Megapatch 2's launch has been very successful, and with the continued hotfixes, we've gotten it to a stable spot. Now that the patch has had a few weeks to ferment, we'd like to release a "postmortem" patch - a small update with tweaks, balancing, and features based on what we didn't have time for as well as what we feel would be healthy for the game to cement the new features.
Enter the Megapatch Minipatch - our postmortem for MP2. Over the past few weeks, we've decided on the following changes, and we're eager to see how they play out.
Map Updates
While we're happy with the current map setup in MP2, there are some small flaws that have persisted due to the age of some rooms, as well as some rushed things that we didn't have time to polish out. As part of Minipatch, we wanted to iron out those kinks for a smoother game experience.
- Tweaked the lighting and font on the MicroHID armory's ticker sign
- Added some new furniture in the MicroHID armory
- Hired a technician to finally fix the flickering light in the MicroHID armory
- Moved the workstation in the T-cross armory
- Ammo in the T-cross armory now spawns on a table
- Added elevator music, the most important feature of the year
Procedural Decoration
One of the lesser-known features that shipped with Megapatch 2 is the "clutter system." In short, the system allows certain props and static objects to generate under certain conditions - such as during a holiday. Using this system, we're able to implement holiday decorations throughout the map that will intelligently spawn during the correct time frame, and won't spawn when they're not needed.
Halloween decorations exist in the game code, and will spawn during October - but for Minipatch, we've also implemented recurring holiday decorations that automatically spawn throughout December. If you're feeling festive, hop into a match and take a look around! While we like to do larger events for holidays too, these recurring decorations let the holiday spirit happen in-game - even when we aren't able to make a unique event for it in time.
Balance
While MP2 has been fermenting, our feedback team and developers have been keeping a close eye on the continued balance of the game, and how the new changes have affected the meta. With that in mind, we've decided on the following changes to the game to try and make it more fun for everyone.
Developer's Note: Hey, remember me? I'm the developer's note guy! This is where we put our design insights and thoughts concerning what went into balance changes. If you're curious about our rationale, look for these blocks.
SCP-173
* Base movement speed increased from 10 m/s to 12.5 m/s
* Movement speed now increases more linearly from lost health
173 didn't get touched in the balance wave of 9.0.0 - this was because we couldn't decide on how best to balance it out, or how 173 would interact with the new items or SCPs. As it stands, 173 suffers from a lack of consistency, largely in part due to its predictable movement and lack of proper power increase.
To try to improve consistency, 173's base move speed has received a significant buff — it now moves fast enough to go through tesla gates without taking damage, as long as it's not being observed. Previously, 173's movement speed increased in tiers - for instance, from 40% to 60% health, its speed remained the same. In 9.1, 173’s speed now directly increases with any lost health, which makes its threat level proportional to its lost health, rather than having empty chunks of health thresholds.
Painkillers
* HP regen now ramps up to 2 per second, up from 1.4 per second
* Effectively restores 45 HP over its duration, up from about 30
Painkillers are the weakest medical item, and intended to be the most plentiful in lockers. While their intended niche was topping off minor wounds, it became clear that this was their only use, and that they were too weak in any other area. To compensate for this, their HP regen was buffed, which should give them more use in combat and when you're badly hurt.
SCP-096
* Time required to enter rage now varies depending on player count, with roughly triple current values at 1 player and unchanged from current at 20 players or above
* Jump height is increased by 50% while in rage
096's backend changes meant that his values were constant - rage duration, time he had to be observed, and cooldown time. While this was better from a code perspective, it meant that 096 consistently terrorized low-population servers, where there aren't enough people to effectively take him down.
Increasing the time players can look at 096 in lower-population servers should make it less completely dominant on these servers while not affecting its balance negatively on servers of typical size. With the change to its jump height, 096 should also be able to pose a threat to targets hiding out of reach, which previously felt silly given 096's capabilities and lethality.
[EXPERIMENTAL] Sinkholes
This feature was originally intended for Megapatch 2, but due to time constraints and tough-to-fix bugs, it was cut from the final release. Since we haven't had time to extensively refine this feature, but have managed to get it working, we've included it in Minipatch.
Sinkholes are SL's first environmental hazard. LCZ intersections may appear with a large splotch of corrosion in the center. Moving around the edges of this sinkhole causes no negative effects; however, walking through the center will slow you down!
These are intended to spruce up chases and diversify the map by adding an occasional hazard that players need to be aware of. SCPs are immune to the sinkhole's effects.
Because these are experimental, they don't spawn by default. Server owners can change a new gameplay config setting, sinkhole_spawn_chance, that determines an intersection's chance to spawn a sinkhole. There's also a config setting controlling how much the sinkholes slow by, defaulting at 30 and ranging in config between 1 and 99, called sinkhole_slow_amount. These numbers correspond to a percentage chance - an entry of 25, for instance, corresponds to a 25% chance for each intersection to spawn a sinkhole.
Other Changes
- Added an AFK kicker that will kick players from the server if they don't move from their spawn position within an allotted time period. This only affects spawn positions, and for 079, it checks selected camera rather than position. A new admin permission exists to grant exemption from the kicker - AFKImmunity - and the kicker's timeframe is controlled by a new config entry - afk_time - defaulting to 90 seconds; setting the time to 0 seconds will disable the kicker entirely
- Added gameplay configs to configure the max amount of NTF or CI can spawn in a squad, ranging from 2 to 50 and defaulting to 15; the entries are maximum_MTF_respawn_amount and maximum_CI_respawn_amount respectively
- Added a config option to place escaped players' items into their new inventory, respecting item limits and capacity; entry name is items_in_inv_after_escaping, defaults to false
- Added an Easter egg to the animated menu
Fixes
- Fixed item durability not carrying over when players escape, causing things like the HID to empty completely
- Fixed some doors in Heavy Containment using the LCZ model - doors with access requirements remain with the model, as it appears visibly reinforced and more modern
- Fixed a missing light in 4-way Entrance Zone intersections
- Fixed the MP7's suppressor attachment erroneously reducing damage by 20% instead of 10%
Conclusion
That wraps up the patch notes for Minipatch. Let us know what you think - and stay tuned in the coming weeks. We're not done yet...!
~ Northwood Studios