Hello Test Subjects!
If you’ve been following us in 2021 then you’ll be aware that we've gone through quite a journey with our gameplay changes this year. Our goal has been to lock-in the right core mechanics before we focus on a load of new content, polish and support for new platforms. After months of hit-and-miss attempts and community feedback, as of today’s update, we’re confident that we’ve locked-in most of those core mechanics. Of course, we'll still be working on balancing and other improvements based on all your games and feedback from here.
The changes below are described in comparison to the original Deceit game mode (2017-20). Skip to the Patch Notes section to see exactly what’s changed in today’s update.
Objectives
Items are now collected by starting and ending each objective at a reward crate. There are now more objectives to complete per area (18 on the ground floor). Only the middle area now offers a Double Objective, which means the shotgun, antidote and lethal injection are from normal objectives. Players can now (suspiciously) tamper with fuses bolted on to objectives in order to disable them. In addition Armour has moved from being found on the floor to an Objective as it is now more useful in combat at night. The list of items currently remains the same as before, but new items are coming soon!
Blood
The Infected players now share blood, so they're a team. You no longer need a full blood bar to transform into Terror form at night and there is no way to lose blood. When you have filled the blood bar you earn an execution and then work towards filling the bar again. Collect as many blood bags during the day as you can without being caught and if you haven't earned an execution then you can attack people at night to earn more blood (blood bags are no longer available at night). Beware, if you don’t collect enough blood bags you won’t have enough time to kill the innocent at night!
Generators
Fuses are no longer collected at night to open the doors, instead this is done by powering on generators. The number of generators required re-balances based on the number of people alive and involves positional play which ties into the new night combat. You can break fuse boxes during the day to reach the night faster.
Night Combat
Terrors will typically now spend more time running around attacking the Innocent, stopping them from doing generators and earning more blood. Innocent only see the other players as ‘ghost’ figures, and cannot use voice chat at night, so working out who is infected usually requires them to pay attention to actions during the day.
Combat between the Terrors and Innocent has been refined so that all items are effective in a similar way, causing Terrors to stagger for a period. This creates more of a chase sequence, so you’ll need to learn when it's good to fight back and when you should be running away. It might feel punishing as a Terror at first but know that with every encounter you're removing items from the Innocent later in the game. When Terrors are now 'killed' they go instantly into the vents so they can choose their respawn location. The existing terror abilities have been reworked to work with all these changes too.
We still have a lot in the works to improve the night combat experience further, including new terror abilities and new ways for the innocent to interact with the map; we look forward to sharing more on this soon!
Area Traversal
We've removed the need to run between areas after the lights come back on; instead you will be running into a transition door that will transition you to the next area instantly, where it will be the next day period. This works better with night-time anonymity, is clearer for new players, and it also helps us support the new maps and extra player numbers we are working on for the future. Players can now also end the game one floor early if they run into one of these doors whilst all the Infected are dead.
Core Tech
Our core technologies team have been working on DDoS protection and anti-cheat. We’ll be announcing more about this very soon.
Custom Options
We've introduced custom options that allow you to run private games for group sizes from 4 to 6. You can also toggle a number of game-mode settings (for example, to play the game without night-anonymity). We will continue to review these options and add the top player suggestions, including an upcoming “Legacy” preset so you can also opt to play a game mode very similar to the original version.
What’s Next?
Our work isn't finished here. We know that some of you will love these changes and get along with them straight away. Others may still be a bit confused by them which we think we can work through by working on your feedback and chipping away at our long list of polish and quality-of-life improvements.
In addition to these in-game changes we have some really exciting system updates for outside the game, including:
- This summer we’ll be bringing an early look at the Labyrinth, a new rewarding progression system that ties together level, challenges, perks and some new content too.
- There will be visual updates to the branding, user-interface and website of Deceit to have a more consistent style and recognisable aesthetic.
- The story behind the Game Master and his test subjects will be revisited, expanded upon, and have more presence within the game and progression systems.
- DLC packs will be beefed up and rebranded to give us a stronger stance going forward.
- And by the time we get to Halloween we will be releasing Deceit 2022, a huge update we’ll be announcing more about soon.
Full Patch Notes
Objectives
- The items rewarded from completing objectives are no longer automatically displayed on the ‘Q’ map. Instead, you can see what is inside each crate from a hologram above it. Once you've viewed the crate in person your minimap will update with the relevant item information.
- Each Crate & Hologram is now coloured based on what type of item the crate awards.
- Taken crates will now remain open, showing what item was once inside.
- Armour is now only obtainable through an Objective. As well as benefiting you as usual in shootouts, armour will now temporarily stun a terror that tries to attack you, destroying it in the process.
- The first & last floor Double Objectives have been removed with their rewards, antidote & lethal, now being available in regular Objectives.
- Cameras and Torches now give you 100% battery when you pick them up. You are unable to collect any more of these, or armour, if you’re already at 100%. Cameras use 50% battery per flash.
- Each Objective now has a ‘Tamper Box’ attached to the side of it. After a 1.5s channel this will cause you to destroy the Objective, stopping anyone from taking the item that was in the crate or double objective.
Reaching The Next Floor
- Players are no longer automatically teleported to the next floor.
