I'm excited to bring you the first content update to Dead Grid! This update includes a lot of new items, many of which are unique, a difficult new mission, improvements to the mid-game balance and more.
Here is a quick overview of the new content. Keep in mind, not everything is revealed in these screenshots. The full patch notes are at the bottom of this announcement.
As always, thanks for all the great feedback and bug reports!
NEW GADGETS AND ACCESSORIES
A number of new accessories/gadgets have been added to handle frequent weapon jams, improve the damage of pistols and a few new mechanics left for you to discover.
Lock Picks is now a gadget. The consumable card was a frequent complaint with players forgetting to restock between missions. The original item has been changed to repair durablity, but can also open locks, so the consumable is still an option if you're not willing to give up a gadget slot on 1 merc.
NEW UNIQUE WEAPONS
These are just some of the new unique weapons added to the game.
NEW MISSION - TUNNEL EAST
This is the continuation of the tunnel mission currently in the game. Both tunnel missions are still missing the lore and survivor support which is being worked on for a future update.
NEW FEATURE - THE FALLEN
A new feature allowing you to add custom zombies to randomly appear on a mission. These zombies are easy to tell apart from the regular enemies you'd expect to see. The feature is designed for streamer engagement, but can still be used during regular play to add a bit more challenge. It's completely optional.
LEADER SKILL CHANGES
This update focuses on bringing all remaining Leader skills to have more than 1 rank. Other classes to follow soon.
MISSION SCALING CHANGES
One of the most common complaints has been the scaling of enemy HP on frequently replayed missions, especially on 10+ repeats. As the enemy's hit points increase with repeats, players start to rely on traps and fire damage with their weapons never catching up.
The solution I'm rolling out in this update is to limit this scaling to 10 repeats on every mission. After the 10th repeat the scaling for that mission stops and the player has a chance to overpower the encounters through the use of melee, guns or explosions. Keep in mind, 10 repeats on some late game missions is still not an easy task, but this also caters to the more casual players wanting to replay the earlier missions without running into a wall (the source of many complaints).
In addition, completing most missions now slightly reduces the difficulty of ONE nearby location. When a mission can reduce the difficulty of another location, you will see it indicated on the region map while hovering over the mission icon (Polaroid).
I'll be gathering more feedback, so further tuning will naturally be pushed with patches.
CHANGE YOUR STARTING MERC
Your starting merc can now be changed. They must be the only merc in mission squad before you can remove and replace them with someone else.
MG WEAPON MASTERY
Due to the popular request, weapon mastery now includes training for MG.
Good luck out in the apocalypse, the survivors count on you!
-------------------------------------------------
FULL PATCH NOTES - EA 0.1.37
BUG FIXES
Mercs cannot progress past rank 31, displaying invalid XP. Mercs can now level to rank 100 where XP stops.
Closing the GEAR UI with ESC does not reopen the Region Map, leaving a blank screen.
Game errors triggered by 2 specific sharp weapon attack animations.
Floor clipping on mission Tunnel East and improved fps on some of the encounters in the tunnel.
Issues preventing mercs from sometimes using guns after breaking their melee weapon.
Incorrect damage number displayed on undead about to explode from the Bloody Meal item effect.
Duplicate Slade card spawning on the final encounter of mission PVS Express.
Pressing an empty Gadget loadout slot redirects to the Accessories tab instead of Gadgets.
GENERAL CHANGES
The first merc in mission squad can now be changed. The merc must be the only one in mission squad to be removed.
Weapon mastery now includes training for MG weapon types.
Option to start the game with a forced 30 fps by setting a custom launch option --30fps in Steam's game properties.
Added a new tutorial for spending the first 5 skill points on a new game.
Added Steam Cloud integration to saved games.
CARD CHANGES
SKILL: Vulnerability has been converted from 1 to 5 ranks.
SKILL: Quick Reflexes has been converted from 1 to 5 ranks.
GADGET: Gas Can has been changed to draw Molotovs more frequently when equipped on Tacticians.
GADGET: Walkie Talkie has been completely reworked with a new mechanic.
