Welcome to the latest update to take centre stage in Dirty Bomb. Along with balance changes and a ton of squashed bugs, we also welcome some User Interface upgrades, ‘Chapel’ map updates, experience earn-rate tweaks and of course, our new Merc ‘Fletcher’ joins the crew.
STICKY BOMB!!! The bombs are in town and there is only one guy man enough to handle them. Fletcher, a stylish combat engineer, is hauling his collection of sticky bombs to London along with his detonator to bring the pain…and a whole load of explosions.
‘Quick Play’ Update
We’ve spent a lot of time making tweaks to the ‘Quick Play’ function within the game. Now when you play, you will only be placed in servers with under a 100ms ping for better connectivity. Plus, we fixed an issue where it would try and match you into ‘Level Locked’ servers, so no more will you fail to connect for this reason. ‘Quick Play’ also takes the average skill-rating of the server into account when placing you to make for a much more balanced and enjoyable experience.
Ranked Play Level Cap
Upon receiving a lot of feedback from players about Ranked Match Making, we decided to reduce the level cap from 7 to 6 to increase the player pool. This will help a lot when searching for a game and should increase the population of ranked play.
Asia Now in Matchmaking
That’s right! Now when you want to go into a game, it is not just Europe, North America and Australia you can choose from, we have now added Asia into the Matchmaking system to give you a better and lag-free experience.
Full Breakdown
General Balance
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[li]Reduced third person crouching animation speed to better match the first-person view changes[/li][/ul]As well as providing more accurate feedback, this also goes a little way to counter the crouch-spam complaints players have been having
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[li]Spending more time in the air (wall jumping) after a Long Jump, it now reduces the recovery time when landing as intended[/li][/ul]This reverts a recent change that was introduced when optimising the movement system and should encourage a little more advanced movement
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[li]Reduced collision box of all thrown Grenades so they more accurately fit the model[/li][/ul]Grenades can now fit through smaller gaps and bounce of geometry more realistically, fixing a common frustration of many players
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[li]Made C4 easier to disarm by increasing the range of the tools and the size of the C4 detection box[/li][/ul]This is also improves the priority system when both Help-Up and Disarm are available options
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[li]Increased the explosive damage required to insta-gib to 150 (from 120)[/li][/ul]This is to reduce the occurrence of explosive insta-gibs, which will now only be awarded for point-blank hits with powerful explosives such as Frag Grenades
Experience System
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[li]Increased the XP given for support actions and general ability usage[/li][/ul]This is to balance out XP earn rates amongst the Mercs and also encourage more use of these abilities
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[li]Significantly increased XP given for completing or reversing objectives[/li][/ul]This is to better reward players who focus on objectives over combat, as they were previously being under represented
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[li]Removed Battlesense XP awarding[/li][/ul]The XP system is intended to be an obvious award and incentive for positive actions and Battlesense was too obscure and misunderstood to be fulfilling this function. With the above two changes, overall XP earning should remain about the same.
Mercs
Nader
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[li]Increased health to 110hp (from 100)[/li][/ul]This is to help her better fulfill her role of clearing out defensive positions which often requires her to expose herself to incoming fire
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[li]Reduced movement speed by ~2.5%[/li][/ul]Matching / compensating for the slight increase in health
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[li]Increased maximum Grenade Launcher Nade count to 5 (from 4) and reduced cooldown time per Nade to 7s (from 8)[/li][/ul]These changes are to partially compensate for the two below, but also makes her a little more effective at clearing out defences
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[li]Reduced velocity of grenade launcher projectiles by ~30%[/li][/ul]Grenade Launcher 'Nades maintain a similar trajectory but now travel slower, giving victims a little more time to react
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[li]Increased grenade launcher grenade fuse time to 1.7s (from 1.4s)[/li][/ul]This is to compensate for the slower travel time, still giving them a similar overall range
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[li]Martyrdom can no-longer be cancelled by gibbing Nader before it detonates[/li][/ul]Previously Martyrdom became largely useless at close range and was not immediately obvious or easily explained
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[li]Martyrdom detonation time increased to 0.9s (from 0.7s)[/li][/ul]To give players a little more time to escape since they can no longer cancel it by gibbing Nader
Fragger
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[li]Frag Grenade throwing velocity reduced by ~25%[/li][/ul]Frag Grenades maintain a similar trajectory but now travel slower, giving victims a little more time to react
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[li]Added a team-coloured trail to Fragger’s Grenades[/li][/ul]This will make them easier to spot and also help players know where Fragger is throwing them from
Vassili
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[li]Heartbeat Sensors throwing velocity reduced by ~25%[/li][/ul]This keeps all smaller thrown grenades at a consistent speed & trajectory, making them easier to learn
Weapons
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[li]Switching between movement states now has a greater impact on weapon spread, with slightly better rewards for crouching and greater penalties for jumping.[/li][/ul]Jumping spam in combat has been an on-going issue we’ve wanted to resolve without making the game feel sluggish or unresponsive. This should make jumping and firing less effective while also giving a slight additional spread benefit to crouching and other states.
