Unlocked and Loaded - Patch Notes - Pt. 2 - OUT NOW!

Heyo Everyone,

Welcome to PART 2 of the patch notes.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Weapons

Weapon Changes

Thunder Hammers

The Thunder Hammer family of weapons suffered for being over-specialized into the Monstrosity-removal niche, while being very underwhelming against most other threats and in general failing at keeping up with the increased intensity of high difficulty missions.

With the following changes we aimed at rebalancing the weapon to preserve its single-target focus, but also to make it more well rounded and more exciting to use in all situations.

While the upper end of the damage on Special activated attacks against the Unyielding armor type has been lowered to prevent unhealthy 1-shots of Monstrosity enemies, the damage against Carapace Armour has also been significantly increased to conversely be able to more effectively handle Elite enemies like Maulers and Crushers (potentially dispatching them with a single well placed hit).

The Light activated attack damage profiles have been improved to reward weakspot hits and to more easily eliminate any human-sized enemy.

The self-stun after a Special activated attack has been significantly reduced on both marks, and differentiated between Light and Heavy attacks.

This will make it way easier to find a window of time to deliver its devastating activated blows without being overly punished by other enemies.

Also, most Light and Heavy attacks have been improved in their damage and reach, to make the weapon more reliable in dealing with lesser enemies when not activated.

Both marks of the Thunder Hammer weapon family have also received some additional targeted changes, explained just below!

Dev Note: It’s also a hammer.

Detailed Changes

• All Marks
  • Tweaked the damage profile for Light Special activated attacks:
    • Armor damage modifier vs Unyielding from {2.0,3.0} to 2.0.

  • Tweaked the damage profile for Heavy Special activated attacks:
    • Armor damage modifier vs Unyielding from {3.0,5.0} to 3.0.
    • Armor damage modifier vs Carapace Armour from 1.0 to 1.5.

  • Improved the headshot/critical damage bonus multiplier on all Light attack profiles:
    • Finesse boost from 0.3 to 0.5.

  • Improved the damage of the Light Strikedown attacks:
    • Attack power distribution from {150,300} to {180,350}.

  • Improved the damage of the Heavy Relentless attacks:
    • 1st target attack power distribution from {150,300} to {180,350}
    • 2nd target attack power distribution from {80,160} to {100,200}
    • 3rd target attack power distribution from {50,100} to {75,150}.

  • Fixed several windup and attack actions which could be canceled by sprinting.

Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer

The Crucis Mk II mark always boasted the higher damage compared to its Ironhelm Mk IV brother, but delivering that damage to the intended target was often difficult due to the horizontal direction of its Heavy attacks and the effective lack of cleave on Special activated attacks.

This led to not uncommon scenarios where a Heavy activated attack could be completely absorbed by a single intercepting Poxwalker, leaving the target enemy unscathed.

To give players more control on the situation, we added a new overhead Heavy attack to the weapon, only chainable after the Special activation action for a short period of time.

Also, a small amount of cleave was added to the Heavy activated attacks, meaning that the swing will be able to go through at least one lesser enemy.

These changes combined will make the weapon more reliable in delivering its devastating damage to the intended target.

Additionally, the damage profile of the Light 3 attack has been improved to reward players completing the attack chain instead of resetting it.

Detailed Changes - Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer

• Reduced the Self-stun duration after connecting with a Special activated attack:
  • Light stun from 1.3 to 0.3
  • Heavy stun from 1.3 to 0.5.

• Tweaked the hitboxes and damage windows for most attacks to be more aligned with their animations.
• Improved reach for all Light attacks and the Push follow-up attack.
• Tweaked the speed and chain time for the Light 1 and Light 2 attacks:
  • Light 1
    • Slightly reduced the attack speed
    • Improved chain time to Light 2 / Heavy 2 attack start from 0.65 to 0.55.

  • Light 2
    • Significantly improved the attack speed.

• Added a bespoke improved Light Strikedown damage profile to the Light 3 attack
  • Attack power distribution {200,380}
  • Finesse boost vs Unarmoured 0.75
  • Finesse boost vs Flak Armour 0.6.

• Slightly improved reach for all Heavy attacks
• Changed so that the Heavy 2 attack chains into Light 3 / Heavy 1 instead of Light 1 / Heavy 1 to give an alternate access to the improved Light 3 attack.
• Special activated attack changes:
  • Added a small amount of cleave to Heavy activated attacks:
    • Cleave distribution {1.0,3.0}.
    • Attack power distribution {400,800} when cleaving.
    • Cannot cleave through Elites, Specialists, Monstrosities and Captains.

