Deceit News

Hello Test Subjects!

On July 1st we are releasing Deceit’s biggest update of 2021 so far, which is the culmination of all of our work since the last core update we released back in December. Thank you to everyone for your feedback in the last few months, and for your patience as we’ve taken the time to make sure we don’t rush these changes out.



Since December’s update one of the most heavily requested changes is for us to bring back running between the floors, avoiding an immersion-breaking teleport. So we’re bringing it back - but with a twist. Once all of the power has been collected, doors to the next area will open, however lights in the current area won’t turn back on. Terrors are still free to run wild and execute straggling innocents, but in doing so they risk their identity being found by the remaining players. Once a player gets to a marked door, they will be transitioned to a linked door at the next area, where they can either wait to see who trails behind them, or make a dash to get first dibs on their favourite items.



The area that’s had the most focus this update is changes to the night time combat system. With our December update we made changes that increase the amount of Terror vs Innocent combat during the night. However, we hadn’t yet improved the combat enough to create frequent compelling chase sequences, and make it clear enough what’s happening. We’ve often seen games played at the extremes - either Terrors are running rampant and are able to make multiple kills on the first night, or innocents are able to utilise their light items and fill generators before the Terrors can even get near to anyone. We’ve now made a bunch of changes we hope will allow for both teams to be able to juke and outplay each other accordingly. Below is a shortlist of some of the changes coming as part of this update:

• Terrors now have a lot more health, however can also be “staggered” by damage.
  
• Bullets now do less damage to Terrors, but light items are now power weapons that pack a real punch.
  
• Armour is now only obtainable as a crate reward, and has been reworked to deflect damage to a terror, allowing an innocent a chance to avoid being executed.
  
• Stamina has been removed - and movement speeds of innocents and terrors have been adjusted to account for this.
  
• When reaching zero health, Terrors are no longer downed, and are instead banished to the vents, where they can choose where to respawn from.
  
• Generators no longer respawn - giving the Terrors a chance to defend the last few, whilst the innocents must cause enough distraction to ensure they can get the power back on.
  
• New interaction animations have been added throughout, to make things smoother and more intuitive.

In order to make these changes viable we’ve also adjusted some of the terror abilities to make them both more fun to use and pack a punch when you need them to.

• ‘Howl’ (Werewolf) - This ability now interrupts players as well as disorientating them - particularly useful to stop an innocent from being able to complete a generator.
  
• ‘Frozen Fury’ (Yeti) - When activated, the Yeti gains a damage shield that, after a second, decays over a second. Whilst the shield is active you will also not be affected by any new slows. Note: this shield is strong enough for a full-health Yeti to be able to tank a trap.
  
• ‘Swarm’ (Vampire) - When activated, the Vampire throws out a bat which marks a spot on the map for a period of time. Whilst the marker is still active, the vampire has a slight movement speed buff, and re-activating ‘Swarm’ will teleport you back to that spot on the map.

Outside of this there are a plethora of other changes that we’ve made to help immerse you into Deceit, a few of the key ones include:

• Moving the Antidote and Lethal Injection from Double objectives to regular reward crates.
  
• A revamp of multiple UI elements, including a new font.
  
• DDoS protection technology that will aid in hardening our server infrastructure to attacks.
  
• The ability to end the game in one of the first two areas if no Infected remain alive.
  
• New custom options based on community requests.

In the lead up to the release of this update we’ll be running one final Beta test that all players are eligible to join. If you’d like to try an early version of this update out, join our Discord server and react to the message in the #get-roles channel. The dates for the beta are as follows:

Friday 25th June - 8-11pm BST
Saturday 26th June - 12-3pm BST

From then, we’ll be looking at your feedback and polishing the update ready for release on July 1st, which is when the ranked season will also be resetting.

See you in-game,
The Baseline Team
Discord | Twitter

[h3]Patch Notes[/h3]

• The season has been reset, restarting the Ranked ladder and refreshing the Perk Tree. The next season reset is scheduled for the 24th of June.
  
• Fixed a bug that'd cause some players to never be able to load into the Tutorial.
  
• Several in-game translations have been updated thanks to our Community Translators.
  
• Those that participated in our Gameplay Beta last weekend have been awarded the in-game Beta Tester emblem & 5 Tokens as a thank you.
  

See you in-game!
The Baseline Team
Twitter | Discord

Hello Test Subjects!

As we talked about in our last post, we’re building a major gameplay update for Deceit based on all of your games and feedback since our December update.

Last weekend we ran our first beta: thank you to everyone who joined us in playing on the test servers and filled out our feedback survey! If you were unable to make it, a list of the patch notes can be found here.

We had set a goal of achieving 70%+ positive or neutral player feedback before we’ll be happy to move forward with pushing these changes into live. The results of the survey showed that we achieved this with 72% of players responding positive or neutral to the overall beta changes. This also correlates with the end of game ‘smiley face’ survey of which 79% of responses were rated at least 3 out of 5.

[h3]The Next Beta[/h3]

We’re very happy with the positive feedback, but we’ve also looked through many suggested improvements, and we have a few more changes we think are worth testing before we release everything into live. This means we’ll be running one more beta since we want to make sure nothing is rushed into the live game. We are working on the following areas for the second beta (though some may be subject to change):

[h3]Generators[/h3]

There were many concerned comments about being locked into looking at a generator whilst it is being taken. In the second beta we will introduce an interactive animation for turning on a generator (similarly to opening the escape door), to make this feel smoother. In addition to this, we’re going to investigate allowing you to look around a limited amount whilst you are performing this interaction.