- After enough generators have been completed 3 doors to the next floor will open, taking you to a paired door on the next floor.
- If you fail to make it through the doors after a considerable amount of time, 60s, you will be eliminated from the game.
- Infected players can remain in Terror Form on the previous floor and are able to execute Innocents if they wish.
- Players will still be in their ‘Ghost Form’ whilst on lower floors.
- If all Infected players are dead by the end of the middle floor you will win the game by entering these doors.
Night Time Combat
- The amount of blood gained from Infected actions & the amount that is required to earn executes have both been adjusted.
- Terrors are now illuminated by default, getting brighter the lower health they are. Once you’ve killed one they will disappear in a puff of smoke and respawn at a vent of their choice.
- Hitting a Terror with any light item will stagger them. During this period (2.25s) the terrors have reduced vision and are slowed. For the initial part of the stagger (1.25s) they are also unable to attack or use their abilities. Hitting a staggered Terror with light will refresh the stagger duration, but won’t stop them from attacking or using their abilities again.
- Terrors now transform back to human form instantly, instead of being downed first.
- Terrors can only transform if they haven’t been in combat for the last 5s.
- Stamina has been removed.
- The movement speeds of all Terrors have been normalised to 160%, with a sprinting Human moving at 147.5%.
- All Terrors now have 360 health.
- The damage of all light items have been adjusted to suit the new Terror health values.
- The hit detection for the Camera & Torch has been improved.
- Cameras & Torches do less damage if the Terror is running away from you.
- The Camera takes twice as long to recharge before you can use it again.
- Terrors are no longer restricted from executing a player if they’re in the air.
- The Terror’s attack is now the same range as its execution.
- The Terrors now make more noticeable footstep audio when moving around.
- Solo Infected players (be it via custom game options or your partner dying) are now granted the ‘Endling’ buff. Currently this gives them a 10% movement speed buff in Terror Form.
- Terror swipes now deal 50 health, instead of 100. After hitting a player they are pushed forward slightly, given a movement speed buff & you receive a very brief slow.
- Terrors now have different melee animations based on whether they’re going to miss, hit a player or hit a player with armour.
Terror Abilities
- The Innocents are now revealed to the Infected via ‘Terror Sense’ periodically, instead of based on their actions. On the first floor they are always revealed, middle floor every 5s and final floor every 10s.
- The Yeti now receives a 150 health shield when using their ability. This shield can be broken by either guns or light items. After 1 second of having the shield active it will lose 60 health per second until destroyed.
- Any players hit by the Werewolf's 'Howl' ability or pulled by the Spider’s ‘Web Shot’ ability will now have their current interaction interrupted (e.g. taking a generator).
- The Vampire’s ability has been reworked. After casting it for the first time the Vampire will leave behind a ghost version of itself. For the next 10 seconds the Vampire receives a 10% movement speed boost & the ability to return to the ghost version of itself.
- The Spider’s ‘Web Shot’ cooldown has been reduced from 12 -> 10s.
Generators
- Generators no longer respawn after being completed.
- The time to take a generator has been reduced from 4 -> 3s.
- There’s now an animation for taking the generator alongside audio.
- You now need to complete 10/10/4 generators per floor.
- Some generators are automatically completed depending on how many innocents and infected are left in the game.
- There are 2 more generators than required to complete the night period. If there’s only 1 Infected alive, this is reduced to 1.
- Generators are only outlined to those not in Terror Form. They will still be waypointed if someone starts powering one back up.
- Players are no longer pushable when taking Generators.
Miscellaneous
- Today marks a new season which also includes 4 new perks in the tree:
- Field Medic - Gain a slight movement speed buff if you're able to antidote someone
- Statically Charged - Gain a slight movement speed buff for a few seconds after finishing a Generator
- Strong Scent - Terror sense reveals players for 25% longer
- Power Trip - After all Generators are completed, reveal the locations of the Innocents for a few seconds
- The perk 'Hyperaware' now only outlines Infected players transforming into Terror form.
- We’ve temporarily disabled the Lumberyard as there were some changes we’d like to make to the map that we couldn’t fit into this release, we aim to have it live again next week.
- In-game tips have been disabled and will be re-enabled in an upcoming release.
- Everyone who participated in last weekend's beta has been awarded with their Beta Emblem & some Tokens as a thank you.
- The first person pistol animations have been updated.
- The Asylum & Forest have received significant lighting improvements.
- The pistol’s tracer thickness has been reduced.
- Nametags have been visually improved.
- The length of the middle floor has been increased by 30s.
- Fuse boxes on the first floor now reduce time by 25s, down from 30s.
- 3 pre-defined crosshair visuals are now available to choose between in the settings.
- The escape door now requires you to interact with it to open it if there are at least 2 Innocents alive.
- Players now ragdoll once they’ve been killed.
- Terrors automatically sprint during the night period, no need to press ‘Shift’.
- You can no longer pick up traps at night unless you have the 'Redistributable' perk.
- All Blood Bag spawns are now static with 6 spawning on each floor.
- Fixed several animation issues with using Vents.
- You’ll now be informed about who is dead in the top left after a successful vote.
- Our in-game translations have been updated thanks to our Community Translators.
See you in-game,
The Baseline Team