Hello Bloodhunt Community!
Here are the patch notes for the August update! This patch focuses on game health and further refinement of the game balancing.
Improving the game’s overall health
Many of the improvements are for issues you have highlighted by sending us bug reports and feedback in the recent survey. This includes fixes for powers, UI-issues, gameplay, and graphical issues. All of these are a big part of the continued journey of improving the overall experience of Bloodhunt.
Speaking of game quality, a part of improving the quality of the game is finding the right balance for the game’s mechanics.
Balancing the game
We have been digging into a lot of the feedback that you sent us about Archetype Powers, melee weapons, and some of our ranged weapons as well. Some of the feedback that stood out was shotguns lacking a bit of power since they were adjusted in our June update. So, we have now increased their overall damage, which should make them deadlier. However, we also tweaked the fire rate of the pump shoguns, as we noticed during testing that the rate of fire could lead to another imbalance.
But enough talking about what we are doing, let us show you instead.
Balancing changes
- Sanguine level 3: 4hp/s to 3hp/s
The Sanguine resonance has been a popular choice that is also useful on any archetype you play. So decreasing the numbers slightly should leave some more space for choosing other resonances, while still keeping Sanguine as a valid choice.
- Choleric 3: 50% -> 40% damage boost
- Melee life steal: 30% -> 50%
- Fire Axe damage decreased from 80 to 70.
After testing the changes of reduced life steal for melee weapons it is now time to flip it around. The life steal is back where it used to be, and the Choleric resonance is reduced a bit to keep you from getting killed in two strikes from melee attacker and giving you some more time to react. We’ll keep a close eye on this to see if it reduces frustration for players without having melee playstyles suffer too much.
- Green Sniper damage drop-off now uses curve from Blue Sniper to put drop-off further than render distance.
The green Sniper was the only Sniper to not have full effective range, it is now in line with the blue and purple Snipers in that regard.
- Pump Shotgun shots per second 1 -> 1.2
- Shotguns (both) damage increased 8 -> 9 per pellet
Shotguns were nerfed temporarily to combat the meta of running Enforcer-Shotgun. Now that the Enforcer meta has been solved by design changes, we’ll be tuning Shotguns back up a bit, while not going all the way since Shotguns proved strong even when not in Enforcer hands.
- Burst Rifle accuracy penalty when moving 0.25 -> 0.1
- Spread increase of Burst Rifle decreased from 0.4 to 0.3
Small tweaks have been made to the Burst Rifle to make it more reliable. Managing the recoil of the Burst Rifle should be rewarded, so taking away a little bit of the random spread should make it more consistent over longer ranges.
- Dual Pistols:
- shots per second 6 -> 8
- damage 28 -> 22
This change increases the Dual Pistols potential dps, while letting you tap those triggers faster than before.
- Gold Silenced SMG:
- Magazine size 40 -> 36
- Reload multiplier 1.6 -> 1.5
The gold Silenced SMG’s stats have been a bit out of line compared to others of that rarity. It should now better match the power increase of other such weapons.
- 25 -> 30 damage Scourge Blades dash
- 35 -> 30 aerial attack damage Scourge Blades
All Scourge Blade attacks now deal 30 damage.
- Increased the scouting radius of Scouting Famulus from 9m to 10m.
A small change to catch more players in your scouting range, or to deny a bigger area for your opponents. We’re looking into more changes to this power for the future.
Bug fixes
UI
- Fixed an issue that caused the reload progress bar to go missing after dropping and picking up a weapon
- The match summary screen no longer shows data from previously played matches from another game mode
- Solved the issue with the player's Icons and Banners resetting to default ones after the game reboot and revert to the proper one after a few minutes in Elysium
- Fixed a graphical issue where the progress bar would be instantly filled up when starting to revive a teammate
- The scores no longer change on the summary screen of the Team Deathmatch session after the session has ended
- The outfit preview icons are no longer displayed instead of player Icons in the Wardrobe tab of the Customization Game Menu
Powers
- Fixed a rare bug that could cause the player to get poisoned infinitely after walking through the Saboteur's Sewer Bomb in Prague
- Fixed an issue where the Enforcer's Unyielding Charge would trigger after death in Team Deathmatch Mode
- Reduced the risk of being unable to use the Earth Shock power when the camera is obstructed in Prague
- Fixed an issue with the Flesh of Marble power activating while the player is downed
- The player can now use the Heightened Senses while the Ventrue clan's ability Flesh of Marble is active in Prague
Gamepad
- When an issue that caused the camera to stop rotating while climbing when using a gamepad
- The controller no longer vibrates when the player is shooting or hits the ground after falling when 'vibration intensity' is set to 0
Gameplay
- The heavy landing with the Juggernaut Perk no longer deals damage to the player's teammates in the Team Deathmatch Mode
- Fixed an issue that was causing rubber banding occuring after respawning if the player died while performing Unyielding Charge during Team Deathmatch
- Fixed several camera collision issues
- Reduced the chances of the player's camera getting tilted after an interrupted diablerie attempt in Prague
- Fixed a bug that would cause the player's character to sometimes turn horizontally after a respawn in the ghost phase or reviving from the downed state in Prague
- The tutorial no longer remains as the chosen game mode causing an error message when the player tries to ready up
- Fixed the Trophy/Achievement "Somebody wanna call a goddamn paramedic?"
- The player no longer remains in the spectate mode if the last spectated teammate disconnects
- Fixed an issue that was causing the player to sometimes be unable to pick up any lootable item after the item is dropped from a roof
- Player's items can now be picked up if the player gets diablerized on an incline
- The feeding animation no longer causes the civilian's model to tilt horizontally in Prague
Graphics
- Fixed a bug that was causing the Red Gas to become invisible after changing Volumetric Fog option
- Fixed various texture-related issues (missing texture, black textures)
Team Deathmatch with Trios
With this update Team Deathmatch will be switching from being played as teams of Duos into team of Trios.
This variant is a 6 vs 6 consisting of 2 trios on each team and as it has a less players than the previous mode, we think the game tempo will lead to a bit more strategy and a slightly slower pace. Another benefit is that it will likely also speed up matchmaking further as the lower player count will ensure more time playing the game and less waiting for other players.
As we previously mentioned, we were having quite long matchmaking times for Trios due to mode not being as popular as the other modes, so we had to disable it.
But we do understand that some parts of our players wish to play as Trios, so we think that adding Team Deathmatch with Trios is a good compromise.
As always, we are very curious of what you think, so please make sure to make your voice heard in our community survey.
We hope that you will enjoy these improvements to the game and as always, see you at dusk.
/Sharkmob
