What could be better to celebrate the beginning of summer (I know it is not the case for the entire community) than the release of a bright new update! Let me introduce to you the Dead or Alive Online update.
Before going into the details, we wanted to thank the whole community, for the support for the game, the feedback and the crazy ideas you shared with us! Also, thanks to those of you who have participated in the co-creation of the new hero, Viggie.
In this patch, we have tried to address some of your complaints (although there are aspects that require much more time), while adding some surprises for you :)
There is a lot to talk about (warning big blog), but for those of you that prefer not to read that much, let me present you some of the highlights:
✨ Changes Inspired by our community!
New Hero > Viggie
A Couple of days ago we released a beautiful (a bit biased here) blog shwocasing you all the details regarding Viggie !, such as the lore, gameplay, art, etc. Today we will focus purely on the Gameplay aspect;
- Passive > Flying Grandma Allows Viggie to fly above holes and small obstacles
- ✨ Active > Linked Lamps Places 2 lamps that create an energy barrier slowing down the monster crossing it. The turret will take damage when used.
- ✨ Ultimate (Holokitties) Generates static virtual kittens that attract monsters and deal return damage to them.
New Weapon > CPU (Cardiac Processing Unit)
The community also decided on the visual design aspect of this new weapon in a vote [???? Community Vote ].
- b>Description: An electric handgun that leaves a AOE that stuns monsters
New Turret’s
With a new hero and a new weapon we couldn't miss the opportunity to create another turret, or 2...
Insta Havoc
- b>Description: when shoved, triggers a powerful explosion that stuns and damages monsters in a very large area. 25s cooldown
Healing Fountain
Apart from this new turret (which I love) we wanted to do something else, and we were checking the different feedback and the data and noticed that there were, primarily, 2 turrets that were way less used by players: the Spotter and the Sapper.
When brainstorming on what to do, we decided to combine (more or less) the 2 effects into 1 turret (Spotter) and creating an amazing new turret: the Healing Fountain!
- Transfers the Turret's Health to Heroes in the area of effect (300/400/500 HP)
- It cannot be shoved or replaced by another turret.
- It will be automatically destroyed once transferred all the hp
Heroes
It is true that, in a way, all heroes would be nice to be improved but we needed to make some decisions and check all the feedback and the in-game data. Based on that we decided to tweak those with lower pick rates among all players.
Fassie
- ✨ Can use his active on himself
- ✨ Reduce ultimate trigger animation (10 ->3s), effect remains the same
- ✨ Add highlight on heroes for the duration of the Active skill (12 sec) Previously the effect was easy to miss for players as there was an indication for 1 or 2 seconds when you “received” the impact, but then it disappeared.
Blaze
- ✨ Display the range of the mine when placing it
- ✨ Reduce the monster detection range of the mines (3m -> 2.5m) + increase trigger delay (1s -> 1.25s). Monsters will have to walk closer to it to active it-> the mine will explode on more monsters more often
Comrade
- ✨ Allow gunny turret to be placed in dark room
- ✨ Display the range of the gunny turret
- Increase gunny turret range (4 -> 5m)
AI Changes
In the past most AI heroes could use their Active Skills freely, but there were 3 heroes in which it was not the case; Blaze, Comrade and Fassie.
- Blaze, Comrade and Fassie when controlled by the AI they will use their Active Skills
If you were wondering why, the explanation was that in their case we thought it was important to be on player's decision, as placing mines or turrets could be important (strategically speaking). It could generate frustration if the AI decided to put them (and potentially “ruining your defenses”). But we saw your suggestions for this be changed!
No worries the team has covered any potential frustration from players, and they will only use their active on certain conditions (turrets available to use, as an example).
Moving on with other improvements regarding the AI:
- ✨ Improvements of the AI when using Short range weapons
- ✨ Shroom use of Active Skills. This should prevent the AI from using the Active Skill the moment you lose a bit of HP which leads to a “waste” of the healing.
Shove Improvement
- ✨ Reduce animation duration
- ✨ Better detection of hitbox when performed while running
- Added a small speed boost when using it
Turret Changes and Balancing
- JellyfierWe totally agree with your feedback regarding the difficulties in placing them strategically, as the range was too small. [list]
- ✨ Increase range by 35%
- ✨ Effect is applied only when monsters are in the zones (previously the effect remained for 3s)
- ✨ Increase slow effect (25% -> 35%)
- ✨ Increase range by 35%
- Remove elemental weakness effect
- Increase Defense reduction (-35% -> -50%)
- Add sapper effect: monsters passing through the area of effect have a +30% chance of getting critical damage.
