A stylish new HUD & crosshair

This version cleans up the HUD. It looks nicer on the eye, but more importantly removes clutter and only shows the most important information. There is also a new crosshair that expands in size based on your current level of recoil, making recoil much easier to control. Recoil in general has been increased, and combined with this new crosshair combat is significantly more skillful as recoil control is now a key component in gunplay.

Skills no longer require mana

Mana has been completely removed from the game. Active skills now only have cooldowns, ranging from 5s to 30s based on their strength. You'll now hear a new "ding" sound whenever a skill comes off cooldown. The screenshot below shows how skills are displayed in the new HUD. You can see a progress bar and countdown on each skills' cooldown (EG: Self Repair has 8s left on cooldown). This change removes the frustration of running out of mana mid-combat, and keeps you in a state of flow as you skillfully outplay your foes.

Lives reworked to keep you in action

The new lives mechanic has been streamlined as well. Previously when you used a life, you'd still die and respawn again.. the only difference was that you didn't come back as a zombie. But this still felt like dying. This has been changed so that when you use a life, you get to stay in the action. You'll simply consume the life and regenerate your health on the spot. This takes 3s and during this 3s you will be invulernable, move 2x faster, and be unable to shoot. This gives you (and your enemies) a 3s window to reposition and reload.

Critical bullets and interesting reload decisions

The DMG looting system has been reworked. Ammo kits used to give you +2% damage on your gun, which was nice, but not particularily exciting. Now ammo kits give you "critical bullets" instead. Critical bullets do significantly more damage, ranging from +50 to +100% of your usual damage. A critical blast from the M3 Super can kill in a single shot! But there's a catch. Only some of your bullets are critical, and the critical ones are all at the end of your magazine. So an AK47 has a clip size of 30 bullets, and you might have looted 5 critical bullets. When you reload, the first 25 bullets will do a normal 10hp damage each, and the final 5 will do 20hp each, right before you reload. This creates an interesting risk/reward mechanic where you need to decide between playing it safe and reloading to get a full clip, or taking the risk to fire off those critical bullets, hoping you finish the kill before you run out of ammo. Firing these critical bullets also feels great. Your crosshair turns orange, the bullets are red, and there's plenty of screenshake and big red damage numbers pop up when they hit. In a gun like the Barrett, that final shot does +50% damage and might be enough for a 1-shot kill - but you better not miss.

