I'll cover three things in my weekly update, the next patch, our priorities in general so that's crystal clear for everyone and the feature entering testing on UAT.
We continue to work on a cadence which will give patches or hotfixes of various sizes every week, with a larger content update every 4-5 weeks and what we call an expansion every quarter.
To achieve this cadence and pace of fixes, improvements, new content and features, we have our internal development priority:
1. Make the game great. This is continuous balancing, wargear, new weapons, visual customization, performance and optimizations, bug fixes, iterations to existing systems and maps and quality of life - which is usability and making things more clear in the HUD as well as menu's. Everyone works on this daily.
2. Monthly addition of missing core features. As I mentioned our October focus feature is first versions of Campaigns that ties into the World map. There is a small team doing this alongside our first priority. We'll discuss November's focus in today's Twitch at 2PM EST - twitch.tv/40kcrusade
3. Quarterly addition. A bigger feature, new map(s), the kind of things that takes months to achieve and create. This is various people over a longer period of time which still also contribute to our first priority. There is no secret, this is supposed to be Terminator Equivalent class and we've just received the 3D models from our partners. We'll show a bit on Twitch today as well.
This is called "timeboxing" and "leapfrogging". We timebox these priorities and we have teams leapfrogging when they finish and deploy their work.
Patch 1.0.15 is coming to UAT today and will simmer there over the weekend for deployment early next week. Patch notes will become available later but these are the highlights in accordance with our October focus. SM and LSM being an example as well as combat bugs.
- Inventory! Yes, new way of managing your stuff.
- Zedek should be back, as hard as usual. Zedek and Maggon will get larger changes when to have a more balanced win/loss ratio but that's a bigger operation. Other bugfixes and improvements to some maps.
- Space Marines and Chaos have had their armour increased slightly.
- Space Marines Tacticals now have a new piece of wargear available that gives them more armour.
- Space Marine Apothecaries now have a new type of heal grenade that lasts a short period of time but gives a heal over time.
- Orks got their biceps and chests increased in hp, their ass put in a grinder for less hp and headshots doing damage according to brain size, so less headshot damage.
- Fixed various combat bugs and exploits that were creating imbalance.
- Many weapon tooltips have been added and improved.
- Camera shake radii have been significantly reduced.
- Many fixes for armour & appearance items, as well as weapon looks.
- The Requiem Heavy Bolter now has a dangling, smoking censor. Had to add some balls somewhere.
We keep on working on our priorities and October focus, we already have balancing based on all the data from last patch, more wargear and visual customizations, PVE improvements to maps and rewards, as part of our continuous first priority.
A fun thing is that you will see in action leapfrogging, because on UAT, Campaigns will be enabled as they are being worked on so you can follow the progress there and give feedback. They are being deployed in a couple of weeks depending on our progress but you can dig into it on UAT!
Have a great weekend everyone <3
Nathan