Based on that, we have increased the HP of the short-range turrets and decreased a bit the long-range ones (they will be a bit more “fragile”). Also, this tackles some of your frustrations of short-range turrets constantly dying.
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- Straight shooter: +10% HP (220hp)
- EMP blast: +20% hp (420hp)
- Flamethrower: +20% hp (420 hp)
- Lase Blinder: +20% hp (420 hp)
- Amplifier: -43% hp (200 hp)
- Shield: -33%, hp (200hp)
- Diagnosticator: -20% (200hp)
- Fatal focus: -20% hp (160 hp)
- Acid sharpshooter: -20% hp (160 hp)
Gameplay Settings
Your feedback has been heard and I think you are going to love these changes (Yes! I am a bit biased)
- ✨ Reactivation of Core stele effects [/*]If you are one of the players that enjoyed the first run in the Core a lot and now you find it “easier”, then I will recommend you to re-activate the effects and make the run more challenging!
- ✨ Crystal bot behavior after drilling a shard. [/*]We totally understand the frustration that some of you encounter after drilling a shard like for example not understanding what happened (“why do the waves continue” or “why is the Crystal following me”). That is why we have added an option where you can change the behavior of the Crystal Bot at any moment (*): [list]
- [By default] Back to previous Crystal Slot
- Follow closest Hero (previously default behavior)
- Go towards closest Crystal Slot
(*) The change in behavior will affect the next time you trigger it (if you make the change in the middle of the action, it won’t work)
My personal recommendation is to always have the Aim assist ON (if you do not want the 100% then reduce it to half) [/list]
Weapon Balancing
We agree with you that there were some weapons that were not much fun to play, effective (damage) or even causing frustrations to players.
Based on all your feedback we have buffed most “charging weapons” and short-range weapons. Now they should be more rewarding and fun to play with!
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- ✨ Electric [list]
- Empathizer: +30% damage
- Railgun: +41% damage
- Mobzapper: [list]
- -27% damage
- +1m range
- Reduce spread (90°->60°)
- +11% damage
- Increase status chance
- Firelance: +43% damage
- Sloppy bomb: [list]
- +25% firerate
- +50% damage
- Increase base crit chance
- -13% damage
- +1m range
- Pulse-ahhrrr: [list]
- +17% firerate
- +6% damage
- Very cross bow : +22% firerate
- Sprayer : -13% damage
- Splattergun: +19% damage
- Acid hoser: +14% damage
- Acid spray: +1.5m range
- Death Darts: +22% damage
- Acid drop: [list]
- +88% damage
- Reduce dot damage
As there are a lot of changes, my personal favorites are the Sloppy Bomb and the Cross Bow (this is a bit niche, but the piercing effect with the changes makes it feel really nice)!
Monster balancing
No worries, nothing crazy here. We mainly adjusted some of the monsters to counterbalance all the changes in the weapons and added a ground telegraph for attacks of some monsters to improve fighting
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- Blobs [list]
- Inflamator : reduce HP bonus per evolution (+30% -> +20%)
- Grinner : -6% HP
- Fissioner (electric mitosis): [list]
- Big : -20% HP
- Mini: +15% HP and +20% movement speed. It will target only the crystal
- Praetorian: [list]
- -10% HP
- Reduce elite HP scaling
- Reduce damage (70 -> 60)
- Add telegraph of the attack
- Ghost: reduce elite HP scaling
- Calamity & Ardent Shadow: reduce elite HP scaling
- Smokeworm monster: [list]
- Added telegraph for the attack
- Better synchronization of its attack and death
- Increase HP (300 -> 350)
- Reduce elite HP scaling
- Reduce damage (80 -> 60)
- Dissolver (acid webmaster): increase HP (160 -> 165)
Others Improvements
- Audio [list]
- Music/ambiance changes when a timed wave is getting close This seems a small thing, but you will feel the difference immediately. I can only say thanks to our sound designers!
- Rework of some weapon shot effects (ShotGun, Missile Launcher, Tazer...)
- Remix of hit effect when shoving monsters
[/list] We cannot wait to see your feelings of all the different changes, like the weapons, and to get your thoughts regarding Viggie!
Enjoy and have a nice rest of your day ^-^
