Hello, Miners!
We are nearing the end of the hotfix phase for Update 34. We still have some minor issues that didn’t make it for this hotfix and as always a hotfix comes with the risk of needing a hotfix! Anyways, we got a bunch of stuff to talk about!
NEW WEAPON TEASING
With the Hotfix phase for Update 34 drawing to an end, it’s time to look towards Update 35. We are already moving full speed ahead on the new mission type, the new weapons and a lot of other stuff. And speaking of the new weapons - On our thursday stream we will show you a small teaser of one of the new weapons and which dwarf will get it, so stay tuned!
UPDATE 34 ON XBOX
We are also hard at work on bringing Update 34 to Xbox and expect it to go live on Xbox on this friday - May 7th.
MODDING SUPPORT
Work on making a solid solution for supporting mods in the game is also moving ahead, but we have no release date yet.
THE ELITES
We’ve reached a tough decision regarding the new Elite enemies:
Elites will no longer spawn during ordinary missions, and will only be encountered during missions with the Elite Threat Warning.
This actually goes right back to our initial design for the damn critters - they were originally designed just for the new Elite Threat Warning. However, on testing, we liked fighting them and we felt they made combat more interesting, so we figured we’d make them part of the main game.
We have now chosen to pivot on that. We’ve decided that they’re not up to snuff in regards to the content we usually produce, and therefore feel a bit out of place. Without anything tying the Elites to the meta, such as story and a natural presence, we feel that they are not suited for the main game in their current state.
Therefore: No more spawning of random Elites during the main game, and only during Elite Threat Warnings, as originally planned.
However, to that effect, we’ve been hard at work on improving and balancing the Elites - this should make them a more enjoyable experience across different skill levels, hazards, builds and classes. You can try all these changes out for yourself with this new Hotfix.
So will random spawning of Elites in all missions ever be a thing? Well maybe, maybe not! However, we will make more enemies and more variations to the existing enemies like we have done when we introduced the Glyphid Guard and the Glyhid Slasher as a variation to spice up the waves of Grunts. And the really good thing that has come out of us playing around with the Elites is that we have gotten a lot of new ideas for new enemies. So don’t start feeling too safe in the mines - more horrors will come your way in the future!
As always: All the feedback we get from you guys is super appreciated, and we cannot overstate our pride in having fans this dedicated.
Rock and Stone, Miners!
With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew
--- PATCH NOTES ---
- Fixed a bug that caused the music to be extremely loud on the endscreen
- Fixed a bug that caused the grabber to go into the wrong state when a dwarf was freed from its grab by another dwarf (DRG-3290)
- Optimized handling of physics objects like flares, to no longer mess with prioritization and relevance and take up too much network traffic.
- ELITE CHANGES -
- Changed temperature values of elites.
- Reduced elemental resistance buffs.
- Made Elite Praetorian turn rate faster, made armor more durable and gave attacks impact force.
- Made Elite Grunt Guard armor more durable and added impulse to its attacks.
- Made Elite Mactera Spawn move more evasively and increased fire range and rate and added an additional projectile, increased damage and speed of projectiles.
- Made Elite Mactera Brundle move closer to players and made its armor more durable.
- Gave Elite Mactera Tri Jaw increased fire range and rate.
- Increased spawn rate for Elite Guard, Elite Slasher and Mactera Spawn by 50%.
- Decreased Elite spawn cooldown.
- Changed stun values of elites.
- Made Elites exclusive to missions with Elite Threat Warning.
- Made Elites less likely to fear.