Ave Imperator, Force Commander!
Update VIII, the free update for Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters will be available from 3PM UTC today alongside our first DLC - Duty Eternal! Below are the new features and improvements coming with today's update.
New FREE UPDATE Content/Features:
New Enemies
- Three new Death Guard enemies come to the Tyrtaeus Sector:
- Anti-Armour Plague Marines - Posing an unwavering threat to even the most heavily armoured Grey Knights, this Plague Marine variant is equipped with armour-sundering arsenal, wielding a Meltagun and Krak Grenades.
- Noxious Blightbringer - Living conduits for the Garden of Nurgle, the Noxious Blightbringers render their rivals feeble as they strip away armour bonuses, effectively nullifying Aegis Shield, Fortress and other defensive Grey Knights abilities.
- Fleshmower Feotid Bloat-Drone - New Foetid Bloat-drone variants come armed with a Fleshmower, capable of projecting punishing attacks through the land, and unforgivingly any Grey Knights who dare stand before them.
Retraining Grey Knights
- Grey Knights can now be retrained by paying Requisition.
- Grey Knights retrained in this way will go on assignment for some time and when they return they will now have their ability points available to be re-invested as you wish.
- Players can still Commune with the Fallen to retrain a Grey Knight instantly.
New Warp Surges
- Two new Warp Surges have been added and can appear to meddle with your Grey Knights. Enemy Info View
- Players can now see an enemy’s Precision Target points when inspecting an enemy in the Info View screen.
New Settings Menu Options
- A few settings have been added or combined in our Graphics and Settings menus to give players more control over how they play.
- We have added new settings to turn on or off mouse edge scrolling and a new graphics setting for Decal Quality low or high. The low Decal Quality option will turn off Light Probes and High Quality Blending.
- We have combined the Debris Quality and Lifespan settings into a single Debris setting.
- The Codex in the Settings Menu will now contain a description for the Smoke Environmental Hazard created by Smoke Grenades.
Localization
- We now support Japanese and Korean language options Event and Story Changes
- If the player ignores Ectar’s warning to start the Purgation Ritual, the Morbus Track will now flash full pips to let the player know that if they continue to ignore him they will lose the game.
- Events with multiple options will have a short button lock so that quickly clicking an option won’t select the next option in the event.
- Added the numbers 5 - 8 for Grey Knights chosen for the Rear Guard team when viewing the Barracks menu whilst making assault teams for the Final Battle.
- Added a confirmation popup when restarting a mission so that this isn’t done in error.
- During Ship Combat events. The upper right Ship status display will display red if the ship is at 2 hull points remaining or less to let players know there is a danger the ship could be destroyed.
Execution Camera
- Improved the way Execution animations are displayed.
Performance Improvements:
We have made a large number of performance improvements that should help low-end and a number of PC configurations.
- We have also added a new graphics setting to allow players to turn off Decals which can improve performance significantly for certain machines.
- A major adjustment has been made to lighting and meshes, as well as the combat HUD to improve performance.
- Lighting and shadows have been optimised for all combat cinematics and map introductions.
- Removed some unnecessary effects on combat cinematics.
- Reduced the number of particle effects on damaged and destroyed objects to help improve performance
- Improved the performance of ground hazard visual effects.
- Minor performance improvements were made on shaders.
- Increased performance of the fog in general.
- Improvements made to shadows.
- Adjustments have been made to dismembered body parts to improve performance.
- Optimised the AI algorithm enemies use to choose a movement path. This should reduce the slight delay that sometimes occurs before enemies move.
- A number of improvements have been made that shorten the time between enemy units turns.
Balance Changes:
Bosses
- All bosses are now immune to the Pinned Affliction.
- Stunning Cruciatus while he is in the middle of charge-grabbing a Grey Knight will interrupt the grab.
