Hi everyone!
The Blindspot Games team has been working very hard since our last Closed Beta Playtest, which happened in early April. Our 2nd Closed Beta Playtest starts tomorrow at 1PM from June 6th to 11th.
Since then, we've reworked our sponsors system, added a new skill for each champion called "Hype”, new way to unleash your ultimate abilities, and more!
Take a seat, grab a drink and prepare the read a lengthy one! Here are the latest Patch Notes:
🎮 Gameplay mechanics
SPONSORS
- The amount of Cheers that you receive that you’ll receive at the start of a match depends on the sponsor you choose.
- At the end of each timestep, you’ll earn points that’ll increase your sponsor bar!
- The more captured sponsor tiles you control per timestep, the faster the bar fills up. If you control:
- 1 captured sponsor tile = 1 point
- 2 captured sponsor tiles = 3 points
- 3 captured sponsor tiles = 6 points
- When you reach a certain amount of points, you’ll unlock rewards.
- Sponsor rewards are improved and specialized. Each sponsor gives their rewards differently - some unlock quickly, while others need to be unlocked with many sponsor points (those are usually more powerful though).
- View the full list of rewards by pressing TAB in-game.
SCORING:
- There are now 4 scoring phases instead of 5.
- There are 2 ways to win the game! Be the first to get 7 points or have the most points at the end of the 4th round.
- SCORING ZONE:
- During the 2nd round of a match, the active scoring zone will now favor the side where the second player started their match. The first player has an advantage by going first and potentially claiming more sponsors, so we wanted to give the second player an advantage as well.
- After the 2nd round, the active scoring zones are randomized.
CHEERS:
- Balanced the amount of Cheers earned: you no longer earn Cheers on successful rolls anymore, and you gain Cheers when you finish your turn in the active Scoring Zone.
- The Cheer bars on each side of the screen have been replaced by the icon at the bottom of the screen.
END OF TURN:
- The “End of Turn” button is deactivated until you use all of your action points.
KNOCKED OUT CHAMPIONS
- States (silenced, immobilized, taunted, etc.) are now applied to wounded champions. In previous playtests, a knocked-out champion wouldn’t receive any states. Now you can target champions that are up or down!
- If a champion is down and has a new state inflicted on them, they will resurrect with that state on them.
OVERWATCH:
- We added unique bonus effects to each champion for Overwatch.
- After declaring Overwatch, you need to manually end your turn. You can now use Overwatch whenever during you turn!
- The Overwatch tiles are now in red for your team, and orange for your opponent.
- When an opponent declares Overwatch, you’ll see when they activate it, but their Overwatch tiles remain hidden. Meaning that you can’t see which tiles will activate their Overwatch.
- When using Overwatch, hover over an opposing Champion to see all of your possibilities before selecting which tiles could be triggered.
- You can now preview where your opponent’s Overwatch could be by hovering over their champion.
- Now takes into account the line of sight and Champions’ states.
- Maximus’ passive skill “Implacable” is not triggered by Overwatch anymore.
HYPE:
- Hype allows you to gain 10 cheers, which can multiply depending on the roll’s value, and advance you by 2 timesteps in the timeline. Example: if you roll a 2, then you’ll earn 20 cheers.
- As a bonus, using Hype allows you to upgrade your abilities or use a tactic in the same turn.
- You now have an extra skill that gives you more cheers and shows you where you’ll end up in the timeline. In previous playtests, it wasn’t clear that when you ended your turn, you still had some actions points left.
- Added roll mechanics and their effects (focus, hinder, etc).
- Added the option to upgrade Hype.
ULTIMATE CHARGE:
- By picking up the “Ultimate Charge” Hexadrop or winning a specific sponsor reward, you can now earn an Ultimate Charge, which allows you to trigger the ultimate of one of your champions of your choice.
- In previous playtests, we noticed that Ultimates were underused and you’d usually spend your cheers on tactics or upgrades. Having Ultimates available in the 1st round was also a huge advantage!
DROPS
- Added a 2-hexagons minimum distance between drops when they are spawned.
- With the changes of the scoring zone, drops have been affected as well! Drops spawn between the active scoring zone and the upcoming one.
- In the 2nd round, drops will spawn closer to where the second player began their match.
CHALLENGES:
- Miyamoto and Laxmee now have challenges. They’re like puzzles, aimed to help players discover the full potential of each Champion. Each Champion has 3 challenges, increasing in difficulty.
🖌️ UI
- CHEERS: added a new way to showcase Cheers.
- SPONSORS: added sponsor meter.
- SPONSORS: added sponsor page to give an overview of each sponsor and their unique rewards.
- CHAMPION PAGE: added a Champion’s page to give an overview of each champions’ strengths, abilities, tactics, etc. Still a work-in-progress.
- TIMELINE: tweaked timeline feedback for the last round. It’s clearer that it’s the final round of the match.
- TAB MENU: tweaked visual improvements.
- SEASONS: added new menu page.
- EVENT LOG: added sponsor control and target(s) of tactics in event log.
- PLAYER CARD: tweaked visual improvements.
🎨 Visuals
- 8-BALL: added his Ultimate animation
- LAXMEE: added her Ultimate animation + VFX.
- LUNAH: added her Ultimate animation.
- GATA: added her Ultimate animation + VFX, tweaked their victory animation.
- ARENA: added new triple and quadruple blockers, reworked centre piece holding the arena, added holograms and VFXs around the arena, ads, etc
- CROWD: rework of crowd visuals.
- CHALLENGES: added VFXs and placeholder images to the challenges menu. Will allow you to start any challenge/tutorial whenever.
- INTRO SCENE: added a new intro when entering a match. New lighting, explosive fire, etc.
- END GAME: added new end match cutscene, and added new a victory screen at the end of a game.
- SKILLS: added visual on Maximus’ skill “Implacable” where it will be triggered after the roll result instead of before/during. In the timeline, the skills’ effect is now visible.
- Split visual of mouse cursor inner energy indicator and border.
🧗 Progression: Quests
- We’re working on the first iteration of the quests. Quests are missions that will increase your player score for the Season. Quests range from completing challenges on certain champions to winning an X amount of matches.
- There’s 1 daily quest and 3 new quests every 3 days.
- Seasons will reset with every playtest.
- After completing the quests, players will win exclusive title, player card background, and a avatar.
- Still a WIP.
🎶 Sound
- HEXXER: added SFX for Gotcha, Vade Retro, and Contender.
- MAXIMUS: added SFX for his ultimate.
- GATA: added SFX to her ultimate, added SFX when she’s knocked out
- PICK & BAN: added SFX and MUS when selecting champions before a match.
- INTRO CINEMATIC: added SFX to the opening cutscene.
- HYPE: added crowd SFX when Hype is activated.
- VOICES: removed placeholder’s voices.
- LAXMEE: added SFX for her states, idle animations, knocked-out, and more.
- DROPS: added SFX for drops pick-ups and destroying them.
- CROWD: fixed the SFX of the crowd.
🐛 Fixes
- Fixed the timer bugs.
- Fixed the timer sound bugs.
- Removed the highlights from character, drops, obstacles when playing cinematic.
- When you’re not in the Exclusive full screen (ALT-TAB) the camera border scroll is disabled.
- Allow right click when hovering UI to cancel an action.
- Fixed other minor bugs.
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We're so excited for you to play our 2nd Closed Beta, starting TOMORROW at 1PM EST until June 11th. To register, head to our Steam page, scroll down to “Join The Hexadome: Playtest” and click on “Request Access”. Remember to share the news with friends you’d like to play with: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1498550?utm_source=steam&utm_content=devblog
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