Hello Prospectors!
Community Team here once again to drop a virtual pile of papers on that corner of the internet to make up a little something we call Patch Notes. Yes, this first sentence was unnecessarily complicated and we won't even apologize for it.
This time, we'll be talking about Tharis Island, your feedback on MK II weapons, as well as some other changes that should push us in the right direction as we continue to navigate throughout Season 3. We've also got a hefty list of bug fixes for visual issues, localization issues, and a whole lot more. Come check out all we have in store for this patch!
Changes
Tharis Island
Grab your favorite space hammer and get ready for some space forging, 'cause the gates of Tharis Island are now open again! Notice how every word can sound more sci-fi when you just put "space" before them?
This map can be accessed after progressing through faction quests, and contains a very powerful tool known as the Alien Forge, which allows players to apply perks to their gear to make them stronger. Think of it as a crafting station within the map, so make sure to keep a fresh pair of eyes on the back of your head, as you never know who or what may be lurking around the corner.
As far as changes goes, we did some minor tuning to the creature spawning on Tharis - do take the time to share your thoughts with us after roaming the area to tell us how it feels now. Overall though, the bulk of the changes applied to Tharis are about the Alien Forge. We spent a lot of time reading our player feedback on this topic, and we do think we're ready to turn the forge back on and see what happens!
With that in mind, let's dive into the highlights of our Forge changes.
Alien Forge:
- The Forge will no longer upgrade the rarity of gear when forging, because of this:
- The outcome of forging will always give you the same quality gear that was used as a base for forging.
- The forge will only accept Epic, Exotic, and Legendary gear; Rare gear will no longer be accepted.
- Base ingots are used with Epic gear and give Epic results. Charged ingots are used for Exotic gear. Supercharged ingots are used with Legendary gear.
- You cannot turn Exotic gear into Legendary in the forge anymore, but using Abyss Alloy makes it possible to get Legendary gear with perks on it. This gear can then be used as a base with Supercharged ingots to roll a new set of perks.
- It is no longer possible to craft gear without perks on it. Therefore, when crafting gear, you will need to throw in at least one valid perk-bearing material in the required quantity.
Badum's Final Questline
Our favorite (and only) bartender has been keeping busy since the start of the season and is now ready to offer some juicy opportunities to the more hardened of his protégés. In other words, Badum now offers a new questline specially tailored for end-game players!
These quests will require a good amount of grinding, but lemme tell you, the rewards will be worth it! By completing Badum's final quest, you will gain access to the Fortuna's Favored area, the most exclusive part of Prospect Station. Additionally, you'll be rewarded with a nice Karambit skin and the Tempest Prospector archetype, some of our favorite skins in the game if we're completely honest!
Enjoy the grind, Prospectors. We're interested to see who completes Badum's quest first. Sure, it's not a race, but it can be one if you want it to.
Crescent Falls
We've heard your thoughts on Crescent Falls feeling a liiiiiittle too crowded and have applied some changes as a response. Feel free to drop on that second and check how it feels, we're very interested in hearing your new thoughts!
For the future we would like to tune the different values of the map separately for solo, duo and trio squads. For instance, we're aware 21 solo players behave differently on a map than 7 teams of 3. This however was not possible for the moment, but this doesn't mean further changes won't happen in the future. We will check our data to keep adjusting our numbers if we see a need for that.
- Crescent Falls player count has been decreased from 21 to 18, so you all have a bit more breathing space.
- Increased the number of EVAC points on Crescent Falls from 2 to 3. That's only one more but also a 50% increase. Perspective is important!
- Dropping with a group of 3 means you're looking at 6-7 spawn points for players who will likely stick together. However, when playing alone, you're looking at a much larger amount of spawn points and player engagements. A slight reduction could help alleviate this while we continue to investigate more permanent solutions.
"No Drop" Items
We are currently exploring a new solution to combat trading by marking items as "No Drop" items. We will be testing this out on Scrips for the moment, meaning those can no longer be dropped on the ground and given to another player.
- Players trying to bring Scrips to the surface will be notified that, should they choose to drop with some, they won't be able to drop them on the surface from their inventory.
- Dropping a No Drop item will result in it being permanently deleted.
- Dropping your backpack will cause any No Drop items within it to be permanently deleted.
- No Drop items can still be found in on the surface and can still be picked up, as long as they are generated by the game.
- After being looted on the surface, No Drop items will never be droppable again.
