Dear Metas,
Since the launch of Once Human, we've carefully reviewed your feedback on repetitive exploration, resource surpluses, and challenges with mod acquisition.
To address these issues, we've refined the core exploration and progression experience. On March 27, we'll roll out updates including a Pollution Zone revamp, new gameplay experiences, resource balancing, and mod conversion improvements. Our goal is to deliver a better gaming experience to all players.
In this article, we'll preview some of these changes and optimizations. We'd also love to hear your feedback on these updates, so let us know what you think!
Pollution Zone Adjustments
Pollution Zones were originally designed to provide players with an evolving survival experience during exploration. However, we recognize that the current Contamination and Sanity mechanics feel too static and predictable, diminishing the richness and depth of exploration. To fix this, we've overhauled these mechanics as follows:
1. Stardust Ore can suppress and absorb Contamination, and will appear in areas with high Contamination. Items and structures crafted using Stardust Ore are super effective against Deviants. Stardust Ore in the environment will also continuously weaken nearby Deviants.
2. Mining Stardust Ore triggers a gradual rise in local Contamination levels, which only stops when the Stardust Ore respawns, restoring its suppressive effect.
3. The rules for Contamination in Pollution Zones have been adjusted. Sanity now starts at 1,000 and drains at a rate of (Contamination level - Pollution Resist) per second. When Sanity drops below a certain level, special Deviants will attack, and you must use Stardust Ore or crafted items to repel them.
4. A new structure has been added: Veil of Tranquility. Once connected to power, it will expend its own Durability to provide Sanity protection to nearby players, while simultaneously weakening nearby Deviants.
Note: The number on the Backpack reflects the area's current Contamination level.
Rosetta Settlement
While exploring the high-difficulty Rosetta Settlement area, a Rosetta secret convoy event may be randomly triggered. If you steal the convoy crate from Rosetta, you will be hunted by a large number of Rosetta elites, and you must evade their pursuit until the convoy crate is unlocked. The convoy crate contains a large amount of Control Units, which can be used to craft bullets and tactical items.
Gameplay Optimizations
Anti-Type Effects
We want to give players more freedom in utilizing anti-type effects that are strong against Deviants or humanoid enemies. Therefore, these effects are no longer restricted to specific weapons. Instead, players can craft bullets and tactical items with various anti-type effects using in-game resources.
1. Basic Rules
Using Stardust Ingots to craft bullets and tactical items will grant them anti-Deviant effects, while using Control Units to craft these items will grant them anti-humanoid effects.
2. New Anti-Type Bullets: Suppression AP Ammo (strong against Deviants) and Penetration AP Ammo (strong against humanoids)
These anti-type bullets deal massive amounts of bonus damage to the HP and Shields of the corresponding enemy types, including Super Anomalies.
These effects (Non-Elemental DMG, Impact, Penetration, and Suppression) have also been removed from all weapons. Additionally, Non-Elemental DMG bonuses provided by fur have been replaced with Weapon DMG bonuses.
3. Other Combat Item Adjustments
All offensive tactical items can now be crafted with anti-type effects.
New Tactical Items
Due to the changes to anti-type effects and the introduction of new high-difficulty dungeons on March 27, we are introducing a new combat option—rare tactical items!
Shield Matrix
"Omnidirectional defense device, activate!"
Deploys a large protective shield at the user's location. The shield completely blocks all incoming bullets and projectiles, but Meta-Humans within it can still fire outward. However, the shield does not prevent enemies from passing through.
Mr. Wish's Rocket Launcher
"Still struggling to calculate offset? Let's try a different approach."
Mr. Wish's Rocket Launcher is equipped with Mr. Wish's "advanced" guidance technology, allowing you to control the rocket's trajectory and precisely strike the enemy.
Note: Due to Mr. Wish's Deviation powers, he is not harmed during this process. Please do not try this at home.
Wildfire Flamethrower
"Stop using this thing for barbecues—you'll burn yourself!"
