Happy tuesday! We've got a very special treat for you - a HUGE update. This is going to be a long post, so strap in!
In the weeks since release, we've been keeping close tabs on the discussions, reviews, and streamers playing HYPERGUN get a read on the community's thoughts. There's been more than a few gripes in terms of balancing, for example - the weapon buffs weren't feeling substantial enough, the difficulty curve wasn't tuned quite right, and some aspects of progression were a bit grindy.
Even though HYPERGUN isn't in Early Access, we wanted to do our best to address these concerns and get the game in as good of a place as possible! We put our heads together and came up with a few significant changes (and a whole ton of little ones!) that we felt would improve the game in a pretty big way.
One Attachment Per Slot
This is a big one. In the launch version of HYPERGUN, you were able to pick up an infinite amount of attachments. This was cool in some ways; you definitely got some crazy combinations by the end of the game!
However, there were some pretty big drawbacks that became clear after watching tons of people playing the game - the attachments didn't really have that big of an impact individually, and the weapons ended up evening themselves out over time as positive and negative stats counterbalanced each other. After an hour of play, the gun usually felt like a mid-power machine gun, perhaps with some elemental damage, rather than being unique and distinctive.
After much deliberation and testing, we settled on limiting attachments to one per slot (so you can carry a maximum of 8 at a time). In doing so, we were able to drastically buff the values (especially on Golds and Platinums!) making each attachment you pick up much more significant. There's now also an aspect of decision making and control over your build; since you can choose which attachments you pick up, it's possible to prioritize certain stats, elements, or secondary fire modes. We've found in our testing that this makes the progression much more engaging, and ultimately gave us a better feeling of connection with our personal HYPERGUN.
To clarify - the attachments still drop randomly in the simulation as they used to. You still need a certain amount of luck to get a "perfect build", but the RNG aspect is much more limited that it used to be with this new system.
Enemy Mutators
This is another big point, which helps to make enemy encounters more varied. When spawning, enemies now have a chance of inheriting a bonus effect (indicated by a particle aura). The mutation chance increases as you progress further into the game, so get ready for some beefy endgame enemies!
- Double Damage - orange aura
- Double Speed - yellow aura
- Double Attack Speed - purple aura
- Double Health - green aura
- Champion (double everything) - white aura
Enemy Balancing and Progression
Every enemy has had health, speed, damage, etc. values tweaked and massaged. Certain enemies are less bullet-spongy (looking at you, Mage), some are faster and more deadly (Shamblers!). The overall goal was to make sure each enemy was feeling dangerous in their own with, without being cheap or overly tanky. These changes keep the difficulty up, without dragging out later levels purely by nature of bullet-sponge targets.
We've also adjusted the levels at which enemies start spawning in. Previously, you'd encounter pretty much every enemy type by around level 3-4, and after that they'd just increase in number. This made earlier levels more intense, but not in a particularly satisfying way.
For example, The Lab now includes only Shamblers, Wasps, and Crawlers. In The Factory, we add in newly tuned Snipers and Fungi into the fray, and so on. This progression is much more gradual, while still maintaining a great deal of challenge throughout the experience (don't forget, those Shamblers are a lot more deadly than they used to be!).
Metagame Progression
One complaint we had at launch was grindy progression. While it should take awhile to unlock EVERYTHING in the game, we also want you to be able to experience the content you're interested in without sinking 20 hours into the game.
Hypercoin drop rates (and drop rates in general) have been increased, meaning you'll collect them more quickly than before. Attachments in the Meta Shop have been reduced in price, as have Class Abilities. These changes collectively result in a much more consistent progression; every run or two you'll be able to unlock some new toys!
And More!
Beyond all of that, there's been a TON of other tweaks across the board. Class damage, fire rate, and energy cost have been massaged, Class Abilities have received a health balance pass, boss attacks have been tuned, and much much more. Find the full list below!
We hope you enjoy this update as much as we have been during testing. Now get out there and build some HYPERGUNS!