Weapon Changes
Because we are still early in the season and the meta is still solidifying, we've gone through several smaller adjustments to weapons that have been deemed a bit problematic by the community. We will of course continue monitoring weapon balance after these changes, and you can expect more adjustments to pop up in upcoming patches. These changes are quite conservative for now, as we want to take a closer look at each weapon and see how they perform in their intended role, based on our usual feedback and data.
Those balancing passes will also include armor, as we're getting ready to tweak their stats and durability. After all, we're still looking at implementing armor degradation as a new game mechanics in the near future.
Damage Changes:
- PDW damage reduced from 10 to 9.
- PDW Mk2 damage reduced from 11 to 10.
- C-32 damage reduced from 50 to 48.
- C-32 Mk2 damage reduced from 55 to 50.
- Rusty AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
- AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
- AR-55 Mk2 damage reduced from 13 to 12.
- Flechette Prototype damage increased from 8 to 9.
Headshot Multiplier Changes:
- Manticore headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.
- Manticore Mk2 headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.
Looting Experience Changes:
- Slightly reduced the chance of finding a PDW Mk2.
- Slightly reduced the chance of finding a Manticore Mk2.
New Prospectors
Our Prospector roster is expanding a bit as two newcomers are making their appearance for Season 3, ready to jump straight into the heart of the action. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Artillery and to the Jungle Bandit!
These are some of the nicest folks you will encounter in your adventures. Just... don't ever turn your back on them if you can help it. For, uh, y'know, reasons.
Miscellaneous
Before diving in the meat of the matter, we'd like to start with a quick clarification that left several of our players confused in a previous notice. To keep things simple, please note that matchmaking algorithms based on gear score values are only used for Bright Sands. In other words, gear score is irrelevant for both Crescent Falls and Tharis Island.
While drops in TC:F are meant to be somewhat uncertain, we definitely understand how frustrating it can be to constantly die due to an total imbalance in weaponry before you have a chance to react. To combat this, but still maintain some sense of tension and uncertainty about what you might encounter during any given drop, we will be implementing a form of gear score in combination with a Kills/Deaths ratio when determining a player's Matchmaking Rating calculations. This doesn't mean that you will only see players wearing the same gear as yours in a match, that would limit the nice feeling of overcoming unlikely odds, but it will help keep players more fairly matched and make it less likely that new players will be constantly overpowered while they are learning the ropes.
We are keeping a close eye on the matter and might adjust the systems as we see fit going forward.
- Project Fireball Part 7 - Heavy Strider kills needed during the storm on Bright Sands has been reduced from 12 to 6.
- The UI for certain shop images have been spruced up.
- Fixed terrain near Geothermal Plant area to prevent gear from disappearing in the mud, which was frankly revolting.
- Evac ship pilots have received some additional training on bringing Prospectors back to the station safely. Players should no longer clip through the floor when moving instead of evacing.
- Fixed a typo in the description for the "In A Deep Dark Hole" mission.
- Re-centered the area to call evac around the evac pad between Sparking Pools and Korolev Island HQ on Tharis Island.
- Fixed a launch error for some users on the Epic Games launcher.
- A disclaimer has been added to the Loadout Preset description that altered gear perks are not taken into account.
- Adjusted item mesh for Letium Bio Samples needed for Research Costs Part 5. These should now look different than Sample Containers to prevent any confusion.
- The Elite Crusher has visited a laryngologist and its mighty roar can be heard Crusher Caverns agan.
- Crusher de-aggro time has been readjusted to be more in line with its intended behavior.
- Adjusted rewards from daily Supply Crate packages so there is less overlap with items obtainable through Free Loadout Runs.
- Increased the max stack size of Letium from 10 to 20.
- Players will now hear an audible cue when armor reaches 0 durability. The shield should play a "shield breaking sound" for both players. Information is power.
- Improved the Howler's ability to fight Prospectors who are standing on higher locations. Insert reference about having the high ground.
- Added some missing localizations.
- Keycards will now be obtainable through Free Loadout Runs, as intended.
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where Prospectors would appear only as a backpack to other Prospectors. Not quite what we had in mind when we told you to go bag some enemy Prospectors.
- Fixed an issue where unknown errors would occur when trying to equip a loadout preset.
- Fixed an issue with the Howler staying stuck in investigation mode near buildings. The alternative was to give them a pipe, a magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat, but we went with an actual fix instead.
