: 2% per 10% missing -> 0.35% per bullet missing
    • Tier 2: 3% per 10% missing -> 0.4% per bullet missing
    • Tier 3: 4% per 10% missing -> 0.45% per bullet missing
    • Tier 4: 5% per 10% missing -> 0.5% per bullet missing

• Fixed an issue where 'Fire Frenzy' and 'Deathspitter' Blessings would grant bonuses on kills at any range instead of only at close range.
• Changed All or Nothing blessing on Axes and Shovels to give maximum bonus at 0% stamina instead of at 100% stamina. Blessing now is stepped in 5 steps instead of scaling linearly.
• Weapon blessing "Bloodthirsty" is now lost after 5 seconds after activation if no attack has been made.

• “Deathspitter” blessing for Infantry Autogun, Braced Autogun, Recon Lasgun, and Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber can now stack up to 5 stacks and resets after 1.75s.
  • Stacks 1 -> 5
  • Duration 1.5 -> 1.75

• “Deathspitter” blessing for Combat Shotgun can now stack up to 5 stacks and resets after 2.75s.
  • Stacks 1 -> 5
  • Duration 1.5 -> 2.75

• Peril-based weapon blessing now gets one stack per 20% Peril instead of getting 1 stack total at 30%, 2 stacks total at 50%, and 4 stacks total at 97% Peril.
  • Effects weapon blessing "Warp Nexus" for all Force Staffs
  • Effect weapon blessing "Unstable Power" for Force Swords

Bug Fixes

Engine

• Potential fix for players on IPv6-only networks.
• Merged some GPU Hang stability improvements from the experimental branch.
• Game Engine stability improvements.
• Fixed a bug where the pilot was not visible inside the Valkyrie in-game and in cinematics.
• Aligned Mortis Operative Force Sword positioning to player hands.

Weapons & Blessings

• Fixed an issue where it was impossible to start reload action for Lawbringer Mk VI Combat Shotgun while aiming in and out of ADS.
• Fixed issue that prevented the Lawbringer Mk VI Combat Shotgun from loading the special shell when at 1 ammo reserve.
• Fixed issue with Weapon Blessing "Warp Flurry" causing issues with short charges on Purgatus and Surge Force Staves.
• Fixed a bug where the light follow-up attack immediately after the weapon special for Turtolsky Heavy Swords would not be affected by weapon stats.
• Fixed a bug where burst fire for Agripinaa Mk VIII Headhunter Autogun would randomly drop to single fire when repeatedly shooting for a short while.
• Fixed issue with "Bloodletter" blessing for Eviscerator not activating for some attacks
• Fixed issue with being able to cancel Thunderhammer weapon special stun by pressing the wield button for the primary weapon.
• Fixed an issue where the presented Rate of Fire statistic for the Vraks Mk VII Headhunter Autogun didn't match the functional rate of fire.
• Fixed a few cases where Continuous Fire Blessings could activate earlier than they should.
• Fixed an issue where the Foe-Rend Mk V Ripper Gun only checked for critical strikes at the start of an attack instead of intermittently while shooting. This caused a potential exploit where you could "crit fish", but in practice meant that the weapon didn't crit as often as it should.
• Fixed a bug where frag grenades didn’t deal damage to Carapace Armour if the grenade was really close to the armoured enemy.
• Fixed a bug where Brute-Brainer Mk III Latrine Shovel Special Action attack didn't deal damage to carapace armour.
• Updated how weapon attack chains are identified in the Psykhanium’s Basic training. They should now match how attack chains and combos are handled when attacking enemies.
• Fixed issue with "Borne in Blood" blessings for Ripper Gun not triggering correctly.

Feats

• Fixed issue where Ogryn Skullbreaker Feat 'Payback Time' wouldn't trigger while at full toughness.
• Fixed issue where Zealot Preachers Feat 'Bloodletting' sometimes wouldn't trigger on killing blows.
• Fixed issue where Psyker Psykinetic feat 'Quietude' did not trigger from 'Battle Meditation'.
• Fixed issue where Psyker Psykinetic feat' Kinetic Flayer' could trigger on exploding barrels.
• Fixed issue where Psyker Psykinetic feat' Quicken' could restore more cooldown than intended.
• Fixed issue where Force Staff attacks sometimes didn't trigger the Psyker Psykinetic feat 'Ascending Blaze' Warp Charge generation.

Other Tweaks and FIxes

• Various Animation improvements and tweaks.
• We now trigger the kill stinger sound when killing Captains and Monstrosities for all players.
• Fixed an issue where Ammo Kits, Medkits, and Scriptures could end up inside geometry and not be able to be picked up if a player that carried one died on a staircase.
• Fixed an issue where using a gamepad in the Dodge step of Advanced Training could trigger the completion of left/right dodge when doing a backward dodge. Suppression step during Advanced Training could miscount the number of suppressed enemies when using a Ripper Gun.
• Fixed issue where bots would be over eager to use a health station while one or more grimoires were active in the party.
• Removing nets from players now has an interaction animation.
• Fixed wrong interaction prompt being used on the servo skull in Basic Training ("Press" instead of "Use").
• Fixed the VO triggers for running away from the squad and for tied up players calling out for a rescue.
• Fixed so that player character banter cannot play during mission events
• 2 new Launcher strings for GPU crash dumps added.
• Unblockable attacks no longer refund stamina.

VO Updates

• Added some new conversations that can trigger following a killstreak or headshot
• New rare, longer Bonding Conversations between players.

Settings Menu

• Increased the speed of scrolling in the Settings Menu.
• Many tooltips that had long descriptions for options inside the settings menu will no longer position themselves at the edge of the screen.
• Credits updated

Missions

• Fixed a spot in Chasm Logistratum where players could get stuck in a corner.
• Moved the location of a Daemon Host in Hab Dreyko as it was impossible to avoid.
• Moved the healing station after the ascender event on Magistrati Oubliette TM8-707 slightly further into the level.
• Made the escape to the lift on Excise Vault Spireside-13 a bit more exciting by having enemies now spawn closer by while they're chasing you out.
• Fixed an issue on Comms-Plex 154/2f where enemies would sometimes get stuck in the Archivum lobby area.
• Fixed an issue during the end escape on Excise Vault Spireside-13 where specialists that spawned at the end would suddenly disappear into thin air.
• Fixed area in Refinery Delta-17 where enemies could spawn in an unintended area.
• Fixed multiple areas where the player could see through the environment in the mission Relay Station TRS-150.
• Fixed a sound bug where enemies were silent between two areas on Enclavum Baross.
• Fixed a sound bug where enemies were silent between two areas close to the train station in Chasm Station HL-16-11.
• Door panels got a minor delay between interactions to avoid spamming.
• Fixed occurrences of interactions failing immediately on interaction start.
• Fixed an issue that causes players to be teleported around the respawn beacon when hogtied.
• Fixed an issue that caused the interaction bar not to progress during an interaction visually.
• Fixed a memory leak that could occur while loading into a mission.
• Fixed an issue with how the game handles linked units; this should lead to slightly increased performance.