Hey BETA Crew!
We’re just over a week into our closed BETA and a few days away from the holiday period…but that’s not stopping us!
Today we’re pleased to introduce another update to the Block N Load BETA, and one that’s packed with a host of tweaks, changes, nuts and bolts…plus a few surprises along the way. That’s not all we’ve had to say this week either, if you’ve not done so already you should check out the latest update from our Studio Head David Solari. He’s opening up about some of our future plans for the game, as well as talking about some of the choices we’ve made.
So what’s first up?
Santa Tony’s Winter Wonderland!
That’s right, snow has come to Block Land. All grass and trees are now frosted, there is a winter skyline and it’s lightly snowing and almost always just outdoors.
Tony’s lil buddy has been replaced by Luigi the death dealing snowman. He’s got Tony’s back and won’t let bases and generators go down without a fight.
Luigi will only be around to the 6th of January so enjoy him before he melts.
Yes there is more winter fun. Santa Tony has come to town. All you gotta do to get your hands on this special skin is play 20 friendly matches between the 19th of December and the 6th of January and you will permanently own this exclusive and limited edition skin.
New Maps!
We’ve made some changes to map rotations for the coming weeks. After looking at the maps you guys have been playing, we’ve decided to bench Stronghold for now. But, to compensate, we’ve decided to deliver not one, not two but THREE new maps in to the rotation. These are catchily titled:
- Cube Cove
- Teeny Tiny
- Wilson Bay
Mountain Express and Heroes Playground will remain in the rotation bringing the total number of maps available to play to 5 for the coming sessions.
Fixes
Roll up, roll up, get your fixes here! We’ve been crunching through a bunch of issues and have a host of new fixes going in to the game, some of our favorites are:
We think we’ve fixed the ‘100% loading lobby’ issue - We’ve received player reports on freezing when loading into a lobby at 100%, with this update this should now be fixed allowing you to get right into the action. We’ve never been able to replicate it at Block HQ or at home so tracking the cause down has been hard and the only way to test the fix is put it live and wait for feedback.
- Fixed an issue with custom key bindings not saving after restarting the game.
- Fixed an issue regarding chat messages from another game appearing in your match.
- Fixed an issue where a notification shows on the Lobby Chat that there are messages, but when opened none are visible.
- Some players had noticed artifacts on grass and noticeable lines running along the edges of some blocks on high and very high graphics settings. This has been fixed.
Heroes Updates & Balancing
We know you’ve been holding out for a hero… to soon? It’s been a big week for the Heroes of Block N Load and now that we’ve started to see some data coming through from the game play sessions we’ve massaged, moulded and pushed some changes through the heroes to adjust their balance and play.
So who got what?
Cogwheel:
Cog is tanky and really powerful from long range versus materials and infrastructure. He’s also very strong in combat… basically he was too damn strong! So we’ve backed off some his combat effectiveness to balance out his mojo. . So the devil’s in the details:
- Cogwheel Rotary Cannon alt-fire spread has been increased.
- Cogwheel Rotary Cannon ammo pool reduced to 300 (from 500).
- Cogwheel Rotary Cannon resupply rate reduced to 20 (from 25).
- Cogwheel Passive Ability ammo resupply effect halved.
- Cogwheel Arm Cannon alt-fire radius lowered to 1.5 from 2, damage lowered to 30 from 40.
Doc Eliza Doolally:
Eliza’s gas wasn’t quite as toxic as we’d been led to believe, so we sent her back to the lab. But we give with one and take with the other as we’ve dropped her heal down to restore the yin and the yang. .
- Eliza Gas Cloud damage increased.
- Eliza Bubble Gun ammo pool reduced to 40 (from 42).
- Eliza active heal toned down to 50 points.
Nigel Purdey-Longshott:
Nigel’s Tiki Heads were lacking Juju, so we’ve done some black magic and they should now be much more useful…so use them already! We’ve also buffed his firearms slightly, so they’re a little more…you know…deadly.
- Nigel Rifle ammo pool reduced to 28 (from 30).
- Nigel Rifle base damage increased to 40 (from 35).
- Nigel Revolver moving accuracy penalty lowered.
- Nigel Revolver ammo pool reduced to 36 (from 48).
- Nigel Revolver resupply rate reduced to 3 (from 6).
- Tiki Head fire rate increased to 1 shot per second (from 1 per 5s).
- Tiki Head now shoots 4 darts in a 10 degree spread (upped from single shot).
- Tiki Head dart projectile speed increased to 100 (from 20).
- Tiki Head now has movement prediction in its aiming AI.
- Tiki Head dart projectile timeout reduced to 1s from 5s.
O.P. Juan Shinobi:
O.P. is a slippery devil so when we finally managed to pin him down, we just managed to make some small changes to his kit before he vanished in a puff of smoke.
- O.P. Shuko (claws) timings tweaked.
- O.P. Katana timings tweaked.
- O.P. Katana damage slightly increased due to timing changes.
- O.P. Katana range increased to 3.
- O.P. Katana altfire (smoke bomb teleport) ammo pool increased to 4 (from 3).
- O.P. Katana altfire (smoke bomb teleport) resupply rate lowered to 0.25 (from 0.5).
- O.P. Shuriken ammo pool increased to 48 (from 45).
- O.P. Shuriken resupply rate lowered to 3 (from 5).
- O.P. Active ability progression adjusted due to ammo changes.
Sarge Stone:
Our Sarge ain’t the brightest but he’s got his sh*t together pretty well right now, so we’ve not made too many changes to him this time around.
- Sarge Rocket Launcher splash *world* damage toned down to 40 from 60, 20 points of direct World damage added back. Player damage remains unchanged (40 splash).
Tony Turretto:
Tony T’s mamma came round to tell us what’s what so now we’re making sure her special little boy is well rewarded for all the hard work that he’s doing cracking out those headshots.
- Tony Rivet Gun has 25% bonus damage on headshots (upped from 0% from last week).
- Tony Rivet Gun ammo pool reduced to 36.
- Tony Rivet Gun resupply rate reduced to 2.
Gameplay Changes
And last but not least – we’ve got our blocks n our building… all of which have seen some small tweaks and updates to just make it that little bit tougher.
Blocks:
- Bear Trap salvage value normalized.
- Grass block durability normalized.
- Caltrops damage and tick rate lowered to 3 ticks per second * 7 damage.
- Mud block toughness removed, mining value normalized.
Building:
- All tool dig & build ranges normalized to 3 units.