Welcome to the Wildgate Open Beta patch notes. 🎉
To learn more about the Open Beta, click here.
To share your feedback, be sure to join our Discord server.
To report bugs, visit our Bug Report portal.
Read below to learn about the latest changes. And have fun storming the Reach!
✨ HIGHLIGHTS
Added two new prospectors: Kae and Adrian
Added three new small POIs: the Refinery, the Drill Station, and the Juggernaut
Balance changes to Mophs and Venture
Reworked the Extra Ammo and Energy Shield equipment
Overhauled the UI for a cleaner experience
Adjusted how XP is calculated
Plus, lots of general performance improvements and bug fixes
🔥 GAME MODES
ARTIFACT HUNT
"Artifact Hunt" is now the name of Wildgate’s core game mode!
The Wildgate now pulses energy when it opens, knocking nearby ships away
The Artifact now reveals itself to all players when the Wildgate opens
Added a 60-minute countdown clock to the map screen when playing Artifact Hunt. When time runs out, the Reach wins. The timer for other game modes varies
PRACTICE vs AI
AI ships now adjust their difficulty based on the number of players on the human team
The AI crew in VS AI mode can now move around their ships
Made various tutorial fixes to make the game easier to learn for new players
🌌 THE REACH
DEV NOTE: Reach Leeches were just confusing. We saw people guessing what they did on Discord and we stole the idea. Thank you! The change to the Monolith allows you to chase players out of the Monolith to their ship, which (while rare) is fun. The cover changes in Monolith hopefully create more variation in this space. We need more variants in that “final area.” Team is working on it.
We also think messing with loot as part of proceduralism is fun, but “Low Loot” was not a great idea, so we are trying “Easy Loot” and “Epic Loot” instead.
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POINTS OF INTEREST
The new small POIs have mysteriously appeared in the Reach for intrepid explorers to discover:
The Refinery
The Drill Station
The Juggernaut
Monolith portals now have indicators that tell you where the portal leads to
The Monolith encounters now contain variants in cover
REACH HAZARDS
Reach Leeches
Reach Leeches now consume 1 fuel from the ship they are attached to every 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 3 fuel per Leech
Destroying the Leech returns you the amount of fuel the Leech ate and 3 extra as a bonus
Rogue Turrets
Now spawn close to POIs, making them easier to spot and more relevant to the action
Easy Loot
Only small Points of Interest spawn, but they all have good guns and devices
Epic Loot
Now spawns high-quality loot in all medium-sized Points of Interest
🤖 PROSPECTORS
DEV NOTE: We have added two new boarder characters to the game, and Mophs is still evolving to fit in with these characters. We understand that boarding is a contentious area of the game, with many players wanting boarding to be more difficult, while some players may be comfortable with where it is at.
We are still trying to walk a line with boarding being a powerful tool in winning games, but not the only tool at your disposal. Changes to Mophs, the addition of Kae and Adrian, along with the changes below on Venture, will hopefully bring us closer to the balance we are seeking in this part of the game.
Note that we made no changes to Ion here. Not because he wasn’t breaking everything in our previous community preview playtest (he was), but because there are a lot of changes here already, and we want to see how Ion stands up with these other characters.
