Nothing much in the way of new content this patch, but this does have a load of experimental rebalances and little QOL as well as a major bug fix that finally kills the crashing once and for all
Next patch I plan to work on Camera Kit, KINESIS, the LMG, and stun rod. No promises though, I haven't had a good track record with those
=== Taskie Changes
* Holding fire while sprinting will stop your sprint
* Effects now have a meter indicating how long they will last
* EMP no longer completely disables the UI, instead scrambling UI assets aside from health
+ Movement speed on the ground increased by roughly 10%, with sprint speed being a 15% increase
+ Sprint ready time decreased (0.45 sec -> 0.3 sec)
This should make movement feel snappier and weapons feel better to use out of a sprint. Stamina will be added later I'm kind of lazy atm
== Weapons
= Shotgun
* Now has a first person shove animation
- Reduced max damage per pellet (19 dmg -> 13.6 dmg)
You know why this is getting nerfed. Next
= Anti-materiel Rifle
* Now has a first person shove animation
== Gadgets
= Flare Launcher
+ Flare speed more than quadrupled
+ Flare gravity decreased
+ Flares will now stick to surfaces and the Subject
Flares last their full duration while on a wall, while Subject flares last for much less time
- Flare light is much weaker while in flight
Flares will hopefully serve a much greater purpose now that they have MUCH better range than chemlights
= Medi-Nanites
+ Hold Q to apply Nanites to yourself at a 75% energy cost
+ Recharge speed increased (37 sec per 1 charge -> 25 sec per 1 charge)
- Self heal removed
- Nanites can no longer be applied to other Medi-Nanite wearers
Nanite changes pending a complete Medi-Nanite rework
=== Subject Changes
+ Increased base Subject walk speed (7.25 units -> 8 units), crouch speed (3.5 units -> 4 units) and air speed (6.5 units -> 7.5 units)
+ Greatly increased Subject acceleration, especially in the air
Leap acceleration isn't changed much, you will still go quite the distance and can't control yourself in a leap
+ Decreased Subject leap cost (22 energy -> 21.5 energy)
+ Slightly increased Subject leap power, and leaps on the ground and walls are roughly the same
Prior to this wall leaps were stronger
+ Subjects once again regain energy in the air, though at a somewhat slow rate (by default, 5/s)
- Decreased base Subject energy regen (11.75/s -> 8/s)
* Normalized energy cost between entity vision and wall cling (3/s for both, nerf for WC buff for EV)
This is all a massive buff to Subject mobility and will hopefully bring the balance firmly into Subject's favor. Evading bullets mid-air is now viable, and energy is a little more stingy requiring some careful use of leaps
+ Subjects can now view player names by hovering over them
Unlike taskies, this shows up regardless of team affiliation
- Subjects can no longer attack, use items, or throw objects while in entity vision. They can still use abilities
No more riding the inverted colors when you're going on the offensive
== Strands
Surprise! ALL four of them are getting changes! Two buffs, one nerf, one rework.
= SURGE
+ Increased shock grenade EMP time on ACF (4 sec -> 8 sec)
With the somewhat recent changes of glowy eyes I feel more comfortable with having a longer EMP. I *think* that this is still shorter than the old EMP grenade's time?
= RAGE
+ Increased Frenzy swing speed slightly
- Removed naturally faster swing speed
Having both a damage increase and a higher M1 speed isn't really ideal, and if I want to gut one of these then the faster swing speed is going. RAGE still has the highest DPS by default and frenzy still helps it get picks on groups. RAGE will likely live on as the top tier strand with VIRUS and SURGE fighting for second place
= VIRUS
+ Increased POX damage ticks (2 dmg per 1.5 seconds -> 3.5 dmg per 1 second)
+ POX can no longer be cured using Medi-Nanites
- POX damage ticks will now stop at 40 health
- POX damage ticks will not stop the Nanites effect
POX seems to be a very middling effect with the current changes. The damage has been roughly doubled, but at the cost of a higher minimum health that POX won't kill at. Gas clouds will still deal normal damage and can be fatal
= GHOST
+ Removed max health penalty
Now that all the other strands come with very strong combat tools (the shock effect, buffed POX, whatever the heck RAGE can do) something that GHOST has none of, this can finally be removed. GHOST is still undeniably the weakest strand, but I argue that doesn't make it bad. As countering sonars is still a good tool to have, and Shapeshift is funny, which is what Subject's true win condition is (to be funny)
== Utility
= Black Heart
+ Now applies an effect for 15 seconds that greatly increases energy regen
This should make it more worthwhile to run in place of stuns or other utility items
=== Map Changes
== Slums
* Made the map pitch black to promote stealthier play
Yes, this is a Subject buff
=== Other changes
* Networking modifications to reduce bandwidth
This is not the refactor. That would be too easy
* Added water mechanics
At the moment there are no penalties for swimming, eventually drowning will be added
* The lobby ball will now respawn if it clips out of bounds
Godot Is A Weird Game Engine Huh?
== Fixes
* Fixed a crash involving pre-loading
* Fixed spawners only spawning on server-side, not client-side
* Fixed post-mortem corpse gibbing only being on server-side
* Fixed moving your mouse too fast vertically causing your view to get all funky
Somehow nobody found this one, lol