[Developer blog] New rarity, part upgrade rework and balance changes. Mass testing

[Ka1deron 3,730]

Hello there, survivors!

We continue to reveal the details of the upcoming big update. Today we will tell you about the new rarity in the game and how the mechanics of upgrading parts familiar to most players will change.

Please note that all the features described in this blog are preliminary and may still be changed before the final release on the game servers. You can familiarize yourself with all the planned changes on a special test server!

Let's start with one of the possible questions — why does the game need a new rarity?

We examined the progress of new players and the speed with which they receive new parts. Studies have shown that for a new player, the transition from “rare” to a more effective part (“epic”) is too long and not the easiest. We would like it to be easier for players to increase the efficiency of their armoured cars and get new details on the way to their “epic” and “legendary” versions.

In the next major update, the “special” rarity will be added to the game. It will add seven new parts to the game:

• Machine gun
• Autocannon
• Shotgun
• Turret cannon
• Course gun
• Turret
• Drone

Some of the current “rare” parts, which in our opinion correspond to the “special” rarity, will also be transferred to it. In the “elite” factions (“Steppenwolfs”, “Dawn's children” and “Firestarters”), all “rare” parts will change their rarity to “special”.

The assortment of workbenches of “special” rarity can be studied today with the launch of a special test server. The parameters of those parts are temporary and may be changed later.

Why would introducing a new rarity between “rare” and “epic” benefit the game?

• Players who are just starting their journey in Crossout will be able to quickly craft new, more efficient parts, and the process of moving from one rarity to another will become easier, more diverse and more interesting.
• Those parts whose rarity has changed will become more efficient. And this is good both for experienced players who already have these parts, and for those who have just thought of extending their collection for playing at average PS. Well, of course, five completely new parts will be added that you can craft and test in battle!

With the advent of the new rarity, crafting recipes will also change. Some of the recipes may already be changed on the test server, but keep in mind that they may be not final.

Please pay attention: the number of parts included in the crafting recipes will be changed so that the total production cost will not change in any way.

You can familiarize yourself with all changes in rarities on a special test server.

Part upgrade rework

In the next update, we also plan to rework part upgrades. We took into account your comments on weak or unhelpful upgrade bonuses and offer you an updated version of the mechanic: so that the upgraded part really compares favorably with the usual one, now you will receive several random bonuses for one upgrade. Bonuses themselves will not be weaker than those that are presented in the game now, and some are planned to be strengthened a little. Armed with the luck that somehow accompanies each survivor, you can upgrade the part to the one whose set of improvements will meet your needs.

A complete list of possible upgrades for each part can be found in the game.

Let us dwell in more detail on the mechanics:

• You select the part you want to upgrade and select the appropriate item in its options.
• Add two more of the same parts to start the upgrade. Before that, you can also view all possible bonus options from upgrading this part.
• Start the upgrade and get 2 to 3 bonuses from the list. In this case, the player receives one bonus from each group in the list.
  • Bonuses, as before, are randomly selected.
  • The amount of bonuses received is predetermined. This means that if you got 2 bonuses when upgrading a part, then with a second upgrade, their number cannot increase.
• When you upgrade the same part again, several random bonuses will be selected again. Some bonuses may repeat those that have already been applied in a previous upgrade.
• With the repeated upgrade of the part, you can make a choice: leave the previous bonuses or accept new ones. Parts spent on upgrades will not be returned in any case.

For all players who already have upgraded parts, the current bonus on each part will be saved and will be slightly strengthened. When you upgrade the same part again, you will already receive several bonuses, but all of them will be standard.

Here is an example:

• You had a “Vector” machine gun with an upgrade of 10% to overheating time.
• After the update, the upgrade will automatically increase to +12% (final values may change).
• Repeated upgrades of the same “Vector” will replace the previous improvement with random bonuses from the list of possible.

Cabin rework

In a future update, we also plan to make the change that many survivors have proposed. We are going to revise the principle by which the amount of energy in the cabins is determined.

Now the amount of energy in a particular cabin will depend on its rarity:

• “Base”: 8 energy.
• “Common”: 9 energy.
• “Rare”: 10 energy.
• “Special”: 11 energy.
• “Epic”: 12 energy.

