Greetings Mercs,
The main focus of this update was to review and rebalance many skills, rework or refine some of the less frequently used skills, and add a lot of quality-of-life changes.
Dead Grid will be participating in the upcoming Party-Based RPG Fest on Steam. To prepare, I've added a bunch of new tutorials to help make the new player learning curve smoother.
Without further ado, let's take a look at all the changes in 1.3!
PARRY CHANCE IN CAMP
The parry chance of mercs in mission squad is now shown. This stat comes from training in Martial Arts, trained skills, and equipped items with parry bonuses.
Parry chance is 0% while using a shield, per shield's restriction.
Temporary combat buffs, applied during a mission are not shown.
REVAMPED CAMP UI
New bottom nav buttons with sharper icons and text.
New Gear management tab buttons that pop.
Many new 3D Camp tab buttons.
ENFORCER SKILL: SKULL CRUSH
Completely reworked Skull Crush into passive Enforcer skill.
Added a new enemy status Fractured Skull, activated by Skull Crush.
Elite perk Skull Smasher now boosts the trigger chance of Skull Crush instead of damage.
ENFORCER SKILL: BRUTAL ODDS
All new skill, replacing Stunburst which is now phased out.
The MG focus fire from Stunburst has been migrated to Commando's skill Full Auto.
Dev Notes: I always wanted Enforcer's middle tree to center around melee combat, specifically non-shield blunt weapons. The original skill Stunburst didn't really fit the theme, so moving MG modifiers to Full-Auto made a lot more sense. The new skill Brutal Odds will hopefully encourage players to try non-shield based enforcers in their squad.
ENFORCER SKILL: IRON GRIP
Iron Grip now grants a flat melee damage to Martial Arts in addition to blunt weapons.
The damage boost from Iron Grip is now shown on weapons equipped on Enforcers in camp.
The original bonus chance to stun has been removed.
TACTICIAN SKILL: JENNY
Increased the number of turns Jenny can stay in play by 2 for each skill rank.
Interacting with Jenny to siphon Molotovs removes her from play, which was not stated before.
Jenny's purpose is to reduce the number of enemies in play (by taking a slot). The extra distractions help Aimed Shot crits. Don't forget to grab a free Molotov on Jenny's last turn in play.
DOJO ABILITY: MORTAL BLOW
Reworked the ability to grant bonus damage on the final strike instead of additional crit chance.
The original mechanic for crit chance was rarely needed since players using Martial Arts relied on a lot of buffs to raise the chance by other means.
FLAMETHROWERS
Flamethrowers now deal a minimum of 5 damage per spray, if the damage based on remaining enemy HP falls below 5. This used to be 1 damage and felt unimpactful.
This change is now also stated in the the details of all Flamethrower weapons.
SORT BY TYPE
By popular request, SORT BY TYPE is now available in Camp->Gear
This applies to weapons, consumables, workbench and trader tabs.
MERC STATUS ICONS IN COMBAT
One very common feedback topic in the past was that mercs in combat have too many status icons, covering up consumables on board.
Status icons for passive skills are no longer shown under mercs in play, but all the buffs are still listed in card details.
The change makes it much easier to spot temporary status effects, like Aimed Shot, Bleeding, Pummel, Jammed Weapon, Heal, Repair Over Time, Concussion, Food buffs, etc.
GENERAL TUNING AND GAME BALANCE
Chance to roll 2x Scope damage with all sniper rifles was increased from 20% to 35%.
Chance to roll 2x Scope damage with scoped crossbows was increased from 20% to 35%.
Chance to roll 2x Overdraw damage with bows was increased from 10% to 25%.
Assignments are now immediately available when entering camp for the first time. Previously, the dialog appeared after the first completed Stash House run. The first assignment for Slade asks the player to visit the Stash House, leading to the next assignment at the Gas Station. Assignments can still be ignored or completed later.
Reduced the reputation cost of the first assignment so new characters can start right away.
Neutral skill Strike Zone now grants an extra +1 flat melee damage in addition to the percent damage increase. Revenants gain +1 damage to each hand as well as the percent damage. The percent damage buff has been reduced from 15% to 10%.
Neutral skill Kill Zone now grants an extra +1 flat ranged shot damage in addition to the percent damage increase. The percent increase has been reduced from 15% to 10%, similar to Strike Zone.
Siphoned Gas area objects at the Gas Station now consistently offer Molotovs and Torch Fuel.
Leader skill Black Belt now offers 10% more chance to parry.
Leader skill Tai Chi no longer grants +5% chance to parry, but still grants on counters.
Boosted the damage bonus of Commando skill Blade Mastery by 10% per rank.