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NEW PROSPECTOR: ADRIAN
Jet Pack: Activate for a boost in speed. Replaces the Maghook
Wings: Fly 30% faster
Health: 100
NEW PROSPECTOR: KAE
Telekinetic: Can interact with objects 10m away
Warp Jump: Teleport once up to 100m away. Replaces the Maghook
Health: 100
MOPHS
Mophs can now Camouflage for 15s (was 10s)
Mophs moves 2m per second faster when camouflaged
Mophs can open doors and perform other “instant” interactions while camouflaged
It now takes Mophs 0.2s to camouflage (reduced from 0.875s)
Enemy players must now be within 5m to have a chance to see Mophs while camouflaged (reduced from 8m)
SAL
Sal’s Salvage ability now has a short delay before the item appears
VENTURE
Venture now has an ability based on the friendly AI camera that sits on his shoulder
Venture warns the player if there is an enemy in a cone behind them up to 18m away
This goes through walls and other barriers and may include enemies outside the ship
Venture no longer reloads his equipment and ammo automatically when teleporting home
This ability is now tied to the new “Teleport Reloader” equipment
🚀 SHIPS
DEV NOTE: We have changed the way ships reveal themselves on the map. This is largely to reduce the ease of making a “3rd party” attack by making ships less visible to all players. Our hope is that boarders generally perform “raids” on enemy ships. Boarding, stealing, overloading, blasting some crew, perhaps taking control of the helm, instead of trying to camp enemy players. As part of this change, we have made stealing items easier to encourage more theft and fewer attempts at “chain killing.” ---
GAME MAP AND PROBE VISION
The way ships are revealed on the map has changed
Ships are now revealed only to your team if either ship has damaged the other
Probe Scan Range increased to 300m (was 200m)
Probes now have +50% more fuel
SHIP LAYOUTS
The Hunter and Scout have both had their armory locations moved to better protect them from boarders (who had easy access to a quick reload)
Ship interiors have lots of new props that add to the personality of the ships, the prospectors, and help players navigate within the ships more easily
SHIP INTERACTIONS
Removing items from turrets or hardpoints now takes 2s (reduced from 3s)
Ship doors are now louder when enemies open them
Ship engines now spawn turbines when destroyed only under the following conditions:
100% of the time when the ship dies
33% of the time when destroyed by another source
You can now interact with a ship’s helm while it’s being used by friendly crew members (this will kick them off, letting you take control)
🔫 WEAPONS
DEV NOTE: We understand the frustration around the AIM-e. We hope this change will be sufficient to keep the weapon useful to many of our players who are less skilled at gunplay, while not allowing them to easily defeat players with more shooter experience. We acknowledge that this is a small change and will be watching this going forward.
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AIM-E
AIM-e projectiles no longer track an enemy correctly if the shooter dies
PAINTER
Painter damage increased to 20 damage per projectile (was 18 damage)
THE DOCTOR
The Doctor damage per second increased to 80 (was 70)
The Doctor healing per second increased to 60 (was 50)
🛡️ EQUIPMENT
DEV NOTE: Based on the last playtest, we have buffed and nerfed a few items.
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ATTACK & REPAIR DRONES
Drone duration increased to 30s (was 20s)
DRILL CHARGE
Now does 1 hp of damage to enemy ships
ENERGY SHIELD
Renamed to Teleporter Reloader
This item now recharges all equipment and ammo when the player teleports home to their ship
EXTRA AMMO
Renamed to Adventure Gear
Still provides the same ammo bonus
Now reduces damage from monsters and environment effects by 33%
MAGHOOK
You can now activate the ability again to cancel a Maghook
FOAM GRENADE
Foam Grenade now damage enemies in its blast radius at 10 damage per second
SENSOR TRAP
Players can now pick up their Sensor Traps to return them to their inventory
💰 LOOT
DEV NOTE: We are still tuning loot across the game. Having removed a lot of the weapon-specific loot tables, we find that ships sometimes don’t have as many guns as we wanted them to have after their first medium POI. So, mediums now have more guns. This should encourage players to use their turrets to try to defeat enemy ships instead of focusing only on boarding.
We understand that many players find some items of loot (Laser Rams, for example) to be difficult to play against. We like loot to feel meaningful, so we want to tread carefully before nerfing powerful items to see if players can get a feel for some of the counter-play we believe is possible.
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LOOT SPAWNS
All Medium difficulty POIs now spawn better cannons
Added several new “weird” loot tables to the game that are rare to find
SHIP HARDPOINTS
Probe Sensor
Reduced range of Probe Scans from 400m to 300m
Ships scanned by a Probe are now visible for an additional 2 minutes for each Probe Sensor installed on a ship at the time of the scan
Smuggler's Turn
Now activated on the helm rather than on the device itself
Installing additional Smuggler’s Turn devices reduces the activation cooldown time
SHIP CANNONS
Scatter Cannon
Now has a more focused, predictable spread pattern
HANDHELD DEVICES
Tractor Beam
Can now target and pull players
Will now slightly snap to a player target to make long-range targeting of players more possible
Starlance
Projectile speed doubled
Clamp Jet
Clamp Jets now take reduced damage from fires and explosions
Clamp Jets now instantly activate when hit by melee attacks
Clamp jets can now be triggered when they are not attached to objects, prospectors, and items
💥 COMBAT
RESPAWN INVULERABILITY
DEV NOTE: We've made some additional changes to respawn invulnerability. We saw your notes on this and experienced the pain ourselves. We have made what we believe to be a small change. We can and will make bigger changes if necessary. We don’t want ships endlessly camped by boarders, but we also don’t want boarders just driven off easily through invulnerability.
