May 28, 2021

Lemnis Gate - Frontier_JVaaler

Greetings, Operatives!

Welcome to Howler's Mire, one of the several off-world sites used by Lemnis Industries in their project to save humanity. We're here to provide you with another round of intel about the site and hopefully prepare you for what you might encounter should you be sent there on missions.

The site is located on a small, unnamed dwarf planet. As you can see from the surveillance footage it's rich in plant life and arboreal features, which is what initially brought Lemnis Industries to the site. The mysterious blue luminous fungi caught the attention of Lemnis scientists, which then led to the construction of the base you see before you.

Although we haven't spotted any animal life in the surrounding woods, our researchers have frequently reported unfamiliar howling noises emanating from the trees. It could be wildlife, it could be wind blowing through the trees, or maybe the fungus makes noise. Either way, it led to the site unofficially being dubbed Howler's Mire, and the name stuck.

Your mission at Howler's Mire will change depending on the situation at hand. The site is home to local storage units for unstable Exotic Matter. These Resistors contain and stabilize XM so they eventually can draw on a near limitless supply of raw energy, letting us power the Lemnis Gate project. Lately the Resistors have been attacked by unknown assailants and we need you to defend them, however there will be instances where you're called upon to destroy them so we can stabilize the energy outflow to the Lemnis Gate project. We don't want to overload the power grid and cause any potential setbacks. Calibrating the grid takes careful planning and consideration after all.

As you can see from the surveillance photos, the site is dotted with several housing and work units set up to maintain the Resistors and the flow of Exotic Matter and energy. Seeing as the area is relatively flat and open, Lemnis' workers have used what available space they have to build the site and keep it operational. You have a fair amount of space to move around in, but be careful to avoid crowding some of the tighter corridors. Things can easily become chaotic, so your Spectator Drone is vital to get an overview of the map and the battle situation.

You can quickly scale the housing units to set up firing positions, and the two at the very extreme edges of the site could make decent sniping positions. Equipment crates, trees and boulders can provide cover on the ground. The final thing that's worth noting are the subterranean tunnels connecting the housing and research units. These were dug to provide alternate and safe ways of transporting XM, equipment, and research materials. We recommend using them as flanking routes or locking them down to prevent an enemy from doing the same.

Howler's Mire can easily become a chaotic battlefield, but this simply gives you more opportunities to outsmart and overwhelm your opponent. Use the Spectator Drone to get an overview of the area and be prepared to change your battle strategies on the fly as necessary. Keep your wits about you and one step ahead of your enemy, and we're sure you will prevail.

Good luck out there, Operatives. Don't forget: Earth's future is in your hands.

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, or join our Discord server to chat with the community and get exclusive reveals. Finally, don't forget to add Lemnis Gate to your wishlist on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/950180/Lemnis_Gate/

May 28, 2021

Community Update - Next Patch & Mountain release info

Hood: Outlaws & Legends - Jellyfoosh

Hello Outlaws,

We hope you've all had a productive week of heists and headshots. As always, we're listening closely to all your feedback, and want to thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!

Today, we're excited to talk to you a bit about what we have in store for our upcoming update, coming early June!

Assassinations

A big topic we keep seeing is assassinations. We've heard a lot of varied opinions, but one thing they all seem to have in common is that it doesn't feel good that they can be exceedingly difficult to interrupt. So we're changing that.

In the next update, assassinations can be interrupted if the person assassinating takes enough damage.

For example, any direct melee attacks, all Robin arrows, and close to mid range Marianne bolts will deal enough damage to interrupt an assassination in progress. The basic rule is that the damage has to pass a certain threshold in order to interrupt. For AoE attacks and Marianne's bolts this won't always be the case. Marianne bolts will exceed the damage threshold (and interrupt) at close to mid range, but the damage falls off at a distance and could require more shots in that case. The same goes for AoE from explosions and heavy/sprint attacks. An interrupted takedown will deal no damage.

Another detail to note is that assassinations all have different times to complete at the moment, with Marianne's being the shortest, which we think suits her playstyle.

We look forward to following your feedback closely once this change is applied in the next update.

More changes in Update 1.4

Other upcoming changes include further improvements to matchmaking, as well as the post-match flow. After each match, players will now be moved to the Hideout automatically, allowing you to change your loadout between games, and overall creating a smoother matchmaking experience.

We've also decided to remove the display of each player's overall level in the lobby, as this was causing some people to leave a game when they saw high level players, even if it was not particularly indicative of player skill or the quality of the matchmaking system. In fact, player level is not used whatsoever in the matchmaking calculations, since we use what’s called the trueskill system.

Looking at our data, we know that in the vast majority of matches (over 90%) the matchmaking is correctly matching teams of similar scores and skills with each other, and this is something we will keep working on improving. The takeaway here is that player level is not the correct measure of effective matchmaking.

