Hey all, this version places a larger focus on SURVIVAL by introducing the Survivor's Income.

When you're a survivor you will passively gain cash and XP over time. When you're a zombie however, this income is paused.

You can see your Survivor Income growing up the top-right of the screen. The cash and XP shown will be given to you when you get your next kill. Then the income resets and starts counting up again. This means that you don't have to go crazy hunting for kills, as you'll get paid the same rate anyway.

GSA is a Battle Royale and so it should have high-stakes around dying. But previously death only really mattered during overtime. Now death always matters, and the fastest way to farm is to play wisely and focus on quality kills only.

Enjoy!
bencelot

----

[SURVIVOR INCOME]

- The Kill Reward is now called Survivor Income, and it now only grows while you're a survivor.

- It will grow at $1200/min in round 1, $2400/min in round 2, and $3600/min in round 3.

- For XP it grows at 120/min in round 1, 240/min in round 2, and 360/min in round 3.

- During overtime it will grow 2x faster, making it extra beneficial to be alive in this time.

- Survivor Income is capped at $9999 and 999 XP. Make sure you get a kill before it caps out or you'll miss out on income.

- Cash and the Survivor Income are now shown up the top right of the screen, near the buy menu.


[ECONOMY CHANGES]

- We no longer lose 10% of our cash on death. Being a zombie and missing income is the new penalty.

- Supply Drops and Rare Loot now give more cash and XP in round 2, and even more in round 3.

- Streak Points now give +$5000 when you hit 5/10/20/30 instead of 5/10/15/20/25/30.

- Vendor upgrades continue to get more expensive up to a cap of $20,000 instead of $10,000.


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- The final 6 players now get +5/10/15/20/25/30 max hp instead of +100/200/300/400/500/600xp.

- Players once again gain +5 max hp per level instead of +10. However there are more health kits in the map to compensate.

- Max health is now capped at 500 instead of 300.


[VENDOR UPGRADE CHANGES]

- Weapon damage now gives +6% instead of +5% per tier.

- Weapon bullet speed is now +25% instead of +20% per tier.

- Weapon rate of fire is now +8% instead of +6% per tier.


[CLASS CHANGES]

- Caster skill vendor upgrades are once again +50%, not +100%.

- Caster's active skills now restore +20% of MAX health instead of a fixed +30hp when cast. They also get +70% cooldown speed instead of +50%.

- Heavy's shield goes back to -3hp below 50%.

- Heavy's health kits drop half as often, but give twice as much health. Easier to use.

- Scavenger passive healing is now +100% faster instead of +150% faster.

- Assault move speed is now +10% instead of +12%.

- Sniper damage at range is now +20% instead of +25%.


[SKILL CHANGES]

- Executioner damage now ranges from 8 to 32 instead of 10 to 40%.


[WEAPON CHANGES]

- Nailgun clip size is now 30 instead of 25.

Hey all, this version adds a new class called Scavenger!

Scavenger is all about looting. If you collect 50 bits of loot in a row without dying, you will hit the jackpot and suddenly double all of that farm. Scavenger also gets free loot for damaging enemies, and can heal much faster by standing still.

This version also changes how the skill upgrades from vendors work. Skill upgrades no longer affect just one individual skill (eg: +20% Firestorm damage), but instead affect ALL skills that apply (eg: +10% to all damage skills). This is cool because we can make synergies. For example Firestorm, Executioner and Radiate all have the +DAMAGE tag, which means buying that upgrade will buff all 3 of them at once!

Other neat changes are the ability to shoot while driving cars and some changes to the economy.

Enjoy!
bencelot

----

[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Class icons are no longer shown during the warmup round.

- Removed the skill stats tracking system that displayed skill medals. These didn't really do anything and added too much confusion. These will be reintroduced in a different way in a later version.

- Daily challenges now give +5000xp instead of +2000 (or +10,000xp if you have Deluxe DLC).


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- 2x as much loot falls into the centre during showdowns.

- Players who join a game halfway through, in R2 or R3 spawn with a tier 1 gun in addition to their USP. Skills are no longer auto-levelled for players.

- When zombies get 4 hearts they will now respawn somewhere nearby, so they can continue their existing fight.

- Players now gain +10 instead of +5 max hp per level, but level up slower and fewer random health kits exist in the map.


[SKILL UPGRADES]

- Skill upgrades purchased from vendors now affect ALL skills, allowing for some cool synergies between skills that share the same tag.

- There are 6 tags you can upgrade: Cooldown Speed, Skill Damage, Skill Duration, Skill Size, Skill Speed, Skill Healing.

- Check the skill tree to see what tags each skill qualifies for. Most skills are affected by multiple tags.

- Vendor upgrades are now more expensive, costing $6000, then $8000, then $10000.


[VEHICLE CHANGES]

- You can now fire guns while driving cars! Doing so gives you +15 degrees of inaccuracy.

- Vehicles have less health and provide a bit less protection to compensate.

- Improved vehicle netcode. It shouldn't rubberband if your car explodes anymore.

- More vehicles spawn in the map and bots drive them more frequently.


[ECONOMY CHANGES]

- When we die, instead of losing 10% of our kill reward, we lose 10% of our unspent cash.

- Missions no longer give upgrades, instead they give a fixed +$3000 and +300xp per mission.

- Getting 5 streak points now gives $5000 instead of 500xp.

- Tightened up the levelling curve, slowing down the rate we level up, and giving new skills on levels 1/2/4/5/7 only.


[NEW CLASS: SCAVENGER]

- Added the 5th class called Scavenger. Scavenger is all about looting the map, getting dangerously close to enemies, but trying to survive. It's 3 perks are:

- Copy Coin: If you collect 50 loot items without dying, you'll duplicate all of them. Dying will halve the amount currently collected.

- Pickpocket: Damaging enemies makes them drop random loot, on a 8 second cooldown. The closer you are the more loot they drop.

- Static Aid: Your passive regen will recharge and heal +150% faster whenever you stand still.


[CLASS CHANGES]

- Heavy's ROF increases by +3% instead of +2% per level.

- Heavy's shield will now also activate when standing still.