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When you respawn, you gain invulnerability
Respawn invulnerability ends if you take any offensive action
REACTOR OVERLOAD
DEV NOTE: The Reactor Overload will now create more problems for crews (more time to put out fires that have spawned), but will do less damage to ships overall. We believe this encourages players to use Reactor Overload during a battle as a way to distract a crew and maybe do some damage, but hopefully players will stop trying to “win with Overload” which we believe removes much of the fun of Wildgate (piloting, gunnery mixed with boarding).
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Reactor Overload now causes 1 ship fire every 5s after a 2s initial delay
SHIP FIRES
DEV NOTE: Ship Fires now spread slightly faster. Ships have a cap of 10 fires existing, if additional fires attempt to spawn they will cause damage to the ship directly.
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Ship Fires now spread every 25s (reduced from 30s)
Ships will now receive up to 5 damage (increased from 3) when multiple fires attempt to spawn on a ship simultaneously beyond the cap of 10 fires existing
The Fire Barrier hardpoint device does not resist these fires
🔓 REWARDS
DEV NOTE: The changes to XP are meant to flatten the XP curve between very skilled players and new players. We were seeing skilled players earn 4-5x the XP of players who are still learning the game, which was a bit much. We have heard the note that many believe they are not getting enough XP for piloting the ship. We will keep an eye on this number during this next playtest.
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EXPERIENCE
XP earned from matches is now calculated differently
XP reduced for some actions like killing other players and defeating some NPCs
Players now gain 1,000 XP per minute of a game
The requirement to level up has gone from 20,000 XP to 70,000 XP
Prospectors under Level 10 now grant their team a 25% XP Gained bonus in Artifact Hunt game mode
Added new missions to the Daily Mission system
🧭 USER INTERFACE
DEV NOTE: We had a lot of notes across the UI for Wildgate across our last two community preview events! Based on your feedback we have gone from a more “minimalist” approach to text descriptions and are trying to give more information that you will find useful in choosing your loadout.
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IN LOBBY
Menu UI
Updated menus, art and layouts in many parts of the game, including new loading screens specific to each game mode
Tooltips updated to provide more information about weapons and equipment
Added a game mode selector button and screen that allows you to swap your current game mode, which is queued for when hitting Play
The status of your match queue can now be seen while you’re in any main menu tab
Added a “NEW“ item flag on category-level tabs when you’ve unlocked new items
Adventure UI
The Adventure tab has been renamed to the Rewards tab
Added new Prospector Reward tracks for Kae and Adrian
Selecting a reward track can now be done by clicking the “Set Active” button inside the track button itself, or by double-clicking
IN MATCH
New Player Experience UI
Added new screen for new players to highlight several important settings, including voice chat
Added pop-up for new players when entering the Rewards tab, which briefly explains Adventures
Added a pop-up guiding new players to change their loadout after they unlock their first Adventure reward
In Match UI
Added pop-up on match start to show which player’s ship has been chosen
Added an end-of-game death summary of what damaged your ship before it exploded
End of game match stats now include Piloting Distance, Enemies Blasted, Ship Parts Repaired, and Ship Damage
Voice chat user interface has been completely overhauled
Pings and VO callouts from the ping wheel are now also displayed in text chat
Map UI changed to make fewer grid squares across the Reach
Squares are now 750m across instead of 500m
The size of the Reach has not changed
Players’ usernames are displayed on the map under their location marker when they are off their ship
Many other in-game user interface changes, including around Pings, Ship Helm, Ping Wheel and more!
CONTROLS AND SETTINGS
Controls UI
Added a new specific setting for map cursor movement sensitivity
Added a new specific key binding for “Disembark”
You can now use the back mouse button to navigate backwards in menus
🌱 QUALITY OF LIFE
Matchmaking will now favor match quality over quicker matches
When mining resources from fuel or ice asteroids, your character will automatically slow down to allow for easier lock-on of the mining target
Plus...lots of game performance improvements!
✅ BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug that prevented the fire resistance from the Fire Barrier hardpoint device from stacking
Fixed a bug that caused winning crews to receive 4x more XP than intended
Fixed several bugs with Grenades and Drill Charge so they behave more consistently and move more like real objects
And many, many more fixes not listed here!