STEAM INTEGRATION
With many a late night, and sly slinking into free meeting rooms; things have been getting rather hot and steamy in the office lately. The team has been hammering away on keyboards and throwing monitors into windows (LCDs simply don’t always go THROUGH windows like the good ol’ CRTs used to 
) in order to get Steam flowing through Dirty Bomb’s veins.
The hard work has paid off; Dirty Bomb now uses Steam in Nexon’s territories! We’re still in Closed Beta, so a Closed Beta key will be required to access Dirty Bomb on Steam. If you have been a Closed Beta tester, you should receive a Dirty Bomb Closed Beta Key from Nexon via email within the next 24 hrs.
Make sure you have Steam downloaded and an account made so you can redeem your Dirty Bomb Closed Beta key then fire up the game!
And now that we’re on Steam, the Steam overlay, patching system and friends functionality will be available in Dirty Bomb. But that’s not all! With the move to Steam, we’ve got a new patch for you with some balancing tweaks and sweet new features– read all about it below.
[u]Ranked Matchmaking – Phase 1 [/u]
Want to dive into matches against players within your own skill range? Ranked matchmaking will eventually allow you to do just that. This first phase of Ranked Matchmaking focuses on the actual matching and balancing of players and teams, with the goal being to have relatively balanced matches produced by the system.
Visible ranks will come later; right now we simply want to ensure that the system is doing a solid job of matching up similarly skilled players to face off against each other.
Please bear in mind that as the Closed Beta has quite a small player pool, the MM queue may take a little while to find matches for you. The best time to utilise Ranked MM is during the suggested play times, however please feel free to give it a shot at other times too :). With this outing, there may well be one or two bugs in the system, but it’s worth getting into your hands this early for feedback anyway. We also want you to be aware that we may switch matchmaking off and back on from time to time, based on testing needs.
Party Matchmaking – Phase 1
Teamwork is pretty important in Dirty Bomb, the more communication and cooperation you have on your team, the more likely you are to win.
What better way to find a solid team than to invite your friends in-game, party-up, and search for a ranked party match? The current party MM system allows groups of up to 5 players per team to band together and take on a rival Mercenary operation as they bid to complete Dirty Bomb’s maps and make off with the mission rewards.
As with solo Ranked MM, this is the first phase implementation, and MM times are dependent on the current player population.
*Note: At the moment, both the inviter and invitee need to have Dirty Bomb open in order for an invitation to be possible. This will change once Dirty Bomb leaves Closed Beta.
Complete The Objective or Die Trying!
When joining the matchmaking queue, you’ll be stepping out of casual play and up to the next level of competition. Your Rank, as well as your teammates’, will be on the line. When you matchmake, you’re committing to playing the full match.
To help maintain Rank integrity and provide a more enjoyable experience for both teams , we have implemented an anti-leaver system that will penalise those who leave a matchmade game.
What triggers a penalty?
From the time you have been presented with a match, to the time the game finishes, you’re actively engaged in the competitive environment. Leaving at any stage during this period will trigger a penalty….so make sure you make you’re ready for the long haul before starting a search!
Once a match is found, you’ll need to accept a game invite. Should you fail to accept the invite, or decline it, you will receive a 2 minute suspension from the matchmaking queue. Subsequent failures to accept the game will increase your new suspension time by 1 minute.
Once loaded into a game, should you leave the game entirely, you will increase your penalty tier by 1:
• Penalty Tier 1 = 30 minute suspension from matchmaking & receives a loss
• Penalty Tier 2 = 3 hour matchmaking suspension & receives a loss
• Penalty Tier 3 = 24 hour matchmaking suspension & receives a loss
• Penalty Tier 4 = 72 hour matchmaking suspension & receives a loss
Each week, your penalty tier is reduced by 1.
Each game also has a 5 minute reconnection period. Should you disconnect, you will have 5 minutes to get back into the match to avoid incurring any penalty. These 5 minutes are cumulative, so if you drop for 1 minute, and then drop again for 3 minutes, you will need to get back in-game within 1 minute if you drop a third time.
Players that are suspended from Matchmaking will still be able to play in non-Matchmaking matches, found in the Server Browser.
Friends
With so many wonderful weapon wielders in the Dirty Bomb community, we’re happy to finally make communicating and jumping in-game as a group that much easier.
Utilising your Steam Friend’s list, you’ll now be able to see when you friends are online and ready to play. Shoot them a message and invite them into a party for Ranked Matchmaking. Game on!
Balance Changes
GENERAL
-Stopwatch Spawn times have been changed to 25s (from 30s) to increase battlefield intensity while maintaining a higher value to life
-To give ‘Objective Proficient’ Mercs a greater distinction, we have made the following changes:
-C4 Arming
-PDA C4 Arming time to 2s (from 2.5s)
-In-hand C4 Arming time to 6s (from 5s)
-C4 Disarming
-PDA C4 Disarm time to 4s (from 5s)
-Screwdriver C4 Disarm time to 12s (from 10s)
-Construction & Repair
-Blowtorch Construct & Repair rate is now 3 times faster than Pliers
-For consistency, multiple keypad-armed C4s can now be planted on multiple objectives by the same Merc
-Reduced raise and lower times for most abilities and all weapons, based on player feedback
-Updated low-health blood vignette screen effects to better indicate incoming damage and current health
-Tweaked Merc hitboxes slightly to better fit the third person player models
-With updates to the crouched collision-boxes, we have adjusted crouched eye heights to better correctly match the third person player model
-Reduced incoming damage view kick by 10% based on player feedback
MERCS
AURA
Healing Station
-Healing Station healing rate reduced to 40hp/s (from 50hp/s)
-Healing Station healing rate for Medics reduced to 30hp/s (from 50hp/s)
-Healing Station health reduced to 100hp (from 140)
NADER
Grenade Launcher
-Reduced Grenade Launcher count to 5 (from 6)
-Increased Grenade Launcher cooldown to 9s (from 8)
PHOENIX
Healing Pulse
-Increased Phoenix’s healing pulse self-healing to 12hp/s (from 7hp/s)
STOKER
Molotov
-Increased Molotov Cooldown to 40s (from 35s)
FRAGGER
Frag Grenade
-Increased Frag Grenade inner (maximum) damage radius to 64u (from 32)
WEAPONS
The Shotguns have all been revisited and adjusted to better match player expectations, while the Timik-47 has been tweaked due to gameplay statistics.
ASSAULT RIFLES
Timik-47
-Increased both vertical and horizontal recoil by ~10
SHOTGUNS
-Introduced a more gradual damage falloff system for shotguns to make them feel more consistent
-Reduced the effective range of the Shotguns to account for the more gradual damage falloff system
AUGMENTS
Many of the Augments have been updated to be more noticeably impactful, or tweaked to compliment the changes made in the recent DarWINian Update.
