We didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you purchase more than 20,000 RTC, you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.
As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, that all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way.
New 1.3.14 deployment on March 14th at 13:00, Free Carnage Launch FAQ
Today's patch is addressing a few very specific things, while we prepare for the launch of Free Carnage and the next patch.
1.3.14 Patch highlights are:
- Fix for infinite veteran spawning exploit
- Storm Shields, Looted Umie Armor (Go buy it!), a Pirate hat and such
- Space Marine Venerable Chainswords change color based on faction
- Changed the display name on most Ork items
- Fixed rare server crashes
- Fixed a bug where Gatekeepers Bastion scope could not be toggled
- Fixed the floating Narthecium (AKA the Ghost of Brent AKA Pets)
- Fixed Daemon Bolt, so it is less likely to explode when used next to low cover
- A couple of other exploits and fixes as well.
That's 700+ fixes since we deployed Update 1.3 two weeks ago, which is our usual velocity. Since we're optimizing, fixing, and improving features and functionality, we break things, and we need to iterate on them after people try them out in a Live environment.
Remember to set your region to EU or US unless you want to be matched in both regions. We've also called in some reinforcements for some low-level Melee bugs, and the new world map should be showing up on UAT as well.
Free Carnage Launch, and FAQ
We are in full preparation for the full launch of the free version of Eternal Crusade and the two updated Premium versions.
- 20,000 RTC ($20) given to you when you log in the first time after the 1.3 Content Update.
- A Steam giftable and tradable package of the premium version of the game. You can give it to a friend or sell it on the Steam Marketplace.
- The Venerable Items will no longer be available for purchase, unique to you before the transition.
- Something more which will be nice. Maybe bedazzle the old Venerable look?
The people that will buy the new Imperium edition receive instead four faction DLCs. The DLCs can also be bought separately on Steam.
The reason for so much being accessible in the free version is that a free player has to be valuable to the paying player. And for a free player to be valuable, he has to have fun.
Likewise, for the free player to have fun and become part of our growing community, a fun experience, and an easy upgrade path has to be there.
It is also because of balancing. One class of one faction would ruin balance and matchmaking. This is, of course, all subject to change, as we'll adapt based on the results from the soft launch of the free version (sometimes called closed beta) and after it launches.
The above are consider "Free Players 101" except we didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you buy those 20,000 RTC or Squadron Edition - which is the same - you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.
As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, which all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way. More weapon mods and such are constantly being made which makes your in-game weapons even more customizable. Yes, that's why Abaddon's grace was nerfed but still has the fire. We might nerf it again but adding a mod to add fire to your weapons sounds more fun.
Thanks, everyone! Keep the feedback flowing.
Nathan
Patch 1.3.11, New Map and Free Carnage Updates
Today March 9th we deployed patch 1.3.11 to Live. This is the last patch in the series of Tactical Escalation and we're working on the next series of Content Updates.
Free Carnage is scheduled to go live shortly and the reception has been fantastic. When we sent out the soft launch keys for the free version, we had more players than at the launch of the game.
Thank you everyone, especially those that gave away their free keys to others if they already had the game. Kudos to you. You can still get keys by signing up to our newsletter, at Alienware Arena and other website will be distributing as well.
This patch includes various improvements and fixes to the following categories:
1. Client, Network and Server performance, all of which fall under “lag” as they are all contributing factors.
2. Improve, Monitor and Measure the path into the game for new players.
3. You. That’s your character, the combat balancing, melee, visual customization.
4. We continue to improve current features, such as world map, goals, and campaigns.
Patch highlights, till we finalize patch notes:
• New Map - Fortress Ronan is in
• New Items, paid and free, for the store, like Storm Shields. (Updated: Not all enabled yet!)
General Improvements
• Death Camera to look at attacker who downed you
• Ingame moderator role
• Barks with major match events
• Upgrading premium message to correctly display needed RTC to go premium (excluding non bought RTC such as referrals)
Gameplay, Combat, and Balancing
• Jump and support unit survivability increases
• Fixed a bug that allowed the Howling Banshee Scream to debuff allies.
• Reload while bracing
• Scope toggle (default B key) added.
• Jump slam recovery animation speed increased by 40%.
And for those just arriving, here are the previous posts about our direction and priorities.
Note: You have to purchase RTC to upgrade to Premium. Self-referral RTC does not work as it is considered abuse.
Amazing how time is fun when you're having flies.
It's refreshing to see that people are looking forward to more people to shoot. It means more regions open up; it means less wait for carnage, it means it's more likely that the particular Ork game you want to join is available, and up and running in your region.
Because we aren't going “F2P P2W”, we're providing a free version of the game, which has slower progression and class limitation, exactly so that free players are valuable to paying players, and vice versa. You still have to pay to get the full game.
Ork only, with only one class available would have messed up class, faction, and matchmaking balance on an epic scale. We now allow all classes except Air Assault; all progression is at 1/3 of the paying player, and you still need to pay either $20 or 20,000 RTC to unlock the full game.
This imbalance would mean that there is no value in the free player to the paying player. The free player is diminishing the experience, instead of becoming a vital part of it.
The free player won't stay around long enough either, as playing one class of Ork in Eternal Crusade, especially with that epic imbalance, would suck for them as much as it would suck for the paying player.
That's why we redesigned Free to Waaagh. To provide value to the paying player, and make the free player experience fun, without ruining the game.
That is a fundamental rule of a hybrid business model like this. If it adds no value to the experience of everyone adding a legion of free players, there is no reason to do it.
Now, “Free to Waagh” will increase the value and fun for everyone. Even us, the developer, as revenues means more investment in the game, to reach its ultimate potential. And with the love/hate relationship, we all have for the Eternal Crusade; I think this is what we all want.