ACCESSORY: Deep Pockets no longer applies the ammo boost on bows, crossbows and mg weapons.
WEAPON: MG weapons now apply a Heavy Weapon status, causing additional stamina loss on melee attacks.
CONSUMABLE: Lock Picks has been replaced by a new card, Small Toolkit which can repair durability.
CONTENT
NEW GADGETS: Gun Cleaning Kit, Lock Picks
NEW ACCESSORIES: Waste Disposal, Bandolier, Quiver
NEW UNIQUES: 35+ new unique melee and ranged weapons, 10+ accessories and gadgets.
NEW ENEMY ABILITY: Regenerate HP of adjacent undead.
NEW ENEMY ABILITY: Chance (20-80%) return to combat after being eliminated and does not apply on bosses.
NEW ENEMY: 10 new hospital themed enemy types.
NEW ENEMY: 1 new boss enemy appearing at the end of Tunnel East.
NEW EVENT: Hungry Paramedic, spawning one of the new enemy types.
NEW FAME: 10 new achievements, raising the total to 140.
NEW MERC ABILITY: Total Focus, a new combat status effect applied on mercs who skipped their attack turn. Grants a 30% damage buff on the next melee or ranged attack.
NEW MISSION: Tunnel East, unlocks after completing Tunnel West.
NEW FEATURE: The Fallen, customize and name 10 enemies to encounter during missions. This feature is available in camp, next to the Fame button.
NEW FEATURE: Undead scaling on a mission has been reworked to have a limit. This is represented with a new 0-10 bar, visible in mission details. At full bar, undead no longer scale allowing the player to eventually overpower the difficulty if they continue to repeat their favorite mission.
NEW FEATURE: In addition to the capped mission scaling, completing most missions now reduces the difficulty of a nearby mission. If a mission can reduce another mission's difficulty, it will be shown on the Region Map UI by hovering over a mission location.
Please post your issues and suggestions in Discord or the forums. Thank you!
I've been working on the next Dead Grid content update and I'd like to share a quick preview of the coming features. Some of these are not final yet, but should give you a rough idea of what to expect. While I'm not ready to announce the release date, the update is getting close to the testing phase so it shouldn't be too long.
ACCESSORIES & GADGETS
I've received a lot of feedback on the frequency of weapon jams. I believe the game offers a variety of ways to avoid this issue by using revolvers, bows, Commando mercs, etc. Rather than reducing jam chances on poorly maintained weapons, I'm looking to diversify your options with additional equipment. The Gun Cleaning Kit gadget does not offer anything for Commando mercs, but should grant a similar benefit to other classes when fully upgraded. The other accessories are left to be discovered in the game.
WEAPONS
These are just some of the new uniques being added to the game. Most of them start to appear after you've unlocked the Oil Refinery location.
SKILLS
This update focuses on bringing all remaining Leader skills to have more than 1 rank. The next update will start to cover other classes.
WEAPON MASTERY
Due to the popular request, weapon mastery now includes training for MG.
MISSIONS
I've been working on multiple new missions, but can confirm at least one will make it into the next update. This is the continuation to the tunnel mission currently in the game.
NEW ENEMY TYPES
No apocalypse is complete without a zombie infested hospital. A small hint on where I'm going.
NEW FEATURE
A new feature allowing you to add custom zombies to randomly appear on a mission. These zombies are easy to tell apart from the regular enemies you'd expect to see. The feature is designed for streamer engagement, but can still be used during regular play to add a bit more challenge. It's completely optional.
NOTES
In addition to the changes mentioned in this preview, the update contains a number of bug fixes as well.
As always, thanks for all the feedback and bug reports. Cheers!
PATCH NOTES - EA 0.1.22
Hello Mercs!
This week's focus was on more immediate bug fixes, some quality of life changes based on your feedback and further balance changes of the game. I've also started preparing for new mission content to be added in the coming months.
Please post your issues and suggestions in Discord or the forums. Thank you!
BUG FIXES
Card details for mercs with a large number of status effects go out of bounds at bottom of the screen.