- Caster loses the Skill Lottery perk that gave you a level 1 legendary. Instead, the new skill-based vendor upgrades are +50% more powerful.


[SKILL CHANGES]

- All skills have been buffed slightly, by making their level 1 version stronger. For example Vampirism used to give +4/8/12/etc healing. Now it starts at +8/12/16/etc.


[WEAPON CHANGES]

- USP fire rate is now 360 instead of 300

- Deagle DPS remains the same, but now has 25hp x 240 rpm instead of 20hp x 300 rpm (more impactful)

- UZI bullet speed is now 85 instead of 75m/s

- SPAS spread is now 20 instead of 22

- AK47 damage is now 10 instead of 11, but fire rare is 515 instead of 450 (feels better). AK47 recoil is worse.

- Ruger fire rate is now 80 instead of 72

- Barrett fire rate is now 48 instead of 50

- Tasers fire rate is now 360 instead of 300

- Nailgun fire rate is now 900 instead of 720, with damage at 9 instead of 10. DPS is thus 135 instead of 120 (highest in the game!) But the clip size is only 25 instead of 30.

- Seek Rifle rpm is now 400 instead of 360, bringing DPS up to 107 instead of 96

- Minigun clip size is now 50 instead of 40


[BUG FIXES]

- Fixed the max wanted steam achievement (for real this time)

Hey all, hope you had a great new years break. Just a small balance patch.

FYI, these balance changes are based on feedback in Discord, but also on data collected from every player and every match. If a skill gets a higher win rate than average it might get a nerf. Same for weak skills getting buffs. Over the last year I've seen that the skills are getting close to a consistent, balanced win-rate. Yay science!

The other interesting change this version is that rare loot is now visible on the minimap, and gives more XP too. It will show with a little question mark icon, giving players a new type of objective to fight over.

Enjoy!
bencelot

----

[GENERAL CHANGES]

- The score chart now automatically displays between rounds.

- Warmup rounds are a bit faster.

- Changed the colour of enemies from red to slightly purplishly red.


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Pressing E on regular civilians now makes them follow you.

- When a zombie picks up their 4th heart piece, they will remain for another 0.5s before they revive. This gives time to pickup other loot.

- Rerolling now costs $2000 for regular drafts and $5000 for boosted drafts. However, if you reroll on a boosted draft you are now guaranteed to get that same rarity after rerolling.

- Rare loot crates now give an extra +100xp and show up on the minimap when they're active.

- Heart fragments now give +50xp instead of +20xp for survivors. However, they no longer drop on kill for survivors.

- Players now get 10 instead of 5 score per level up.

- The skill point leveling curve is now 15% slower.

- Our second legendary skill appears at level 12 instead of 15.

- Bots are less accurate with snipers and M4A1.


[CLASSES CHANGES]

- Assault no longer has +20% bigger shifts, nor does it reduce combat slowdown. Instead, Assault has a new perk which makes it reload weapons +70% faster.

- Sniper's bullets now have +20% range instead of +5m range (+20% works out to +10m range on normal rifles).

- Heavy's health kits appear 20% instead of 15% of the time, and will pop out directly behind you if possible, also more consistently.

- Caster no longer gains extra cash or XP from kills. Instead skill draft rerolls are 50% cheaper ($1000 instead of $2000, or $2500 instead of $5000 if boosted).


[SKILL BUFFS]

- Self Repair takes 2.0 instead of 3.0s to heal

- Illicit Income gain per wanted level is +3% instead of +2% per level

- Cluster Bomb throws nades 0.1s more frequently

- Force Fields bounced bullets deal 10% more damage and steer a bit faster

- Blade Fury slashing damage is now 100hp/s instead of 60hp/s

- Invis only does reduced damage for 0.7 instead of 1.0s

- Rambulance post-vehicle healing duration is now 5s instead of 4s, and regen is +5hp/s for all levels

- Shockwave cooldown is 2s faster for all levels

- Medical Supplies now fires loot at you from player kills too


[SKILL NERFS]

- Vampirism healing gains 4% instead of 5% per level

- Clip Magnet seeking is 2 less per level

- Proximity Rounds charging range is now 30 instead of 40m

- Bullet Time slows enemy bullets down to 20% instead of 16% speed, and doesn't seek as much at higher levels.

Choose your champion!

This version adds a long awaited class system. There are currently 4 classes, but more will be added next version. On the loading screen you can choose to play as Assault, Sniper, Heavy or Caster. Each class has 3 powerful perks, which creates a unique playstyle that combos best with the various skills and weapons in the game.

Everyone's class icon is shown above their heads, allowing us to see what others are playing and counter them. There is a subtle rock, paper, scissors mechanic amongst the classes too.

For example, the Sniper class deal extremely high damage bullets - but only at range. So charge up close to counter them! The Assault class moves extra fast and can close the gap easily, making Assault a natural counter to Sniper. However Assault is countered by Heavy, because Heavy has a shield perk that reduces all enemy bullet damage by 3, which really harms the high ROF guns that the Assault likes to use. Sniper rifles however blast right through this shield, and so Heavy is countered by Sniper.

And then there's Caster doing his own thing, spamming active skills all over the place.



These classes replace the old Perk system. The old perk system had solid perks in it, but the system itself was too confusing and static. It was too much effort to think up a new combo between matches, and so we mostly just stuck with the same old perks game after game. Classes take the best of the old perks, tweak them a bit, buff them a lot, and make it extremely convenient to change classes between matches. With a single click you can try a whole new playstyle each game! Here are the perks of the new classes.



ASSAULT PERKS (Movement & Aggression)
- Super Shifts: You can fire your weapon while shifting, and your shift distance is +20%.

- Run & Gun: Move +15% faster. You also won't slow down as much when firing your guns.

- Death Fueled: Gain +10hp/s for 10s whenever you kill an enemy player civ or cop.

SNIPER PERKS (High Damage at Range)
- Rifle Range: Bullets gain damage the further they travel, dealing up to +25% damage at 70m. Also gives +5m range.

- Black Market: You can purchase tier 2 and 3 guns 1 round earlier.

