Here is the breakdown of all the changes coming into the playtest Winter update.
View the highlights and playtest announcement here.
PATCH NOTES
• All player explosions now trigger a rocket-jump, propelling you in the direction opposed to the explosion center (some explosions such as the Pulse Blaster’s do not trigger the rocket-jump)
• Increased the requirements to reach rank A
• Reduced the requirements to reach rank C
Developers' Note: Most of you were getting rank A kind of regardless of your performance. We decided to modify that to create a more visible difference between succeeding and performing. Also, rank D really felt like a harsh punishment for players who were actually trying to do well and should only be limited to players really ignoring most enemies while still going slow.
• Increased player size and player camera height a bit
Developers' Note: This was made to clearly show how big of a height difference there is between the guardian and the other characters in the game and to better grasp the environment scale. This shouldn’t have any impact on the gameplay whatsoever.
• Armor and movement speed bonus are now clamped at 70%
• Player abilities damage scaling per level increased from 20% to 25%
Developers' Note: This should have been the case in the previous update and we missed it. That’s why the ability-centric builds seemed to be a little less viable than weapon-based builds. It should feel better in this update.
• Your brobot will automatically be rebooted after 60s if you do not reboot it yourself
Developers' Note: This makes sure you’re not soft-locked in multiplayer if your brobot dies in a spot you can’t reach (because you don’t have the proper gadget for example).
• Player stun duration increased from 1.75s to 2s
• Enemy stun duration increased from 3s to 3.5s
• Enemy freeze duration increased from 4s to 6s
• Effects increasing your damage based on your current movement speed bonus will no longer reduce your damage when you’re slowed or have movement speed reduction effects
• A new class has been added: the Ranger
Ranger (new!)
• Unlocked by finding the lost javelin in one of the level
Javelin
• New Secondary Ability
• Throws a spear which you can then pickup on the ground to refill, has 2 charges by default
Stealth
• New Primary Ability
• Your OG’ stealth, except it reloads all of your Javelin charges
Awareness
• New Passive Ability
• Passively generates charges every second, increases critical damage per charge, some charges are lost upon taking damage
Perks
• Added all previous Stealth’s Recon perks to the Ranger (and modified a few of them)
Recon
Blink
• New Primary Ability
• Dashes a short distance, becoming immune to damage during travel and staggering enemies at the arrival point
Laser Dagger
• Damage increased from 50.0 to 65.0
• Healing cell generation when hitting bosses increased from 1 to 3
Perks
• Added perks for its new primary ability
• Updated, reworked and moved around lots of upgrades following the addition of its new ability and the Ranger/Recon ability swap
Guardian
Bash
• Damage increased from 35.0 to 50.0
• Impact force increased from 70.0 to 80.0
Commando
Shorty
• Damage increased from 11.0 to 12.0
• Impact force increased from 14.0 to 15.0
Engineer
Scrap Blaster
• Impact force increased from 60.0 to 66.0
• Increased the number of class-upgrades from 2 to 3
• Modified the metric values and effects of many different perks
• Moved some upgrades to different perks or as class-upgrades
Guardian
Tactical Slap
• Piercing arc range increased from 1600 to 1800
Stim Bubble
• Bonus firerate increased from 30% to 50%
Quadrinity (previously Trinity)
• Next shot damage increased from 50% to 60%
• Now triggers every 4 shots instead of 3
Lucky Ammo
• Auto-critical chance bonus decreased from 30% to 25%
Lock N' Load
• Bonus firerate increased from 30% to 40%
Recon
Dancing Blade
• Bonus damage increased from 30% to 35%
Favorite Weapon
• Bonus damage increased from 25% to 30%
• Bonus reload speed decreased from 25% to 20%
Discipline
• Duration needed to activate decreased from 1.35s to 1.25s
• Now also activates when using your primary ability
Good Fortune
• Auto-critical chance bonus decreased from 12% to 10%
Engineer
Targeting Protocol
• Duration of drone bonus increased from 5s to 6s
Commando
Hot Potato
• Cooldown between weapon throw increased from 3s to 4s
Ranger
Night Shroud
• Duration increased from 6s to 9s
• Bonus armor decreased from 30% to 20%
• Bonus movement speed decreased from 20% to 15%
• Bonus damage increased from 35% to 50%
Energy Weapons
Developers' Note: Read the highlights for more details on these changes.