That Eternal Crusade can become the ultimate playground, for your Warhammer 40,000 fantasies.
When is this all happening?
Over the next weeks, we will be sending out soft-launch keys to the free version. You can call it closed beta if you will. They are entirely valid keys and everything you achieve during the soft-launch transfers straight into the game after we launch the free version. You are in fact playing in the same world as everybody else. There is no reset when we go live.
Alienware is our first partner for the soft-launch as well as our very own newsletter subscribers. There are more partners part of the soft launch, and it’s about 250,000 keys, to begin. How many will activate we never know, but the key is free for you to use for yourself or give to friends.
We also haven’t forgotten our current players, early access, and founders.
You are already receiving 20,000 RTC* when you enter the game today. When we launch the new free version, the new $20 & $50 packages, you will also get a Steam giftable** version of the game.
Additionally, the long overdue removal of the Venerable pack weapons in the $50 version happens now. They will be exclusive to you forever, replaced by four regular store bundles, one for each faction.
What is your priority right now?
Our priority is very much the same as the player priorities and reflected in the future updates.
Client, Network and Server performance, all of which fall under “lag” as they are all contributing factors.
Improve, Monitor and Measure the path into the game for new players. Educating players makes a better experience for paying and free players alike. That’s the new tutorial, death tips and such. I originally replied with most on this on our forums to Anvil’s post – thank you :)
You. That’s your character, the combat balancing, melee, visual customization, veterans, and elites to name a few things and features we’re expanding around character evolution (some pleasant surprises planned here).
Goals. We continue to improve the world map and campaigns. Increase player agency, variety in types of campaign goals, personal and global.
Many ask for consoles and to address that, our resources are fully committed and focused on the above. Console development is on our roadmap but on hold till this phase of Eternal Crusade, and that we have more precise answers to cross-platform play. Then we will determine where consoles land.
This ties into the fact that the more people that are in the world, the more valuable the world is to players. It helps everything from matchmaking, to faction, class and campaign balance. It ties into everything.
We thank you all for your support in getting Eternal Crusade here, hope that you continue to support Eternal Crusade that we all love, hate, or both – we all see the potential. And that’s what binds us.
* This started with Content Update 1.3 and is not an additional 20,000 RTC on top of that. So if you received last week 20,000 RTC, you have already received it.
** Steam game giftable goes out when we formally launch later this month, not now.
I love how you're sharing your free keys below!!! You're awesome. May the god of your choice bless you.
Content Update 1.3 & 20K RTC for you!
Updated: Additional patch deployed Feb 28th. It addresses the timeout in matches, and a series of minor fixes to cosmetics and bugs. (See notes below)
Amazon services were down on the 28th which prevented Warhammer from working correctly. We are still monitoring the situation. Today's hotfix was to address a server crash, which felt like a disconnect.
You also received 20,000 Rogue Trader Credits as part of the upgrade path to the new paid packages you are already buying. There are more gifts to come as a thank you from us. The rest arrives when the free limited progression version goes live.
The long wait is over after only setting out a big hotfix this month. We usually have 3-4 per month, and this one has a real reason for the extended time. It's a Content Update that's part of Tactical Escalation, with months of work in it.
The release candidate is now on UAT; we will probably build another candidate based on what we found today so deployment is when it's ready.
Since Fortress Ronan is behaving badly, we will not release it till it performs well. A Fortress performing badly is no reason to prevent a patch from going out; it will be added a bit later as part of this Content Update.
We'd also like to thank everyone for joining our client/server/networking performance and balancing test every Tuesday and Thursday at 15:00 EST. It's been an immense help as we were able to track down issues in our development environment which is not possible on live servers.
We've also had a group of great people helping us by submitting bug reports on our Support website. These reports have been extremely helpful after we significantly increased the frequency of updates to UAT as well as the organized public tests. Thank you!
Content Update 1.3
These are only the highlights of this update. As usual, Steam can not fit all our patch notes. I will update as more information becomes available.
The purpose of the balance changes:
- Bring pen/toughness in line so that penetration is only useful against targets that have improved their toughness. For example, a chainsword and a power sword now do the same damage against a target wearing standard power armour and wargear.
- Make classes more unique in their roles – health has gone down on support/jump classes and up on ground melee classes. However, support classes now have more options, are more free with their LP, and certain options have been strengthened to double-down on the role.
- Make loadout selection more interesting – diminishing returns has been removed so a small amount of health/armour is now more expensive, but you can get more than before. You must now make a more concerted choice between survivability, lethality and tactical/maneuverability options.
- Address issues with the fast and thin Eldar classes being so hard to kill – Eldar now have lower effective health than everyone else, but they have had boosts to other areas to allow them to play more as intended.
General Gameplay & Balancing
Update on Feb 28th
- Pre deployment phase shouldn’t kick out players or have players wait forever (+ display loading icon for upcoming players)
- Couple of rare client crashes fixes
- Couple of minor server and client optimizations
- Reloading while in brace mode
- Leader receive XP when orders are achieved by members
- Reduced LP cost on Requiem Heavy Bolter, Da Heart Stoppa, Croneblade
- Added Plasma Cannons back to the Space Wolf advancements.
- Reduced Duellist Blade damage.
- Increased Electro-Knuckle penetration to 120 (previously 110).
- Reduced delay time on pre-deploy phase after acquiring enough players to 30 (previously 60).
- Updated looks on all Storm Shields, CSM Plasma Guns, and the Skip Launcha.
- Set Servo-Skull to calculate line of sight from the skull’s position, rather than the base.