- Backup Bomb: Whenever you throw an explosive you'll throw another one for free shortly after.

HEAVY PERKS (Huge DPS, but Immobile)
- Crisis Cover: Enemy bullets deal -3 damage to you whenever your health goes below 50%.

- Final Focus: Gain +30% rate of fire and +30% bullet speed whenever your health goes below 50%.

- Beaten Heart: Gives a 15% chance to drop a +20hp health kit whenever you're hit by an enemy bullet.

CASTER PERKS (Yer a Wizard Harry!)
- Active Healing: Active skills have -30% cooldown time and instantly heal you +30 health when cast.

- Skill Lottery: At level 1 you will see 2 Epic skills in the draft.

- Flashy Finish: Gain +$500 and +50xp from each kill. This is doubled if you kill with non-bullet damage.



We can level up our classes too. Whenever you earn trophies at the end of the match (based on your placement) you'll make progress towards your chosen class. When you get enough trophies you can level it up, which gives you some currency but more importantly unlocks new gun skins.

There are 35 new cosmetics added to the game. This includes a "Silver" skin for every gun, and a few "Golden" skins for the most popular ones. As your total class level increases you'll gain access to new skins, until every gun is shimmering in either silver or gold.

Due to the camera angle, characters appear quite small in GSA, and the guns appear even smaller. To solve this, every gun skin has a huge bright glow, simulating the blue moonlight reflecting off the gun's barrel - or the "sunlight" if you have a golden skin.



Another huge change - there is now a REROLL button in the skill draft. Whenever you level up you'll see 2 new skills. But you now have a 3rd option to spend $1000 to reroll the draft and see 2 other skills instead. You can keep clicking this until you find a skill that works with your build.

This gives cash an interesting new use, and if you're trying to create the perfect skill build you might spend MOST of your cash on rerolling. But if you're more versatile and can make any skill work, then you can save your money to buy bigger guns instead. This system subtly rewards players who have mastered all the skills in the game, and are able to adapt to anything they're given.



It is no longer possible to disable skills in the skill tree.

This feature had good and bad points. The good: It was fun to be able to create a unique build by disabling skills, and it was also nice to avoid skills that you didn't like. The bad: It was a fairly tedious requirement to do this if you wanted to play competitively, because you just had to copy the meta skills and play nothing else. Not only was it a pain to have to manually disable all of the other skills, but it just made the game stale where all the top players were using the same 18 skills over and over again.

GSA is a PvP roguelite, and 18 skills just doesn't provide enough variety to do "roguelite" justice. Now that rerolling exists we have a way to skip the skills we don't like. And now that classes exist, we have a way to choose our playstyle between matches too. So disabling skills is gone, and with everyone now using all 54 skills the game feels more fresh and roguelitey than ever before!



Our account level is now calculated in a different way, which means that your level number might be a bit higher or lower than before. It is now exactly 10,000 xp per level. Also, Skill Coins have been renamed to ACID.

This is in preparation for a complete progression rework that will come out next version. This rework will capture the fun of skill build creation in a far more intutive way, and without the staleness of the old build system.

For a sneak peak at what's to come, next version we will earn "Flasks" whenever we level up our account, and combine that with ACID (skill coins) to earn DNA on our skills. With enough DNA we will be able to equip our skills to our skill build, in either the Rare, Epic or Legendary slots.

This will become the main progression system and there's a lot more to it, but the details can wait till next version when it's actually released. If you're curious though come ask in discord!

Anyway, come online to try out the new classes, and have a great Xmas!
Ben.




[DELUXE EDITION DLC CHANGES]
- Getting the DLC now gives you an instant +10,000 ACID. All existing DLC owners have had this added to their accounts.

- Daily Challenges now give 2x XP as well as ACID for DLC owners.

- 17 of the 35 new gun skins are exclusively reserved for DLC owners.

- The Supporter's medallion is no longer shown next to DLC owner's health bars in-game (as that shows the class icon now instead).


[OTHER GENERAL CHANGES]

- Removed the Trophy Challenge for now (The +200 ACID from class level ups does this better).

- We no longer earn ACID at the end of each match (Again, class levels ups do this better, as more trophies = faster class level ups).

- Tweaked the ACID values from daily challenges, to offset the extra ACID earned from weeklys and class level ups.

- Improved the graphics in the map, making it night time.

- Your most actively played class now shows next to your name in the leaderboards.

- At the start of each month, you'll now earn ACID based on your previous months rating (50% of the rating, rounded down to the nearest 250).


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Added more jump pads to the map.

- Removed the ability to guarantee skills and disable skills. Instead we can now reroll skills for $1000.

- If you reroll a rare or epic draft, you might not see boosted skills after you reroll. But the game WILL remember that you are "owed" that epic and will try give it to you later.

- Removed the perks system entirely. All players now have access to all 4 classes (which don't have to be unlocked like perks did).


[SKILL CHANGES]
- Regeneration healing rate is improved, but it is now disabled for 1s after firing your gun.

- Rambulance now heals you for 3s after you exit a vehicle. Healing ranges from 5 to 35 hp/s.


[SKILL BUFFS]

- Force Field no longer makes you move faster. Instead it will bounce enemy bullets back at them for 10/20/30/40/50/60/70% damage

- Venom cooldown is faster at low levels and deals +5 hp damage.

- Shockwave restores +1 hp per bullet at all levels.

- Blade Fury can once again hit the same enemy up to 3 times instead of 2 times.

- Invis reveal range is only 10m instead of 15m, and damage penalty 70% instead of 50%.

- Skill Shots non-bullet damage ranges from +5 to +35% instead of +4 to +22%.

- Energy Vortex has +4 hp/s lifesteal for all levels.

- Armed Robbery has a higher chance of dropping hearts and upgrades (+5% for all levels).

- Soul Drop trigger height is now 5m and cooldown only 5s instead of 6m and 6s.

- Radiate duration now ranges from 2 to 5 instead of fixed at 3.

- Mirror Image clones do +5% damage across all levels, but cooldown is now 15s instead of 12s.

- Beefcake now gives +12 instead of +10 max hp per level.

