Update #49: Security Shakedown
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[/p][p]Knights and mercs, we're excited to roll out update #49 with new helpful HUD feature to look closely at specific causes of Sec Tally increase in any given turn, two new secondary objectives for missions to help push you to new styles of play, improved Defeat to Death screen flow to give you a chance to use your auto-saves in defeat, improved looting balance for high-level missions and Shadow Sites, a fixed Buyers filter in your Cold Storage, new music and SFX improvements and a massive, mountain of F10s resolved![/p][p]A huge thanks to all the players showing up, posting, playing and sharing. We are here because you are here! We hope you'll take a minute to leave a review and help us keep improving the game.[/p][p]Be sure to check out the Gun's Blazing Community Challenge that just went up - join the fun, smash 'em up and then heist 'em![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h2]Our Save Game Policy and Updates[/h2][p]First, since you're going to be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to share our saved game policy up front so everyone understands our commitment to your games. No saved game will ever be invalidated by an update. All new content and features will be added immediately to all saved games (with the reasonable exception of New Game options). You never have to restart if you don't want to. This is a studio commitment that we have made and kept for many years and games. We stand by it. So do not stress about the deluge of updates that is coming your way - heist on my good heisters.[/p][p][/p][h2]New Sec Tally Breakdown[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]Update #49 includes a new HUD element that can be toggled out with the Combat Log - the Security Tally detail breakdown. This new view gives you a event by event breakdown of what is raising your Sec Tally that turn. It includes increases for the automatic Tally per Turn, any decreases you have caused with Talents or Leverage. Then it also includes all security devices and their cost in Tally as well as all enemies, every event they have encountered and the cost in Tally as well.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]This iteration of the Sec Tally breakdown is the first version and it will be improved. It has no interactivity right now, which is definitely wants. There are some items that could be batched together into a group (if a single enemy hears multiple gunshots) - but we wanted to share the current version with the community to gather feedback before we work on the updated, more powerful version.[/p][p]It feels good to have it as its own dedicated area as a combat log replacement, giving it enough space to show lots of events if needed and to (in the future) allow for mouse over and clicking to help highlight the enemy AI and security devices in question.[/p][p][/p][h2]New Secondary Objectives[/h2][p]We have also introduced 2 new secondary objective types with Update #49 - both focusing on more stealthy side of play and for Contacts who are more adverse to violence and direct conflict. Adding to the 3 existing secondary objectives, these two new types add some much needed variety, demand different styles of play and are also rarer than the existing three (Turns, Kills, Sec Level). [/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]These are considered side-spicy types of objectives that only appear in missions that make sense (kill max does not appear in Kill 3 Captains or Hardened Target, etc). They also are pushed by some Contacts based on their Traits, but are just generally rarer.[/p][p]The first is a maximum kill count - your Contact wants you to use a lighter touch and complete the mission without a blood bath in order to obtain this secondary objective. [/p][p]The second is to keep a VIP Hidden throughout the entire mission. This can only appear in Bodyguard and Exfiltrate missions today but pushes you to be more careful with your VIP and keep them out of sight to get the maximum rewards. If you want that secondary, then no more wild dashes to the exit, every move will need to be planned more carefully.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]The new objectives can also create scenarios where you'll need to chose one or the other - keep the VIP Hidden or Kill 12 Enemies or both? In some cases, with a kill goal and a kill max, all secondaries cannot be obtained any more.[/p][p][/p][h2]Improved Defeat and Death Flow[/h2][p]![]()
With Update #49, we've resolved a longstanding annoyance about the flow of screens if your Cyber Knight is killed. Previously, in the case that your Cyber Knight went down, you'd be pushed out of the level with the Defeated animation but unfortunately dropped straight into the Dead screen, skipping over the important defeat screen. This prevented you from accessing your critical "Retry Level" types of auto saves (based on difficulty).[/p][p]We've resolved the issue with the flow and now you'll end up - once - in your defeat screen. If you accept your fate, you'll move on to the Dead screen. If not, you can restart the level (again, only if difficulty allows it).[/p][p]Thanks to everyone patiently waiting on this fix! Glad to be able to deliver it this week.[/p][p][/p][h2]Improved Shadow Site & Looting for High Power Level[/h2][p]![]()
Shadow Sites have been dropping crazy loot as players have hit these new, high-risk raid levels. However, sometimes they have been rolling pretty crap. With Update #49, we've adjusted the balance of their loot rollers to make sure that their minimums are properly set, pushing to avoid allowing them to roll special rewards that end up feeling out of balance or too far behind where you already are.[/p][p]In addition, this comes along with an adjustment to all loot rolling math for Missions at Power Level 7 and above. This pushes the minimum Power Level of loot that can be rolled for these missions simply up by +1 level. This means as you get into 7, 8, 9 and 10 Power Level missions, the chance that you could roll something low like a 4 or 5 are vastly diminished and only possible in the case that very few loot items quality for the current category and faction (it is possible, just more unlikely now than ever). This will once again slightly restrict the loot variety for high level groups, but also a ton of high level things have been added in the last 2 months, so it should be well offset.[/p][p][/p][h2]Fixed Buyers Filter in Cold Storage[/h2][p]We're excited to see the Buyers Filter in your Cold Storage tab for Accounts and Files is now 100% accurate. It was flipped for a while between Files and Accounts (the filter for Accounts was shown for Files, oh my) ... but now we've resolve that along with a few other mistakes in the rules for the filter vs. the final sale.[/p][p]It was a requirement to have this working perfectly before we could move on to the Bulk Sell feature, so we're glad to have this put to rest at last.[/p][p][/p][h2]Improved Music and SFX[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]With Update #49, we've returned to push forward the SFX and music in Cyber Knights: Flashpoint again. With this update, we've rolled in an expansion to the reactive music system, adding more variations to the possible stealth music that can be played and the ways that it ramps up as more tension and trouble arrives upon the scene.[/p][p]In addition, we've spent some time improving the type of environment SFX that help fill in the world. Update #49 has added the missing SFX for the hovertrucks as they land as well as splitting out the different types of doors as they open and close. Now energy barriers / prison doors will sound different than the large mechanical doors.[/p][p]We're excited to be back to this and push forward on incremental improvements.[/p][p][/p][h2]Truck Job - Ignores Merc Faction Issues[/h2][p]With the last few releases, we've been tagging specific missions as those that should ignore the mercenary backstory restrictions around Loves / Hates / Deserter and Wanted. We've added this rule now to the Truck Job part 1 and 2, as you are working for a Contact who is trying to leave Matsumoto and if you Hate Matsumoto, this is not a reason to not join the job![/p][p][/p][h2]Fixed Mountain of F10s![/h2][p]![]()
Another big pile of F10s has been wrapped up with this update. We are really beating up the F10 queue, hitting all the high points right now and really crushing down on things that are making the game slightly buggy now and again.[/p]
- [p]We fixed one more final case where the sightlines during movement could be wrong.[/p]
- [p]We've fixed another case around movement + mantling + skip turn that could cause a lock. We've also added a ton of extra logging with this update to help track down the final one or two other cases that can cause a movement freeze.[/p]
- [p]Fixed some Contacts like Goldstax having the "Sell Anything" tag[/p]
- [p]Fixed a number of text formatting issues for special effects appearing on new Shadow Site armors like Noise, Movement Detection Reduction, Ballistic Dmg and more.[/p]
- [p]Fixed bugs where Grenades or Venom Trap might still teleport you when canceled.[/p]