Heroes!
Welcome to Update #15! Please find below the patch notes for this update, which are pretty long and beastly.
Why is the download so large, you ask? With the release of Update #15 (a patch in preparation for Winds of Magic) we made the decision to remaster the game. Whilst this requires one hefty download upon updating to the latest version, it comes with it some benefits which include both faster load times when playing, as well as a smaller overall file size on your console.
Now on to the notes.
New Gameplay Considerations / Adjustments
- Introducing stagger damage bonus, damage vs staggered enemies will increase with stacking staggers.
This scales from 1x bonus (no stagger), 1.2x bonus (1 level of stagger) up to 1.4x (for 2 stagger levels) bonus damage:
Meaning: You’ll do between 1 and 1.4 times your damage depending on number of staggers stacked on an enemy. Effectively, it will take more hits to kill unstaggered enemies while less hits for staggered ones, compared to current Live balance.
- Pushes on unstaggered enemies will have a higher heavy stagger threshold - meaning that pushes should keep enemies a bit closer for easy follow-up hits across the board.
All available difficulties use the same scale and settings: 0%, 20% or 40% damage increase per stagger count by default. Stagger count is how many times an enemy have been staggered in suscession (hit once for 1, hit again during that stagger for 2, further hits cap out at 2).
Pushes and heavy tank attacks (2h hammer heavies for instance) will put stagger count to 2 on first hit cause they’re much heavier.
Stagger is any reaction that interrupts an attack (which is every single attack on any weapon against horde enemies or Clan rats/Gors, only elites and since last week Marauders have a level of stagger reduction and resistance that makes them ignore a hit).
There are anyways three default animation cathegories of stagger;
- Light: a flinch in place (fencing sword vs Clan rat),
- Medium: a stepback (sword vs Clan rat,
- Heavy: a throw and fall over (big hammer vs face of Clan rat)
We also made a slight slight change so that pushes against unstaggered enemies in particular and staggers in general will favour Medium stagger (raising the threshold for heavy staggers), not displacing enemies so badly and help set them up for further hits.
Further, the talent choices introduced towards the stagger damage dynamic have been tweaked to allow better control of how players interact with the mechanic. Smiter (a flat ”count everything as stagger count 1, or flat 20% dmg bonus” on first target) and Assassain (a nice ”count headshots and crits as full stagger count, or 40% dmg bonus) gives and option to bypass the system and hit breakpoints but with limitations or skill requirements. Both Bulwark (add an extra 10% dmg taken buff to all enemies staggered by you for 2 seconds ontop of any stagger-damage bonuses) and Mainstay (add 0%, 40% or 60% dmg per stagger count instead) had their effects increased for those who like to play towards the mechanic.
Ranged attacks use the stagger damage and get bonuses against staggered targets But count all targets as stagger count 1, or 20% extra damage (basically all ranged attacks have the Smiter talent, but for all targets hit). This is to align them with breakpoints.
- Dodge Windows and Durations have been adjusted.
- Dodge windows are 0.25 for normal attacks, 0.75 for running attacks for all difficulties
- Dodge window duration are 0.5 for normal attacks, 0.75 for running attacks for all difficulties
- Enemies will now continue moving straight when dodged meaning backwards dodging is less kite-friendly.
All difficulties have the same dodge settings to ensure learnability and provide a good balance between chaotic gameplay with client lag and requiring skilled timing and choice of defence. Final setting after Beta rounds is 0.5s dodge extension (delay for enemies to start tracking after you end a dodge move) across all difficulties.
- Trimmed enemy turnaround and timings across the board.
- Stagger, blocked and attack turnaround scale with difficulty and have been tuned to allow more aggressive enemies according to difficulty choice.
- Attack intensity overhaul and scale.
- Number of attacks targeting any single player at any given time have been overhauled with tuned scaling over difficulties and interactions between different types of attacks.
- Horde waiting slots position and behaviour changes.
- Overhauled behviour of waiting positions and slot fill for different types of hordes to better control hyper density situations and horde density scaled across difficulties.
Fixes: Levels
- Horn of Magnus: Fixed various AI pathing issues.
- Horn of Magnus: Fixed various instances of players spawning under the terrain when hotjoining to a match.
- Horn of Magnus: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Horn of Magnus: Savages should no longer spawn and gank the team during the intro flyby.
- Into The Nest: Fixed various AI pathing issues.
- Into The Nest: Fixed crash that could manifest when Spinemanglr tries to switch weapons.
- Into The Nest: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Engines of War: Fixed various AI pathing issues.
- Engines of War: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Fortunes of War: Fixed an issue where players/bots did not respawn correctly.
- Skittergate: Fixed issue where players would spawn after the end event if dying early in the map.
- Skittergate: Fixed some unusual ledges where players would be forced to a hanging state somewhat unfairly.
- Skittergate: Fixed some situations where enemies would target a player from outside the playzone.
- Skittergate: Fixed some circumstances where a player could end up in a location where they could no longer proceed through the map.
- Screaming Bell: The Rat Ogre event now features extra specials and more spawns.
- Against the Grain: Fixed an issue where bots could get stuck at the base of the ladder in the barn.
- Against the Grain: Fixed an issue where enemies would not spawn nearby if a player was awaiting rescue beside the supply cache near the windmill.
- Against the Grain: Fixed a stretched texture on particular column assets.
- Festering Ground: Bots should now be able to reach a player who was downed by the second Grimoire (having previously been unable to path there).
- Festering Ground: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Festering Ground: Fixed various art issues.
- Festering Ground: The Grimoire key should be more visible now.
- The Pit: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Hunger in the Dark: Fixed various art and geometry issues.
- Hunger in the Dark: Fixed a stretched texture on particular rock assets.
- Fort BrachsenbrĂĽcke: Fixed various stuck locations.
- Fort BrachsenbrĂĽcke: Fixed location where player would not enter a hanging state and instead just fall to their death.
- Righteous Stand: Fixed location where player would not enter a hanging state and instead just fall to their death.
- Righteous Stand: Fixed a case during the finale where specials could spawn in line of sight.
Fixes: General
- Fixed an issue where typing in the twitch name and pressing enter would open up the chat instead of connecting
- Fixed an issue where the Explosive Ordnance Trait (grenade explosion radius increased by 50%) didn’t work for clients.
- Fixed the Arrows from Waystalker’s “Trueshot Volley” getting stuck in the air after having killed a sack rat.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when activating Unchained’s “Living Bomb” outside of the navmesh
- Fixed an issue where first person ammunition would be visible while moving into first person view by inspecting your character and during the transition starting to aim a ranged weapon.
- Blood spatter should no longer be present when the setting is at it’s lowest.
- Corrected some animations on the pistol sidearm of Saltzpyre’s Rapier.
- Fixed missing 3rd person muzzleflashes on Saltzpyre’s pistols.
- Fixed an issue where push attacks could get stuck.
- Fixed an issue where triggering the “Conservative Shooter” trait or “Waste Not Want Not” perk while having 0 ammo forced you to switch weapons before being able to shoot again.
- Fixed an issue where if you were throwing a level pickup, such as an explosive barrel, at the same time as being catapulted or stunned, would leave you with the pickup held as a sword.
- Fixed an issue where AI teleporters that were meant to be two-way didnt work as expected.
- Corrected the description of Kerillian’s (Shade) Infiltrate ability on the hero select screen.
- Fixed a bug that caused the talents granting temporary health on headshots and critical strikes to grant 3 health instead of the intended 2.
Fixes: Sound
- Swiftbows and Hagbane Swiftbows should now have an audible release sound when fired
- Changes in VoIP buffering to improve quality.
- VoIP now ducks game sounds when talking for improved VoIP clarity.
- Fixed an issue where VO callouts didn’t play when tagging downed allies
- Additional VO lines should be triggered for players who are repeatedly incapacitated, when killing bosses, and killing specials in a row.
- Added sound effect when Sienna cancels her Burning Head ability.
- Tweaked Packmaster audio to make him a bit more noticeable
- Fixed an issue where the sound from the double-barreled pistol carried by Saltzpyre Bounty Hunter would play in 2D for other players
- The sound source of enemy projectiles passing by close to player have been improved to more accurately represent where the projectile actually is.
- Aligned charge sounds for bolt staff to better match when it’s appropriate to fire for the different levels of charged projectiles (there are 3, with times of 0.0-0.4, 0,6 and 1.25s release/buffer windows.)
Interface Changes
- The Kill Feed now shows when enemies kill other important enemies, and when they kill or incapacitate players.
- Fixed objective marker not showing for pickups if player is already holding any objective critical item. Marker will now only disappear if the player is holding a item of the same type as the objective item(s).
- Added an option for specifying subtitle font size.
- Added an option for changing Sound Channel Configuration.
- Added an option for changing the Subtitle Background Opacity.
- Removed the XP multiplier text for the different difficulties since XP is now rewarded the same on all difficulties.
- Fixed a bug where exclamation marks would be visible on hosts while a chaos spawn was killed at the same time it grabbed a host
General Tweaks
- Terror Events now scale with difficulty.
- Training dummies:
- Unarmored dummy now counts as Chaos, Armored dummy counts as skaven.
- Dummies now work vs stagger talents and procs."
- Removed stagger-damage bonuses from dots (burn/bleed/poison) since it was silly. You would actually damage less against enemies thrown to the ground.
- Increased champion and legend health values by 10% across the board. Slightly reduced health for cata horde (from 4.6 to 4.2) and default (from 4.6 to 4.5). Why? Cause talent changes to match up breakpoints with 10% power and to balance breakpoints on cata better. Cata is positioned at a 20-30% health increase for non-elite and 80% increase for elites compared to Legend at the moment. Detailed health, damage and breakpoint values is available separately.
- Environmental hazards can now damage and/or stagger enemies
- Made adjustments to help mitigate the problem with hotjoining players spawning way back due to slow loading.
There’s now a hidden timer which starts as soon as one player enters the bubble. When the “hidden timer” is done, another “visible” timer will begin. During this timer a system message will be displayed every X seconds telling the player “Mission will end in X seconds.”. When both timers are done, the mission will end and all players outside the bubble will be counted as dead, and if they’re carrying any tomes and/or grimoires they will not be included in the run. If all players step out of the bubble the timers will reset and start once any player step inside the bubble again.
- Updated rarites of hats so that we have a more even distribution of rarities across all careers.
- Adjusted the hitbox of sorcerors in order to make headshotting more consistent.
- Enemies no longer get staggered when blocking projectiles.
- Smiter talents will now always have a min stagger value of 1 (adding 20% to final damage for the single, first target hit). This means that for hitting an enemy with stagger value 0, 1 and 2 the damage bonus output will be 20%, 20% and 40%. Changed from a 0.5 stagger value bonus added ontop of any naturally occuring stagger value.
- Assassain talent gets and increase of stagger value where headshot grants a 2 + half normal bonus. (used to be 1 + half normal bonus). This means that headshots are even more powerful and that they can now go above the max bonus, since a stager value of 0,1 and 2 would mean 40%, 50% and 60% damage bonus upon headshots.
(the talent choices introduced towards the stagger damage dynamic have been tweaked to allow better control of how players interact with the mechanic. Smiter (a flat ”count everything as stagger count 1, or flat 20% dmg bonus” on first target) and Assassain (a nice ”count headshots and crits as full stagger count, or 40% dmg bonus) gives and option to bypass the system and hit breakpoints but with limitations or skill requirements. Both Bulwark (add an extra 10% dmg taken buff to all enemies staggered by you for 2 seconds ontop of any stagger-damage bonuses) and Mainstay ( add 0%, 40% or 60% dmg per stagger count instead) had their effects increased for those who like to play towards the mechanic)
- Added first person camera movement that was missing on the heavy attacks with the shield weapons (sword, axe and hammer).
- Added new third person attack animations for Kurber’s shield weapons so he won’t just play the shield bash for all heavy attacks.
- Tweaked third person reload animations for the repeating handgun.
- Tweaked temporary health granted from talents related to staggering enemies. Maximum of 5 enemies hit.
- Reduced temporary health granted from talents related to cleaving through multiple enemies.
- Power vs Faction and Power vs Armor type will now stack by adding to each other rather than mutliply one after the other. (effectively changing a +10% with +20% into a +30% instead of +32%)
- Fixed an issue where hits from Foot Knight’s “Valiant Charge” sometimes didn’t register, especially on inclines or declines.
- Slayer Leap has been reworked to prevent as many out of bounds issues as possible, and to make it more impactful and less disorienting. Aiming the targeting reticule of the Slayer’s Leap Career Skill close enough to yourself will now result in an AoE that does the same effect as the landing would have done, except no movement takes place.
- Changed the targeting functionality for Waystalker’s Trueflight Volley to never remove the target (unless it dies). This should solve some issues where these projectiles veers off from the intended target
- Handmaiden’s “bleed” during her active ability is now available as a talent and no longer an innate quality of the activated ability.
- Animosity now properly grants Witch Hunter Captain 25% increased critical strike chance.
- Bounty Hunter’s Locked and Loaded - Single shot damage increase from 1.0 to 2.0. BLAM
- Sienna staff burning dots: damage tick increased from 0.05 to 0.07. Note that this is in part to compensate for removal of stagger-damage buffing from dots in general.
- Battle Wizard’s Fire Walk has been reworked to prevent as many out of bounds issues as possible, and to make it more impactful and less disorienting.
- Adjusted the timings for the reset of Battle Wizard Siennas Passive Ability “Tranquility” after attacking with a staff to be in line with when the attack ends, instead of when the action ends.
- Changed the targeting functionality for Pyromancer’s Burning Head to never remove the target (unless it dies). This should solve some issues where these projectiles veers off from the intended target.
Weapon Tweaks & Fixes
- Fix for starting attack with melee immediately after switching from ranged: Added check for hold input on initial melee charge since delayed wield switch caused by heavy ranged attack make timing attack input tricky - previously players had to wait until melee weapon was wielded for attack input to register, now a simple hold will start the attack as soon as the melee weapon is wielded.
- Made headshot and crit effectiveness work the same way and stack as multipliers after eachother. Previously, headshot would increase a factor with built in scale - basically rendering diminishing returns when combined with a crit up to the point of maxxing out and doing nothing depending on weapon. NOW it’s way simpler and should provide a flat buff to the headshot/crit part of the total damage.
- Increased heavy stagger threshold from 2.0 to 2.5 of stagger resistance, basically making things fly around less and provide more controlled staggers.
- Introduced an ignore stagger reduction to light smiter attacks (1h axe, axe-shield, elf 1h axe, and various 1h swords/falchion combo finishers). Note that dual wields are exempt from this. Should help with staggering foes across difficulties more easily.
- Tuned increased stagger duration modifiers across the board, in general reducing the time-scale used in order to tighten up the loop a bit an balance better between pushes, heavy CC attacks and normal attacks.
- Single target cleave:
- Made different profiles for attacks that previously shared the same single-target cleave profile: Dual daggers lights and sword-dagger light 3 got slightly increased cleave (think 3 slaves), while other single target light attacks (stabs/axes and the like) kept the reduced 1-target cleave.
- Removed exception for Armored enemies from the headshots sets lowest stagger threshold to 0 effectively meaning you can get the smallest staggers on all enemies by hitting them in the head.
- Ranged Weapons:
- Gave all ranged weapons a default min stagger value bonus of 1, basically providing a 20% damage bump across the board.
- Upped dodge and dodge count on the following weapons: ALL shield weapons (from 0.85 to 1.0 dodge and from 1 to 2 dodge count, elf went to 1.05 dodge and 3 dodge count cause elf) 2h axes (0.95 to 1.0 dodge) 2h hammers (0.85 to 1.0 dodge) 2h picks (0.9 to 1.0 dodge)
- Smiter cleave reduced (0.09 to 0.05)
- In order to set heavy hitting one target attacks apart we’ve reduced their cleave capacity to make hordes and multiple enemies trickier to handle.
- Dual Axes
- Fixed heavy followup crit vs armored - no longer deals less damage than a non-crit.
- Glaive
- Fixed heavy followup crit vs armored - no longer deals less damage than a non-crit.
- Nerfed light attack cleave modifiers, should not recieve a bonus towards cleaving roamer/horde enemies any more.
- Fixed issues related to chaining multiple pushes and attacking after pushing with the Glaive.
- Heavy opener: Increased damage to 0.4 (from 0.35) and stagger to 0.25 (from 0.2)
- Sword & Shield
- Fixed heavy followup crit vs armored - no longer deals less damage than a non-crit.