Unlocking skill mastery (18 points in tree) does not visually flag skills with 3/5 ranks which can be upgraded further.
Remaining training points are not changing on the merc cards after using Respec and spending points again into any weapon training.
Mercs are seen glitching across multiple cards on some encounters of mission Tunnel West.
Mercs drawn in hand and left unplayed are sometimes seen not to return on the next combat encounter.
Grenade damage dealt to adjacent targets is not 1/2 of the primary damage dealt, as indicated on the card.
Player is unable to stash away loot items or give items to mercs on Area Cleared.
CARD CHANGES
Skills Propane Tank and Siphoned Petrol now explain the stacking fire damage in card details.
Skill Snap lighter has been rebalanced with increased damage on the first rank and reduced on the top 2 ranks.
Skill Siphoned Petrol has been reduced to cost 3 AP from 4 AP.
Skill Dynamite has been reduced to cost 2 AP from 3 AP.
Skill Buckshot now properly works with Pump Action, spreading damage on every shot unless missed.
Playing Viper while a dead Viper is in combat will now despawn the dead Viper first.
GAME BALANCE
Hard Mode has been changed to grant 5 points per skill (same as Normal). This change was based on accumulated feedback from many players. Hard Mode will go through a further rebalance offering additional incentives in the future.
Increased kill requirements for bonus items on mission repeats by about 20%.
Added a small warning to the mission details view to remind the player of potentially unbalanced enemy scaling after a specific number of repeats. The number of repeats to show this message depends on the mission.
Unaware enemies can now be alerted on a full board of enemies in play. Alerted cards are now added to the imminent threat deck (red cards) where as before they were never alerted. This change also applies to using Initiative.
Noise no longer drops to 0 with no unaware enemies remaining and can still go up or down. This is due to other cards potentially being added to the threat deck through events or skills.
HP scaling of all Normal Mode missions has been reduced by 30% and should be noticeable past 3 non-tutorial mission repeats. Scaling will have a much bigger rebalance when more content gets added to the game, so this change is to make the current missions a bit more accessible to the players spending 20+ hours in the current state of the game.
Note: Next week more work will be put into Hard Mode to offer a bigger challenge.
Adrenaline in Unarmed mastery has been slightly rebalanced to give +10 HP at max rank instead of +15. More work will be done on this mechanic later.
SMG base hit chance has been increased from 60% to 70%, so Degraded will start with 70%.
SMG max hit chance has been increased from 75% to 90%.
FEATURES / CONTENT
Saved games now support custom names and include a confirmation.
Changed the saved game displayed date format to be more consistent across different world regions.
Added an option to the loot selection for items to be drawn into hand or stashed away. This should greatly reduce hand clutter for cards not intended to be played, but still collected as loot. The option is not shown on the first tutorial mission.
Eliminated enemy bodies can now be removed by interacting with a merc. This consumes an attack turn and there are plans for new gadgets to improve the mechanic.
Combat message Area Cleared can now be closed per user feedback.
Added 2 new combat music tracks for a total of 22.
PATCH NOTES - EA 0.1.18
Hello Mercs!
This week's patch focuses on many bug fixes and the start of a long journey to balance the game. My focus is not to make very drastic changes to the harder missions yet, but improve the early game until more content is added. This may take a few patches to iron out, so please stay tuned!
BUG FIXES
Player is able to sell an item available for upgrade and still upgrade it after, despite not having the item anymore.
Skills Pump Action, Sharp Mastery and Blunt Mastery show incorrect target in details, should state Auto-Applied.
Dropped supplies always amount to 5 supplies instead of a range. The fix should start rewarding players with more random supplies on missions.
Auto-Equip allows weapons to be equipped on mercs below their required rank. Previously equipped items will not be unequipped when loading your save.
Shovel can be upgraded to a unique. This was not intentional and the weapon was converted to Exceptional (purple). The unique variant is still offered for sale.
Reported cases of mercs clipping through the ground on mission Oil Refinery.
Enemies killed by explosion damage don't reward XP (grenades, propane tanks, dynamites, etc), this system has been rebalanced, see below.
