Greetings Mercs!
I'm excited to release another major update for Dead Grid, packed with new systems, game modes, items, visual upgrades, and quality-of-life improvements. Let's take a look at everything that's new.
A new melee weapon type has been added to the game, called Martial Arts.
Martial Arts weapons are not items held in hand, instead they change the fighting style of your mercs and behave similar to gadgets, but equipped into the melee weapon slot.
Martial Arts cards have no durability and cannot break in combat.
Martial Arts cards have no item level and cannot be upgraded in the Armory. Instead, their progression is tied to triggering Dojo combos.
The quality (color) of Martial Arts cards can be upgraded in the workbench, same as gadgets.
Around 30 new Martial Arts weapon cards have added, including unique variants.
Around 20+ new animations have been added with hand to hand combat in mind.
Martial Arts weapon training has been reworked, no longer focusing on unarmed combat.
A new camp room is now available, called Dojo.
Upgrading the room allows you to customize defensive combos.
These combos are triggered in combat during the enemy's turn.
In addition to the combos, Dojo offers 4 abilities, upgraded by triggering your combos.
Dojo combos rely on some RNG, but strategic aggro management plays a part in how often these combos can be triggered, especially when using shields.
The visual effects of Dojo animations can be fully disabled in game settings.
A new interface has been added to the camp's locker room.
Resting mercs in squad can be retired from the squad, returning them to the new recruits list. Revenant mercs can also be retired this way. This was a frequently requested feature.
Retired mercs can be reinstated (recruited) at no cost.
Renaming and muting merc voices has been migrated to this new interface.
Every merc now comes with 3 outfits for a total of 48 (across 16 mercs).
The third outfit for each merc is tied to the cosmetic DLC: Zombie Funeral.
If you already own the DLC, the extra outfits are automatically unlocked. Thanks for your support!
A new fully voiced Commando merc named Sam, full of personality!
Sam can be chosen during the new game setup or randomly recruited by Ramon.
There are now 16 playable mercs in the game, including 3 Revenants.
Brie is now a second trader in camp, offering her stolen goods for sale.
Brie is greedy, so expect the prices to be inflated, but you have the option to get stolen items back as her stock stays consistent between missions.
Added 12 new voice emotes for Brie.
Brie's base steal chance has been raised from 75% to 85% and can still be reduced with intel upgrades and gadgets.
Brie's pool of items has been expanded with more rares and uniques.
Brie is now discovered at the Supermarket, swapped with Clyde at PVS Express.
Increased the max rank from 5 to 6 which now offers a greater discount on new recruits.
Rebalanced discounts per rank from 12% to 15% for a maximum of 90%
Klaus' ability to lead away unaware enemies no longer triggers on hordes.
Note: The 5 horde missions are designed to be a single encounter where unaware enemies play a bigger role of noise management. Removing 1/2 of the unaware threat made Klaus too powerful at these locations.
The color of the hit points (HP) stat now has 3 states instead of 2 (green or red).
This came directly from your feedback and I really liked it.
A new enemy status spawns on enemies with very low remaining hit points.
The threshold depends on the total hit points of the enemy.
Bonus experience granted to the merc landing a killing blow against these enemies.
This is similar to bleeding where hit points are lost at the end of turn, but used for undead.
Critical hits from firearms puncture the flesh of undead causing them to start leaking.
The chance to cause this status effect varies for different firearms.
Enemy takes -85% damage from explosions.
Randomly applied to non-boss enemies.
2 bosses are scripted to always spawn with this status Estelle and Subject Zero.
Completely revamped this old gadget, previously tied to reputation.
Chance to grant bonus Intel points for completed missions.
The chance is increased with quality (color) upgrades of the gadget.
Earned bonus points can be seen on the mission details screen where bonus is more than 0.
A new gadget to give Jack additional shots on a mission.
Added a chance to cause enemies to start leaking (new status).
This gadget also works on Revenant mercs.
Shots from Machine Guns now have a 50% to select a random target.
This mechanic can be reversed with unique cards or the new Stunburst skill.
Dev Notes: MG weapons have always been difficult to balance, purely due to the amount of shots they spray on a single attack. This change puts MG into a more specialized category which keeps SMG and AR relevant into the late phases of the game where MG starts to drop more often.
The kill has been reworked to focus on MG weapons, matching its weapon art.
