Killsquad CORE 2 Beta Out Now!

PSA: Please remember that the progress you make in the beta, won't be shared with the public version. The public version will be available in a couple of days.

To learn more about betas, please check the following FAQ:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/910490/discussions/0/3093383255707217200/

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The Core 2 Update is here! This patch comes with major changes. The skill and upgrade system has been reworked. Now, you can preview, buy, and equip from the skills menu to combine them in new and exciting ways. You will be able to explore these new features with the revamped UI, new interface, interactions and new functionalities such as shop rerolls or ways to save your preferred skill arrangements.

PROGRESSION

In this update we have focused in reworking the core system of the character skills allowing full customization of your build using the new skill tree. Also, and maybe the more important change, your abilities are automatically upgraded inside a contract using the upgrades and skills you preselected at the skill tree.



TECS

A new unique currency is added to the game: TECS. They can be earned and found in contracts. Use these TECS to unlock Skills and Upgrades for a specific character in the Skill Tree. Look for them carefully as they exist in a specific amount for each character.

Skills tree

Added a skill tree to each character, use TECS to unlock Skills and upgrades. Equip them and combine them in new and exciting ways to achieve the play style you like. You will need to buy at least one upgrade from one level to unlock the purchase of the next level, after that you can equip whatever you want even if they are all level ten upgrades. Fully customize your build!

NOTE: Veteran players will get all the TECS rewarded by contracts after downloading the patch, but all the hidden TECS will need to be found.

Builds and presets

Heroes have 10 cores that allows to assign skills and upgrades to their build. Each of them will have a cost, higher tiers will cost more than low tiered upgrades. Combine them in different ways to create the playstyle of your choice! Save the arrangements in one of the five available preset slots to switch between your skills and upgrades!

SKILLS AND UPGRADES

With the new system we have taken the opportunity of balancing existing upgrades and adding new ones. Also, all descriptions have been overhauled to improve readability and give more information to the player.

· Kosmo has received a new upgrade: Turbo Whirlwind.
· Cass has received a new upgrade: Ultimate Hunter.
· Troy has received tree new upgrades: Karma Card, Last man standing and Sleight of Hand.
· Cass's In and Out upgrade has been removed from the game.
· Troy's Gotcha upgrade has been removed from the game.
· Troy's Dodge Master upgrade has been removed from the game.
· Troy's Dead Man Walking upgrade has been removed from the game.
· All descriptions have been updated giving more information on the skill/upgrade.
· Some skills and upgrades names have been changed.
· Some skills and upgrades received a numerical rebalance. It's not a definitive number, and it may change

NOTE: This section is still in progress, it might change in the public release.

UI

A new design comes to the game alongside major changes at quality of life.




Shop

A new Reroll mechanic is added to the shop as a quality of life improvement. Now you can pay a little amount of credits to manually reroll the shop stock to look for your desired equipment, we hope this change will ease your grinding for the perfect piece of equipment. Also, as requested, we added a weapon and gear comparison.

General Changes

· Added an icon to show how many TECS can be found in a contract and how many you already found there.
· Added a new message in the contract selector screen when the host of a game chooses a contract notifying all group members.
· Added new upgrade icons at the skill tree.
· Added an outline to all intractable items to give more feedback to the player.
· Added particle effects in the lobby when a player is ready.
· Added a new special TEC pickup. These items can only appear on contracts indicating it.
· Added new hover popup on currency sections as the lobby, shop and in contract game showing the important currencies for that section.
· Added a new start splash art at the begining of the game.
· Changed the color of the rebel faction from red to blue.
· Updated the UI at the lobby. New visuals before starting a contract improving the feedback to the player.
· Updated the UI at the heroes section. A Centralized section of all the statistics, inventory, character progression, cosmetics and vanity items for all characters.
· Updated the UI at the shop. A clearer interface able to show more information of an item alongside a new reroll system.
· Updated the UI at the player profile. Better view of your statistics, reputation levels and vanity badges/icons.
· Updated the UI at the contract selector. Easier to navigate between plague and normal mode and to select a contract to play.
· Updated the UI at the ESC menu inside a contract. New visuals showing current equipment and your selected upgrades ordered by level. You can keep track on your stats and when will new upgrades be available inside a contract.
· Added tutorial videos to preview all the skill and upgrades. You can also watch those videos in the ESC menu inside a contract.
· Updated all controls UI icons.
· Updated the items upgrade Icons. Three new status showing when the weapon/gear is updated, when you have enough resources for the upgrade and when the weapon can be upgraded but you don't have enough resources.

REBALANCE

Major overhauls

· The toxic fallout in "Overprotection" contract now launches a healing area inside the shields to help during the struggle.
· The palace of pain received more monster variation in enemy waves and also added more time to the hold area segment.
· Balanced some HUB segments at SKUA Maps by adding more enemies and pickups. They were empty before the rebalance.


General overhauls

· Rebalanced all game Recruit and Veteran contracts, focusing on shorter and more fun games.
· Rebalanced all SKUA Enemies.
· Rebalanced all credit rewards after the second time you play a Recruit contract.