- Fixed a number of labels in the advancements.
- Set axes/mauls to once again not have an interrupt window on fast attacks
- Reduced Chain-Choppa damage.
- Increased Big Shoota damage and turn speed while shooting.
- Removed tier indicator from supply drops.
- Added fire mode indicator to Solar Flare (Sunrifle).
- Flying no longer counts as an evade for the purposes of accuracy penalty.
Update Feb 22nd
- There are no longer any Presets. Instead, you start with 7 default loadouts (including anti-vehicle) that can be fully modified because you own all the items in them from the start. Also, you can now take 7 Battle Loadouts.
- Toughness and penetration have been rebalanced across the board so that 100 is the baseline on all weapons and characters.
- “Always Hold Aim” and “Always Toggle Aim” keybinding options now work correctly on non-pistol weapons (for those of you that hate two-step aiming at pistols).
- Damage has been decreased on SM/CSM/Ork melee weapons slightly to more closely match the attacks-to-kill before the revamp.
- Rank XP requirements have been changed, so that early ranks take less XP than before, and later ranks take slightly more. Note that the total amount of XP to rank 6 remains the same.
- Standard Reward Boxes have had their Requisition cost reduced to 500. Superior Reward Boxes have had their Requisition cost reduced to 3000.
- There is now a gold melee weapon in the store for each faction, costing 500k Requisition/Teef.
- There is now a “Challenge Token” in the store for 500k Requisition/Teef that makes you take 50% more damage and features unique vfx. Only take this if you want a challenge.
- Vehicle stagger effects (Power Fist, Power Klaw, Haywire Grenades) once again correctly stop vehicles already in motion.
- There are now new faction-specific backgrounds for the Hub.
- Loading screens and in-game maps have had a huge facelift.
- Character creation has been changed, and there is now a new starting area in the Garrison to demonstrate the gameplay basics.
- There are now new spawn points in the Garrison.
- Give item distance (such as for Narthecium or Ammo Share) has been increased from 200 to 350.
- Standard weapons have been removed from Reward Boxes (you can now only buy them directly with requisition).
- Defender lives in fortresses have been reduced from 300 to 270.
- Slow weapons (fists, klaws, axes, mauls, clubs) now have a larger vulnerability window while strong attacking.
- Certain items are now veteran-only, such as Iron Halos, Sigils, Burning Runes and Mega Gobs.
- Boltgun, Shoota, and Avenger Shuriken Catapult mods have all been reworked, including adjusting sensitivity on scopes and changing LP costs.
- All Meltabombs have had their LP cost increased.
- All knives & spike knuckles have had their back attack damage multiplier reduced to 1.5 (previously 2.0).
- All grenade bundles have had their LP costs set to twice the cost of the single version (previously they were ~3x).
- Weapons/wargear/mods that affect Warp Charge have been rebalanced.
- Getting hitched up on stairs should be rarer than before.
- It should now be harder for grav-tanks to insta-kill while moving at a slow speed.
- Lots of new store items, including SM/CSM backpacks!
Space Marines
- Servo-Skulls have been added as a “grenade” option for Tacticals. AServo-skull drops down and scans a large area for ~60 seconds, causing enemies in the area to take increased damage when fired upon. They can be destroyed to end the scanning early.
- Ground Assaults now have higher armour by default. Apothecaries and Jump Assaults now have lower armour by default.
- The Stalker Bolter has been significantly reworked to be a new, separate weapon type. We’ll be adding more of them in the future, but it is a much more effective ranged weapon than before.
- Wargear and advancements have been significantly changed. Among other things, Tacticals can now spec for a great deal more armour regen.
- Increased Magno-Cannon snare rate.
- Narthecium vial changes; Adrenaline Vial - Increased duration to 40 seconds. Abiding Restoration Vial - increased to 10 pts/s, reduced LP cost to 150. Survival Vial - increased duration to 40 seconds, increased LP cost to 150.
- The Heavy Bolter has had its cost reduced to 300 LP (previously 400).
- Krak Grenades have had their timer reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s.
- Lascannon cooldown has been reduced to 2s (previously 3), and lock falloff is now slower.
Chaos Space Marines
- Blight Grenades have been added for Mark of Nurgle characters. These explode on contact and apply 66% poison in the area (one-off).
- Traitor Assaults now have higher armour by default. Aspiring Sorcerers and Raptors now have lower armour by default.
- The Mark of Nurgle now adds +20 Health.
- The Mark of Khorne now adds +20 Health, MeleeLifeSteal has been increased from 20% to 30%, and RangedLifeSteal has been increased from 10% to 15%.
- Wargear and advancements have been significantly changed. Among other things, Traitors, Havocs & Traitor Assaults now have significant options to increase effective health, and there is a new Aspiring Sorcerer health item that synergizes with Nurgle & Slaanesh.
- The Heavy Bolter has had its cost reduced to 300 LP (previously 400).
- Krak Grenades have had their timer reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s.
- Force Swords and Force Axes now have 100 penetration by default and have had their cost reduced by 100 LP. However, there is now a Force power that can increase the weapon’s pen & damage.
- Pistols can now be removed from an Aspiring Sorcerer loadout.
- Lascannon cooldown has been reduced to 2s (previously 3), and lock falloff is now slower.
- The Autocannon has had its spread per shot and recoil increased, and also now has a larger penalty when suppressed.
- Lash of Slaanesh has had its LP cost reduced from 150 to 100.
- Hysterical Frenzy has had its LP cost reduced from 250 to 200.
- Stream of Corruption has had its LP cost reduced from 200 to 150.
- Flickering Fire hasn’t been fixed yet… but it will be soon.
