Incoming Update: The Fight Goes On [1.1]
Hey there, AFF community! We’re still hard at work on cleaning up the rubble from the 1.0 launch, and wanted to share some of the next patch’s highlights ahead of time.
We still have more content plans cooking and will share our [REDACTED] plans with you all at some point in the near future, as we have some really cool (at least we sure think so) stuff we still want to add to the game. There’s still a lot of love for the game from us and we want to be more consistent with communicating where we’re at with its development and what you all can expect in the future.
Onwards to the meat and potatoes of this upcoming patch. We have map changes, balance changes, network performance improvements, some UI changes, and a whole slew of bugfixes awaiting deployment. This is just a preview of what we have in store for you all.
We even have a fun little melee addition we’re working on that is geared towards improving Heavy suit users’ ability to retaliate as we still see the knife out there going strong, so we’re looking at more counterplay and adjustments. Note that it may not be present in the closed test build. Pugilists rejoice!
As a big big big side note: We are coordinating a series of 64 player stress tests on our closed test branch. If you’re up for it, we’d love to get your help during our usual Saturday Community Event time around 7pm Eastern Time (23:00 UTC)!
Some of these changes are also on the closed test branch if you wanna get your feedback shared with us before deployment.
Whether you’re playing offline or online, we hope you like these changes.
If you’re interested, opt into the beta branch on Steam:
Go to your Steam Library, right click on Angels Fall First, click Properties, then go to Game Versions & Betas and enter this code: saltmustflow into the Private Versions access code section. It will start a download afterwards.
Now, onto the patch notes, minus all the bugfixes we've done since the last patch (there's a lot). There may yet be more content included in the patch that's not listed here but all the big stuff we are for sure getting in the next patch is in the post.
Performance
Network
Numerous networking performance tweaks and optimizations to enhance server performance under the strain of high player counts in a match. (Ongoing)
Balance Changes
General Changes
Respawning is restricted if you have recently taken damage (2s)
Helmet Mods
Design Team’s Notes: In the live build, Light Suits with Agility and Infiltrator spec mods still dominate the gameplay space and Assault spec is overtuned to say the least, leading to a lot of complaints about TTK and the light suit bouncy boys flying all over the place. We also want to give new players a better experience with the process of gaining experience. We’re trying to avoid hurting skill expression but also need to find harmony somewhere in between.
Agility Spec Rebalance
Agility spec will now work based on charges (3 charges, 1 recovered every 2s)
Assault Spec Rebalance
Assault spec has been rebalanced. It is generally a nerf, though the stacks decay slower. New reduction is roughly *3 hits = 20% reduction, 9 = 40%, 21 = 50%... "max" 60%*
Leveling Spec Changes
Costs reduced to 0/0/0 for equipping this mod.
Infiltrator Spec Rebalance
One-shot protection will now force a minimum of 3s recovery time on armor on break, and armor must be fully regenerated for another charge of one-shot protection. (This may be tuned a bit further, pending feedback)
Maps
Lukather Starport Overhaul
Level Designer’s Notes: Lukather, Lukather, Lukather. This map was one of the first maps I ever touched and prepped for launch back when I joined the team. It has sat untouched for quite some time and when we finally got an audience, they helped me find all sorts of problems with its design. Gunships dominate the space largely unopposed because of how flat the map’s tarmac is and how limited the infantry choices are for hiding from the terrors of the skies. I aim to make it a better overall experience to play, so I added six new underground infantry paths, repositioned or added cover, and added more spawn points to help against spawn camping. There were also some cheese strategies that needed fixing.
Both Variants
Added the Y13 Novagare Civilian Transport ship, which is floating above a grav cradle. For clarity, this ship is strictly a static prop, and functions as a major line of sight interruptor.
Added six brand new underground maintenance access tunnels, five of which are infantry-only.
Two of these pathways run between grav cradles.
One of the pathways leads right into the ATC tower from the nearest grav cradle.
Another one of the pathways goes directly to the baggage area in the main concourse.
The largest pathway, which was designed for vehicle usage, connects to the grav cradle underneath the Griphon Corvette to the grav cradle underneath the newly added Y13 Novagare.
The sixth and final pathway connects a stairwell from the large underground vehicle pathway to the fuel tank area topside.
A check-in area has been added to gates 1 through 3 in the main concourse, providing cover in a much-needed location.
Lots of little additions and set dressing done throughout the map.
Incursion Variant
Added a second AIA drop pod in Phase 1.
The ATC tower is out of bounds until Phase 3, and has doors to indicate it is blocked off, which open up at the start of Phase 3.
Added a Turtle for the ULA.
Added an extra gunship for both teams for Phase 3.
Territories Variant
Relocated Objective Bravo to the new underground vehicle pathway.
Relocated Objective Alpha and Echo to new underground pathways.
Added an additional spawn room for both teams.
Relocated the AIA and ULA drop pods to opposite sides of the triangular building next to the car park.
Added an IFV, one for each team.
Added a second gunship for both teams.