AUDIO

· Troy received a SFX rework for his guns, with more than 30 new gun SFX.
· Zero received a SFX rework for his laser gun, with more than 10 new gun SFX.
· General Overhaul to the ambient sounds at SKUA maps, adding more than 25 new SFX.
· Added sound feedback to UI.
· Added sound feedback to the Steerable Ball skill.
· Added sound feedback to the Mass Execution skill.
· Added sound feedback to the Emergency Shield skill.
· Added footsteps sound to all SKUA floor types.
· Added footsteps sound to all THE PALACE OF PAIN floor types.
· Added footsteps sound to all WASTELAND 7A floor types.
· Added missing audio in the Queen Maggoth's boss cinematic entrance.
· Reduced the volume of the starting music at the coliseum.

GENERAL

· Updated the particles when destroying a SKUA ball in an area.
· Changed the color of Kosmo's Berserker Taunt skill.
· Added a new death SFX to the S.K.Y.F.E.D BOSS.
· Added a new SFX in the Toxic area of the Overprotection contract.
· Added new particles to the barriers of the Overprotection contract.
· Added four new entrance animations to each hero at the start of a contract.
· Added destructible rocks to WASTELAND 7A maps
· Added a new dash animation for Lilith.
· Added a new dash animation for Zero.
· Modified the dash animation for Kosmo.
· General review to all "WASTELAND 7A" maps fixing holes or collisions.
· Added a fire spark particle to SKUA maps.



BUG FIXING

Crashes:

· Fixed a crash that might occur to hosts after selecting a skill with ZERO.
· Fixed a crash that might occur after a group dissolves and a client tried to play a contract in single player afterwards.

· The bug "Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost" it's a common error from games made with Unreal Engine. We have created a steam discussion with some guidelines on how to fix the problem: https://steamcommunity.com/app/910490/discussions/0/5673948479035084906/

Major Issues

· Fixed a bug where some clients stayed in an infinite loading screen after finishing a contract.
· Fixed a bug at M.A.G.N.U.S boss fight that after 10 minutes, the enemies with the laser balls stop spawning.
· Fixed a bug at M.A.G.N.U.S boss fight that ocurrs after the party died in the boss fight. After respawning some clients couldn't see the boss HP bar.
· Fixed a bug where some enemies in an ambush spawned outside the barriers blocking the player from clearing the ambush.
· Fixed a bug where the "Lucky draw" skill from Troy was blocked after using it at close range.
· Fixed a bug at "WASTELAND 7A", where the generation of the map sometimes had no route to the end of the contract.
· Fixed a bug at "WASTELAND 7A", where the player could get stuck with a collider.
· Fixed a bug at "Doors wide shut" contract, when the boss Alpha Gorus could get stuck at the stairs.
· Fixed a bug with the GPU performance, even if the game was tabbed. Now the game is capped at 144FPS avoiding the GPU to reach its maximum capacity for no reason.
· Fixed a bug where starting a contract in a group, the game kept loading until a client was kicked out automatically.
· Fixed a bug at the "TROUBLE IN PARADISE" contract that could make the player fall from the map.
· Fixed a bug at the elevators from "KEMMEKH": Now the objects such as heal packs from Zero will follow the elevator while moving.
· Fixed a bug of "Queen Magoth's" that occur in the middle of the fight, deforming her 3D Model.
· Fixed a bug of the "Suriken Ricochet", that ocurred sometimes in the second hit, not teleporting to the second target.

Fixes:

· Fixed a bug with the "Hatch Guy's Very Special...'Soup'" quest. Now you should be able to finish it with one Nightbringer eye.
· Fixed a bug at "KEMMEKH", with render issues on the plagued area.
· Fixed a bug in the CODEX that didn't show some attack information for some enemies.
· Fixed a bug at the end contract view showing some items twice.
· Fixed a bug of the Trap Implosion skill that could render some particles in front of the camera.
· Fixed a bug that generated some plague segments at "THE PALACE OF PAIN" maps in normal mode.
· Fixed a bug that might occur when crossing some segments of a contract, rendering a white flash for one frame.
· Fixed a bug at some segments of SKUA maps that did not spawn enemies.
· Fixed the bug of the "Overprotection" contract, displaying the environment windows with a bright green color in the toxic fog segment.
· Fixed a bug when loading an audio or dialogue at the start of a contract with one or two seconds lag.
· Fixed a bug at M.A.G.N.U.S's boss fight that vibrates when changing his state between attacking and idle.
· Fixed a bug at "Overprotection" contract after respawning at the Toxic fog area the voice line reproduced twice.
· Fixed a bug involving the roughness rendering of the enemies at WASTELAND 7A.
· Fixed a bug at the last Black Box cube removing the sound from the dialogue. Now it will reproduce as it should.
· Fixed a localization bug regarding the Black Boxes dialogues.
· Fixed a localization bug at "KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR" contract when delivering the battery spheres
· Fixed a localization bug in the skill tutorials.
· Fixed some holes at SKUA maps.
· Fixed a rendering issue at the CODEX, now the enemies will be rendered at good quality.

Others:

· Fixed the issue where Troy's "Luck of the draw" could be activated accidentally, after using Strong Shot. The sequence "Right click + Left click" has been improved.

What are we doing right now:

· New character Ekaar, bugfixing, factions and tutorials.
· If your game crashes, a Crash reporter will appear. Please add the details of what you were doing at the time of the crash and send it to us. If you want to, feel free to contact us directly here at [email protected], with your "Saved" folder (C:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Killsquad) attached.