- Fixed an issue with the Howler pushing players out of the evac ship. In other words, we've applied a nerf to the power of Y E E T.
- Fixed an issue with Prospector heads disappearing when mixing archetype heads. There are, after all, better ways to stay ahead in the fashion game.
- Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not affecting some creatures.
- Fixed an issue with players getting stuck during the Supply Crate step in the tutorial missions.
- Fixed a UI issue for the Blood Freak skin.
- Fixed an out-of-bounds exploit on Tharis Island. We're bound to find them all, eventually.
- Fixed an issue with some SMGs being audible far beyond their intended range. Imagine how loud those shots must have been for the ones doing the shooting.
- Fixed an issue where the flying droids in the Prospect Station would sometimes, uh, randomly explode. Yeah let's not talk about that.
- Fixed an issue that caused the "Osiris Research Center" and "Korolev Quarry Building" locked rooms to not properly reset.
- Fixed an issue with rendered shadow for a building on Crescent Falls between Nutrion Farms Processing and Favela.
- Fixed an invisible collision issue near a cave in the North Uplink area on Bright Sands.
- Fixed an issue with assets failing to render on potato setups lower spec machines.
- Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not stacking properly.
- Replaced missing tooltip for currency items when redeeming a code in game.
- Backpacks will now properly have their weights reduced when placed in a backpack with the weight reduction perk applied. Please keep an eye out for "Backpack Clicker", our next idle incremental backpack-stacking game. (Just kidding. Unless?)
- Fixed a visual issue with the Kawaii Scarab skin. Try saying that 10 times very fast.
- Fixed a visual issue with the Rebel Reporter Chest piece.
- Fixed an area where players could get stuck between Windfall's shop and the launch terminal on Prospect Station.
- Adjusted captions to match spoken words from voice lines.
- Adjusted collision boxes for the "Tech Ball" on the station between ICA and Osiris.
- Fixed and issue with the Golden Key melee weapon where it was not making noise in 3rd person. Random musing, but silent keys would be so very useful when coming home late.
- Fixed some icons in the Fortuna Pass being misaligned.
- Fixed an issue that caused kills with Howler grenades to not count towards kill quest objectives.
- Fixed an issue that caused suppressed Manticores and Scarabs to sound extremely similar to an Asp Flechette. We know Osiris likes cutting costs, but reusing weapon sound assets was a bit ridiculous.
- Fixed a wall decal in Prospect Station that would sometimes display on Prospectors that stood right next to it. We have no further explanation to provide.
- Adjusted some misplaced assets in the Korolev Faction Building.
- Fixed multiple collision issues between ICA and Osiris faction HQs.
- Finally called an exorcist and fixed an NPC that would sometimes clip through walls near the Korolev Faction Headquarters.
- Fixed an issue where the takeoff alarm for the Laser Drill would sometimes be too quiet, making the whole alarm idea rather moot.
- Fixed some visual glitches that would appear near the entrance to the Player Quarters.
- For the sake of privacy, fixed players sometimes being able to see through the walls on Prospect Station.
- Fixed some rocks on Tharis Island that would sometimes having no textures on low graphics settings.
- Fixed issues with asset loading distance on Crescent Falls.
- Adjusted audio effects applied to certain voice lines for consistency.
- Fixed a localization issue in RU with distinction for words "outfit", "costume", "suit", and "chest".
- Fixed a localization issue where Polish strings of text could be seen in Russian localization.
- Fixed an issue with the C-32 Bolt Action not properly showing the Hive weapon skin in the weapon preview list when selected using the MK II weapon type.
- Fixed a few weapon previews not being properly aligned for prototype weapons.
- Fixed an issue where some quests would not properly showcase progress while on Fortuna.
- Fixed a clipping issue with Vadim on the station. The man has finally learnt how to sit.
- Fixed the Blood Freak prospector skin, so it can be equipped.
Known Issues & Things We Are Working On™
While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes for our next planned patch.
- Creature behavior might still have some issues that we are currently investigating.
- We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
- We are investigating changes to the stash & making the process of selling items smoother.
- Deysnc Issues - we are constantly having an eye on it.
- Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
- We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
- The Howler does not always drop loot, which is quite rude.
- Your weapon model can become invisible. While invisible guns are cool, this is on our to-do list to fix.
- Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
- Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
- CPU usage spikes seem to be back for some players.
As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)
Don't forget: Fortuna Favors the bold!