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You can play private matches in Crucible until it's gone for good on November 9thOct 19, 2020 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunAmazon’s bang bang ’em up FPS Crucible has certainly been through—well a crucible, I suppose, though it hasn’t emerged stronger and reformed. After a messy launch and retreating back to closed beta, Amazon Game Studios announced that the game wouldn’t be making a return. As a last hurrah, Crucible has given players the ability to host private matches now that the matchmaking queue is shut off. You have until November 9th to enjoy some last shootouts with your pals, after which Crucible will be gone for good. (more…) Custom Games & Server AvailabilityOct 15, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsWith today’s release—the final update for Crucible—we’ve added the ability for players to create their own private matches and spectate them. The regular matchmaking queue will remain active through our final playtest tomorrow (Friday, October 16). The playtest will run from 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m Pacific. To help send Crucible off in high fashion, we’ve unlocked all skins, voice lines, emotes, etc. for all players. When our Friday playtest is over, we’ll be switching off the regular queue, and matches will be available only through custom games. This will remain the case through noon Pacific Time on November 9, when we’ll be taking servers down and removing Crucible from Steam. Release notes: Custom Games Players can now create their own private Crucible matches to play with friends, scrimmage against other teams, or arrange private tournaments. When selecting a game mode, players can now select ‘Custom Game’ to host a 4v4 match of Heart of the Hives. A full 4v4 match (8 players) is required to start the game. The leader can move players between teams and into the spectator role. They also have the ability to start the match. The leader can set the lobby to either ‘invite only’ or ‘friends only’. Custom games allow up to 4 additional players to join as spectators who can watch a match from the over the shoulder perspective of any alive player. Spectators can use hotkeys 1-8 to quickly swap perspective between players. Every entitlement (character skins, emotes, decals, etc.) has been unlocked for all players. Amazon's Crucible won't be coming backOct 10, 2020 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun So long, Crucible. Amazon’s free-to-play shooter hasn’t had the easiest ride, greeted by a release so underwhelming developers Relentless Studios chose to take it back to the shop for a bit of a tune-up. Three months later, the devs have decided that Crucible may just be beyond salvaging. Development on the beleaguered shooter has ceased, with servers set to shut off over the next few weeks. (more…) Amazon cancels Crucible - five months after release and four months after un-releaseOct 10, 2020 - EurogamerAmazon has cancelled Crucible, its free-to-download multiplayer action game. Crucible launched in May 2020 with little fanfare, and player numbers dwindled soon after. In early June Amazon "retired" two of its three modes. Then, later that month, Amazon "un-released" the game, bringing Crucible into closed beta in a bid to save a project years in the making. In a post on the game's website, developer Relentless Studios said "ultimately we didn't see a healthy, sustainable future ahead of Crucible". Read more Final Crucible Developer UpdateOct 9, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsEssence hunters, In July we moved Crucible into closed beta. We made a list of features we felt would enhance the player experience, which we shared publicly on our roadmap, and with the exception of custom games (which we expect to ship in the coming days), we completed them all. With those features shipped, our next step was to evaluate the feedback we’ve heard from you, paired with the data we’ve collected, to determine our path forward. That evaluation led us to a difficult decision: we’ll be discontinuing development on Crucible. We very much appreciate the way that our fans have rallied around our efforts, and we’ve loved seeing your responses to the changes we’ve made over the last few months, but ultimately we didn’t see a healthy, sustainable future ahead of Crucible. We’ll be transitioning our team to focus on New World and other upcoming projects from Amazon Games. We’re offering a full refund for any purchases made. You can find more information on our support page. We will also be disabling credit purchases within Crucible. In the next few weeks we’ll be hosting a final playtest and community celebration, both in-game and in our official Discord. After that point we’ll be disabling matchmaking, although you’ll still be able to play Crucible through the custom games feature. Stay tuned for more information on that event. Servers will stay up for custom games until noon PST on Monday, November 9, 2020. Thank you, as always, for being part of our community. This has been a labor of love, and we’re grateful for the time we got to spend on planet Crucible with you. Signing off once more, -the Crucible teamRelease Notes: October 5, 2020Oct 5, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHunters & Gameplay General Changes: In-game damage floaters are now enabled for all players by default. Floaters can be disabled by navigating to Settings > Gameplay in the menus . Updated the location where damage floaters will display on the screen when damaging creatures. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug causing Ajonah’s Jamming Shroud to display damage floaters on detonation. Fixed a bug causing damage floaters to display when damaging inter-actable plants. Fixed a bug that prevented close-up shots from correctly registering as headshots. Fixed a bug causing the invulnerability status to not display on health bar flyouts. Bugg Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that caused the collision for Bugg’s plants to remain for a short time after they died. Captain Mendoza Bug fixes: Stimu-Health Packs : Fixed a bug that caused med pack visual effects (VFX) to be visible when cloaked. Shakirri Bug fixes: Fixed a rare bug that caused the detect mode effect overlay to remain on the screen after using an ability while in detect mode. Map & Matches General Changes: Updated the spawn locations of med kits and health plants to be more balanced across the map and to no longer spawn inside other objects. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that caused countdown timers to display incorrectly in the pre-match UI. Fixed a bug preventing players from receiving XP rewards for match placement and time played. Fixed a rare bug causing the timer for incoming hives and amplifiers to display an incorrect time. Fixed a bug preventing the sandy texture from displaying on the Spitter nest near the crashed ship. Fixed a rare bug that caused players to become stuck inside the bridge over the river. Fixed a bug causing some collision problems under the stairs at Research. Fixed a bug causing certain terrain textures to flicker. Fixed a bug in the tutorial causing players to get stuck when a door would close. Fixed a bug in the guide mode causing hit markers to display when the player’s allied bots hit a target. Fixed a bug causing creatures in the tutorial and training arena to behave inconsistently with the other games modes. Fixed a bug causing harvester visual effects (VFX) to not display properly. Technology Changes: Small reduction in memory usage (0-200 MB depending on match conditions). Improved framerate slightly for hunters with cloth/capes (e.g., Shakirri). User Interface & Usability Changes: The harvester icon in the Guide mode now matches the icon displayed when the player is prompted to capture a harvester. The icon for the active objective is now always shown in Guide mode. Enemy spawn locations will now display on the fullscreen map and the mini-map. Bug fixes: Fixed a rare bug causing the UI to freeze when the resolution was rapidly changed. Fixed a bug preventing spawn locations from showing on the mini-map. Fixed a bug causing a tooltip to display on spawn locations when loading into match. Fixed a bug causing map indicators for dead players to display at the center of the map. Fixed a rare b...Creature camps, central objectives, new tutorial, and more!Sep 24, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsA lot has changed in the world of Crucible—in this week's build more than ever. Whether you played two weeks ago or haven't looked at the game since May, there's tons to check out. In addition to the performance improvements we've continually made since launch, we've almost entirely revamped Heart of the Hives. Read the full release notes here to see a full list of updates in just our most recent release, and join us for Friday's playtest from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time! Release Notes: September 23, 2020Sep 23, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsDeveloper’s note: Today’s update is a big one for us! It’s packed with a lot of work described on our initial roadmap from June (which you can see here]). We can’t wait to hear what you think of the changes! We’ll be playtesting this Friday from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pacific Time, so come join us and try out the new-and-improved Heart of the Hives experience. Thanks for being part of the community! Spotlight Heart of the Hives Improvements Developer’s note: Back in June we announced that we’ll be doubling down on Heart of the Hives and making it the premiere Crucible experience. This allowed us to revisit many of the systems in the game that were originally designed to work with all three original modes and begin iterating on them with only Hearts of the Hives in mind. As a result, this update introduces some fairly significant changes to gameplay. For the most part, the map you’ve come to love with remains untouched, but we’ve made some adjustments to better facilitate Heart of the Hives gameplay. First, the center harvester has been repositioned to up near spaceport. This creates more of a “ring” of harvesters that circle the center of the map. What’s in center now, you ask? Central is now where amplifier objectives will spawn each match, creating a centrally located objective area. Yes, this means that each amplifier event now only include a single amplifier. We think this will help reduce randomness and create more telegraphed team fight opportunities outside of Hives. Also, we removed the death fog around the outside of the map so you’ll be able to take in all of those beautiful alien vistas that our environment art team has been working on. Moved the central Harvester (C) from the center of the map to the woodsy area between north passage and spaceport. Harvesters now form a rough ring around the interior of the map. Swapped the Harvester designation letters around to match their new arrangement. Amplifiers always spawn in the center of the map, where the C harvester used to be. All Objectives/Amplifiers now spawn a single objective, rather than two. Added a new cave area on the southwest edge of the map. Hive