Skillshot City News

We've got a groovy new chat wheel!

Simply hold 'C' to bring up the chat wheel, and then select one of 8 pre-made messages. This feature is handy when you want to issue quick commands to your team-mates ("Follow me!" "Okay"). The 8 messages are also auto-translated, allowing you to communicate with people who speak a different language.

Enjoy!
Ben.

What is a perk? Perks are powerful passive buffs that last all game. They are a bit like skills, but instead of leveling them up, you will be given 2 perks at the start of each match automatically. There are 36 perks in total, spread across the 6 skill trees, and they do all sorts of things. Here are a few examples:

• Genetic Heart (Healing Tree): Gain +20 max hitpoints.
  
• Evasive Shot (Defense Tree): You can fire your weapons while shifting.
  
• Heat Seeking (Weaponry Tree): Your bullets will steer towards enemies.
  
• Boom Box (Burst Damage Tree): Crates have a 30% chance to give you a free grenade.
  
• Skill Lottery (DOT Tree): Start each match with a free level 3 skill.
  
• Outlaw (Utility Tree): You will never lose your wanted level, even when you die.
  

There are 6 perks per skill tree, and to unlock the higher tier perks in that tree you first need a certain number of skill medals. To get skill medals you need to use the skills within that tree, and level up their individual medals by completing skill-specific challenges.



This screenshot should make it clearer. Here we are looking at the perks in the Defense Tree. I have unlocked 3 perks in this tree already, but in order to unlock the 4th (Driveby) I first need to earn 30 medals within the Defense tree. I currently only have 14, but I can choose to use the Defense skills while playing to earn medals faster.

This system exists for 2 reasons:
1) It makes build creation far more interesting, as you now rewarded for embracing a particular skill tree to unlock the perks that best suit your custom playstyle.
2) It encourages you to try new skills, as you will earn medals faster at the earlier levels, and thus the best way to get medals is to try new skills within your tree of choice.




In addition to the 36 entirely brand new perks, the skill tree itself has been rearranged. All of the add-on skills have been removed and rolled into their base skills (eg, Plasma Ball now automatically shoots out multiple balls like Fire Storm used to do). And instead, we get 6 brand new passive skills!

- SHRAPNEL: "Grenades and other explosives deal more damage, and molotov's burn for longer."

- FLAMING BULLETS: "Your bullets set enemies on fire, dealing damage and delaying their passive regen."

- BOOTS OF TRAVEL: "Makes you run faster whenever you aren't firing your gun"

- BLADE MAIL: "Protects you while you reload, and protects more based on how empty your clip was. After reloading, your next bullet deals bonus damage equal to the damage blocked."

- SKILL SHOTS: "Increases all forms of non-bullet damage (skills, grenades, cars, knife, etc). If you get a non-bullet kill, you'll gain a charge that gives extra damage. Charges reset on death."

- ASSASSINATE: "A random enemy will be revealed to you in the map, and you will deal bonus damage against them. If you kill them you'll earn extra cash and XP, then get a new target."




Gameplay has been improved in countless other ways, but here are the 3 biggest changes to the BR formula:

1) Rounds only last 3 minutes instead of 5 minutes: With 3 rounds and overtime this gives a snappy 14 minute match instead of 20 minutes. It's not just faster, but the gameplay is more chaotic, more intense, and every second counts.

2) Skill points are rarer, but more powerful: Instead of reaching level 18, a good player should reach level 10. But we'll be just as powerful now due to all the extra +2 skill point bonuses you get in the draft. This focuses on quality over quantity, and lets us spend more time shooting and less time clicking skills.

3) Players can revive after overtime: A special heart crate will fall down 1 minute after overtime, to give all the zombies in the server 1 last opportunity to revive. But only 1 person can get the heart, so you better prepare! This keeps players always active and always with a sense of hope to win right up until the very last second.

That's it for this version, as always please leave feedback either here or on Discord.

Enjoy!





--- NEW PERKS SYSTEM ---

- Added a whole new perks system!

- Perks are passive buffs that you select before the match begins. EG: +20 max hitpoints, +10% bullet damage, or cheaper weapons from vendors.

- There are 36 perks in total, and they are organised into the 6 skill trees. So there are 6 Healing perks, 6 Defense perks, etc.

- You can enable 1 perk per skill tree, which creates a pool of 6 perks. Then when the game begins, 2 of those perks will be randomly selected and given to you for free.

- To unlock new perks you must first collect a certain number of SKILL MEDALS within that skill tree. And you get skill medals by using skills within that tree.

- All the perks are equally balanced (hopefully!). They don't get any more powerful as you reach higher tiers, but they do get more EXTREME in their behaviour and playstyle.

