DEAD GRID 1.0 - BALANCE PATCH

BUILD 1.0.38

GENERAL TUNING

• Lab Armory selection UI now shows the bonus loot level for each weapon group where points have been spent.

• Added mouse wheel support to change pages on the Loot Haul screen when returning to camp.

• Ammo drawn from a merc's bag is now directly drawn into your hand instead of the ammo stash.

• Added more loot selection options to the Trash Bin area object at the location Stash House.

• Slightly reduced prior training points in Explosives for all Tactician mercs by a few points.

• Improved the new player guide for the Recruit tab of Gear Management, before locating Ramon.

• Reworked all Ned's assignment rewards to offer a variety of different shields.

FLAMETHROWER BALANCE

• Changed the spray damage to be based on remaining enemy HP instead of total HP.

• Reduced the total sprays from 3 to 2 with one additional spray on a crit for a max of 3 sprays.

• The sprays reduction does not affect how enemies are set on fire.

• Flamethrower armory points now have a chance to drop on each spray instead of each kill.

• Added a Flame Armory Mods book that can show up at the start of every turn.

• DEV NOTES:

  I've been gathering lots of feedback on the flamethrowers being overtuned for the late stages of the game. I recognize this and agree with the feedback, but also want to experiment with tuning the weapon over several patches. Flamethrowers were always designed to be used on high HP enemies, but I don't want them to be the go to weapon as well. This patch introduces some changes that I'll continue to gather feedback for.

AIMED SHOT BALANCE

• The base damage of Aimed Shot is now 1/2 of the maximum damage instead of a flat 150%.

• This only affects ranged weapons with the Aimed Shot ability (sniper rifles, bows, crossbows).

• AdjustedNoteAimed Shot damage is increased by upgrading the weapon's item level.

TURN SKILL: KILL ZONE (REWORKED)

• Kill Zone has been reworked to no longer grant Aimed Shot to all mercs in play.

• Kill Zone now boosts the damage of non-flamethrower ranged attacks by 15%.

• Cooldown has been reduced from 22 to 20 turns.

TURN SKILL: STRIKE ZONE (NEW)

• A new turn skill similar to Kill Zone, but grants 15% melee damage to all mercs in play.

• Revenant mercs gain 15% damage to each hand instead.

SURVIVOR: JACK (REWORKED)

• Jack's damage is now based on the highest damaging ranged weapon of any merc in the mission squad, not just the primary merc. This was a frequent request in feedback.

• Increased Jack's starting accuracy from 70% to 85%, further boosted by +2% per intel.

• Increased Jack's damage boost per intel from +5% to +10%.

• Flamethrowers are still excluded from Jack's damage pool.

GADGET: WALKIE TALKIE (REWORKED)

• Completely reworked the mechanic of the Walkie Talkie gadget and its unique variants.

• Walkie Talkie now grants a chance to spawn every merc in mission squad into combat on turn 1 of the first encounter.

• The gadget can be equipped on any merc in mission squad and the chance stacks from multiple Walkie Talkies.

• Combat log reflects the total stacked chance and which merc was able to arrive early using this mechanic.

ACCESSORY: PRECISION HELM (NEW)

• Chance to retain Aimed Shot after scoring a crit with an Aimed Shot.

• Precision Helm comes in 5 conditions (colors).

ACCESSORY: LARGE BACKPACK (REBALANCED)

• Doubled the trigger chance of copying drawn consumables from bag.

• Degraded backpack now starts with a 10% instead of 5% and can be upgraded to a 60% chance.

MERC IN-CARD STATUS EFFECTS

• Added new in-card status effects for mercs performing special actions, similar to Frag Out.

• The new effects are: Frag Stash, Molotov, Explosive, Smoke, Sashimi, Execute, Shield Taunt and a more. I will potentially expand it further in future patches.

