Skillshot City News

Hey all! This is just a small polishing version.

You might see that the version number is now 0.806 instead of 1.806. I should have done this a long time ago. As Gene Shift Auto is still in Early Access, it makes sense to save 1.0 for the full release (soon tm).

The main feature in this version is a new AUTO SKILL BUILD button. Clicking this automatically creates a skill build for that class, from the skills you have available. This should make build creation faster.

The skills chosen for your build are a combination of:
1) Your most used skills. When you choose skills in-game, the game remembers the skills that you click most often, and assumes they are your favorites. These are prioritized in build making.

2) Specific class synergies. Some skills synergize especially well with a certain class. For example, Shift Supply works well with Assault because Assault can shoot while shifting. These skills get a bonus boost as well.

There are also a few small balance tweaks shown below. I've patched a few of these out already and mentioned them in the DEV-UPDATES chat channel, but here's a summary of the latest few changes.

Enjoy!


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[GENERAL CHANGES]

- The version number is now shown as 0.XXX instead of 1.XXX.

- Added a new AUTO skill build button as mentioned above.

- You can now remove skills from build slots by clicking a little X on the button (right click also works).

- After level 200 you can now sell class flasks from within the inventory. So you don't have to decide immediately if you want it or not. Just claim it and sell them later.

- The builds shown on the leaderboards now shows their most recent WINNING build played. It doesn't update if the player doesn't win.

- Players can now toggle the supporters medallion off, including in global chat and leaderboards.



[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Supply Drops in the final BR round always drop an upgrade.

- Heart drops now spawn every 30s instead of every 60s.

- When a heart drop lands, the icon changes in the minimap to show it's an available crate, not an incoming drop.

- Heart crates continue to spawn during overtime (1 will spawn in squads mode and 2 in FFA, every 30s).

- Zombie kills continue to give +1 heart, but you no longer get free vision of zombies during overtime.



[CLASS CHANGES]

- Assault's move speed is now +10% instead of +12%.

- Criminal's gang does 65% instead of 50% damage.

- Heavy's health kits now restore 25% of your MISSING health instead of 20% of your MAX health. Save them till the end!

- Caster's cooldowns are now only +60% faster instead of +100%.

- Scientist's bombs now deal +30% damage instead of +20%, blast you higher into the air, and are more frequently found at vendors.

- Scientist's Alchemic Network gives +1 clip and +$1000 instead of +0.5 clips and +$500 per enemy death.



[SKILL CHANGES]

- Fixed a bug where Xray Vision wouldn't show enemies on the minimap.



[CHEMICAL CHANGES]

- Sonar Cells chemical no longer increases your view range. Instead it gives your bullets +7 degrees of seeking.

- Fission Mine's passive no longer gives +1 grenade every 40s. Instead it makes your explosives have +20% explosion size.

- Chemicals now have 2 instead of 3 charges

- Chemicals now cost $6000 instead of $7000

- Chemicals take 2.5 instead of 3.0s to neutralize



[BUG FIXES & OTHER THINGS]

- Updated Chinese and German translations. Thanks guys

Finally! Something to do.

This is GSA's biggest version yet. It completely reworks the progression system, turning 36 skill unlocks into over 1000 skill rarities! We get these rarities by combinging ACID with a new resource called FLASKS. These skill rarities can then be used to equip your favorite skills and create cool skill builds.



This is an important version as it FINALLY gives GSA's biggest fans something to work towards.

The old progression system was very simple. You would unlock 36 skills and then you're done. That only took about 30 hours, and then.. nothing. All the ACID you earned from doing challenges and playing matches couldn't be spent on anything, as there was nothing left to unlock. Some players have stockpiled millions of ACID over the years. Well now we finally have a system to work towards again, and this one will last a LOT longer.

It's more fun when each match gives you real meaningful progress, so lets see how it works!





