OTG August Update

major update

Off The Grid · published 11 days ago

Zeroes, the next major update is here.

It brings a new Content Pack, a new Battle Pass, and another major round of changes across combat, movement, redeployment, UI, and more.

The new Content Pack introduces Bulwark, a full-body skin, alongside the Rampart LMG skin, Tank player banner, and Stronghold player avatar.

The Vanguard Battle Pass brings three new skins - Nullface, SwampJaw, and Dunewalker - backed by a lineup of weapon skins, player banners, avatars, and additional rewards.

And that’s only part of the update.

Weapons and Jetpack mechanics have seen major changes, Redeployment has been reworked with a new token system, the Marketplace and HUD have been rebuilt, and balance changes reach across much of the arsenal.

Full patch notes below.

🛠️ PATCH NOTES

Core Character

Character View Distance:

Characters are now visible at unlimited ranges, no longer limited to 200m before they disappear, and naturally what you can see you can shoot. This change is experimental and we will monitor it for performance issues and react accordingly should we need to adjust things in the future.

Quick Melee:

Damage reduced to 100 (was 190)

Jetpack:

Shoulder Switching now works when flying with the Jetpack. The camera makes a momentary shift to indicate which side of the body the camera will exit on.
Jetpack Dash now cancels Jetpack during flight without having to manually disable the Jetpack first.
Fixed animation issues to prevent the character bending so much at extreme angles.

Jetpack Overheat:

Overheat has been reworked. Instead of the old behavior of descending slowly with 20% maneuverability, the character will now make a rapid pitch forward and maintain 50% maneuverability but will be unable to pull-up and ascend, forcing you to the ground but giving more mobility to the player when the Overheat occurs.
Jetpack Heat now dissipates at all times outside of Jetpack Flight without needing to touch the ground UNLESS the Overheat Explosion occurs, at which point reactivating the Jetpack at any time while descending will result in the Overheated Jetpack forcing you to the ground.
To offset the extra heat dissipation changes, the maximum heat dissipation duration has been increased to 20 seconds (up from 10).

Jetpack Dash:

Jetpack Dash speed is now Additive rather than an Override, meaning it will add to your current movement speed rather than slowing you down in situations where you are already moving faster than the Dash speed expects. One caveat to this is that with your current movement speed being taken into account rapid changes of direction in the air are now less effective as they are fighting against your movement trajectory, but dashes in in a direction relative to your movement direction are stronger.
Jetpack Dash now uses your Jetpack's Heat-level mechanic as energy to perform the Dash.
Jetpack Dash now has up to 3 charges again, however, each dash uses 30% of your Heat-level, so now you need to choose between dodging and flying and pace yourselves, otherwise you'll find yourself on a one-way ticket to the ground.
The Jetpack Overheat bar is now always visible in the HUD when not at 0%, based on these changes, to keep you better informed of your Jetpack Heat levels at all times.

Slide-Hopping:

While we don't want to completely remove players ability to fling themselves into a slide to avoid incoming weapons fire, we do want to prevent people feeling the need to master the slide-bunny-hop technique to traverse the map.

Slide has been adjusted to reduce the amount of long-distance/high-speed traversal potential as we found it was a form of movement we feel the game would be better without and that mobility can be found in other areas of the game.
As a result, a slide into a hop into a slide will quickly slow the player down after the 2nd hop.
This is also true now for the Roadrunners when performing Slide-Hopping, however the extra movement speed from the Roadrunners will afford a few extra hops before losing speed.

Core Tech

HUD

Combat HUD:

New system for damage and combat indication. Core concept: the player should FEEL how dangerous a direction is, how critical the damage is.

Static HUD:

Rebuilt squad panel for more consistent representation of various player states
Added teammates' self-revive kit visibility to squad panel
Slightly adjusted cyberlimb and weapon panels for visual consistency. They should also occupy less space now, while the size of important elements (text, icons) remains the same.

Markers:

Adjusted markers' default behavior to reduce overlap with static HUD elements
Adjusted markers' visibility curve so they don't obstruct vision when in ADS

Bugfix:

Fixed extraction marker misleading visual state on mini map when being hacked
Fixed loadout names not having localization in some cases

Cyberlimbs

General Fixes:

Improved the responsiveness of Active limbs (limbs you switch on/off) being cancelled appropriately to prevent them from blocking Instant limbs (limbs that immediately perform an action) from functioning properly.
Fixed an issue with the Kinetic Shield and Cyberlancers that would result in the Shield blocking your own Knee Strike and preventing you from moving.
Fixed an issue where the Phosphor Fury burn effect would get stuck on characters in rare occasions after leaving the radius.
Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause mobility aspects of limbs like the Cyberlancers and Slamfist to not lift you off the ground when attempting to use them to gain altitude.

Maxigun:

Reduced the detection range of bullets to cause their detonation by 50%.
Reduced the explosion range of bullets by 40%.
Spread now increases with the new Spread system outlined below under the Weapons section.

Roadrunners:

Roadrunners no longer accelerate the player when in the falling state (mid-air).

