Conquest Visual Improvements and Updates
Better communication, more predictable behavior
- We've made a number of changes/improvements to some modules. Mostly visual, some behavioral.
- We've reduced the health of golems buffed by the Buff Module from 300% -> 250%
- Behaviorally, we made a change that applies to both Lingering/Slow modules since they are the same kind of module. The short of it is that both Lingering and Slow are more aggressive at shooting at players (basically fail to fire less often)
- In more understandable terms, it's important to know the old behavior of the modules.
- How they used to work was based off a 30s interval. Every 30 seconds, a module would attempt to find the closest available target and then fire at them if they could. If nobody could be shot at at that time, then the module would simply fail to do anything and then wait until the next 30s elapsed to try again. As you can imagine this could lead to a lot of instances where simply the module never seemed to shoot at anybody.
- In the new behavior, these modules just work off of a 30 second cooldown. If they're off-cd and can fire at somebody, they will aggressively check (every 2 seconds) if they can find a nearby, enemy player that is in Line-of-Sight (LOS) and fire, then go on cooldown.
- After this change, these two modules behaved a lot more sanely, firing at you as soon as you were close. This behavior is far more expected and arguably predictable. It also explains why these modules just seemed like they didn't work half the time.
- For the Laser Module, blocking the laser now makes a Shield-Block sound effect each hit.
- In case you didn't know, you can block up to 25% of the damage of a Laser Module if you're actively shield-blocking (this has always been around)
- Otherwise, we've mostly just changed/updated the FX of some conquest stuff in order to better communicate what's happening, and to who on the battlefield.
- As of this post, most of these changes are pending the next server restart, but some things have already taken effect (like 250% golems).
Laser Module
More particles with more damage
Intensity of the Laser changes over time. Laser Module damage ramps up over time depending on how long you've been taking damage from the laser. It's a subtle visual change but it should at least better communicate if somebody's taking Full Damage from a laser vs just starting out.
Lasers always kinda weirdly stopped short of the player they were hitting. We just added some casual purple particles emitting from the player being hit by the laser so it's more clear.
Lingering Death
Smoke Particles for the Lingered
Players bleeding out from standing on the Lingering blocks will now emit black smoke particles, consistent with the rest of the visuals for Lingering Death. This should make it easier to see who's bleeding and focus them down.
Slow Module
See who's pearl blocked!
We really want to drive home debuffed players because knowing who's debuffed is not only important, but increasingly difficult the more players are in the fight. Players with ANGERY VILLAGER >:| particles over their head have been slowed and are pearl-blocked by the Slow Module.
Living Bomb
Ring of fire!
Added a ring of flame particles that denote the radius extent of the explosion. It's a small change but it better visualizes the size of the explosion when it happens.
That's all for now! Have any Conquest fight-behaviors or otherwise that confuse you? Can't tell what's going on in a fight? We're open to suggestions about more ways we can communicate battlefield events more clearly.
Go Forth!