Here is a summary of the new features, roughly in the order that we use them:



1) New Progression Track: As we earn XP we can move up this track and claim flasks. We can also get ACID, Magnets and other resources. Click your account level up the top left to view this. As you go up the track new types of flasks will become available. These special flasks are more advanced and require strategic thinking to use well.

There are fun milestones to work towards, such as a Legendary Flask at level 100, which is guaranteed to give you a Legendary skill.



2) New Currencies: Most important are Flasks and Magnets. These 2 new currencies are combined with our existing currency of ACID to generate DNA. DNA is what lets us equip our skills to our builds. As you earn more DNA on a skill it will increase in rarity, allowing you to see it more frequently in your skill build.

There are also 2 other currencies called Uranium and Shards, but they don't do anything yet. A shop will be added in a future version. But I've included these currencies now so players can start stockpiling them ahead of time.



3) Flask Inventory: There are different types of flasks. Starter flasks, Legendary flasks, etc. They go into your inventory on the Unlocks page. Here you can see I'm about to open a "Heavy Booster Flask", which costs 500 ACID. This gives a bunch of DNA specifically for the Heavy class.

4) Opening Flasks: Select a flask and spend ACID to open it. This shows a groovy animation and gives you random DNA on skills and classes.

5) Spending Magnets: When opening flasks you can also spend Magnets to guarantee DNA for a specific skill. This is very useful. Normally, Flasks give random DNA (like you would get random cards in other deck building games like Magic or Hearthstone). But Magnets let you control EXACTLY what gets DNA, so you can play with your favorite skills.



6) Class/Skill DNA: Each class has its own skill tree, with DNA on its skills. As you earn DNA your skills become Rare, Epic, then Legendary. These are indicated with blue, purple and yellow skill icons. In this image we can see that the Assault class has got 3 skills up to Legendary status.



7) Skill Builds: Each class has a build of 12 skill slots. There are 2 Legendary slots, 4 Epics slots, and 6 Rare slots. To equip a skill to a slot you first need enough DNA. For example, you need 500 DNA to equip a skill to the Rare slot. 1500 is required for Epic, and 4500 for Legendary.

Here is a closeup of the Sniper class after a few hours of play. Some rarities have already been unlocked, with "Illicit Income" already equipped in a Legendary slot!

Now, how do builds work? We don't see ALL 12 skills each game. That would be very repetitive. Instead, the game will show you 1 Legendary, 1 Epic and 1 Rare. This means that the skills you equip are more likely to appear, but not guaranteed. As there are only 2 Legendary slots, Illicit Income is going to appear in 50% of matches, and the other Legendary in the other 50%. In this case the other Legendary slot is empty, which means that it will be populated with a random skill.

As there are 6 Rare slots however, you only see them 17% of the time. So Legendary is naturally better than Rare. If you really like a skill, you should Magnet it often so it accumulates DNA fast and reaches Legendary status. This will allow you to see if far more often than other skills.






CRIMINAL class unlocks at level 50:
- Gang Warfare: Civs and cops join your gang, following you and shooting enemies. Your max gang size is 3.

- Undercover: You'l disguise yourself as a cop when at full health. Your health bar and any status effects on you are hidden to enemies.

- Five Star Man: The time between cop waves is reduced by 50%. Killing cops restores +30 health.


SCIENTIST class unlocks at level 60:
- Ballistic Bombs: Vendors sometimes sell weapons with 3 clips worth of explosive bullets. These bullets explode on impact, dealing +20% damage.

- Alchemic Network: For each enemy within 30m of your placed chemicals, you gain +1 hp/s. Also, all enemy deaths within range give you +$500 and +0.5 clips worth of Ballistic Bombs.

- Potent Chemicals: Chemical passive and active effects are +50% stronger. Also, when you buy anything from vendors, restore +0.5 chemical charges.


ASSASSIN class unlocks at level 70:
- Dagger Dance: Every 8 seconds there is a 2 second window where your bullets seek towards enemies and deal +20% damage. (Hint, this 2 second window is synced with the music).