There are a lot more changes and fixes coming in the next update, all of which we'll display in the patchnotes when the update goes live. We can't wait!

Mountain Map

We're almost ready to release our first big piece of post-launch content: The Mountain map! We're currently targeting mid-June for release.

Crossplay

We're aware of the requests for crossplay invites, but it's important to note that this is a month-long endeavor that would eat into time that could be spent on a larger number of impactful improvements and changes. We're weighing options and seeing if it's a possibility, but please be aware that if it's added, it won't be in the very near future. We'll keep you updated on this.

Grab the Gold Weekend Event

Burn this note after reading. Pass on the knowledge.
Dot not be fooled. The State lies.

The legends live, this we now know to be true. Do not be fooled by the mangled bodies strung up on the walls each day. If it were them, the stories would have stopped. The State is bloodied and their guards dwindle. But the wounded beast is the most dangerous, and the Sheriff yet stalks the ramparts.

Events are in motion. A great heist approaches. Stay away from the keep, and take care what you say, and to whom. Keep an eye on the treeline and you may catch a glimpse. Like wraiths in the night, moonlight glinting from ready steel, they slip past us without a word or look.

Are they really so different from us, I wonder.

Burn this note. Pass it on:
The State lies.

- A Friend

Another weekend event returns! With the guards thinned out, the time to strike has come. The goal is to steal 100 000 000 gold from the State before May 31. Every Outlaw that plays over the weekend will receive a share of the gold stolen. On Tuesday June 1 we reveal whether this great heist has been a success.

Keep an eye on our Twitter account on Saturday and Sunday for updates on your progress!

May 28, 2021

Playtest 3.0: Revenge of the Rematch - 12PM till 12AM UTC Saturday and Sunday

Super Squad - BadFox Studios

Description

Hey everyone! We're bringing out a new Trooper - Eve - and revamping and rebalancing a number of Troopers abilities to ensure that everyone is competitive and enjoyable to play. We've also changes the way that Troopers move, speeding up the tactile feel of the game and smoothing out ability and dodge camera work.

Watch our Discord throughout the weekend to take advantage of our LFG role, and keep the notifications on as we'll be running giveaways!

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More Battlepass Levels:

We're bringing in 4 more levels to the Battlepass, allowing players to unlock more content if they smashed through the levels last weekend. Now you can unlock 200 more Super Coins, 400 Trooper Tokens, an additional Gamer Podium- "Big Fan" -, and Heavens Champion Eve skin!

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Movement System:

We’ve changed the way that Troopers move in game. We used to be accelerating their movement, meaning that when you were trying to do some of those fine-tuned dodges you were lagging a bit when you changed direction. We’ve now put the movement speed of all Troopers at maximum acceleration, so you get tight movement when dodging. However, we're accelerating the animations and the camera so that you move fast, but the movement feels and looks a lot smoother!

We’ve also fine-tuned the camera movement on things like the dodge, anchors away, being knocked back, and minor inconvenience to help give each ability or state that feeling of movement while it’s happening, and impact at the end of it. Long range abilities like hookshot and rain of fire also slightly raise the camera while casting them, to help give you that tactical information!

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New Trooper - Eve:

Stats:

Health – 948
Dodge Charges – 3
Move Speed – 6.96 m/s
Damage – 47
Range – 26m
Projectile Speed – 97m/s
Rate of Fire – 2.5

Angelic Shot:

Eve throws a magical ball at the cursor location with a range of 20m. If it hits an ally it heals them for 20% of their total HP, if it hits an enemy it deals 15% of their max HP as damage.

Restoration Rune:

Eve throws a rune on the ground at the cursor location within 22m. The rune pulses every 2 seconds and heals any unit for 50 health in a 12m diameter per pulse. The turret has 600 health and is destroyed either by depleting its health or killing Eve herself. When aiming the ability for more than 0.3 seconds, the camera will shift slightly up.

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Gamemode Balance Changes:

Strike:

Previously we increased the time to repair and downed time of the power relays by a couple of seconds, while this change was small, it seemed to make massive changes where players couldn't actually launch a missile. We're rebalancing these variables to help let players actually finish a match.

Repair times are changing from 10 seconds to 8,
Relay downed time changes from 8 seconds to 6.

Trooper Balance Changes

Sarge:

A good sarge player has been a menace over the last couple playtest weekends. His rate of fire has meant that once players learn how to track with him he can deal an insane amount of damage! This, combined with his ability damage, has meant that he’s been getting some great Kill/Death/Assist ratios. We’re slightly nerfing his gun damage to bring him in line with the rest of the Troopers, and reworking his cluster grenade to make it easier to hit the inner and outer explosions.

Gun:

Damage nerfed from 24 to 22

Cluster Grenade:

Time between the inner and outer explosions halved, meaning it’s easier to hit enemies with multiple grenades.

