Gene Shift Auto News

Hey all, this version replaces the old passive XP income with something more skillful - XP Pools.



Scattered around the map are a new special type of zone called an XP Pool. It looks a bit like a gangster camp, but it is blue. Standing inside this will give you XP, until you drain the pool. There are 15 of these to explore for in the map.

Up the top right of the screen is a number that shows the amount of XP you're currently able to drain from these pools. This number gradually increases like a passive XP income. When it gets big enough you should seek out an XP Pool to claim it. This shifts this XP into your actual XP bar and levels you up.



It takes a bit of time to claim the XP. Up to 8 seconds per pool. And enemies can attack you while you do this, so they can claim the pool themselves. This is a far more interesting way to earn XP than the old passive income. It creates new points of interest in the map to fight over, and some subtle strategies as to the optimal time to claim the XP.

These XP Pools also serve a much needed purpose in GSA - forced downtime. It's only 8 seconds, but it's one of the only times in GSA that you can stand still and actually feel productive. All other times you are on your feet, hunting for kills and loot.

These XP pools scattered around the map will give players short moments of rest, while still feeling productive. It's a great time to look at your build, think about your skills, and decide on your next synergy. Something that is much easier to do when you're chillin' in a pool, than cruising through the city streets of Gene Shift Auto.



Enjoy!
bencelot


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[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]
- Passive Income has been replaced with a mechanic called "XP Pools".

- Reaching max shields no longer give +$1000.

- Kills now give a flat 100xp always. They don't increase based on your kill streak. However, the amount of cash earned can still increase based on your streak (ranging from $100 to $500 on a 5x streak).

- Vendors are less likely to spawn in a location where one has just died.

- Armed Robbery now gives +$1000 instead of +100xp

- Phase Drifting takes a bit longer to charge up to full speed

- Flaming Bullets duration is now fixed at 1s, and ranges from 3 to 12 hp/s damage

- Scavenger's new shifting perk is buffed to +50% shift restore speed instead of +33%


[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Random class and random skills modes no longer give bonus out of game XP (they still give in-game cash and XP though). This allows players to play whatever mode they genuinely prefer, instead of prioritizing these random modes purely for account progression.

- Fixed a bug where epic random flasks wouldn't always give epics

Hey all, just a small balance patch today. In a few weeks I'll release a larger update that gives every skill in the game a brand new special mutation that changes how it plays. Stay tuned for that!

The main focus of this patch however is to simplify the gameplay. The feature above will add a bit more complexity, and GSA is already a fast and complex game! So this version is "making space" for this upcoming feature by removing some complex mechanics that are mildly fun, but not enough to justify their extra complexity, and ultimately just become a bit of a mental tax that you need to think about if you want to play well. I'll give some examples, but it's a bit wordy and you can just skip to the changelog for a quick list of changes.

A good example is the penalty for death. This is now changed to give a flat 100xp penalty. If you die 6 times in a match, you'll have -600xp. Very simple. Just try to avoid dying. That's all you need to know and you can now go back to getting kills. The previous system however was more complicated. You lost 50% of your current XP towards the next level. This meant that if you just leveled up you'd lose a small amount, but if you were almost at the end you'd lose a lot! Now.. that is quite interesting. But it added a whole new level of complexity to the game. Good players needed to constantly check their XP bar to see where they were at, and know when they should take risks or not. Often though you'd forget this and then see a huge amount of XP drain away which felt bad. Ultimately, GSA is so fast-paced that it's more fun to just focus on getting clean kills, instead of having to constantly manage your XP bar. In a simpler or slower game this could be cool, but GSA is so fast it's just too much to focus on, and takes focus away from quality combat.

Another example is that this version removes the rare loot icons in the minimap. It's another thing to keep track of, that gets your mind into the UI and out of the game itself. Now you can just focus on exploring the city itself, instead of heading to checkpoints in a map. Another mechanic that got cut was the "first 3 kills of each round give bonus XP" rule. This cluttered up the HUD and it's just simpler to give a flat +100xp per kill. Finally, rounds are 1 minute longer to give sufficient time to explore and shop before the circle pushes you into overtime.

