Hello, dear friends!
Season Charlie has finally arrived!
We have a lot of good stuff for you in today's March Update (R72).
SEASON CHARLIE
Season Charlie has brought, among other things:
• New tasks and cool rewards, including:
• • Two new weapons: the Λ-7 Ghost assault rifle and the G9 Kungen pistol.
• • Spiffy outfits: Orbit's Deimos Suit and Kite's Anubis Suit.
• Seven new weapon modifications to craft:
• • M2 Tactical Bloodstream shotgun (2 extra ammo in the tube)
• • Black Falcon Chornobyl shotgun (effective range is increased by 10%)
• • Dragonfly Stradivari sniper rifle (weapon stability is increased by 10%)
• • Legatus Mural assault rifle (effective range is increased by 5%)
• • M5 Angry Cloud submachine gun (weapon selection speed is increased by 13%)
• • Firespray Gator submachine gun (weapon stability is increased by 10% and accuracy - by 5%)
• • Svarog Constellation revolver (weapon stability is increased by 10%).
• New PvE episode: Twin Stilts.
• New Escort map: Barracuda
• New 3v3 PvP mode with three maps: Subway, Ruins, and City Hall.
BALANCE CHANGES
PvE combat changes
:
• We have been preparing some interesting changes for PvE combat mechanics to create a more engaging combat. You will see a part of these changes in the current update while the rest will follow suit later on.
• Melee AIs (Glassheads). To tell you the truth, we were not particularly happy with how they performed as they were way too fast and didn't contribute enough to the gameplay. Thus, we increased their health, decreased their damage, lowered the maximum speed, and extended the stagger feature.
• AIs' stagger. You may have noticed that when AIs received enough damage, they halted, breaking their attack for a moment. This stagger depended on the amount of received damage, therefore higher-damage weapons were much better at it than other weapons. We changed this by introducing a new stagger parameter into weapons and abilities (the only ability that has it right now is Stryx's Crystalline Grenade), thus the AIs' stagger depends on this parameter and not on the sustained damage as it was before. This change should provide more depth and meaning to the stagger mechanic. Furthermore, some enemies will be highlighted as being in the Stagger State, informing the player that the enemy is weakened and will incur additional damage.
• The above-mentioned stagger mechanic will also apply to the player, albeit in PvE only. When players receive a certain amount of melee or area-of-effect damage, their maximum speed will get lower and they will receive increased melee damage for a brief period of time. Don't get swarmed!
Other AI changes
:
• The Strafers now prioritize covers when possible.
• The in-flight time of Minotaur's rockets (the time between their launch and impact) has increased.
• Mongoose's frag grenade tweak: The frag grenade had an increased radius of explosion in PvE missions (episodes and Blitz missions). Now, this increased explosion radius has been extended to Expedition.
Shotguns rebalance
:
(ATTENTION: The shotgun changes are not final, thus prone to fine-tuning and rework)
The shotguns got changed differently for PvE and for PvP.
• In PvP, all primary shotguns (the Lupara Compatta is considered a secondary shotgun, so it is not part of this change) got their damage at midrange decreased by around 35% on average. The Lupara Compatta's damage at midrange decreased by around 30%.
• In PvE, all primary shotguns got a huge increase in damage at midrange.
• In the Shooting Range, the shotguns work as if in PvP.
MISCELLANEOUS
• The Task Widget now shows the remaining time until new daily tasks arrive.
• The Game Store tiles received a new visual.
• The weapon chart shows the new stagger parameter discussed in the Balance Changes above.
• In Expedition, the in-game ESC menu has got a new button called "I'm stuck." As you can easily guess, you may now report a spot on the map where you got stuck and couldn't get out. It will help us fix such annoying issues quicker.
• Players in a party get twice as much time to reconnect to the match in comparison with a solo player.
• Voice chat is muted if the game is minimized.
• Luppara Compatta, Black Falcon II, M2 Tactical SAS, and Λ-9 Legatus have got their long-deserved inspection animation.
• Ram's Gravity Strike ability got the enemy-foe color differentiation: blue for the friendly and red for the enemy.
• From now on, Season Pass boosters increase your season experience points received from playing matches but don't apply to season experience points obtained from completing game tasks.
BUG FIXES
• Crash fixes.
• Fixed issue with a missing magazine reload animation for the SAG-8 Reaper sniper rifle.
• Fixed issue where spotting marks remained on the HUD during a play-of-the-game replay.
• Fixed issue with the Momentum Booster attachment for the TWD X-treme sniper rifle when it allowed shooting two bullets without reloading.
• Fixed issue with incorrect animation of the Lupara Siciliana secondary shotgun modification when the player stood idly.
• Fixed issue with missing red fog indicating hazard areas in the Sunken Lab blitz mission.
• Fixed issue with the Mitigator grip attachment causing a loud reload sound for the Λ-9 Legatus assault rife.
• Fixed issue with the Drachen Racer submachine gun modification equipped with either the Gunstream Z-54 or Tridot GO rds where the screen outside the zoomed-in area went black for a second when you were hit by a sniper.
• Fixed issue where the throwing of the Firewave Grenade took longer than the throwing of the Wall Grenade by Strix.
• Fixed issue where a reload animation of the Zenith assault rifle could be missing when reloading the gun for the second time.
• Fixed issue where Strafers could get stuck in some covers.
• Fixed issue where a player could get into a non-playable area on the Death Lab and Nisida PvP maps by using Orbit's dash ability.
• Fixed issue where all HUD markers failed to display in 4K resolution if AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution was enabled.
• Fixed issue where the Double Trouble task was not displayed as a PvP-only task.
• Fixed issue where the use of the Selenium Ammo attachment on the G07 Springer hid its Carbon Handle grip in the Armory.
• Fixed issue with the missing sounds of lava boulders in Expedition.
• Fixed issue where players were always resurrected with a primary weapon, even if they died with a secondary.
• Fixed issue on the Escape PvP map where a player could fall under terrain at several spots.
• Fixed issue where the game client could get stuck when a player quickly switched between weapons in the Armory.
• Fixed issue with an incorrect description of the Black Falcon II's Titanium Pellets attachment.
• Fixed issue where Ram could perform a gravity strike or throw an axe while using his ultimate ability.
• Fixed issue where the kill counter showed an incorrect number of kills in the Armory if it was used on various weapons.
• Fixed issue with overlapping music if you played consecutive matches or left the game session and joined another one.