News/20080535

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 * Bio and Mech Armor for both male and female avatars have been optimized. Along with the Motor Assist optimizations completed with the last build, these changes should increase performance and frame rate. We will continue to update different armor sets each patch which will incrementally increase performance.
 * During the process of optimization there have been subtle changes made to the female Mech and Bio armors to make them look more feminine.
 * Specularity has been added back into the Normal graphics setting. After extensive hardware testing this has been confirmed as not having any significant impact on frame rate.

Maps and Missions

 * The Magma Caverns instance (level 44-46) off Torden Abyss has been reconstructed, with a brand new map layout, and entirely new missions. The initial mission “Consensus” offers players the choice of whether to side with Penumbra or the Renegade Faction, and will take into account squad majority rule. In the event of a tie vote, the first vote entered will be the deciding vote.


 * The choice mission at the beginning of the map, “Consensus”, is repeatable.
 * Choice A: Players siding with Rebels receive “Final Chance”
 * Choice B: Players siding with Penumbra receive “Executioner”
 * "Final Chance” and “Executioner” can both be played through once each. Other side missions within the instance are not repeatable.
 * The CELLAR Arena (Coalition of Enlistees Likely Looking for Aggressive Retaliation) is now available to players for R&R, personal duels, and special community events. The Arena can be accessed via teleporter from barracks in Alia Das, Foreas Base, Mt. Hellas Outpost, Fort Defiance, Tantalus Base, and Fort Intrepid. Vendors in this area have boxing gloves, boxing shorts, face gear, and dye to get boxers outfitted for a bout.
 * The flashpoint mission "Predator Hunt" has been updated. Players must actively participate in killing the Alpha Predator (by being one of, or being in the squad of one of the top three damage dealers) in order to complete the mission. If players do not complete the primary mission objectives, the mission will automatically fail in 10 minutes after the Alpha Predator is killed.
 * A new flashpoint mission, "Inspection at Skive Base" is available on Palisades.
 * The missions “Release the Hounds,” “You’re the Guy” and “Confidential Delivery” are no longer required to complete the Mires Targets of Opportunity.
 * In the Mires mission “Black Helicopters,” the mission NPC Ista Kezever now attacks and defends properly.
 * Players will now receive credit for killing the Xanx in “Childhood’s End” on Wilderness, even if they advanced to this objective at the same time as another player.
 * The mission “Pincer Power” on Palisades can now be completed normally.
 * The Mad Bomber’s bombs in Retread Caves now do significantly more damage.
 * The linker Overseer Prion in Pravus Research now has a visible name.
 * The AFS have deployed a Portable Waypoint at the entrance to Eloh Vale.
 * The Brann in the Phanin Research Facility now drop appropriate loot
 * The Brann in the Ruins of Tampeii, Phanin Research Facility, and Incurables Ward now drop appropriate loot
 * The mission log for “The Truth about Tahendra” now points players to the appropriate place to meet with Specialist Tran.
 * The giant lasers in Purgas Station are now equally lethal to Thrax.
 * The regeneration rate on Corporal Barbeau in Mires has been decreased significantly.
 * Instance: Ruins of Tampei – The main door in the instance will now open if you have activated the required missions “Keys to the City”, “The Warhead”, and “Patches to Ashes”, or if you have completed any one of them.
 * Instance: Outpost Inferno *Eloh Reliquary dispenses loot now
 * Instance: Sanctus Grotto *Eloh Reliquary dispenses loot now
 * Instance: Fluxite Mines *Missions “Deadly Vapors” and “Capturing Supply Lines” can now be completed if you leave the instance without completing the missions and return to re-take them.
 * Instance: Fluxite Mines *Missions can be reacquired if you leave the instance without completing the missions, and return to take them again.

Classes, Combat, and Creatures Combat Changes

 * There are now crit effects for EMP, Virulent, and Electrical attacks. The EMP crit effect will shut down the target's armor for a short time. A Virulent crit will place a small snare on the target and Electric will have an arc similar to Lighting.
 * There are now combat "floaties" when a creature or player is immune or resists debuffs and certain game effects. For example, if a player in Graviton resisted a knockback previously there would be no indication. Now, there will be a resist message.
 * Target lock and a player's field of view has changed to allow players greater control while in combat.

First, you no longer lose your target lock once your target moves off-screen. If you tab lock a target, you can fire at them even when they're off-screen from you. They do, however, need to remain in front of you. You shouldn't be able to fire at targets outside of your frontal 180 degrees view. To help with the extreme cases you'll notice characters are head tracking more to their targets and twist to face their target.

Secondly, we have put in a Target Reacquisition system. The targeting system will remember the last hostile and friendly target you've tab locked onto. Then when you switch to a direct targeted weapon or ability it will automatically reacquire the appropriate remembered hostile or friendly target.