spawns and creature camps all have significant visual treatment in the map to help teach you where they are. Removed the death fog and shield around the edge of the map. Enjoy the view! Developer’s note: Next, we’ve shaken up farming quite a bit. In the previous version of Crucible, creatures spawned in consistent locations around the world, but the locations weren’t communicated all that well. It was especially difficult for new players to understand what to do when there wasn’t a clear objective or Hive to fight over. In this update, you’ll find that creatures spawn in dedicated camps spread across the map, and each of these camps is called out on the map and mini-map interfaces. As creature camps are defeated, the camp icon disappears from the map and won’t reappear until their internal respawn timers have completed. This means you’ll a...Release Notes: September 10, 2020Sep 10, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHunters & Gameplay General Changes: Updated interaction visual effects (VFX) on all characters. Positioned the interaction VFX to display for all characters, as they were previously hidden from view when playing as certain characters. Added new VFX for picking up Essence. The bottom edge of the screen will now display a blue glow effect to provide a more clear indication that Essence was successfully gathered. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that caused UI elements to occasionally not display and sound effects (SFX) to not play for Ajonah and Drakahl. Ajonah Changes: Squid Mine : Mines now target practice dummies, allowing players to test them out in the practice arena. Bug fixes: Squid Mine : Fixed a bug where Squid Mines were always dealing the minimum amount of damage over time (DoT) damage. Squid Mine : Fixed a bug where damage from Squid Mines were not scaling with damage multipliers. Bugg Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that could result in Bugg’s plants spawning with the Vulnerable status effect in high-latency matches. Captain Mendoza Changes: Added polish to Mendoza’s reload smoke VFX. Flash Grenade : Updated Flash Grenade explosion VFX to better depict the grenade’s explosion radius. Primary Fire : Made primary fire bullet impact VFX more noticeable so players can better tell what they are hitting. Bug Fixes: Flash Grenade : Fixed a bug where Mendoza's Grenades were applying additional critical damage. Headlong Rush : Fixed a bug that caused Headlong Rush VFX to play while the ability was on cool down. Headlong Rush : Fixed a bug that caused Mendoza to exit sprint after a successful Headlong Rush hit, requiring the player to press shift again. Mendoza will now continue to sprint after a successful hit. Drakahl Developer’s note: Drakahl fills an important role in the balance ecosystem—pressuring the enemy backline and ranged characters—but has been performing that role slightly too well. It is important that he continue to keep those characters in check, but also not feel overly oppressive when diving into the fray, so we decided to bring down his efficiency a touch. Changes: Chop : Damage decreased from 90 per swing to 85. Tough It Out : Amount of damage converted to damage-over-time reduced from 25% to 20%. Earl Developer Note: When looking at the pick rates for Earl's upgrades, High Idle was used much less than the other options at level 1. We are slightly raising the efficacy of Earl's High Idle upgrade to make it a more viable option. Changes: High Idle : Increased the minimum amount of Turbofire granted by High Idle from 15% to 25%. Upshift : Updated the Upshift impact VFX to better display damage impact and explosion radius. Blowback Vents : Added a new VFX for projectiles destroyed by active Blowback Vents. Added polish for Afterburner and reload VFX. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that prevented Earl's Turbofire indicator from updating correctly with certain upgrade unlocks. Map & Matches General Changes: Updated the Metamorphosis event to become increas...Play with us this Friday!Aug 26, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsEvery Friday, we gather closed beta participants (that's you!) from 11am-5pm Pacific to group up (or go solo if that's your deal) and play some matches. Join us--we'll be in-game and on Discord!Release Notes: August 26, 2020Aug 26, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHunters & Gameplay General Changes: Damage indicators (outgoing hit markers) now scale in size based on the amount of damage dealt by the attack. This should help players understand how impactful their attacks are. Improved the reliability of melee combat. This should improve the feel and hit registration of melee attacks, especially in higher latency environments. Reticles for Shakirri and Drakahl will now animate on melee attacks that successfully connect. Ajonah Changes: Jamming Shroud : Jamming Shroud visual effects (VFX) have been updated to better distinguish between ally and enemy shrouds. An ally’s Jamming Shroud is now easier to see through (in both directions), while an enemy’s Jamming Shroud is more difficult to see through (in both directions). Bug fixes: Grappling Hook : Fixed a bug that allowed Ajonah to grapple on Bugg’s plants. Drakahl Bug fixes: Sonic Pulse : Fixed a bug that caused the Sonic Pulse projectile VFX to disappear after 60 meters. Earl Bug fixes: X-Turbo Draft : Fixed a bug causing X-Turbo Draft to grant a 90% charge of Turbofire instead of the intended full charge. Turbofire now begins cooldown 2 seconds after use instead of 4 seconds. Rahi & Brother Changes: Concussive Punch : Updated Concussive Punch to work as a