At the same time, we plan to adjust the parameters of the cabins so that they better correspond to the role conceived for them. Updated parameters of all cabins can be tested on a special server.

What are the reasons for such changes?

We agree with the majority of our players, and we are not comfortable with the current situation, in which the player’s choice most often stops exclusively on “light” cabins. The choice is clear — more energy with a relatively small model and characteristics that are convenient for creating almost any vehicle. Now the choice will not be limited by the amount of energy provided, and the parameters of the cabs will better reflect their belonging to a certain type of cars.

In order to try the updated upgrade mechanics and test cabin changes we hand out 7 new weapons of “special” rarity and all the “rare”, “special” and “epic” cabins.

Please, pay attention that after the test is finished on Sunday, all the accounts ON THE TEST SERVER will be reset. During the next test you’ll be able to use the “Copy account data” button and copy your account from the live server to the test one.

Rework of blast damage effects on radars

Today we also offer you the opportunity to test the modified mechanics of interaction between explosive projectiles and radars. In many ways, it is similar to what is now used for explosive projectiles and decor:

• Radars no longer absorb damage from an explosion caused by a projectile hitting them.
• When it hits, the projectile deals some damage to the radar, flies through it, and the blast and the damage from the blast passes through the nearest parts to the radar, following the path of the projectile's flight.
• The explosion occurs either after contact with a structural part or, if there are no structural parts on the projectile's flight path, the last radar in the projectile's path.
• Weapon perks are still triggered by contact with radars. That is, the very fact of hitting an armoured vehicle counts (when, for example, only the radar is in the path of the projectile and there are no other parts behind it).
• Exploding shells of the “Phoenix” crossbow still attach to the radar if they hit it and the same radar is the epicenter of the explosion.

Hover balance tweaks

We are sure that many of you already know about the so-called “Side-flyers”. These are vehicles in which, due to non-standard assembly, mechanics of strafe and reassignment of control buttons, efficiency and protection are seriously increased. Statistics invariably confirm the superiority of such armoured vehicles over conventional hover vehicles.

We would like cars with hovers to be effective precisely in the classic assemblies, for which this chassis was thought and did not force the player to resort to various tricks. Therefore, armed with your and our own ideas, we are ready to present a test version of the changes designed to balance the current situation:

• Armoured car acceleration during strafe is reduced by 25% for both hovers.
• The flight altitude of cars with both types of hovers is reduced by 14%.
• Durability of Icarus IV and Icarus VII is increased by 30%:
  • “Icarus IV”: from 160 to 208 pts.
  • “Icarus VII”: from 135 to 176 pts.

Today we plan to launch a test server where you can familiarize yourself with the changes described in this developer blog and share your opinion in a special thread.

See you in the new blogs!

Please note, that changes, described in this blog, are still a work in progress. Many things (parts parameters, production recipes, etc.) still may be changed till the update is released.

How to get to the test server?

If you have already participated in testing on a special server, then it will be enough to start the Launcher from the folder with the test client and wait for the update to complete.

• Create a new folder for the game on your hard drive.
• Download the Launcher from this link. The file name should not contain numbers indicating that the file is a duplicate. Please note that you should launch the file that does not contain any digits (1), (2), etc. in its name. If, when starting the installed launcher, you get to the live game servers, you need to delete all downloaded launchers from the download folder and try again.
• Start the Launcher and install the game to the folder you created (for example: D:\Public test\Crossout).
• After the installation is complete, start the Launcher and enter the game with your username and password.
• The whole progress of your main account will be transferred to the main server (including parts in storage and levels of reputation in factions).
• After logging in to the server to transfer the progress from your account, you must press the “Esc” key and select “Copy account data”.
• Please note the schedule of the test server:
  • Friday, January 17, 2020: from 15:00 to 19:00 (GMT time)
  • Saturday, January 18, 2020 from 15:00 to 18:00 (GMT)
  • Sunday, January 19, 2020 from 15:00 to 18:00 (GMT)
• Any progress you make on the test server will not be transferred to the live game servers (INCLUDING ATTEMPTS TO BUY PACKS).

After testing the changes, we invite you to leave your constructive feedback on the planned rework in THIS THREAD (it will open a bit later after the launch of the test server).