In general, this version should let you just exist in the city itself, and focus on quality combat without having to constantly check various parts of the HUD. Feedback is welcome of course!

Enjoy!
bencelot


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[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Wanted stars now appear in the middle of the screen when the "WANTED LEVEL X/5" message shows.

- Holding ALT will now show the names of guns in the bottom right.

- The "PLAY VS BOTS" button is renamed to "PRACTICE MODE" and it works slightly differently:

- In Practice mode, you will become invulnerable if you stand still and avoid shooting for 1s. There are only 12 bots in the lobby, and they are easier. You can't earn trophies in this mode. This is a good mode for players to explore the mechanics, read UI elements and skill descriptions, without fear of being shot at.

- Daily challenges give 250 acid and 2500 XP instead of 200 and 2000.

- The Deluxe DLC will now give 3x instead of 2x to these daily challenges. And it gives 3x instead of 4x to the ACID level ups (150 instead of 200). This is overall a buff, and should give DLC players DLC roughly +1000 more ACID per day (aka 1 flask).

- Legendary packs are only available to players who have bought the DLC or starter pack first.

- Added a new "CLAIM ALL" button when leveling up.



[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]
- There are now 4 minutes before overtime instead of 3.

- The first 3 kills of the round rule has been removed. Too complex. Instead, all player kills give +100xp more than before.

- When you die, you now lose a fixed 100xp, instead of 50% of your current XP progress. This removes the mental need to keep track of your current XP progress.

- Rare loot crates no longer show in the minimap, nor do heart crates show for survivors.

- It once again takes 3 kills instead of 2 kills to get the skill in the 3rd build slot at levels 4 and 6.

- No new skill appears at level 12 anymore. This is moved back to level 15 (but almost no one ever reaches this). 5 skills is enough.

- Hearts now give $100 instead of 10xp for survivors.

- The civilian gangster mission and place chemicals mission no longer appear in round 1.

- The kill zombies civ mission only requires 1 kill instead of 2.

- Vendor upgrades do prices differently. Instead of the price going up per purchase across all upgrades. It goes up on a per upgrade basis. The first purchase costs $9000, then the next $12000, then the final one is $15000.

- Vendor upgrades for skills won't appear if you don't have any skill that works with it.



[CLASS CHANGES]
- Assassin only gains +15% instead of +20% upgrade power per kill.

- Caster now get a -33% discount on skill upgrades instead of a -50% discount.

- Scavenger's second perk has been removed and replaced with a new one called: "Swift Shifts"

- Swift Shifts: Restore shift charges +33% faster when moving, or +100% faster when stationary



[SKILL CHANGES]
- Soul Drop no longer steals health from enemies. It still does the damage, but you no longer get that amount of health back as well (way too OP).

- Clusterbomb has a smaller range to toss at nearby players, only 35m instead of 45m

- Self Repair cooldown now ranges from 18s to 12s, instead of staying fixed at 15s

- Self Repair healing now ranges from 20 to 80hp instead of 20 to 110hp

- Frenzy duration now ranges from 20s to 14s, instead of being fixed at 20s

- Revenge Rockets bazooka damage now ranges from 50% to 110% instead of 30% to 90%

- Regeneration healing rate now ranges from 6 to 24hp/s instead of 5 to 20hp/s

- Shrapnel damage now ranges from +20% to +80%, instead of +20% to +110%

- Smoke Bomb healing now ranges from 8 to 32hp/s instead of 6 to 24 hp/s

- Flying Dagger damage now ranges from 100% to 130% instead of 85% to 115%

- Invis move speed is now +10 to +40% instead of +16 to + 64%. Gun penalty duration is now 0.5 instead of 1.0s.

- Boots of travel move speed is now +12 to + 48% instead of +16 to +64%. It kicks in after 0.5 instead of 0.7s.

- Phase Drifting speed now ranges from +40% to +100% instead of +60% to +120%

Hey all, this is a special announcement!

