Hello Bloodhunt Community!
It has been a minute and we are super happy to be back with this December Update!
This update contains a lot of cool new things that we think you will enjoy, but first let us talk about something that many of you have been asking about for a long time, the new Ventrue archetype!
The Ventrue Warden Archetype
The Warden is now joining the fight, using their ability to dominate minds to control their enemies.
This new Archetype also comes with a new power, Shackles, which lets you anchor your enemies into a spot, mentally chaining them to a small area of their current location. Enemies are still able to move, but if they stray too far, they will get punished with damage and a brief period of slowed down movement.
Using this power on mortals charms them for the duration at a reduced cooldown rate of 50% of the ability.
The Warden also has a passive ability, Resilience, which keeps the Warden combat ready by automatically replenishing armour when feeding or diablerizing. This potentially leaves you with more spare armors to share with your teammates!
On top of a new archetype, the December Update also brings you a new, hefty free Battle Pass to sink your teeth into!
A new full, permanent* Battle Pass
Vanity comes back with a vengeance in our free Nemesis Pass! Jam-packed with 100-tiers with our most visually appealing apparel yet. Vampiric paraphernalia adapted for self-worship so you can clad your vampire in regal darkness. Ranging from delectably stylish Toreador haute couture to latex royal decadence.
- 8 Outfits
- 7 Masks
- 6 Eyewear
- 8 Makeups
- 5 Piercings
- 4 Tattoos
- 10 Emotes
- 12 Player Avatars
- 12 Player Banners
*(A permanent Battle Pass means that it no longer has a visible expiry date. This (among other reasons) is to prevent any future potential misunderstandings about when a new update might arrive.)
On top of this, we have made improvements to the store and the amount of content within. Let’s look at those.
Store improvements
Our transition from a temporary flash store with a limited number of temporary items, to a permanent store, has now been completed with this update.
We have added categories for easier navigation so you can find the type of vanity you want. One category for headgear, one for makeup, and so on. Additionally, we have populated each category with a larger stock to choose from, more than doubling the total amount of items compared to before.
We also have a new weapon being added with this update, a melee weapon that is also throwable and that has poison on top of that!
New weapon: Dual Daggers
These are small but deadly daggers that have a swift attack and apply poison on each hit which deals lingering damage over a few seconds.
These daggers are also throwable, giving you a bit of range to put pressure on your enemies as you close in on them! There is no limit to how many times they can be thrown, but there is a cooldown once thrown.
Weapon balancing
Balancing is always important, and with this update we have adjusted two of our weapons. The Dual Crossbows as well as the Tommy Gun.
- Dual Crossbows fire rate decreased
The dual crossbows have been getting some more usage by players, but the payoff is a little too high for the effort. The lowered fire rate will pull the overall DPS down slightly, whilst still leaving it with good potential DPS on direct hits. Now, if you are on the unfortunate situation of getting incoming dual crossbow fire, you should be able to be able to get out of trouble before the next salvo!
- Tommy Gun max spread has been reduced
The previous balancing of this weapon led to a heavily increased max spread, this has been adjusted to make this weapon a bit more viable.
Aim Assist balancing
We have adjusted the aim assist on gamepad to balance the weapons where we saw an abnormal data (in terms of accuracy) and make them require higher user input to stay on target.
The following weapons have been tweaked based on the collected accuracy data and the community feedback; pistol, dual pistol, revolver, and assault rifle.
These weapons are now better balanced when using the aim assist feature on gamepad, which puts them on a similar level to the other weapons in their respective category.
Gamepad improvements
- Bloodhunt now supports D-Pad Navigation on the controller
- Bloodhunt now supports DualSense touchpad swipe actions to quickly use consumables on PlayStation 5
Prague Map changes
Prague is going to look a bit different with this update, with some environmental changes, as well as a few new and changed locations for you to discover and explore:
New or changed locations
- Graveyard
The restoration tent has been removed! Graveyard has been updated with new layout and an expanded high-tier loot area.
- Party Boat
The Harbour location has been expanded with the addition of a party boat to help players approach the area from more angles.
- Maia's Red Light Haven
The Terrace location has been updated with additional platforms and paths for a more engaging and balanced space.
- Disco Church
We have reworked the DJ platform to provide a cleaner and clearer gameplay space. We also adjusted the girders to make it easier to climb between the floors and out of the church. Additionally, we added a new basement corridor for flanking and hiding to make the space more interesting and balanced.
- Old Town Square
Updated layout with a farmers' market to help players traverse the square a bit more safely and make end fights there more interesting.
- Entity Locations
Some Entity checkpoints have gotten updated layouts to balance, and an improved look for world-building.
- Elysium
New music has been added in Kirill’s bar and Omnis’ hovel. These new tracks are featured on the recently released soundtracks available on major streaming music platforms.
New weather scenarios
- Different cloud, light and color conditions add variety to the sky and environment with each session. Weather will be randomized between 4 scenarios: Blood moon, Cloudy yellow sky, Cloudy full moon, and Storm clouds.
Narrative content
New dialogue has been added for all the characters in Elysium. Conversations will unlock some additional Journal entries. Also, we have added some additional Octahedrons providing clues as to what is going on narratively.
UX and interface art improvements
Most of the interfaces in the game have received major overhauls to improve the overall user experience. The common denominator for these improvements is to make the visual representations of what is going on in the game follow a more user-friendly logic, all whilst also looking visually more pleasing.
Improvements have been made to the following screens:
- Map
- Settings
- Inventory
- Victory and Defeat screens
- Store
- Loading screens
- Quests and challenges
- Various Team UI
- Customization
- In-game item selection
- Social
- And more
As there are many improvements in each category, we will not go into detail but suffice to say, we believe this will help emphasize the important information in the game.
TDM (Team Deathmatch)
Players on the same team and not in your coterie in TDM now have a blue highlight around their player model. This will help players to easier differentiate friend from foe in Team Deathmatch games.
AMD FSR updated to 2.1
AMD FSR 2.0 has been updated to AMD FSR 2.1, along with various improvements to the upscalers, for example, reduced ghosting and better character and item outline rendering.
The new descriptions for these settings also give information on which resolutions are not suitable for certain upscaler modes. You will find these descriptions on your graphical settings in-game.
Bug fixes
- We resolved an issue with matchmaking where sometimes a player would be matched against players of a significantly different skill level even though there were better matches available. You should now more consistently face more players on a similar skill level
- Various performance improvements
- Sometimes when you were pressing the ready button several times in a row, the game would display a waiting timer, but did not actually place you in a queue for a match (and subsequently meant that you missed that match). This is no longer an issue.
- Some pesky quests that did not display as completed, will now correctly do so. Yay!
- Fixed Bullet VFX issue where the origin was incorrect and looked as if bullets came from behind the character model
- We fixed a bug where the player could perform a "Double Jump"-movement, causing significant desync issues
Movement improvement
- We have resolved several environmental bugs across Prague, resulting in a lot smoother traversal and less chance of getting stuck
Known issues
- Nvidia DLSS can occasionally leave long trails behind all characters.
Happy holidays!
That was a lot of exciting new stuff for you to unpack! We hope that you will enjoy this December Update, all the contents inside and lastly, we would like to wish you all happy holidays!
See you at dusk!
/Sharkmob