Orks
- Painboyz now have access to “Bloodrage Juice” which gives the target a 30% melee life steal.
- Sluggas now have higher armour by default. Stormboyz and Painboyz now have lower armour by default, although Painboyz has higher health by default.
- Wargear and advancements have been significantly changed. Among other things, Painboyz now has access to Poison Resist wargear, and class-specific Mega Gobs have been added.
- Sticky Stikkbombs have had their timer reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s.
- Waaagh! will no longer trigger on Fortress or Hold the Line matches if the Orks are defending.
- The Pokkit Rokkit Launcha’s charge time has been reduced to 1.5s (previously 2s), and its reload time has been increased to 2.5s (previously 2s).
- The Big Vial has had its LP cost reduced to 150 (previously 200).
- The Skip Launcha has had its minimum damage reduced to 70 (previously 100), and its reload time increased to 3s (previously 2.5s).
- Dok Bombs now take 50% more damage before being destroyed.
- The Dakka Deffgun has had its cost reduced to 300 LP (previously 400).
- Zzap gun cooldown has been reduced to 2s (previously 3), and lock falloff is now slower.
- The Napalm Deffgun now correctly applies Ablaze.
Eldar
- There is now a new psychic power: Enhance. This is a PBAoE that applies a buff (similar to Embolden), but instead of healing, it grants a 20% mitigation bonus and a 20% ranged damage bonus.
- Eldar effective health has been reduced. However, compared to the other races a larger portion of their health is in armour (by default) to promote hit & run gameplay. Also, all Eldar have had their Toughness set to 100. Of the Eldar classes, Dark Reapers have the highest effective health now, and Warlocks/Swooping Hawks the least.
- Eldar now have a default 33% poison resistance.
- There are now new ammo mods for the Avenger Shuriken Catapult.
- Wargear and advancements have been significantly changed. Among other things, Banshees now have access to Lifesteal wargear, and there are now a number of options for increasing armour & regen at the same time. Class-specific veteran runes have been added.
- Stealth wargear for Striking Scorpions now has a greater effect (reducing the rate at which you become visible while moving).
- The Avenger Shuriken Catapult and TL Avenger Shuriken Catapult have had
- Witchblades now have 100 penetration by default and have had their cost reduced by 100 LP. However, there is now a Force power that can increase the weapon’s pen & damage.
- Pistols can now be removed from a Warlock’s loadout.
- Protect now mitigates 66% of incoming damage to the caster (previously 50%).
- Destructor’s damage has been reduced to 16/tick (previously 20), its penetration has been increased to 120 (previously 10), and its cost has been reduced to 200 (previously 300).
- Hawksear Grenades have had their damage and LP cost increased, but can only be thrown from the air.
- The Shuriken Cannon has had its cost reduced to 300 LP (previously 400).
- Plasma Grenades have had their timer reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s.
- The Fusion Pistol now applies 25% more heat to targets and overheats slower.
- The Reaper Launcher’s Starshot missile now overheats on each shot (although you can aim it while it’s cooling). You now move at normal speed while charging Starswarm missiles.
- The Warp Hunter’s D-Cannon’s charge time has been reduced to 2.5s (previously 4s) and its damage has been reduced to compensate.
Store updates (free and paid)
- Lowered prices of supply drops and more items added to the crates
- Challenge tokens are coming in
- MKIII, MKIV and MKVI backpacks for Chaos and SM
- Alpha Legion Scaly Shoulder
- Ossified Armour
- Bleeding Armour
- 4 golden prestige weapons
- Alternate Warlock Helmet with slightly larger horns
- New “kamo” Ork bandanas
- Runic MKVI legs for Space Wolves
- 5th company trim for Imperial Fists
- Astartes Champion Shoulder
- Relic Armour MKII
- Allow MKIII helmet on other CSM besides Iron Warriors
- Fixed names of Alpha Legion Scaly Legs, Black Legion Logo Legs, Night Lords Logo Legs, Word Bearers Legs, Heavy Aspect Armour Shoulders and Freebooters Pegleg
General Improvements
- Game Servers feature manual Geolocalization preference, meaning you can now set EU as preferred and is a preparation for further regions.
- Full re-spec of characters due to changes in Character Advancements. Protip for rebuilding your advancements: use the arrow keys and the enter key. It's way quicker to just do; down, enter, down, enter, down, enter, than it is to click with the mouse.
- Character creation/selection screens revamped
- Improvements to client performance, far more to come after public tests
- Fix for a vehicle being thrown in the air when hitting characters. Unbelievable.
- Fix for vehicle turrets detaching from the vehicle.
- Fix for characters movement issues when running up/down slopes.
- Improvements to loading times.
- Fixes for connection issues (fewer disconnections, better error messages, and logging).
- Fixes to various client and server crashes.
- Fix for campaigns double reward.
- Fix for frozen player preventing other players from joining PvE.
And I'm not even halfway through ... and as stated earlier, we have some things we want to address which requires building a new release candidate.
The new versions of Eternal Crusade
This update also has the limited progression, class restricted free way to play the game that we're putting into testing. It is not accessible to anyone yet unless with a key from us, or one of our partners.
As current players, if you are subscribed to our newsletter, you can expect to get a key for the free version some day to give a friend or try it out yourself during our soft-launch.
https://www.eternalcrusade.com/newsletter
The $50 version is getting a bit of an upgrade and current players will get a nice gift from us when we eventually enable the new packages, as a thank you for enabling us to be here today and for your continued support.
On behalf of the entire team, thank you!
Nathan
Player Top 10 Priorities, as voted by you!
We're back with a new Player Top 10 Priorities list as voted by you for the second time, and we'll do one shortly after the upcoming patch.