- Check it out in the skills tree. Perks are shown in green, and you can click on the 6 green buttons to open the Perks menu for that tree.


--- REWORKED SKILL TREE ---

- The skill tree no longer restricts the unlocking of skills based on rings, giving you more flexibility in your build creation.

- Rearranged a bunch of skills in the skill tree, putting simpler skills up front and making them cheaper (600 instead of 1000 coins).

- Removed every add-on skill in the game as they didn't work well with drafting. Instead, many have been rolled into their base skills, as we have 8 brand new skill instead.

- We can no longer set a skill to appear at level 10. Instead, that slot is used to set a perk to appear at the start of the game.

- The medal requirements for every skill have been rebalanced to ensure all skills can earn medals at a similar pace (as these really matter for perks now).

- F2P players can take their skill medals all the way up to level 10 instead of level 4.


--- ACCOUNT PROGRESSION CHANGES ---

- Account level ups now give +100 instead of +25 coins.

- Reworked the curve that determines what our player level is, resulting in everyone being lower level than before. It was just too fast before. No one has lost any XP from this, but you might have to wait a while to get back your level based cosmetics.


--- MAJOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- Each round now lasts 3 minutes instead of 5 minutes. This makes matches last about 14 instead of 20 minutes.

- Slowed down the in-game leveling curve, but increased the amount of +2 bonus skill points (same power level, but fewer clicks required).

- Added one final heart crate that lands one minute after overtime, giving players a last chance to rez.

- Reworked the scoring system in BR, the main change is that only round 3 gives bonus placement score.

- Instead of capturing chemicals which then expire 10s later, you'll simply destroy the chemical instantly and get $500 instead.

- We can now only carry 1 chemical at a time instead of 3. But all chemicals are now more powerful.


--- OTHER GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- Kill Reward once again loses money when you die, but only 20% instead of 100%.

- The max hp cap is now 300 instead of 200.

- The skill draft is simplified for new accounts, showing at first only 1 draft option, then 2, then 3 once you've got 10 skills enabled.

- You can sell skill points for $1000 instead of $500.

- Players can now keep their wanted level between rounds.

- Survival mode gives -10 score instead of -1 score per death.

- You can now throw grenades while shifting.

- If you have 3 grenades and then buy a molotov for $500, you will get 3 molotovs instead of just 1 (effectively trading in your nades).


--- WEAPON CHANGES ---

- Blast Cannon no longer has the charge up mechanic (but is now a bit better at launching you up into the air)


--- CHEMICAL CHANGES ---

- All chemicals restore charges every 90 instead of 150s.

- Chemicals take 3s instead of 2s to capture.

- All chemicals now cost $10,000.

- Warp Field passive now boosts shift speed by 30% instead of 25%.

- Sonar Cells now gives 10s of global vision instead of 0.5s.

- Sonar Cells passive now gives 2x the view range it used to.

- Goo Trap passive gives +4 instead of +2 meters jump height.

- Fission Mine damage is now 75 instead of 60hp.


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Illicit Income no longer restores health, but it can now restore cash vs cops as well.

- Smoke Bomb is moved to the healing tree. It now heals you by 10 hp/s while you stand inside it.

- Frenzy now also boosts your movement speed by +20/30/40/60%.

- Plasma Ball is now called Fire Storm, and is merged with its old add-on. It now fires 3/4/5/7 fireballs.

- Infection's trail effect has been added into Venom Shot itself, allowing venom to infect other players.

- Counter Spell now called Automatic Armor. It now treats all forms of damage equally.

- Hypnotic Army follower health is now +30hp for all levels.

- Phasic Bullets now called Bouncing Bullets and bounced bullets do a lot more damage.

- Skill Shots is now called Killer Cooldowns.

- Force Field now has more shield health and movement speed.

- Soul Drop no longer disables enemies weapons, but instead restores your health when you land it.

- Manic Mechanic reworked to no longer be about driving cars, but instead destroying them: "Deal extra damage vs vehicles, and gain bonus cash and XP for destroying them."


--- NEW SKILLS ---

- Shrapnel: "Grenades and other explosives deal more damage, and molotov's burn for longer."

- Flaming Bullets: "Your bullets set enemies on fire, dealing damage and delaying their passive regen."

- Boots of Travel: "Makes you run faster whenever you aren't firing your gun"

- Blade Mail: "Protects you while you reload, and protects more based on how empty your clip was. After reloading, your next bullet deals bonus damage equal to the damage blocked."

- Skill Shots: "Increases all forms of non-bullet damage (skills, grenades, cars, knife, etc). If you get a non-bullet kill, you'll gain a charge that gives extra damage. Charges reset on death."

