PS4

New Features

• New “Sundog” vehicle.
• New Welcome Challenges with rewards to new players.
  • Rewards automatically given to current players.

Vehicle Changes

• Electron
  • Added targeting decal while using Tesla Storm to better assist with telegraphing the ability’s maximum range and area of effect.
• Porcupine
  • Striker now deals x2 damage.
  • Thunder Mines damage has been increased to 56 to account for the increased Mob health.
  • Thunder Mines AoE radius has increased by 25% to make it easier to drop in the path of enemies.
  • Overdrive now awards XP for using on allies. 6XP per second is awarded for each ally within the Overdrive AoE, scaling to 14XP per second at ability level 5.
  • Fixed an issue with the Striker’s tether behaviour that caused it to lock-on when not in range.
    • [Developer Comments] With the exception of its Lockdown Storm super, the Porcupine was underperforming in its capacity to deal damage. The Porcupine has been buffed in some areas to ensure it remains a worthwhile pick in the light of other recent balancing changes to Mob health.
• Fog Hog
  • Skin of Stone FX updated in-line with other damage resistance abilities.
• Gravitron
  • Heal Blast now heals an allied vehicle’s personal Shield for the same amount as Hull.
  • Fixed an issue with Heal Blast that caused multiple ground decals to spawn when casting the ability.
• Healing Hippo
  • Basic Attack/Heal no longer has a distance fall-off.
  • Maximum range has been reduced by ~40%, so at max range its Basic Attack/Heal is ~60% more effective than it was at the same range previously. This change should help the Healing Hippo gain XP more consistently while also encouraging it to stay closer to allies.
  • Healing Roar has received a major buff to its healing output, effectively doubling its healing per second and extending its duration by 2s (giving it a maximum healing output of ~800).
  • Healing Roar damage resistance buff has been reduced for levels 2-5, remaining at 10% for all levels.
  • Damage resistance FX has also been enabled for the duration.
  • Fixed an error with the Primary Weapon tether behaviour that caused it to lock-on while not in valid range of a target.
• Tiny Giant
  • Basic Attack/Heal no longer has a distance fall-off. Maximum range has been reduced by ~40%, meaning at max range its Basic Attack/Heal is ~60% more effective than it was at the same range previously. This change should help the Tiny Giant to gain XP more consistently while also encouraging it to stay closer to allies.
  • Heal Balloon’s base healing value has been increased by 50%, which should help to make it a more effective pick for support players.
  • Fixed an issue causing a Level 1 War Balloon to not deploy correctly.
  • Fixed an issue with Tiny Giant (super) that made the vehicle untargetable by enemy vehicles’ primary weapons.
• Berserker
  • New FX added to make the ability clearer to other players at a distance.
  • Fixed an issue causing Molotov Shells AoE to overlap.
• Goofer
  • Doubled the number of Goo mines dropped.
  •  Goo now applies a 0.6s halt when you first enter its AoE (which stops you instantly, allowing movement again after 0.6s)
  • Goo now deals a small amount of Tick Damage to enemies (25 dps).
  • Mobs no longer instantly stop when they hit Goo, but move through it at -80% of their top speed.
  • Goo mines will no longer spawn on top of each other.
    • [Developer Comments] The Goofer’s super ability was relatively weak compared with other Scouts, and although it had high CC it was difficult to position effectively. This change in the Goo’s behavior makes it much easier to create defensive patterns either when stationary or moving, and gives a more reliable behavior when driving into enemy Goo.
• Mob Buddy
  • Fixed an issue that caused friendly Mobs to prevent the Mob Commander ray from hitting Mobs directly behind them.

Gameplay Changes

• Gold loot has been removed to help with performance.
• Tutorial 1 will now flow directly into Tutorial 2 for new players.
• Increased Power Core health by 25%. This means the Front, Diamond and Mushroom Cores now have 2000 health each and the Base Core has 3000 health.
• Fixed an issue causing certain healing abilites to heal Power Cores.
  • [Developer Comments] With our recent changes to Power Core health and the removal of Core healing, we have seen a definite reduction in players turtling around Cores – however, we also saw that Towers could be taken down very quickly without much opportunity for the defenders to react. This increase in Core health will give defenders a better chance to clear the area around their Towers and make it harder for attackers to steamroll a quick victory.
• Reduced units of healing required to earn XP by 30%. This should help narrow the level gap between healers and damage dealers.
• Slowdown FX across the game now clearer
• Fixed an issue with the readability of Combat Text.
• Fixed incorrect value in the Shield item passive description. It now correctly states that players receive 600 Shield.

Information about the Sundog

New Welcome challenges

The first 3 challenges are not able to be re-rolled and will always appear as the first 3 challenges of the challenge system

These will sit in our On-boarding challenge set

• Welcome to Switchblade 1 / 5 – Complete Tutorial 1: Reward – 50 Bit Cash
• Welcome to Switchblade 2 / 5 – Complete Tutorial 2: Reward – 50 Bit Cash
• Welcome to Switchblade 3 / 5 – Complete a game of Quick Play: Reward – 50 Bit Cash

Known Issues

• End-Game – Players can become stuck if they do not select “Ready” or manually quit from the end-game screens.
• End-Game – Player characters occasionally face the wrong direction.
• Gameplay – Healing balloons are displaying with a white decal instead of team colours.
• Customiser – Options must be selected twice before they open.
• Customiser – Logos can occasionally take time to load in.
• Tutorial – There is a hitch in the music when loading into tutorials / Iceland.
• Quit functionality is slow to respond, can take a couple of seconds before session is quit.
• Localisation – Multiple strings throughout game are not localised.