The update of the Combat Test is here, and 7 of 11 major changes requested by the community were made just 5 days after the first release. The Overtime, Respawn system and characters balancing are the main adjustments of this version and are based on the feedback and data collected so far. Now, our first objective is to finish the tunings on the next characters that will be included in the game until March 10th: Dirt Devil, Killer J., Windrider and Metal Herald.
Characters
Community Suggestion: The changes above have been made according to the community feedback that the game was too frenetic and with a high rhythm. The machines’ acceleration was reduced, increasing the time needed to get to their maximum speed.
- The friction between car and ground has been reduced by 12%.
- This will result in a little bit more drift for the machines.
- The projectile’s speed has been rebalanced.
- The maximum life of all characters has been increased by 100 points.
Dev Notes: The changes above have been made with the objective to reduce the randomness feeling of the game. Reducing the friction with the ground and changing the cars and projectiles acceleration make the game more predictable, rewarding this way the strategic choices. The improvement in the character’s maximum life makes the random hits get less impact on the game flow.
- Out-of-combat repairing adjustments
- The time needed to start the out-of-combat repairing has been increased from 5 to 7 seconds.
- The repair per second has changed from 33% to 100 points.
Dev Notes: The out-of-combat repairing has been reduced to make it more adequate to the game due to its slower pace.
- The allies’ collision has been removed.
Dev Notes: The tests told us that the allies collision wasn’t perfect yet. We will run other tests in the future, but for now, we will keep the feature disabled.
Little Monster
Community Suggestion: The changes have been made to make the execution of the “Jump + Nitro” clearer and to balance the pilot according to the game’s proposed rhythm.
- General
- The total life has been increased from 800 to 900.
- Weapon 1: Syphon of Destruction
- The weapon’s duration has been reduced from 1 to 0.3 seconds.
- Minor adjustments to the weapon’s damage.
- Weapon 2: Mosh Pit
- The damage has been reduced from 124 to 100.
- The Special Weapon loading rate has been reduced.
- The hit area has been reduced by 22%
- Weapon 3: Stampede (Nitro)
- The duration has been increased from 0.3 to 0.4 seconds.
Dev Notes: The changes have been made to reduce the lethality of the pilot. The specific change in the Nitro was made to make its use on the air more noticeable, making it clearer for players to understand.
Stingray
Community Suggestion: The changes have been made to fit the pilot in the balancing proposal suggested by the community, which includes reducing the warmup and damage.
- General
- The total life has been increased from 550 to 650.
- Weapon 1: Discs of Doom
- Lateral Discs had its damage increased from 60 to 70.
- Central Disc had its damage reduced from 90 to 80.
- Point blank damage has been reduced from 100 to 70.
- The warmup has been reduced from 0.5 to 0.15 seconds.
- Weapon 2: Power Wave
- The damage has been reduced from 300 to 250.
- The warmup has been reduced from 0.75 to 0.3 seconds.
- Weapon 3: Powerslide
- The duration has been reduced from 0.8 to 0.7 seconds.
Dev Notes: The changes have been made to reduce the feeling of randomness from the weapons.
Wildfire
Only one change has been added to her initially.
- General
- The total life has been increased from 550 to 650.
However, there were other suggestions from the community that will be handled in future updates due to the current priority from our development team, which is to finish the tunings on the next 4 characters that are scheduled to be released until 10th: Dirt Devil, Killer J, Windrider e Metal Herald. Below are the changes that we will work on:
- Weapon 1: Update abilities visual aspects, add ricochet to its projectile
- Weapon 2: Add Overheat feature
- Passive: Add a time limit for lava immunity
Artificer
Community Suggestion: The changes have been made to fit on the balancing proposal made by the community and the request to make the support role more noticeable.
- General
- The total life has been increased from 500 to 600.
- Weapon 1: Ride the Lightning
- The cooldown has been increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.
- The maximum repair has been increased from 120 to 135.
- The damage has been reduced from 120 to 100.
- Special Weapon: Thunderdome
- The drift effect has been removed.
- Repulsion has been added: now the weapon pushes the enemies out of the area.
- Passive
- Repair per second has been reduced from 45 to 37.
Dev Notes: The changes made on Artificer was to focus on making clearer her role as Support, also reducing her lethality.
Overtime
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- Community Suggestion: A total of 3 minutes has been added to the Overtime mechanics.
- The time to initiate has been changed from 3 to 4 minutes.
- The line’s movement time length has been increased from 1 to 3 minutes to complete the whole track. This means that now it moves slower.
- Community Suggestion: A total of 3 minutes has been added to the Overtime mechanics.
- The changes have been made to answer the community’s request for longer rounds and overtime. In total, 3 minutes have been added to the total overtime length.
Dev Notes: These changes increase the round duration and slow down the line speed. This will make each round 2 minutes longer on average, besides offering more opportunities for defense due to the slow speed of the overtime line.
Respawn
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- Community Suggestion: The Respawn time has been increased from 11 to 15 seconds.
- Community Suggestion: The damage caused by the Respawn has been reduced from 1200 to 500, reducing opportunities for an “instakill”.
- Community Suggestion: The changes have been made to answer the community request of removing the instakill and provide more value to the game’s kills. This way, players won’t necessarily destroy the enemy in the returning to the arena and also will take more time to reconstruct themselves, encouraging the escape of the combat when in a low health situation.
Dev Notes: The longer respawn time makes the kills more satisfying and contributes to the game’s pacing changes.
Audio
Community Suggestion: The changes have been made to make clearer for players the time when the Overtime starts, according to a request made by the community.
- All audio priorities have been changed, giving more priority for Overtime audios.
- The audio with more priority reduces the volume of the audio with a lower priority
- A countdown sound effect has been added when the Overtime starts.
- The respawn countdown sound effect has been changed.
- The pre-Overtime audio track duration and the Overtime’s announcer phrase have been changed.
- An interface sound effect for the Overtime beginning has been removed.
- The music during the regular time has been removed.
- Adjustments to the game’s audio:
- Default volume is now 100.
- It’s possible to increase the volume to up to 200.
- The pause now it’s stopping the music and the weapon’s SFX.
Dev Notes: The changes have been made to make the beginning of the Overtime more noticeable.