Irega Incursion Changes
Raised large tank to block LoS from AIA spawn in Phase 3 against LZ C2
Added set dressing to block LoS from the Phase 3 tower's upper floors to LZ C1
Relit interior spaces on left side of tower in Phase 3 for better visibility
Reopened stairwell on right end of the phase 3 building, near LZ C2
Territories Maps Changes
Level Designer’s Notes: It’s really not fun to get boxed in when the other team has map control, so I’ve gone through and looked at several of our ground territories maps under a microscope to make lockouts less likely, spawn camping less likely, and just generally more fun to fight on as a result of some additional changes I've made.
Errah Territories Changes
Added secondary spawns for both teams.
Closed off some sightlines from building interiors directly to AIA and ULA spawns.
Moved LZ capture points and landing zones slightly because of new spawn sightlines. Both teams have a 'gimmie' LZ now because of the extra spawns. Relocated the central capture point to a slightly more protected space and added some cover.
Added new cover near new spawn points to help with leaving spawn and reducing spawn camping capabilities.
Added more cover around the central capture point.
Fortress Territories Changes
Added secondary spawn locations for both teams.
Moved LZ capture point to a median point between the two new spawn rooms.
Moved AIA and ULA drop pods to safer locations.
Added new infantry bridges between the outer wall and the inner wall, allowing for better flow between the lower and upper areas, and providing safer routes for infantry to take between the two zones.
Added additional landmark near AIA spawn zone B.
Added two more capturable sensors, tied to each capture point on the map. Previously there were only 3, now there are 5.
Irega Territories Changes
Added a second spawn room for both teams. The ULA gets one in cargotown, and AIA gets one at the starport terminal. The AIA’s safe capture point is Obj. Charlie and ULA’s safe capture point is Obj. Bravo.
Relocated cargotown LZ capture point to a more protected and closer area to the actual dropship spawn location.
Majuro Changes
Level Designer's Notes: Due to community demands, Strangelet capitulated and added the much-requested fish.
Added fish.
Added two new spawn points, one for each team, located roughly equidistant from the team's two objectives on their side of the tracks. These spawn points are slightly more exposed.
Added cover on approaches from new spawns.
Added field gun emplacements to all spawn points.
Added a new path through the garage tunnel under the long hill that runs between the server bunker and the radio mast bunker.
Optimized bot navmesh to ensure better pathing and to prevent them from pathing out of bounds.
Meudeverre Changes
Changed the Rejkhart Destroyers for the Heimdall Lineships to match the Chons Lineships in combat.
Spacecraft
Design Team’s Notes: Crippling corvettes in one fell swoop with a dropship was an oversight on our part so we corrected it. Sorry to any of those that were loving the dropship mines!
Dropships have had their mine type changed to the anti-fighter variant.
Vehicles
General
AIA drone (PD) can now target mines (To make up for them generally being squishier than ULA counterpart)
Mines have had their damage reduced. Mine base damage has been reduced from 300 to 250 and the frag payloads damage from 225 to 200.
Gunship
Design Team’s Notes: Initially we wanted to keep this bit of asymmetry between the Locust and the Sturm, but it wound up being too problematic to keep in the game because of how easily it could delete hackspikes from a position of safety.
Removed surface penetration from the Sturm’s main guns.
Handling Improvements and Top Speed Increases
Design Team's Notes: We weren't exactly happy with where vehicle movement was, and adjusted handling and top speeds partly based on their real-world counterparts. It isn't fun to be holding the W key for what feels like a full minute on Delta and barely reach one of the objectives in a big ol' tank. The Turtle was living up to its name all too well, so we’ve buffed its top speed and boost strength a lot. We've also tweaked the LAV handling for both teams, with the Silverback having slightly better base acceleration than the Hare.
LAVs should now be less slippery while driving, less bouncy, and slightly less prone to flippage
LAV acceleration increased slightly across the board
LAV top speed raised to 120km/h, up from 100km/h
LAV boost consumption rate increased and recharge rate increased as well
LAV boost power slightly reduced
LAV turn rate reduced slightly
Turtle top speed raised to 86km/h, up from 60 km/h
Basta top speed raised to 72km/h, up from 60km/h
Turtle boost power increased
Basta friction slightly increased to improve control
Dhaka top speed raised to 57 km/h, up from 43 km/h
Dhaka friction slightly reduced to maintain momentum (It is, after all, a hover tank)
Partisan top speed raised to 64 km/h, up from 57 km/h
Tank and IFV Health Pool Buffs
Design Team’s Notes: This is a 12.5% increase to base EHP for Tanks and IFVs, individually. For clarity, these values are before any armor plating is added. The current ecosystem favors fast and mobile vehicles over slower, more durable vehicles currently. Allows for more time to react to bad positioning. Regeneration rates and timing unchanged.
