v. 0.14.0 Up Close & Personal
Agents,
We are deploying a major patch (Ver. 0.14.0) dubbed “Up Close & Personal” to bring the long-awaited melee weapons, along with other changes and improvements to the game. The team has been working hard on building a solid foundation for the game, and we are happy to bring something new to you with this patch! As we continue to go through the list of suggestions and issues, we will be deploying hotfixes and patches frequently until we can ensure Agents can all comfortably enjoy the game.
We also bring a dev log from Dongsoo Oh, the creative director for Blackout Protocol, discussing what comes in this patch. Please take a look at it if you want to learn more about how your feedback is helping us shape the game!
For the list of changes in this patch, please see below.
New Content
- Added 9 melee weapons
- Melee weapons will drop from enemies
- For melee weapons that Agents have picked up at least once before, more information can be found in the Armory section of S2P Archives
- When not equipped with a melee weapon, Agents will be attacking with their fist like before
- Melee weapons work with a durability system and will break when the durability reaches 0. When the durability is low, the melee weapons icon on the HUD will flash red
- List of melee weapons (in alphabetical order)
- Baseball Bat
- Claw Hammer
- Crowbar
- Fire Axe
- Lead Pipe
- Mister Chicken
- Pipe Wrench
- Shovel
- Sledge Hammer
- We are also continuously reviewing various ideas, like more melee weapons and interesting mechanics around them!
- Added a feature that allows joining in-progress/disconnected sessions
- The host can allow joining mid-session when creating the room
- For in-progress sessions, other Agents will be able to join the room as long as the squad has not reached the very first Safe Room (at the end of the Parking Lot level)
- Joining in-progress sessions are restricted to the very first level–the Parking Lot. This is to ensure Agents joining mid-session are not at a disadvantage, as they would have missed out on multiple Synaptic Enhancement and weapon drops if they joined later
- If an Agent disconnects from a session, they can find the room again in the lobby list marked with the “Recent Session” tag. They can then join the session again, and will have access to all Synaptic Enhancements and weapons they had up to the time of disconnecting
- Re-joining a disconnected session can happen on any level, even if it’s beyond the Parking Lot
- Please be advised that, if the host disconnects, the session is dissolved and it will not be possible to re-join
- Added save slots
- Agents now have access to a total of 3 save slots. Any existing progression data will be saved in slot 1 by default
- Agents can switch between different save files (as well as create new saves/delete existing saves) in the title screen (the menu is located on the top left)
- Added UI that defines key terminology in the following places
- Synaptic Enhancement selection
- Permanent enhancement selection
- Character info screen’s Enhancements section
- Added 3 new badges
- Agents can now select which badges they want to sport under the Settings menu. If you don't select any, the game will automatically choose and display some for you
- New badges are given after meeting the following conditions, respectively
- Unlocking at least tier 1 blueprint for all weapons
- Unlocking access to the last tier of permanent enhancements
- Reviving allies 50 times
Changes/Improvements
- Adjusted weapon balance
- Arc Cannon
- Adjusted weapon mechanics, including charging, snapping to targets, arcing, etc.
- Adjusted various stats, including range, damage, arcing properties, etc.
- Adjusted weapon perks (more information below)
- Flamethrower
- Adjusted the burn mechanics, including burn damage, burn interval, time until burn triggers, burn duration, etc.