The important part to remember is that this is a priority, what we work on first. We have our vision and priority, so this is an alignment exercise that we combine. What do we work on first?
Urtuah-Jibblies from the forums suggested we publish a 6-month roadmap in that thread and while that's incredibly complex as it doesn't only take priority but resources, assets, specialty availability into account, I said I'd try to do a simplified visualization of how it work. Here is the thread.
Baptiste, one of our great people in Customer Support took the first stab at processing, so I'll just let him get straight to it. Note, the suggestions are from players, excerpts or frequently ocurring themes, they are not our suggestions.
Hello, here are the Top 10 Priorities reported by the players on the forum, plus other popular ones.
Every n°1 issue on a player list earns 10 pts, 9 pts for n°2, 8 pts for n°3, etc.
200 players reported 250+ ideas.
TOP 10 IDEAS
1. REDUCE LAG. 526 pts (reported 60 times, including 30 times in 1st place)
Need an option to play on EU or NA servers only. Especially hard on melee since it often *appears* that the units you are trying to hit "teleport" out of the way.
2. BETTER MELEE SYSTEM. 414 pts (reported 51 times, including 15 times in 1st place)
Suggestions: There is an issue how Dbash can be dodged by evade, and how it can be hard to distinguish heavy and fast attacks, which makes rock-paper-scissors into a guessing game, instead of a game of counters. Normalize attack speeds and fix the dbash so it actually works. Make clangs act faster. Remove Lock-on from melee (other players suggested "Giving a never miss, auto-aim mechanic to ANYONE"...) Parrying Blow/Dbash: Is wrongfully soaking some power attacks, counting as a clang, rather than taking the hit/dmg/stagger. Allow cancellation of your own DBashes and Strong attacks at any point during their animation by dodging. Buff devistators' melee, they're a bit too hopless in close combat. Add parry+riposte, maybe even a second dodge move (small sidestep) that works in lock on only. Making parrying something rare that requires a lot more skill and with a much faster animation (the current animation is too slow and make player vulnerable to bullets)
3. MORE AND BETTER GAME MODES. 340 pts (reported 48 times, including 10 times in 1st place)
More game modes with more purpose and side-objectives. Multi-faction stuff. Alliances, 2v1 battles, three-way battles, PvPvE, multifaction PvE teams, etc. Modes where battles last like 30-45 minutes so we can get a feeling of epic battle.
4. BETTER PERFORMANCE. 275 pts (reported 34 times, including 13 times in 1st place)
Improve optimization, especially on fortresses (Zedek and other newer maps)
5. BETTER CAMPAIGN. 240 pts (reported 36 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Give us an actual campaign map and not a graphical representation of server matches and match history; each match map should be conquerable and then gets locked by the side that takes it; those maps should be unique and do not repeat. Need an engaging Storyline/Player Immersion: there are no Faction leader goals, no reasons defined as to why our factions want these territories, no sub-faction leaders, no narrative to keep the player engaged. Add more incentives for campaign play, and special equips and cosmetics only available with currency earned in campaigns.
6. MORE MODS AND WARGEAR. 221 pts (reported 37 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
More mods and wargear, and better distributed between factions. More things to buy with RTC.
7. ELDAR ROADKILL. 198 pts (reported 29 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Reduce it or get rid of it, it's a massacre. Buff Eldar vehicles in other areas.
8. MORE CUSTOMIZATION. 184 pts (reported 26 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
More cosmetics: unique weapons, appearance, voices, heads, colors...
9. LARGE, OPEN AND CHANGEABLE MAPS. 180 pts (reported 24 times, including 8 times in 1st place)
Large Open Maps. Maps should have more changeable space and playfield. Some doors, buttons, gates, lifts (which can be controlled), weapons, blocking doors. Just more ways to play with the map, not only shooting each other like in dozens and dozens games before. Alternative version of existing maps. Give us the appearance that the map is all connected and the locations matter. More players in maps. Please start linking maps together into larger zones with some way of deploying across ACTIVE matches with characters.
10. NEW MAPS. 180 pts. (reported 27 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
More maps, with more variations than current ones (all of them seem to have only similar capture points inside boxes that all work the same, and the rest of the map is unused in fear of Eldar vehicles). Other maps than Imperial map. What about an urban map?
- BETTER TUTORIAL. 174 pts (reported 24 times, including 7 times in 1st place)
Better tutorial for new players (obligatory for them). Tutorials for each class would be nice. The tutorial should explain how melee combat works. Should also explain stuff, so we know what a weapon can bring.
- GARRISON SHOULD BECOME AN HUB. 164 pts (reported 26 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
The garrison was becoming an actual hub/lobby for the game (queuing for matches etc.). Allow several danger zones, vehicles danger zone. Make garrison a fortress! Add NPC's for story + quests and increase the player allowance. Make the garrison reward people for training new people.
- ADD SOCIAL FEATURES. 158 pts (reported 26 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Having a chat/voice channel for a faction to communicate outside of games. Bring back VOIP! Guild HUB (Space ship) to hang with the friends. Making guilds have better UI and more reasons to exist. I want to join in the battle where my guild is fighting.
- MORE WEAPONS. 143 pts (reported 22 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Like burnas and flamethrowers, Grenade launcher, powerfull sniper rifles, bolters with different types of ammo. With visualization and customization. Add more melee weapons to Eldar.
- IMPROVE PvE. 137 pts (reported 24 times, including 3 times in 1st place)
Deeper and more rewarding PVE experience. Randomly generated dungeons. PvE-Raid for 10 or more Player with some true Boss battles like Carnyfixes, Tyranofixes or Shwarmlords.
