Servers are going live with our latest prototype build Friday, December 4 at 4pm Pacific!
In case you missed it: the Drifters Loot the Galaxy Open Beta has moved to a new format. Our goal is to release new prototype builds with substantial changes every Friday to get the community even more involved in shaping the game’s development. You can find more details regarding this change and the current prototype session schedule on our Steam forums.
Here's what to expect this week...
Who wants a hug?
Sumo is coming out swinging! The beloved blue Biason returns to Drifters Loot the Galaxy in this week's prototype build with some new capabilities and changes to fit into the game's current landscape.
For the most part, you'll find Sumo remains quite similar to how he played in previous Open Beta builds. With some help from Mrs. Copperbottom, he excels at crashing into unsuspecting convoys, soaking up damage, and dishing it out in close-quarters combat. Between his powerful shotgun and earth-shattering Bottoms Up ability, you'll want to keep your distance and stay out of Sumo's way as much as possible.
The major change you'll find with Sumo is his new Ability 1 (Q), Thick Skin. As Sumo soaks up damage, you'll notice that a new meter above his health bar slowly fills up. Once you're out of battle, this bar will drain and slowly heal Sumo over time from its reserves. If you find yourself in the heat of a fight and looking for an edge, however, you can activate Thick Skin to immediately grant yourself an overshield. This will immediately empty your Thick Skin meter -- the more you had in the tank, the more damage the shield can soak.
This new meter and ability replace Sumo's previous passive and allows him to have more deliberate choice over when, where, and why his additional health is utilized. He's joining the new battlefield as our first returning Juggernaut character and rounds out our full suite of class types You may not find Sumo's return as majorly disruptive to teamfights as GoGo and Ziggy were previously, but we expect him to fit comfortably into the dynamics we've seen evolving over the course of our prototyping. If nothing else, he'll be sure to draw a bit of extra fire!
Bottom of the Ninth
A consistent piece of feedback we've heard over the last few weeks is that overtime in Payload can feel somewhat anti-climactic. Previously, as soon as the winning team outnumbered the opposing team on the objective, the game would immediately end with very little fanfare. This week, we're excited to introduce our reworked overtime mechanics just in time for Sumo's arrival.
When the Payload match timer runs out, the game will immediately flip to overtime if the losing team has anyone currently contesting or escorting the Payload, even if the losing team doesn't have a majority. This is coupled with a 10 second grace period that kicks in if the losing team gets knocked off the point, giving them a small window to make it back and contest further.
A coordinated and skilled losing team should be able to be able to claw back a victory, but the previous overtime system simply didn't allow for that coordination and skill to shine through. With these changes, we're looking forward to more potential comebacks and exciting end-of-match moments!
But wait, there's more!
We've got even more changes in store for this prototype build thanks to your valuable feedback!
- Introduced our first pass of level art to VaporRedux
- The Payload has been updated with a new model
- Made changes to improve the consistency of GoGo's tether targeting
- GoGo's tether will no longer break when looking away from a teammate as she's healing them
- Increased Ziggy's health from 500 to 800 to better fit into their new playstyle
- General tuning pass on Ziggy's main weapon
- Removed Resistor's Corruptionist specialization tree and consolidated to one tree for now
- General tuning pass on Resistor
- General optimization and performance improvements
It feels good to be back! We've got two more prototypes in the works for December before the holiday season gets into full swing, and we hope you'll join us for what we've got in store. See you there!