Early Access Dev Diary 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaTF73dQ5KM
When we started developing Deathgarden, our mission was to create a game that would be filled with exciting and memorable moments ranging from epic chases to clutch kills and rescues. Although we did achieve several of our initial goals, Deathgarden isn’t where we’d like it to be.
So, today, we’re announcing that Deathgarden will evolve; we’re realigning the game with our original vision and shaping its future around a darker and more brutal fantasy.
This evolution will directly impact all aspects of the game, from visuals to gameplay. It will also help us reinforce the game’s identity. And so, in the coming months of Early Access, we’ll be working diligently on revamping Deathgarden’s art direction, defining our characters’ identity and progression, and reworking central gameplay elements.
We want to reassure you, though: Deathgarden will retain its asymmetrical nature. We’re simply working on improving the game’s fantasy, on giving it more depth and meaning, and on ensuring the synergy between fantasy and gameplay.
Our brutal and dystopian fantasy requires a complete revamp of our Hunter and Runner character design. Many of the images we’ve included in the dev diary are works in progress. We look forward to showing you how our character design evolves in the coming weeks!
As mentioned above, we’re in midst of creating characters. We want our Hunters to embody brutality and our Runners to convey a sense of hardship and struggle. Each character will boast their own backstory and progression “line.” Although we can’t reveal too much about the progression system yet (because we’re still developing the feature), we can say that the more you play with the different characters, the more you’ll unlock their potential.
Our realigned fantasy also necessitates that we rework and re-evaluate several core gameplay elements. One such element is that of “team play.” Like the progression system, we don’t have too many details for you today, but we are looking to better reward individual Runners and Hunters for what they accomplish in the Garden.
We’d like to finish off by stating that our previous roadmap is no longer valid. The reason for this is, quite simply, that it no longer reflects the direction in which we’re evolving. Despite the changes we have in store for Deathgarden, we sincerely believe that we’ve built a solid foundation. This is largely thanks to you, the community. You’ve shown us tremendous support and provided us with precious feedback.
We look forward to keeping you updated throughout the journey! Stay tuned.
Sincerely,
The Deathgarden Dev Team
Arizona Update
We are pleased to launch our first major content update in Early Access! Explore the new Arizona Garden and check out the latest Hunter and Runner perks, the new shotgun, and numerous balancing changes. In addition, we will be releasing weekly challenges. And, finally, we’re happy to announce that private matches are now enabled!
New Content
New Garden: Arizona – Enter the Arizona garden, a trench-filled desert landscape.
"The sun glares in your eyes, dust chokes your lungs, the heat burns your skin and every step feels harder." - Storm Ottesen, Runner
New Hunter Weapon – Say hello to Flynn SN14, a slow but powerful pump-action shotgun. This hunting shotgun has a further range (19m) and is more accurate than the other shotguns
New Hunter Perk: Quick Execute – 50% reduced Execution time at the Bloodpost.
DESIGN INTENT: Bloodpost executions have been increasingly difficult to accomplish. This new perk will be extremely useful against a team of highly coordinated Runners, capable of completing efficient, rapid Bloodpost rescues
New Runner Perk: Objective Master – 20% reduced damage when Capturing (Capture Objective) and when holding a Key (Gather & Deliver).
DESIGN INTENT: We’ve implemented this perk to further support Runners, who are actively completing Objectives
New Cosmetics – We’re introducing 10 Tier 3 complete cosmetic sets: 5 Hunter and 5 Runner sets. These include three alpha/beta favorites: the blue and black hoodie Runner outfits and the red “Blockade” set!
Private Matches – Hunters, get ready to hunt down your Runner friends; private matches are live! Interact with the Matchmaking Station to create your lobby of 4-6 players. Then, again at the Matchmaking station, chose which of you will play the Hunter.
Weekly Challenges – Complete weekly challenges to receive bonus in-game experience! Sample challenges include capturing a total of 30 Capture Points (Runner) or winning 15 Matches with the Assault Rifle (Hunter).
New Player Tooltips – In our efforts to improve new players’ experience and onboarding process, we’re adding contextual notifications/tooltips that provide players with useful in-game tips and tricks. For example, a downed Runner will receive a tooltip telling them that they should try crawling to and interacting with a Health Crate. Experienced Runners and Hunters may disable this feature via the options menu.