- Shrapnel damage now ranges from +15% to +105% instead of +10% to 70%.

- Arcane Power damage now increased by 8 instead of 7 per level.

- Proximity Rounds charge time now ranges from 4.5 to 1.5 instead of 4.0 to 1.0s, but has a 40m charging radius instead of 30m.

- BackTrack health restored is now 40 to 100% instead of 15 to 100%.

- Shift Supply now also increases shift distance by +10/15/20/25/30/35/40%.

- XRay Vision range is now 100 to 600 instead of 50 to 350.


[SKILL NERFS]

- Clip Magnet seeking now ranges from 8 to 20 degrees instead of being fixed at 20, but the recharge time is a bit faster to compensate.

- Executioner damage now increases by 6% instead of 8% per level.

- Self Repair takes 3s instead of 2.5s to fully heal.

- Blade Mail protection now ranges from -6% to -42% instead of -10% to -50%.

- Bullet Time cooldown is now 20 to 14s instead of 20 to 8s.

Heyo, this is a small patch to make showdowns cleaner.

A recent change made it a bit too easy for zombies to respawn, especially if there were a lot of skilled players in the server who knew how to move fast. This made the final showdowns a bit too chaotic and a bit of a coin flip to see who would win.

So to make showdowns more clean between the final survivors, zombie respawns are harder. Killing another zombie now only drops 1 heart piece, and they no longer drop the amount they were carrying. We also require 4 instead of 3 hearts to respawn. To compensate for this, we no longer lose our hearts when we die (which was a bit frustrating anyway).

Enjoy!
bencelot

----

[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

-Zombies no longer lose their heart progress when they die. But they now require 4 hearts to rez instead of 3.

-Killing an enemy zombie now drops exactly 1 heart. It doesn't drop extra fragments based on how many they've collected.

-Added green bubble visual feedback for all healing skills

-During overtime, the poison gas deals increasing damage based on your time inside it, and this rate is now remembered until you die.

-Tweaked the order we unlock boosted skills. Instead of getting a legendary on level 5, and rares/epics on 8/11/14/17. We now get our legendary at 6 and get rares/epics at 5/10/15. If you reach level 20 you'll get a second legendary.

-Whenever we see a brand new legendary or epic in the draft, we only get 1 draft option (in the next major version, we'll be able to unlock boosters that let us control these)

-Fixed a bug where you couldn't reload if you have only fired a single shot of your gun

-Your existing skills now show when you are offered new skills

- Map spawns 18 instead of 20 vendors

- Flare gun now deals 10hp flame damage for 1s

-Added 3s extra to the end of each round to collect loot


[SKILL CHANGES]

-Radiate impact radius is 20m instead of 16m

-Stimpacks can no longer heal you in the poison gas

-Flying Dagger now works for zombies.

-Flying dagger damage now ranges from 70% to 100% instead of 105% to 135%

-Force Fields burst damage is now 30 instead of 20

-Clip Magnet now shows a green seeking halo when you have available bullets

This patch tweaks the cash and XP rates to make farming more meaningful, and adds key milestones to aim for just before the rounds 1, 2 and 3 showdowns.

Firstly, we all earn a lot more cash and XP. Tier 2 and tier 3 weapons are also $5000 cheaper, so we'll all be more powerful by the final showdown.

Also, skills now level up at fixed, predictable levels. We get new skills at levels 1/2/5/8/11/14. If you farm well, you can reach level 5 just before the round 1 showdown. This is important because level 5 now always gives you a LEGENDARY boosted skill, which starts at level 4 and can reach a super OP level 7. Levels 8, 11 and 14 will give everyone EPIC or RARE skills, which also give bonus points and provide key milestones right before the round 2 and 3 showdowns.

Enjoy!
bencelot

----

[SKILL DRAFT CHANGES]

- We now always see brand new skills at levels 1 and 2. Then 3 and 4 upgrade them. Then we get boosted skills on level 5/8/11/14/17.

- Normal skills can now go up to level 4 instead of level 3.

- Boosted skills now come in 3 rarites: Rare, Epic and Legendary.

- Legendary skills always appear at level 5. They start at level 4 and go up to level 7.

- Epic skills can appear at levels 8, 11, 14 and 17. They start at level 3 and go up to level 6.

- Rare skills also appear at levels 8, 11, 14 and 17. They start at level 2 and go up to level 5.


[ECONOMY CHANGES]

- Getting 5 streak points now gives you a flat +500xp, instead of a free level up.

- The Kill Reward now gains xp and cash 33% faster.

- Supply Drops give an extra +100xp, +$1000 and +3% weapon damage.

- Cops give 11/12/13/14/15xp based on your wanted level instead of a flat 10.

- Tier2 weapons cost $5000 instead of $10,000 (but are still only available on round 2)

- Superweapons cost $15k instead of $25k ($10k instead of $15k to upgrade from your tier 2 gun)


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Cops have 50 instead of 40hp health and do 100% instead of 80% damage.

- 3 supply drops instead of 1 spawn at the start of a BR match

- Supply drops gain armor for each player nearby, shown by an expanding health bar.

- Civilians now eject from cars faster, immediately as soon as it starts flaming

- Shotguns now deal more damage but have worse range and spread


[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Updated the default control scheme a bit (for new players). Interacting with HUD is now CTRL, placing chems is now C, slashing knife is now middle mouse

- All players, now including F2P people, will show off their account level when they win a round

- Your Streak point progress is shown below your health bar.