URANIUM has been rescaled to 50% of it's previous value. This means the COSTS and REWARDS and BALANCES in everyone's account is now exactly 50% of the previous value. Relatively, nothing changes.

If you notice that you have half as much uranium as before, this is why. But it is OK because everything is exactly half as expensive, so your purchasing power is the same as before.

Actually, everyone's uranium has been scaled down to 50%, and then had +200 added for fun, and to make up for the confusion.

Why make this change? Because it will align the prices with USD better. This change name makes 1000 uranium = $10 USD. This makes for easier maths, less confusion and more transparency.

So basically everything was rescaled down 50%, with these exceptions (all of them make things cheaper and better for players):

- Weekly challenges used to give 5/10/15/20/50 uranium (100 total). Now they give 5/10/15/20/25 (75 total, or the equivalent of 150 in old values). So they are +50% more rewarding.

- Leaderboard rewards are also better. Genetic God used to give 600 uranium, now it gives 400, but it should have been rescaled down to 300. So at 400 it is +33% more rewarding.

- All shop items got 50% cheaper. So did the cost of bonus daily challenges. But a few items got even cheaper than that:

- Epic Flasks used to cost 400 uranium. Now they cost 150.

- Epic Class Flasks used to cost 500, and now they cost 200.

- Shard boosters used to cost 500, now they cost 200.

- The uranium cost to swap DNA between classes used to be 30 x DNA%, but it is now 10 x DNA% (capped at 500).

Hopefully this doesn't confuse anyone! Also, there are some small gameplay changes listed below.

Cheers,
Ben.


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[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Criminal's 3rd perk is now called "Shifty Soldiers": Every time you shift, there is a 3% chance to summon a gangster to join your gang (max 1).

- Killing a criminal will also instantly kill his entire gang.

- Magnets have a 20% hit rate instead of 15%.

- There are now 18 instead of 24 players in a server

- Fission mines from the Minefield perk are now visible instead of hidden

- Assassin's upgrades gain +20% instead of +15% per kill

- Assassin's no longer lose their potential next upgrade when they die.

- In squads mode, you get $5000 instead of $3000 for capturing gang loot

- As a survivor, hearts now display as XP

- Score is now given automatically for kills in overtime, instead of having to pick it up

- Dying once again removes all of your XP towards the next level.

- Players no longer gain score for the final 5 placement

- More loot pops out of enemies when you kill them

Round modifiers change the game.

In GSA there are 3 battle royale rounds per match. At the end of each round, all players will now vote on a round modifier. The modifier that wins will become active for the rest of the match, affecting all players equally and changing the rules of the game.



In the screenshot above we see that there were 2 choices after I won the warmup.

Crate Race: After opening 30 crates, you'll get 2 vendor upgrades.
360 No Scopes: Spinning 360 degrees briefly makes your next bullet do +25 damage.

360 No Scopes got more votes because it has more meme potential, and so for the rest of the match everyone was spinning in circles frantically trying to one-shot one another.

[h2]Adapting to New Modifiers[/h2]
Modifers don't just add roguelitey variety. They also adds strategic depth. For example, with 360 No Scopes you might want to pivot to a sniper build, because sniper rifles have a long delay between shots anyway, giving you time to do a quick twirl before your next shot. Sticking with an SMG however won't let you make much use of this modifier, because you'd be better off just aiming at the enemy as you spray.

Once you decide to pivot to a sniper build, you'll then start making other choices in-game, like taking sniper-friendly skills that give you faster bullets. Before you know it, you're running a completely different build to the previous match, all because this wacky modifier won the vote. But had Crate Race won instead, you could go for something totally different (like movement speed skills to loot extra fast).

GSA's gameplay was already quite varied due to the random skill drafting, but with 3 round modifiers in each match and thousands of possible combinations, no two matches will ever be the same.



[h2]Round Wins Now Matter[/h2]
The cool thing about this feature is that if you win the round, you get far more influence over the vote. You not only get more votes than everyone else, but you get to decide what is even voted upon in the first place! This is determined by your modifier build.