Full Changelog

--- BIGGEST CHANGES --- - Completely redesigned the HUD, including a new crosshair that dynamically shows your gun's recoil. - Mana has been removed from the game. Skills now rely entirely on cooldowns instead. - When you lose a bonus life you'll no longer respawn, but will stay alive in the action. You'll simply consume the heart and gain your health back over the next 3s. - Weapons now have a new concept called "critical bullets" which do huge bonus damage (+50 to +100%). However, you only have a few of these bullets at the very end of your gun's magazine. - You can no longer buy ammo from anywhere in the map, however all guns have 2x as much reserve ammo. - Vehicles now have infinite boost. --- GAMEPLAY CHANGES --- - Zombies can no longer use guns in the red zone. - Lives are now dropped from enemies when you kill them instead of gaining a flat +0.2 per kill. - Lives become less likely to drop as the remaining player count gets below 10, and in the final 1v1 no lives drop from kills. - When using a life, you will not be able to shoot, but you also won't take any damage. You'll also move 2x faster so you can ecape to safety. - In Survival mode you now start with 3 bonus lives, but the enemies are much harder. - Civilians now drop a random amount of cash. - Looting ammo kits gives you more critical bullets. - In overtime in BR (not survival), health, cash, and ammo kits will fall from the sky into the red area, to incentivize survivors to get out into the open and grab the loot. - Survivors now gain +2 score when there are 25,20,15,10,5,4,3,2 players remaining (instead of gaining +1 per minute). - Killing survivors now gives +2 score per kill (killing zombies is still +1). - Civilian missions now award $2000 instead of $1000. - Added some red bars along the top and bottom of the screen that make it easier to see how much health you've lost. - Vertical aiming no longer works on civilians. - Mental tree skills now only give +10% shift regen, not +20%. - Cybernetic tree skills now only buff your weapon damage, not all damage. - Weapon buffs from civilian missions are now given based on weapon TYPE instead of a specific weapon. So instead of getting +13% damage on the UZI, you'll get this for all SMGs. - Fixed many bugs. --- WEAPON CHANGES --- - Recoil is now stronger on most guns. This allows for more skillful shooting. This is made possible due to the new crosshair very obviously changing size. - Superweapon ammo is now split into clips, just like normal guns. - You can now carry up to 5 of each nade type, instead of 3. - Knife no longer has the charge up mechanic. But the basic swoosh has been buffed from 50 to 70hp damage. - Knife/Claws now do 3x damage vs vehicles. - Machine guns now have the same bullet range as rifles. - M3 now has 8 bullets in a clip instead of 2. --- CHEMICAL CHANGES --- - Mana Stimulant is now called "Skill Stimulant" and has been reworked. When held passively, you will earn +20% xp from kills and loot. When placed, your skills will cooldown +50% faster. - Supply Drop now has 2 max charges instead of 1, and now costs $5000. - Laser Tripwire recoil reduction now also applies to movement recoil, and now costs $5000. - Damage Stimulant gives +2% DMG per kill, and this no longer resets upon death. It also now costs $5000. - Health Stimulant now costs $5000. --- SKILL CHANGES --- - Venom Shot no longer kills enemies (it'll stop at 1hp). Duration is now 5s instead of 4s. - Energize speeds are now +20/30/40%. - Radiate cooldown is 15s instead of 30s. - Black Hole now has a much larger starting size of 16/18/20m (instead of 10/15/20m), but the slow isn't as strong at level 1 (0.8/0.65/0.5). - Bionic Charges now last until you die (or consume a heart). You now gain 2 charges per kill, capped at 3/5/7 charges. Each charges gives +1hp/s. - Shockwave duration is now 4s instead of 3s. - Phasic Rebound damage after bouncing is now 40/80/120% instead of 50/75/100%. - Return Fire damage is now 100/150/200% instead of 50/100/150%. - Bionic Charges now gives 4/6/8 max charges, allowing for 4/6/8 hp/s regen. - Phase drifting speeds are now 140/170/200% instead of 130/150/170%. - Frenzy ROF is now 112/118/124% instead of 110/120/130%. - Casting Frenzy no longer disables shooting for 0.5s. - Radiate durations are now 2/3.5/5 instead of 2.5/4/5.5s. - Stagnation slow is now 85/70/55% instead of 80/60/40%. - Blood Leech healing is now 50/75/100% instead of 30/60/90%. - Invis reveal range is now 16/12/8m instead of 20/15/10m, and durations are now 10/30/50s instead of 10/20/30s. - Fixed a bug where swift stalker wasn't working (nor were civ mission buffs that gave movement speed). Swift stalker now stacks with phase drifting for siiiiick speeds. - Level Force Fields now makes you move faster as intended (bug fix). - Infection damage boost is now 112/118/124% instead of 110/120/130%. - Ignition Orb cooldown is now 15s instead of 5s. - Teleportation has been replaced with a new skill called Backtrack, and has a cooldown of 20s instead of 10s. - Backtrack marks your position with an X on the ground. After a short time you'll teleport back to this location and restore lost health. You can cast again to teleport back immediately. - Backtrack duration is 3/5/7s, and the health restored is 20/30/40% of lost health.

40% Discount

Geneshift is on sale this week, so like, subscribe, and smash that buy button. Next version will be focused on gang mechanics and territory warfare! Have fun! bencelot

[ 2021-05-03 15:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]