- Assassinate: "A random enemy will be revealed to you in the map, and you will deal bonus damage against them. If you kill them you'll earn extra cash and XP, then get a new target."


--- NEW PERKS ---

There are 36 of them, so I won't list them here. Go check them out in the skill tree!

Hey all!

This version reworks shifting to make fights cleaner and movement smoother. There are two big changes:

1) You can no longer fire your gun while shifting (cleaner fights)
2) We get shift charges far more often (smoother movement)

Previously, players could shoot and shift at the same time. And good players realised that you could spam shifts every fight and be almost impossible to hit. This made fights quite messy. But now, players must make a tactical choice of when to shoot and when to shift, and use shifts to reposition themselves next to cover before they attack.

Another upside is we can all have way more shifts, as there is no risk of people spamming them during fights anymore. So movement in general is a lot faster, and no longer needs annoying penalties to discourage shifting in combat either. So shift as much as you like! (Just do it smart while in combat).

Other highlights this version are a new warmup mode (with random skills instead of guns), new zombie betting (where you can bet multiple times per round), and we no longer lose our Kill Reward cash when we die.

As always feedback on Steam or Discord is welcome.
Enjoy!

----

--- SHIFTING REWORK ---

- You can no longer shoot while shifting (skills still work though)

- Players take 20% less damage while shifting

- Shift charges restore faster (every 0.8s), and don't recharge slower in combat

- Shift charges no longer get smaller if you use too many of them or during combat


--- GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- Dying no longer loses your kill reward. To get a higher kill reward, stay alive during overtime to get a 2x speed boost not available to zombies.

- Zombie Betting awards more XP and allows for multiple bets per round, making it a good source of farm for zombies (and a bit of a rubberband mechanic).

- The Final 6 Leaderboard no longer gives XP, it just gives 5/10/15/20/25/30 score per round.

- Players move 10% faster

- In survival mode you get 2 missions per round instead of 1


--- GENERAL CHANGES ---

- Survival difficulty modifiers are now all immediately available (to DLC owners). You no longer need to unlock them 1 at a time.

- The Deluxe DLC gives 2x rewards to daily challenges instead of 4x. However it now also doubles the coins you get from round wins and level ups.

- Daily challenges now completely reset every day at 0:00 UTC.

- Daily challenges now give a flat 150 kill coins each (600 total), instead of 50/100/150/200 (500 total).

- Warmup Round now gives players a single level 4 SKILL instead of weapon.


--- WEAPON CHANGES ---

- Reload times are 20% faster.

- Weapon swapping times are 20% faster.

- Buffed sniper range by 10%.


--- CHEMICAL CHANGES ---

- Chemicals placed into the map once again last for 10 mins instead of 2 mins.

- Warp Field now costs $5000 instead of $4000


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Mana Shield protection is now 90/85/90/75% instead of 80/75/70/65%, however mana shield now also protects you while shifting.

- Bullet Time duration is now 4s instead of 3s.

- Plasma Damage slightly reduced.

- Venom travel speed and range slightly reduced.

Hey all! To celebrate the new version, this week everyone will earn 2X XP. The Deluxe Edition will also be 30% off if you're interested!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2194030/Gene_Shift_Auto_Deluxe_Edition/


Since going F2P it has become very clear - Gene Shift Auto is complicated!

Over the years many mechanics have been added, and in hindsight not all of them provided enough gameplay depth to justify their complexity. There was just a bit too much going on. Gene Shift Auto should be easy to learn and hard to master, and that's what this version hopes to achieve.

So a number of mechanics have been removed this version (from PvP, they still exist in Survival mode). We no longer need to worry about backup lives, nor do we have to grind missions non-stop without a moments rest. Critical boolets were neat but didn't really add enough so they're gone too. Only mechanics that really ADD something to gameplay remain. But by far the biggest change of all is...




Guns have unlimited ammo now. You no longer need to rebuy ammo, and you'll never run out mid-combat. To compensate reload times have been increased and cash drop rates are less as we'll no longer be spending cash throughout the game. Vendors no longer need to sell ammo, and so they have a much needed extra weapon slot instead. Ammo management is a great mechanic in simpler games, but in GSA we have far more important things to worry about, such as...




The cops are more dangerous now with SWAT vans. These kick in at wanted level 3 (special forces kick in at wanted level 4). The Van is tough with a bunch of hitpoints, so you can't just blow it up before it arrives. Each van will charge you down and pop out 4 cops at the last minute. You could say that these police are actually FASHION police, because we now have...