Features
- One Attachment per Slot - only one attachment may be equipped per slot (for a maximum of 8 at a time); attachments have been greatly increased in their effectiveness to make the decision of what to pick up vs what to ignore more impactful
- Enemy Mutators - enemies have a chance to spawn in with various special effects:
- Double Damage - orange aura
- Double Speed - yellow aura
- Double Attack Speed - purple aura
- Double Health - green aura
- Champion (double everything) - white aura
- Elemental exploding barrels!
- Minimap is now shown during combat, displaying enemies as red dots on the map
Balancing
- Every single attachment's values have been pushed significantly to make them more impactful
- Fisherman's Arm projectiles move much faster
- Viewmaster 6000 homing effect has been increased
- Tiny Gun projectiles move much faster
- Bulwark's bombs more slightly slower
- Extradite ability now correctly passes through obstacles
- Reduced the number of rooms per level on lower levels (Lab and Factory)
- Enemies are introduced more gradually throughout the levels
- Bulwark's swipe attacks spawn projectiles slightly sooner
- Bulwark's health has been lowered to 5000
- Rollback ability cooldown has been reduced
- Spheros armor plates HP has been reduced
- Hivemind floor-blast attack charge times are slightly slower
- Hivemind health has been reduced to 12000
- Summoners now spawn in tougher enemies
- Bombfire secondary fire gravity has been reduced
- Sniper damage and projectile speed has been increased
- Shambler movement speed and damage has been increased, health has been slightly decreased
- Wasp movement speed and fire distance has been increase, Wasp projectile damage, speed, and fire rate has been increased
- Mage health has been decreased, damage has been increased, fireball projectiles have more randomness in their trajectory and move faster
- Fungus health reduced and movement speed increased
- The Twins health is now skewed more towards the sword Twin, rather than an even 50/50
- Scourge's missile fire rate has been decreased, and HP has been decreased to 6000
- Crawler movement speed increased
- Summoner moves and spawns enemies more frequently, health has been decreased
- Caps on damage per shot and fire rate have been increased to accomodate more extreme builds
- Attachments that add additional projectiles now reduce fire rate
- Explosions now deal less damage to targets not directly hit by the projectile
- Flame traps no longer damage NPCs
- Removed banner meshes from certain Class Abilities to reduce view obstruction
- Cost of attachments in the Meta Shop has been decreased
- Stronger enemies now have higher thresholds for elemental effects to trigger, i.e. it will take more fire damage for a Bomber to burst into flames than it would a Shambler.
- Class Ability cost has been reduced to 15 Hypercoins
- Tacticool attachment bullet trails are more visible
- Freeze Ability freeze time increased to 6 seconds
- Cold as Ice freeze time increased to 6 seconds
- High Speed Chase cooldown reduced to 13 seconds
- High Blood Pressure max damage boost increased to 35%
- Brace for Impact damage reduction decreased to 85%, duration increased to 4 seconds, reduced cooldown to 25 seconds
- Surveillance Camera duration increased to 60 seconds, cooldown increased to 70
- Take a Breather damage boost increased to 20%
- Bullet Proof Vest damage block reduced to 20%
- Donuts shield reduce rate increased to 2.5 per second, cooldown reduced to 50 seconds
- Take the Stand, Travel Restriction, and Tariff zone sizes increased
- You've Been Served distance increased to 13
- Appropriate Attire zone size increased, burn damage now lasts 7 seconds
- Hands Off damage block increased to 40%
- Personal Space zone size increased, reduced the damage boost to 5%
- BRB speed boost increased to 20%
- Nervous Breakdown cooldown increased to 20 seconds
- Adrenaline initial time reduces to 3 seconds, max speed boost increased to 20%
Fixes
- Damage flytext now has an random offset so multiple simultaneous projectile impacts are legible
- Certain Class Ability projectiles were not correctly being destroyed on impact
- Warp point on The Jungle boss arena now functions correctly
- Certain secondary fire attachments with AOE damage were not scaling correctly
- Fixed a UI animation timing error on the cause of death screen
- Fungus animations now play correctly on all stages