Our planned update from the art team needs another week to be integrated into the game, so Alpha 9 included mostly bug fixes and a new entrance for Factory maps. 394 rounds were played, with Defender’s barely maintaining their lead at 200 wins. Bug fixing has been going well, but one of our changes meant to smooth out players with high ping was inadvertently kicking them from match instead, which lead to most games ending as a 4v5 or 4v4. This should be fixed before our next set of 100 keys go out.
One for the Fans
Our old fans may remember our… uh… old fans. They were a unique multi-floor entrance present on old arena maps, acting as a solid wall unless disabled by turning the power off or shooting the motor on the back. Fans were unique as they served as an alternate entrance if a teammate gained line-of-sight to the rear facing motor. They functioned as a “soft objective” like Shutters on C-Stores, where you could make a plan around gaining line of sight of the fan to gain an advantage. As level generation moved towards single-story buildings, these entrances were quietly laid to rest.
When working on our second-floor arena maps two weeks ago, we thought this would be a good time to resurrect these entrances for our Factory tileset as they made sense with its thematically long sight lines. As our resident content necromancer worked to bring this prop back from the dead, we saw an opportunity to make them more tactically interesting.
The most significant change was allowing bullets to pass through the spinning blades, which turned fans into clearly marked exterior perches. Our other change was adding a door charge node, which will enable Attackers to make an explosive entrance if shooting the back or killing power doesn’t make sense for their plan.
We initially allowed grenades to pass through fan blades but found that frag grenades could inadvertently hit the motor on the back, creating a straightforward entrance for minimal cost. If no frags were available, it more or less turned fans into a Flashbang cannon, and since permanently blinded Defenders seems a bit imbalanced…
The end result is an advanced prop that should add more verticality and tactical consideration to Factory maps. Reactions from Alpha testers have been positive, but shooting the back of the fan seems to be a bit too easy at the moment. We’re keeping an eye on how fans factor into map balance, and if it continues to be an issue, we are prepared to make adjustments as needed.
Gif City
RedCommissar in a shark cage.
RedElixer gets a quick double with the GAT-9
Volt Joshua has a silenced BLK-Tar in the dark.
Effective Shield Play
RedCommisar and his team make a plan revolving around blowing open a new sight-line on the edge of a Convenience Store.
Moving On
We should hopefully have exciting news next week as the art team’s merge has been promising. We uploaded keys from all previous Alpha tests into our automated keybot, so if you haven’t already, join our discord server! If you’ve been selected, it should automatically hand you a key. More keys will be going out on Friday, so good luck to those who are still waiting!