Hello Heroes!
We hope you all made it through the hot summer weeks. ːcoolnessː
I'd like to share a bit of info about what we're currently working on and what to expect in the next few months...
So, currently we are are working on getting the game to a full release ready state. This includes bug fixes, general polish, translation work, adding missing features, QoL and some more content.
Complete UI overhaul
One of the biggest things we are working on right now is a big overhaul of the UI to make the game's interface more userfriendly and appealing to a modern audience and to give the game more of it's own unique identity.
A lot of things have been simplified and condensed into singular and easy to navigate menus.
The goals with this overhaul is to really finetune the player experience and get the game's polish level to the highest level it can be for the full release.
The Armory
The second biggest thing we are working on is something we're quite excited about: The Armory.
All the way back since the early beta days, you have been asking us again and again to add purchasable weapons and add some form of unlockable gameplay progression to the game to make things more interesting and we heard you!
The Armory is one part of the answer to that question. (There is a second part that will be revealed later)
The Armory introduces unlockable weapons of any and all kinds.
When the new update goes live, every hero will start with only a small set of base weapons. All other weapons will from then on have to be unlocked with Valor Coins through the Armory.
With the introduction of The Armory our focus for content will also shift from mostly cosmetics to mostly new weapons (and of course still the occasional new cosmetics).
We believe that adding new fun weapons to the game will add more value and reason to keep playing than the 100th hat.
The Armory will be stockpiled with lots more upcoming realistic weapons BUT also tons of fantasy and crazy over the top weapons. With crazy we mean interesting and with unique mechanics not overpowered. :p
All weapons in The Armory will be sold for Valor Coins only, NEVER for real world money. NO P2W.
New chest opening and keys
We've also changed how chests work. Chests are now granted randomly with a high chance when dealing damage. You can collect up to 10 chests. You now also need keys to open chests, which can be crafted with scrap.
Chest opening now also features a completely new and satisfying visual 3D opening sequence.
New Loadout System
With the upcoming addition of The Armory we are also reworking the loadout system so that it becomes much easier to balance loadouts and weapon combinations.
The new loadout system will consist of:
- Core weapon (which will be changeable to alternate core weapon options through The Armory)
- Primary Weapon (assault rifles, SMGs, heavy machineguns, rifles, ...)
- Secondary Weapon (pistols, micro SMGs, shotguns, ...)
- Utility (throwable, explosives, tool, ...)
- 3 skills
So as you can see, certain extremely powerful weapon combinations will no longer be possible
*After further internal debate and consideration we are shelving this idea for now and sticking with 3 skills. We might revisit this later to see if it's still needed after the other changes have been live for a while.
Improved character models
We're giving the characters some more love to make them look as good as they can for the upcoming full release.
New weapon sound design and animation improvements
We're also completely reworking the sound system for weapons.
Automatic weapons now have a seperate single fire sound and an automatic firing sound which makes automatic guns sound and feel much better.
This also massively improves sound optimization as the automatic fire sounds are now one single looped sound instead of the same single fire sound being created every shot you fire. This greatly reduces the amount of sounds being active at the same time and thus also fixes sounds getting randomly cut off due to the active sound limit being reached, which is currently a pretty big problem during intense fire fights.
Ingame map and new spawn select screen
One of the new features we're also working on is a functional in-game map and a new cleaner spawn select screen.
Infinite invisibility will return
We have gathered a lot of feedback on the recent timer based invisibility change and we noticed that most players are not happy with this change, so the change is getting reverted. However, invisibility will be nerfed a bit in other areas such as the amount of hits you can sustain before being decloacked.
A new Hero is born!
Continued non art-related work on the game will be postponed for roughly a month throughout September as in the next few days my wife and I are expecting our second son! :D
My brother will of course continue working on new art assets for the upcoming engineer class, new map assets and new weapons for The Armory.
These things take time
So, as you can see this new update is a big one and is therefor quite a bit of work so a bit of patience is requested, but we think the new features we're working on will be worth it.
What about the Summer Heroes event?
As you can see we've been working on a ton of stuff, which sadly meant that we did not have time to host a Summer Heroes event this year.
HOWEVER, we did actually cook up some cool cosmetics which we we're going to release in this year's Summer Heroes, as part of a Jungle Adventure theme.
So, instead of an actual timely Summer Heroes event, we're planning on hosting an intermediary Jungle Adventure event later which will feature these cosmetics. We're currently deeply locked into many big overhauls and improvements which makes us unable to set any new builds live at this moment, so hang in there as we work through this big one. :)
Have a great day and see you soon!