Drawing Apocalyptic Pet into the overflow deck does not start its cooldown. The cooldown should start when the skill is selected and the skill bar closes.
Crate of Good appearing in player's inventory is still being reported by some players, this item is only used by the initial trader tutorial.
Survivor Brie appears on missions where she isn't providing support. Occurs after playing a mission with Brie followed by another mission without her support.
Item Bloody Meal can be played on a boss minion despite saying otherwise. AP is spent and the item should redraw if played on a boss.
Player is unable to reach 100% region control with no active hordes, always returning to 98%. This usually happens after recently clearing the last horde.
Typo in survivor Garrett's Virology speech bubble, skill name Flaming Strike, Ned's assistance tool tip.
Some Leader skills that refund stamina on use are missing % in details, a display issue only.
Spike Traps icon missing in card details for enemies affected by the status.
GAME CHANGES
Improved zombie/merc card damage and hp stat text size scaling when going over 999 to avoid overlapping another card.
Mouse scroll wheel is now assigned to change GEAR pages, TAB changes gear tabs. Shift-TAB goes back.
Accessories and Gadgets have been split into their own GEAR tabs per player request.
Changed the background of Degraded weapons to a red tint so they are easier to tell apart from the Standard variants.
Each Extended Tutorial mission now states the number of remaining plays before the tutorial is lifted.
Cards selected for upgrade will stay highlighted and continue to show details even when not being hovered over.
Spending 3/5 skill points on an unmaxed (Expert) tree should no longer show the animation indicating more points can be spent on that skill.
Achievement The One to Rule Them All has been removed and replaced with a new achievement Master Crafter.
Grass has been disabled on the last (objective) encounter of mission Roadblock due to FPS dips. This mission will go through further optimization in future patches.
Slightly increased the spacing between the Show Hand and Close/Skip Draw buttons that control the skill bar.
CARD CHANGES
Wood Plank and Bone Club weapons can now be upgraded to the Exceptional condition (purple). If you had unique variants of these weapons, they will now appear as Exceptional with unique variants still in the drop/vendor pool.
Playing a duplicate Viper skill while Viper is in play will now roll to increase his remaining turns, also stated in card details and combat log.
Skills and cards dealing explosion damage have been rebalanced to scale with squad power. This includes consumables played from hand or skills such as, Dynamite, Siphoned Petrol, Propane Tank and Frag Out. Note, the damage in card details does not reflect the additional bonus from mercs's explosion mastery, that is added at the time of the explosion. This is the first pass to scale explosion damage with more changes to follow.
Accessories Leather Boots and Army Boots have been rebalanced and now include a benefit of reducing additional noise on all melee attacks while equipped on a merc.
Increased the chance of Lockpicks appearing in trader's stock by 50%.
Dropped supplies gradually increase with the rank of player's main merc, this was actually a bug always dropping 5 supplies.
Updated card details for Breach and Enemy Assessment to indicate the card is removed from hand after being played.
MG weapon description now indicates ammo cannot be replenished with regular ammo cards. Other skill mechanics continue to work to restore ammo.
Commando skill Frag Out has been changed to deal damage of the current equipped ranged weapon. Damage scales further with explosion mastery.
Toxic Vent's description has been updated to indicate each merc has a 70% chance to get Poisoned at the start of turn.
GAME BALANCE
XP gain is now consistent for all damage types (burn, traps, explosions, melee or ranged attacks). Harder enemy types grant more XP. This change is an overall boost to XP for area of effect play styles.
Enemy boss Bone Horror is now immune to fire damage to match the other skeleton based minions.
Survivor Ash is now providing support on all horde missions.
Extended tutorial on mission Help Slade has been increased from 5 to 7 repeats.
Extended tutorial on mission Lost Convoy has been increased from 3 to 4 repeats.
Reduced enemy HP on all active Extended Tutorial missions by 30%. Hard Mode is not affected by this change.
Reduced enemy HP on scaling on horde missions by 20%. Hard Mode is not affected by this change.
