Players have seen changes to our close encounter system already. Earlier in the life of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, we made the decision to remove the ability for another Family member to instant kill a victim involved in a close encounter with a teammate. We had made that decision because we felt it was unfair to Victim gameplay.
With community feedback and our own internal thoughts, we’ve decided to rework grapples in a way we feel makes more sense. Each character will now have a grappling value assigned to them to determine their effectiveness in a close encounter. As a reminder, Victim players are able to change their build for close encounters/grapples through their Strength Attribute point allocation and via certain perks.
"With this grapple rework, we aimed to make the close encounter mechanic feel more natural. We wanted the one hit kill removed, because that didn't feel fair if a Victim had full health to be one shot by a Family member jumping in. The flip side is, it doesn't feel fair to be Hands or Johnny and lose a close encounter to Connie. So with that in mind, we felt this made sense for the characters size, attributes, etc. Now when you enter a close encounter to fight back against the Family, you'll be doing so from a more informed position on how risky that just might be, and whether or not you might want to avoid that encounter or jump in on the attack."
-Mattshotcha, Brand Strategy
Additionally, this mechanic will now have a button cap to ensure that even if a macro is used for accessibility purposes, the button taps per second allowed will still be within the realm of human possibility.
"To put this into perspective, Johnny and Hands will be a challenge, unless you have a built-for-grapples Leland, Ana, Sonny, or Maria. But keep in mind, Victims can build for better grappling, while the Family cannot. Think of this new factor like the existing stun duration factor in game. Family has a variety of different stun durations and the Victims can add to the time they leave a Family member stunned."
-Mattshotcha, Brand Strategy
Players can expect these changes to roll out on October 22nd.
Thank you for reading!