In the screenshot above you can see I created a build for the Assassin class (the 6 modifiers shown on the right). Whenever I win a round while playing as Assassin, this build is used, and 2 of the modifiers are randomly selected for voting. In this case it was Crate Race and 360 No Scopes.

But I would have been happy for ANY of these modifiers to show up, because I specifically equipped modifiers that synergize nicely with the Assassin class. This synergy potential makes round wins really matter. Because no matter what gets voted on, you can be sure that as the round winner, the next modifier that appears will combo nicely with your class and playstyle.




With this version, there are 54 modifiers in the game, with more to be released soon! These modifiers are split into 18 commons, 12 rares, 12 epics, and 12 legendaries. Players start with all the commons unlocked and can start creating builds immediately. But to get the rest, you'll need to spend shards.



[h2]Spend Shards to Get Modifiers[/h2]
Shards are a currency that you mostly get from leveling up your classes.

When you get 100 shards, you can spend them to supercharge your next flask and make it drop a modifier. Doing this gives you a 10% chance to drop a legendary modifier, a 35% chance to get an epic or higher, and a 100% chance to get a rare modifier or higher. In the screenshot above I unlocked the legendary Thug Drops modifier, which changes how gangs work (more on gangs below!). Now I am free to equip Thug Drops to my modifier builds and give it a chance to appear when I win my next match.

It is also possible to get new modifiers without spending shards, but this is extremely unlikely. It's just a 0.2% chance to get a random legendary modifier for free in any flask. This is just for fun, and shards are the main way. Also, if you hit a duplicate modifier in the flask, that's OK. Those 100 shards will get turned into 100 ENRICHED SHARDS instead, which lets you buy legendary modifiers directly from the shop.



[h2]Sharing The Love[/h2]
The thing I love about this system is that you share these unlocks with others. You don't just unlock Thug Drops for yourself, no. It is a round modifier that affects everyone in the server. This means it's not just veteran players with 100+ hours in the game that get to experience this content. Whenever they win, we all get to try out some of the crazy legendary modifiers that they've unlocked.

It also means that if you're a more casual player, you can still get lucky, unlock a sweet legendary modifier, and be one of the only players in the entire game who has the ability to make this specific modifier appear. There will be many players who don't have that modifier, and haven't even played it before. And then suddenly when you win your next match, there it is. And if you're feeling generous, you can vote for this new legendary modifier just so they can try something new. In this way, unlocking new modifiers doesn't just benefit you, it benefits the whole community.

[h2]Weekly Modifiers[/h2]
There are also weekly modifiers. These rotate every week, and they are added to everyone's build. So you have your 6 equipped modifiers, and then the 2 weekly modifiers bring the total up to 8. These are randomly shuffled up and then 2 are chosen for voting each round. This means that we'll see the weekly modifiers more often, and if you want you can strategize around them.



In the screenshot above we see:

Gold Rush: 30s into the round, multiple rare loot crates will land in the safe zone.
Skill Scan: Reveal nearby enemies for 5s after casting a skill.

Gold Rush combos nicely with Scavenger, as they duplicate every bit of loot they pick up. And Skill Scan synergizes with Caster, as they tend to run more active skills due to faster cooldowns. If you're feeling sweaty and want to try grind the leaderboards, it might be worth focussing on one of these 2 classes for a couple of days to get an edge! These change every Friday and Monday morning.



This version takes GSA one step closer to GTA with the addition of Gangsters!

You'll sometimes find a gang of 4 gangsters guarding some loot. If you capture the loot by standing inside the yellow circle for 5 seconds you will gain +$5000. Unless of course the "Thug Drops" modifier mentioned above is in play, in which case a far more valuable supply drop will land instead.



However, these gangsters are tough, and will kill you fast. You normally need to kill all 4 gangsters before trying to capture their loot. They have 200 health each and high damage. You can't just run in blind or you'll die. You need to actually think about how you take them out, ideally smart and one at a time. You might even want to take some AoE skills like Radiate or use Molotovs to take them out faster.