[SKILL BUFFS]

-Radiate cooldown is now 18/17/16/15/14/13/12 instead of fixed at 16s. It does +5 impact damage per level and the radius is 10% larger

-Beefcake doesn't increase your hitbox size as much (lvl 7 is +20% instead of +40%)

-Falling Inferno now additionally increases your molotov duration by 1 to 7s

-Critical Rage chance now ranges from 140 to 380% instead of 133 to 333%

-Illicit Income values are halved, but it now increases your XP earned as well

-Shrapnel chance of free nade now ranges from 50% to 350% instead of 40% to 280%

-Armed Robbery chance of big XP ranges from 25 to 175% instead of 20 to 140%

-Medical supplies healing ranges from 10 to 40 instead of 5 to 35 per loot

-Hypnotic Army range increased by 5m, and cooldown is now 10 instead of 12s. Max vendors is now 0/0/1/2/3/4/5

-Invisibility duration buffed by 5s per level

-Blade Fury slashing damage is now 100 instead of 60 hp/s

-The bonus damage duration after spike trap is 4 instead of 3s

-Flying Dagger range and speed increased by 10m for all levels

-Backtrack duration increased by 1s for all levels

-Rambulance damage also increases car mass for collision purposes


[SKILL NERFS]

-Flaming Bullets duration now ranges from 0.5 to 1.1 instead of 0.3 to 1.5s

-Regeneration healing ranges from 2 to 14hp/s instead of 2.5 to 17.5 hp.s

-Executioner damage ranges from 8% to 56% instead of 10% to 70%

-Self Repair takes 2.5 instead of 2.0s to heal you

-Stimpacks healing ranges from 3 to 21 instead of 4 to 28 hp per shift

-Toxic Blood duration now ranges from 3 to 9s instead of 2 to 14s

-Arcane power bullet damage ranges from 7 to 49 instead of 8 to 56hp

-Clip Magnet seek speed is now 20 instead of 30 degrees per second

-Assassinate bonus damage ranges from +3 to +15% instead of +3 to +21%


[BUG FIXES]

- Fixed a bug where clip size upgrades weren't showing properly in the HUD.

- Fixed Always on Top challenge not working

- Fixed a bug that caused cops to stand on top of cars

- Fixed a bug where the critical rage sound effect wasn't applied to shotguns

May the best reflexes win.

GSA now has a new and extremely OP mechanic called Critical Rage. Whenever you shoot an enemy you have a 3% chance to go crazy and start firing critical bullets. These bullets deal DOUBLE DAMAGE and for the next 2 seconds you will obliterate anything in front of you, so make those bullets count! Why was this added? Because it is just pure dopamine fun and feels incredible when it randomly kicks in.

Now, you might think this is some OP RNG BS... and that's what people said in playtesting too! But we fixed that with a very visible 1 second warning animation before you enter this state. If your opponents have good reflexes this is more than enough time for them to shift to safety and wait out your 2 seconds of fury. Of course, we all get these equally, and ultimately the players with the better reflexes win - either shifting to safety or pushing their advantage and landing those sweet, sweeeet crit hits.



The skill draft now contains BOOSTED skills. Boosted skills randomly appear in your skill draft and they appear in the most special colour of all - rainbow.

Boosted skills give you free skill points when you level them up. The later into the game it is, the more free points you get. If they appear on level 2 they'll give just +1 free point. Not bad. But if this occurs at level 11 then you'll get +4 points instead! This keeps farming relevant right until the end of the match, as every last level might boost you to victory.

More importantly however, boosted skills can go all the way up to level SIX, whereas normal skills are capped at level 3. Investing this many skill points into a single skill makes it extremely powerful, and it's been good fun playtesting them all to see how broken they get. You don't have to invest this many points of course, as you have other skills to level as well. But you have the option to take your boosted skill to the max and adapt the rest of your build to support it.

Now, hang on a second.. more OP RNG??? Not quite, because everyone gets boosted skills at the same levels. At the start of the match the server will decide which levels will be boosted, and all players get their boost option at the same time. Usually there are just 1 or 2 boosted skills per game.. but very rarely there can be 5 or even 6. For everyone. These rare matches are wild where everyone is extremely OP, potentially with 2x the amount of skill points as we'd normally get. High stakes indeed!



This version adds 13 new skills. Some of these have been automatically added to your account, others are further out in the skill tree and need to be unlocked. All of these skills are passives, which is what most people seem to prefer, and the extra options really make drafting interesting.

A few of these skills were inspired by Vampire Survivors, for example "Revenge Rockets" which spins bazookas around you and automatically fires them at enemies whenever you get hit.

• Revenge Rockets: 1/2/3/4/5/6 bazookas spin around you and automatically fire back at enemies whenever they shoot you.
  
• Beefcake: Gain +10/20/30/40/50/60 max hp.
  
• Executioner: Deal +10/20/30/40/50/60% damage against enemies with less than 50% health remaining.
  
• Stimpacks: Restore +4/8/12/16/20/24 hp per shift.
  
• Critical Rage: Increases the chance of entering critical rage by +33/67/100/133/167/200%.
  
• Shift Supply: Gives +1/2/3/4/5/6 bonus shift charges.
  
• Combo Killer: Increases the time you get between multi-kills from 3s to 4.5/6.0/7.5/9.0/10.5/12.0.
  
• Falling Inferno: Throws a free molotov whenever you cast a skill for 25/50/75/100/125/150% damage.
  
• Medical Supplies: All forms of loot heal you by 5/10/15/20/25/30 hp. Crates throw loot towards you.
  
• Flying Dagger: You can throw your knife 10/20/30/40/50/60 meters and for extra damage.
  
• Rambulance: Your vehicles drive faster, do more ramming damage, and heal you by 10/20/30/40/50/60 hp/s.
  
• Armed Robbery: Killing vendors has a chance to drop rare loot. XP, hearts and upgrades. Chance of upgrade is 5/10/15/20/25/30%.
  
• Acid Trail: You leave a trail of acid behind you that deals 10/20/30/40/50/60 hp/s damage to enemies inside it.

To help you earn the coins to unlock some of these new skills, there is a new system called Trophy Challenge. All 54 skills in the game have their own challenge, which is to finish a match with at least 6 trophies while using the skill. This can only be attempted for one skill at a time, which is determined by whatever skill you choose to guarantee shows up at the start of the match.

This system does a few things. If you don't feel like playing ranked mode but still want to have a meaningful goal to achieve, you can attempt a new trophy challenge. Just select a different skill between matches and try win 6 trophies! This system also encourages people to explore new skills, as there are 500 free coins for every unique trophy challenge you complete.