Matchmaking Improvements – We’ve made a first pass at improving the matchmaking experience. You should now be matched more frequently with/against players with similar game experience.
In-game News – We’ve added an in-game news feature. We’ll now be able to keep you posted on the latest Deathgarden news directly in-game.
Balancing Changes
OBJECTIVES
Gather & Deliver Objective Type: Key Delivery interaction time (3 -> 4.5s)
DESIGN INTENT: Gather & Deliver has grown to be very challenging for Hunters, especially when these Hunters play against a team of coordinated Runners. The change in delivery time should give the Hunters more time to reach different key deliver locations and attempt to foil a Runner’s attempt at delivering a key
Capture Objective Type: The top of the Capture Point is no longer considered part of the Capture Zone
DESIGN INTENT: We noticed how challenging it was for Hunters to shoot Runners when they were camping on top of capture points. Since the Hunter is not as agile as the Runners, we decided to remove the Runners’ ability to capture on top.
HUNTER
Hunter now benefits from additional ‘Resistance’ to Vambrace Powers
After a Powered bolt’s effect has worn off and the ‘immunity period’ to that powered bolt has come to an end, a 10 second ‘resistance timer’ begins to count down.
If a Runner uses the same Powered bolt against the Hunter while ‘resistance timer’ is active, then the Hunter’s next ‘immunity period’ to that specific effect increases by 2 seconds (e.g. 5 -> 7 -> 9, etc.). This ‘Resistance period’ is reflected in the ‘immunity’ timer of that Vambrace Power (top right corner of the screen)
If the ‘resistance timer’ reaches 0 before the same effect is applied to the Hunter, the Hunter’s resistance time resets back to the default value of 5 seconds
EXAMPLE: After being stunned by a Runner, the Hunter is immune to Stun bolts for 5 seconds. Once the Hunter’s ‘immunity period’ to Stun bolts comes to an end, the 10 second ‘resistance timer’ begins. If the Hunter is hit by another Stun bolt during this time (i.e., while the 10 second resistance timer is counting down), then the Hunter’s next immunity period to Stun bolts will last 7 seconds
DESIGN INTENT: Hunters are powerful and should not be trifled with. Certain situations could occur that made this statement false (especially when facing highly organized Runner teams). This change should lessen the frustration felt by Hunters, but it should not affect Hunters with a high win rate.
'Fade' Power : When 'Fade' is active, Hunter is now automatically revealed when actively executing at the Bloodpost
DESIGN INTENT: ‘Fade’ is extremely powerful, but we wanted to avoid the Hunter from being invisible during the entire chase/down/execute flow
Perk 'Marked Eye' : Increased the 'Marked Eye' range (25m -> 35m)
DESIGN INTENT: We wanted to increase the usefulness of this Perk.
Perk 'Auto Collect' : Increased the ‘Auto Collect’ range (8 -> 10m)
DESIGN INTENT: We wanted to increase the usefulness of this Perk. We don’t want Hunters to slow down as much as they currently do to automatically interact crate
Perk 'Hey Down There' : Now includes the Runner 'Bleedout timer' for the duration of the perk’s effect
DESIGN INTENT: We wanted to increase the usefulness of the perk. This Perk now helps Hunters know whether they should send a downed Runner to the Bloodpost or let them bleed out
Ability ‘Supercharge’ : Supercharge no longer increases the Hunter’s crate interaction speed (including the Golden Crate)
DESIGN INTENT: Supercharge already allows Hunters to cross the map very quickly, and chase Runners almost anywhere, we believe the Hunter did not need that secondary bonus
RUNNER
Runners can now rotate ('steer') during Evades
DESIGN INTENT: We always wanted to provide a more ‘ninja’ like experience for Runners. This is one small step in that direction
Increased NPI from 'Danger Close' action (15 -> 25 NPI)
DESIGN INTENT: the changes we made to Danger Close in our previous patch were a bit too severe. We want to adequately reward players for being close to the Hunter
Tier 3 Virus Bolt Bonus : Stamina burn (50 -> 35%)
DESIGN INTENT: The original value of this Bonus could create almost unmanageable situations for the Hunter. And so, we felt it necessary to address the situation
BattlEye – BattlEye, our anti-cheat software, is now active!