MG shots focus on the primary target instead of random targets.
Randomly shows up at the start of player's turn, similar to Street Cred.
Very long cooldown, 50 turns, but can be reduced with skill Multiple Solutions.
On challenge Lone Wolf, this skill would grant a 3rd turn in sequence.
New board gore effects showing on cards taking damage from melee, ranged and explosives.
Many new sound effects of gore splats and blood drops.
These effects can be completely disabled in game settings.
5 new random events, 3 help the player, 2 help the enemy.
Unlucky Explosives, Full of Holes, Abandoned Frags, Unwelcome Friends, and Focused Inspiration.
A new option is now available in Game Settings - General to enable permadeath for mercs.
This option works on any game difficulty or challenge mode and can be disabled at any time.
Losing a mercs in combat removes them from the mission squad and returns their gear.
These mercs are then permanently marked as DECEASED.
Deceased mercs cannot be added to the mission squad or trained.
Deceased mercs can be removed from the camp roster using the new locker room interface.
Dev Note: The game was never designed to be a roguelike experience with hardcore elements, so this mode does not prevent you from using the save system to reload previous saves and replay missions again. That's entirely up to you. It simply grants a way to flag mercs lost in combat from being played again.
As usual, this mode just offers more ways to experience the game for seasoned players.
Quick tip, going silent will greatly increase you chances here.
There are now 7 distinct challenge modes in the game.
This mode allows you to repeat the campaign with your existing squad and gear.
Aftermath becomes available after you complete the campaign on any difficulty and can be started from the camp's garage room which shows more information of the rules.
The campaign can be repeated up to 10 times, using the Aftermath mechanic. The enemies get stronger, hit harder and show up in greater numbers, but your squad keeps pushing as well.
Aftermath can also be started on a any challenge mode with a completed campaign.
Merc's Gadget slot now unlocks at rank 3 instead of 4, same as the Accessory slot.
Added keyboard hotkeys for scrolling card details in combat, using the Up/Down arrows.
This was requested by players using devices without a mouse wheel.
Slightly rebalanced prior training points for all mercs.
Reworked attack animation delays to speed up enemy turns by around 30%.
This is applies to enraged enemies using multiple swipes per turn.
Sell All Ammo / Valuables buttons now always appear when viewing the trader tab. Previously, the buttons only appeared with ammo or valuables in stash, many players missed the feature.
Improved the art of the neutral skill Silent Tactics.
Many small optimizations for visual effects and UI elements.
unarmed: -10 noise, changed from -20
martial arts: -10 noise, changed from -20
blunt/sharp: -10 noise, changed from -15
shield strike: -10 noise, changed from -5
bows/crossbows: -15 noise, changed from -10
silenced firearms: -2 per shot, changed from -5
Notes: There are still many additional ways to remove noise with skills, class abilities, clearing bodies, gadgets, etc. This makes silent combat fairly easy to achieve. These balance changes are based on my extensive review of different play styles.
12 new achievements (Fame) have been added for a total of 370.
A few broken achievements have been fixed, listed in bug fixes below.
Fixed a rare game crash which occurred in camp after opening mission details on slower CPUs.
Fixed game errors tied to Revenant character models (not game breaking).
Switching rooms in the middle of a camp upgrade animation results in incorrect supplies spent.
Scripted weapons can sometimes be randomly found as boss drops.
example: Slade's Custom, Angry Grandpa, Mother Trucker, Ned's Longbow
Master Negotiator (Ramon) achievement cannot be unlocked. The achievement has also been adjusted to the new max rank of 6/6.
Achievement You Know Jack unlocks at 21 spent intel points, should be 20.
Achievement Prison Guard cannot be unlocked. Achievement progression was not being tracked for this mission when returning to camp.
Multiple kills made with SMG shots on the same attack only track 1 kill by achievements.
Tactician skill Black Belt is incorrectly applying the initial melee damage buff on turn 1.
Waste Disposal gadget equipped on Revenants (from a legacy bug) can still be triggered. This is a non-Revenant gadget, also stated in card details.
I'll be keeping a close eye on the balance of the new systems, weapons, and Aftermath. Please post your bug reports and feedback in Discord or the forums.
If you are enjoying the game, please consider leaving a Steam review.
I'm the solo-developer on the game, so my marketing time is limited and your reviews greatly help with further development. Thank you and see you in Pine Valley!
--Paul