[h2]Risk vs Reward[/h2]
One of the gangsters will have a red backpack that is emitting smoke. When this gangster is killed he will explode, dealing 100hp damage to nearby enemies. This might be a good way to kill the other gangsters fast, if you can line them up just right.

But it's risky. The risk is that this explosion will also aggro the remaining gangsters permanently. This makes them chase you forever across the map and gain infinite vision of you too. This is a huge risk, because gangsters hurt and the last thing you need in this city is to make more enemies. So if you go for the backpack guy, make sure you take the rest out at the same time! Otherwise, maybe save that guy for last.




- Skill builds now only have 8 slots instead of 12. The middle 4 slots (for Epic and higher) have been removed for simplicity. The old system was too complex, and with round modifiers now ALSO getting their own builds, it was too much.

- The first active skill gives +30 max hp when you claim it. This rewards players who take at least one active skill, which ultimately makes the game more fun and varied for everyone.

- Brought back the mission arrow that shows the nearest mission civ. This helps new players always find something to do. Don't know how to farm? Just follow the arrow, do a mission and repeat. Just like in GTA2.

- Reworked the real-money prices of Uranium, Starter Packs and Legendary Packs. Also changed what's in them. They have the same general value as before, but the Starter pack now gives Epic flasks instead of XP Flasks, and the Legendary Packs cost $10, but gives more uranium than before. The Deluxe DLC is unaffected.

- You can now auto-open flasks to drastically reduce clicks. Right click flasks to queue them up, then click open. The game will go through all the flasks in the queue, spending ACID, shards and magnets as needed. This is useful for players who have stockpiled a lot of ACID and flasks and can't be bothered to click a bunch of times. Now you can queue them up and let it run while you go get a cup of coffee. Any new round modifiers or legendary drops will be indicated for you when it's done.

- Added a feature that lets you spend uranium to entirely swap all the DNA from one class to another. View it in the skills page. This helps players who invested all of their ACID and flasks into a single class (usually Assault as that's the starting one), but then feel trapped. You can now shift all of that data onto another class to try something new.

- Added some sick new menu music!





[MINOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- We only lose half our XP instead of all of it on death.

- We get just +1 score for overtime kills instead of +2 score. The focus is now more on your level.

- Players in general move, shoot and reload very slightly faster.

- Bullets now "attach" to the ground so you can shoot enemies behind slopes.

- Random skills mode now gives +10% instead of +20% cash and XP.

- The requirements for the "earn trophies" daily challenge is doubled. But the 4th daily requirements is halved.

- Vendor upgrade costs now increase by $3000 instead of $2000 per purchase.

- Civs and cops no longer use pistols against you at wanted level 1, even if you shoot them.

- Level ups only give +5 instead of +10 max hp.

- Everyone spawns with 20% shield, which goes up to 60% after 4 kills.

- Improved bot pathfinding and difficulty.

- Added new civilian missions.

- We can now carry up to 5 nades instead of 4 at a time.

- Chemicals restore charges every 40s instead of 60s.


[CLASS CHANGES]

- Heavy's ROF perk now gives 1.0% ROF per level, but +3.5% when below 50% health (instead of a flat 2.5% all the time).

- Caster's active cooldowns restore +50% instead of +40% faster.

- Criminal no longer goes undercover and looks like a cop. That perk is replaced. Criminal's new perk is called "Shifty Civilians" and will cause the nearest civilian to teleport to your location when you shift (25% of the time).

- Scientist's gain +$500 instead of +$1000 for deaths nearby chemicals.