Raised the Recommended Squad Power for many missions based on gathered feedback, this is only used as a guide and will need more balance.
Please post your issues and suggestions in Discord or the forums. Thank you!
HOTFIX PATCH NOTES - EA 0.1.16.1
Hello Mercs!
This is a follow-up hotfix to yesterday's big patch 0.1.16.
BUG FIXES
Survivor Ray is not unlocked after completing mission PVPD. If you've already completed this mission, it will need to be repeated to unlock Ray.
Survivor Frank is not unlocked when completing mission Oil Refinery. If you've already completed this mission, it will need to be repeated to unlock Frank.
Crate of Goods appears in player's cosumables inventory (very few reports). This item should only be offered by the trader during the initial tutorial.
Silent Stalker boots missing item graphic.
Lab Research: Field Field Medic is not proccing when healing mercs with first aid, medkits, blood packs. The chance has also been increased from 5% to 10%, but may go down to 5% later.
Player is able to create duplicate cards by de-equipping and re-equipping 2 items of same name/condition which sometimes shows available copies for upgrades and results in an extra card.
SKILL BALANCE
Viper's shield option has been moved to the 3rd rank of the skill.
Viper's shield durability has been slightly reduced.
Viper now stays in combat for 3-6 turns, changed from 5-10 attacks.
While using Enforcer's skill Closure, a fatal shield attack still triggers a follow-up ranged attack. This is unnecessary and should no longer happen. Closure details have been updated to reflect the change.
MISC
Added hints to Lab unlocks.
Please post your issues and suggestions in Discord or the forums. Thank you!
PATCH NOTES - EA 0.1.16
BUG FIXES
<*> Rename merc dialog overlaps card details unless accepted. <*> Renamed merc does not instantly reflect the new name until refreshing merc roster. <*> Renamed merc loses their name after dying and spawning as a zombie. <*> Unlocking fame for eliminating 5 undead in a single turn by the same merc does not register similar fame with lower requirements of 4 and 3 undead. <*> Meat Decoy deployed into combat shows a duplicate group of status effects. <*> Fixes to mercs, Deploy Ammo and Meat Decoy clipping through the ground on the horder missions and PVPD. <*> Fixed missing unique accessory graphic Delta Force, item was renamed to Delta Storm to avoid a conflict with a similar named gun. <*> Typo fixes in skill Retaliation, Silence, Light Movement, a few achievements.
QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES
<*> Sell all valuables button has been added to the trader's SELL view when you possess any valuables. <*> Added a darker frame for valuable items to make them more apparent as non-playable loot cards. <*> Valuable items can no longer be equipped into consumable gear slots, manually or by Auto-Equip. <*> Using respec on merc's weapon training no longer unequips all gear with the exception of high end weapons containing minimal mastery requirements which no longer meet them. <*> Added a new card sorting option BY TYPE which also sorts weapons by the highest damage within each weapon category. <*> Using the card sort button on page 2+ will now return to page 1. <*> Merc gear upgrade animation can now be toggled in Game Settings/General. <*> Skills shown on the skill bar now reveal their AP cost. This only applies to skills which require AP to be played. <*> Undrawn (still in bag) consumable item details in combat now also indicate their AP cost required to play from hand. <*> Reduced overlapping merc emotes when spam clicking on them in GEAR/TRAIN view. <*> Improved (bottom) tooltips on the mission complete screen. <*> Added an option to mute trader voice emotes when buying or selling items, button is next to the trader's face. <*> Food, drink and buff consumables now indicate the buff persists until the area is cleared.
GAME BALANCE CHANGES
<*> Found weapons should no longer drop with a higher level than the player's main merc. <*> Slightly reduced region control requirements for missions PVPD and Oil Refinery. <*> Added the first 3 plays of mission Army Tuck to the Extended Tutorial where undead are easier to handle.