The cosmetics page has been reworked and a bunch of new cosmetics have been added for those who own the Deluxe Edition. A nice way to show off your support for the game. Some big ones are:

- Ability to change your shirt color
- Ability to change your bullet trails
- Rainbow effect when you shift




A few new skills have been added too. Last version saw the addition of Hypnotic Army, which allows you to hypnotise nearby cops and civilians to become your minions.

Now we have a new skill called Clip Magnet, which makes your bullets seek towards enemies based on how many crates you've recently opened. It also makes the crates you destroy shoot their loot towards you, so you can YOINK a supply drop from across the screen!




Most of this version is just polish. Polish polish polish! There have been tens of thousands of new players join since going F2P and hundreds of lessons learned from observing them. The changelog below has the details but some fun highlights are: Civs now run away from gunfire; the ability to refund your weapon for 100% of its initial purchase value; Sonar Cells reworked so when you stand inside it you get global map vision; QoL improvements, skill balancing, bug fixes and more!




Now that F2P is done, and this version has polished up (most of) the issues found by the new F2P audience, I will be free to actually do some solid dev again! And I'm very excited about the next major feature, which will be turning the city into a giant GTA-style playground.

The city right now is too plain. There aren't enough land marks and there aren't any ways to interact with the map. This is what I want to change. Lets add a police station to farm cops at, a hospital to respawn at, hidden rooms to explore, fun parkor puzzles and turbo boosters everywhere. Super fast moving jump pads that launch you directly into giant spinning blades of death. Should be fun.

Anyway enjoy the version!
Ben.





--- MAJOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- All weapons now have INFINITE AMMO (you still need to reload, but never rebuy).

- Removed critical bullets from the game.

- The concept of backup lives has been removed from PvP game modes. When a survivor collects a heart they get $200 instead.

- You can only do 3 missions per game, one unlocking per round, and missions are no longer shared with allies.


--- DLC CHANGES (STUFF FREE PLAYERS NOW GET ACCESS TO) ---

- All players can now equip a skill to appear at level 1, which was previously a DLC exclusive. Skill builds are more fair this way.

- All players now get access to all 4 daily challenges instead of just 2, allowing for 500 coins per day (instead of 250).

- Free players can now play survival mode once per day instead of once per week (DLC is of course still unlimited).

- All players can now earn kill coins based on their placement at the end of a match.

- Added a new cosmetic to change your pants color


--- DLC CHANGES (STUFF DLC PLAYERS NOW GET) ---

- The Deluxe Edition now makes skills 2x cheaper to unlock (skills previously cost 500, now 1000 for F2P and 500 for DLC. F2P rate should be almost the same due to 2x as many daily challenges)

- Instead of DLC giving a one time +3000 coins, it now makes daily challenges give 4x the XP and coins.

- Reworked the cosmetics page and made half of the cosmetics DLC exclusives. This includes a few existing cosmetics (like the Cape).

- Added a new cosmetic to change shirt color (DLC)

- Added a new cosmetic to change bullet trail color (DLC)

- Added a new cosmetic to show zombie wings when a zombie (DLC)

- Added a new cosmetic to make your shifts cycle through the rainbow (DLC)


--- MINOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES ---

- Added a SWAT Van to be driven by cops on wanted level 3. It's like a cop car, but with 600hp instead of 200hp and it will carry 4 instead of 2 cops.

- Replaced the reload speed perk with ammo consumption perk (-20/30/40% ammo used)

- Kill Reward resets to $200 instead of $100, making double kills pay more cash

- Heart crates no longer give bonus score or health. Just 8 heart fragments.

- Survivors no longer see a hud arrow to the nearest heart crate.

- Supply drops now only come once per round instead of 3 times. It will start at 3:00 and land at the 2:00 minute mark

- Supply drops give +20 score instead of +10, and drop better loot.

- Perks from supply drops can now be shared amongst 2 allies.

- The minimap now shows mission gives, and no longer shows helicopters or loot spawners.

- Improved vehicle handling and reverse speed.

- Multikills increase slower. Instead of +200/300/400/500% it is now +150/200/225/250/275/300%.

- The big cashpiles now give $1000 instead of $2000, an the big mutation orbs give 100xp instead of 200xp.

- Civs are more easily scared by nearby gunfire.

- Shift range is reduced slightly while in combat, to prevent people spamming all over the place.


--- GENERAL CHANGES ---

- QoL improvement where you can hold down the fire button and automatically resume shooting after switching weapons.

- Survival mode now has 1 less round (so standard = 3 and hardcore = 4). Survival AI is made harder.

- To incentivize bigger and more varied builds, players now gain +1% XP for each skill they have enabled, in-game. This is capped at +30%.