- Increased the base damage of the weapon
- Adjusted weapon perks (more information below)
- Improved the weapon effects to more accurately portray the range and angle
- Adjusted weapon perks
- Arc Cannon
- Adjusted the values of weapon perks that affect the weapon’s range
- Adjusted the value of the weapon perk that slows the enemy the arc is anchoring on
- Removed the damage buff from the perk that removes anchoring properties
- The weapon perk that puts allies hit with the arc into Astral state will now only appear in Squad Mode
- Removed the weapon perk that reduces the relevant department’s point requirement for subsequent weapon perks
- Removed the weapon perk that reduces friendly fire damage
- Assault Rifle
- Moved the silencer perk from tier 2 to tier 3
- Moved the perk that increases rate of fire while continuously firing from tier 3 to tier 2; reduced the rate of fire buff amount (especially since it can now stack with the damage increase perk in tier 3)
- Flamethrower
- With the changes to burn mechanics, we added/adjusted various weapon perks around burn
- Removed the weapon perk that reduces the relevant department’s point requirement for subsequent weapon perks
- Removed the weapon perk that reduces friendly fire damage
- Pump-Action Shotgun
- Moved the perk that heals per pellet hit from tier 2 to tier 3; adjusted the HP recovery amount
- Moved the perk that increases rate of fire from tier 3 to tier 2; reduced the rate of fire buff amount
- Revolver
- Moved the silencer perk from tier 2 to tier 3
- Moved the perk that gives penetration chance from tier 3 to tier 2
- Sniper Rifle
- Moved the silencer perk from tier 2 to tier 3
- Moved the perk that increases reload speed & removes movement speed penalty during reload from tier 3 to tier 2; reduced the reload speed buff amount
- Adjusted Synaptic Enhancements
- Soul Harvest: Killing a target grants a chance to increase max HP
- Reduced the amount of max HP increase per kill
- Adrenaline Boost: Recovers HP when entering Panicked state
- Reduced the HP recovery amount
- Adjusted enemy balance
- Skirmisher
- Reduced the max Panic Gauge scaling, which will result in tougher spawns having a lower Panic Gauge threshold than before (i.e., easier to make them panic)
- Ravager
- Made improvements to the AI
- Reduced the max Panic Gauge scaling, which will result in tougher spawns having a lower Panic Gauge threshold than before (i.e., easier to make them panic)
- Exosuit
- Added a wind-up motion and a visual indicator before it fires the Gatling gun
- Adjusted maps for balance
- Deep Storage
- Various improvements for the map, including better visibility, slightly larger area, and slightly simpler layout
- Secret Rooms
- Adjusted some elements that affected difficulty
- Adjusted enemy variations
- Added new layouts
- Adjusted the rewards for some layouts
- Under the Settings menu, Agents can now choose whether the scroll wheel weapon switching includes tactical gear or not
- Made other various changes and improvements
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the issue where the Security Synaptic Enhancement was not adding a point to the Bionic Department
- Fixed the issue where there could sometimes be a roll-dodge happening without input, when playing with a controller
- Fixed the issue where the Medical Equipment in the Safe Room would not heal to max HP, if the Agent had the Heat Exchange Synaptic Enhancement
- Fixed the issue where the flashlight could sometimes illuminate through certain walls
- Fixed the issue where enemies did not get properly alerted with firing noise from the Arc Cannon
- Fixed the issue where credits were not properly dropping in Swarm Defense Mode
- Fixed other miscellaneous bugs and issues
Known Issues
- For the Flamethrower weapon perk that reduces burn duration, we plan to edit the text for clarification for some languages
- Under the "Display Badge" settings, some languages may list the badge slots as message slots
- There may be cases where, even if you set the "Display Badge" setting to show 0, some badges may still show in-game
- Agents who already unlocked the last tier of permanent enhancements may not be given the badge automatically
Please note that if you are playing at this time, your game will not be interrupted. You will be prompted to download the patch the next time you open Blackout Protocol. It is possible for teammates to play with mismatched game versions, which could potentially impact gameplay. So please install the update as soon as possible for the best experience.
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0.13.0 Balancing Act
Agents,
We are deploying a major patch (Ver. 0.13.0) to bring some big changes and improvements to the game. The team is working hard on other improvements for the future, hoping to bring them to you soon in another major patch before 2023 ends! As we continue to go through the list of suggestions and issues, we will be deploying hotfixes and patches frequently until we can ensure Agents can all comfortably enjoy the game.
We also bring a dev log from Dongsoo Oh, the creative director for Blackout Protocol, discussing some changes made in this patch. Please take a look at it if you want to learn more about how your feedback is helping us shape the game!
For the list of changes in this patch, please see below.
