v0.21 is now live! This brings a month's worth of new fixes and updates, but primarily:
Capture The Flag!
One of our most requested modes, CTF is here! There are some key changes to the mode that make it play very well in ShatterRush:
No Movement Abilities
Critically, when you pickup the flag, you lose access to your movement ability. This sounds quite counter-intuitive, but let us cook - we REALLY want this mode to encourage Destruction and team-play. If you could pop a stim and just sprint between your base and the enemy base, that isn't much fun to everyone else in the lobby.
Instead, by forcing you to slow down, you now rely on your teammates much more to protect you. As well, you can make your own destruction route around the map before capturing the flag for optimal return performance.
We're really excited to see how players will react to this restriction, and what kind of strategies will come out of it.
Always On Marker
When picking up the flag, you'll be permanently visible to the whole enemy team. This encourages you to fully utilise the movement system to avoid being eliminated early.
No Mechs
While holding the flag, you can't use your mech. We want flag carrying to be an intense experience, and retreating to the safety of a multi-ton mech goes against this.
Home Flag Needed
When capturing an enemy flag, the home flag is required to score. This has lead to a lot of interesting behaviour in playtests - you now have to BOTH escort your flag carrier and defend your dropped flag until it resets, leading to incredibly intense firefights even in 1v1 matches!
Other Changes
MAJOR improvements to the reliability of the mantle and climbing, it should be far more consistent in terms of performance.
Teams now auto-balance, and teams are more evenly distributed skill-wise across matches.
And much more!
GG, have fun!