It’s been nearly four months since Dirty Bomb hit Open Beta. Since then, we’ve released four new Mercs, added new features like Private Matches and new varieties of servers, refreshed our anticheat solution, made countless improvements and enough balance changes to shake a cricket bat at… and the best is yet to come.
Our next update will be the biggest we’ve had since Dirty Bomb entered Open Beta, but we still need more time to get it ready. As such, October’s Fine Tuning update contains a few improvements and another round of balance changes and bug fixes. Stay tuned for more info on the next release, and in the meantime enjoy this update!
New Feature: Loadout Trade-In (Beta)
Have a few Loadout cards you don’t want to use, but don’t want to bump up the rarity? The new Loadout Trade-In system will let you trade in three cards of the same rarity, from Bronze through Cobalt, for a random Loadout Card for the Merc of your choice at the same rarity.
http://i.imgur.com/jCoWBoq.png
At the moment, Loadout Cards can not be traded in for cards of the same Merc - A future update will contain this functionality. Apart from that, any of your owned Loadout Cards can be traded in, putting those unwanted cards to good use.
5 Player Private Matches
After getting a lot of feedback on Private Matches, we’re reducing the minimum players required to allow teams of 5 or more to jump into a server to train together!
Party Matchmaking Improvements
Since the team-balancing system is heavily restricted when a large Party is involved, we’ve introduced a system where the larger the searching Party, the smaller the skill variance they will search for. This means that matches involving a large Party will be more balanced in terms of skill but they can take longer to find.
The new Matchmaking Search Range bar has been added to better visualise these improvements. It will expand over the course of 5 minutes until it hits its maximum skill variance threshold.
5 Player Private Matches
After getting a lot of feedback on Private Matches, we’re reducing the minimum players required to allow teams of 5 or more to jump into a server to train together!
Removed Secondary Objective Missions
http://i.imgur.com/OqSVbEF.png
That’s right, they’re outta here! Based on player feedback, and the confusion around what constituted completing a Secondary Objective, we’ve decided to remove them entirely. (Credit to /u/UltraWideGamer for the source image)
Balance Changes
General Gameplay
-Reduced the amount of view kick players get when receiving small amounts of damage by ~10%
Phoenix
-Slightly reduced the amount of time it takes to switch from Healing Pulse to other items
Redeye
-A Smoke Grenade’s Smoke Cloud now requires more than one explosion to be dispersed, regardless of the damage of each explosion
Fletcher
-Increased Sticky Bomb detonation time to 0.5s (up from 0.366s)
-With the Lock-On Augment’s 30% faster detonation, time is 0.35s (up from 0.256s)
-Sticky Bombs can no longer be detonated by enemy fire for 0.2s after being thrown
Proxy
-Reduced Proximity Mine cooldown to 25s (down from 30s)
Hollunds 880
-Increased rate of fire to 90 RPM (up from 86)
Dreiss AR
-Reduced horizontal recoil by ~10%
Blishlok SMG
-Increased effective range to 19m (up from 18m)
-Reduced reload time to 1.8s (down from 1.9s)
Other Changes
User Interface
-The scoreboard now displays the current Server Name
-While typing into a chat box in the main menu, the Console will not longer inadvertently appear if the bound key is pressed
-Made several optimizations to HUD performance
-Added personal Score Per Minute and KDR to the End Game Review screen
-Spectator View now auto-switches away from killed players
-Increased Warmup Time back to 20s, as some players were unable to connect in time
-Reduced End Game Review to 20s (down from 25s)
-Increased Map Voting time to 20s (up from 15s)
Animation
-Fixed a few issues with the Grandeur SR reload animation
-Improved the Iron-Sight positioning while firing the Grandeur SR
Audio
-Hit Beeps are now Enabled by default. These can be disabled in the Audio / Notifications option in the menu, and existing players should not see their settings change with this update
-Body-shot Hit Beeps have been made more distinct
-Added audio when a Credit Booster is activate
-Added mouse-over and click sounds to several buttons in the Main Menu
-Added VO lines for when a Merc is firing a Mounted Machine Gun
-Adding audio confirmation for incapacitated players
-Assorted improvements to the overall audio mix
General Gameplay
-Significantly reduced the collision around Mounted Machine Guns
-Pressing Q to deploy an item in an invalid location will now switch back to the previously equipped item, rather than -leaving the deployable in-hand
-Fixed bug where Health Insurance XP was granted if you healed an enemy player
Phantom
-Fixed bug where Refractive Armor would not always be disabled if in-use while placing a deployable item (such as C4)
Phoenix
-The “Potent Packs” Augment now correctly increases Healing Pulse’s healing by 20%
Redeye
-Fixed bug where IR Goggles could sometimes not be selected with Q
Sparks
-The REVIVR battery will no longer drain faster than intended when using the “Quick Charge” augment
Kukri
-Adjusted slash damage timings so that off-screen targets will no longer be hit
Notable Bug Fixes
-Fixed hit detection issues when shooting deployable objects
-Fixed a bug where player models could become stretched while using a Mounted Machine Gun
