3 MONTHS OF POLISH

I need to post here more often!

It's been 3 months since the last Steam page announcement, and in that time I've released over 50 updates to the game. The in-game changelog shows all of this, but not this Steam page itself. So it's time to make an announcement, with today's changes, plus some highlights of previous versions I didn't officially announce yet.

Most of the changes come from the thousands of new players signing up every week from youtube, tiktok, instagram etc. There's been a huge focus on streamlining the new player experience, balancing the game and matchmaking around much fuller servers, and using the ingame survey to poll the playerbase to fine tune the overall balance.

P.S. Here's what the Steam backend looks like whenever I release a new version:

TODAY'S CHANGELOG

[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Added soft duplicate protection to bias away from dropping DNA on existing legendary skills

- The 6th daily challenge is easier to complete (requiring 75% as much stuff as before)

- Weekly challenges now unlock after 5/10/15/20/25 dailys to compensate and line up with the reward numbers

- The "Get 4 Road Kills" daily is removed and replaced with "Win 3 Syringe Gambits" daily challenge

- The "8 Kills From Car Window" daily is now "6 Kills From A Car". This means you can also complete it with roadkills.

- F2P players can no longer complete challenges beyond the free section. F2P already couldn't claim them, so this was kinda pointless and needlessly confusing

- Instead of showing player's account levels, the scoreboard now shows the class level badge

- Player's classes are always shown, even in random class mode. This lets you counter other players and makes for more interesting build decisions

- Tiny random class and random skill icons now appear next to the class to show if those modes are enabled

[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Added soft duplicate protection to bias away from getting the same class twice in a row with random class mode

- You now manually level your skills if you join a game late. They're no longer automatically assigned to you

- More health kits drop in general, especially in round 3

- Skill Speed vendor upgrades are now 20/40/60% instead of 25/50/75%

- Molotov radius is 20% larger

- Made bots a bit stronger and better at aiming if they have humans on their squad

- The option to pay off your bounty shows more often now, starting at wanted level 1 instead of 3

- The 2 draft skills are now sorted so that the higher level skill is on the right, making it easier to spam click a skill to max level

[CLASS CHANGES]

- Criminals' gang members now chase enemies more aggressively

[SKILL CHANGES]

- Illicit Income now also increases the speed you climb wanted levels, ranging from +20% to 100%. This is affected by the vendor SPEED upgrade

- Toxic Blood's radius is 20% bigger

- Cluster Bomb's throwing speed is slightly slower, and bazookas are more spaced out

- Falling Inferno's molotovs do 25% less damage than before

- Invisibility's cooldown is 2s faster

- Proximity Rounds's mutation gives +200% instead of +150% charging speed vs gangsters

- Armed Robbery's upgrade lege drop rate is 40% instead of 35%

[BUG FIXES]

- Fixed a bug where you could get a free syringe (and thus +2 levels) by leaving and rejoining the game during voting sometimes

- Fixed a bug where you could sometimes buy 2 syringe gambits

- You can now unlock skills while standing inside a warp field

- Fixed a bug where you could damage allied cars with molotovs

- Fixed a bug where you'd sometimes double reload your gun with bad ping

- Fixed a bug where Mirror Image clones didn't grow in size from beefcake

- Fixed a bug where you sometimes got stuck using a knife

- Fixed a bug where you'd sometimes join a squad game in R3 and be put on an empty squad with just bots

PREVIOUS HIGHLIGHTS

Here are some of the biggest additions to the game over the last 3 months since the last Steam announcement:

The Syringe Gambit

There's a new ultra high risk high reward option from Vendors called the Syringe Gambit. It costs $15k, and if you buy it you have a CHANCE to get a new syringe (very powerful). But only if you get 3 kills in a row. If you die before this, you lose the chance and lost the $15k. It makes the game very tense!

Instant Ranked Rewards

You now get rewards in ranked mode AS YOU EARN THEN, instead of having to wait till the end of the month. This makes the ranked grind far more rewarding.

Progression Buffs
- Daily Challenges now give 500 ACID and 5000 XP instead of 300 ACID and 3000 XP.
- Common skills are stronger. Previously a Common skill mutation was only 25% as strong as Legendary one. Now it is 40% as strong, making it far more viable and a good way to try new mutations.

Better Matchmaking

In addition to fuller servers, players now have control over what sort of servers they join. There are new buttons above the play button that let you prioritize the fullest server, or servers starting in round 1 to play a full game. With more players, the match maker now takes into account your skill level too. Also, more trophies are paid out in really difficult games now to compensate for the increased competition.

Report & Mute Functionality

While 99% of the new players are an awesome addition to our community, 1% of players not so much. So as the playerbase has grown, I've needed to build out a report and mute system. You can now click a button in the main menu to show recent players, and can click report/mute buttons if they're naughty.

QoL Fixes & Bug Fixes
The skill build and skill draft have been streamlined after numerous new players reported confusion on how it works. The UI explains things better too. There's a new search box to search for skills, and it will highlight skills with a matching name or description. So for example, newbies can type in "grenade" and highlight relevant skills. Lots of netcode improvements too.

Gameplay Changes
There are more showdown areas now, for more variety with some of them focussing on close quarter combat. Vendors now sometimes sell weapons with +25% damage bombs on them.

Heavy Class Reworked
The Heavy class got a big rework, and now has this new mechanic where once your health drops below 30% health, you activate these super strong bullets that do +2 damage per shot (which goes great with a high ROF gun). You also get global vision in this time, and your shields regenerate. It creates this feeling of "winning at the last minute" as you get to low health and then become super strong. Probs the most strong class atm.

SOME FUN YOUTUBE VIDEOS

The main focus this past 3 months has been growing the size of our playerbase with some big youtube videos. Here are some new shorts that have got over 1 million views: