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 Brachsenbrücke: Fixed various stuck locations.

Fort Brachsenbrücke: 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