- Change last light attack from staggering to damage cleaving (to match other light attacks). More damage across extra targets, less control and cleave.
- Executioner Sword
- Increase armor damage on executioner heavy attacks.
- Damage coefficient from 0.5 to 0.85.
- Falchion
- Increased dodge range and speed from 1.2 to 1.25 multiplier
- Rapier
- Increased dodge range and speed from 1.2 to 1.25 multiplier
- heavy: Increased damage for stab to 0.29 (from 0.25) and charged stab to 0.55 (from 0.45). Increased crit mod vs armor to 0.75 on both and non-crit vs berzerker mod to 1.0 (was 0.75).
- Saltz’ Flail
- Increased stamina from 4 to 6
- Increased dodge count from 3 to 4
- Increased dodge range and speed from 1.0 to 1.15 multiplier
- Increased movement speed during attacks across the board.
- Fixed issue with double-chaining first heavy attack.
- Crossbows
- Increased damage versus monster armor type by 50%
- Increased overall damage multiplier from 0.6 to 0.7 on near range and 0.5 to 0.6 on far range
- Hagbane Shortbow
- Increased poison dot damage versus infantry armor type by 25%
- Increased stagger power for direct hit while making it ignore stagger reductions. Should be able to stagger most things now. Direct hit poison dot increased from 0.05 to 0.08 per tick with a vs armor mod increased from 1.0 to 1.25. Note that this is in part to compensate for removal of stagger-damage buffing from dots in general.
- Brace of Pistols
- Reduced Monster damage - Critical strike modifier reduced to 1.5 from 2.5. Near armor modifier reduced from 2.5 to 1.5. Far armor modifier reduced from 1.5 to 1.0.
- Empire Longbow
- Headshot boost coefficient is now 1.5 (down from 2.5) on light charge attacks, and 2.5 (up from 1.0) on heavy charge attacks.
- Increased fully charged shot damage vs armor (from 0.75 to 1.0 near and from 0.25 to 0.5 far)
- Fixed scaling sync between chain actions and animation so they match. Result is sped up charged shot animations and live-matching attack chains.
- Longbow (Aimed Shot):
- Damage increased (from Far: 0.2, Near: 0.5 to Far: 0.4, Near: 0.6)
- Armor damage multiplier from 0.6 to 0.8 on all distances.
- Crit armor damage multiplier from 0.6 to 1.0.
- Sped up charged shot animations and attack chains
- Axe & Falchion
- Reduced dodge count from 6 to 3.
- Movement slightly nerfed across the board, hard to give exact values but it’s movement speed increased during charge/attacks that have been nudged by like 5-8% down.
- Axe & Shield
- You will enter blocked from a push-followup after a while if you just keep pressing block. Had a release requirement before.
- 2h Sword (Elf)
- You will enter blocked from a push-followup after a while if you just keep pressing block. Had a release requirement before.
- Crowbill
- We changed push-followup attack chain back to block (required block input release to trigger previously, this is kept but set to start window of 0.3 instead of 0.0, while adding a non reset requirement chain to block from 0.5).
- Also nerfed it while I was at it, reduced speed overall by 5%. <3
- Swiftbow
- Light shots now fires continuously as primary fire is held.
- Dual Axes
- Bumped up stagger on dual axe attacks (from 0.1 to 0.125)
- Shotguns:
- Decreased armor damage (from 0.3 to 0.2 and crit from 0.5 to 0.3)
- Increased armor stagger (from 0.5 to 0.75, crit stays as 1.0)
- Reduced cleave (from 0.2 to 0.1)
- Reduced damage on far range (from 0.2 to 0.15)
- Fixed an issue where Blunderbusses and Grudge-Rakers wouldn’t reload automatically if the fire button was held after firing the last shot
- Flamethrowers:
- LMB click: Increased damage and stagger multipliers against armored (1.0 on both, was 0.25 dmg and 0.75 stagger)
- LMB click: Increased base damage (from Far: 0.05, Near: 0.1 to Far: 0.1, Near: 0.15)
- LMB click: Increased overheat cost from 4 to 8
- Charged spray: Reduced stagger multiplier vs armored (from 1.0 to 0.3 and 0.5 on crit)
- Charged spray: Reduced crit stagger mutliplier vs frenzy armor class (from 1.0 to 0.5 on both dmg and stagger)
- Charged spray: Reduced damage from (from Far: 0.075, Near: 0.1 to Far: 0.05, Near: 0.075)
- Charged spray: tweaked initial hit to match above, except kept 1.0 frenzy multipliers on crit.
