The Phoenix Update v49563 - 09/09/2015


(Chris Mullins) #1

Dirty Bomb’s fourth medic has arrived to heal the sick and shred the healthy, and he’s bringing along a crap-ton of new features as well! Check it all out below!

New Merc: Phoenix

//youtu.be/H9UVgyci_K8

Phoenix is a Doctor. A healer. A saver of lives. An arrogant bastard who broke his Hippocratic Oath ten minutes into his first surgery and thought self-replicating nanomachines would be an exceptional instrument for face-lifts and nose-jobs. After the Spanish medical community banished him for ethical violations bordering on mad science, Phoenix has risen again, finding his way to London to see what his special little friends can do on the battlefield.

His prototype nanites mend the wounds of himself and his nearby allies, and trigger the ability that lends him his name. More offensive-minded than Aura and Sparks, Phoenix heals his teammates by being right in the thick of things.

SPECIAL ABILITY: SELF REVIVE

The problem with needing to be near the people getting shot is that Phoenix can become something of a target himself. Luckily, those helpful nanites can revive him once downed, fully restoring his health. It takes a few seconds to trigger, so make sure that the enemy isn’t closing in to finish the job.

PRIMARY ABILITY: HEALING PULSE

Phoenix can trigger his experimental nanites to spread to nearby allies, instantly mending their wounds, and his own as well. The longer he spends charging the ability with the Q key (default), the more health the Healing Pulse restores, triggering an increased cooldown. But that’s not all the nanites do…

SECONDARY ABILITY: DEFIBRILLATORS

Just like Aura and Sawbonez, Phoenix can also revive incapacitated allies with Defibrillators, bringing them back into the fight and restoring health based on how long the paddles have charged.

LOADOUT CARDS

Phoenix’s SMG’s and Semi-Auto Pistols are effective close-to-medium-range workhorses. He has a full array of Loadout Cards, featuring Augments and other Weapons that let him hold his own in battle.

Each of his Bronze Loadout Cards can be purchased directly for 17,500 Credits or $3.49 USD, or all of them in a bundle for 100,000 Credits or $19.99 USD. As with all Mercs, every current combination of weapons and augments available for Phoenix is available as a Bronze Card, and Phoenix himself can be purchased from the Barracks for 50,000 Credits, or $9.99 USD.

New XP Reward: Health Insurance

Phoenix’s messiah complex extends to his new ‘workplace’, along with his need to share the spotlight. He introduces the new “Health Insurance” XP Reward, which also applies to other medics that put themselves in the line of fire for their teammates.

After healing or reviving a friendly player, you’ll be rewarded with an XP bonus based on the XP your patient earns for the 10 seconds after being revived.

Player Reporting (Alpha)

While we’re keeping it as up-to-date as possible, our new anti-cheat system NGS is only one layer of protection. To support NGS, we are adding in the much-requested Player Reporting system. Accessible by right-clicking on another player’s name in the scoreboard, doing so will send a report to our team.

Due to the high impact of this system, Player Reporting is being released in an Alpha state. While we will be punishing players in submitted reports as soon as possible, we do ask that you remain patient as we gather data and tweak the system’s parameters.

Updated Stopwatch Rules

We’ve improved the rules in Stopwatch Mode, properly rewarding teams who progress through the objectives the furthest.

A few edge case situations are now accounted for, including the allowance of draws where appropriate:

[ul]
[li]If neither team completes the map, only Primary Objective progression is now taken into account; the team who progressed the furthest will win, for example:
[/li][LIST]
[li]On multi-stage C4 objectives, like the second objective in Terminal, destroying one Container is better than none
[/li][li]On multi-stage Delivery objectives, like the last one on Trainyard, delivering one Data Core is better than none
[/li][li]If both teams are held on an EV Escort Objective, such as the one in Bridge, the team who gets the EV closest to the destination will win
[/li][/ul]
[/LIST]

[ul]
[li]If both teams reach the same point in the same amount of time, the match is a draw, regardless of time taken to complete previous objectives, for example:
[/li][li]If both Teams only manage to destroy one Container in the second half of Terminal after 15mins, the match is always a draw
[/li][li]At the end of the first half of a Stopwatch match, Overtime can now activate. Any extra time added due to Overtime is added to the clock in the second half of the match, for example:
[/li][LIST]
[li]If a C4 is planted in the first half and the timer runs out, the game will continue until the C4 explodes or is disarmed
[/li][/ul]
[/LIST]

Private Matches (Alpha)

Want to set up scrims with friends to practice strats, or defend your team’s honor against your rivals? The new Private Matches feature lets you organize your own match, invite members of your Steam Friends list, select whichever Map and Game Mode you want, and more!