ENEMY HIT POINT SCALING

I've been paying very close attention to the feedback of enemy scaling in the late stages of the game. Many players have reported the early game feels a lot smoother, especially on the harder difficulty modes. The enemy scaling on the second half of the region was definitely overtuned for the 1.0 launch. Therefore, I've made some changes to make the harder missions more lucrative to repeat.

This patch introduces a new power curve for enemy hit point scaling affecting the mid to late stages of the game. The goal is to reduce the aggressive rise in hit points while making non-burn damage and non-flamethrower weapons more viable.

Mid game starts around rank 20 enemies, which is typically at the Hospital. The early game should stay unaffected.

Here are some examples of the new enemy HP numbers:

NORMAL

ENEMY RANK: 29, OLD SCALED HP: 406, NEW SCALED HP: 391

ENEMY RANK: 30, OLD SCALED HP: 360, NEW SCALED HP: 346

ENEMY RANK: 44, OLD SCALED HP: 880, NEW SCALED HP: 786

ENEMY RANK: 55, OLD SCALED HP: 1320, NEW SCALED HP: 1108

ENEMY RANK: 62, OLD SCALED HP: 2232, NEW SCALED HP: 1798

ENEMY RANK: 85, OLD SCALED HP: 2550, NEW SCALED HP: 1778

ENEMY RANK: 94, OLD SCALED HP: 3102, NEW SCALED HP: 2038

VETERAN

ENEMY RANK: 41, OLD SCALED HP: 1308, NEW SCALED HP: 1077

ENEMY RANK: 75, OLD SCALED HP: 4505, NEW SCALED HP: 2488

ENEMY RANK: 84, OLD SCALED HP: 4710, NEW SCALED HP: 2319

ENEMY RANK: 94, OLD SCALED HP: 4738, NEW SCALED HP: 2045

ENEMY RANK: 94, OLD SCALED HP: 4738, NEW SCALED HP: 2045

APOCALYPSE

ENEMY RANK: 26, OLD SCALED HP: 968, NEW SCALED HP: 878

ENEMY RANK: 50, OLD SCALED HP: 3557, NEW SCALED HP: 1979

ENEMY RANK: 73, OLD SCALED HP: 6347, NEW SCALED HP: 2036

ENEMY RANK: 88, OLD SCALED HP: 12138, NEW SCALED HP: 2649

ENEMY RANK: 93, OLD SCALED HP: 11955, NEW SCALED HP: 2286

EXTINCTION

ENEMY RANK: 30, OLD SCALED HP: 1972, NEW SCALED HP: 1528

ENEMY RANK: 51, OLD SCALED HP: 7285, NEW SCALED HP: 2920

ENEMY RANK: 72, OLD SCALED HP: 21383, NEW SCALED HP: 4034

ENEMY RANK: 86, OLD SCALED HP: 31104, NEW SCALED HP: 3430

ENEMY RANK: 93, OLD SCALED HP: 31391, NEW SCALED HP: 2625

ENEMY DAMAGE BALANCE

With the new hit point curve, I've also included a balance change to enemy damage, especially for the harder difficulty modes. Once again, the change starts to be more apparent mid game with rank 20+ enemies, at the Hospital.

The other reason for this damage balance is to also put more focus on using consumables, upgraded shields and the use of threat management. Many players run 500+ durability shields where enemies dealing 10 damage per swing pose very little threat.

