A patch containing a lot of changes to gun gameplay balance, gun feel, along with tons of other QoL features and changes like Offscreen indicators for grenades and Customization Presets. Check out the video below for an overview of the changes. The patch notes also contain a lot of designer notes (in italics) to help players understand our reasoning behind the changes we're making.
New Weapon Mechanics:
Due Process is a game about planning and execution and part of that equation is optimal player positioning and movement based on weapon choice. The simplicity of weapon mechanics in Due Process currently leads to a gameplay strategy the promotes constant motion of any shooter. These changes are designed to create better tactical gameplay by giving clear advantages when holding an angle compared to assaulting a position.
Weapon Inertia:
All Weapons now feature inertia. Inertia causes weapons to lag behind the aim point when turning, lagging behind further the sharper you turn. The amount and characteristic of the inertia is determined by the weight of the weapon and if it is stocked. Heavy weapons have higher amounts of inertia and slower inertial recovery. Stockless weapons have more positional inertia, causing their barrel to lose alignment with the players perspective.
The primary intent of this change is to make flicking for all weapons less effective, increasing the advantage to facing towards an opponent. Heavier weapons have the greatest penalty to sharp flicks and will have significant catch up time.
Flashbang Penalty to Inertia:
There is a new concussion penalty that slows the recovery of weapon inertia, Stockless weapons receive a severe penalty to recovery while concussed.
Another lever for us to tune certain weapons in the Defender arsenal and create more characteristics per weapon. Heavier stockless weapons such as TUB-12 and KR82u will receive the greatest penalty when under a concussive effect.
Aim Settle:
Weapons will have a brief moment before the ADS/Brace settles into alignment. The time it takes to enter ADS and Brace has been reduced across the board for all weapons. Lighter weapons settle faster than heavier weapons. Stocked weapons settle faster than stockless weapons.
Aim Settle increases the snappiness of Aiming or Bracing a weapon while infering a more significant penalty while bringing the weapon to bare. This mechanic allows heavy weapons such as the Ingmar to have a substantial penalty without making its ADS speed feel like molasses.
Weapon Movement Sway:
While moving weapons now bob up and down and slightly side to side. Long Rifles feature less weapon bob but have slower ADS movement. Weapon bob is significantly reduced by walking and crouching.
Weapon bob is the primary mechanic to give an advantage to a player holding the angle vs an assaulting player. Reducing the effectiveness of Moving and Shooting at range, creating more space for long range weapons to be optimal and decreasing the lethality of mobile targets.
Shotgun Rework:
In a game about CQB shotguns are very tricky to tune. We wanted to increase consistency and depth of gameplay beyond "get closer". Shotguns now have greater ADS accuracy and higher Head/Chest damage multipliers increasing it's effective lethal range with well placed shots. To balance this new lethality, the TUB-12 has the largest and slowest Weapon Inertia recovery, giving it distinct weapon characteristics compared to the stocked DL-12.
All shotguns now use the same spread pattern (TUB-12)
12 Gauge: (ammo used by all shotguns)
- Head Multiplier increased from 1.7 to 2.0
- Chest Multiplier increased from 1.35 to 1.5
- Abdomen Multiplier decreased from 1.35 to 1.25
- The highest damaging 7 pellets are chosen instead of all 9 while calculating damage, to create more consistent damage based on range.
TUB-12:
- ADS accuracy increased by 35%
- Brace no longer has a laser
- Brace no longer has an accuracy bonus
Super Shorty:
- ADS accuracy increased by 35%
- Brace no longer has a laser
- Brace no longer has an accuracy bonus
Auto Shotgun:
- Fire rate reduced from 300 to 240
- The Auto Shotgun increased in lethal range and consistency, the reduction in fire rate was to offset its buffs slightly.
Sniper Nerfs:
- When reducing player top speed Sniper Rifles received a buff while still overperforming in their intended roles. As such they have received significant nerfs.
- Keep in mind: Snipers do not have Aim Settle, Weapon Inertia, or Movement Sway while scoped; instead, their movement speed while ADS has been greatly reduced to impede their ability in pushing angles, but they are more powerful in holding an angle with the reduction in top speed.
