0.14.0 "Up Close & Personal" Patch Notes

12 Dec 2023Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Patch Schedule

PST: 10:00 AM, December 12
EST: 1:00 PM, December 12
CET: 7:00 PM, December 12
ICT: 1:00 AM, December 13
KST: 3:00 AM, December 13

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.

- ODS Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/