You may leave your bug reports regarding all the issues you’ve encountered on the test server HERE.

The public test server is intended only for testing of the upcoming update, and may not accommodate all players without exception. However, absolutely anyone can join the server, as long as there are free spots.

---

[Ka1deron 3,730]

Survivors! The test server is already open!

[VisceraCleaner 2,209]

This is more than we expected. New rarity!? This is so awesome!
It is beyond our expectation, so we don't sure how this change will work. Anyway it is absolutely amazing news. I need to discuss more with friends. 

[epm_nwo 81]

Ye lets balance dominant heavy cannon hovers by giving them 1 more free energy... nice path to balance... Please consider to increase scorpion and typhoon to 7 energy if you go that way.
What's the rework of radars against machine gun fire?

Edited January 17, 2020 by epm_nwo

[Spedemix 9,361]

12 energy Echo Typhoon Hovers.

 

I need to pass out.....

 

(just kidding, we'll see how these work out, it all looks fine on a glance)

[VisceraCleaner 2,209]

New Part upgrade seems so greedy.

The three bonuses? Is there any other reason not to scream "P2W! NOOOOO~" in this situation?
My friends who paid much money to get specific upgrade bonus are angry because 
 

3 hours ago, Ka1deron said:

Here is an example:

• You had a “Vector” machine gun with an upgrade of 10% to overheating time.
• After the update, the upgrade will automatically increase to +12% (final values may change).
• Repeated upgrades of the same “Vector” will replace the previous improvement with random bonuses from the list of possible.

This is not enough. It does not look enough and reasonable.
They spend so much money and their parts with one bonus will be pointless compared to parts with 3 maximum bonuses.
Edit 3: This is so confusing. Discussion in my discord still can't make conclusion about this new change. It is the hottest topic ever.

 

And 12 energy Bastion, 10 energy Growl are so frustrating.
Why did you remove the uniqueness and characteristic of each cabin? 

 

 

We also understand all of these are not fixed result. Parameter can be changed. This is just test server. So the other things are fine.
I already fall in love with new parts and new rarity.

But new upgrade system will need more excuse.

Edit: Wait, is there some kind of downgrade effect too?
Edit 2: Oh my god! 4x1 size frame! There are too many new things! This update is like really hot spicy food tasty but painful at same time.
(We need more time to figure out all ingredients of this spicy dish, but understanding all effects looks almost impossible till we get more detail.) 

Edited January 17, 2020 by VisceraCleaner

[LittleBird2 200]

I would welcome a change and diversification of cabins and engines via  speed and acceleration. Heavy cabins need to act as heavy and hard to accelerate and engines should be considered to equip to boost these attributes. This way you could choose between a heavy and slow but durable build and a light but fast maneuvering one. I.E make heavy cabins slower as they are  right now, and increase the acceleration + top speed bonus engines give. They obviously shoud have a different multiplier  depnding on   heavy light medium cabins. I really hope you ll be able to balance the heavy cabins you give 1 more extra energy to, in one or the other way.

 

On a sidenot, it might be worth to fuse items now, before the update, where you would want to have 1 strong desired fuse perk instead of multiple weak since it will get additional % after the patch on top of that. Fuse cabins, aegis, moveent parts, ammo boxes etc.

Edited January 17, 2020 by LittleBird2

[GreenTitanCO 100]

WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING TO HOVERS!?!?!??!?!!?!?
With every change you guys suggest you change it more and more towards a frictionless wheel!! ig you want to make those parts, add hovercraft cusions, and do not ruin hovers!



the only2  ythings you accieve is more melee effiencency! you tried to pummel that for 2 years, and now you are running in their favour again? WTH!
and severe restrictions on our creativity!
I would suggest reverting it

[Sasherz 571]

so I asume with the cab rework, the "special" cab's are the pack cabs that they all get nerfed to 11 energy.

and all the craftable ones getting 12 energy.

or am I wrong?

 

finaly a hover nerf-ish update though

Edited January 17, 2020 by Sasherz

[PurdooSix 321]

Rarity change seems huge, as someone who crafts alot.

 

Hover change seems intresting. First time hovers will be equal to many other movement parts.