Slamfist:

Re-added the punch decal on the ground.

Tripmine:

Fixed a bug that was causing the Tripmine to not detect players unless they were standing right on top of the mine. Tripmines now detect players within 2.5m for all rarities, but higher rarity Tripmines have larger blast radiuses and larger damage amounts as normal.

Weapons

Weapon Attachments:

Reduced the cost of Barrels, Stocks and Grips by 5 points to open up more freedom with loadouts on weapons. This change means that Stocks have been changed to Rare and Grips have been changed to Uncommon to keep them in line with other attachments of the same point-costs, but their stat values have not changed and this is purely a visual change.
Fixed an issue where multiple attachments were not providing the correct Spread, Hip-Fire and ADS Spread values.
Fixed an naming issue with a Kasper attachment with the wrong name. This is now called the "Kasper Hybrid Compensator" in line with other weapons that possess this attachment.

Time-To-Kill Reduction:

We have reduced the time-to-kill (TTK) across the board for most weapons, with the exceptions being Marksman Rifles and Sniper Rifles. After multiple weeks of internal playtesting we felt this was the right move for the game.

To offset this reduction in TTK slightly, ground-accuracy has been reduced slightly and in-air accuracy has been reduced by a greater amount in a lot of cases, more details about this are in the Spread section below.

Specific weapon adjustments will be listed in the Weapon Balance section below.

Spread:

We have introduced a new Weapon Spread system that uses your character's movement speed to transition crosshair spread more smoothly.

This new Spread system also gave us more control over weapon bloom, allowing us to set how it builds up. Spread now builds over a number of shots specific to the weapon in question and then peaks, not increasing further like before to give more understandable control over the weapon.

Additionally, as part of aerial combat balancing, Spread now increases more when in the air and increases dramatically at fast movement speeds both horizontal and vertical. We felt that weapons were far too accurate in the air, which was leading to frustration for players being able to defend themselves from difficult to hit targets in the air above them.

Tracking targets in the air when you are on the ground is already a very difficult skill that most players struggle to even adapt to, let alone master, so this should result in a balancing of the playing field in a way we feel the game will benefit from.

Crosshair:

Fixed a long-standing bug that was calculating Spread incorrectly in relation to the crosshair, which resulted in shots appearing outside of the central “bloom circle” between the crosshair lines. Shots should now always hit in-between the crosshair lines and never exceed those bounds, making aiming significantly more understandable.

Per-Shot Recoil Scaling:

We rolled back an old design choice that caused recoil patterns to decrease in strength over the course of a weapon's magazine. This was intended to represent the character adjusting to the recoil over time, but it simply resulted in an inconsistent feeling when the player would compensate for their recoil. Shots are now evenly spaced out across the pattern rather than gradually decreasing over time to make recoil compensation more understandable.
First-shot recoils are unaffected and remain stronger to maintain realistic weapon behaviour.

Dynamic Recoil:

Further work has been performed on the Dynamic Recoil system to improve the feeling of weapons in both first and third person.
Several weapons have had their recoil patterns adjusted to differentiate them from other weapons recoil patterns that were too similar.
Recoil was normalized across TP and FP to ensure that recoil patterns and weapon climb are more consistent in First and Third person.

Dynamic Crosshair Slider:

We have added a slider into the Gameplay options for players who dislike the system or wish to tone it down to their preference to be able to adjust how much the crosshair moves when a weapon fires. This slider works in increments of 20%, from 100% all the way down to 0%, without impacting how much recoil a weapon receives. The lower the value you set, the more the recoil transitions from the crosshair onto the camera.

Unholster Speeds:

Weapon classes have had their unholster speeds slightly adjusted down in varying degrees to better fit their intended playstyles and usage. SMGs in particular were unholstering far too quickly and have been toned down noticeably, with other classes such as Snipers and LMGs have also been slightly slowed down.

Weapon Balance:

As mentioned above, TTK has been lowered for the majority of weapons. The new stats are as follows:

Assault Rifles:

Kasper:

Damage increased to 102 (was 75)

M4 Commodore:

RPM reduced to 630 (was 720)
Damage increased to 70 (was 42)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 2x (was 1.4x)

Mavinga:

RPM reduced to 580 (was 630)
Damage increased to 74 (was 40)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 2.3x (was 1.3x)

Partisan:

Damage increased to 36x2 (was 27x2)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.9x (was 1.5x)

Terikon:

RPM reduced to 520 (was 570)
Damage increased to 78 (was 47)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 2.2x (was 1.2x)

Vulture:

Damage increased to 92 (was 65)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.9x (was 1.5x)

LMGs:

Boomslang:

Damage increased to 100 (was 70)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.9x (was 1.75x)

Hawk:

Damage increased to 68 (was 48)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.9x (was 1.6x)
Hawk now reaches it's maximum RPM 33% quicker.