[SKILL CHANGES]

- Backtrack healing now ranges from 20% to 50% instead of 20% to 80%

- Blade Mail protection now ranges from 9 to 27% instead of 10 to 40%, but it begins at 40% health instead of 30%

- Medical Supplies nerfed to have healing and throw go from 6 to 24 instead of 8 to 32

- Mana Shield protection now ranges from 8 to 32% instead of 10 to 40%

- Boots of Travel now kicks in after 0.7 instead of 0.8s

- Shrapnel damage now ranges from 24% to 96% instead of 20% to 80%

- Venom Shot seeking speed is now 70 instead of 50

- Illicit Income gives 2x cash and XP for all levels

- XRay Vision now reveals slightly more players

- Blade Fury now does 2x damage vis civs/cops/gangsters

- Shockwave heals 1 less health per bullet for all levels

- Bullet Time seeking now ranges from 10 to 70 instead of 10 to 40 degrees/s

- Flying Dagger damage is now 85% to 115% instead of 70% to 100%

- Mirror Image gets +10 health



The next major feature will be a monthly battle pass. It will include a bunch of shards, ACID and other goodies in both the free and paid tracks. It will have fun weekly missions, and make it easier to unlock more round modifiers (and there will be a LOT more coming!).

I'm not sure exactly on the design of the battle pass yet, but I am sure that I don't want it to expire. If you buy it, you won't need to rush to complete it. You should be able to progress at your own pace.

Anyway, that will be a while away. And there are a lot more modifiers to create in the meantime.

Cheers and happy new year!
Ben (bencelot).

This is a summary of the biggest changes over the last few months. A few of these features have been live for a while, but I hadn't made a Steam announcement for them yet. If you've played the game recently you might have seen some of these, but if not, here's what's new in the world of GSA!



Explosive Boxes
There are fun new ways to kill people.

Some of the loot crates are now shown in red. These are explosive and will deal 60hp damage to anyone nearby, including yourself! If you want to claim the loot inside them you should shoot them from afar first, as running into them to open the crate will hurt. They crates also deal extra damage vs vehicles and are a great way to initiate a fight!






Car Physics Kills
Even cooler, when cars explode the car body will now blast forwards out of the explosion.

The car will deal huge roadkill damage as it slides across the ground, killing anyone caught in it's path. So now you can set traps by parking cars in chokepoints. I like to drive a car up to an incoming supply drop where I know a lot of enemies will be, and then pull off trick shots like these.



Pretty Graphics
Various parts of the game look better. The lighting is more vibrant and colourful. The circle of death is easier to see as it now has a little row of dots showing its edge.





The Uranium Shop
Players can now finally spend their Uranium! If you have or buy the Deluxe Edition DLC, you will get a bonus 3000 uranium, but everyone can also earn uranium for free. Daily challenges, leveling up, and opening flasks all give uranium, which you can spend in the new shop.

The shop displays new offers every day, selling things like ACID, Magnets, direct DNA purchases and various Flasks. Most popular are the class-specific flasks, which guarantee Epic or Legendary drops for your favourite classes.

Uranium makes account progression more strategic and gives you more control over how your account progresses. You can even wishlist your favorite skills by right clicking on them, and they will appear in the shop more often, allowing you to buy DNA directly on your favorite skills and classes.



Progression & Flasks Streamlined
The new progression system has seen many improvements since it was released 5 months ago. Huge thanks to all the Early Access testers who gave feedback on this!

Flasks are more convenient to claim as there are no longer any inventory limits. You can stack flasks infinitely.

You have the option to convert regular class flasks into Epic flasks. This means that flasks for the classes you don't play are no longer useless. You can turn them into Epics which are always useful.

The flask animation got a lot of criticism for being too slow, so that has been sped up 2x faster. And there is also a new "QUICK MIX" option that removes the animation entirely (except for when an Epic or Legendary is about to pop out).



Automatic Skill Builds
The recently added skill builds got a huge improvement due to the new "Auto Build" feature.

By clicking the AUTO button the game will automatically assign 12 skills to your build for you. It chooses these skills based on 3 factors. The rarity of the skill, hardcoded synergies that I know work well with that specific class, and most importantly, your personal skill usage.

The game will track how much you use each skill based on your "votes" when you click the skills during drafting in-game. Then based on this information it creates a build that prioritizes your favourite skills. It works pretty well, and is convenient for new players who aren't sure what skills they like yet.