Here are some examples of the new enemy damage numbers:

NORMAL

ENEMY RANK: 12, OLD DAMAGE: 5, NEW DAMAGE: 5 (no change)

ENEMY RANK: 49, OLD DAMAGE: 5, NEW DAMAGE: 6

ENEMY RANK: 75, OLD DAMAGE: 7, NEW DAMAGE: 9

ENEMY RANK: 93, OLD DAMAGE: 7, NEW DAMAGE: 9

VETERAN

ENEMY RANK: 7, OLD DAMAGE: 3, NEW DAMAGE: 4

ENEMY RANK: 29, OLD DAMAGE: 3, NEW DAMAGE: 4

ENEMY RANK: 72, OLD DAMAGE: 8, NEW DAMAGE: 11

ENEMY RANK: 88, OLD DAMAGE: 8, NEW DAMAGE: 12

APOCALYPSE

ENEMY RANK: 7, OLD DAMAGE: 6, NEW DAMAGE: 9

ENEMY RANK: 18, OLD DAMAGE: 6, NEW DAMAGE: 9

ENEMY RANK: 72, OLD DAMAGE: 9, NEW DAMAGE: 15

ENEMY RANK: 87, OLD DAMAGE: 9, NEW DAMAGE: 16

ENEMY RANK: 91, OLD DAMAGE: 9, NEW DAMAGE: 16

EXTINCTION

ENEMY RANK: 8, OLD DAMAGE: 2, NEW DAMAGE: 6

ENEMY RANK: 17, OLD DAMAGE: 8, NEW DAMAGE: 12

ENEMY RANK: 50, OLD DAMAGE: 8, NEW DAMAGE: 13

ENEMY RANK: 74, OLD DAMAGE: 10, NEW DAMAGE: 19

ENEMY RANK: 93, OLD DAMAGE: 10, NEW DAMAGE: 20

GENERAL BUG FIXES

• Merc pending actions turn alert option cannot be disabled in Game Settings.

• Merc in play blocks the view of another merc at location Bunker of Rot.

• Card details for weapons with a single shot or swing (melee, sniper, shotgun, bow) should not show the number of attacks (x1).

• In Gear Management, hovering over a resting merc with a full squad plays a small alert sound.

• Challenge "Lab of the Dead" incorrectly states enemies spawn with +0 base damage, should be +2.

• New Intel reminder status message is not removed when selecting a mission location on the region map.

• Tactician skill Dynamite wrongly states the explosion occurs at the end of the enemy's turn, should be at the start of turn.

• Survivor character Loaf plays incorrect voice emotes when triggered in combat.

• Skill Observer (Tactician) is able to redraw skill Stockpile (Commando), it should not.

• Combat card details hidden with Ctrl key do not stay hidden on new encounters.

• Accessory Beanie gets renamed after upgrading to the pristine condition.

• Killing Spree stacks can be gained from attacks against non-minion enemies (propane, rotting corpses), which can also result in losing stacks.

• Flamethrower spray does not explode propane tanks or fuel barrels in play that can be blown up with regular firearms.

• Assignment reward card details hides the hovered over reward (visual issue only).

• Fixed a few non-critical game errors tied to mesh colliders on stone clubs.

• Many small typo fixes, reported in Discord.

REVENANT BUG FIXES AND TUNING

• Total unlocked Revenant elite perks is always showing 0 on the Skills UI.

• Total bonus HP from points spent in Fitness attributes for the Revenant class is always showing 0 on the Skills UI.

• If a Revenant dies in combat and gets returned to hand using the Rise Again skill, the merc not redrawn to hand on the next encounter.

• Good visibility should not be applied on Revenant mercs as they have no ranged weapons.

• Trader almost never sells any Revenant items due to a bug with mission requirement.

• Slade should now regularly offer Revenant weapons after unlocking location Supermarket.

• Added 10 new Revenant unique weapons to the game most of which can be purchased from Slade.

ACHIEVEMENT BUG FIXES

• Achievement "Tune In" does not unlock after completing the Radio Station 3 times.

• Achievement "So Close I Can Smell Them" (melee attacks only) can be completed while using a Flamethrower.

• Aimed Shot crits with 5k, 10k, 20k are not triggering the related achievements. This was incorrectly shown in combat log on non-crit Aimed Shot hits which should not count. Adjusted the log and improved the information of failed Aimed Shots.

Thanks for all the reports! Please continue to submit feedback on the forums or in Discord.

--Paul