Earning is disabled in Private Matches, turning off XP, Credits, Equipment Cases and Missions.

We’re releasing Private Matches in Alpha in order to better test the systems involved, as all matches played through Private Matches will still be on our dedicated servers. If you have any feedback, or encounter any problems, please let us know on the official Dirty Bomb Forums.

Friendly Fire (Private Matches Only)

Private Matches will give you the option to enable our new Friendly Fire setting. No standing in Airstrike territory or sending an Orbital Laser careening over the map willy nilly, your teammates will take damage from almost every source. Even more, allied players will have full collision with you, preventing you from running through them and their deployables.

As the scramble to finish and revive incapacitated players is a staple of Dirty Bomb, Friendly Fire does not apply to friendly incapacitated players. Defibrillators will also never harm friendly players.

We’re also trialing a punishment system for players abusing the Friendly Fire rules. When you are killed by one of your teammates, you will be prompted to sound off on the death:

[ul]
[li]If the team kill was accidental (or entirely your fault!), then type in “/f” to Forgive them, and all is well.
[/li][li]However, if you felt your teammate did it intentionally, then you can type in “/p” to Punish them, docking them 300 XP from their game score.
[/li][LIST]
[li]Once there have been 4 complaints against a player, a Vote Kick will automatically be started.
[/li][li]Once there have been 8 complaints against a player, they will be immediately kicked from the game, without the need for a vote.
[/li][/ul]
[/LIST]

Let us know how you get on with Friendly Fire, as we expect to tweak it based on your feedback!

Weapon Inspection

Finally get your hands on a Cobalt and want a closer look at your shiny new weapon? Now, by pressing the G key (default), your Merc will take a moment to admire their currently equipped primary, secondary or melee weapon. Any other action will instantly interrupt the animation, so you’ll never be left with your pants down.

New Premium Cases

This update brings five new premium Loadout Card Cases, giving you more options and better chance of getting a Loadout Card for the Merc you want!

Elite Cases A and B

The Elite Case has been split up into two separate Cases, each containing Loadout Cards for half of the Mercs in Dirty Bomb. There’s no change in price, no change in Loadout Card quality or odds, just a better chance of getting a Loadout Card for the Merc you want, still for US $4.99 (or local equivalent)!

Expert Cases A, B and C

We’re also introducing an all-new set of Loadout Cases, the Expert Cases, which splits the Mercs into three groups. These new crates only cost US $2.49 per Case and can reward Loadout Cards from Bronze up to Cobalt rarity!

Balance Changes

Redeye

[ul]
[li]Increased Smoke Grenade radius by 10%
[/li][li]Smoke Grenades now take 200 explosive damage to dissipate (from 150)
[/li][li]Players are now unspotted if Redeye is killed whilst spotting
[/li][/ul]

MoA SNPR-1

[ul]
[li]Reduced magazine size to 5 rounds (from 6)
[/li][/ul]

FEL-IX Sniper Rifle

[ul]
[li]Increased magazine size to 6 rounds (from 5)
[/li][/ul]

MP400

[ul]
[li]Reduced effective range by ~10%
[/li][/ul]

Tølen MP

[ul]
[li]Reduced effective range by ~10%
[/li][/ul]

Empire-9 MP

[ul]
[li]Reduced effective range by ~10%
[/li][/ul]