For example, I can equip my repair tool and tab lock onto my teammate. Then switch to my leech gun and go about my business shooting things because that's what I do. But my teammate's armor starts to go down so I tab lock onto the current miniboss I'm attacking, then switch to my repair tool. The targeting system remembers my teammate as my last friendly target lock so it automatically locks onto him. I then repair him and switch back to my leech gun. The targeting system remembers that miniboss as my last locked on hostile target and automatically locks back to him.

Players will also not lose their tab locked target when they perform an AE attack.


 * Buffs that were area based (such as Rage) that used an area pulse around the target are now true auras. These buffs will no longer refresh every 3 seconds and hop around a player's buff tray.
 * It was felt that Area of Effect damage was being reduced too much so damage mitigation has been changed. This is also true of Enemy abilities too so players be wary.
 * In addition to the previous rewards performing an overkill will now reward players with a small explosion that damages all nearby enemies by a small amount.
 * The explosive radius of the Thrax ability Necromite has been reduced.
 * The price of Armor Chargers has been reduced by 90%.

Class Changes

 * Specialist
 * Decay has been changed to Ruin to give Specialists a unique and effective combat ability.
 * Ruin now costs an appropriate amount of Adrenaline to cast
 * Rank 1 *Rot: Places a small Virulent dot on the target; the amount of damage is similar to the old Decay 3 dot.
 * Rank 2 *Rust: Places a small EMP dot on the target; the amount of EMP damage is similar to the old Decay 3 dot.
 * Rank 3 *Improved Rot: Places a more powerful Virulent dot on the target.
 * Rank 4 *Improved Rust: Places a more powerful EMP dot on the target.
 * Rank 5: Conflagrate: Places a powerful Fire dot on the target as well as a snare.


 * Sapper
 * Crab Mines are now more responsive. They acquire targets sooner, chase them earlier, and explode faster. For more details, see this Feedback Friday.


 * Demolitionist
 * Self Destruct is now a toggle able ability so Demolitionists will have greater control while in combat.
 * The casting times for all ranks of Controlled Fission, Reality Ripper, and Explosive Nanites has been reduced to 1 second.


 * Ranger
 * Fire Support Ranks 1, 3, and 5 will now be easier to use. Previously players were required to pass several Line of Sight checks for the Beacons to be placed. These restrictions have been loosened somewhat.


 * Classes and Combat Bug Fixes


 * Using a combination of Reality Ripper, Controlled Fission, and Lightning it was possible for a player to die in PvP combat and not be able to regen health and armor after they were resuscitated. This has been fixed.
 * The Shield Extender game effect icon will now have display a countdown timer.
 * Bio Augmentation will now buff the target based on the target's attributes instead of the caster's.
 * An Engineer's Bots will now always appear next to her when summoned as opposed to where the player was targeting.
 * Traps and Turrets will still be summoned wherever the player is targeting.
 * Controlled Fission will now absorb damage from a every damage type even if the creature with Controlled Fission attached to it normally has an immunity to that damage type. The explosion from Controlled Fission is still physical though so creatures normally immune to Physical will still be immune to the Controlled Fission explosion.
 * The tool tip for Shield Extender will now display the ability's name and the time remaining on the buff.
 * Power and Armor Chargers will now be placed in the Consumables Tab in a player's inventory. Any chargers that were in the incorrect tab previously should now be moved. If there was not enough room the item should be placed in the player's footlocker.
 * Enemies inside of Operations will now drop rare loot more often.
 * Fixed a issue with the healing and repair tools where if a player switched weapons during the healing or repair animation the client and server would be in disagreement over what the player had equipped.
 * Players can now use Ion Strike against Neutral targets such as Boargar.
 * Fixed a animation bug where under certain conditions after switching weapons the avatar would still play the previous weapon hold animation.
 * Using the alt attack key with a tool will now automatically reload the tool if you are out of ammo.
 * Switching weapons during while using the direct or area tool will no longer create a audio error message.