Early Gameplay Experience Overhaul
- Tutorial has been removed. Upon launching the game for the very first time, Agents will be finding themselves in front of Section 13’s gates in solo mode, normal difficulty. Violet will assist Agents in the Safe Room if they have Data Nugs and/or weapon blueprints they have not turned in
- Instead of unlocking the AR blueprint in the tutorial, players can now choose from 3 weapons from their very first run: Assault Rifle, Submachine Gun, and Pump-Action Shotgun
- Standardized some early gameplay elements for the first few runs, especially in the first 3 maps, to provide a more consistent learning experience
- Map layouts and combat scenarios for the first few runs will be focused around learning the basics of the game
- (Solo mode only) Tactical gears are now introduced gradually, in a way Agents need to “unlock” them (the unlocked tactical gears can be found under the Armory menu)
- Adjusted when certain weapon blueprints drop, in order to make them more meaningful for the Agents’ progression track
- Sawed-Off Shotgun blueprints will start dropping once the Agent defeats the Specter for the very first time
- Minigun and Plasmoid Launcher blueprints will drop once the Agent defeats the Exosuit for the very first time
- Adjusted the placement of ammo box/medkit drops, as well as made the ammo box to have a higher chance of dropping from enemies when Agents need them
- Improved the Parking Lot level experience
- Improved the gameplay experience in the Parking Lot level by polishing the flow, as well as standardizing the length & Synaptic Enhancement drops for different layouts
- Added new combat areas and combat scenarios
- Adjusted some enemy spawn timings
- Added enemies in some locations
- Improved the Office level experience
- Adjusted the combat scenario around the ringing telephone in the director’s office
- Adjusted the timing of Violet’s dialogues to make them more noticeable as well as alleviate overlaps
- Provided greater differentiation in rewards (Data Nugs, credits, etc.) based on each map layout’s difficulty, since different map layouts present different levels of challenges
Controls/Maneuverability Revamp
- Increased Agent characters’ base movement speed by 10%
- Adjusted the values of Synaptic Enhancements that affect movement speed, accordingly
- Adjusted enemy movement speed as well, in relation to Agent movement speed changes
- Made changes to roll dodge
- Greatly reduced the cooldown
- Adjusted the invincibility window so that it lasts for a shorter duration after rolling. This will result in a tighter gameplay experience around timing dodges perfectly to enemy attacks
- Slightly reduced the roll dodge distance
- Removed the permanent enhancement that reduced roll dodge cooldown
- Adjusted the color of the dodge availability indicator (small arrow that shows on the circular UI under the character’s feet) for better visibility
- Improved interactions with objects
- Removed the requirement to face an object (with the mouse cursor) to interact with it. The character will automatically face the object upon initiating interaction
- Reduced the time it takes to finish interactions
- Improved visibility of interaction progress
- Improved Red’s (Overtime) and Scalpel’s (Severance) active skills
- Changed so that they can now be used while moving
- Reduced the casting animation time
- Adjusted the animation based on these changes
Other Changes/Improvements
- Added a new tactical gear, the Meteolight, which works like a flare to temporarily illuminate an area
- In solo mode, Agents will need to unlock it first by picking it up at least once in the Deep Storage area
- Changed ammo boxes and medkits
- Ammo boxes no longer fill up the current clip, but only affect the ammo carried
- Made ammo kits and medkits to come in two sizes: small and large
- Small ammo kit fills 50% of the max ammo carried upon pick-up (caps at max ammo capacity)
- Large ammo kit fills up to max ammo carried upon pick-up
- Small medkit heals 30 HP
- Large medkit heals 60 HP
- Made ammo drops to account for Agents’ current ammo levels, alleviating cases of running completely dry
- Added the Supply Crate, which replenishes all ammo (both the ammo carried and the current clip), in all Safe Rooms
- Improved the mission objective nav marker so that it points to the vicinity of the objective to provide better directional cues
- Added UI effects that indicate a reload being canceled
- When a reload is canceled, the reload progress indicator (around the character’s feet & the mouse reticle) will briefly flash in red
- Added visual and sound effects upon triggering instant automatic reloads (e.g., when roll-dodging with the Rollback Synaptic Enhancement)
- Adjusted light/darkness mechanics
- Increased the illumination distance for the flashlight
- Adjusted how certain enemies behave under light
- Made Crawlers more responsive to light
- Greatly increased the impact of light on Skirmishers. Skirmishers will now keep cowering away from light, instead of periodically
- Adjusted psionic damage/Panic Gauge mechanics
- Changed Panic Gauge behavior
- Panic Gauge is no longer replenished by standing under light
- The Agent’s Panic Gauge will now be replenished to full after recovering from Panicked status effect, the same way it works for enemies