- MORE LOVE ON ELDARS. 123 pts (reported 17 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Doesn't feel like eldar. Eldar are not glass cannons (Dark Eldar are), Eldar are extermination forces, they strike fast and hard. Mandiblaster, Reaper Launcher. Need unique weapons, more cosmetics.
- BALANCE OVER FACTIONS. 120 pts (reported 15 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
Overall balance over factions (skills, weapons...)
- SUBFACTION DIFFERENCES/BENEFITS/OPTIONS. 172 pts (reported 21 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
With unique units/weapons, more unique gameplay. Advancement Tree for every sub-faction?
- REWARD SUPPORT PLAY. 108 pts (reported 21 times, 0 times in 1st place)
We could always use more reward for the supportive play, maybe less engaging but so useful: driving, defending transports, using debuffs, healing...
- NERF AUTOCANNON AND ABBADON'S GRACE. 101 pts (reported 18 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Autocannon and Abbadon's Grace need to be removed, reworked, or nerfed. They are far too powerful for how easy they are to pilot.
OTHER MAIN ISSUES REPORTED (between 50 and 99 pts) : - Better UI, lack of informations (showing buff, colors for squads/subsquads...)
- Better vehicle physic
- Elites must be truly elites
- Remove all Invulnerability frames on melee combat
- Secondary weapons for heavy weapons classes
- Powerfist/claw one shot kills: it's too powerfull
- End suicide redeploy as a means of quick teleport travel
- Veterans are still too easy to kill
- Better matchmaking
- Revamp WAAAAGH: it's great but you will most likely loose at ticket defense
- More classes for factions. Ex: weird boy, chaplains, mekboys, hereteks, scout, techmarine, librarian...
- Camera placement: let us customize it or improve it somehow, as it is currently highly unreliable at actually letting you observe the battlefield.
- Weapon value: each weapon needs to be re balanced so that every weapon or item is worth its LP cost and is useful in the game.
Steam token authentication outage
We have had intermittent outages for three days in a row where Steam is suffering issues with Steam token authentication (Not the Steam API). This flow is mandatory for our game to work as our backend services are using Steamworks.
Issues have happened (Eastern Standard Time):
• between 7:00 and 9:00 on Thursday
• between 7:00 and 10:00 on Friday
• between 0:00 and 10:00 on Saturday
Steam are fully aware and since not many games are using this specific path, which meant few games were affected. Those were the main outage times.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you and wanted to make everyone sure that we are aware and working on it with Steam.
Updated: Steam just confirmed that this is now fixed and shouldn't happen again.
Crusader Top 10 list - Take two!
A while ago we did a Top 10 list exercise on our forums and we're doing it again because the feedback you gave was awesome and it's time to align again what is #1 and what is #5. You can see the results from the last exercise here:
Additionally, don't forget the official Feature Request and voting system on our support site. You can submit, comment and vote to affect the priority on a daily basis there.
That's all for now, we're working on a hotfix for next week but we've already moved on to the next patch, which will include parts of the massive LP/Skill Tree/Penetration overhaul. Expect to see the first version of changes on UAT today or Monday depending on the stability of our daily build.
We love you all and have a fantastic weekend!
Patch 1.2.24 deployed Jan 26th
As this is the 4th update in a week, these patch notes will include the aggregate of those changes as well, for easier reading. OK, it's not easy reading and we still have 6 pages left of the original 23 pages to parse.
They are actually so long they don't even fit into the Steam Patch Notes window, so we'll link to our forums. And the forums are getting upgraded so we're waiting for them. Here is the first half. This will be fixed and reordered by someone who actually can read and write proper English (as in, not me)
NOTE #1: Trial Campaign started and the rewritten framework did not cause The Server Apocalypse. More to come.
NOTE #2: This is not the "big" pen/toughness/LP revamp, the work from that will arrive on UAT shortly
NOTE #3 : Improved ping metrics and only show your network latency, instead of a full “service call” that included the actual server processing time of an action as part of the time calculation. This allows us to now debug your network latency specifically and compare to other games to trace that down.
NOTE #4: If you haven't tried this tip and changing settings doesn't help, or you have done .ini change manually, try renaming this folder. Unreal regenerates it but it will grab all our latest changes as well. You will then need to apply .ini tweaks again:
C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Local\EternalCrusade\Saved\Config\WindowsClient
NOTE #5: Sound now uses new compression and is half the size, which increases patch size. This is part of our efforts to increase performance. It uses about half the memory as before.
- Fixed cases of infinite loading on map loading screen
- Made entering vehicles more responsive, as they were headbashingly annoying
- More consistent and optimized way to apply damage against infantry
- Disabled or reduced polling data, such as guilds, during loading screen and ingame to optimize game server performance
- New loading screens with match and game mode information are being added.
- Fixed map loading in client showing 50%, then going back to 0%
- Fixed cases where the user will appear invisible to late joiners if the he created a new custom loadout before entering the match.
- When a character was being attacked in melee as they threw a grenade, the grenade duplicated itself.
- Fixed client crash when interacting with a capture point and other entities
- Fixed multiple rare client crashes in loadouts and other menus
- Fixed where the whole server would crash when swapping loadouts and then deploying.
- Potential help for map loading time by disabling the "auto-retry" of our faction action library
- Fixed potential client crash when m_CharacterAttributes is still null. No character wants to be a null :(
- Always repopulate loadouts in server replication callback on clients even if it already contains some to be more robust and optimized.
- Reduced time of setup phase by 45 seconds across the PvP game modes.
- Matches won by guildmates were not recorded for other players in campaigns.