Enforcer skill Parry Master is now called Punish and comes with new art.
Bandages are now upgraded to Small Medkits instead of Morphine. Morphine is still a random item, but can no longer be upgraded.
Accessories with new art, Area Map, Tactical Gloves and Stopwatch (renamed from Wrist Watch).
Replaced the 3D backpack model for Commando character Sam for a more compact look.
Slightly increased the recommended squad power for mid-to-late missions, based on the player experience I've gathered over time. No actual changes to enemy scaling.
Added a helper message to camp mission details when starting missions with a less-than-ideal squad size (fewer mercs). This message is shown right above the START button in mission details, while playing on Easy, Normal or Veteran modes.
Frenzy stat now appears at the top of enemy modifiers in card details, making it easier to spot.
NEW LOOT ITEMS
Added 25 new loot cards, including valuables, food, drinks and small meds.
NEW TUTORIALS
5 new tutorial events have been added to spawn on the first visit to some of the early region locations. These are only shown on the Easy, Normal and Veteran modes.
1st encounter of Stash House. Explains consumables in bag slots.
2nd encounter of Stash House. Explains the noise bar mechanic.
2nd encounter of Gas Station. Explains how to stash loot and clear room in hand.
2nd encounter of Lost Convoy. Explains enemy focus and aggro management.
2nd encounter of Forest Outpost. Explains repositioning of mercs in play.
Playing the Stash House mission for the first time auto-equips 2 free food consumables (into empty bag slots). This is designed for the tutorial event, but the free items are granted on all difficulty modes as well, including all the challenge modes.
NEW CHALLENGE MODE
New challenge focusing on non-shielded combat, called More Pain, More Gain.
There are now 8 challenge modes in the game with individual Leaderboards.
NEW ACHIEVEMENTS (FAME)
2 new achievements for the challenge mode More Pain, More Gain.
3 new achievements tied to the new Fractured Skull status effect from Skull Crush.
There are now a total of 375 achievements.
BUG FIXES
Pistol can occasionally fail to re-target on a killing blow, aborting with pending shots. The issue was more apparent while using the Bandoleer gadget. Recent similar improvements were made to AR, SMG, and MG in different balance patches.
Workbench upgrade requirements should unlock 1 rank earlier with the final 5/5 only offering a discount. This was not a big issue as most players always upgraded the workbench to 5/5.
Aimed Shots can still miss, despite the recent change to guarantee a hit. This affects Aimed Shots with sniper rifles, bows and crossbows.
End-of-turn burn damage should not trigger the Roadkill status for enemies with low HP.
Ramon has a chance to discover previously found mercs when returning to camp, resulting in no new recruit showing up. This was especially apparent with Ramon's 100% chance to discover.
Deployed Jenny gets despawned immediately after all Molotovs have been looted (2) on a mission. Jenny should still spawn and continue to exist as a non-lootable object.
Adjusted Revenant elite perk Stiffening to indicate damage from Decay, not Rigor Mortis.
Enemy with Leech restores HP on blocked, parried or dodged attacks against mercs. HP should only be restored on hits that damage the merc. Leached HP is now shown in combat log.
Equipped Gun Care gadgets are not showing damage boosts on equipped firearms while in camp.
Increased firearm damage from Commando skill Urban Gunslinger does not show the boosted damage of firearms equipped on Commando mercs while in camp.
Increased sharp weapon damage from Commando skill Sharp Mastery does not show the boosted melee damage of sharp melee equipped on Commando mercs while in camp.
Leader skill Replenishment grants 2x heal before the required 25% remaining HP.
Auto-attack kills by countered Tai Chi strikes or Flanking Maneuver do not increase the Killing Spree.
Enemies can walk off the view of the card after a finished attack. (visual bug only).
Enemies can glitch into another card's view at Roadblock (visual bug only).
Details of consumables in bag slots on board (in combat) can go out-of-bounds (visual bug).
AFTERMATH FIXES
Collected assignment items are not reset when starting Aftermath. This causes some of the assignments to auto-complete right after starting. For example, extra Industrial Respirators dropped by lab tech enemies at Bio-Rise can be gathered on repeats.
The fix in this patch addresses newly started Aftermath games, while existing saves may still have some assignments auto-complete. If you continue from Aftermath I to II, the fix is also applied.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I'm looking to add more assignments and improve some of the survivors, specifically Julia. I've also been chipping away at a new mission location for the early-mid game. There are more exciting things which I'm not ready to share just yet, so stay tuned.
Please leave a review on Steam if you haven't already. I'm very close to reaching 500 reviews which is a big milestone for the game. Thank you and see you in Pine Valley!
--Paul