 

  

2 minutes ago, Sasherz said:

so I asume with the cab rework, the "special" cab's are the pack cabs that they all get nerfed to 11 energy.

and all the craftable ones getting 12 energy.

or am I wrong?

 

Specials are currently craftable cabins from second level factions. No pack specials.

Edited January 17, 2020 by PurdooSix

[Grizzles1 198]

A new lower rarity is cool and all, but can we get more relics? More legendaries for weapon groups that are missing? Legendary modules, movements, cabins, etc. 

 

The best thing you guys could do with hovers is just revert them how they were, max 4 hovers per vehicle. Every change you have made has made hover meta worse and worse - restrict them to light, fast vehicles. The strafe speed reduction will just kill hovers entirely. Building sideways hovers is the only way to do it since we can't rotate them, and reducing strafe speed by 25% will essentially limit hovers to around 45 KPH. As slow as spiders. Sounds terrible. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by Grizzles1

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, GreenTitanCO said:

WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING TO HOVERS!?!?!??!?!!?!?
With every change you guys suggest you change it more and more towards a frictionless wheel!! ig you want to make those parts, add hovercraft cusions, and do not ruin hovers!



the only2  ythings you accieve is more melee effiencency! you tried to pummel that for 2 years, and now you are running in their favour again? WTH!
and severe restrictions on our creativity!
I would suggest reverting it

 

Currently there are little to no drawbacks using hovers vs wheels, legs, or tracks (excepting goliath since it is still OP). Melee builds just received a nerf to prepare for this well thought out adjustment to what is currently THE meta in CW and most of the rest of the game. Let's see how this plays out before whining "hovers are dead".

[Discos211 7,479]

Ooh, Course Gun?  I like the sound of that!

Of course.

[Discos211 7,479]

1 minute ago, Mordbrand said:

Currently there are little to no drawbacks using hovers vs wheels, legs, or tracks (excepting goliath since it is still OP). 

...  Except for steering, squishiness, vulnerability to melee, skidding around into things, being too large, and high to fit through certain gaps like the archway in Bravo on Fortress...

Arguably, the lack of other drawbacks common to ground vehicles outweigh these, but that's not the same as having no drawbacks.  They can still be killed, and it's not an automatic win, just buy hovers.

[EVAN_WILLIAMS 1,334]

Sound like a great thing to try out I like all of these ideas in theory. Can we get new relics to please and thank you ? 

[v3rgi1 2,154]

10 hours ago, Ka1deron said:

For all players who already have upgraded parts, the current bonus on each part will be saved and will be slightly strengthened. When you upgrade the same part again, you will already receive several bonuses, but all of them will be standard.

Here is an example:

• You had a “Vector” machine gun with an upgrade of 10% to overheating time.
• After the update, the upgrade will automatically increase to +12% (final values may change).
• Repeated upgrades of the same “Vector” will replace the previous improvement with random bonuses from the list of possible.

Question:

So if it has been:

- upgraded already it will stay on 1 strong perk
- Refuse it will get 2-3 weak perks
- repeat 2-3 other weak perks

 

SO will there even be a way for new players to get the 1 strong perk fusion, or not at all? I see that most times 2-3 bonuses are better but there might be some parts were its not. This seems unfair.
Also it seems unfair that we HAVE to refuse to get 2-3 bonuses, considering all the coins spent already for the first correct fusion.
Buddy spent 8 or 9 ammo crates FUSIONS (so 3 parts each time) just to get the expanded one

 

EDIT:
Been on the testserver now, pre-fusioned Hauler Bastion (14% hauler) seems OP compared to standard perk (10% hauler) fusioned one, ok we dont exactly see the remaining perks yet but we can guess by reading the placeholders.
If its based on groups you cannot get a bastion with tonnage AND weight buff, instead you get a little weight + suicide buff + a 3rd group im unsure yet (3rd group seemed to be the same on most parts, so its unclear if they make sense on certain parts...)

ALSO Could i please get an answer to my question devs? I see you answered a lot of other questions by now but only the standard "not pay2win" replies instead of actually explaining whats going on with new fusion system.
 

Edited January 18, 2020 by v3rgi1
Been on testserver, still waiting for reply by devs on fusion system...

[CerebraI_Parsley 149]

Im done with this game if this changes to hovers goes to LIVE....