PVP, Clans & Control Points


 * Players now have access to an 'Intel' category from their radial menu. Intel currently contains the mission log as well as the logos tablet which has been removed from the character window.
 * Players can now gain a new form of currency called Prestige, which will reward them based on their actions in the game.
 * Prestige can be viewed by pressing I (default shortcut) or clicking the Prestige tab in the character window (in place of the previous Logos Tablet).
 * The Prestige window will display your total Prestige gained as well as Prestige earned for the current session with that character.
 * Prestige rollover tooltip displays the current ways you can gain Prestige.
 * Prestige can be gained through the following actions:
 * Looting Experimental and Prototype items off corpses of enemies you have killed
 * Defeating Mini-bosses
 * Defeating Bane troops at control points
 * Achieving maximum kill streak
 * Completing specific missions with Prestige reward
 * NPCs have been updated at all control points:
 * Prestige Vendors have replaced Token Vendors. All items from previous Defense and Assault Token Vendors have been consolidated into this one vendor type that allows you to spend Prestige for purchases.
 * There is now a token banker located next to every Prestige Vendor, that will allow you to convert your existing Assault and Defense tokens into prestige for your character.
 * The Token Banker converts your Tokens into Prestige via 1 of 8 missions (4 to convert Assault tokens and 4 to convert Defense tokens).
 * The Banker will not have any missions available to you if you do not have Assault or Defense tokens on your character
 * Hospital Vendors should no longer fight off the Bane single handedly.
 * Fixed a animation problem where holstering or un-holstering the Brass Knuckles created a noticable studder.
 * There is now tool tip information for the Virulent Critical hit effect.
 * When in PvP combat with another player wearing boxing gloves the boxing gloves item will do more damage then Bare Knuckles.
 * The buff icon for Reflective Armor will now show the correct bonus awarded to a player.
 * Self Destruct tooltips have been updated to reflect recent change to ability.
 * The Strider’s eye beam attack now does significantly less damage and should be much more survivable now.
 * The Strider’s green bolt attack now does Virulent damage.

Interactions

 * Fixed a bug the caused mouse-look toggle to sometimes turn off when entering/leaving some menus.
 * In MMO mode, holding down the Right Mouse Button and moving the mouse enables mouse-look mode when it would otherwise be off. (e.g. When you're backpack is open.)
 * In MMO mode, clicking the Left Mouse Button performs main attack action even when mouse-look mode is off. (e.g. When you're backpack is open.)
 * The 'use' action now automatically moves the avatar within the interaction range of the usable or npc.
 * We began implementing the new and improved help system. Now when you type /help (or view help via the radial menu) you will be presented with a series of topics. This patch, we have implemented diagrams and explanations for the avatar bars, the overhead con system and the targeting reticule. The goal is to help explain more subtle UI elements and topics which can be complicated.
 * Added clan names on opponent players engaged in a Clan Wargame

Frameworks

 * Performance Tracker Window: Memory usage now reported in MB, memory load was renamed.

Deployment 8.3

 * NPC level gates were added to the Public Test server.
 * Shredder Ammo Changes (see Feedback Friday for more details)
 * Enhance the ammunition in your target’s weapons with logos. The Target’s weapons will deal a slight amount of additional damage with each attack of a particular damage type for a short duration. The number of rounds per minute effected is dependant on the highest tank learned.
 * Other changes are the damage types offered have been altered, the duration of the buff has been increased to 30 seconds, and each time a player places more skill points into the ability the proc rate will improve for every rank.
 * The different ranks will now offer the following bonus:
 * Rank 1 *Physical damage buff. Estimated rounds per minute: 10
 * Rank 2 – Emp damage buff. Estimated rounds per minute: 20
 * Rank 3 – Sonic damage buff. Estimated rounds per minute: 30
 * Rank 4 – Virulent damage buff. Estimated rounds per minute: 45
 * Rank 5 – Ice damage buff. Estimated rounds per minute: 60
 * Fixed an issue when using a personal waypoint that would cause the graphic to stay on your character when interrupted.?
 * Boxing gloves should now do more damage than Hand to Hand Combat.
 * Updated the CELLAR loading screen.
 * Updated the Self Destruct tooltip reflect recent changes in Deployment 8.
 * Mission: Lava Beast (Magma Caverns, Abyss): You should now receive credit for killing Ember when you choose the Kill Rebels story line.
 * Mission: Lava Beast / Executioner (Magma Caverns): Updated mission rewards.
 * Added Brass Knuckles texture on paper doll.

Known Issues


 * ATI 9800 Radeon Pro AGP card users may have sky disortion when graphics settings are on low.
 * Some Exobiologist skills do not work correctly in PvP.
 * Ranger Reinforcements are not doing melee damage.
 * When using a cartridge ammo based pistol (with a clip of 20) if you hold down the mouse button and use the auto-fire the gun will eventually stop working and you will have to release the mouse button and reclick it to restart the auto-fire.
 * Missions: Crucible: Refusing to help the AWOLs completes the Other Side of the Coin mission, and fails the Stray Cats mission. This should be the opposite.
 * Some tools are appearing with weapon modifiers. Also, players may be able to add weapon modifiers to tools by crafting. In both cases, the modifiers will not work. These issues will be addressed in an upcoming publish.
 * Shredder Ammo is doing too much damage when used with rapid fire weapons.
 * Some boss mobs are not dropping loot when defeated.
 * Mission: Lava Beast (Magma Caverns, Abyss): Players are not receiving credit for killing Ember when they choose the Kill Rebels story line.