  • Added an attack start chain from the Special activate action, chaining into Light 1 and a unique Strikedown Heavy attack with a vertical animation.
  • Improved the duration of the Special activate buff from 4s to 5s.
  • Significantly improved the Light activated attack properties:
    • Attack power distribution from {300,600} to {400,750}
    • Finesse boost vs Unarmoured from 0.3 to 1.0
    • Finesse boost vs Flak Armour from 0.3 to 1.0
    • Finesse boost vs Maniac from 0.3 to 0.5
    • Overall Finesse multiplier curve from {0.25, 0.75} to {0.65, 1.15}.

Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer

The Ironhelm Mk IV received few additional specific tweaks, but will still benefit greatly from the overall changes to the Thunder Hammer weapon family.

The improved reduction in self-stun duration after a Heavy activated attack will help in further distinguishing it as the more nimble and well rounded Thunder Hammer mark.

Detailed Changes - Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer

• Reduced the Self-stun duration after connecting with a Special activated attack:
  • Light stun from 0.7 to 0.25
  • Heavy stun from 0.7 to 0.4.

• Tweaked the hitboxes and damage windows for most attacks to be more aligned with their animations.
• Improved reach for all Light attacks and the Push follow-up attack.
• Slightly improved reach for the Heavy 1 and Heavy 3 attacks.
• Improved the Light activated attack properties:
  • Attack power distribution from {250,500} to {300,600}
  • Finesse boost vs Unarmoured from 0.75 to 1.0
  • Finesse boost vs Flak Armour from 0.75 to 1.0
  • Overall Finesse multiplier curve from 0.25 to 0.65.

Boltgun / Bolt Pistol

In this release we added a set of targeted buffs aimed to increase the overall reliability of the iconic Boltgun and Bolt Pistol weapons, but also to significantly improve their performance against specific enemy types and in various situations.

Dev Note: We are aware of some issues regarding the aim of the bolt weapons, particularly in the recoil and sway when shooting continuously.

Unfortunately the issues are rooted quite deeply in the interaction between multiple different systems, so a complete fix was not possible for this release. We are going to continue investigating a solution and provide an update on our progress at a later date.

In the meantime, we have added some tweaks on the Sway and hitscan behaviors which should at least alleviate part of the issue.

Detailed Changes

• Both Families
  • Reduced the intensity of the Sway from 1.0 to 0.3.

Dev Note: This will make the weapon to be overall slightly less unwieldy when aiming, and also make it less likely for the aim position to be significantly displaced when transitioning from hipfire to ADS.
• Extended the radius of the hitscan for the bolt projectiles.

Dev Note: This will make the hitscan detection to be more generous and allow for shots that would have slightly missed the target to still be considered a hit.

• Changed the bolt properties to ignore limbs on non-Monstrosity enemies when the projectile trajectory would have also hit their torso or head.

Dev Note: This will avoid situations where a bolt could be intercepted by the limbs of the enemies even when aiming at their center of mass, resulting in heavily reduced damage.

• Armor damage modifier vs Carapace Armour from 0.4 to 0.5 (both near and far range).
• Armor damage modifier vs Infested from 0.5 to 0.9 (near) / 1.0 (far).

Dev Note: Bolt-type weapons were penalized when shooting against Infested enemies. This tweak will normalize the damage in order to make them more reliable against this armor type.

• Locke Mk IIb Spearhead Boltgun
  • Significantly improved the wield speed, from around 1.9s to 1.6s.
  • **Edit added 1 October, 2024:** Reduced the buffer time for the hipfire shoot input to avoid unintended inputs being registered when exiting the ADS stance immediately after shooting.
  • Improved the stagger properties of subsequent hits on the same target.

Dev Note: This will make it easier to open up Bulwark shields and reach stagger thresholds on other hard to stagger enemy types.

• Godwyn-Branx Pattern Bolt Pistol
  • Added cleave properties to the bolt projectiles
    • From no_cleave to {1.0,3.0}.

Dev Note: This will make it possible for the shot to hit the intended target instead of being fully absorbed by even a single minor enemy.
• Reduced some chain timings after the Special Push action:
  • Chain to hipfire Shoot from 0.56 to 0.4
  • Chain to Unwield from 0.54 to 0.4
  • Chain to Special from 0.9 to 0.75.

Additional Weapon Changes

• “Devil’s Claw” Swords
  • Extended the block property of the Special parry to remain active for a short period of time at the start of the riposte attack.
    • Stamina is still drained as normal when blocking attacks during the additional block duration.
    • 0.2s additional block duration.