SKILL CHANGES
<*> Adept Initiative has been changed to generate -50% noise which can be further reduced by Tacticians in play. This mechanic was broken in the previous build, causing Initiative to generate 50 noise. <*> Flaming Blade has been renamed to Flaming Strike and no longer has -50% penalty from non-sharp weapons. The buff has no effect on unarmed or shielded attacks. <*> Urban Gunslinger has been reworked to grant an additional 4 shots to the current pistol instead of the flat 8 shots before, making the skill scale with pistol upgrades for a potential 10 shots. <*> Viper can now be specced to spawn with a shield, pipe or machete and a random 5-10 attacks.
NEW CONTENT
<*> New mission added to the game, called Tunnel West. This mission can be unlocked by completing Oil Refinery. If you've already completed Oil Refinery, it will need to be completed again to trigger the unlock.
DEV NOTES
Mission difficulty, enemy scaling and squad power is being looked. I've gathered a lot of player feedback on this topic. Thanks to everyone for reporting bugs and suggestions in Discord and on the forums.
Happy zombie slaying!
Hot Fix Patch 0.1.15
BUG FIXES
<*> Not a Single Blister Fame (eliminate 100 undead) is now tracking progression, starting with this version. <*> Fixed unaware undead being spawned by Initiative while under the effect of Stay Alert and no remaining threat (red cards). <*> All body armor accessories such as Under, Military, Swat and Army armor have been rebalanced along with their unique variants due to broken stats causing 100% damage prevention on some of the higher conditions. <*> Merc mastery does not consume any reputation when using the respec feature despite having a reputation cost. <*> Fixed consumable repair items equipped on a merc not triggering the stated auto-repair mechanic when attacking with an almost broken melee weapon or shield. <*> Fixed a typo in Region Control details.
GAME CHANGES
<*> Mission Oil Refinery is now available in the game and can be unlocked by completing mission PVPD. Discovering this mission also unlocks the 5th merc slot. <*> Removed locked military supplies from spawning on mission Dear Estelle, this was not intentional and does not fit the lore of the location. <*> Added elite enemies to spawn on mission Dear Estelle when playing over 5 repeats. <*> Adjusted the description of Gas Looter status effect to better explain the mechanic. <*> Skeleton minions can no longer be set on fire. This is intentional and was missing in the previous build causing a visual glitch. <*> Survivor hover over lore pop-up no longer overlaps their details, so both can be read at once. <*> Abilities which draw cards (loot) in hand now indicate drawn cards will be added to the overflow deck. Overflow deck is the deck of cards with a picture of a merc on the left side of your hand. <*> Improved the tool tip of the overflow deck to indicate the mechanic.
Thanks for the continuous feedback!
Hot Fix Patch 0.1.14
BUG FIXES
The final encounter of mission Dear Estelle gets stuck on the 3rd repeat.
Some players reported their region control dropping to 3% after being overrun by hordes which locked them out of all but 1 mission. This should no longer happen.
New game does not reset player's region control if played after another save.
New game tutorial mission shows incorrect rewards if played after another save.
Adjusted spawn positions on mission Lost Convoy to prevent mercs from clipping through the ground.
GAME CHANGES
Player's region control can no longer drop below 10%.
All extended tutorial missions can now be played at minimal region control (10%).
Slightly increased region control gain when completing the 3 extended tutorial missions.
NOTE: More balance changes will follow as the region control scaling is sorted out.
Enemy difficulty on mission HWY 24 Horde has been reduced by 50%.
Enemy difficulty on mission Road 17B Horde has been reduced by 30%.
Accessories/Gadgets now show their condition (above the name) when viewed in camp.
Accessories/Gadgets now indicate they can only be equipped on mercs in camp.
Accessories/Gadgets now include the next upgrade condition in card details.
Added a help section to the Camp Survivors screen, explaining Mission Support.
Hot Fix Patch 0.1.12
Welcome to the Early Access of Dead Grid!
A small 0-day patch 0.1.12 has been pushed to fix the following issues:
Fixed unintentional mission scaling during the tutorial phase of the game. This should make the first 3 missions an easier entry into the game. The difficulty will continue to be reviewed and balanced in the coming days.
Fixed the Gear Auto-Equip button coming up on the Weapon Mastery tab where it causes an overlap of UI.
