Infinite Shifting

This version focuses on making the core gameplay loop as smooth and fun as possible. The biggest change is to shifts. I always found it frustrating to run out of shifts mid-combat. You want to dodge an incoming bazooka shot only to hear a "brrrrr" error noise and die instead. Well no more! Players can now spam shift as much as they like. The game will never deny your movement. This helps you escape, chase, jump and dodge, and really makes the game live up to the name GeneSHIFT. To prevent players from just spamming shift non-stop we each have 3 shift charges. If you have a charge available and shift, you'll deal bonus critical damage. But if you try shift without any charges remaining you will lose health instead. You can still move, but it'll cost you. You'll lose 10hp every time you shift while empty. This creates interesting tactical decisions. It's still a wise move to dodge an incoming bazooka shot, but not something you want to spam in combat.

Homing Bazooka Missiles

Bazookas now firing homing missiles that seek towards you. This is fun because the bazooka is now the weapon of choice for cops. 75% of cops will fire a bazooka at you, and I've tweaked the speed to be juuuust right. Fast enough to pose a threat, but slow enough to dodge if you shift at the perfect moment (and you can always shift now!).

Survival Reworks

Survival mode also got plenty of polish this version. There are now only 2 difficulty levels, Standard and Hardcore, and hardcore mode is hard indeed! A lot of playtesting was done to smooth out the difficulty curve, especially in co-op mode. In hardcore lives are rare, bots are more accurate, and you have to survive a bonus 5th round where zombies will swarm you in increasing intensity right up till the final showdown. At the end of each round a special civilian vendor will appear giving you a choice of 3 bonus perks as well. You'll need to choose wisely to survive the onslaught at the end of the match!

Quality of Life Changes & an Improved Tutorial

Another big focus was making the game easier for new players. I got my gf to try the game and she was.. confused, to say the least. The tutorial now has far better pacing, by letting new players choose when they're ready to proceed instead of automatically throwing them into the next lesson. The HUD now indicates useful information like the time remaining on your wanted level and the number of shifts you have remaining (shown as triangles on your crosshair).

General Gameplay Polish

Players hitboxes are smaller so we can now hide properly behind cover. The skill drafting algorithm is now pseudorandom to ensure you see all skill equally over the last few games. Cops drop more loot, cash, score and XP. Vendors won't automatically shoot you if a stray bullet hits them. Blast Cannon has been reworked into a super shotgun, and can now be charged up over 1s to deal 2x damage. Black Hole now has lifesteal, and can be used to farm health off clusters of civilians. Plenty more balance and bug fixes are mentioned in the changelog below!