Crazed Affliction
- When enemies are Crazed, they will now make a roll at the start of each turn. There is a 50% chance that the unit will act normally (i.e., as though it were not Crazed) and a 50% chance that it will act Dominated instead.
Dominated Affliction
- Dominated enemies will now also be considered Disrupted and won’t use their Autos.
Disrupted Affliction
- The Myphitic Blighthauler Frag Grenade Barrage can now be disrupted.
- The Helbrute’s Plasma Cannon Charge Shot can now be disrupted.
- The Helbrute’s Enraged Rush Auto can now be disrupted.
- Blightlord Champions will no longer use Defend while disrupted.
- Chaos Spawn will no longer use Death Grip while disrupted.
- Foetid Bloat-Drones will no longer use Saturation Bombing while disrupted.
- Aeger will no longer use Nurgling Spew while disrupted.
- Grey Knights can no longer set up an Overwatch when Disrupted.
Overwatch
- Grey Knights and enemies can no longer use Reaction Strike on passing units while Overwatching.
Taunt
- Taunt now has a range of 0 and is centred on the Grey Knight.
Spread Attacks
- Spread attacks have been updated to no longer damage or affect targets behind full cover.
- Some spread attack abilities will now have an Ignore Half Cover note added to their tooltip. These abilities will no longer have reduced damage against targets behind half or partial full cover.
- Upgrades that provide the Ignore Cover effect will now append this bonus to the description of abilities they affect so that it is clearer.
Grandmaster Mode
- You will no longer be able to restart a map in Grandmaster Mode.
Bloomspawn
- Bloomspawn Sprouts and Stems will now be able to shoot over cover with their mortars and damage Grey Knights on the other side.
- When revealing a Bloomspawn in Growing missions the reinforcement portal will be skipped if the player is already overwhelmed with enemies.
Wound Penalties
- The Max HP penalty for taking Light Wounded and Wounded Grey Knights on a mission will now scale with difficulty. This will have the result of making Merciful a bit more lenient and Ruthless and Legendary more punishing.
- Merciful: -2/-4 HP
- Standard: -3/-6 HP
- Ruthless: -4/-8 HP
- Legendary: -5/-10 HP
Ability Targeting
- Abilities and Stratagems that refer to Grey Knights will now only affect organic targets (ie: Grey Knights and Vakir). Abilities that say they affect Grey Knights will not work on Servitors, Dreadnoughts, and Lunete.
- The only exception is Gate of Infinity, both the Stratagem and Ability. It will teleport Servitors with their Techmarine but will not teleport Lunete or the Dreadnought.
- Abilities and Stratagems that target all Allies or all Grey Knights will cause the targets that will be affected to be highlighted.
Plaguebearers and Plagueridden
- Daemons with the Auto Resurrect mutation will now produce a Resurrection Emblem even if killed when Stunned. Daemons with the Disrupted Affliction will still not drop emblems on death.
Cultists
- Autogun Cultists will now prefer other actions than Overwatch when there are already many enemy units currently in Overwatch.
Stratagems
- All Stratagems, other than Orbital Bombardment, are now tagged as Psychic abilities.
Known Issues
- The audio for a grenade leaving a Grey Knight’s hand may not play
- It is possible for a Foetid Bloat-drone (Fleshmower) to move into an exploding barrel and be no longer targetable by melee attacks
- There are some instances where the HUD can overlap tutorial bubbles depending on where the camera is positioned
- A dialogue option for Vakir may show at an incorrect point
- A rare issue where a movement square can appear outside of the map
- Ward of the Aegis may show an incorrect trait when obtained as an Armoury Reward
- The correct information will show when viewing the armour in the Barracks
- The Foetid Bloat-drone (Fleshmower) drum can float away from the enemy when shot while the ability "Foetid Charge" is activated
- (Duty Eternal DLC) A rare issue can occur where the Venerable Dreadnought can be killed when first encountering it
- (Duty Eternal DLC) Combat Servitors may sometimes play voice lines when they shouldn’t