• You can now press R to force your weapon to overheat
• Added new overheating animations shared by different energy weapons
• All energy weapons regenerates their energy slower
• All energy weapons energy cost has been reduced
• Increased the impact force of all energy weapons
General
• Added a new weapon: Throwing Axe
• Reworked ‘Bubble Splasher’ shoot pattern
Affixes
• Added 4 new affixes
• Removed ‘Trigger Tap’ from the ‘Shock Cannon’ (thanks StoutShakoForTwoRefined, it was indeed pretty useless of an affix on this weapon)
• ‘Warmup’ firerate bonus increased from 20% to 25% (affecting only the affix which can roll randomly on weapons, not the base affix some weapons inherently have)
• ‘Amplifier’ damage bonus for consecutive hits reduced from 60% to 40%
Developers' Note: The Mine Gun and the Pulse Blaster were doing exceptionally well against bosses and that was mainly due to the effects of the Amplifier base affix they both have. Reducing this affix should put them closer to other weapons in terms of efficiency against bosses in particular without hurting their other performances.
Alt-Fires
• All alt-fires that shoots a volley of projectiles have more spread (and therefore should hit more enemies than before while still dealing the same amount of damage per enemy)
Balance Changes
Developers' Note: You will see a lot of buffs and a few nerfs in the next section. We tried to raise a lot of weapons to the level of the average “good-performing” weapons and to tune down the few “godlike-performing” weapons a bit. We followed our statistics, your feedback and our feelings to validate those changes. We will obviously keep monitoring the balance of the game.
Dual Uzis
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 7.5 to 8.0
Assault SMG
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 8.0 to 9.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.25 to 1.5
Windmill Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 11.0 to 13.0
• Impact force increased from 11.0 to 13.0
Light Machine Gun
Primary Fire
• Recoil pattern has been updated
• Damage increased from 13.0 to 15.0
• Impact force increased from 13.0 to 15.0
Blast SMG
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 10.0 to 11.0
• Impact force increased from 7.0 to 9.0
• Energy cost decreased from 2.75 to 2.25
Scratch Rifle
Primary Fire
• Critical ratio increased from 1.25 to 1.5
Alternative Fire
• Damage increased from 60.0 to 64.0
Pumping Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 12.0 to 14.0
Sawed-Offs
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 9.0 to 10.0
Grandma's Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 12.0 to 14.0
Kramer
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 14.0 to 17.0
• Energy cost decreased from 4.5 to 3.0
Blunderbuss
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 9.0 to 10.0
• Impact force increased from 8.0 to 13.0
• Energy cost decreased from 12.0 to 10.0
Power Gloves
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 38.0 to 52.0
• Impact force increased from 68.0 to 76.0
• Energy cost decreased from 8.0 to 6.0
Graviton Launcher
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 50.0 to 52.0
• Impact force increased from 42.0 to 62.0
• Explosion radius increased from 1.0m to 1.2m
• Energy cost decreased from 14.0 to 10.0
Flare Gun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 36.0 to 38.0
Torpedo Gun
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 12.0 to 11.0
Mortar
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 80.0 to 92.0
Missile Gatling
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 22.0 to 24.0
• Impact force decreased from 35.0 to 26.0
Throwing Knife
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 25.0 to 28.0
• Impact force increased from 10.0 to 16.0
Rifle Crossbow
Primary Fire
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 1.75
Revolver
Primary Fire
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 2.0
• Removed ‘Bullseye’ as a base affix
Dual Crossbows
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 30.0 to 36.0
• Impact force increased from 32.0 to 36.0
• Critical ratio decreased from 2.25 to 2.0
Scout Sniper
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 52.0 to 54.0
• Critical ratio increased from 2.25 to 2.5
• Removed ‘Bullseye’ as a base affix
Arquebus
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 26.0 to 40.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.75 to 2.0
• Energy cost decreased from 15.0 to 10.0
Sheriff's Carbine
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 53.0 to 55.0
• Impact force increased from 46.0 to 48.0
Longbow