Pistols:

Kelowna:

Damage increased to 63 (was 50)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.6x (was 1.45x)
Range increased by 2m at all points on the damage drop-off curve
Now has a new erratic recoil pattern to differentiate it from other full-auto weapons and give it more of a unique identity

TAP9:

RPM reduced to 120 (was 220)
Damage increased to 200 (was 120)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.75x (was 1.65x)
New firing animation added
Range increased by 3m at all points on the damage drop-off curve

Type 227:

Damage increased to 100 (was 90)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.5x (was 1.25x)
Range increased by 3m at all points on the damage drop-off curve

Shotguns:

Flenser:

RPM increased to 68 (was 60)
Damage Range increased by 5m at all points on the damage drop-off curve

Squall:

Damage increased to 30x4 (was 25x4)
Damage Range increased by 5m at all points on the damage drop-off curve

SMGs:

AZV100:

Damage increased to 60 (was 50)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.7x (was 1.35x)
Reload Time increased to 2.1s (was 1.9s)
ADS Time reduced to 0.24s (was 0.285s)
Basic Magazine Capacity reduced to 28 (was 36)
Compact Magazine Capacity reduced to 24 (was 28)
Extended Magazine Capacity reduced to 36 (was 44)
Drum Magazine Capacity reduced to 40 (was 52)

Kite:

Damage increased to 49 (was 36)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.5x (was 1.35x)
Reload Time increased to 2.3s (was 2.1s)
ADS Time reduced to 0.27s (was 0.285s)
Basic Magazine Capacity increased to 40 (was 36)
Compact Magazine Capacity increased to 34 (was 28)
Extended Magazine Capacity increased to 46 (was 44)

Kochi:

Damage increased to 55 (was 45)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.65x (was 1.4x)
ADS Time reduced to 0.28s (was 0.29s)
Base Weapon Cooldown duration increased to 4.0s (was 2.5s)
Base Weapon Cooldown Delay duration increased to 0.5s (was 0.33s)
Base Weapon Overheat Cooldown Delay duration increased to 2.5s (was 2.0s)
Fixed an issue with the Kochi Overheat indicator being misleading in some cases

Tacoma:

RPM reduced to 750 (was 820)
Damage increased to 58 (was 40)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.75x (was 1.25x)
Reload Time increased to 2.2s (was 2.0s)
ADS Time reduced to 0.28s (was 0.295s)
Basic Magazine Capacity decreased to 30 (was 35)
Compact Magazine Capacity decreased to 25 (was 30)
Extended Magazine Capacity decreased to 35 (was 40)
Drum Magazine Capacity decreased to 40 (was 45)

Woodpecker:

Damage increased to 41 (was 38)
Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.4x (was 1.25x)
Reload Time reduced to 1.5s (was 1.6s)
ADS Time reduced to 0.26s (was 0.275s)
Basic Magazine Capacity decreased to 18 (was 19)
Compact Magazine Capacity decreased to 16 (was 17)
Extended Magazine Capacity decreased to 20 (was 21)
Drum Magazine Capacity decreased to 22 (was 23)

Snipers:

All Snipers:

Lower Rarity Snipers now have Headshot Damage reduction penalties of 15% (Common), 10% (Uncommon) and 5% (Rare)
Light Barrels now increase Headshot Damage by 20%, Recoil by 20% and now also Decrease Accuracy when Moving by 50% (was previously just increased Headshot Damage and increased Recoil)

With the change to Light Barrels and the new intended gameplay dynamic behind them, the following changes have been made to Sniper Rifles:

Individual Snipers:

Kestrel:

Headshot Multiplier lowered to 1.7x

The intent behind these changes is to keep the Kestrel competitive, but reduce the effectiveness of lower rarity versions and if you spec your Epic Kestrel for a 1-shot headshot with the Light Barrel you need to play more conservatively when shooting to preserve your accuracy.

Osprey:

Headshot Multiplier reduced to 1.3x (was 1.5x)

Pierser:

Damage reduced to 120 (was 150)
Headshot multiplier increased to 2.5x (was 2x)
Charge Multiplier increased to 4x (was 2x)
Charge Time increased to 4s (was 1s)
Mobility reduced to 50% when charging a shot
Limb Damage increased to 100% of base weapon damage for Arms and Legs equally

The intent behind these changes is to make the Pierser the top-damage sniper option for players but require that the player be grounded to get the maximum effect out of the weapon. 1-shot headshots happen at approximately 1/4th of a charge (1-second charging time), and to fully kill a player on a full charge (4-seconds charging) regardless of where you hit them.

Engineering

The Shooting Range has been moved to a new map

Gameplay & AI

Redeployment:

Added redeployment token feature
- Players drop a temporary token item on death that enables teammates to redeploy them for free at a terminal
- Redeployment via currency is only enabled when the token’s lifetime has ended
Automatic respawn delay has been increased from 20/30/40/50 to 30/45/60/75 seconds

Loadout Delivery:

Updated the delivery drone model with a jet thruster version

Drop Pod:

Fixed not dropping the replaced item
Fixed always replacing the weapon of first slot

AI:

Nerfed the accuracy of NPC’s by adding weapon sway
Implemented new shooting behavior for NPCs by weapon type