- When the number of lives visible has been depleted, attackers as opposed to defenders, could not respawn.
- Player couldn’t spawn in PvE and garisson with players with lots of loadouts and bad connections
- When a character using a bolt gun crouched and tried to self heal or use an ammo/med pack, the character model's arm bends into the torso of the character.
- When a user held E to use a vehicle resupply the entire way through, at the very end they will immediately board the vehicle in question.
- Updated weapon tooltips to accommodate changes to Damage Mod metadata
- Fixed when the last capture interrupts in overtime even if no one has interrupted it.
- Spawning a vehicle could result in whatever vehicle is spawned having an empty health bar.
- Frequently, Eldar Meltabombs did not stick on moving vehicles.
- Damage mods prevent damage falloff working correctly.
- The "Disable Queuing For Fortress Maps" flag is set to true by default in the settings menu for users with an existing account.
- Ork Spike Knuckles Impact force for stong and fast attacks is too high.
- The Shoota Boy Ork could perform an evade attack with the Spike Knuckles melee weapon.
- A space marine player experienced jitters and shakes when moving crouched and holding a grenade.
- Fixed Requisition Points not being awarded to rank 6 players
- Fixed Requisition point rewards not being equal to XP in some instances
- Various little fixes, cosmetic, and some performance tweaks
- RTS weapons are now fully moddable except for the following: Abaddon’s - - Grace, Sternguard Bolter, Gatekeeper’s Bastion. These will be made moddable in the following patch, but are slightly more complicated than the rest.
- Setup phase time has been increased from 90s to 180s to give more time for players to load in.
- Sprinting turn rate has been significantly increased for SM tactical, ground assault and apothecary, CSM traitor, traitor assault and sorcerer, and Ork shoota, slugga and painboy.
- Jump Pack wargear have had their costs and stats changed across the board. Stormboyz, Raptors and Assault characters can potentially be even more maneuverable than before, but maneuverability wargear costs significantly more than it did before.
- The Swooping Hawk’s Wings of Grace have had their cost increased to 150 and their fuel regen changed to 30%.
- Increased price of Lashsword to 380 LP (before mastery).
- Added unique looks for CSM & SM Lascannons.
- Added unique looks for CSM Multi-Meltas.
- Previously blank unique CSM Multi-Melta is now the “Warp Furnace”
- Avenger’s Duty now fires only 4 rounds per burst (previously 6) but has a - - - 0.4s cooldown between shots (previously 0.72).
- Reduced Electro-Knuckle cost to 100 LP.
- Increased Thrice-Blessed Blade cost to 100 LP.
- Cult-Blessed Jump Pack changed to +1 Fuel, 250 LP. Forged Jump Pack changed to +2 Fuel, 500 LP. Cult Shard changed to +30% Fuel Regen, 200 LP. All get +15% Fuel Regen with the Mark of Slaanesh.
- Added 50% Poison Resist to Mark of Nurgle.
- Increased minimum damage and upped movement speed on Daemonbolt.
- Reduced Narthecium poison application to 25.
- Reduced ‘Urty Syringe poison application to 33.
- Added Narthecium poison weapon mod to the 1k reward box (although apparently it might not be showing up on live yet).
- Reduced poison clearance rates on all heal-over-time effects.
- Increased Sicky Slugga poison by 40%
- Previously blank unique Ork Pokkit Rokkit Launcha is now the “Pokkit Slowgit Launcha”.
- Added 1 extra mag to the Sunrifle.
- Narthecium targeting should be significantly more reliable.
- Grav-gun damage has been increased.
- Grav-cannon falloff damage has been increased.
- Boltgun and Avenger Shuriken Catapult hip fire accuracy has been increased (and movement penalties on the catapult increased to compensate).
- Bad Moons are now black & yellow, Evil Sunz are now yellow & red
- “Standard of Precision” node name has been changed to “Standard of Certainty” to match the item it rewards.
- Storm and Fury Tempest Launcher now fires one big projectile as its text describes.
- Flesh Circle now triggers the correct vfx when hitting Khorne characters.
- Secondary fire on the Reaper Launcher now correctly triggers a cooldown.
- The Kannon Deffgun properly fades when in brace/aim mode so that the scope isn’t blocking sight.
- Update mana regeneration weapon mod cost/magnitude to be inline with wargear
- The setting to disable the two button "Defensive Bash" should say "Parrying Blow" in place.
- Muzzle flash was offset when firing the Heavy Bolter.
- When an Ork Loota crouches, the model distorts wildly.
- SM storm bolters and CSM combi bolters models were wrong.
- The Dark Angel 5th Company knee pad has the correct colours.
- It takes much longer to decouple from a bracing point as a Dark Reaper with a Shuriken Launcher than any other heavy when trying to move backwards after firing.
- The Pokkit Rokkit Launcher (Unique) weapon was similar in appearance and stats to the Pokkit Rokkit Launcher weapon.
- Lasblaster ejected shell casings even though they are laser weapons and would not have shells.
- The Dark Reaper launcher and Torrent launcher have infinitesimally small heat gain from repeatedly firing in mortar mode.
- There is a long delay after performing a Sprint Attack or Evade Attack as a Howling Banshee when compared to the delay with the Warlock.
- Removed cooldown on Reaper Launcher Starshot missiles, fixed damage on standard Tempest launcher, increased recovery speed on Avenger's Duty.
- Fix for multi-melta looking like a box as players were being ridiculed
- New Chaos Raptor loadout cannot be saved without changing backpack appearance tab back to default.
- All chaos chapters have a second Leg appearance that is named 'Standard Legs'.
- Battle damage missing from the RTC Dark Reaper legs.