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 70.0 to 72.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 1.75
Ice Cannon
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 50.0 to 52.0
• Energy cost decreased from 22.0 to 12.0
Cryo Launcher
Primary Fire
• Firerate increased from 4.54/s to 5.0/s
• Energy cost decreased from 6.0 to 3.5
Fire Gun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 14.0 to 15.0
• Energy cost decreased from 6.0 to 4.0
Shock Rifle
Primary Fire
• Energy cost decreased from 3.0 to 2.25
Shock Cannon
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 8.0 to 9.0
• Energy cost decreased from 4.0 to 3.0
Fire Launcher
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 30.0 to 36.0
• Projectile speed increased from 5600 to 6500
• Energy cost decreased from 8.0 to 7.0
Junk Beam
Primary Fire
• Energy cost decreased from 3.5 to 2.5
Blast Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 9.5 to 10.0
• Impact force increased from 7.0 to 9.0
Assault Rifle
• Ammo in clip increased from 30 to 35
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 11.0 to 10.0
• Impact force increased from 9.5 to 10.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.25 to 1.5
Militia Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 11.0 to 13.0
• Impact force decreased from 13.0 to 12.0
Minigun
• Ammo in clip decreased from 100 to 80
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 10.0 to 9.0
Blastgun
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 14.0 to 18.0
• Energy cost decreased from 6.0 to 5.0
Blast Minigun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 7.0 to 8.0
• Impact force increased from 5.0 to 7.0
• Energy cost decreased from 1.5 to 1.2
Dual Guns
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 10.0 to 12.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.25 to 1.5
Blast Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 10.0 to 11.0
• Impact force increased from 5.0 to 10.0
Sulfator Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 6.0 to 7.0
• Impact force increased from 10.0 to 11.0
Laser Saw
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 15.0 to 16.0
• Firerate increased from 2.5/s to 3.12/s
• Projectile speed increased from 7000 to 9000
• Energy cost decreased from 10.0 to 8.0
Barrel Cannon
Primary Fire
• Explosion radius increased from 1.0m to 1.2m
Rocket Launcher
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 64.0 to 66.0
Pulse Blaster
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 4.0 to 14.0
• Energy cost decreased from 3.5 to 2.5
Flak Cannon
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 16.0 to 18.0
• Impact force increased from 12.0 to 18.0
Alternative Fire
• Damage increased from 70.0 to 72.0
• Impact force increased from 76.0 to 82.0
Long Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 36.0 to 40.0
• Impact force increased from 32.0 to 36.0
• Firerate decreased from 3.03/s to 2.77/s
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 2.0
• Removed ‘Bullseye’ as a base affix
Blast Sniper
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 26.0 to 42.0
• Energy cost decreased from 12.0 to 10.0
Dual Blast Guns
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 34.0 to 42.0
• Impact force increased from 26.0 to 38.0
• Firerate increased from 3.12/s to 3.57/s
• Energy cost decreased from 8.0 to 6.0
Elite Sniper
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 80.0 to 86.0
• Impact force increased from 80.0 to 86.0
• Critical ratio increased from 2.0 to 2.25
Elite Crossbow
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 52.0 to 56.0
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 1.75
Blast Palms
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 15.0 to 17.0
• Energy cost decreased from 4.0 to 3.0
Assault Sentry
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 18.0 to 20.0
Ball Cannon
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 80.0 to 96.0
• Energy cost decreased from 48.0 to 30.0
Cyclone
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 32.0 to 46.0
Alternative Fire
• Impact force increased from 90.0 to 110.0
Blast Arbalest
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 39.0 to 48.0
• Impact force increased from 29.0 to 46.0
• Firerate increased from 2.5/s to 2.77/s
• Energy cost decreased from 10.0 to 8.0
• Added 28 new bazaar items
Balance Changes
Boombox
• Bonus firerate decreased from 35% to 30%
Rice Cooker
• Healing-cell efficiency bonus decreased from 35% to 20%
Ugly Tie
• Bonus damage against bosses decreased from 15% to 10%
Rake
• Bonus damage against turrets decreased from 15% to 10%
Bug Net
• Bonus damage against flying enemies decreased from 15% to 10%
