Section 13 News

Hello Agents!

When we shared the news that we will be at PAX East 2023, one of the very first questions we received from the community was, “will Blackout Protocol be playable there?” I can give you a resounding yes–we are bringing Blackout Protocol to Boston!

Today, I’m here to give you a preview of Blackout Protocol presence at PAX. Please note that most of the images in this post are based on mock-ups, so the final products you see on the PAX floor may be slightly different.

First, the booth: this year, we will have two full sessions of Blackout Protocol running–that’s double from last year. Less wait time means more QTs taken care of, for a speedy containment of the Section 13 breach. If you’re at PAX, make sure you stop by at booth #19085!



Now for a bigger surprise: goodies. While I won’t call the desk mats from PAX West 2022 “so last year”, we did decide to bring new stuff to PAX East 2023. New year, new items! Oh, and you know what’s even better? When you play Blackout Protocol and fill out a quick survey at our booth, you can get three different items. Yes, three. Okay, let me just spill the beans without building too much suspense.

What does S2P Corporation do best, beside cutting-edge research? Containing threats! You’ll get a drawstring bag to contain all the dangerous(ly good) stuff you encounter at PAX.


(Bottom-right image is the back side!)
Ever found yourself not wanting to put a cup directly on your desk mat–especially if you got it from last year’s challenge at our booth? You’ll get one of the cork coasters to sit between your drink and your desk mat. It’s just doing what S2P already does–protect your daily life.

I get to share the real deal for this one: a small but mighty piece of the goodies this year is a pin from one of the designs above. Please note the sharp end should not be pointed at any living being other than QTs, and even that should be limited to dire circumstances.

Do not worry if you won’t be at PAX East this year. Follow us on social media, as we will post behind-the-scenes and on-the-floor posts to share our PAX experience. For the gameplay side of things, we will be bringing Blackout Protocol’s second closed beta to you very soon. Make sure you sign up on Blackout Protocol’s Steam store page, and get your friends to sign up so that you can explore the depths of Section 13 base together!

DISCORD | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | TWITCH


- ODS GeeK

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/

Agents,

While the overall mission of S2P is to contain and eliminate the supernatural threats that are hazardous to mankind, it’s getting to the Safe Area that I’m sure felt like the most important mission in the last closed beta.

That was for a good reason. After all, that’s where you got to relax a bit after making minced meat out of the QT with your AR or flambe’d them to high heavens with a flamethrower. And of course, the fact that Safe Area was the only place you can bank your perm progression had little something to do with it.

As discussed in the previous blog, you will have access to the armory and the growth room to engage with your unlocked guns and stats before you even start a new game. This is an improvement we’re making based on the closed beta feedback, as many of you found that only being able to do that in the Safe Area was not the best experience.

So no need to look forward to SA, you say? Au contraire. Let me tell you about the changes we’re making so you can continue to feel the relief only the SA can bring you after a grueling battle.

[h3]Entering the Safe Area[/h3]

It used to be that you were only able to enter the SA after meeting the mission conditions and killing all QTs. But that last bit will be no more–we are making it so that you can rush the SA after clearing the mission and shut the door to keep out the flailing QTs. Once in the SA, we’re thinking of generating a popup that briefs you of your performance in the level you just cleared. It may potentially show you things like the Data Nugs collected, tell you how far in Section 13 you went, etc. So sort of like the results screen you see when you die, but you see it when you’re alive. A performance review, courtesy of the overlords at S2P.




[h3]Using the Machines [/h3]

Many of you actually did not use the machines that were placed in the Safe Area during the last closed beta, or at least, not right away. We suspect the cause of this to be that the machines didn’t immediately look like objects you can interact with. So we are changing the presentation of the machines to make them way more noticeable and draw you to them. Part of the sense of relief SA should offer is knowing that when you leave it, you're walking out as a better agent. You should be healed, have achieved better growth stats, and carry the new gun you potentially just unlocked with a Blueprint.

Remember the DNS Defragmenter? That’s the big machine where you can spend your Data Nugs for permanent growth. Similar to how we envision the Nethersphere in the S2P Archives, a giant Nethersphere will take center stage in the new DNS Defragmenter design and the SA overall. And it will be revealed from its tube encasement when its shield slides down and literally let down its guard upon your entrance.