projectile. The size and duration of the projectile match the VFX for added clarity. Shakirri Changes: Force Dome : Added VFX to display when the Force Dome despawns. Added polish and variation to pistol muzzle flash effects. Map & Matches General Changes: The Mini-Harvesters event has been re-enabled. Damage amplifiers have had their power reduced by 50%. Developer’s note: All three amplifier power changes are in response to feedback and player behavior in the game after our change to scenarios and objectives. At their previous potency, amplifiers were too strong in the early match. Health amplifiers have had their power reduced by 50%. Regen amplifiers have had their power reduced by 33%. Added a visual effect highlighting the weak points on Hives. Players can no longer destroy med kits when interacting with them with a full med kit stock. Developer’s note: There was feedback that the strategic choice of denying your enemy was less important than the potential for players to accidentally deny med kits to allies. The Stomper model has been updated for better performance Added KELLI voiceover for each match’s scenario. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that caused amplifiers to occasionally spawn outside of the playable map area. Technology Changes: Reduced network bandwidth usage (client receive rate) by 30%. Developer’s note: This change will reduce instances of lag and desyncs and will be most evident to players with lower bandwidth or fluctuating internet connections. Bug fixes: Fixed a bug that caused a hunter’s awareness outline to flicker when a second player with the same hunter and skin was visible. User Interface & Usability Changes: The Essence bar on the loadout information screen now animates. Continued ...Release notes: August 12, 2020Aug 12, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsSpotlight • The Lurker has been updated with territorial behaviors to create a more threatening and engaging encounter: o Movement: Forward movement is faster. Movement and turning is locked during attack. o Attack: When in range, the lurker telegraphs their next attack by shooting a targeting beam at the player. The beam has a max range of 20m, increased from the previous attack max range of 15m. The lurker is locked into place during their attack animation, allowing players to take partial or no damage at all if they move to avoid the attack. After attacking, the lurker resets before attacking the player again. o Chase & Retreat: Lurkers will wander nearby their original spawn points. They will chase the player 50-55m away from their spawn point and retreat when they are no longer threatened with damage. o Target Sense & Alert: Lurker's Perfect Sense (or the range in which the Lurker will always see the player) has been increased from 7m to 10m. Max Sight Range (the range in which the creature can see the player) has been decreased from 25m to 20m. The Lurker’s field of view, or Sight Angle, has been increased from 115 degrees to 300 degrees. Far Radius Alert (the range at which a Lurker will alert another Lurker) has been increased from 15m to 35m. • The spectating experience while respawning has been improved: o Spectators now see the health, heads-up display (HUD), and visible targets (such as creature and enemy fly-outs) of the player they are spectating. o Spectators can now see Quick Comms visible to the player they are spectating. o Interaction UI is now visible to spectators. o If no teammates are available to spectate, the spectator camera now defaults to viewing a pretty waterfall. Hunters & Gameplay General Changes: • Added camera shake on quick melee attacks and hits. • Updated stun animations on all hunters to better communicate when a player is stunned. • Added a new automatic voice line when a hunter takes damage from an enemy player after being out of combat for a while. Bug fixes: • Improved distant audio reverberation to better differentiate important audio closer to the player. • Fixed several bugs related to Quick Comms voice lines. Ajonah Developer’s note: We feel that Ajonah is currently has a few too many advantages against other hunters. We like her having a strong escape, so rather than changing her Grapple, we’ve decided to shave her offense. Changes: • Grapple : Updated the range finder to not block the reticle. The range finder is now displayed as an icon below the reticle which shows cooldown, range, and number of charges. • Aim Down Sights : Max damage decreased from 60 to 55. • Aim Down Sights: Animation set to be more stable, which will allow gun trajectory accuracy to be more consistent. • Aim Down Sights: Updated the Aim Down Sights reticle to be a single dot to represent her improved accuracy. • Squid Mine: Reduced Squid Mine damage from 30 direct damage and 90 damag-over-time to 20 direct damage...Release notes: August 4, 2020Aug 4, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsSpotlight Mini-Map v1.0 Our initial implementation of a mini-map is in! The mini-map lives in the upper left corner of your heads-up display (HUD) and gives players critical gameplay information. You can, of course, still use the larger map to ping locations and see the state of things in more detail. This first version of the mini-map shows: • Your location and facing direction • Ally locations • The location of enemies detected by you or your teammates • Hives, hive telegraphs, and hive hearts • Incoming objectives • Active objectives • Pings Developer's note: As part of this change and because much of the information in the compass was duplicated by the mini-map, we've removed the compass from the HUD. We’re going to