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[li]Reduced sniper scope sway when moving[/li][/ul]In recent updates scope sway was increased, but has now been dramatically reduced.
K-121 Machine Gun
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[li]Increased minimum starting spread by ~10% [/li][/ul]This is to reduce initial tap-fire and burst accuracy which is currently making this MG the most accurate auto in the game
Levels
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[li]Added ammo-crates and bombsite markers to Overground Execution level[/li][li]Continued optimization work on Underground and Trainyard[/li][li]Rebuilt lighting and fixed numerous bugs on the Tutorial level[/li][li]Rebuilt lighting and audio-maps on all levels[/li][li]Secondary generator can no longer be cycled once the EV has reached the barricade on ‘Bridge’[/li][li]Redesigned first attackers spawn to fix spawn camping issue on Chapel[/li][/ul]
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User Interface
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[li]Improved ‘Play’ button flow[/li][li]Melee weapons no-longer count towards ‘Favourite Weapon’ in the front end, as everyone knows you run faster with the knife…[/li][li]Improved appearance of friends interface[/li][li]Added ‘Objective Specialist’ icon and text to appropriate Mercs in their Profile screens[/li][li]Reworded “Casual Match” to “Quick Play”[/li][li]Added Case count to the Loadouts tab[/li][li]Added deployable status indicators to the Ability HUD[/li][li]Added level progression to the front-end player avatar[/li][li]Disable play button when in lobby or matchmaking[/li][li]Adding shorter version of match start and end music for execution mode[/li][li]Improved FEL-IX Sniper Rifle audio and fixed some bugs[/li][li]Initial ambience pass on the Overground Execution level[/li][li]Added place-holder Commander VO lines to Overground [/li][li]Updated logic for team shuffle by public skill rating to give better matches[/li][li]Added support for shuffling teams as admin[/li][li]Updated daily missions involving XP to account for XP system changes[/li][/ul]
Notable Bug Fixes
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[li]Fixed some issued with the Loadout Card Trade Up screen[/li][li]Fixed issue’s regarding graphics settings not being correctly maintained between updates[/li][li]Fixed profile screen layout so it’s consistent with other screens[/li][li]Fixed Help-Up audio not playing[/li][li]Fixed missing third-person reload sounds for Shotguns[/li][li]Fixed bug with numerical keys not functioning when a Vote was called[/li][li]Fixed auto-barks not playing when players were revived[/li][li]Fixed issue with projectiles dealing double damage on actors they have collided directly[/li][li]Fixed issue with cooldown being (unintentionally) lost when cancelling some abilities[/li][li]Fixed wrong audio attenuation settings for Airstrike, Artillery Strike and Frags[/li][li]Fixed lots of bugs regarding public skill rating and retrieval[/li][li]Fixed grenade not exploding if fully cooked in hand[/li][li]Fixed knife attack impact audio[/li][li]Fixed turrets being deployable through doors or thin walls[/li][li]Fixed player accepted sound not playing on matchmaking in frontend[/li][li]Fixed issue with returning carryables teleporting deployables[/li][li]Fixed Execution not displaying overtime text in overtime[/li][li]Fixed players being stuck on the friends screen when kicked from a party[/li][/ul]