- The celestial halo space marine items are now in the correct positions.
- The consumable animation is played twice when using a consumable while crouched behind cover which causes the user to slide when moving.
- Dakka Deffgun impacts are now green
- It took longer to begin charging a strong attack with the Power Klaw than the Power Fist.
- Crouching while capturing a point as an Ork results in the character model not performing any capture animation.
- The right Aspect Armour Shoulders from the bundle clipped with the shoulder for the Dire Avenger and Swooping Hawk.
- Improvements to the centralized client crash reporting tool
- The Ork character model's face clips into the character's left shoulder on the main menu and character hub screens.
- The Dead Shiny Kannon Deffgun was incorrectly named Master Crafted Kannon Deffgun with a quality of Standard.
- Polish of reticles and scopes
- Most helmets did not change colour correctly for space wolf veterans
- The squad menu on the left side of the screen did not show who is using a veteran class and who is not.
- When a user died before the users began the Horde Mode by opening the sector lock, would respawn in the room past the sector lock.
- The user was unable to perform an evade attack when attempting to perform the move while holding down any of the movement keys.
- Frequently, when an Eldar Swooping Hawk wall grabs and jumps off too quickly from a surface, they will hold their grab pose in mid air briefly.
- Sticky type grenades stuck on a character had their counter reset when the character evades.
- Under certain conditions, Bundles could not be purchased even if the User has enough RTC and Faction RTC combined to buy it.
- When using the burst setting on an Eldar rifle, the sound of shooting will persist even after projectiles have stopped being fired.
- Chaos eye glows colors for gods
- When an Eldar is executed, the model had spike protrusions from the groin area.
- Unique version of Big Shoota needed its own firing audio due to slower RoF
- The Dark Angels Tabbard overwrites the helm appearance.
- The Widowmaker boltgun for the Traitor class did not fire screaming ammunition like the description says and instead sounds the same as a regular bolter.
- When using a consumable on an ally, more visual feedback was added to indicate it being applied.
- Added a warning to the "relinquish" items screen that tells people the item goes back into the loot
- The hyper efficient jump pack for the Space Marine had flickering textures.
- The veteran loadouts were visible in PVE despite not being selectable.
- Fixed inconsistency on how lifesteal stat is displayed on the Mark of Khorne and the Lifesteal weapon modification.
- Having the Campaign notification message open when the Campaign ends causes the notification message to be stuck on the screen.
- If a character had an item that can be used on downed targets, they should be able to use it when the rescue prompt is available
- The Eldar Swooping Hawk stood up when reloading while being crouched behind a low cover.
- Changed the Loadout point reduction visualization
- Wolf Priest had two default helmets in the appearance tab, both of which have the same appearance on character.
- Ork Stormboy weapons are misaligned with hands when boosting with jet pack.
- If a Heavy Bolter is spam fired while crouching, the standing up animation is neither fluid or smooth.
- There are display and faction boundary issues which results in users not being able to change weapons in loadouts, not seeing weapons in the store and seeing all bundles.
- The Shoota's left arm will distort sometimes when firing their Primary Weapon.
- The Fuel Line Ionizers and the extra regulators in War Gear slot 2 for the Space Marine Jump Assault class do not have their icons.
- The Stormboy appeared to have a Standard which does not resemble the one that is equipped regardless of whether they are squad leader or not.
- Fixed Chaos god Marks and Appearance right shoulders are overlapping.
- The Swooping Hawks do not have the proper lore friendly alternating feather scheme on any wing item.
- The Night Lord Traitor Assault right shoulder iconography is green instead of gold.
- The Default Shoulders and the Aspect Shoulders which cost 5000 RTC for the Striking Scorpion are incorrect.
- Various fixes to CSM arms
- The Six-Shoota (Alt) weapon was missing its yellow texture on some parts of the weapon.
- Lael’shan Witchblade RTC weapon was missing extra charge stats
- Thrust jets were in the wrong place for jumppack 05
- The Master Crafted Combi-Bolter was missing the skull on the left side of the weapon.
- There was no glow for the Wings of Brilliance when equipping them to an Eldar Veteran class.
- Fixed VFX appearing from the sides of the screen when firing certain weapons.
- Holding down the fire button on a Swooping Hawk loadout that has the Hunter's Mark equipped results in the weapon firing once but the sound persisting as though it is firing for as long as the user has the left mouse button held down.
- The Aquilla Blessed Leg Armour did not display properly when the user has equipped the Artificer Armour or the Relic Armour.
- Armour trims were missing when the Dragon Left Shoulder or Dragon Right Shoulder appearance items are equipped.
- SM Champion Shoulder did not apply when the character is wearing Artificier or Relic Power Armours.
- The ribcage chest piece that is displayed on the Chaos main store page tab for armours was not available for purchase.
- The Word Bearer Runic Torso chest item does not match its icon.
- The Collar of the Seer wargear item clips slightly into the artificer armour.
- The relic armour for Space Marines is was not solid gold on the shoulder trims compared with the rest of the gold banding.
- Show the "doritos" marker permanently after [x] remaining enemies. “Doritos” is a technical gaming term.
- The Raptor was missing the gold trim on the shoulder guards.
- Several Eldar classes have gemstones on their armour which glow but are not the colours of the specific gems.
– The in game UI proximity indicator for the CSM Daemonbolt appeared as a grenade.
- When using the call out or way point button on a character with the mark of Tzeentch, the default Chaos Marine voice played.
- All bolter and heavy bolter weapons do not have holes in their barrels.
- Lots of various minor customization fixes, broken images and icons in the store.
Full patch notes are here.
http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/update-1-2-24-january-27th.63113/