- Kill Contracts: After completing a civilian mission, your next kill gives you +1 random vendor upgrade as long as you don't die.

- Mastery: Kills during your 2s Dagger Dance window increase the power of your upgrades by +5% (max +100%). Dying halves this bonus.





- Allies can now pick up the same heart without denying each other.

- Hearts expire after 10 seconds. An indicator now shows how long until loot expires.

- Passive regen is now briefly paused when shifting.

- Cops now have 60hp instead of 30hp, and super cops now have 100hp.

- You only lose 1 wanted star when you die, not all of them.

- Cops now pursue you even during overtime, so be careful!

- At vendors you can pay $500 to remove 1 wanted star at a time.

- Rerolling the skill draft now costs $1000 instead of $2000, but can only be done once per level.

- Rerolling the draft when your build is shown now costs $3000 instead of $5000. You cannot reroll legendary drafts.

- When your build is shown, a new indicator appears above the reroll button showing your other build options. One of these is randomly selected when you click reroll.

- The legendary skill now appears at level 4 instead of 5. You'll usually see a rare or epic at levels 5 and 7 (but sometimes 1 and 2 are possible).

- Rare, epic and legendary skills in the draft are now determined by your skill build instead of being chosen at random. If you haven't got a skill equipped to that slot, it shows a random skill.

- Guns do 10% more damage, with a slight variance in damage deal. EG: USP damage is now 10 to 12, instead of fixed at 10.

- Chemicals now only take 0.35s to activate instead of 1.0s.




- There is a new progression track that lets us claim Flasks, ACID and other things. New types of flasks will appear when you reach higher levels. Scroll up to see what's coming (it starts repeating itself at level 300+).

- Our account level is now based on our level in the new progression track. Your old XP isn't lost though! It'll accelerate your progress until you catch up to your old level.

- Added a new currency called Uranium. Note, this doesn't do anything yet. There will be a shop where you can buy ACID and Magnets in a later version.

- The Deluxe DLC now gives +1500 Uranium. All existing DLC owners have had this added to their accounts.

- Daily challenges now give 400 ACID and 4000 xp instead of 200 ACID and 5000 xp.

- Weekly challenges give more ACID, and the final one gives +50 Uranium.

- Monthly leaderboards give 2x as much ACID. Higher ranks will also give Uranium (300 for Genetic God, 150 for Immortal, 50 for Bio Weapon).

- Monthly leaderboards now show the skill build each person used in their latest match. You can toggle this off to view upcoming rewards instead.

- Removed the all time XP leaderboard. This is now replaced with a monthly XP leaderboard. There's also a monthly ACID earned leaderboard.

- Rearranged a few skills in the skill tree. This only matters because certain flasks unlock ring 3 or ring 4 skills.

- Players now earn +3 magnets for every 3 recruits that they get. You also get +1000 ACID per recruit.

- Players earn +10% bonus end of match XP for playing in a Steam party.

- Skill badges are now based on how many classes have that skill at Legendary status. They don't affect gameplay, just to show off.




- Assault's move speed is now +12% instead of +10%. Reload time is now +60% instead of +70%.

- Sniper's bullets must travel 70m instead of 60m to reach their full +20% damage (a slight nerf).

- Heavy's Crisis Cover only reduces 2hp instead of 3hp of damage. Final Focus only gives +2% rate of fire instead of +3% per level.

- Caster's skills have +100% cooldown speed instead of +70% cooldown speed. They heal 15% instead of 20% of your max hp when cast.

- Caster gets +1 reroll instead of cheaper rerolls. Most classes can only reroll once, but caster can do it twice.

- Caster no longer has the Potent Upgrades perk, instead it gets a new perk called Skill Synergy:

- Caster: After each skill draft that shows your build, gain a random vendor upgrade. This upgrade matches the skill selected if possible.




- Shockwave now reveals enemies for 3 seconds.

- Shift Supply has 1 less shift per level, but the added shift distance is now 60% larger.

