[2020] Release Notes: September 10, 2020

Hunters & Gameplay General Changes:

• Updated interaction visual effects (VFX) on all characters.
  
• Positioned the interaction VFX to display for all characters, as they were previously hidden from view when playing as certain characters.
  
• Added new VFX for picking up Essence. The bottom edge of the screen will now display a blue glow effect to provide a more clear indication that Essence was successfully gathered.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused UI elements to occasionally not display and sound effects (SFX) to not play for Ajonah and Drakahl.

Ajonah Changes:

• Squid Mine [E]: Mines now target practice dummies, allowing players to test them out in the practice arena.

Bug fixes:

• Squid Mine [E]: Fixed a bug where Squid Mines were always dealing the minimum amount of damage over time (DoT) damage.
  
• Squid Mine [E]: Fixed a bug where damage from Squid Mines were not scaling with damage multipliers.

Bugg Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that could result in Bugg’s plants spawning with the Vulnerable status effect in high-latency matches.

Captain Mendoza Changes:

• Added polish to Mendoza’s reload smoke VFX.
  
• Flash Grenade [E]: Updated Flash Grenade explosion VFX to better depict the grenade’s explosion radius.
  
• Primary Fire [Left Mouse Button]: Made primary fire bullet impact VFX more noticeable so players can better tell what they are hitting.

Bug Fixes:

• Flash Grenade [E]: Fixed a bug where Mendoza's Grenades were applying additional critical damage.
  
• Headlong Rush [level 3 upgrade]: Fixed a bug that caused Headlong Rush VFX to play while the ability was on cool down.
  
• Headlong Rush [level 3 upgrade]: Fixed a bug that caused Mendoza to exit sprint after a successful Headlong Rush hit, requiring the player to press shift again. Mendoza will now continue to sprint after a successful hit.

Drakahl Developer’s note:
Drakahl fills an important role in the balance ecosystem—pressuring the enemy backline and ranged characters—but has been performing that role slightly too well. It is important that he continue to keep those characters in check, but also not feel overly oppressive when diving into the fray, so we decided to bring down his efficiency a touch.

Changes:

• Chop [left mouse button]: Damage decreased from 90 per swing to 85.
  
• Tough It Out [level 2 upgrade]: Amount of damage converted to damage-over-time reduced from 25% to 20%.

Earl Developer Note:
When looking at the pick rates for Earl's upgrades, High Idle was used much less than the other options at level 1. We are slightly raising the efficacy of Earl's High Idle upgrade to make it a more viable option.

Changes:

• High Idle [level 1 upgrade]: Increased the minimum amount of Turbofire granted by High Idle from 15% to 25%.
  
• Upshift [Right Mouse Button]: Updated the Upshift impact VFX to better display damage impact and explosion radius.
  
• Blowback Vents [E]: Added a new VFX for projectiles destroyed by active Blowback Vents.
  
• Added polish for Afterburner [shift] and reload VFX.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that prevented Earl's Turbofire indicator from updating correctly with certain upgrade unlocks.

Map & Matches General Changes:

• Updated the Metamorphosis event to become increasingly stronger through the course of the match. All creatures now start with an additional 15% health, damage and drop an additional 15% Essence. This scales by an additional 15% each time a Hive Heart is captured throughout the course of a match.
  
• Practice Arena target dummies now respawn faster.
  
• Increased the amount of Essence granted by Lurkers from 50 to 80.

Technology Changes:

• Reduced peak system memory and video memory (RAM and VRAM) usage by over 300 megabytes on mid- and minimum-specification machines. This should further improve performance hitches on machines with 8 GB of system RAM or video cards with less than 5 GB of VRAM.
  
• Reduced occurrences of desyncs between the client and server, especially under adverse network conditions.
  
• Improved the utilization of CPU cores, which should lead to a slight framerate improvement.

Bug fixes:

• Implemented missing sound effects for the "don't" and "I got this" options on the Quick Communication wheel.

User Interface & Usability Changes:

• Optimized various UI components, which should lead to a small framerate improvement.
  
• Added animation to the VFX of the victory/defeat banner that plays at the end of the match.
  
• Updated the text of the defeat banner to say “defeat” rather than “2nd place.”
  
• Removed the transition to a black screen at the end of a match.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused respawn timers to disappear if all players died on a team.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented a timer from displaying for certain in-game events.
  
• Fixed a graphical corruption bug that appeared on health bars while the player was vulnerable.
  
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused events to disappear from the mini-map.
  
• Fixed a bug that displayed duplicate information on event banners.
  
• Fix a bug that caused players to hear Hive Heart capture music after quitting the game.
  
• Fix a rare bug that caused the end-of-match scoreboard to show incorrect columns.
  
• Fixed a bug displaying empty reward tiers (above 80) when navigating to the Battle Pass screen.

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/1057240/announcements/detail/2889578249075418031]here[/url].