Bug Fixes
<*> You should no longer receive a “Crash Report” upon quitting to your desktop
<*> Runner groups should no longer be split upon joining a game
<*> Powered bolt and Regular bolt reticles are now the same size
<*> Runners can no longer prevent downed Runner’s from interacting with Health crates
<*> A Runner who is downed and “ragolls” out of bounds while another Runner is being sent to the Bloodpost will no longer be eliminated
<*> Minor UI bug fixes
<*> Hunter & Runner animation bug fixes
<*> Audio bug fixes
Early Access 4-Month Roadmap & BattlEye Partnership
4-Month Roadmap
We are pleased to reveal Deathgarden’s Early Access roadmap and priorities for the upcoming four months. We will add new content monthly, implement onboarding efforts for new players, as well as additional progression elements. Click to view our full roadmap below.
BattlEye Integration
Deathgarden has partnered up with BattlEye! This anti-cheat system will help us prevent hackers and cheaters from muddling with your Deathgarden experience.
What is BattlEye? At its core, BattlEye is a proactive protection system that puts a strong shield around the entire game. This shield blocks off most hacks right from the start!
BattlEye also boasts an intelligent dynamic ‘on-the-fly’ detection system, which helps ensure that unrelenting cheaters are quickly globally banned.
BattleEye is constantly evolving to prevent new forms of attacks on games.
How it works BattleEye scans your computer’s memory for cheating software that attempt to bypass your computer’s protection.
Note that BattlEye runs in the background while Deathgarden is running. However, the anti-cheat’s bandwith/cpu consumption is negligible. (You don’t have to worry about BattlEye affecting your computer’s performance.)
Should I be concerned about privacy issues? BattlEye will never collect nor store information that is unrelated to Deathgarden or hack-detecting mechanisms.
Can I uninstall Battleye and still play Deathgarden? No. There are several validation steps upon launching Deathgarden. One such step validates the presence of BattlEye on your computer.
End of August Patch
Analytics tool integration to improve the Arena Generation process
New Hunter perk, “Auto-Collect,” which allows the Hunter to auto-collect crates from a distance
See you in the Garden!
The Deathgarden Dev Team
We Want your Feedback!
Hey everyone! We're hard at work towards making Deathgarden the best possible experience, and we'd love to know more about your experience with the game so far. Thank you for taking the time to complete this short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RVDMVWJ
August 21st Balancing Changes
Hey everyone! Here are the balancing changes we've made in today's hotfix.
Our theme for this balance pass was making the Hunter experience feel a bit more exhilarating and less punishing. We feel that Runners have gotten very good over the past weeks, and we continue to monitor win rates for both sides moving forward. We want Runners to use their number advantages to think and work together to accomplish their goals, and not simply rely on ‘choke point’ mechanics to win.
General Changes:
Matchmaking Servers - We've removed server selection
Design Intent: We wanted to optimize matchmaking queues for everyone, and so, we removed the server selection option.
Runners:
Healing Bolt - (35) healing applied (2) -> (3.5)s
Design Intent: We want to reduce the so-called ‘overheal' aspects of the chase. By increasing the time to heal significantly (without reducing the amount healed) we force Runners to think ahead instead of just spamming the heal button, all without affecting ‘out of combat’ healing. Healing should be a personal aid and a team help, not an automatic get out of jail free card.
Degenerate Bolt - Reduced effectiveness (-50 dmg reduction) -> (-40 dmg reduction) & duration (10)s->(8)s & forces a simple reload (does not increase reload time anymore)**
Design Intent: these effects combined with certain Perks (Damage Dodger) and Support Healing caused near-impossible situations for the Hunter.
NPI Bolt - Reduced all tier duration (40)s -> (15)s & Reduced Tier 3 bonus (100%) -> (25%)
Design Intent: we under anticipated certain combinations of NPI earning bonuses combined with this Power. We still feel that 20% is a valuable end-game reward for this Power, especially in the right hands.
NPI Reward - 'Escape' (500) -> (300) NPI & 'Assisted Escape' (300) -> (150) NPI
Design Intent: too much NPI is being generated too easily around the Hunter allowing for near-infinite loops (especially combined with the NPI Multiplier bolt)
Voice Chat - You are now opted-in by default
Design Intent: this was a popular request!