- Boots of Travel move speed is 80% what it used to be.

- Rambulance's extra vehicle speed is halved, as it was too hard to drive.

- Spike Trap's vulnerability duration is now 5s instead of 3s. Cooldown is a bit slower.

- Firestorm clusters it's fireballs tighter together, making it more bursty.

- Arcane Power is now renamed to Charged Shot, and has a new icon (in the Weaponry tree).

- Proximity Rounds (and Arcane Power) have better graphics/sounds when fired.

- Venom Shot now does impact damage for each dart, ranging from 4 to 16hp.

- Venom Shot poison rate is 50% as strong as before (the point above makes it buffed overall).

- Poison Trail's duration is 75% as long as it used to be.

- Skill Shots gives 1 extra charge per kill, for all levels.

- Smoke Bomb only heals you when you're at full invisibility.

- Armed Robbery has a 33% higher chance of dropping upgrades when you kill vendors.

- Manic Mechanic does 33% more bonus damage vs vehicles.

- Combo Killer's bonus combo time is 50% as long as before. However, it now also makes victims drop loot when you kill them. There is a 30 to 120% chance to drop loot PER multikill level (so if you get a 10x combo that becomes 300% to 1200%. That's a lot of loot!)




- Fixed a bug where Deluxe people would occasionally not see their cosmetics.

- Updated Chinese and German translations. Thanks guys

Hey all, this version places a larger focus on SURVIVAL by introducing the Survivor's Income.

When you're a survivor you will passively gain cash and XP over time. When you're a zombie however, this income is paused.

You can see your Survivor Income growing up the top-right of the screen. The cash and XP shown will be given to you when you get your next kill. Then the income resets and starts counting up again. This means that you don't have to go crazy hunting for kills, as you'll get paid the same rate anyway.

GSA is a Battle Royale and so it should have high-stakes around dying. But previously death only really mattered during overtime. Now death always matters, and the fastest way to farm is to play wisely and focus on quality kills only.

Enjoy!
bencelot

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[SURVIVOR INCOME]

- The Kill Reward is now called Survivor Income, and it now only grows while you're a survivor.

- It will grow at $1200/min in round 1, $2400/min in round 2, and $3600/min in round 3.

- For XP it grows at 120/min in round 1, 240/min in round 2, and 360/min in round 3.

- During overtime it will grow 2x faster, making it extra beneficial to be alive in this time.

- Survivor Income is capped at $9999 and 999 XP. Make sure you get a kill before it caps out or you'll miss out on income.

- Cash and the Survivor Income are now shown up the top right of the screen, near the buy menu.


[ECONOMY CHANGES]

- We no longer lose 10% of our cash on death. Being a zombie and missing income is the new penalty.

- Supply Drops and Rare Loot now give more cash and XP in round 2, and even more in round 3.

- Streak Points now give +$5000 when you hit 5/10/20/30 instead of 5/10/15/20/25/30.

- Vendor upgrades continue to get more expensive up to a cap of $20,000 instead of $10,000.


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- The final 6 players now get +5/10/15/20/25/30 max hp instead of +100/200/300/400/500/600xp.

- Players once again gain +5 max hp per level instead of +10. However there are more health kits in the map to compensate.

- Max health is now capped at 500 instead of 300.


[VENDOR UPGRADE CHANGES]

- Weapon damage now gives +6% instead of +5% per tier.

- Weapon bullet speed is now +25% instead of +20% per tier.

- Weapon rate of fire is now +8% instead of +6% per tier.


[CLASS CHANGES]

- Caster skill vendor upgrades are once again +50%, not +100%.

- Caster's active skills now restore +20% of MAX health instead of a fixed +30hp when cast. They also get +70% cooldown speed instead of +50%.

- Heavy's shield goes back to -3hp below 50%.

- Heavy's health kits drop half as often, but give twice as much health. Easier to use.

- Scavenger passive healing is now +100% faster instead of +150% faster.

- Assault move speed is now +10% instead of +12%.