- Reduced the duration of Panicked status
- Medical Equipment in the Safe Room now heals HP and Panic Gauge, in addition to treating all injury (max HP debuffs from being downed)
- Adjusted enemy behavior
- Crawler
- Fixed the issue where Crawlers would stand still before the Agent gets close enough
- Added slight delay for Crawlers to aggro Agents
- Adjusted the amount of damage Crawlers deal
- (Also mentioned above) made Crawlers more responsive to light
- Skirmisher & Ravager
- Made Skirmishers and Ravagers (elite version with mask on) more easily distinguishable
- Made Skirmishers & Ravagers AI to react in more straightforward ways
- (Also mentioned above) greatly increased the impact of light on Skirmishers. Skirmishers will now keep cowering away from light, instead of periodically
- Adjusted the spawn points
- Disposer
- Adjusted the speed and turn rate of the Disposer’s charge attack to make fighting them feel more dynamic
- Exosuit
- Added effects for the Exosuit’s ground slam attack, including the AoE radius indicator
- Adjusted Synaptic Enhancements
- Changed the category for Surprise Attack I & II (Firearms → Uncategorized)
- Added 4 Synaptic Enhancements
- Revenue Share (R&D): Boosts physical/psionic damage of weapons while your credit balance is over a certain threshold
- Promotion Bonus (R&D): Boosts R&D weapons’ damage in proportion to the number of points you have under R&D category
- Heat Exchange (Firearms): Boosts physical damage of Firearms weapons but reduces HP recovery
- Concentration (Firearms): Not attacking for a certain amount of time provides a temporary physical damage boost to weapons
- Temporarily removed 2 Synaptic Enhancements in order to rework them
- Refund (R&D): Recovering HP over max HP gives credits
- Quickload (Firearms): Automatically reloads upon killing an enemy with a Firearm weapon
- Adjusted 1 Synaptic Enhancement
- Budget Killer (R&D): Physical damage weapons deal additional damage but consume credits with each shot
- Increased the damage boost and reduced the credit cost
- Adjusted weapon balance
- All weapons: Re-evaluated the amount of ammo carried and adjusted as necessary to make them in multiples of the default clip size
- Handgun: Fixed the issue where the rate of fire fluctuated upon firing rapidly
- Submachine Gun: Lowered the damage, increased the range, and lowered the stopping power
- Pump-Action Shotgun: Reduced the number of pellets per shot
- Sniper Rifle: Reduced the reload time
- Plasmoid Launcher: Increased the damage and added a slight knockback to enemies hit
- Minigun: Increased the damage and the rate of fire, addressed the turn rate abuse, and adjusted the turn rate
- Flamethrower: Addressed the turn rate abuse and adjusted the turn rate
- Tactical Crossbow: Slightly reduced the weapon range, the projectile speed, and the extra vision range during ADS; swapped the tiers of 2 weapon perks--clip size increase (tier 1 → tier 2) and homing projectiles (tier 2 → tier 1)
- Photon Cannon: Improved controls, changed to allow for continuous firing by holding left-click, and, accordingly, adjusted the continuous fire weapon perk to a 3-shot burst weapon perk
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: Increased the rate of fire and decreased reload speed, in order to give a stronger sense of dealing high burst damage within a short time while maintaining the overall damage output level
- Improved restarting runs by skipping the drive-in animation when retrying
- Improved voice chat volume adjustments to allow for less peaking
- Disabling voice chat will now disable all relevant settings in the menu
- Improved the visibility of the tactical gear’s projected trajectory
- Added the projected trajectory display for enemy tactical gear throws
- Changed so that key items (severed hand, security access key, etc.) drop on the ground if the non-host Agent holding them disconnects from the session
- Added icons for weapon blueprints currently in possession (on the top left of the screen, near credit/Data Nug displays) so that Agents can easily tell if they have any that are not turned in yet
- Added an extra sound effect to the roll dodge, when the character’s hand touches the ground
- This addresses cases where roll dodge sound did not properly trigger enemy alert/aggro
- Added a 2-second invincibility time after all revivals
- Removed the Grace Period permanent enhancement, which granted invincibility time after revival
- Adjusted the price of Nethercubes to 1,000 credits
- Implemented miscellaneous changes and improvements
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the bug where dead enemies could block shotgun pellets from hitting those behind
- Fixed the issue where some weapon perks were not working properly
- Fixed the issue where the rate of fire fluctuated for single-fire weapons
- Fixed localization and text issues
- Fixed other bugs
Please note that if you are playing at this time, your game will not be interrupted. You will be prompted to download the patch the next time you open Blackout Protocol. It is possible for teammates to play with mismatched game versions, which could potentially impact gameplay. So please install the update as soon as possible for the best experience.
- ODS Team
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