Hunter:
Core TTX Sniper Rifle - Reduced Weapon spread (~10%)
Design Intent: with the introduction of the Bolt Action Sniper Rifle, we felt that this Rifle was not getting enough love. We wish to bring to bring value to this Weapon as a unique choice
LMG Weapon - Max spread -(15%) & + (5%) damage
Design Intent: Make the LMG feel more powerful, and more balanced with the value offer of other Weapons
Assault Rifle Weapon - Max spread -(5%) & + (5%) damage
Design Intent: Make the AR feel more powerful, and more balanced with the value offer of other Weapons
DEATHGARDEN™ KICKSTARTS STEAM EARLY ACCESS ON AUG. 14 WITH FREE WEEK FOR ALL PLAYERS
From August 14th to August 21st, STEAM players can try the game for free.
Behaviour® Digital has revealed that DEATHGARDEN™ will enter Steam Early Access on Aug. 14, kicking off with a free week of gameplay for all players until Aug. 21. Set in the near future, DEATHGARDEN is an asymmetrical multiplayer game where a powerful Hunter preys in first-person on a team of five agile Runners playing in third-person in fast-paced matches.
CONSOLE LAUNCH IN 2019
Behaviour is also pleased to announce that DEATHGARDEN will make its way to console – on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and on Xbox One – early in 2019.
NEW CONTENT FOR EARLY ACCESS
New mode: Gather and Deliver
New time of day: Night
Progression and Customization
Main Hub (Locker Room)
Two new weapons and one fresh power for the Hunter
Two new perks for the Runners
“I would like to thank our community for providing mountains of insightful feedback during closed beta. We have been improving the game with all of it in mind and can’t wait for you to join us in early access. And this is only the beginning – we will continue to deliver regular title updates throughout the coming months!” said Matt Jackson, Design Director.
Soft-launch has started! Pre-order and play now: Which side will you choose?
Which side will you choose? Will you outplay the Hunter, or will you take down the Runners? Pre-order Deathgarden at deathgardengame.com/preorder and play today!
Those who have participated in the Alpha or Beta plus those who have pre-purchase Deathgarden are invited to play during the Soft Launch of Early Access, from August 8th-13th. Progression made during Early Access will carry forward to the official release, expected in early 2019 on Windows PC.
Deathgarden is available to pre-order now through August 13th for $29.99 at deathgardengame.com/preorder. Pre-orders are automatically upgraded to the digital Deluxe Edition, which includes:
Exclusive Origin cosmetic sets
Digital copy of the Deathgarden soundtrack
Digital art book
Early Access Kicks Off August 14th with a Free Week
We are excited to announce Deathgarden will enter Steam Early Access on August 14th, while kicking off with a free week of gameplay for all players until August 21st!
Soft Launch & Pre-Order Offer
Those who have participated in the Alpha or Beta (plus those who have pre-purchased Deathgarden) are invited to play during the Soft Launch of Early Access, from August 8th-13th. Progression made during Early Access will carry forward to the official release, expected in early 2019 on Windows PC.
Deathgarden is available to pre-order now through August 13th for $29.99 at deathgardengame.com/preorder. Pre-orders are automatically upgraded to the digital Deluxe Edition, which includes:
Exclusive Origin cosmetic sets
Digital copy of the Deathgarden soundtrack
Digital art book
Console Launch in 2019
The Deathgarden team is pleased to announce that Deathgarden will make its way to console on PS4 and Xbox One in early 2019!
New Content for Early Access
Several additions have been made to Deathgarden since the Beta which include:
New mode: Gather and Deliver
New time of day: Night
Progression and Customization
Main Hub (Locker Room)
Two new weapons and one fresh power for the Hunter
Two new perks for the Runners
See you in the Garden,
The Deathgarden Dev Team
Early Access Livestream!
Come hang out with the #deathgarden devs now for the Early Access livestream!
https://www.twitch.tv/deathgardengame
Early Access Kicks off August 14th
Get ready to jump back into the Garden—Deathgarden hits Early Access on August 14th!
If you played during Alpha/Beta or you pre-ordered the game, you’ll get to play before Early Access starts during Deathgarden's soft launch (Aug. 9-13).
Be amongst the first to check out the new game mode, try the new Hunter Power, and experiment with the new Runner Perks!
Pre-order Deathgarden before August 13th and receive a free upgrade to the Deluxe Edition!
Click to watch the Deathgarden Early Access teaser!
