Kill Coins Reworked

This version completely reworks the skill tree and the progression system. Kill coins are the main way to unlock content in the game, but they are now only used to unlock skills. This means that all other content that was previously unlocked via coins is now free. All players now have access to every weapon, chemical, and vehicle in the game. Important: Because of this drastic change, I have refunded everyone's kill coins. This way no one will have wasted their coins unlocking weapons which are now given for free. With all your coins refunded, you can start unlocking some of the new skills in the new skill tree!

A New Skill Tree

The skills have been rearranged into a groovy new skill tree. This tree not only looks cooler than the old hex grid, but is far more flexible. If you see someone use a certain skill in-game, you are only a few steps away from unlocking it. This is far nicer than the old system, where you simply had to grind through the hex grid until you reached a certain skill. Players now get to decide what skill to get next, and whether they should focus more on damage, healing, or utility. A well diversified selection of skills gives you more versatility in the battle field!

Customizable Skill Builds

Wanna play with your favorite skill? Well now you can! Up the top of the skills page is a new Skill Builds feature. This lets players force skills appear at specific moments in the skill draft. For example, you can guarantee that the Self Repair skill will show up when you hit level 9 in-game. If you own the Supporter's Edition DLC you can configure a skill to show up at level 3 and level 6 as well.

Skill Medallions & Progression

You may notice in the screenshot above some little badges on the skills. These are skill medallions. They are purely cosmetic, but you can rank them up by completing skill specific challenges. For example, you need to get 5 Plasma Ball kills to rank Plasma up to level 2. When you do your main account will gain experience, and your badge will improve in appearance. These badges go all the way up to level 20 and are visible for other players to see at the end of each match. A great way to show off your skills.

6 Brand New Skills

- ILLICIT INCOME: Increases the cash and health you gain from killing enemies. This increases further based on your wanted level. By default, player kills give +50 health. - MANIC MECHANIC: Allows you to shoot out the window of your car while driving (with worse accuracy). Also continuously restores the health of the vehicle and all passengers inside it. - CHEMICAL BOOST: Makes you jump higher when standing in your chemicals. Also makes your chemicals restore charges faster. - CLUSTER BOMB: Spawns grenades that spin around you. These grenades will be randomly tossed at nearby enemies over time. If you have Skill Shot charges you will throw 1 extra grenade per charge, and then lose a charge. - SOUL DROP: Whenever you fall onto the ground near an enemy you will reduce their rate of fire. Enemies killed in this state will drop an extra heart piece on death. - TOXIC BLOOD: Whenever you kill an enemy they will leave a pool of toxic blood on the ground. Any enemies who step in this will become poisoned and take damage over time.

Free Level-Based Cosmetics

Cosmetics used to be unlocked with kill coins. Now they are given to players for free, but based on your player level. Every 5 levels a new cosmetic will be unlocked. This finally gives your account level a purpose. It actually does something now. It makes you look pretty. There are also new cosmetics. There are 7 head types to choose from. You can stick with the original Dragonball Z style hair, or go for something a little less extreme. Eventually you'll unlock a police helmet and an assassin's hood. There are other cosmetics too. The Supporter's Medallion now changes in appearance as you level up, glowing gold once you reach level 100.

Helicopters!

Geneshift now has helicopters! Why? Because they're damn cool that's why. They also create a much needed "point of interest" in the map. They shoot out free bits of loot every few seconds and slowly travel across the map. This creates a natural hot-zone that players flock to. Free loot and a guaranteed place to get some kills. Zombies are coded to spawn next to these helicopters to further increase the action.

Rare Loot Spawners

Rare loot crates now fall into these things called Loot Spawners. A loot spawner will sit on the ground and display a 60 second countdown. When the timer hits 0, a rare loot crate will fall into it. Destroy the crate and you'll get +3 score, a heart fragment, and some high value loot. A tier2 weapon, chemical, perk, or phase shift. Half of these loot spawners are hidden on rooftops only accessible via parkour puzzlery. The other half are out in the open, making high stakes zones to fight over.

Final 6 Leaderboard

The scoring system has been reworked to place a much larger emphasis on survival. Specifically making it to the final 6. Of course winning the entire round gives more points, but making it to the final 6 is now a well-rewarded achievement. You'll get +10 score once you hit the final 6, plus your name will display in a mini-leaderboard above the mini-map showing all the remaining survivors.

Zombie Betting

To heighten the stakes of being in the final 6, there is a cool new feature - zombie betting. When zombies walk into the red zone they now become spectators. They cannot shoot or be shot at. But they can watch and they can also click on a survivor to place a bet that that player will win. If they guess correctly they will receive a cash reward!