Everything Else

User Interface

[ul]
[li]Map voting in lobby is now disabled until there are enough players to start the game
[/li][li]Halved the opacity of Objective HUD indicators
[/li][li]Fixed bug where Party leaders were not able to search for a new match after completing one
[/li][li]Fixed bug where the initiator of an Objective would show up on the HUD rather than the player who completed it
[/li][li]Fixed bug where keys could become unbound if the player changed bindings while dead/spectating
[/li][li]Fixed bug where the voting bar could extend beyond the voting box
[/li][li]Fixed bug where spectators were counted as voting players
[/li][/ul]

Audio

[ul]
[li]Kill confirmation beeps are now included in the Hit Beep audio option
[/li][li]Updated the Hochfir SMG firing audio to make the weapon sound slightly punchier
[/li][li]Fixed bug where two music tracks could play at the same time
[/li][/ul]

General Gameplay

[ul]
[li]Reduced view kick speed by ~10%
[/li][li]Increased amount of freedom when moving/looking away from Objectives before the interaction is cancelled
[/li][li]Fixed bug where elevators counted as Secondary Objectives
[/li][li]Fixed several synchronisation issues with Carryable Objectives
[/li][li]Fixed bug where Deployables could be placed inside the EV
[/li][/ul]


(DarkangelUK) #2

Please, for the love of God or any other fictional deity that you believe in, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us friendly fire public servers


(spookify) #3

Baby steps. It appears they are testing Team Killing Rules and Punishments in this patch.


(Ashog) #4

Cool, nice tweaks to SW rulez, finally.

Great fixes, I wish only the MP’s like Tolen or MP400 could get more bullets in magazines tho.

I wonder if the lobby wrong game version bug was fixed?

Also, is there anywhere a list of software incompatible with Nexon AC? (get booted from mm games continuously for “security violation”).


(BioSnark) #5

Agreed. People at rank 10 or some other arbitrary level should have the game sense to avoid mass teamkills or running into airstrikes.


(Szakalot) #6

yes!

how about a passworded server, so no random newbie will accidentally stumble upon it?


(light_sh4v0r) #7

+1 for friendly fire public servers!
Everything looks good btw, I’m really enjoying the game SD :slight_smile:


(potty200) #8

Glad to see competitive side hasn’t been forgotten! Hope this pushes the comp scene again as I find it hard to want to play right now, it has been the case over the last 3 months too :frowning:

I will give the patch a try when it comes out I am sure!


(Domipheus) #9

Looking great. Glad the private matches will make it in.

Agree with DA about public FF servers. As a start, how about some min level 10 FF servers? Even just one.


(Kl3ppy) #10

Why should there be an overtime in SW? I mean the teams know how long it takes until C4 explodes and you need to make sure that you plant it with enough time to explode.


(DarkangelUK) #11

It keeps people fighting till the bitter end instead of there being a statutory 40 seconds garbage time at the end once the limit is hit.


(Kl3ppy) #12

They have 15 mins to fight, why give additional time? I’m not a fan of Overtime, especially in SW.


(DarkangelUK) #13

Well in that case they don’t have 15 mins to fight, they have 14mins 20secs to fight with 40secs of useless time at the end.


(tangoliber) #14

Love the new healing animations. It has good transparency, and helps make the game more sci-fi/less realistic.

Glad to see the new stopwatch rules. Interesting to see overtime added…


(light_sh4v0r) #15

Overtime doesn’t solve anything right? In the 2nd round you’re not going to add overtime if they planted with less than 40s on the timer so you still have 40 seconds of nothing.


(DarkangelUK) #16

How does it not solve anything? I just got done saying it makes the last 40 seconds worth while instead of completely redundant.


(Szakalot) #17

that only applies to the first round. which i guess is okay, since fullholds are never desirable.

doesnt change anything for thensecond round. preferably, the game would end if you dont have a plant and the game is aleady past 00.50


(Mustang) #18

Then maybe the 2nd half should take off 50s if the last objective completed in the 1st half was C4, you’d still be able to plant at 0:01 and have overtime take you to victory, but it provides a more accurate indication of how long is left before mission failure.


(Ashog) #19

Now instead of spending wonderful 40 seconds on teambagging Mustang, I will have to sweat trying to defend teh dynomight :confused:


(Chris Mullins) #20

And now with accompanying shiny images