City of Beats News

Hey all,

we're currently putting final touches on the game's 4th weapon, the Acid Linkgun, which will be part of an upcoming big update:



[h3]New Features[/h3]

• Weapon #4, the Acid Linkgun - shoots deadly acid beams that connect to enemies or burst them down
  
• Key Rebinding - one of the most-requested features will allow you to configure your controls
  
• more balance tweaks & bugfixes
  

[h3]How to Playtest[/h3]
To get the balance right, we're looking for feedback! If you own the game, you can check out the playtest build for the upcoming patch:

1. Right-click City of Beats in your library and click "Properties", then "Betas".
   
2. Select "playtest" from the dropdown. (if you want to switch back to the standard build, select "None")
   

Please note that progress while playing the playtest build is stored in a separate savegame file and won't use or override your existing progress. You will already have all weapons unlocked and the new Acid Linkgun equipped. Achievements are disabled.

We suggest only playing the playtest build if you've already finished at least one run in the base game, to avoid spoilers.

Have a great day,
Kai

This is another small-ish patch with a few tweaks, including:

• slightly reduced the Blazemaker's flamethrower damage and also nerfed the cluster grenade mod
  
• buffed some of the Defense upgrades
  
• disabled OpenXR plugins which could cause issues when a VR headset is connected (don't ask me why they were enabled in the first place)
  

The rest of this patch focuses on challenge mode balancing:

• removed Monday Morning (does not apply to real life, sorry)
  
• switched some instabilities around between challenges for a smoother difficulty increase
  
• "Red Dead Retaliation" now only triggers on the following beat
  
• increased pull range of "Attractive Personality" projectiles
  
• increased "Death Traps" & "Quality Is Not Free" damage
  
• slightly increased "They Get Stronger" overall difficulty
  

This update contains lots of smaller quality of life & balance tweaks, many of which were directly suggested by our community, including:

• buffed some traits & extensions to make progression more rewarding & noticeable
  
• increased trait limits, meaning that you can now upgrade more traits before reaching the limit (which depends on your current campaign progress)
  
• slightly reduced HP & damage of some enemies, e.g. the hunting mines and chapter 1 bosses
  
• tweaks for Challenge 6 - the "Keep Your Distance" instability now shows danger circles and has a reduced radius; "They Do Not Trust You" duration was reduced as well
  
• decreased acid movement slowdown to make it less punishing
  
• increased enemy stun duration when getting hit by a barrel
  
• moved Barry closer to the hovercar because some of you still manage to miss/ignore him, how dare you
  

Based on the metrics & what we've seen, the previous balance update brought us pretty close to where we want the game's overall balance to be. This patch contains some additional, smaller tweaks:

- lowered the Bouncy Ball mod's bounce projectile damage
- slightly reduced Blazemaker grenade damage
- front-shielded laser enemies now restore their barrier after being stunned
- small adjustments to the healing amount & cost in repair bays & shops

This is a small balance update that just tweaks a few numbers, including:

• increased enemy HP in later biomes, especially bosses (some phases were way too short for you to actually having to learn the mechanics)
  
• reduced shield orb drops from some enemies
  
• made the bow's power attack orb & related mods slightly less OP
  
• nerfed damage, supercharge & crit traits