continue to examine how we can best use the space in the HUD to convey critical information, and we’ll keep an eye on feedback to changes like this. Quick Comms Update • Contextual pings: Various game objects will produce a specific set of ping options on the Quick Comms wheel when you hold down the ping command . Many of these pings have specific voice-over (VO) lines that relate to the object pinged. For example, harvester letter names are included in several of the new ping VO lines. o Objectives (amplifiers and harvesters) o Harmful plants o Helpful plants o Player-placed objects like Bugg’s plants and Ajonah’s Jamming Shroud o Allies (try saying "hello" to your teammates!) o Enemy players (use "Focus Target" to call out the enemy you want your allies to shoot at) o Creatures • Added roughly 2,000 new voice lines (across all characters) to support contextual pings. • Added new automatic voice lines for common situations: o When a player first attempts to use a med kit without having any Scenarios & Objectives • Made significant changes to the planetary event system. Please see Map & Matches for full notes. Hunters & Gameplay General Changes: • Unified how reticle drop shadows look so they will stand out in bright environments on all hunters. • Adjusted the voice line timings for all Quick Melee attacks. Ajonah Changes: • Added visual effects (VFX) for Ajonah’s reload. • Improved accuracy of Ajonah’s grapple indicator with and without the Tidal Reach upgrade. Bugg Changes: • Added a water droplet indicator to plant seeds that haven’t yet been watered to improve visual clarity and help teach the watering mechanic. Captain Mendoza Bug Fixes: • Fixed a bug that prevented Mendoza’s bunker from showing hit markers if the bunker struck an enemy while being summoned. Drakahl Bug Fixes: • Enraged Claw ]: Fixed a bug that caused to heal 160 health from plants. He now heals the appropriate 80 health when attacking plants. Earl Changes: • Updated Earl's HUD to indicate his turbofire level better. Bug Fixes: • Fixed an issue that caused Earl to sometimes be unable to heal after reloading. Rahi & Brother Changes: • VFX improvements: o Laz Beam : Updated the visual effect to clearly communicate impact location. o Laz Beam : Added new ignitio...Developer update: July 30, 2020Jul 30, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsLast week we mentioned that we were planning to push a new release out the door this week and welcome our first wave of new beta testers. Unfortunately, due to a few critical bugs we recently identified, we’re postponing the release and the invites until next week. We know that’s not exciting news, but these bugs impacted core gameplay and we need time to thoroughly test out our fixes for them before pushing the release live. The upside of the situation is that the registration cut-off for the first wave of invitations is being extended to Sunday, August 2, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. We’ll be running a playtest like normal tomorrow (on the current build), so you can still jump in for some matches. After the release ships next week we’ll be making some updates to our public development roadmap to reflect features that have shipped, add some new projects, and update details on some existing projects. An update on AFK players We’ve been keeping an eye on the number and frequency of players being detected as severely AFK (that is, those who stopped playing long enough to significantly hamper their team’s chances of winning). Severely AFK players crop up in about 13% of matches, which is more or less in line with some of our competitors, but it’s something we know we need to improve. Of the players who are detected as being severely AFK, most (about 85%) only do so once or twice over the course of a month. These are the players that are going AFK to answer the door or to help carry in the groceries—you get the picture. While this is frustrating for the other players in the match, we understand that life interferes with gaming from time to time and we don't want to bring down the hammer too harshly on infrequent offenders. That said, we’re going to take steps to cut down on the impact of the others—the players who repeatedly and intentionally AFK during matches. Today we doled out week-long suspensions on the worst offenders. This is something we’ll be doing regularly moving forward. In addition to taking action on players who repeatedly go AFK, we’re considering lowering the threshold for what we consider “severely” AFK (meaning more players would end up on our radar). We’ll be asking for your input on the matter in next week’s post playtest survey (which you can access from the Crucible main menu). That’s all for now—we’ll see you in game! -the Crucible team Developer update: July 22, 2020Jul 22, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHello, Essence hunters, Welcome to another Crucible developer update. We have a medley of topics this week, so let’s jump right in. Release cadence Since launch, and up until a few weeks ago, our goal was to put out a new release each week. This approach allowed us to quickly address the issues we saw at launch, but it came at the cost of reduced internal efficiency. Our goal moving forward will be to put out new release every two weeks. This is more sustainable for the team, and it gives us some extra time to make sure we’re putting out quality releases—which is important considering there are a lot of changes coming in the next few weeks and months. You’ll see some of those changes in our next build, which is currently slated for next week. This one’s a chonker: We’ve got the mini-map coming online, new context-specific pings for the quick comms system (including 2,500+ new voice lines), the first part of our planetary event system rework, client and networking performance improvements, combat and UI polish, and a slew of bug fixes. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37693594/fcfc28d2e2230ba581a0ac27e987807d7260e71b.jpg Pictured: The new mini-map in its home in the upper left corner of the HUD. Please note that this screenshot is taken from the dev environment for sneak peek purposes only, and is not meant to represent an actual match. Closed beta strategy We’re seeing a lot of discussion in the community right now about player concurrency numbers and Crucible’s marketing, so let’s talk a bit about our overall strategy for closed beta. As we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, we’ve paused most of our marketing efforts while we deliver the features on our closed beta roadmap and address the shortcomings in the new player experience that turned a lot of players off at launch. We believe that bringing in a bunch of new players before those changes are in is not going to be super effective, so we’re mostly focused on our current players (you!). This is why we’re running weekly tournaments, for example. They’re not intended to market the game and acquire new players, but rather to provide content and opportunities for our existing players. However, we do need to introduce new blood to the closed beta from time to time to ensure that we’re on the right track and that the changes we’re making are doing what we expect. Starting on July 31, every four weeks or so we’ll be inviting waves of new players into the closed beta to participate in our weekly playtests. We’ll closely monitor how these players interact with the game—how long they play, if they come back, what they’re doing—and use this information to identify areas where we need to invest more time and effort. Once we feel good about the progress we’re seeing and the feedback we’re getting in these closed beta tests, we’ll look to transition to hosting broader tests—which is when you’ll start to see more marketing activity. Playtest schedule and beta registration Starting this week and moving forward, p...Release notes: July 10 & 14 2020Jul 10, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHunters & Gameplay General Changes: • We made a change to the way we draw projectile trails so you will now see the trails on the first frame of the shot even if the projectile hits a target on that frame. Developer's note: This should make projectiles easier to read and allow players to react to them. Bug fixes: • Fixed a bug that allowed explosions to pass through nearby shields, like Shakirri's Holo-Shield. This fix should prevent Summer's Ignition Spark and Drakahl's Resonating Quake from passing through shields. Ajonah Changes: • Squid Mines no longer target invulnerable or invisible players. Bugg Changes: • Booming Blossoms : Plants will no longer self-destruct on detonation. Plants that now Disrupt upon becoming overcharged, rather than Stunning nearby opponents. Developer's note: We wanted to improve this upgrade and make it easier to use. We feel like not destroying the plant is more user-friendly, so to compensate, we've made the upgrade a disrupt instead of stun. Captain Mendoza Changes: • Updated Captain Mendoza's left strafe movement when aiming down sights to make it feel better. Drakahl Bug fixes: • Fixed a bug that was causing Sonic Pulse to erroneously display headshot hit indicators. This change fixes a visual bug and does not impact the actual functionality of the skill. Rahi & Brother Changes: • Improved the placement helper for placing Brother., including adding functionality so the helper will search up and down on walls and cliff for appropriate terrain. Bug fixes: • Fixed a bug that caused Brother's silhouette to appear red to players using Rahi & Brother. Sazan Changes: • Updates to Sazan shotgun muzzle flash visual effects (VFX) to make shotgun blasts more visible. Developer's note: This change will help Sazan players - as well as enemies - understand when her shotgun is firing. This is important to learn, as a substantial amount of her damage comes from her shotgun. Shakirri Developer's note: We've updated a few of Shakirri's upgrades in order to facilitate build diversity. Changes: • Revised Shakirri's Hip Fire recoil animation. • Revised Shakirri's Aim Down Sights recoil animation. • Healthy Gambit : This has been moved from tier 3 to tier 1. Additionally, this now evaluates cooldown duration at the time of ability use, rather than continually re-evaluating cooldown duration based on Shakirri's health. • Shield of Honor : This has been moved from tier 1 to tier 3. Additionally, this upgrade now extends the duration of Holo-Shield by .5s. Summer Developer's note: Many of Summer's abilities and VFX are now easier to read. In particular, it should be easier for new players to read her area-of-effect abilities in order to avoid standing in them. Changes: • Firepulse Thrusters : Updated VFX to help distinguish this from other abilities. • Magma Spiral : Impact VFX updated to support Blue/Red team colors and more clearly visible boundaries. • Updated the VFX for Summer's Overheated state to be more clear and show a glowing ...Release notes: July 2, 2020Jul 2, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsSpotlight Voice Chat (v1) • Added support for Team voice chat. o Voice chat is enabled by default. To opt out, players can disable the Auto-join Team Voice option in Settings → Audio → Voice Chat o Team voice chat is only available while