Basta
Old Values: 2350hp/250armor/1000shield (3600 total)
New Values: 2350hp/700armor/1000shield (4050 total)
Dhaka
Old Values: 2600hp/200armor/1500shield (4300 total),
New Values: 2600hp/750armor/1500shield (4850 total)
Partisan
Old values: 4100hp/1700armor (5800 total)
New Values: 4100hp/2300armor (6500 total)
Turtle
Old Values: 3350hp/1250armor (4600 total)
New Values: 3350hp/1850armor (5200 total)
Weapons
Anti-Vehicle Weapons
C30i Anti-Vehicle Improvements
Design Team’s Notes: The C30i has lagged behind other AV options by quite a bit when facing off against vehicles. This is intended to give it a much greater punch against vehicles while avoiding boosting its anti infantry strength. This new damage modifier brings its total damage per magazine vs. vehicles up from 2,240 to 3,600, compared to the RID's 3,600 damage per magazine and the MLI's 4,500 damage per magazine. As you can see, the disparity was pretty extreme. This puts it in a better spot.
C30i Proxy Explosion Maximum damage values increased from 160 to 180 (A 12.5% increase)
C30i Proxy Explosion Minimum damage values increased from 143 to 150 (Close to a 5% increase)
C30i Proxy Explosion Vehicle Damage Multiplier increased from 2.0 to 2.5 (A 25% increase)
C30i Shell speed increased from 4000 to 4400 (A 10% increase)
MLI Shift and Ease of Use Changes
Design Team’s Notes: The MLI already feels pretty good to use but there are some quirks to its design which made it less new-user friendly. We've removed the extra mod slot and made the lock on time shorter to reduce effective budget costs. We also sped up its missiles and submunitions to make hits more reliable and tightened up the initial deviation for the MLI's submunitions to make it easier to use in general.
Lock-on Time from 1.5s to 1.25s to partly account for mod slot removal.
Increased dumbfire missile base speed from 2000 to 2250 (A 12.5% increase)
Reduced submunitions deviation from 0.5 to 0.4 to tighten the cluster slightly (A 20% improvement)
Increased submunition speeds from 3000 to 3500 (A 16.67% increase)
Removed the third mod slot. This is also to help close the gap between new and veteran players.
RID Shift and Ease of Use Changes
Design Team’s Notes: We had previously gotten feedback that the RID felt terrible to use against vehicles in general, especially from newer players. We shifted its use cases a bit so it feels a lot better to use against vehicles while simultaneously leaving its anti-infantry capabilities slightly worse off. We've also reduced its effective budget costs. It still retains the same damage per magazine pre-buff vs. vehicles, resulting in a 25% increase in DPS vs. vehicles.
Charge time base amount reduced from 4 seconds to 3 seconds (25% faster charge times)
Max base damage decreased to 150 from 200 (25% damage reduction)
Minimum base damage decreased to 135 from 160 (25% damage reduction)
Anti-Vehicle Damage multiplier increased from 2.25 to 3.0 to still deal 900 damage on a fully charged shot, a net increase in DPS against vehicles.
Removed the third mod slot. This is to help close the gap between new and veteran players.
Detpacks
Design Team’s Notes: Arguably one of the strongest explosives in the game by far, thanks to a combination of high damage and area of effect, we felt it necessary to curb its current usage methods.
Detpack proxy mode arming time increased from 2 to 3 seconds
Detpack frag charge damage reduced from 800 to 600
Detpack ammo count reduced from 4 to 3
Handguns
Design Team’s Notes: We noticed that the handguns were performing worse than their other in-slot sidearm options, so we wanted to buff them. The SM-54 especially needed a buff with its shot pattern being very random. Even in their own range bracket, they seemed to be overshadowed by the SMGs, so these changes aim at making them generally better to use while strengthening their identity as lightweight, quick, panic button options.
SM54
Reduced the inaccuracy of hipfire from (Min=0.38,Max=0.7) to (Min=0.34,Max=0.55)
Sighted inaccuracy from 0.32 to 0.17
Reload speed from 3.2 to 3.1
EVP
Reduced the inaccuracy of hipfire from (Min=0.34,Max=0.48) to (Min=0.3,Max=0.4)
Max damage has been increased by 20 (from 157 to 177)
Reload speed from 2.23 to 2.03
UDP
Max damage has been increased by 10 (from 81 to 91)
Reload speed from 2.23 to 2.13
Quality of Life & Polish Changes
Bots
Improved bot targeting.
Improved bot firing.
Orders from the Commander are now only delegated to Squad Leaders, which have their own set of decision-making processes.
General
Issuing orders through tacmap will now have the voicelines as if done through the command-wheel.
Hints will mention the ability to mute players through the scoreboard.
Pressing the key of an unused loadout slot will make it pick the next instead.
Reduced default match times and reduced the default relative scaling of territories time.
UI
Previously we didn’t have access to tools that would allow us to make changes, so we’re pretty lucky we found a way to work with the arcane, esoteric ways of Scaleform. We only recently found this artifact again so it may be some time before we’re able to resolve a lot of the issues that we are now capable of fixing with the UI’s current deficiencies. We have a whole internal tasklist of requests from you guys to address!
Added a toggle for the Profanity Filter.
Removed the unused VOIP keybind in settings.
Potentially better feedback for fighter and dropship availability.
Added a Random Map option in the map vote screen.