I looked at the metrics and saw that almost no one was playing in parties of 4. There were a lot of people in parties of 2 and 3 however. So to help consolidate our playerbase and get more full servers, there are no more 2 player duos or 4 player squads servers. These modes are now replaced with 3 player trios servers, so as to not split the playerbase. Of course, FFA still exists for the ultra competitive.

There are a few smaller features that make a really big difference.

Zombie Resurrection: All zombies respawn with 1 heart, meaning we only need to collect 3 instead of 4 to revive. This also means that you are GUARANTEED to get a heart for killing an enemy zombie too (as they will also spawn with 1 heart), making zombie farming in overtime more reliable.

18 Starting Skills: New accounts start with 18 skills instead of 6. This is a huge jump, 3x as many! All existing players have had these starting 18 skills added to their accounts for free too, including some of the brand new ones added this version.

Mini-Skill Descriptions: Every skill has been given a very short summary description, so that when drafting you can instantly get a general idea of what the skill does. Hover over it for the full description if you want more info. GSA is a fast-paced game, and sometimes you just need to make snap decisions.

FPS & Netcode Improvements: Apparently the game was spawning about 1000 particles from players on the other side of the map. Bit unnecessary! Removing this has really improved the performance.

Graphics and Bullet Feedback: I spent a day or so improving the bullet feedback. Nice juicy blood sound effects when your bullets hit, and good flashing effects too. It feels satisfying, and the unique sound effect actually helps know when your shots land off screen.

Ranked Mode Improvments: It's been 3 months now since ranked was introduced, and ranks keep getting higher! So I've added a new tier, and also adjusted the ranked algorithm to place a higher emphasis on raw skill instead of how many matches you've played. Also, a new ranked season is about to start on the 1st of the month, so now would be a great time to hop on and see how you go!




--- NEW CRITICAL RAGE MECHANIC ---

- Whenever you hit an enemy you have a 3% chance of entering a state of CRITICAL RAGE.

- In this state you will glow bright red and deal 2x weapon damage for the next 2 seconds.

- It takes 1 second to charge up, and other players see that you're about to go nuts, so they have a chance to take cover.


--- NEW SKILL BOOSTS IN THE DRAFT ---

- Boosted skills randomly appear in the skill draft, glowing rainbow. All players are given boosted skills at the same levels, randomly chosen by the server each match.

- Boosted skills start with extra skill points, and they are also able to go all the way up to level 6, instead of level 3, making them extremely powerful.


--- SKILL TREE CHANGES ---

- Rearranged the skill tree and added 12 new skills (see below).

- All skills have had their values tweaked slightly and go up to level 6 now (previously they went to level 4).

- New players start with 18 instead of 6 skills. All existing players have been given the inner 18 skills for free.

- Skill costs have increased, but daily challenges give far more skill coins.

- Skills now require a certain number of medals within that tree before you can unlock them. You can earn medals by playing skills in that tree.

- F2P players can now earn skill medals beyond level 10, they are no longer capped.

- The guaranteed skill once again works EVERY round, not 33% of matches. It will appear somewhere between levels 1 and 5.

- Every skill now has a "Trophy Challenge", which can be attempted for your guaranteed skill. If you get 6 trophies in game, you'll complete the challenge and get +500 skill coins.

- Skill builds now must have at least 12 passives and 6 actives at all times.


--- GENERAL CHANGES ---

- Kill coins are now called Skill coins.

- Every so often a crate will burst out an insane amount of skill coins.

- A big XP progress bar shows up the top of the screen showing your progress to next level.

- Hovering over skills now shows a shortened text description of what they do.

- Added a hotkey option to ping the map to allies. You'll need to set this yourself (default is X).

- Silver and gold upgrades from vendors now show the relative increases instead of absolute.

- Mild FPS performance improvements by reducing unnecessary particles.

- Improved the visuals and sound effects when you hit enemies.


--- RANKED MODE CHANGES ---

- When ranks reset each month, everyone's progress is rolled back 50%. But this is now also capped at 15 matches. This gives a more fair start for the month.

- Added new rank images, and added a new rank stage called "Immortal" from 6000 to 7999. Genetic God is now the final rank at 8000+.

- Tweaked the ranked algorithm to converge on your true skill level faster, rewarding skill more than grinding.


--- GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- Chemicals now cost $6,000 instead of $10,000.

- Weapon refunds now cost $1,000 instead of $2,000.

- Explosives no longer deal self damage.

- You can now carry 4 instead of 3 explosives.

- Civ/Cop multikills give bigger XP rewards. 200%/300%/350%/375% instead of 150%/200%/250%/300%

- Zombies always respawn with at least 1 heart piece, so we only need to collect 3 to revive.

- Hearts now give 20xp instead of $200 for survivors who pick them up.

- Toned down vehicle steering sensitivity, making cars easier to drive.


--- PERK CHANGES ---

- Skill lottery now starts you at level 2 instead of 3.

- Removed a few perks due to them being turned into skills instead.


--- 13 BRAND NEW SKILLS ---

- Beefcake: Gain +10/20/30/50/60 max hp.

- Stimpacks: Restore +4/8/12/16/20/24 hp per shift.

- Critical Rage: Increases the chance of entering critical rage by +33/67/100/133/167/200%.

- Shift Supply: Gives +1/2/3/4/5/6 bonus shift charges.

- Combo Killer: Increases the time you get between multi-kills from 3s to 4.5/6.0/7.5/9.0/10.5/12.0.

- Executioner: Deal +10/20/30/50/60% damage against enemies with less than 50% health remaining.

- Falling Inferno: Throws a free molotov whenever you cast a skill for 25/50/75/100/125/150% damage.

- Medical Supplies: All forms of loot heal you by 5/10/15/20/25/30 hp. Crates throw loot towards you.

- Flying Dagger: You can throw your knife 10/20/30/40/50/60 meters and for extra damage.

- Rambulance: Your vehicles drive faster, do more ramming damage, and heal you by 10/20/30/40/50/60 hp/s.

- Armed Robbery: Killing vendors has a chance to drop rare loot. XP, hearts and upgrades. Chance of upgrade is 5/10/15/20/25/30%.