connected to the match server. (i.e., from the time the pre-match versus screen is displayed through the post-match scoreboard). There is currently no voice chat in the main menus. o Added a UI notification that briefly displays at the beginning of each match to notify players whether they have or have not joined the Team voice chat channel. o There is a new Social Menu (bound to by default) that lists the current players on each team and provides support for joining/leaving the Team channel, muting, and reporting players. Players have the additional option to Join/Leave Team Voice Chat on a per-match basis through the Social Menu . Simply click on the None (to leave) or Team (to join) buttons found under My Voice. The Social Menu allows players to mute individual players, mute all players, and mute self. Added new Reason in the Report A Player menu for Voice Chat (Offensive Language). o New settings options have been added for Voice Chat: Audio Settings Auto-join Team Voice (Enabled/Disabled) Voice Input Mode: Open Mic or Push-to-Talk. Push-to-Talk is selected by default. Push-To-Talk Audio Cue In-Game Voice Output Volume (the volume at which you hear other players speaking) In-Game Voice Input Device (defaults to Windows device) In-Game Voice Output Device (defaults to Windows device) Microphone Input Volume Auto Adjust Mic Threshold (automatically sets mic activation threshold) Microphone Activation Threshold (use to manually adjust mic input sensitivity/activation threshold) Test: visualization meter that displays microphone activation threshold results Input Settings (keybind support) Mute All Mute Self Push-To-Talk Social Menu AFK Prevention Developer's note: These steps are intended to remove the incentive for intentionally AFK'ing during a match. In the future we’ll be rolling out active punishments for those that repeatedly AFK to the detriment of their team. • If we detect that a player is AFK for an extended period of time during a match, they lose all XP for that match. Additionally, the AFK player will lose all battle pass, daily challenge, and achievement progression from that match. • The Surrender vote option will become available immediately at any stage in the game if an AFK player is detected. Hunters & Gameplay General Changes: • Spike plants: When spike plants are triggered, they now immediately deal 100 damage to nearby players and creatures and inflict Vulnerability for 3 seconds. Spike plants will continue to deal damage to anyone that stands in them while they are activated. Developer's note: We wanted to make spike plants more rewarding for players who make use of them and time them well. • Improved the clarity of incoming and outgoing damage in a nu...Developer Update: Crucible BetaJun 30, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHello, Essence hunters, A few weeks ago, I told you about the steps we were taking to change and improve Crucible in response to your feedback. That plan is still the same, but we’re taking a new step that will help us focus on providing the best possible experience for our players as we continue to make the game better. Starting tomorrow, Crucible is moving to closed beta. We’ll continue following the roadmap we laid out previously and working on map, combat, and system changes to improve the Heart of the Hives experience as well as implementing other improvements based on your feedback and what we think the game needs in order to thrive. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37693594/82a6afbb6b4c62494f183a39b02bb3af80b5259c.jpg For the most part, your experience as a Crucible player will stay pretty much the same while we’re in beta. One of the biggest changes you’ll see is that we’re going to schedule dedicated time each week when we as devs will be playing with the community and soliciting feedback. The game will be accessible 24/7 so you can continue to self-organize matches with other players—we recommend joining our Discord server to find players to queue against. You’ll still launch Crucible through Steam (you don’t even need a new download), you’ll keep all the progress and customization items you’ve already earned, and the battle pass, reward tracks, and in-game store will continue to be supported. We’re setting up a community council, made up of beta participants of all playstyles from casual to highly competitive players, who we’ll be working especially closely with. We’ll have more information on that council, as well as our weekly play schedule, soon. Even though Crucible will be in closed beta, nothing is changing about the way you can engage with the game: you’re still welcome to stream, to share screenshots and clips, and to talk about what you experience in the beta. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37693594/9e8f72bfd52037443a0dfa0f613a9e4e9aaedb83.jpg What now? If you’ve got friends who want to be part of the Crucible beta, you can encourage them to get the game before tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. PT (6 p.m. CET). In the near future, newly interested folks will be able to sign up through playcrucible.com. We’ll keep putting out updates, working with organizers to run tournaments, talking with you on Discord, the subreddit, and our other social media channels, and making Crucible better and better with your help. When we exit beta it will be based on your feedback and the metrics that we see in-game. Thank you for being part of our community. We’re looking forward to the closed beta and to what’s in store for the future of Crucible. We’ll see you in-game, -Colin Johanson & the Crucible team Developer update: June 26, 2020Jun 26, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHey all, On June 4 we published a developer update that explained how we’re extending Pre-Season and restructuring our team to focus on a new set of development priorities, which were largely determined by the feedback we’ve been hearing from all of you. It’s been about three weeks since we made that announcement, so today we’re going to take some time to talk about what we’ve been up to. We’ve shipped three updates in the past three weeks (June 6, June 10, June 18) that were focused on balance, bug fixing and polish, but we know you’re eager to hear news on some of our bigger projects. So let’s dive in: Voice chat v1 Voice chat remains a top priority for the team and we’re very close to shipping it. In fact, it’ll be in our next release. In full transparency, we had planned to ship it this past week, but in a recent playtest we realized that the implementation at the time just didn’t meet our quality bar—it needed a few more features (push-to-talk, for example), more polish, and we needed to hammer out some bugs that were causing performance problems. Making the decision to hold a feature back is always difficult, especially when we know the feature is as important as voice chat, but we feel that this was the right call. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37693594/f2feec0172a08a3732b1bee4d1a28d5886e752ef.jpg When voice chat ships, you’ll be able to use it in matches, it will support voice activation (with adjustable activation thresholds) and push-to-talk, and will be an opt-in experience players will be reminded of regularly. We’ll also be adding a new social menu (bound to by default) that allows you to opt into or out of voice chat during a match, mute other players or yourself, and report toxicity. As with all things, the voice chat system will be updated based on feedback we hear from the community, so please let us know your thoughts once you’re able to get your hands on it! AFK players We’ve been working on identifying the root causes behind why players go AFK, from being stuck in unwinnable matches, to botting, to stepping away to help carry in the groceries. We recently added the surrender feature to help get players out of bad games as quickly as possible, and after the recent changes to the minimum vote timer threshold, we feel it’s settled into a decent spot—but we’ll still be keeping an eye on your feedback and looking to make changes as needed. We’ve already made many of our battle pass challenges more active (for example, requiring players to win games rather than just playing them) to remove the incentive for players to deliberately AFK. In our next build, we’ll be taking this a step further by preventing players who are detected as AFK from earning achievement, battle pass, and challenge progress for match completion. We’ll also be allowing players to call a surrender vote before the minimum timer if an AFK player is detected. These are just the first steps we’re taking. In the future we’ll be rolling out active punishments for those that repea...Release Notes: June 18, 2020Jun 18, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHunters & Gameplay General Changes: • Updated the minimum time threshold to start a vote to surrender and the time between surrender votes. Developer’s note: We've made these changes to try to mitigate the impact of people spamming surrender. Please note we're still working on AFK prevention, which will go a long way towards addressing one of the chief causes of teams needing to surrender. o Time from start of match until surrendering becomes available increased from 1.5 minutes to 7 minutes. o Time between surrender votes increased from 1 minute to 2 minutes. • Updated critical hit sound effects. • The loadout screen now shows passive abilities. • Creature and object healthbars will now show shield information if the creature or item has a shield—for example, Bugg’s plants will now show when they have overshield. Drakahl Changes: • Revised blade impact sound effects. Shakirri Changes: • Revised blade impact sound effects. Technology • Client download bandwidth usage reduced by 5-10%. • Improved client framerate by 5-10% for both minimum and recommended specification machines. Performance gains may vary for machines that don't precisely match minimum or recommended specifications. • Fixed 3 bugs that could result in the client and server state for a given player getting out of sync (which would result in a player appearing to have their state "reset"). Developer's note: It's still possible to encounter desyncs like these from other sources. • Machines with lower memory will now load smaller sound banks, which should result in slightly better performance for machines at minimum specifications. User Interface & Usability Changes: • The profile page will show "NEW" flags on icons, and they'll be cleared upon hover-over or selection. • Updated the art for the quick comms radial menu. • Updated the loading screen tip rotation speed to make reading each tip easier. • The key will now close the "Swap Challenge" pop-up modal. Bug fixes: • Radial overlays on Collections menus now show the correct slots as being filled. • Interaction prompt now properly shows images for gamepad buttons. • Fix some display bugs on drop-down menus. • The profile link on the Collections menu no longer says "NEW" forever. • Profile icons that are no longer able to be earned will be hidden to players who do not have them. • Fixed a bug that caused the cursor to display improperly if a player died with the scoreboard open.
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