[K903 63]

Oh! Here comes the patch note!

Let's take a look..

um..

new kind of frames.. good!

new weapons.. great!!

new type of rarity.. awesome!!!

can rework.. fanstastic!!!!

killing side flyers.. excellent job!!!!!

so far so greeeeeeat!!!

part upgrade rework?

um... what's chaging.. let's see...

Quote

Start the upgrade and get 2 to 3 bonuses from the list. In this case, the player receives one bonus from each group in the list.

• Bonuses, as before, are randomly selected.
• The amount of bonuses received is predetermined. This means that if you got 2 bonuses when upgrading a part, then with a second upgrade, their number cannot increase.

XO BECOMES P2W GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GreenTitanCO 100]

11 minutes ago, Mordbrand said:

Currently there are little to no drawbacks using hovers vs wheels, legs, or tracks (excepting goliath since it is still OP). Melee builds just received a nerf to prepare for this well thought out adjustment to what is currently THE meta in CW and most of the rest of the game. Let's see how this plays out before whining "hovers are dead".

then make a parts restriction on CW right? thats they should approach these things.

I often use hovers for fun builds, and with this HUUUUUGE heigth restriction i cant use the hovers how i needed, like tilting builds, and aiding my spider in turning

[GreenTitanCO 100]

in each i think they cant make it worse for hovers, but they aways come up with a worse 'fix'

[crackpower 27]

New rarity old parts need 2x amount of resorces = more grinding 

Good job Devs.

How you help new player?

Edited January 17, 2020 by crackpower
more

[Blasted_Off 1,894]

19 minutes ago, Sasherz said:

so I asume with the cab rework, the "special" cab's are the pack cabs that they all get nerfed to 11 energy.

and all the craftable ones getting 12 energy.

or am I wrong?

Special is the new rarity

Edited January 17, 2020 by Blasted_Off

[Jafarson 440]

Since the day you added hovers there was always moaning about it.... hovers are OP or useless. You can't balance it, you can not make adjustments in brain tumor, you have to remove it to cure cancer.... so cure cancer of this game - remove hovers and compensate! make this game "Craft, Ride, Destroy" again; not "Buy, Fly, Dominate"

Also matchmaking needs to be redesigned: its nothing to do with PS! there are still people with legendary items in 3K's, still Relic players in 8K's... I mean it can be balanced like this:
If i have on car attached epic weapon, matchmaking should find players that have same weapon rarity as me. its simple. Let P2W walletboy relic players torture themselves... 

Why you are always make things that not necessary?  I think additional rarity is useless in this game, if you are worry about how hard is to get epic item from rare, just REDUCE required resources.... You have so much important things to do: For example overhaul and remake of most ueless "talent system"- like feature called Co-Driver! more than year we are waiting for that and still nothing. Ofc no one cares about useless numbers upgraded with tons of materials spent on them. Like (+2% range............ WOW)

Why you can not make unique, "non-tradable" cosmetic items (packs or single) so you can earn from that only, just like boosts and things that will not affect game balance.

 

[gumaak__CG_ 825]

Great solution of radar armor problem. Thx.

Sorry to say, but those next plans will have really massive impact. Especially:

1) changed parts upgrades seems like not well thought out. Why do not make it simply less random as we suggested many times (do not make upgrade such as in all parts involved in fusion or do not repeat any old upgrade),

2) cabins energy change means you buff some of them (e.g. currently 11 energy epic cabins) and nerf the others (e.g. currently 12 energy epic cabins), so do you plan to compesate it?

Edited January 17, 2020 by gumaak__CG_

[Crazynatman 38]

The hover changes are NOT going to fix people using sideways builds. Don't get me wrong i HATE hovers as much as the next guy but nurffing the sideways speed isn't going to hurt the sideways builds as much as it will the forward builds think about it the sideways builds will still be able to dodge in and out of cover but the normal facing builds wont therefore causing player to want to make there builds sideways even more. Also why would you even want to remove sideways hovers in the 1st place feels like you are trying to limit creativity...(hey why not just remove crafting altogether yeah thats it remove crafting and put mandatory pre-built builds in the game (i say this sarcastically).On a serious note i do think the devs need to do something about hovers but this is not a good fix to the problem.