- Revenge Rockets: 1/2/3/4/5/6 bazookas spin around you and automatically fire back at enemies whenever they shoot you.

- Acid Trail: You leave a trail of acid behind you that deals 10/20/30/40/50/60 hp/s damage to enemies inside it.


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Self Repair is once again simplified, and doesn't give bonus healing below 50%.

- Regeneration no longer affects your out of combat healing. Instead it just gives a steady continuous heal at all times.

- Smoke Bomb health per second now increases by level.

- Automatic Armor nerfed slightly, only protecting for 1s instead of 1.5s.

- Proximity Rounds now do 10hp per shot instead of 5, but it acquires charged shots slower.

- Arcane Power no longer boosts raw skill damage, but instead does more damage per shot. It also gets bonus bullet damage after throwing a grenade.

- Spike Trap deals 50% less spike damage, but now also makes players vulnerable to bullet damage for the next 3s.

- Manic Mechanic no longer increases driving speed, but gives more farm per car destroyed instead.

- Killer Cooldowns now also restores the ammo in your clip whenever you get a kill.

- Toxic Blood now also triggers when you explode cars, and has a longer duration.

- Critical Shifting renamed to Shift Attack, and it now applies to all shifts, not just the top 2.

- Clip Magnet no longer interacts with crates. Instead, it will make the bullets in your gun gradually gain seeking over time.

- Blade Fury will spin around you for 5s instead of 1s. You can burst the blades prematurely by casting it again.

- Shrapnel gives less grenade damage, but now has a chance to drop free grenades when you open crates.

- Energize renamed to Laser Scope. It continues to increase bullet speed and range.

- Shockwave no longer slows enemy projectiles. Instead it will heal you for every bullet frozen in the air.

- Venom Shot duration is now fixed at 2.0s, thus dealing more DPS at higher levels.

- Ignition Orb removed from the game. RIP.

Hey all!

This version tweaks skill drafting to make GSA play more like a roguelite.

The goal is to reduce repetitive matches by reducing the control we have over our builds. For example, the guaranteed skill now only appears in 33% of matches. This affects all players equally, and still lets us choose and use our favourite - but not every game. Most games we need to adapt to the draft and piece together a smart build as we play, which raises the skill ceiling.

Speaking of skill ceilings, it just got even higher! This is because in ranked mode rounds 1 and 2 now give +1 trophy each. This means that if you manage to win all 3 rounds you can get 12 trophies instead of 10, letting skillful players climb the ranks extra fast.

Next version will rework the perks system into a classes system, making it far easier to switch playstyles between games.

Enjoy!

----

--- GENERAL CHANGES ---

- Added a reconnect button. This appears above the play button in purple, and lets you rejoin the last server you were in (useful if you d/c).

- If you leave a duos/squads server mid-game and rejoin, the server will try and put you back onto the old squad.

- Improved visual feedback whenever you hit an enemy by making their outline briefly flash white.


--- GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- The draft now only shows 2 skill options instead of 3.

- The guaranteed skill now only appears in 33% of matches.

- When you get a bonus skill point, this now jumps from level 0 to 2 instead of 1 to 3.

- All skill values have been rescaled slightly, so that levels 1 and 2 are a bit weaker, 3 is the same, and 4 is extra powerful.

- Level 4 skills now appear at levels 7/10/13/16/etc.

- Skill builds now require 15 skills instead of 12 (5 actives and 10 passives). If you had existing builds below 15, ring 1 skills will be automatically added to them (but you can change them of course).

- The victors of rounds 1 and 2 get +1 trophy instead of bonus health. This brings the max trophies you can earn per match up to 12.

- Expanded the size of red zone slightly to reduce player density in showdowns.

- Rare loot crates are now more likely to fall out in the open instead of in parkour spots.


--- WEAPON CHANGES ---

- Grenades do +5 damage

- Molotovs do +5 damage


--- NEW SKILL ---

- Parasites has been removed from the game. Instead we have a new passive skill called: "Proximity Rounds"

- Proximity Rounds: Adds high damage bullets to both of your guns. These bullets accumulate over time, but only when standing nearby enemy players.

- Max bullets charged: 3/6/9/15 with a charging time of 3/2.5/2.0/1.5s per bullet. You must be within 30m to begin charging.

- Charged bullets do +5hp damage (+10 for shotguns and snipers)


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Self Repair now gives +100% healing while you are below 50% health. Healing is now +15/25/35/55 instead of +30/40/50/70. Cooldown is 16s for all levels.

- Energize speed is now +5/10/15/25% instead of +10/15/20/25%

- Frenzy rpm is now +12/20/28/44% instead of +15/20/25/35%. Cooldown is now 22s for all levels instead of 20/19/18/16.

- Boots of Travel now kicks in after 1.5s for all levels, instead of 2/1.8/1.6/1.2

- Shrapnel damage boost now applies to vehicle explosions as well. Shrapnel molotov duration is now 2/4/6/10s instead of 2/3/4/6s

- Radiate impact damage is now 10/20/30/50 instead of 20/30/40/60, but cooldown is now 16s instead of 20/19/18/16s.

- Critical Shifting now has 5/10/15/25% damage instead of 8/11/14/20%. Duration is fixed at 1s for all levels instead of 0.8/0.9/1.0/1.2

- Cluster Bomb time between throws is now 1.4/1.2/1.0/0.6 instead of 1.3/1.2/1.1/0.9

- Firestorm now throws 2/3/4/6 instead of 3/4/5/7 fireballs, but it takes less time to shoot them all out (0.4 instead of 0.7s). Cooldown increased by 4s for all levels.

