Rougelite Replayability

Geneshift is borrowing from the roguelite genre to massively increase the game's replayability, variety, and adaptability. The idea is to give players different guns and skills each round so that each match feels unique. No two matches will ever feel the same, and players will need to adapt to new items to survive. To do this, the old skill menu and buy menu have been removed and replaced with brand new systems with limited choices - skill drafting and vendors. Players are now rewarded for thinking on their feet and creating a smart build on the fly. Let's explore!

Skill Drafting

Whenever you level up you'll now be given a draft of just 3 skills. You can level just 1 of these 3 skills, and will get a fresh set of 3 every time you level up. This is of course a huge change, as you can no longer choose whatever skills you want anymore. But it results in every match feeling completely different as your build is never the same. You'll discover new skill combinations and have to adapt as you play. If you don't like any of the 3 options, there is an option to reroll for another set of 3, but you can only do this once every 120s. For example, you start the game and for your first skill point see Plasma Ball, Blade Fury, and Vampirism. Which do you choose? If you take Plasma, you'll want to look for other skills and guns that suit the long range playstyle. If you choose Blade Fury, you better go searching for a shotgun. Lets say you decide on a ranged build and take Plasma Ball. Then you level up again, and are offered Plasma Ball (level 2), Energize (level 1), and Self Repair (level 1). What do you choose now? When you choose one, you might not see the other options again. So what's more important? An extra powerful Plasma, or the ability to heal? Decisions decisions.. Drafting not only adds replayability and adaptability, but it will also do wonders for the new player experience too. No longer will newbies be overwhelmed with 30+ choices. There are just 3 skills to consider at a time. Furthermore, skills now go up to level 4, and this 4th level is STRONG. But the drafting algorithm won't show you the 4th level until you hit level 10, making this a nice milestone.

Civilian Vendors

The buy menus have undergone a similar change. Instead of heading to a buy zone, pressing B, and choosing from the entire buy menu, players now must explore for Civilian Vendors. These are specials civilians with a yellow speech bubble above their head. Pressing E on them will open up a small buy list up the top right of the screen, with just 5 things for sale. Typically each vendor will sell: 1) ammo, 2) grenades, 3) a gun, 4) a chemcial or vehicle, 5) a special perk. Each vendor sells a different set of items. and players are now rewarded for exploring the map and checking out a few vendors before making a purchase. If you don't like what a vendor has for sale, find another one. Vendors will sometimes sell items on discount, such as a Minigun which is 30% off. Nothing feels better than finding a vendor who has the perfect weapon for your skill build and it's on discount. Even cooler, vendors now sell perks as well! Previously you could only get these perks by completing missions. But now you can buy them directly for $5000. For example, a vendor might be selling the +20% Firerate perk for SMGS, which works great if you've managed to buy an MP5 elsewhere. The end result of these two huge reworks is that special feeling you get in a roguelite where everything just comes together (or not). The addition of level 4 skills, discounted guns, and perks allows for some insanely overpowered combos if you ge lucky. But you won't get this everytime, so it feels extra special when you do.

Chemical Capturing

Another neat change is the ability to capture enemy chemcials. Previously you could destroy enemy chemicals by standing on them for 3 seconds, but now you will capture them instead. This is way more fun, and can result in some really interesting emergent gameplay. For example, you are walking along and discover an enemy has placed down a Health Stimulant (which gives you health regen when standing nearby it). It's out in the open and your enemy is guarding it, but you turn on Force Fields to protect you while you capture it. Now it's yours and you have the health regen. So your enemy throws down a Molotov Cocktail to get you to retreat and tries to reclaim it himself. It creates a very interesting king of the hill mechanic. Now you might be thinking "why should I place chemcials when my enemy can just steal them from me?" Well another change solves this. Chemicals are now hidden from enemies unless they step inside them. So you can place a Health Stimulant in an obscure corner somewhere, and get the health benefits from it, and as long as your enemy doesn't see you do it they are unlikely to walk there and discover/capture it. A well placed chemical can really give you a hidden advantage now.

Survival Difficulty Redesign

The way difficulty scales in survival has been changed as well. Previously bots would just gain +25% damage each round, which was a bit bland. Early rounds were too eash, and later rounds had some OP situations where they could 1-shot you with an M3. So now bots always do a flat 100% damage like normal. Instead, each round they will level up their weapons and skills. Round 1 has them using tier1 weapons, round 2 gives tier2 weapons, and round 3 has them using superweapons. They'll also gain more powerful skills each round too. This is hard, but a lot more interesting to play against. In the final round all the bots unite against you, and you'll need to take on an army of superweapon wielding enemies to survive. But if you draft a good build and buy some nice perks, you might just have what it takes.

Other Neat Changes

The M4 has been changed to a burst fire gun. There are new skills in the game like Counter Shot (which turns enemy damage into health for a short duration), and Skill Shots (which makes you skills recharge faster whenever you get a skillful non-gun kill). Other add-on skills like Spike Trap, Mirror Image and Smoke Bomb are now their own separate active skills and have been buffed considerably. Weapon recoil has been improved, lives have been buffed and are now exclusively earned via the Genetic Heart, and plenty of skill, weapon and chemical reworks based on player feedback. Check the full changelog below for details!