- Sniper damage at range is now +20% instead of +25%.


[SKILL CHANGES]

- Executioner damage now ranges from 8 to 32 instead of 10 to 40%.


[WEAPON CHANGES]

- Nailgun clip size is now 30 instead of 25.

Hey all, this version adds a new class called Scavenger!

Scavenger is all about looting. If you collect 50 bits of loot in a row without dying, you will hit the jackpot and suddenly double all of that farm. Scavenger also gets free loot for damaging enemies, and can heal much faster by standing still.

This version also changes how the skill upgrades from vendors work. Skill upgrades no longer affect just one individual skill (eg: +20% Firestorm damage), but instead affect ALL skills that apply (eg: +10% to all damage skills). This is cool because we can make synergies. For example Firestorm, Executioner and Radiate all have the +DAMAGE tag, which means buying that upgrade will buff all 3 of them at once!

Other neat changes are the ability to shoot while driving cars and some changes to the economy.

Enjoy!
bencelot

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[GENERAL CHANGES]

- Class icons are no longer shown during the warmup round.

- Removed the skill stats tracking system that displayed skill medals. These didn't really do anything and added too much confusion. These will be reintroduced in a different way in a later version.

- Daily challenges now give +5000xp instead of +2000 (or +10,000xp if you have Deluxe DLC).


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- 2x as much loot falls into the centre during showdowns.

- Players who join a game halfway through, in R2 or R3 spawn with a tier 1 gun in addition to their USP. Skills are no longer auto-levelled for players.

- When zombies get 4 hearts they will now respawn somewhere nearby, so they can continue their existing fight.

- Players now gain +10 instead of +5 max hp per level, but level up slower and fewer random health kits exist in the map.


[SKILL UPGRADES]

- Skill upgrades purchased from vendors now affect ALL skills, allowing for some cool synergies between skills that share the same tag.

- There are 6 tags you can upgrade: Cooldown Speed, Skill Damage, Skill Duration, Skill Size, Skill Speed, Skill Healing.

- Check the skill tree to see what tags each skill qualifies for. Most skills are affected by multiple tags.

- Vendor upgrades are now more expensive, costing $6000, then $8000, then $10000.


[VEHICLE CHANGES]

- You can now fire guns while driving cars! Doing so gives you +15 degrees of inaccuracy.

- Vehicles have less health and provide a bit less protection to compensate.

- Improved vehicle netcode. It shouldn't rubberband if your car explodes anymore.

- More vehicles spawn in the map and bots drive them more frequently.


[ECONOMY CHANGES]

- When we die, instead of losing 10% of our kill reward, we lose 10% of our unspent cash.

- Missions no longer give upgrades, instead they give a fixed +$3000 and +300xp per mission.

- Getting 5 streak points now gives $5000 instead of 500xp.

- Tightened up the levelling curve, slowing down the rate we level up, and giving new skills on levels 1/2/4/5/7 only.


[NEW CLASS: SCAVENGER]

- Added the 5th class called Scavenger. Scavenger is all about looting the map, getting dangerously close to enemies, but trying to survive. It's 3 perks are:

- Copy Coin: If you collect 50 loot items without dying, you'll duplicate all of them. Dying will halve the amount currently collected.

- Pickpocket: Damaging enemies makes them drop random loot, on a 8 second cooldown. The closer you are the more loot they drop.

- Static Aid: Your passive regen will recharge and heal +150% faster whenever you stand still.


[CLASS CHANGES]

- Heavy's ROF increases by +3% instead of +2% per level.

- Heavy's shield will now also activate when standing still.

- Caster loses the Skill Lottery perk that gave you a level 1 legendary. Instead, the new skill-based vendor upgrades are +50% more powerful.


[SKILL CHANGES]

- All skills have been buffed slightly, by making their level 1 version stronger. For example Vampirism used to give +4/8/12/etc healing. Now it starts at +8/12/16/etc.