Full Changelog

--- BIGGEST CHANGES --- - Players can shift even once they run out of charges. Your movement is never denied. However if you shift without charges you will lose 5, then 10, then 15hp per shift. - There are now only 2 difficulty levels across the entire game. Standard and Hardcore. This affects the campaign, survival and in pvp mode. Hardcore mode is now extra hard. --- SURVIVAL CHANGES --- - You progress through wanted levels 50% faster in hardcore mode (applies to both survival and pvp) - You start with only 1 bonus life instead of 4 in hardcore mode, and quarter-hearts drop every 3 instead of every 2 kills. - You no longer get +10 placement score per round in survival - Civ missions now give +5 score instead of +3 score in survival mode - Hardcore survival mode now has 5 rounds, and in the 5th round you will be swarmed by zombies - If you become a zombie in coop survival mode you can no longer collect hearts from kills. The only way to rez is to capture a genetic heart (or wait till next round). - Coop zombies in survival are no longer killed off at 0:00, but they cannot respawn after 0:00 - Zombie humans can now fire guns inside the red zone in survival mode (in coop) - Fixed a bug where the entire server of bots would swarm the heart in survival mode - The amount of cash and xp earned from kills now increases with the number of players in coop survival mode. 200/300/400/500 cash and 20/30/40/50xp - The $1000 assassination bounty is now awarded to all players in coop survival mode, to prevent competing over it - Tweaked the AI to make them spread out far more evenly across the map, instead of clustering in one area - The price of blood bags increases by $1000 everytime you buy one. - Reduced max hp in survival to 150. Reduced the rate that you find health kits to compensate - The amount of XP you get for selling a life with a skill syringe now scales up based on your level. Instead of being a flat +300xp it is now 300 + Levelx20 --- GENERAL CHANGES --- - Increased the amount of blood when shooting people. - Made shifts look cooler. The crosshair now shows small triangles to indicate how many shifts you have left. - Played a handy noise so you know when your shifts come back online. - Critical bullets and critical damage are now shown in purple - Changed the demo restrictions for free accounts and survival runs. Free accounts can now play multiple times per day, but are limited to just the first round. - Added an option to disable music in pvp modes - Holding tab now displays the number of rounds, game mode, and difficulty of the server - The camera now shakes when you crash your car into a wall - Added a handy QoL feature where if you try to cast a skill and it's on cooldown, the timer will flash briefly in your target - Changed the colours of various bullets so that each weapon is easily distinguishable. - Enemy bullets are now sped up slightly on the client to account for the clients ping, showing more accurately where they are on the server and allowing players to dodge - You can now see how many lives your allies have above their health bar - Got my gf to playtest the tutorial and realised that it's no where near nooby proofed enough - Simplified the tutorial and made it far less overwhelming (AI won't shoot at you mid tutorial item) - Plenty of bug fixes --- GAMEPLAY CHANGES --- - Updated the megamap with @GelatinOverlord's amazing map changes. Thanks man! - Tweaked the skill drafting algorithm to prioritize showing skills that you haven't seen in the last few games or so - Setting a civ car on fire so the dude runs out works better, because the fire automatically goes out when the civ ejects - Reduced bullet speeds of regular weapons slightly - Max recoil is now 10 instead of 15 degrees on all guns - Shifts now take 3.5s to recharge instead of 4s. Same for the passive regen. - The cooldown time between shifts is now 0.35s instead of 0.6s - Critical damage is now applied for 0.8s after you start shifting, instead of 0.5s after you finish shifting - Wanted levels are now removed when a BR round is finished - When fleeing the cops, a timer now shows the exact number of seconds remaining - Damage numbers now show up when you hit vehicles - Buy menus now have 2 ammo options, allowing you to buy ammo for both your guns - Player hitboxes are slightly smaller, making it easier to hide behind 2x2x2m boxes - There are once again 3 supply/heart drops per round, landing at 5:00, 3:00, and 1:00 - You can now see civ vendors and missions givers as you fall from the sky - The leveling curve is a tad slower once you go above level 20 - The cost of perks from vendors now increases by $2000 whenever you buy one. So it goes $4000, then $6000, then $8000, etc. - Reduced the chance of getting an upgraded silver/gold perk in PvP modes by 50% - Purple lootboxes can now be shared by allies (but fewer of them spawn) - Cops now give $150 and 15xp instead of $100 and 10xp. They also ocassionally drop ammo. - You now get +1 score for every 2nd cop you kill instead of every 5th. You get +1 score for every 4th civ instead of every 5th. - Vendors will only get pissed off once they get below 75% health --- CHEMICAL CHANGES --- - Fission Mine damage is now 60hp instead of 80hp and range is slightly reduced - Sonar cells reveal radius is 60m instead of 40m - Synthetic Shop now costs $5000 instead of $3000 - Supply Beacon now passively gives +20% cash instead of +10% cash, but the crate won't always drop super high value items like perks/chems/guns etc - Laser Tripwire duration is now 30s instead of 20s, and passively it also slightly reduces the spread on shotguns - Each Damage stimulant also increases the max critical damage by +10% (default is +50%, so as you stack them you can get up to +60/70/80/90%) - Damage stimulant kills only increase by 1% per kill and don't work against civilians. They can still be stacked up to +4% per kill if you bought 4 of them --- SKILL CHANGES --- - Made plasma ball no longer disable your weapons. Cooldown is now a flat 10s at all levels. - Plasma Ball speed is now flattened to 50/52/54/56 instead of 45/50/55/60 - Plasma explosion graphic looks crisper and cooler, making it easier to see the explosion radius - Phase Drifting now has a flat 8s cooldown for all levels. - Reduced venom range from 100 to 60 - Mirror image has a flat cooldown of 8s per level instead of 10/8/6/4s - Increased Frenzy buff radius from 7m to 10m - Shockwave freezes bullets for 2s instead of 1s - Black Hole now also has lifesteal. It will steal 3/4/5/7 hp/s from each enemy inside the blackhole, simultaneously dealing damage and restoring health to the owner - Invisibility now shows a ring around you indicating the reveal radius. - Xray vision no longer reveals invisible players beyond the usual reveal radius. - Force Fields now explode if you remove all their health, instead of just fading away --- WEAPON CHANGES --- - Bazookas are now homing missiles with seeking. - Increased bazooka damage from 40 to 50 - Flaregun now costs $3000 instead of $1000 and isn't spammed all over the map - The movement speed buffs on guns is now +15/30/45% instead of +20/40/60%, and only appears in survival mode - Deagle rpm is now 270 instead of 240 - Minigun damage is now 15hp instead of 16hp. - Movement slow while firing machine guns has improved, going from 50% to 70% - Nailgun has very slightly faster move speed, bullet speed, and accuracy - Blast Cannon has been reworked. It no longer lobs in the air. Instead it behaves more like an M3, but with the ability to charge up. If you hold it for 1s then it will do double damage, 100hp instead of 50hp. The bullets are still explosive and you can still use it to blast up walls. - Superweapons now cost $12000 instead of $15000 - SPAS clipsize is now 8 instead of 10 - SPAS damage goes from 56 to 50 - MP5 now has 11 clips instead of 10 - MP5 damage is now 7.5 instead of 8.0 - Flashbang no longer deal self damage - UZI now suffers absolutely zero movement slowdown, either while firing or moving generally. Slight buff to recoil too. - USP spread goes from 0.2 to 3.0, and bullet speed from 80 to 70 - M3 damage goes from 64 to 70 - AK47 bullet speed goes from 100 to 120, and bullet range goes from 50 to 55 - M249 damage is now 11 instead of 10, and total ammo is 480 instead of 300 - M60 magazine size is now 40 instead of 50, and damage is now 12 instead of 11

[ 2022-02-15 05:00:25 CET ] [ Original post ]