There were other machines in the Safe Area, if you recall, like the Weapons Blueprint computer and the Medical Bay. Each of these finely tuned S2P equipment will get visual upgrades to ensure you cannot help but click on them out of curiosity.

While some agents bypassed the machines, there was also another phenomenon at the other end of the spectrum where you thought you were using the machines but nothing was happening, leading you to wonder if they were steel bricks with flickering lights.
This was actually a simple problem of you being able to interact with the machine when you didn’t need to. For instance, the Medical Bay removes all the debuffs you’ve been inflicted with. But if you’re clean, you of course don’t see the cleansing power of the MB. But you had been trained to expect an effect after pressing and holding that E key up until that moment. So what we’re doing now is to only trigger that E key if you meet the condition to interact with the machine such as when you have a Blueprint to use and you need to remove Panic or the like. Hopefully, this will take away the confusion and you can focus on actions you need to take in the SA.

Well, here we are–at the end of another blog and nearing the day when we can talk more about Closed Beta 2! Keep an eye out by joining our Discord or following our channels and see you soon.

DISCORD | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | TWITCH

ODS ThorThor

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/

Agents,

On this last day of February, I wanted to give you a peek at how we spent the shortest month of the year. As you probably know, we are making FTUE improvements per the feedback we’ve received from our first closed beta. (CLICK HERE if you haven’t read about that. This blog will make much more sense after reading that.)

While it’s still rough, I’m excited to share a visual with you to illustrate how we’re making the change. And here it is, the work-in-progress version of what you see when you launch the game.



The menu options are listed on the lower left corner, similar to what you saw during CB1, but it’s a completely different look and suggests the personality of each agent.

They all have their own rooms and they’re busily doing something befitting their character. Pardon Scalpel for now, she’ll also be doing something useful and not be just a big blob when we’re done.
You use either your keys or your mouse to move between everyone’s rooms to select the agent you want to play as.
Once you have selected your character, you can go through the door that you see in each of these rooms, which leads you to the S2P Archives.



What is the S2P Archives, you ask? It’s a highly classified area where S2P stores all its data.
And it’s here where you get access to the Armory and the Growth Room mentioned in the previous blog.

There’s one more that wasn’t mentioned before. We’re also adding the Data Terminal that houses information on everything Blackout Protocol for you to read up on: Synaptic Enhancements, the creatures, “the accident,” etc.

This is what we're thinking:
On the left wall is the Armory where you will see your unlocked guns lined up. In the middle is the Nethersphere where you can check out your growth and use Data Nugs. And on the right wall rests the Data Terminal.

I hope that gives you some insight as to what we’ve been doing. There will be more updates soon, so please do join our Discord and follow our channels for the latest!

DISCORD | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | TWITCH

Thank you for reading. Until next time!
ODS ThorThor

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/

Agents,

After going over the CBT data including all your feedback, we have made some decisions. (You can read about what kind of feedback we received HERE)

Our high-level takeaway from the beta is that we need to make our account progression more impactful as you would expect in a roguelite game. The majority of you did not notice growth/improvement after playing multiple sessions, as we had expected prior to the beta. So improving the initial experience and making the permanent growth more noticeable in order to motivate you to play more is our new mission.

We aren't overhauling systems and features yet, as we believe we need to clear away the hurdles that prevented you from seeing and enjoying the permanent growth and see if that helps first. So our next step is to run a second CB to see if our improvement efforts made a difference in providing you with a better roguelite experience. More information on the whens and hows of the CB coming in a few weeks, we promise.

But for now, let’s talk about how we’re going to make these improvements and what you can expect to see the next time you play Blackout Protocol.

[h3]First-Time User Experience Changes [/h3]

We’ll start by quickly going over the main menu navigation since it’s the first thing you interact with when you start the game. Many of you voiced the frustration of having to navigate it with only keys, so we will address that by Early Access. Menu navigation is deceptively resource-heavy work and we’d like to prioritize the below changes for our next test.

By the second closed beta, our goal is to present you with a more engaging and informative first-time user experience as we saw that many players weren’t motivated to play beyond the first few matches. The game was difficult and the motivation to keep playing was unclear. So we are addressing this first with the menu setup. Upon launching the game, you will be met with a new menu screen that’s been redesigned to you make you feel like you’re stepping into the S2P office to help immerse you into the lore and your role as an agent.

