Fine Tuning Update Notes - July 22nd, 2015

Welcome to Dirty Bomb's first Fine Tuning update!

With this update, in lieu of adding in new features or Mercs, we have focused on refining Dirty Bomb's existing content and gameplay in order to keep Dirty Bomb as fair, sturdy and competitive as possible. There might not be anything brand new to sink your teeth into, but we've still got a wealth of changes, such as revisions to View-Kick, balance changes for Sparks and Phantom, improvements to the Mission and Spectator systems and more.

Take a look at the full battery of changes below, and we look forward to seeing your feedback in the Official Dirty Bomb Forums after you've given them a spin!

Balance Changes General Gameplay Reduced the amount of kick when receiving damage, to compensate for the recent update to view-kick functionality Players will now only spawn in game after choosing a Merc, once a map is loaded Deployables are now easier to place in tighter spaces Fletcher Reclaiming a Sticky Bomb now only returns 50% of the cooldown Fragger Fixed bug where pressing '4' could cause a Frag Grenade to be thrown Phantom Phantom's health has been lowered to 110hp (from 120hp) Refractive Armor maximum recharge time increased to 10s (from 6s) Taking damage that exceeds remaining Refractive Armor energy will now also eat into health Heartbeat Sensor detection no longer disables Refractive Armor, but will still spot Phantom Refractive Armor no longer prevents gas damage from eating into health Refractive Armor is now slightly more visible when Phantom is moving Cloaking/de-cloaking audio is now more audible to other players Sparks REVIVR now deals the correct amount of damage to objectives REVIVR battery now begins draining immediately, rather than when minimum charge is reached Increased the rate at which the REVIVR battery is depleted while charging shots by 10% Enemy REVIVR shots are now seen as orange in-game Ranged Weapons K-121 Machine Gun - Reduced spread and recoil by ~5% PDP-70 Automatic Sniper Rifle - This will no longer insta-gib players if it kills with a headshot KEK-10 SMG - Bullet spread now increases ~7% faster than before while firing Crotzni SMG - Bullet spread now increases ~10% faster than before while firing Melee Weapons Added a turn-speed-limit for melee attacks to prevent exploits and to reward initial aim This will be fine-tuned based on player feedback and metrics Cricket Bat - Reduced run speed when equipped by 2.5% Katana - Reduced run speed when equipped by 2.5% Katana - Secondary attacks now deal damage for a shorter period of time Augments Chopper Augment melee damage bonus reduced to +15% (down from +20%) Lock-On Augment now correctly reduces Turret lock-on times Steady Augment now correctly adds health to all deployables Flying Pig Augment now correctly negates all fall damage Game Improvements General Reworked the in-game Mission system XP Mission values updated so Game Mode and Support are now quicker to complete Removed 'Win X Matches' missions as they were incentivizing unbalanced matches Added new missions for Competitive Matches, the Execution Game Mode and Secondary Objectives Updated Merc missions to be based around earning the appropriate XP type instead of playing 'X' matches Clamped a number of video settings to address exploits, such as completely disabling particle effects Updated the auto-detect settings when the game is first run to apply more appropriate graphics presets (High, Med, Low) Updated the Competitive Matchmaking algorithm so it spends more time searching for players of closer skill-ratings User Interface Added Steam related options to the right click drop down panel on the scoreboard Updates to the Spectator HUD: Minimap now increases in size and shows all players with the correct team colors Chat has been moved to the top left and players names are also correctly colored Objective HUD is now positioned in the centre Visual Effects Improved the visual effects when Phantom is shot while his Refractive Armor is active Updated the effects when a player is revived with defibs/REVIVR Updated the REVIVR firing and impact effects Improved the Katana trail effects Made the Orbital Strike effects a little more impressive Updated Skyhammer's Airstrike explosion effects Audio Added new firing audio for the Blishlok SMG Tweaked footstep audio volume and falloff to make them more audible Improved the mix for all weapon audio, including slightly quieter surface impacts Frag Grenade bounces are now slightly louder when in range Added exertion audio for Sparks when she is incapacitated or killed Added glass sounds for large and medium windows Notable Bug Fixes Fixed bug where players could be stuck after being revived Fix for players sometimes not seeing the MM ranking in the game overview screen Optimized UI code to aid Minimap performance Removed the silencer from the Selbstadt .40 Pistol icon Fixed several issues with Mounted Gun audio -- Team Dirty Bomb --

/r/Dirtybomb Thread Parent Link - dirtybomb.nexon.net