MAWP:
- Damage reduced from 135 to 85.
At 135 damage the MAWP left enforcers feeling completely powerless when hit and created an incentive to settle for body shots. With the reduction in top speed landing body shots is even easier and we wanted to re-enforce the MAWP as a precision weapon.
SAB-R:
- Significant Horizontal recoil after the first shot.
- Magazine size reduced from 7 to 5.
The SAB-R is intended to be unchallengeable while holding a long angle, but its lethality allows it to be deadly effective in too many scenarios; these changes are intended to increase the cost of missing shots and decrease the effectiveness of chaining multiple Body shots together.
Thigh Damage Multiplier:
- Thigh damage multi increased to 1, up from .75 for all applicable weapons.
- Increase the consistency of weapon damage
Other Weapon Change:
- Breathing effect from guns removed (when aimed at a static location, breathing used to kick in and cause the aim to start moving)
Movement Changes:
General Movement Changes
- Enforcers movement speed decreased from 6.2 to 5.5
- Enforcer sprint speed decreased from 9.6 to 8.5
- Defender movement speed decreased from 7 to 6.5
- Defender sprint speed decreased from 11 to 10
Top speed has been reduced. Acceleration has been increased. Players should feel snappier when accelerating. Acceleration/Deceleration is linear and no longer halts player movement when changing directions. Movement should feel more responsive and have an increased penalty when changing directions.
Jump Penalty Changes:
- A player's first jump will no longer engage the movement speed landing penalty.
- There is large random horizontal offset when jumping while ADS.
Crouch Speed:
- Entering crouch time increase from .35 to .4
- Exiting crouch time increased from .35 to 1
We want players to have an evasive response to incoming fire but decrease the effectiveness of spamming and decrease the speed at which players pop out of cover.
Other Changes:
Retreat Ladder:
- 60 seconds into the execution phase, The Enforcer Truck doors will close, locking players inside. They are considered "retreated" and out of play (like being dead). The round will end when all enforcers are dead or "retreated."
This addition will give Enforcers a mechanic to save gear without waiting out the round, decreasing downtime. It also introduces better parity for late-joining defenders and attackers.
Grenades:
Grenade Bounciness:
- Grenades now maintain more velocity when bouncing off a shallow angle.
- Grenades lose more energy when bouncing off the floor.
The enforcers will have more nuance in grenade placement. Allowing for increased precision, either at close or long range, when bouncing off the floor or getting deeper grenades by bouncing off shallow angles.
Grenade Indicators:
- Grenades now show a long range yellow indicator when thrown by a friendly and a short range white indicator when thrown by an enemy.
Grenade indicators are ultimately a QoL feature to help facility team execution and alleviate uncertainty in chaotic situations.
Auto-Equip Changes:
- "Gruber Gang" has been replaced.
- Defenders will no longer spawn Grubers when entering the execution phase without any weapons. Instead, weapons will be chosen from the weapon wall automatically for them.
- Power weapons will never be automatically taken.
Preset Customizations:
- A highly requested community feature, you now have three slots to save preset customizations.
- On the bottom right corner of the customization screen, you will find the preset buttons. Press the plus to save the current customization as a preset. Click a saved slot to discard your current customizations and load that preset. When hovering over a saved slot, you can click the red X to delete that preset and enable you to save over that slot.
Misc:
- Matchmaking changes to reduce unintended team-stacking when adding new players to an existing minimatch via matchmaking
- A new state on the UI is introduced for attackers who have retreated or who were caught AFK in the truck, joined late, etc. NOTE: The defenders also have this state on the UI, but it currently only kicks in once the truck doors have closed.
- Bank tileset has 20 more seconds in Execution.
- Killfeed will display placeholder names if a player lacks renderable characters in their name
- Animation Blends related to movement have been Improved
- Some new maps rotated into the pool
- Fixes to eight maps from previous rotations thanks to community feedback on map issues
- Misc backend updates for maintenance