This is roughly what we’re thinking. You enter a room and Boy Scout has his feet propped up on his desk bored out of his gourd, Beaker is doing lab work in the back, and so on.



From this office-like main menu, you can start a game or enter two new rooms: the Armory (name not final), the Growth Room (name very much not final). The armory is a gun room that proudly displays your unlocked primary weapons with room to add more. And upgraded weapons will be prominently featured as well. You can learn about the weapon types and ranks here and the details of the guns you own to help you select the best hardware for your next assignment.

Picture a wall lined up with brackets, with guns you unlocked displayed like so:



The growth room is just that: a room that explains the various perm growth elements as well as the details of your current growth stats. And unlike before, you can spend Data Nugs here instead of during the run. As you spend Data Nugs, you will see crystals in this room fill up to mark your progress sort of like this:



[h3]Improving Initial Gameplay [/h3]

The other big improvement goal is to address the combat side of the first-time experience. There was a lot of frustration within the first 30 minutes when you kept getting party-wiped and things didn't change much when you tried again and again. With no permanent progression unlocks happening, no benefits were carrying over from previous sessions. So we will be working on combat difficulty, Synaptic Enhancements, and generally providing more opportunities to unlock weapons to create a more balanced roguelite experience.

Let’s go over our plans for combat difficulty first. We will be setting the difficulty of the initial levels to reflect players’ experience thereby giving everyone a chance to get better and not be discouraged from the beginning. The goal would be to get you to the safe zone within the first few runs, and have you continuously unlock new weapons and power-ups. This should provide a stronger sense of progression in the 5 to 10 runs that follow. Of course, levels are still procedurally generated so you will have a different experience every time.

Oh, and we’re also making it so that when you pick up a tactical weapon (like claymores, grenades), you keep your primary weapon equipped. We received many reports that switching automatically to the tactical weapon is jarring and we see that it can add to your probability of dying.



We also want to make changes to the Synaptic Enhancements to better aid you in battle. For one thing, we want to increase the number of SEs you can acquire on a level and have you experience more SEs to see the synergy effect of different SEs. And as there were many requests to increase your movement speed, we will introduce new SEs that will do precisely that–enhance different movement speeds for the run of the level, that can be stacked. And prior to you telling us so, we did not realize that SE selection time was too short as we had basically memorized the SE icons and didn’t need to read the descriptions. But clearly, we had our dev blinders on and we need to give proper amount of time for you to read it through, so we are increasing the time from 15 to 45 seconds. And in case you’re wondering why we even have a timer, it’s to ensure there isn't too long of a wait for the party if someone takes a while to pick their SE.



Another change we’re making is with how you acquire new primary weapons. Or to be more exact, WHEN you acquire it. Unlike now, you will acquire Blueprints mid-battle though you still need to arrive at the Safe Zone to use it. But once you are at the SZ and use your Blueprint, your new weapon is ready for you to try right then and there.

There are of course more things we are working on such as adding more creatures, spectator mode, better voice chat, etc., and they will be listed out in detail in a patch note when the time comes. We also have an even longer list of ideas we want to implement beyond CB2, but we are currently laser-focused on presenting a better growth experience for our next test, so don’t be too disappointed if your feedback or suggestion doesn't seem to be reflected yet.

Keep an eye out for all the updates we will be making on our Feature Upvote board, so you will at least know what we’re doing or what we think about your feedback. Please also note that as we design and implement the changes based on your feedback, we also run tests both internally and publicly that may guide us to make even more changes and the final result may differ.

Thank you for reading this rather lengthy blog, will come back with updates on Closed Beta 2 info soon!

-ODS Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/

Agents,

It’s been 11 days since Closed Beta ended so it’s high time we debrief you on the event.

But before we do, everyone at Ocean Drive Studio would like to thank you for participating. We were on pins and needles, worrying if we would be collecting enough data to have made this closed beta successful. We do public tests to get data that we cannot generate with just us here at the studio, and more importantly, to get your feedback to identify problems and improve the game together.