Credit Card
• Chance to refund ammo increased from 8% to 10%
• Ammo refunded decreased from 2 to 1
• Energy refunded decreased from 6% to 2%
Party Popper
• Chance to drop a healing cell increased from 2.25% to 3%
Olive-Oil Bottle
• Bonus reload speed increased from 7% to 10%
Claw String
• No longer reduces health
• Bonus melee damage decreased from 30% to 10%
Knight Banner
• Bonus armor increased from 10% to 15%
Atomic Radish
• Rocket-jump damage increased from 60 to 65
• Rocket-jump explosion radius decreased from 1600 to 800
Super Sandwich
• Bonus duration increased from 2s to 6s
• Bonus movement speed increased from 20% to 25%
Toy Helicopter
• Rocket-jump damage increased from 20 to 65
• Rocket-jump impact force increased from 20 to 75
Artishock
• Now has a chance to stun you when you take damage rather than when dealing shock damage
• Bonus damage decreased from 30% to 20%
• Chance to stun upon taking damage increased from 1.5% to 5%
Snow Globe
• Now always deals cryo damage to enemies attacking you
• Chance to freeze upon taking damage increased from 3% to 10%
• Freeze rate increased from 2 to 2.5 (freezes more efficiently)
Bonsaï Tree
• Bonus auto-critical chance decreased from 25% to 20%
Dragonfly Ball
• Healing-cell efficiency decreased from 100% to 40%
• Now reduces Healing cell duration by 30% instead of 50%
Hero Knee Pads
• Firing grenades no longer has a cooldown
• Added the visuals for Bazaar Bob (he’s now a polite and gentle monsieur)
• Completely overhauled the basecamp map, size, buildings visuals and placement
• Added 7 visual levels for the basecamp buildings (each have 7 different appearances based on your level and many other aspects of the basecamp will evolve alongside them)
Developers' Note: For now, you will only witness the visual evolution when going back into the map after you leveled up your basecamp through purchasing upgrades. Later down the road, you will probably get to experience it on-the-fly.
Upgrades
• The upgrade ‘Lottery Ticket’ level 2 now grants a chance to find 2 powercells in Max’ Chests
• ‘Safety Helmet’ now grants Armor instead of Health
Developers' Note: ‘Yoyo design’, remember?
• Added several new enemies: Firepawn, Ghostpawn, Hatfly, Larvabug, Goliath Larvabug, Firepod and Elitepawn (4 variations)
• Added a new boss in the random pool of Act 1 bosses
• Updated the size of several different enemies
Developers' Note: Shouldn’t change much from a gameplay perspective aside from being just a tiny bit easier to shoot at. This change was mainly a subsequent change of the player-character height change.
• Increased ‘Bullfly’ impact resistance
• Movement prediction on enemies such as the ‘Shockpod’ (and other ground area patterns) reduced to make them easier to dodge when moving at full speed
• The ‘Shotgun’ pattern of Goliath enemies changed to more of a ‘Gatling’ pattern to reduce the number of projectiles being spawned at once (therefore reducing the performance overload)
Developers' Note: We therefore reworked the pattern a bit and it should even be a little more interesting to play around (in terms of movement skills).
Elite Enemies
• Elite enemies are different variations of the new enemy ‘Elitepawn’
• Based on your current difficulty level, a certain number of elite enemies will spawn in each level (starting from the very beginning)
• Elite enemies won’t appear on Standard difficulty and below
Developers' Note: View the patch highlights for more details.
Bosses
Dr. Turret
• Laser speed rotation has been decreased
• Fire area damage reduced but now deals burn damage (I mean… like walking into a literal burning area would)
• Replaced its mortar attack by an homing missile attack
Judgeball
• Mine hitbox detection, explosion and visual effects aligned to better reflect their actual danger zone
• Removed the shockwave from the artillery pattern
• Laser bars and laser blasts from the artillery pattern have more spread (leaving more room to move left and right)
• Reduced charge speed acceleration
• Increased preshoot timings for most attacks
Uncle Jim
• The duration of its head-helmet protection has been reduced
• Missile attack preshoot time decreased from 1.5s to 1s
• Removed the hidden upgrade in ‘Oasis’
• Fully reworked ‘Haven-City’ and ‘Haven-City’ corrupted visuals
• Removed the dead-end containing enemies in ‘Haven-City’
• Added easier access to ‘Haven-City’ heights
• Added new railings in ‘Haven-City’ heights
Developers' Note: These 3 previous changes should make backtracking in ‘Haven-City’ less frequent and the entire level faster to travel therefore reducing the amount of time spent in ‘Haven-City’ overall.