- Adjusted height of flamethrower start position to not miss small targets that are close (since we shot over their heads)
- Shields
- Changed so attacks from bosses don’t go through block for shield weapons, but instead pushes the shield user and reduces stamina.
- Fixed issue with shield slams missing close targets.
- 2H hammers
- Made further attacks after push followup chain faster.
- Heavy: first target: Increased vs monster damage multiplier to 2.0 (was 1.5), increased damage to 0.275 (from 0.225).
- Increased light damage to 0.325 (from 0.31)
- Handgun
- Increased aimed shot damage vs armor (from 1.0 to 1.2 multiplier) on near range.
- Increased damage from 0.9 to 1.0, increased damage vs armored mod from 1.2 to 1.4.
- Grudge Raker
- Fixed so Scrounger does not trigger when getting a critical hit with bash attack
- Increased reload window of Grudge Raker bash attack from 0.3 seconds to 0.65 seconds
- Bolt Staff
- Charged step 1 from 0.5 damage to 0.3, Charged step 2 cleave from 0.45 to 0.4, damage from 0.45 to 0.5. Charged step 3 cleave from 0.5 to 0.6, damage from 0.75 to 1.0 and increased vs Armor damage from 0.5 to 0.75 with removed reduction on far range.
- Charged Bolt Staff shots should now correctly ignore shields.
- Dual Dagger
- Light attack bleeds now stack up to 3 times, with 2s duration and 0.75s-ish time between ticks (random between 0.5625s and 0.9375s so 2-3 ticks each). Was a 5s with 1s between before.
- Improved default attack speed (from 0.9 to 0.95), improved dodge (from 1.25 to 1.35), reduced min block time (from 0.25 to 0.2s), fixed wield chain window from push followup (was 1.0s in, now 0.4s in) while moving block chain window on same attack to 0.3s (was 0.45s).
- Increased heavy stab damage to 0.24 (from 0.2), increased vs armor multiplier to 0.8 (from 0.6)
- Bumped dagger bleed tick damage to 0.12 (from 0.1)
- Sword & Dagger
- Light attack 3 and 4 bleeds now stacks up to 3 times, with 2s duration and 0.75s-ish time between ticks (random between 0.5625s and 0.9375s so 2-3 ticks each). Was a 5s with 1s between before.
- Changed sword lights (light 1 and 2) damage profile to match dual swords. (more damage and stagger, less headshot multiplier).
- Increased heavy stab damage to 0.24 (from 0.2), increased vs armor multiplier to 0.8 (from 0.6).
- Bumped dagger bleed tick damage to 0.12 (from 0.1)
- Hammer & Shield:
- Added tank hit mass overrides to light attacks. Should cleave better.
- 1h Sword (Elf):
- Increased range for light attack chain, added some forced interpolation to help with headshotting consistency.
- Increased heavy damage to 0.4 (from 0.35) and stagger to 0.25 (from 0.2)
- Halberd:
- Reduced damage to 0.2 (from 0.25)
- lights: Increased damage to 0.325 (from 0.31)
- Elf Spear:
- Reduced damage to 0.2 (from 0.25)
- 1h Axe:
- Increased single target heavy damage to 0.4 (from 0.35) and stagger to 0.25 (from 0.2)
- 2h Axe:
- Increased light damage to 0.325 (from 0.31)
- 1h Hammer:
- Light attacks: Separated single wield and dual wield profiles, changed single wield with increased cleave to 0.6 (from 0.4) and increased damage on first target hit damage to 0.175 (from 0.15) and increased stagger to 0.25/0.175/0.15 (for 1st/2nd/subsequent targets, was 0.2/0.175/0.1).
- 1h Mace:
- Light attacks: Separated single wield and dual wield profiles, changed single wield with increased cleave to 0.6 (from 0.4) and increased damage on first target hit damage to 0.175 (from 0.15) and increased stagger to 0.25/0.175/0.15 (for 1st/2nd/subsequent targets, was 0.2/0.175/0.1).