Well, we need not have worried. Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey, created and upvoted topics on Feature Upvote, talked about your experience on our Discord, and went as far as streaming the game, we’re relieved to report that we were able to gather a ton of feedback. So much so that we are still figuring out how best to shape the game with all that you told us.
While it is too early to share what we’re going to do with the feedback we got, we did want to take a minute and share the main takeaways from the beta.

But first, to refresh your memory, our stated mission for this beta was:

1. Confirm the game is stable enough to provide smooth game sessions
   
2. Confirm the core shooting and rogue-lite elements of the game are fun
   

And this is how we see the result of our mission:

1. Game is somewhat stable though not pristine
   
2. Combat was fun for some but pretty unforgiving for many with roguelite elements fallingshort of expectations
   

Let’s get into it a little bit more, shall we?

[h3]Re: Stability[/h3]
We saw crash and error reports come in on the backend and 10% of the survey participants reported crashes. Of all the technical issues reported (like crashes, lag, gamefreeze, etc.), framedrop was the most reported. And unsurprisingly, most issues were found mid-battle.



That being said, matchmaking wasn’t the easiest, which led to about half of the reported team size being less than 3.



So we are leaving room for the possibility of more technical issues when we have more sessions run with full-sized teams.
And speaking of matchmaking, here are some of the top suggestions we got from you to make it better, apart from just getting more people:

• Allow access to the lobby even after creating a room to see who comes to the lobby
  
• Allow the creation of private rooms
  

[h3]Re: Combat[/h3]
We got the most feedback about combat and it was very diverse. But the most frequent feedback was that the game is unforgiving and many found themselves struggling between friendly fire and ammo management. So it made sense that the synaptic enhancement that automatically reloads your weapon when you roll was the most memorable buff, with it being cited as the favorite of all surveyed (14%).

The lack of a tutorial to explain how to combat different types of creatures–and really just the whole game overall–was a problem. Without one, many of you were not able to take advantage of the nuances like the light vs dark element within the game.



Here are some of the more common feedback we received:

• Game needs to change difficulty based on the team size
  
• Combat is not balanced. Enemies move faster than characters, friendly fire does too much damage
  
• Need more ammo
  

[h3]Re: Roguelite elements[/h3]
More than half of the surveyed did not feel much growth even after permanently unlocking more weapons or gaining permanent stat boosts. This was alarming to us since account progression is a critical rogue-lite element we want to get right. Although many of you said unlocking more weapons to choose from is helpful, you didn’t think the upgraded weapons were all that powerful.

Given how difficult it was to even get to safe zones to receive Blueprints and unlock perm stats, the overall experience seems to have been very underwhelming.
This made us realize that we should have more effort into shaping a proper first-time user experience, and we seriously regret not having provided a better environment in which to better test the permanent growth.



Some players didn’t even realize you can do these perm upgrades when they got to the safe zone since there was no tutorial and it wasn’t super obvious what safe zones are for…

Here are couple of the most common feedback:

• Power-ups need to be stronger with more tangible benefits as it’s hard to notice growth.
  
• Power-ups are too hard to get, given the cost and difficulty of getting to the safe zone.
  

[h3]Re: Everything else[/h3]
While the above were the type of feedback we started the CB to receive, we of course got much more. UI/UX was another hot topic with a lot of you finding the menu navigation using just the keys counterintuitive and requesting better ways to communicate with teammates.
The UI/UX in the beta was definitely not intended to be final. When we opened CB, we already had plans to improve it by Early Access as we were aware it needs work. But we did prioritize the gameplay elements for CB since that was the focus of this test.

We’d like to assure everyone that you will see a much improved UI/UX by Early Access and an even more polished one by the official launch.
We hope the inconvenience you experienced during this last beta doesn't deter you from trying the game again–it will be better, we promise!

Here are two of the most requested changes:

• Add mouse cursor in the menu/lobby UI
  
• Add preset quick chat messages that can be sent with a shortcut key
  

In terms of the art/aesthetics of the game, we mostly received positive feedback, especially with our environment art. You scored us high on character and creature design, but the rating of the environment was double their score!

As you can see, this beta gave us a lot to review and think about. While it’s too early to specify exactly how we’re going to improve based on your feedback, you can bet we will update you when our plan is set.

Thank you again for giving us your invaluable time and feedback, will report back soon!

Blackout Protocol Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/