- Rearranged a few skills in the skill tree, and changed the rules so that you must complete the inner rings before you can do the outer ones.

- The crosshair now shows 3 circles underneath it that correspond to your 3 active skills, and indicates their cooldowns.

- Reworked the tutorial with a cool new scripted cop shootout. Try it out!


--- WEAPON CHANGES ---

- When upgrading your gun you can get a 100% refund instead of 50%.

- Superweapons deal 10% less damage on average, and cost $25,000 instead of $20,000.

- Increased reload time of all guns by 0.5s (to offset the new infinite ammo).

- Reduced bullet ranges when aiming vertically slightly.

- Reduced sniper range from 100 to 70, and buffed bullet speed slightly to compensate.


--- CHEMICAL CHANGES ---

- You can carry a maximum of 3 chemicals at once instead of 4.

- Removed Supply Beacon, Laser Trip Wire, Skill Stimulant, Damage Stimulant, and Synthetic Shop from the game (for now).

- Sonar Cells no longer reveals enemies in a 60m radius around you. Instead, it will give you global map vision while you stand inside it.

- Goo Trap passive is changed to increase your jump height by 2m.

- Chemicals take 3s to capture instead of 2s.

- Chemical cooldowns are now 150s instead of 180s.

- Placed chemicals only exist for 2 minutes instead of 20 minutes.

- Capturing a chemical now sets its expiry time to 20s instead of 60s.

- Warp Field no longer appears in CTF or Conquest modes.


--- SKILL CHANGES ---

- Rapid Refill (addon for Frenzy) has been removed from the game.

- Instead we have a new skill called Clip Magnet, which makes your bullets seek faster and makes loot crates throw their loot towards you.

- X-Ray Vision range is buffed to 30/50/80/120, but is only able to show you the closest 1/2/3/5 enemies

- Energize range is now +10/15/20/30 instead of +15/25/35/50%.

- Self Repair cooldown is now 15/14/13/12 instead of 15s flat.

- Phase drifting now shows a red ring around you to indicate top speed and bonus damage.

- Radiate now shows green if allied, red if enemy, and has better vertical hit detection.

- Radiate burst damage is buffed to 20/30/40/60, and the linger duration is fixed at 3s

- Chemical Boost no longer deals damage.

- Invisibility once again deals reduced damage. 75% for 0.5s after leaving invis. To compensate the reveal range is reduced from 25 to 15m.

- Critical Shifting damage reduce to +10/15/20/25%.

- Smoke Bomb can now be cast where your target is instead of your position.


--- BUG FIXES ---

- Fixed a bug where skill medallions weren't showing at the end of the game.

Valve has fixed the issue and the play button now works.

I want to apologise to the thousands of people who visited the store page yesterday. This was a very unusual bug and confused a lot of players. A lot of people messaged me thinking that their country or region had been locked out, or wondering if they personally did something wrong. But nope, it was an issue on Valve's end that affected everyone.

On a personal level that was a stressful 30 hours! There was a huge spike in store page visits yesterday, over 120,000 people, but not a single download. Bit of a rough start, but all good.

Anyway I'm going to copy paste the previous Steam announcement now, as this one will become the default message, and people need to know what will happen to their accounts. So if you read the previous announcement you can skip all this :)




Gene Shift Auto is now F2P. This will massively grow our playerbase, get fresh faces into our community and allow you to play with your friends for free!

I want to thank everyone who has played the game so far. I couldn't have done this without you. Seeing you guys log in every day gave me the motivation to keep going all these years. We've been in Early Access for 5 years and a lot has changed, and I'm pumped that we've finally hit this massive milestone.




The new business model is simple. Multiplayer is Free to Play, and the singleplayer/coop survival mode is given to people who own the Deluxe Edition DLC. (In addition to other goodies like bonus challenges, cosmetics, kill coins etc). Nothing has really changed here, as this is how the Deluxe Edition already worked.

Anyone who has ever spent real money on the game in the past should automatically have the Deluxe Edition in their Steam account. This is worth $15 USD same as the game was previously. So no one will be losing money from this change. If you don't have the DLC please contact me ASAP via discord or the Steam forums.

Anyone who got the game during a free giveaway in the past will continue to play for free with all the same features as before, just now we will have far more people to shoot at!




Additionally, as thanks for your support all these years, all existing players have been given +2000 kill coins. You've also been given an exclusive cosmetic only available to accounts created before the F2P date. Log in to claim these rewards now!


To celebrate this big change all players will earn double XP for the next 7 days. So tell your friends and come online for a game. Slaughter some nubs, level up fast, and see if you can become the last man standing!

Much love,
bencelot.