This flamethrower employs cutting-edge fuel and catalytic technology to produce higher-temperature flames with an extended range. Be careful not to burn yourself.
Note: The above tactical items are PvE-exclusive.
New Memetic Specialization Items
Currently, only Biomass Missiles and Plasma Rounds are effective against the Manibus's Silver Plague shield in The Prime War game mode. To add more strategic options, three new Memetic Specialization items are now available: Red Plasma Rocket Warheads, Red Plasma Grenades, and Red Antiviral Ammo.
1. Red Plasma Rocket Warheads and Red Plasma Grenades are compatible with the RPG7 Rocket Launcher and the Grenade Launcher, respectively, and significantly increase their damage against the Silver Plague shield. This allows you to dominate The Prime War without crafting turrets.
The Red Plasma Grenade will replace the Ultra Grenade specialization, while the Red Plasma Rocket Warhead will replace the High Power Warhead specialization.
2.Red Antiviral Ammo deals massive damage to Original Entity bosses and is highly effective against the OE Kin summoned by the Manibus in Nightmare difficulty and above!
Resource Balance Adjustments
To address early-game scarcity and late-game resource surplus, and to balance for the deprecation of Controllers on March 27, we've adjusted resource acquisition rates as follows:
1. Increased the resource yield of early and mid-game stages, while reducing the resource yield of late-game stages Affected resources include Energy Links, Stardust Source, and Barreled Premium Fuel.
2. Increased the value of resources obtained from Pollution Zones, such as Stardust Ore, but reduced their respawn frequency.
3. Adjusted the conversion rates of some Memetic Specializations, including Sulfur Chemist and Oil Processing.
Detailed Yield Adjustments
Securement Silos / Dungeons / LEA Research Labs
1. Normal and Hard: Stardust Source +20%; Energy Links +20%.
2. Pro: Stardust Source yield reduced by about 10%. Energy Link yield reduced by about 10%.
Note: Pro difficulty still offers higher resource acquisition efficiency than lower difficulty levels.
The Prime War
1. Normal and Hard: Stardust Source +10%; Barreled Premium Fuel +20%.
2. Pro and Nightmare: Stardust Source -10%; Barreled Premium Fuel -20%.
Chaosweaver
1. Scenario Phases 2 and 3: Stardust Source +10%.
2. Scenario Phase 4: Stardust Source -10%.
Evolution's Call - Engagement Zone
1. Stardust Source: Production efficiency and storage limit +10%.
2. Barreled Premium Fuel: Production efficiency and storage limit -15%.
Public Crisis Events
1. Normal: Stardust Source yield increased by about 20%.
2. High-Risk: Stardust Source yield increased by about 10%.
3. High-Risk Public Crisis Events now also yield Rubber.
Memetic Specializations
1. Oil Processing: Stardust Ore consumption reduced from 50 to 25.
2. Sulfur Chemist: Production time increased from 5 to 8 minutes. Energy Link consumption increased from 50 to 100.
3. Stardust Mining Platform efficiency now fluctuates slightly based on Contamination.
Material Point Adjustments
Acid: 10 ---> 8
Stardust Source: 2 ---> 3
Barreled Premium Fuel: 100 ---> 80
Stardust Ore: 20 ---> 30
Beryllium Crystal: 100 ---> 80
Vanadium Crystal: 150 ---> 120
Iridium Crystal: 200 ---> 160
Platinum Crystal: 250 ---> 200
Mod Conversion Adjustments
We've heard your frustrations about the grind for high-rarity mods. With the deprecation of Controllers, we're overhauling the mod conversion system to improve fairness and accessibility.
1. Increased the overall probability of obtaining high-level Mods.
2. When converting mods of the lowest initial level, there is now a chance of obtaining mods with Epic attributes.
3. The higher the total initial level of the mods being converted, the higher the minimum rarity of the mods obtained, and the greater the chance of obtaining high-rarity mods.
The above adjustments are not final. We will make further optimizations after gathering player feedback and announce the finalized content before the update.
If you have any questions, please contact us via social media or the in-game feedback channel.