Dev Note: This is to avoid situations where the player could still be hit on a well timed parry if multiple attacks were incoming at the same time.

• Slab Shield
  • Added ranged block properties during the Push action, in addition to the already existing melee block properties.

Dev Note: The Block properties of the shield were still maintained during a Push, but only against melee attacks. Now the Block properties of the Push action should also cover ranged attacks.

• Branx Pickaxe
  • Improved the stagger properties of the Special bash attack:
    • Stagger_category from “melee” to “uppercut”.
    • Impact power distribution increased on the first 3 targets:
      • [1] from {16,33} to {30,70}
      • [2] from {8,20} to {10,60}
      • [3] from {6,18} to {10,35}.

Dev Note: The Branx pickaxe Special attack is a Bash instead of the Pull used in the other two lighter marks, but its stagger output was often underwhelming against bigger targets. After the changes, this attack should now be more reliable in staggering any kind of non-Monstrosity enemy, even when in groups.

• Reduced the chain timings after specific attacks:
  • Heavy 2 into Light 3 / Heavy 1 start from 0.87 to 0.8
  • Heavy 2 into Special from 1.05 to 0.8
  • Heavy 2 into Block from 0.69 to 0.62
  • Push follow-up attack into Block from 1.1 to 0.9.

• Borovian Pickaxe
  • Reduced the chain timings after specific attacks:
    • Heavy 2 into Light 3 / Heavy 1 start from 0.63 to 0.6
    • Heavy 2 into Special from 0.9 to 0.7
    • Heavy 2 into Block from 0.63 to 0.6.

  • Reduced the windup time for the Heavy 1 attack when chained from Light 2 / Heavy 2 from 0.8 to 0.72.
• Karsolas Pickaxe
  • Reduced the chain timings after specific attacks:
    • Heavy 2 into Light 3 / Heavy 1 start from 0.56 to 0.55
    • Heavy 2 into Special from 0.75 to 0.6.

  • Reduced the windup time for the Heavy 1 attack when chained from Light 2 / Heavy 2 from 0.71 to 0.6.
  • Improved the stagger properties of the Push follow-up bash attack when hitting a Weakspot.

Dev Note: This will make it easier to quickly control single enemies with carefully aimed attacks, at the cost of some Stamina.

• Agripinaa Mk XIV Quickdraw Stub Revolver
  • Improved the Cleave properties of the shots.
    • Cleave distribution from {1.0,2.0} to {2.0,4.0}.

• Rashad Mk II Combat Axe / Antax Mk V Combat Axe
  • Significantly improved the damage and stagger against Maniac enemies for all Heavy attacks.
    • Armor damage modifier vs Maniac from 0.5 to 1
    • Armor impact modifier vs Maniac from 0.5 to 0.75.

Dev Note: The Heavy attacks of the Combat Axes were unfairly penalized against Maniac type enemies, to the point where it was often preferable to use Light attacks instead.

• Achlys Mk VIII Combat Axe
  • Aligned the Heavy 2 and Heavy 3 attacks to the Heavy 1 attack profile.
  • Tweaked the damage and impact modified against specific armor types for all Heavy attacks:
    • Armor damage modifier vs Carapace Armour from 0.6 to 0.8
    • Armor damage modifier vs Unyielding from 2 to 1.75
    • Armor impact modifier vs Maniac from 0.5 to 0.75.

Dev Note: The Heavy attacks of the Achlys Mk VIII Combat Axe are now all aligned to use the “spike” version of the attack profile, which also got some rebalancing with improved damage against Carapace and lowered damage against Unyielding. This will make the mark a bit more unique compared to the other two versions of the Combat Axe.

• Lucius Helbore Lasguns
  • Reduced the buffer time for the hipfire shoot input to avoid unintended inputs to be registered when exiting the ADS stance immediately after shooting.
  • Aligned the minimum ammo usage for minimally charged shots between marks:
    • Mk I from 3 to 2
    • Mk II unchanged at 2
    • Mk III from 4 to 2.

• Lucius Mk II Helbore Lasgun
  • Aligned the Sway values to the other marks.

• Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator
  • Reduced the windup timings for the Heavy 1 and Heavy 2 attacks, depending on the attack chain:
    • Heavy 1 chained from base start / Light 4: 0.4 (unchanged)
    • Heavy 1 chained from Light 2 / Heavy 2 from 0.76 to 0.65
    • Heavy 2 chained from Light 1 / Heavy 1 from 0.85 to 0.65
    • Heavy 2 chained from Light 3 / Push follow-up from 0.6 to 0.4.