Range nerfed from 23m to 20m
Inner explosion damage nerfed from 150 to 110
Outer explosion damage buffed from 120 to 135

Suppressive Fire:

Speed nerfed from 13m/s to 8.5m/s
When the ability is cast the camera will shift slightly up and angle back.

Crow:

Crow’s damage and safety from knockback shot combined with the range of hookshot has meant that she’s been able to get some of the highest Kill/Death/Assist ratios in the game. We’re nerfing the range of hookshot, meaning that Crow players are going to have to be a lot more tactical in their positioning if they want to keep their safety. While the nerf sounds like a lot, the 60m was overkill, as the range from the centre of the screen to the edge is about 35m.

Hookshot:

Range nerfed from 60m to 30m
When aiming the ability for more than 0.3 seconds, the camera will shift slightly up.

Skull Crusher:

Skully's in a good spot at the moment, but there was a bit of UX on his reserves that needed addressing. It's always worked properly, storing up damage and then healing it back to himself and his allies at the end of the duration or when he's taken below 15% max HP. This meant, however, that when you activated the ability while on low HP it instantly went off as you were under the threshold. We've added a small amount of healing as a base to this ability to help it feel better when you're low HP.

Reserves Tweaks:

Reserves works exactly the same as it did before, but now If the ability is pulled while under the minimum health threshold, then 200 base healing is done to everyone in the area.

Nebular:

Neb was a bit too passive in his abilities and one of the highest picked Troopers for new players last weekend. We're reworking his kit to make him interact with the enemies more and give him more of a dynamic role in the fast paced nature of what Super Squad is today.

Psionic Wave Rework:

Nebular releases a wave of psionic energy at the cursor location, creating a high damage area that lasts for 15 seconds or until he dies. Ally Troopers within the area deal 25% more damage, and enemies Troopers take 25% more damage from all sources. When aiming the ability for more than 0.3 seconds, the camera will shift slightly up.

Focus Rework

Nebular fires a projectile at the cursor location, with a range of 28m which can hit allies or enemies. If it hits an ally then it gives them a 25% damage increase for 7 seconds, if it hits an enemy then it deals 150 damage. The ability has a cooldown of 12.0 seconds.

Scorch:

Rain of fire was too slow in its old form, so we're allowing Scorch to move while casting and halving the time between casting and landing to help him keep up with everyone dodging around the battlefield.

Rain of Fire:

Scorch can now move while casting the ability, and it lands in half the time it previously did.
When aiming the ability for more than 0.3 seconds, the camera will shift slightly up.

Florp:

With Eve coming into the fray, we can now start bringing down Florp’s healing amounts as he’s no longer the only dedicated healer. His speciality is still his mobile AoE heal on splosion, compared to Eve’s single target % heal, but the potential of double healer comps means he needs a bit of a nerf.
We’re also reworking transfusion to work much like mysterious liquid, now throwing a grenade which gives allies lifesteal or enemies healing reduction.

Dodge

Max charges have been nerfed from 3 to 2.

Splosion:

Heal amount nerfed from 380 to 320

Tharlin:

Tharlin’s playstyle was always meant to be getting enemies low with your gun’s high damage, and then going in with your Minor Inconvenience to finish them off. The recent gun range reductions across the board seemed to hit Tharlin the hardest, as it was counter intuitive to his playstyle. We’re slightly buffing his range to help to give him back his old assassination potential.

Gun:

Range buffed from 24m to 26.

Burrow:

Range nerfed from 60m to 35 (35m is the edge of screen, so not really a nerf).
When aiming the ability for more than 0.3 seconds, the camera will shift slightly up.

Fang:

Fang was in a pretty good spot, however his kit lacked a bit of nuance a lot of the other Troopers had. We've added a defence up buff to smoke bomb to give Fang mains a bit more to consider before always throwing Smoke bomb at whoever they're trying to tag with fetch.

Smoke Bomb:

Smoke bomb now buffs allies for 30% for 7 seconds, in addition to slowing enemies.

Flintlock:

Last week we updated the way that Trooper speed increases was done, this meant that the speed of Double O’s was a bit too fast for people to deal with, so it’s getting a nerf.

Double O’s:

speed nerfed from 12m/s to 9
When the ability is cast the camera will shift slightly up and angle back.

Mysterious liquid slight rework:

Mysterious liquid has now been changed to a heal over time effect, rather than a straight heal. If an ally is hit or walks over mysterious liquid, they are healed for 200 Health over 3 seconds.

Xandark:

Xandark has been really strong over the past 2 weeks, but on paper she's very similar in damage to a lot of our other powerhouses. One of the main factors we could see that was causing this was the lack of risk while aiming backstab - players were just spamming the button until they hit someone. We've turned it into a teleport so that players now have to be 100% on committing to the ability before just firing it off - if you miss then you're in the middle of the enemy team and you're probably not making it out.