Secondly, there was a balancing problem in this beta where Terrors were often able to camp the last two generators that the innocents are trying to take to complete the night period. We’ll be addressing this twofold: tweaking the positioning of vents and generators to improve the map design to make the terrors weaker in this case, and adding one additional generator on the ground floor, so the terrors will have to defend three generators before the first night period ends.

[h3]Running To The Next Floor[/h3]

One of the most common pieces of feedback we get from people who miss the classic game mode is the immersion of running to the next floor after a night period is over. For the next beta, we’ll be adding in a new transition feature that mixes the old with the new. Once the night period ends, terrors will be de-transformed and the gas will start. Players won’t be able to talk and will still be in their ghost character form. All players must then run to an escape door for that area which will, when entered, transition them to a linked entrance door on the next floor. If a player takes too long to move to the next floor, the gas will knock them out and they’ll automatically spawn at one of the entrance doors in the next area.

In addition to this, if all of the terrors are eliminated before the end of the first or second night, the escape door on that floor will end the game and the innocents will win there, instead of having to proceed to the very end of the game.

[h3]Terror Abilities[/h3]

With the changes to combat that have been made in the first beta, the Yeti and Vampire’s abilities need to be reworked to be aligned with the new combat system. Please note: these are still very early in development and highly subject to change.

‘Frozen Fury’ gives the Yeti a damage shield that decays over a period of time. Note: this shield is strong enough to stop the Yeti from being downed by a trap.

‘Swarm’ throws out a bat which marks a spot on the map for a period of time. Whilst the marker is still active, the vampire has a slight movement speed buff, and re-activating ‘Swarm’ will teleport you back to that spot on the map.

[h3]Terror Senses[/h3]

The current terror ESP outline system interferes with the day time gunplay too much. We are going to improve the visuals and re-work the “making noise” system for the next beta.

[h3]Blood[/h3]

We think that we can improve the visual clarity of the blood bar, and of the blood bags in the map for the benefit of new players. We are also investigating ways that we can make the blood system work better when you are the last infected player left alive (e.g. a buff if you collect enough blood for two executions).

[h3]Objectives[/h3]

There was mixed feedback on the change to the lethal injection (to be on a single-player objective). We want to test this more, since we have seen it introduce some very engaging gameplay. We are looking to introduce shoot-to-disable on crates (similar to the way you could shoot the levers in the classic game mode).

--

And of course, in addition to all of these updates above there will be a variety of miscellaneous polish, bug fixes, balancing changes, further performance optimisations, and a new first person pistol animation set. We’ll also be adding The Forest to the map rotation, which will include various lighting improvements.



Want to take part? Similarly to the first, the second beta will run 2 play sessions as follows:

Friday 4th June - 8-11pm BST
Saturday 5th June - 12-3pm BST

Be sure to keep an eye on our socials where we’ll be posting more information between now and then!

See you in-game,
The Baseline Team
Discord | Twitter

Over the last few months we’ve been working non-stop on the gameplay of Deceit with the help of your feedback. Our changes last December were met with mixed feedback and we knew we had a lot to work on. We’re now ready to test some of the most heavy hitting changes that you’ve been asking for. Some features inspired by the classic game mode, but we’ve also worked on some brand new improvements, all based on detailed review of your suggestions and what’s happening in your games.

We will be using our Beta program on Steam to test these changes. However, this time things will only go into the live game once we’ve had more time to polish them and the majority of the community agrees they’re ready. This means we’ll be running a public poll after the beta session, and will make a follow-up post with responses to all of your suggestions, and details on our next steps.

These gameplay changes have focussed on three major areas:

• Night Combat - interactions between humans and terrors
  
• Senses - what is highlighted to you through lighting, sound and UI
  
• Immersion - how you interact with objects, items and move through the game

Alongside these major areas of focus, we’ve made miscellaneous changes to items and objectives to support them. Of course, we will also be continuing to release quick fixes and improvements from player suggestions, which will go straight into the live game through our regular updates.



Want to take part? Join the Discord and react to the message in the #get-roles channel! The gameplay sessions are as follows:

Friday 21st May - 8-11pm BST
Saturday 22nd May - 12-3pm BST

[h2]FAQ[/h2]

How does this differ from the last betas?
The beta will still have some rough edges, but we’ve spent more time making sure we are ready for this one compared to our previous tests. We are also prepared to run as many betas as we need to ensure we only release changes that the community feels are ready.

How is balancing going to be dealt with?
We are open to changing the balancing numbers and options that are enabled between casual and ranked games. However, balancing Deceit is very complex and we will be making a more detailed post about this topic soon.

How is feedback going to be gathered and actioned?
Details on providing feedback will be shared in the beta channels on Discord. We will be publishing a public poll and detailed responses to your feedback in the days following the beta session.

If the beta is going to proceed, what percentage of yes votes are needed?
We expect at least 70% positive/neutral feedback to consider releasing the changes. However, we may run multiple polls to make sure we aren’t getting biased samples. We aren’t giving you a guarantee that we’ll base the decision on any one particular poll, but we will be transparent with you and share the data we use to make this decision.

If this beta passes the vote, when will we see it on the live servers?
This may be as early as the beginning of the next ranked season, but we will decide this based on feedback.

Is there anything missing from this beta?
Yes -- not absolutely every improvement we’re working on will be in the first beta, but the majority will be and it includes all the ones which have a significant impact on strategy.

See you in-game,
The Baseline Team
Discord | Twitter