- Blade fury range is now 35m instead of 50m

- Killer cooldowns now reduces cooldowns by 20/40/60/100% instead of 35/40/65/95%

- Blade Fury cooldown is now 16/15/14/12s instead of 15 for all levels

- Blade Mail damage reduction is now -15/25/35/50% instead of -25/35/45/60%, but works at the same strength regardless of how empty your clip was (the description already gave this impression, now it just works this way)

- Mirror images now do 5/10/15/25 damage instead of 10/15/20/30% damage, but their health is now 20/40/60/100 instead of 20/30/40/60

- Hypnotic Army follower hp is now +20/40/60/100 instead of +30/40/50/70, and cooldown is fixed at 12 instead of 20/18/16/12

- Smoke Bomb duration is now 1.5/2.5/3.5/5.5 instead of 2/3/4/6 but healing rate is 12hp/s instead of 10hp/s

- Invis move speed is now +10/20/30/50% instead of +20/30/40/60%, but duration is now 7/14/21/35s instead of 8/12/16/24. Cooldown is now 15s at all levels instead of 20/18/16/12s

- Venom cooldown is now 20/19/18/16s instead of 15s for all levels. Venom seeking is higher, as is the time the trail stays on the ground.

- Clip Magnet seeking speed is now fixed at 20 degrees/s instead of 10/15/20/30 degrees.

- Clip Magnet no longer charges up the remaining bullets in your current magazine (which would get lost on reload). Instead it charges up 20/40/60/100% of both your held weapons

- Bullet Time seeking is now 10/20/30/50 instead of 10/15/20/30 degrees per second

- Phase Drifting speed buffed to 150/170/190/230% instead of 150/165/180/210%

MINOR TWEAKS
August 7th, 2023
Heyo, nothing too crazy this patch. The main change is buffing the TTK of some weapons, and repositioning the game info box to the top left of the screen.

Enjoy!

----

--- GENERAL CHANGES ---

- Repositioned the game mode info HUD element to now appear up the top left of the screen

- Players can now only have 1 account on their SteamID (this won't affect 99% of players, but fixes an exploit)

- When someone wins a round, the DLC medallion now only shows for people who own the DLC

- Tutorial improvements


--- WEAPON CHANGES ---

- Buffed AK rpm from 400 to 450

- Buffed Ruger damage from 35 to 40, but reduced rpm from 90 to 80.

- SMGs and LMGs have slightly faster bullet speed.


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Firestorm projectiles are closer together, but fly a bit slower through the air

- Blade Fury blades now burst out after 1s instead of 1.5s


--- BUG FIXES ---

- Fixed a bug where the final 6 scoreboard would keep showing ranks even when people were playing casual mode

MMR is everything.

GSA now has a ranked mode, and as a competitive gamer I am pumped! Gene Shift Auto now finally provides a true challenge, and this gives meaning to every single mechanic in the game. Sure, before you could "beat" the game and win a match.. but could you do it consistently? Can you do it with the highest win rate possible? Ranked mode now provides this challenge and lets us put our skills to the test.



The quest for the Holy Grail begins.

When you load into a match, you can choose between Casual or Ranked mode. If you select ranked mode you'll be able to earn Trophies. Trophies are awarded at the end of the match based on your score. First place gets 10 trophies, second place gets 8, third gets 6, and so on.

After 5 placement matches you will be given a rating and a corresponding rank. Your rating is based on your AVERAGE TROPHIES PER MATCH. This means that if you place poorly in a game (or quit early) your rating will go down. This makes rating an actual measure of skill, rather than who has played the longest.

Having said that, someone who consistently averages 1st or 2nd place over 100 games is probably better than someone who by chance happens to win 1 match. So our ratings initially start a bit lower and will approach towards our true average as we demonstrate our ability to win games CONSISTENTLY.



The rating system is tied to the monthly leaderboards, where players can climb the ranks and see who can get the highest rating each month. When a new month starts, the previous month will be archived and winners will be immortalized in the previous month's leaderboards page.

Also, at the start of each month, everyone's rating will have a soft reset and be partially reduced. This soft reset allows new players to have a chance at the top spot, and also ensures that our ranks are up to date and reflect our skills in the current meta.



Of course, the most important part of any ranking system is showing off.

As your rating improves, so too will your rank. When your rating crosses over the next threshold you will get a new rank title and badge. Whenever you play a ranked match (not casual), this badge will show next to your name in the in-game scoreboards, letting everyone know who the real danger is.



As a final cool benefit, the game is now using the ranking technology to secretly determine player's skills behind the scenes, even when ranked mode is disabled. These hidden ratings will be useful to ensure balanced squads and potentially match making in the future.



Ranked mode is the big new feature that just dropped, but here are a few other smaller changes that have been released since the last major Steam announcement.

Stronger GTA Focus: There are new civilian missions, and a sense of exploration as you use vehicles to find them. We can also climb wanted levels much faster for those going a PvE farming strategy (is PvE the best way to win games? With ranks we can now find out!)

More Risk & Reward Mechanics: You now get bonus XP and cash for killing players during overtime, but this is the riskiest time to hunt for kills as if you die you can't revive. Likewise, supply drops have been buffed, but they now land just before overtime, increasing the risk.

Faster Gameplay: The game is just faster and crisper now. We move faster, especially during combat. This requires more skill to aim and lead targets. The TTK is also faster, and weapons are more differentiated.

More Features for F2P Players: Players without the DLC can now attempt 24 instead of 10 challenges from the challenge grid. Also, the ability to co-op with friends in survival mode is no longer restricted. Hardcore survival mode is also avaiable to F2P players.

Extra Powerful Lvl 4 Skills: It is now harder to take a skill up to max level of 4, but if you do it will extra powerful, as the 4th skill point is now worth double (as if it was level 5). You must get 10 skill points before you can take a skill up to max level though, so get farming!

Skill Balancing: With ranked mode, I needed to make sure the skills were ACTUALLY balanced, based on cold hard data. So I added a new stats tracking system to check the win rates and kill rates of each individual skill. It turned out that the passive weapon skills were mega OP, and many actives were underperforming (as they require more skill to use). So I've done the buffs and now the tricksy interesting skills are competitive.

There are a lot of other changes, small quality of life fixes, better graphics, more visceral level up and kill effects etc. There's too much to list but it's all available in the in-game changelogs.



Next version I will continue expanding the perks system and turn it into a full-fledged class system. By grouping the perks into classes we can buff the effects significantly while keeping them balanced. It will be easier than ever to switch between playstyles and live out your wildest warrior / assassin / mage / engineer / spy / outlaw fantasies.

Have fun getting ranked!
bencelot.