Patch: Major Alien Combat Overhaul, Balancing Changes
[h2]A Word from the Dev Team[/h2]
Hi, community,
We’re committed to making the aliens versus mercs interactions feel difficult but fun and fair, and we’ve been doing steady changes, testing out new combat styles for aliens and other balance changes. With the patch this week, we’re making an overhaul to how alien works, removing unnecessary energy requirements for skills but balancing that out with shared cooldowns for strong combos like EMP and Scream Wave and introducing longer cooldowns on respawn to send aliens back after their death, giving mercs time to breathe. We’re also redesigning how lights/weapons do damage to aliens to allow players to use all tools at their disposal for the fight and give both sides a bit more time to react to the opponent's actions.
[h3]Merc Changes[/h3]
- Added a short delay between toggling flashlights on and off;
- Mercs can now only have one light-emitting device (flashlight/UV Lamp) in quick slots;
- Reduced tactical flashlight damage from 30 to 15;
- Improved visibility with tactical flashlight;
- FoxFive and G-17 have an additional 3 damage modifier per bullet;
- [Developer’s note: we’re currently working on rebalancing the damage values of guns to have damage modifiers over bullets to be able to better balance gunfire damage against both mercs and aliens, lowering the spread of DPS between different weapons against aliens]
[h3]Alien Changes[/h3]
- Aliens no longer need energy to use Slime Spit, Egg Trap, EMP, Scream Wave, Gas Cloud, and Scan;
- EMP and Scream Wave now have a shared cooldown of 5 seconds (using one skill causes the second one to go onto a 5 seconds cooldown);
- Aliens now have separate respawn cooldowns that are higher than on-use cooldowns;
- Acid Cloud now has 100 seconds cooldown on respawn (44 seconds regular cooldown - unchanged);
- EMP and Scream Wave now have 120 seconds cooldown on respawn and 60 seconds cooldown on use;
- Scan now has 180 seconds cooldown on respawn and 120 seconds cooldown on use;
- Slime Spit now has a 30 seconds cooldown on respawn (regular cooldown of 25 seconds unchanged);
- Egg Trap now has 40 seconds cooldown on respawn (regular cooldown of 30 seconds unchanged);
- Reduced Egg Trap Activation time to 2 seconds;
- Eggs now also reduce cooldowns when consumed (5 to 15 seconds, depending on the size);
- Updated UI: Circle around the skill now shows the remaining cooldown of the skill and added a visual sign that EMP & Scream Wave cooldowns are connected;
- Alien gun resistance has been lowered from 80% to 70%;
- Alien light resistance has been increased by 15%;
- Scream Wave debuff has been reduced to 1/2/3 seconds depending on the amount of mercs affected;
- Aliens have 10 energy on respawn;
- Heal energy cost has been doubled;
- Energy regeneration has been lowered by 30%;
- Alien attack damage has been reduced from 17 to 15;
- Incoming light damage has been adjusted further to match the visual outlines of visible light;
[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed an issue when aliens' attack speed debuff was stuck for the whole match and did not correctly drop off after moving away from the light’s source;
- Resolution scale slider is now unavailable to change visually when DLSS is on;
- Fixed an issue that allowed stacking ammo into one magazine through dead bodies.