[WEAPON CHANGES]

- USP fire rate is now 360 instead of 300

- Deagle DPS remains the same, but now has 25hp x 240 rpm instead of 20hp x 300 rpm (more impactful)

- UZI bullet speed is now 85 instead of 75m/s

- SPAS spread is now 20 instead of 22

- AK47 damage is now 10 instead of 11, but fire rare is 515 instead of 450 (feels better). AK47 recoil is worse.

- Ruger fire rate is now 80 instead of 72

- Barrett fire rate is now 48 instead of 50

- Tasers fire rate is now 360 instead of 300

- Nailgun fire rate is now 900 instead of 720, with damage at 9 instead of 10. DPS is thus 135 instead of 120 (highest in the game!) But the clip size is only 25 instead of 30.

- Seek Rifle rpm is now 400 instead of 360, bringing DPS up to 107 instead of 96

- Minigun clip size is now 50 instead of 40


[BUG FIXES]

- Fixed the max wanted steam achievement (for real this time)

Hey all, hope you had a great new years break. Just a small balance patch.

FYI, these balance changes are based on feedback in Discord, but also on data collected from every player and every match. If a skill gets a higher win rate than average it might get a nerf. Same for weak skills getting buffs. Over the last year I've seen that the skills are getting close to a consistent, balanced win-rate. Yay science!

The other interesting change this version is that rare loot is now visible on the minimap, and gives more XP too. It will show with a little question mark icon, giving players a new type of objective to fight over.

Enjoy!
bencelot

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[GENERAL CHANGES]

- The score chart now automatically displays between rounds.

- Warmup rounds are a bit faster.

- Changed the colour of enemies from red to slightly purplishly red.


[GAMEPLAY CHANGES]

- Pressing E on regular civilians now makes them follow you.

- When a zombie picks up their 4th heart piece, they will remain for another 0.5s before they revive. This gives time to pickup other loot.

- Rerolling now costs $2000 for regular drafts and $5000 for boosted drafts. However, if you reroll on a boosted draft you are now guaranteed to get that same rarity after rerolling.

- Rare loot crates now give an extra +100xp and show up on the minimap when they're active.

- Heart fragments now give +50xp instead of +20xp for survivors. However, they no longer drop on kill for survivors.

- Players now get 10 instead of 5 score per level up.

- The skill point leveling curve is now 15% slower.

- Our second legendary skill appears at level 12 instead of 15.

- Bots are less accurate with snipers and M4A1.


[CLASSES CHANGES]

- Assault no longer has +20% bigger shifts, nor does it reduce combat slowdown. Instead, Assault has a new perk which makes it reload weapons +70% faster.

- Sniper's bullets now have +20% range instead of +5m range (+20% works out to +10m range on normal rifles).

- Heavy's health kits appear 20% instead of 15% of the time, and will pop out directly behind you if possible, also more consistently.

- Caster no longer gains extra cash or XP from kills. Instead skill draft rerolls are 50% cheaper ($1000 instead of $2000, or $2500 instead of $5000 if boosted).


[SKILL BUFFS]

- Self Repair takes 2.0 instead of 3.0s to heal

- Illicit Income gain per wanted level is +3% instead of +2% per level

- Cluster Bomb throws nades 0.1s more frequently

- Force Fields bounced bullets deal 10% more damage and steer a bit faster

- Blade Fury slashing damage is now 100hp/s instead of 60hp/s

- Invis only does reduced damage for 0.7 instead of 1.0s

- Rambulance post-vehicle healing duration is now 5s instead of 4s, and regen is +5hp/s for all levels

- Shockwave cooldown is 2s faster for all levels

- Medical Supplies now fires loot at you from player kills too


[SKILL NERFS]

- Vampirism healing gains 4% instead of 5% per level

- Clip Magnet seeking is 2 less per level

- Proximity Rounds charging range is now 30 instead of 40m

- Bullet Time slows enemy bullets down to 20% instead of 16% speed, and doesn't seek as much at higher levels.