New Survivor Income Loot Drops
The survivor income is the biggest source of XP in the game. This is a battle royale after all, and survival needs to matter. But it used to work in a fairly confusing way. Now it works like this:

Roughly once per minute, every survivor in the game will receive a special supply crate that lands right next to them. This contains a huge amount of XP, far more than you will get from other sources like cops, missions or kills. Only survivors get this though, not zombies. So if you want to farm up and become as strong as possible for the round 3 showdown, you need to stay alive!

This mechanic is more visual and intutive to new players. But it also adds interesting gameplay considerations for veterans. You get a 3 second warning before your box drops, which gives you just enough time to get to safety to claim it. You can also claim other player's income boxes, if you can somehow kill them before they claim it. The semi-random nature of the drops means you never know when it will come, and so when you hear the warning beeps you have to think fast to ensure you successfully claim this huge source of farm.



Random Class Options
You can now select a random class before you join a match. This gives you a subtle +10% XP boost, to compensate for the fact that you aren't able to counter of use your best class. This is in the rougelitey spirit of the game, and rewards players who have mastered every class. There's also a "Random Everything" mode, which also will not only randomise your class, but also your skill build too. Since this feature was added about 25% of players have been using it, from the looks of the leaderboards.



Hundreds of Tweaks to Skills, Classes and Mechanics
There are too many micro tweaks to list here, but they're all listed in the changelogs in game. Here are some of the highlights though:

- Added a new Kill Frenzy loot pickup, inspired by GTA2. This triggers a mission where you have 30s to kill 5 enemies.
- Added a new DOUBLE DAMAGE loot pickup, also inspired by GTA2. Collecting this gives you double damage for the next 3 seconds. It's good to camp one of these and wait for an unsuspecting victim to come nearby.
- New loot crates are randomly hidden on rooftops, encouraging exploration and rewarding players who know how to do parkour.
- Killing enemies now gives cash and XP based on your kill streak. $100 and 10xp per streak. So if you kill your 8th player without dying, it gives $800 and 80xp. This rewards survival, and puts a big focus on quality instead of quantity kills.
- Added a camera zoom option, which lets you zoom the camera out to see your surroundings better.
- Scoring is reworked. It is now based entirely on placement of each round, with later rounds giving more score. Your level or kills now have no impact on your score. This is important as it frees you up to just focus on the survival and build optimisation, instead of feeling the need to constantly grind kills to keep up.
- Free to Play players can now play all the survival mode difficulty modifiers. This allows them to compete with Deluxe DLC players on the daily leaderboards for top score.
- Boxes cast line of sight shadows more aggressively, creating more line of sight blockers in the map. We used to be able to see over a 5m tall box, but now we can't. Creating more interesting gameplay fighting around these.
- Too many class and skill balances to list here. Check the changelog in game!




The next major feature will be a literal game-changing new "round modifiers" system. How will it work?

In a match of Gene Shift Auto, there are 3 rounds, lasting 5 minutes each. Soon, each of these rounds will have a special modifier or minigame activated during it. I will create a bunch of these modifiers, but only one will be active at a time. Some ideas I'm thinking of are:

- The Floor is Lava! Areas of the map turn to fire, changing how we move about.
- Meteor Strike! Meteors will randomly fall from the sky, giving 2s warning before hitting the ground.
- Turbo Guns! Everyone will fire bullets +50% faster.
- Spinning Saws! Giant saws will spin at various chokepoints in the map, requiring timing to get through. Just like dungeon crawling in Skyrim.



Each round, a new random modifier will be chosen. This will add huge amounts of variety and replayability, and really lean into the roguelitey vibes too. Players will need to adapt to the changing situation if they want to survive and farm as well as possible.

Even cooler is how these modifiers are chosen. They are chosen semi-randomly, but importantly they will ultimately be decided by the winner of the previous round. If you win round 1, then you'll be the one who decides what modifier is active in round 2! This seems super fun to me. The stakes for winning rounds 1 and 2 will become huge, knowing that you'll be deciding the gameplay for everyone else in the server next round. Getting to choose also will have subtle gameplay advantages, as you might be able to choose a modifier that you are especially good at, or that synergises nicely with your build.

Anyway, this will be released in a couple of months, so stay tuned!

Cheers,
Ben (bencelot).