Dev Note: These changes will reward opting to use Heavy attacks when going further down into attack chains, instead of resetting the chain.

• Orestes Assault Chainaxes
  • Slightly improved the Dodge Distance range on the Mobility stat, from {0.8-0.9} to {0.9-1.0}.
  • Slightly improved the Block cost.
  • Slightly improved the Sprint cost at lower Defences stat values.

• Orestes Mk XII Assault Chainaxe
  • Significantly improved the movement speed curve for the Heavy 1 and Heavy 2 attack windups.

Dev Note: This will make the Heavy attacks of this mark more dynamic and easier to use in more situations.

• Improved the stagger properties of the Push follow-up attack.

Dev Note: This attack was meant to be a quick interrupt against enemy actions, but often failed at staggering key enemies like Ragers. The new values should allow to more reliably create space, still at the cost of Stamina due to the Push.

• Tweaked the hitbox of the Heavy 2 attack to be more aligned to the animation.
• Shock Mauls: Edit made 1 October, 2024
  • Tweaked the buffer time windows for attack inputs to be more lenient.

Dev Note: This will make it less likely for Light attack inputs to be lost if performed too early after attacks with long chain times.

• Tweaked the chain timings for specific actions after missing a Special attack.

• Agni MK Ia Shock Maul:

• Special attack chained from missed Special attack from 1.3 to 1.
• Block chained from missed Special attack from 1.5 to 0.8.
• Light 3 / Heavy 2 chained from missed Special attack from 1.6 to 0.8.

• Indignatus Mk III Shock Maul:

• Special attack chained from missed Special attack from 1.3 to 1.1.
• Block chained from missed Special attack from 1.5 to 0.8.
• Light 4 / Heavy 2 chained from missed Special attack from 1.6 to 0.8.

Dev note: We reduced the chain timings for most common actions to make missing with the Special attack a bit less punishing, as failing to stun any enemy was already an impactful consequence for the miss.

Weapon Bug Fixes

• Crucis Mk XI Double-Barrelled Shotgun
  • Fixed an issue where the aim direction could be incorrectly moved if switching to another weapon immediately after firing.

• Zarona Mk VI Combat Shotgun
  • Fixed an issue where the Special shell shots failed to be correctly scaled through the Damage stat.

• Force Staves
  • Fixed an issue where the Celerity Stimm would fail to raise the charge speed of the secondary charged attacks.

Blessings

Updated Tiered Blessings

Blessings that were previously only available in 1 or 2 Tiers, have now been expanded upon to be available for all 4 tiers, with relevant values.

Blessing Pool Additions per Weapon

The number of Blessings available for the different Patterns has not been consistent, with some Weapons like the Blaze Force Sword having 12 different Blessings, while others like the Ogryns Power Maul only having 4. With the introduction of the new Itemization System we’re trying to make this more even between the Weapons. Going forward, all Weapons should have at least 8 different Blessings to choose from.

Braced Autogun

• Ceaseless Barrage
• Roaring Advance
• Inspiring Barrage

Spearhead Boltgun

• Puncture
• Terrifying barrage
• Fire Frenzy

Assault Chainaxe

• Opportunist

Heavy Eviscerator

• Opportunist

Tactical Axe

• New: Slaughter Spree
  • Guaranteed Critical Hit (Next Attack) on Weak Spot Critical Hit Kill.

• New: Relentless Strikes
  • +4-10% Power for 2s on Hit (Same Enemy). Stacks 5 times.

• New: Agile
  • Refreshed Dodge Efficiency on Weak Spot Hit. +2.5-10% Melee Weakspot Damage.

Heavy Sword

• New: Chained Deathblow
  • +5-20% Critical Chance for 3s on Weak Spot Kill.

• New: Bladed Momentum
  • Hitting multiple enemies in one sweep gives 4-10% Rending for 2.5s. Stacks 5 times.

• Thrust

Duelling Sword

• New: Relentless Strikes
  • +4-10% Power for 2s on Hit (Same Enemy). Stacks 5 times.

• New: Agile
  • Refreshed Dodge Efficiency on Weak Spot Hit. +2.5-10% Melee Weakspot Damage.

• Thrust

Purgation Flamer

• New: Everlasting Flame
  • Critical strikes fill the current clip with 2-5 bullets from your ammo reserve.

• New: Penetrating Flame
  • 1-4% Brittleness when applying Burn Stacks on a direct hit. Stacks up to 20%.

