The Nader Update
New Merc - Nader
Nader is here and she’s not coming quietly. She’s exploding onto the scene with her revolving grenade launcher ready to take out enemy Mercs and Deployables alike. Even when downed, she is still dangerous. Get too close or don’t finish her off, she’ll use her Martyrdom ability, insta-gibbing any enemies within the blast range.
Merc Rotations
Sawbonez and Artys rotation contracts have expired, but there is some fresh meat stepping up to the plate for you to try. Introducing Bushwhacker and Vasilli. One a turret-toting-tough guy ready to get in the think of it, the other a solitary sniper patiently waiting to pop heads from a distance. Who will you pick up and try out first?
Ability Balancing
There have been a lot of balancing changes made in this update, particularly with deployables. We were finding that players were not being penalised for letting them get damaged and it gave them an advantage. To combat this we have made it so reclaiming deployables now only returns Cooldown proportional to the remaining health of the item. This prevents players picking up a low health deployable and being able to instantly replace it with a full-health one.
We have also now added a ‘set up time’ to Auras healing station. This means that if she or her team-mates are engaging in a fire-fight they do not have access to group heal immediately. Instead, much like Bushwhackers turret, after she places the station it will take a second or two to get ready and then begins to heal. This puts more focus on using the Healing Station to fortify an area, rather than being used for on the move for quick healing.
User Interface
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[li]Initial Loadout Card Tooltips for components are now available when viewed in the Inventory screen (We intend to add these to the Lobby Screen when selecting Loadout Cards in the future)[/li][li]Added “Join Server” to Steam friend context menu[/li][/ul]
Levels
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[li]Continued performance optimization pass on Bridge, Trainyard[/li][li]Fixed some issues with the final defenders spawn on Dome[/li][li]Continued bug fix and collision passes on Terminal, Bridge, Trainyard, Chapel & Underground[/li][/ul]
Art
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[li]Improved EV wheel behaviour to better cope with hills and inclines[/li][li]Added additional INI file clamps to prevent users from changing their texture LoDs below acceptable level[/li][li]Removed pigeon prefabs from our main maps (more dynamic pigeons may return at a later time)[/li][/ul]
Audio
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[li]Updated first person firing audio for the KEK-10 SMG to match the firing rate[/li][/ul]
Animation
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[li]Numerous animations tweaks and improvements[/li][li]Updated Knife melee attack animation to better fit gameplay timings[/li][li]Improved the 3rd person animations for M4A[/li][/ul]
Augment Balance
Updated many augments to bring them closer together in terms of effectiveness
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[li]Throwing Knife Augment has been replaced with the Quick Slash Augment (This is because not all Melee weapons can be thrown, so the throwing knife augment didn’t fit with our plans for the Melee system – more to come in the future)[/li][li]Big Ears - Enemy footsteps and other appropriate noises are 30% louder to you (from 25%)[/li][li]Drilled - 20% reduction to reload time (from 30%)[/li][li]Chopper - 20% increase to melee damage (from 15%)[/li][li]Quick Draw - 30% reduction to the time taken to raise and lower (from 45%)[/li][li]Explodydendron - 10% increase to blast radius to AoE abilities (from 20%)[/li][li]Fail Safe - Reduces the damage taken from your own explosives by 30% (from 25%)[/li][li]Healing Reach - 15% increase to size of healing radius (from 20%)[/li][li]Potent Packs - 20% Increase to health regen rate given by healing abilities (from 30%)[/li][li]Extra Supplies - 20% cooldown reduction to support abilities (from 25%)[/li][/ul]
Ability Balance
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[li]General - Reclaiming Deployables now only returns Cooldown proportional to the remaining health of the item. (Prevents players picking up a low health deployable and being able to instantly replace it with a full-health one)[/li][li]Aura - Healing Stations now have a set-up time (like Turrets) before they begin healing. (Puts more focus on using the Healing Station to fortify an area rather than on the move quick healing)[/li][li]Fragger - Cancelling a cooked Frag Grenade now costs 50% cooldown. (Discourages repeated cooking of grenades without penalty while still allowing players to cancel a cook if they absolutely must)[/li][li]Arty- Reduced Artillery lock-on time to 0.4s (from 0.7s). (Intended to make Arty less vulnerable when targeting his Artillery and allow him to do it on-the-move more often)[/li][/ul]
Weapon Balance
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[li]All Weapons[/li][li]Marginal increased the spread penalty when jumping to discourage bunny hopping in combat[/li][/ul]
K-121 Machine Gun
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[li]Reduced damage to 17 (from 18)[/li][li]Reduced magazine capacity to 50 (from 55)[/li][li]Increased reload time to 3.5s (from 3.1s)[/li][li]Increased hip-fire spread by ~7%[/li][/ul]
Fragger is intended to be the most effective combat Merc right now since he doesn’t bring anything else to the team, however we feel everyone can agree that the current gap between him and other Mercs in this regard is too great.
The main cause of this looking at gameplay data appears to be his K-121 LMG, which is significantly out-performing every other weapon in terms of damage and is also marginally more accurate than other automatics. By reducing the damage output and hip-fire accuracy a little, Fragger should remain the most effective combat Merc but others will have more of a chance when facing him in combat.
FEL-IX Sniper Rifle
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[li]Reduced damage to 79 (from 80) [/li][li]Reduced fire interval to 1.6s (from 1.7s) [/li][/ul]
This is to stop this Sniper Rifle being the de-facto better choice, since it would one-shot certain Mercs when the MoA SNPR-1 could not.
It is still distinguished by its longer time between shots, slightly higher damage, smaller magazine size and greater reserve ammo count
Sniper Scopes
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[li]Increased scope sway when moving and jumping[/li][/ul]
This is to make jump-sniping and sniping-while-moving both more challenging.
Notable Bug Fixes
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[li]Fixed issue where climbing a ladder would rarely propel the player into the air[/li][li]Fixed issue where the Smjüth & Whetsman .40 pistol was not correctly loaded in-game[/li][li]Fixed non-sticky projectiles sometimes coming to rest on players[/li][li]Fixed issues with calling a vote when dead/incapacitated[/li][li]Fixed exploit / bug where players could teleport deployables using a carryable objective[/li][li]Fixed issue with password entry box not showing up when connecting to a passworded server [/li][/ul]
Particularly regarding nerfing fragger (not too much though I hope ;)) and the delay to the healing station. I’m a big bunny hop fan from the days of Q2 but hopefully will make proxy less annoying.