Easier Zombie Revivals

A simple change but a very important one - zombies no longer lose their hearts fragments on death. This means that to resurrect you no longer need to kill 4 players in a row without dying. This was far too difficult for new players and needelessly frustrating. Now you can simply collect heart pieces at your own pace and death isn't as punishing. Every second player you kill drops a heart piece, and there are plenty of zombies at the helicopters. So get to the choppa to farm hearts quick!

Forgiving Cops

There's so much crime in Geneshift the the cops have gotten a little lenient. It is now much easier to escape the cops and lose your wanted level. All you need to do is leave the blue circle. You no longer need to wait an extra 30s for the timer to fade away. Also, you will only get a wanted level when you KILL a cop, not when one of your stray bullets hits one. The cop AI has also been coded to go easier on players who are currently fighting other players, simply taking cover and waiting till the fight is over.

Graphics, Game Feel & Netcode Fixes

A few weeks also went towards just making the game FEEL better. Netcode has been recoded to be as responsive and steady as possible. The lighting engine got reworked with more realistic and softer shadows. Shaders now give dynamic contrast and more overall colour. Bullets are easier to see and have more OOPH when hitting enemies. A lot of QoL features were added to the HUD to help new players as well. You can now see vendors in the minimap. Weapons will display their tier next to their name, and you can toggle the zoom of the minimap.

Other Changes

- Removed fall damage from the game. - Survivors now receive a passive income of $600 per minute. Zombies do not get this. - Tweaked the cop spawning algorithm to no longer spawn cops on you when you're mid-combat against players. - Improvements to pathfinding and AI. Cops are smarter at taking cover and will do so to avoid overwhelming you in big fights. - Players now display their level above their heads, and the amount of cash and XP you get for a kill scales up based on their player level - There is a now a $1000 bounty for killing a player who has gotten a quad kill (4 kills in a row without dying). - The scoring in BR is now a first to 100 instead of 50, and you get a lot more score from supply drops, missions and making it to the final 6 survivors. More interesting objectives. - In PvP modes zombies no longer give +1 score. They are treated like cops and civs and give score every 4th kill. - Big reworks to various areas of the map, improving both the gameplay and the graphics. Other improvements to graphics and bullet feedback to make the game just FEEL better. - A big focus on netcode stability, which should minimise warpiness while increasing responsiveness. - Removed the Genetic Heart and replaced it with a new supply drop that pops out 6 heart fragments. - Supply crates now burst loot out into a larger area, up to 12m in all directions. This makes it harder to shift through and steal all the loot at once. - At the end of a round you can hover over other people's names to see their score breakdown and what skills/weapons they used. - Superweapons have 2x as much reserve ammo in them, but ammo cost has doubled ($2000 instead of $1000 to fully refill). - Vendors are now shown on the minimap, as are the new loot spawners. Your allies are shown more clearly when off the edge of the map. - Zombies are now shown in purple instead of yellow (to avoid confusion with the yellow buy zones on the minimap). - The circle of death is now green instead of yellow. Looks better and matches the thematic "toxic goo" colour in the map. - Added an option in the menu and a new hotkey to toggle the minimap zoom. Default is Z. Useful for escaping the cops. - Reworked the default controls for gamepad. - Improved vertical auto-aim by making it prioritise whoever is closest to your crosshair. - In the buy menu it now says the tier after the weapon name, like MP5 (TIER 2). Helping new players upgrade their guns properly. - Reworked a bunch of the civilian missions as well as the daily challenges. Making sure everything is fun and achieveable. - Removed the critical damage after shifting, and put this into a skill instead (called Critical Shifting). - Synthetic Shop now ensures discounts on any chems that appear, and makes it more likely to provide chemical buy options. - The word "active" now shows in hot pink when you see it in the skill draft. - Changed the colour of bullets to make them easier to see against the map. - Countless bug and balance fixes. - Invisibility now increases your move speed by +10/20/30/40%, in addition to increasing the invis duration. - Spike Trap has been given a new feature. After 5s, instead of the spikes expring, they will slide back along the ground towards you, damaging enemies they touch. - Shockwave no longer dispels enemies, but instead slows them to 70/65/60/50% speed. - Frenzy ROF is now 120/125/130/140% but the cooldown is now 20/18/16/14s. - Self Repair cooldown is now 15s instead of 10s, but healing amount has been buffed to 20/35/50/70hp. - The damage of Force Field now increases the longer you keep them active, instead of being 50% and then suddenly 100% if exploded in the final second. - Radiate now deals an initial burst of damage the moment it hits the ground, dealing an instant 10/15/20/30hp. - Plasma Ball speed is now fixed at 54 instead of 50/52/54/58. - Energize bullet speed and range are both now 115/120/125/135%, whereas before bullet speed was 120/130/140/160% and range was 110/115/120/130%. - Black Hole renamed to Energy Vortex and the lifedrain is now 4/6/8/10 instead of 3/4/5/7. - Added vertical auto aim on Parasites and Venom.

[ 2022-05-02 10:58:14 CET ] [ Original post ]