Gun:

Damage is 47

Backstab:

Backstab has been reworked to now be a teleport. If you cast the ability then you will teleport to the target location. If you hit an enemy then the ability will work exactly the same as it did before, if you miss then you will just teleport to the target location, so be careful and no more spamming the ability to hit someone!

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Bug Fixes:

You should now no longer be able to get stuck in spawn in the urban battleground map,
You should no longer be able to burrow or hookshot into a spawn zone and get stuck inside,
The battlepass should now credit users properly when they unlock items,
If you dodge charges get stuck recharging it should now reset after death or if you're able to do another dodge, we're working on a fix for this.

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Known Issues:

Sometimes your dodges will get stuck when going in and out of vanity cam,
It seems like bullets are sometimes colliding with each other.
Sometimes Troopers can be stuck off of the map in Asteroid colony, this seems to be linked to being knocked off while using a channeled ability (Suppressive Fire and Double O's).
Your keys may be set randomly in the options menu while changing settings.
Sometimes the escape key won't work when in various menus, right click on the game to refocus the window, and ESC should work.
Keys at Launch and Rockets diffused are not tallying correctly at the end of the Strike Match score screen.
Sometimes key UI icons in Strike stay on the minimap after being collected
Fang's fetch seems to be bugging out while it's dragging people - we're working on a fix.

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Steam Build ID: 6775762
To view this go to Steam > Library > Right Click Super Squad > Properties > Updates
It's at the bottom of the small pop-up window and is a way for you to ensure that you're game is fully updated and able to play in the test.

May 28, 2021

Unit Viability Changes Incoming

Conqueror's Blade - Kaeden

The Conqueror's Blade operations team receives lots of valuable feedback and suggestions from our players every week. Today, we want to talk about balance issues and the fact that there are currently too few units that are viable in combat.

We play the game ourselves, and as such, we share many of your sentiments. Naturally, we passed on this feedback as quickly as possible to the design team, who then took a closer look at issues prevalent in the current iteration of the game. After some observation and putting their heads together, they came up with a series of changes to remedy some of these issues.

One core issue has had widespread consequences: units that are currently underperforming haven't been able to find a role on the battlefield that fits their niche. This in turn has led to a series of issues, including the fact that only a handful of units are actually used from a wide range of available ones, and that when faced with huge armies of cavalry units, there has been no effective tactical response but to do the same. Additionally, beginners may find it difficult to meet veteran players on equal footing.

Starting in Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok, we decided to slowly but surely make changes to the weaker units (of which there are around 50) that have outdated mechanics and unclear roles on the battlefield. This will resolve some balance issues and create a more varied and fun gameplay experience. Naturally, we’re sure you're all dying to know about the first units to receive such changes. That said, we think that you may have felt some of the changes already.

The first unit to hit the design table was the Ironcap Swordsmen. This unit felt great to use and had excellent damage-dealing potential during the game's early stages, but in time, this low-star unit lost much of its charm and enjoyment. Their role when standing against 4- and 5-star units was nothing more than avoiding the butcher's cleaver. Even if they struck upon the perfect opportunity, the outcome would end in certain death.

We wanted the Ironcap Swordsmen to find their place in any type of battle. But how would we approach this? Would it simply suffice to increase their armour penetration and damage? No, as doing so would break the balance when they’re pitted against other low-star units. Instead, we began thinking about their AoE (Area of Effect) charge. By increasing the damage capabilities of their AoE charge, we can emphasise how the soldiers cooperate with one another, a core feature of this unit. When we saw that their damage was more in line with what we expected, we continued improving them by granting them ‘Rally to Me’, a new skill that enables them to quickly return to their commanding Warlord. Players can now use them to greater effect by ordering a charge, a recall, and another charge, for a more streamlined experience.

Here’s a tip: the power of the Ironcap Swordsmen really shines if you send between three and five units of Ironcap Swordsmen out in a single charge!

Another issue in the current iteration of Conqueror’s Blade is that the combined charges of units, including the Ironcap Swordsmen, are devastating to Warlords, especially as some weapon classes have a fairly low survivability rate. But worry not, we will be resolving this issue before long!

Your enjoyment of the experiences in Conqueror’s Blade is incredibly important to us, so adjusting weak units is a long-term project we’re committed to. We will continue improving upon underpowered units in different areas, including their stats, AI, their general gameplay feel, skills, unique features, and other elements. We will also be making minor adjustments to other issues in new updates.

Got any more feedback and suggestions about units in Conqueror’s Blade? We would love to hear from you! Drop your feedback in this survey and we’ll review it for future updates. This survey will be updated every time we improve another unit, so check often back and send us more feedback if you have any. Thank you for your continued support of Conqueror's Blade, we’ll see you on the battlefield!

Conqueror's Blade Dev Team