Full Changelog

--- BIGGEST CHANGES --- - Skills are now leveled via a draft of 3 each time you level up. You can reroll the 3 choices once every 120 seconds. - The buy zone no longer exists. Instead, players buy items from civilian vendors who sell items on discount. - Civ vendors now let you buy mission rewards (the perks you get from completing a mission). These cost $5000 each and are never discounted. - You can now capture enemy chemicals by standing on them for 3 seconds. Doing so will make that chemical your own. This replaces the concept of destroying enemy chemicals. - Chemicals are invisible to enemies when you first place them down (but will revealed if the enemy steps into them). - Every skill can now go up to level 4, and the level 4 values are extremely powerful. These only appear in the skill draft once you hit level 10. - Bots in survival mode no longer gain in damage. It is always 100%. However, they will gain power by unlocking more powerful guns (tier 1, 2, 3) and skills instead. --- OTHER GAMEPLAY CHANGES --- - Capped the number of lives a player can earn in PVP to 1, and this can only be earned from the Genetic Heart. - When you consume a heart you are now able to keep firing your gun. But you're no longer invulnerable. you'll simply gain all your health back and take 50% damage for the next 3s. - Civilians can now drop loot. - Reworked the way skill information is displayed in the HUD. - Repositioned the final red zones in BR, limiting them to bigger more open areas with fewer rooftops around. - Grenades now fall into the red zone in overtime along with other forms of loot. - You gain +5% DMG when you loot the same gun, and this caps at +50 instead of +30% DMG (on critical bullets). - Survival bots now have randomised skills, like in PvP. They don't all have the exact same skill (which is too repetitive). - Improved bot AI to no longer prioritize humans over other bots. - Killing a bot at max wanted level extends the timer by 3s instead of 1s. - Added a cross to the center of the crosshair. - Vehicles now have 2x as many hitpoints, but when they catch fire, they stay on fire for 10s (forcing players out). - Improved the quality of gun sound effects. - Increased the sound range so you can hear enemies shooting in the distance. - Killing survivors now awards $500 while killing zombies now awards $200. - Warmup rounds now have superweapons in them, and players no longer keep their guns when the warmup ends. - Supply Crates visually look bigger. - Supply drops are now guaranteed to drop a weapon always, which will be glowing to indicate that its critical bullets do +50% more DMG. - Fixed a bunch of bugs. --- WEAPON CHANGES --- - The M4A1 is now a burst fire weapon, firing 3 fast bursts at a time. - Buffed molotov's radius, while reducing duration from 5s to 4s. - Weapons in general have less recoil. - Deagle now costs $3000 and rate of fire is now 300 instead of 275. - Improved the movement speed of rifles. - Improved the range of machine guns. - Tapping doesn't work as well for controlling recoil, but bursting works better. - All guns have +40 zoom range (including snipers). - Bazooka flies 90% as fast through the air. - Grenades, flashbangs and molotovs now cost $300 instead of $500 (or cheaper if found on discount). --- CHEMICAL CHANGES --- - Chemicals now have a 2.5s activation time before they do anything. - You can now carry up to a max of 4 chemicals. - The benefits of the three stimulants now last for 8s instead of 3s. - All chems now have 2 charges max instead of 3. - Warp Fields now last in the map for 20 mins instead of 6 mins. They also have a 1s warp time instead of 1.5s. - Sonar Cells now have a "discovery radius" of 5 meters. But they will reveal enemies with a 25m range. This lets you hide it in a corner and get vision benefits, without the enemy standing inside and discovering the chemical. - Fission Mine's no longer give extra throws (too OP). Instead they'll give +1 free grenade every 60s. - Only one of your fission mines can be activated at a time. - Laser Tripwire now has a 0.5s activation time before it can do any damage. Once an enemy steps into it, it will activate and become visible to everyone in the server. - Once active, Laser Tripwire has an 10 second duration where it will deal damage to any enemies who step inside it. After this 10s is over it will expire. --- SKILL CHANGES --- - Skill cooldowns are in general faster. - Players can now go up to level 30, and the leveling curve is now faster. - Bionic Charges has been replaced with a new pure passive skill call "Skill Shot", which works like so: Whenever you kill with an enemy with a non-gun damage source (eg: skills, vehicles, knife, grenades), you'll gain a charge. These charges speed up your skill cooldowns. Charges reset on death. - Clip Magnet is now called "Rapid Refill" and works slightly differently: When Frenzy is active, each bullet you fire has a chance to not reduce your ammo count. - Smoke Bomb is now its own active skill with a 15s cooldown. It is completely independent of Black Hole. - Mirror Image is now its own active skill with a cooldown of 10s, and buffed duration of 4/6/8/15 and buffed clone health of 25/50/75/100hp. - Assault Armor renamed to Counter Spell, and it will now also block enemy grenades, in addition to skills and chemicals. - Ignition Orb is no longer disabled when an enemy steps inside it. Only when the owner steps inside it.

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

[ 2021-06-25 02:30:12 CET ] [ Original post ]