Dev Note:When we previewed the balancing notes a couple of weeks ago, this said “1-4% Rending on Burn Stacks. Which was updated to clarify 1-4% Rending on Burn Stacks. Maximum 20%). The Rending text was an oversight and it was always meant to be Brittleness, due to it being applied on an enemy and any player being able to take advantage of the buff once it’s been applied.
Inferno Force Staff

• New: Penetrating Flame
  • 1-4% Brittleness when applying Burn Stacks on a direct hit. Stacks up to 20%. (See Dev Note above).

• Showstopper
• Blaze Away

Electrokinetic Force Staff

• Transfer Peril
• Sustained Fire
• Surge

Helbore Lasgun

• New: Hot-Shot
  • Weak Spot Hits gain 20-50% Cleave.

• New: Armourbane
  • Target receives 2-8 Stacks of 2.5% Brittleness on Charged Hit.

Heavy Laspistol

• New: Concentrated Fire
  • Up to +2-5% Critical Chance on Chained Ranged Weak Spot Hit (Any Target).

• New: Desperado
  • +5-12.5% Critical Chance for 2s on successful Dodge.

Latrine Shovel

• New: Smackdown
  • +7.5-15% Critical Chance for3s on Special Action Hit (Staggered Enemy).

• Opportunist

Bully Club

• New: No Guts, No Glory
  • +50% Toughness Regeneration per second for 2-5s on Elite Special Action Hit.

Grenadier Gauntlet

• New: Disruptive
  • Hitting at least 3 enemies with your secondary attack grants 15-30% bonus to Power on melee attacks for 3.5s.

• New: Explosive Offensive
  • 6-15% Power bonus for 5 seconds after hitting multiple enemies with your weapon special explosion.

• New: Gauntlet Momentum
  • +2-5% Power for 1.5s on Chained Melee Hit (Any Target). Max Stacks 10.

• Point Blank

Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber

• Terrifying barrage
• Fire Frenzy

Power Maul

• New: Power Surge
  • Special Attacks on Armored Enemies cause an additional Shockwave. Special Attacks have +10-25% Explosion Radius.

• Opportunist
• Perfect Strike
• Supercharge

Battle Maul & Slab Shield

• New: Last Guard
  • Block Breaks push Enemies, 15s cooldown. -15-30% Block Cost.

• New: Offensive Defence
  • Gain a stack for each stamina spent blocking. Your next attack gains +4-10% melee power per stack and consumes one stack. Last 3.5s. Stacks 5 times.

• Opportunist
• Perfect Strike

Rumbler

• New: Explosion Zone
  • +3-6% Explosion Radius for every shot fired during continuous fire. Stacks 5 times.

• New: Shrapnel
  • +1-4 Bleed Stacks from close range explosions.

• New: Clonk
  • 15-30% Reload Speed for 3s on Projectile Weakspot Hit.

Plasma Gun

• New: Power Blast
  • Gain between 2-5% and 10-25% Crit Chance based on charge level when firing.

• New: Energy Leakage
  • Increases power up to 7.5-20%, scaled on overheat.

• New: Focused Cooling
  • -30-60% Heat generation on Critical Hit.

• New: Optimised Cooling
  • Increased Charge Speed scaling inversely with Heat Level. 4-10% to 20-50%.

Crusher

• Opportunist
• Thrust
• Slaughterer
• Thunderous

Power Sword

• Thrust

Blessing Changes

To make all Blessings have a difference in strength between Tiers, we’ve changed the following Blessings.
Unstoppable Force

• Now also provides 2.5-10% Heavy Melee Damage based on Tier.

Power Cycler

• Now also grants 2.5-10% Melee Stagger based on Tier.

Blessing Bug Fixes and Additional Changes

Punishing Salvo
Specifically on the Infantry Autogun.

• Fixed bug where the description was displaying the wrong values. “…14-20%…” to “…35-50%…”.

Trauma

• Fixed issue where the Stagger values were too low. Was 7.5-15%. Is now 14-20%.

Headhunter
Specifically on the Recon Lasgun.

• Fixed bug where the description was displaying the wrong values. “…2-5%…” to “…3.5-5%…”

Dumdum

• Fixed an issue where the stacks and duration could be refreshed by Damage over Time effects (e.g. Burn).

Dev Note: Those effects will still be affected by the damage bonus of the blessing.
Terrifying Barrage

• Fixed an issue where the blessing failed to trigger for secondary charged attacks of the Equinox Mk III Trauma Force Staff and the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff.

Adhesive Charge

• Fixed an issue where the bonus damage of the blessing failed to be applied.

Deflector

• Changed the block cost reduction bonus to also be active when blocking melee attacks

Overpressure

• Now also affects Damage over Time effects (particularly, Burn).


Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.