• Reworked the corruption visuals (you know, these purplish thingy things)
• Reworked the enemy line-up of all levels (following the introduction of new enemies)
• Added 2 Goliath enemies in ‘Haven-City Corrupted’ (you don’t have to take them down to unlock the door to the boss)
• Added 1 Goliath enemy in ‘Quarry’
• Added 2 Goliath enemies in ‘Fields’
• Added ‘Larvabug’ as an enemy in ‘Oasis’ (it’s a huge enemy, but less threatening than usual Goliaths)
• Reduced the frequency of Flashflies encounter in ‘Ruins’
• Reduced the frequency of Leashbots encounter in ‘Fields’
• Reduced the enemy density in ‘Fields’ battle room
• Added new challenge rooms everywhere
• Max no longer talks through the dialogue bubble in the top-right corner (except in the tutorial level)
• Max now talks using a 3D bubble above its head when you meet her in the different levels, approaching her will pop-up the bubble and allow you to read it
• Updated all Max dialogues
Developers' Note: This is just the very first step of the integration of a more ‘final’ experience for the story elements. Do not be surprised if Max tells you about things you already know or have already completed as the new system is based on your game progression (and the dialogue system starts fresh: he considers you as a new player). We will be monitoring your feedback and reactions to this new system and update it accordingly.
• Entirely reworked the Class Selector interface
• Added an option to remove the white-flash damage indicator on enemies when dealing damage to them
• Added a colored frame to the text popping in when interacting with ingame shop
• Switched the colored frame to red when you don’t have enough powercells to interact with ingame shops
• Switched the stun interface from displaying arrows to displaying movement keys
• Updated the key design of the stun interface to also displays the movement direction
• Increased the size of the screen-space available when being flashed
• Added new elements and polished the end-level and end-game screen
Developers' Note: This is just the first step in improving these screens, we’re thinking of adding more elements and information including but not limited to the scores and figures of your run as well as detailed information regarding your build.
• Updated the attachment point of all enemy invulnerable bubbles (one by one, by hand, with love and passion for the task)
• Updated the tail indicator on enemy invulnerable bubble
• Updated enemy projectile, trails, muzzle flash and laser color
• Updated challenge rooms laser and projectiles color
• Updated ‘Flare Gun’ explosion and added elemental variations
• Improved ‘Bullfly’ preshot visual effects
• Added a pulsing shield visual effect to ‘Judgeball’ shielding pillars
• Reworked overheating visual effect for all weapons
• Added a Burn and Cryo variations of enemy explosions
• Updated explosion and trail visuals effects of the enemy homing projectiles
• Updated explosive barrels visuals in ‘Quarry’
Developers' Note: Audio has been ongoing several in-depth changes regarding spatialization (spatial recognition), attenuation (range recognition), concurrency (managing multiple instances of the same sound) and mix (the overall balance of volume between the different sounds of the game). While it should be healthier for the game in the long-run (both in terms of future implementation as well as future game experience), it also means that things might sound a bit different than before (and maybe a bit broken). We will be monitoring this and taking appropriate measures to fix and improve that.
• Reworked the importance of interface sounds within the global mix
• Modified interface sounds volume ducking depending on music volume
• Reworked the attenuation settings for all the different sound categories
• Reworked the concurrency settings of all sounds in the game
Developers' Note: This was particularly important for all older devices which are unable to render more than 32 sounds at once. Changing the concurrency settings will make sure to never reach that limit (and also prevent our ears from exploding if one sound would be spawned a dozen times at once).
• Added some missing explosion sounds for both players and enemies
• Added some missing enemy sounds regarding attack animations and shoots
• Added or tweaked enemy projectile impact and travel sounds
• Normalized interface sound volumes
• Reworked button hover sound (new one should sound way more pleasing)
• The level ambient sound now also plays during loading screen and end-game screen
• Added a “mega land” sound that plays when landing from a very high spot
• Added a sound for the triple-jump to make it sound different than the double-jump
• Updated destructible sounds
• Added some missing sounds on several perks, items and status effects
• Fixed an issue with the ‘Electro Punishment’ perk which made it trigger against Frozen enemies rather than Stunned ones
• Other numerous bug fixes
• Some languages still have missing localization