Hello, this is Dongsoo Oh, Creative Director of Blackout Protocol.
In the 0.12 patch update, we're working on our first major roadmap goal: adding a passive ability system to make agents feel more distinct. We’re also adding new synaptic enhancements that build on the game’s core fun, and making various balancing tweaks to existing synaptics. Finally, we’re also making some quality-of-life improvements players have been asking for.
In this devlog, we'd like to share some of the goals behind the many changes in the 0.12 patch update.
[h2]#1. NEW FEATURE – Passive Skills[/h2]
With the 0.12 patch update, we're giving each character a unique set of passive abilities. At the start of the game, each character will have a single passive by default.
Agents
Basic Passive Skills
Scalpel
+10% to all psionic damage
Beaker
+10% to roll cooldown speed
While the default set of passives may seem a bit mundane, each agent will have the opportunity to unlock additional passives via the Dimensional Mirror.
The Dimensional Mirror is a quantum communication device developed by S2P. Originally created to aid research, the mirror allows those who look into it to contact themselves in parallel universes and share knowledge. For the agents of Blackout Protocol, that means the chance to swap out their default passive for more exotic and powerful alternatives.
The Dimensional Mirror can be found while playing through the main path of the game (shortly after reaching the Office area on level 3). So it will take a bit of skill to reach it the first time, but will hopefully feel like a nice, meaty reward that substantially impacts gameplay, makes subsequent attempts easier, and encourages players to try out different characters.
Together with new and improved synaptic enhancements, our hope is that passive skills will help to make each character more distinct, fun, and viable for a full run (particularly in solo mode). And we’ll be adding even more passives down the road, so players can look forward to that.
[h2]#2. New Synaptic Enhancements and Balancing Tweaks[/h2]
Our goal with this round of balancing changes was to improve the game’s current meta, which tends to favor a few specific weapons. Specifically, we targeted Bionic and R&D weapons for improvements, aiming to make them more viable for different characters and builds.
Here are some of the changes we’ve made:
- Added new lower-tier versions of various rare-drop synaptics with fun/interesting mechanics, so players get to experience them more often.
- Adjusted the trigger conditions for some of the more underutilized synaptics, to make players’ choices simpler and more meaningful.
- Strengthened some underpowered synaptics, to get players using them more often.
We also gave a slight nerf to some synaptics we felt were a little overpowered, making them a must-choose over anything else any time they popped up in the pick-up selection. Most of these were HP-related, particularly those involving max HP increases and auto-regen. Basically, we felt they reduced the tension and slowed down the tempo of the game more than we liked, because they incentivized constantly stopping to let your HP refill (which isn’t really the experience we’re going for).
As a result of this, we’ve made a number of adjustments to HP-related synaptics. You can read about them in more detail in the 0.12 patch notes,
here. While agents will have less HP overall in the mid-to-late game, we firmly believe the addition of more offensive synaptics, and particularly a wider variety of Bionic upgrades, will make the game much more fun to explore.
We’ll continue to monitor the game and gather feedback as we make these changes. Once we see that these changes have settled into a stable place, we’ll be shifting our focus to weapon perks.
[h2]#3. Adjustments to HP-related Agent Upgrades[/h2]
Related to the above, we've made some adjustments to persistent upgrades relating to HP. We felt the synergy happening between these and various synaptics that affect health was slowing down the game a LOT, in a way that detracted from the overall fun. We’ve tried to strike a balance between speeding things up and still giving players some options to make themselves more durable.
[h2]#4. Other Stuff[/h2]
In addition to the major updates above, we're also fixing minor things that weren't working as intended or had the potential to cause issues.
- Made some changes to the formula that determines reload time, to prevent some weird edge cases that could reduce reload time to 0 (meaning, literally instant).
- Made some tweaks to really granular, under-the-hood math relating to the damage formulas of large enemies like Brutes and Disposers, who have ambient damage-reduction effects. The short version is: tanky enemies will now be slightly tankier, as we intended. The hope here is that panic-breaking enemies (and engaging with the Psionic damage system in general) will feel more impactful and necessary.
- Improved visibility on the current AI status of enemies, including detection and sleep icons. It should now be a bit easier to tell what enemies are doing at any given time, so players can take better advantage of stealth mechanics and so on.
In addition to the above changes, as part of our QoL fixes, we’re working on speeding up the game by giving players the ability to skip certain animations, making minor polishes to animations that are used a lot, and adjusting the initial spawn-point upon starting level 1 in Rogue mode.
We’d love to hear your feedback on this update, either via the Steam community board or
Discord.
For more details on these changes, please check out the
patch notes.
It's hard to believe it’s already been two months since we launched Early Access. Time flies! We’re working all the time to integrate your feedback and continue making the game better and better.
At the end of September, we'll be participating in SHMUP Fest. If all goes well, that will likely bring an influx of new players, so we hope you’ll forward to it, and consider hopping back into Squadron mode to help show new agents the ropes.
Also, for western players: the Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up soon, which is a big holiday in Korea and China. After this patch, our team will be taking some time to rest and recharge, reflect on the past two months, and refine our plans for the future. We wish our Korean and Chinese users a happy holiday, and we'll be back again before long.
Thank you for playing!
Dongsoo
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(* Editor’s note: in the English version of a previous dev log, it was stated that the Dimensional Mirror would be accessible via safe rooms. That was a translation mix-up on my part. By way of penance, I will be sacrificing a goat to the old gods at the next full moon. 🙏 — ODS Brandon)