H1Z1 Patch Buffs Combat and More

Combat Update Notes:

For those that don’t know me, my name is bronstahd (Garrett Fern), and I’m a combat and gameplay designer working on H1Z1: King of the Kill. Tomorrow we are releasing an update we’ve internally termed “the combat update” which is the result of a focused push toward improving combat and related gameplay systems. I wanted to spend some time talking about several of these changes in greater detail to give some insight into what’s changed and why we’re excited about this update’s release.

Shotgun

We’ve continued working to improve the consistency of the shotgun. Our goal is that the shotgun should be a powerful, up close threat. This update further tightens the shotgun’s spread of fire, making it more powerful up close. In addition, the shotgun’s damage will fall off over distance, so it isn’t too powerful at range. The feedback we’ve seen has been positive so far, so we’re really looking forward to seeing these changes on the live servers.

Cone of Fire

Recently, we added Cone of Fire adjustments based on your character's movement state. We did this because, put simply, guns were performing far too accurately when running and jumping. Philosophically, our belief has always been that aiming down sight should be the most accurate method of aiming; this change made sure that's the case.

However, it was also possible to aim down sight while jumping, which also allowed for tremendous accuracy in a way that didn't make sense. This update addresses that issue by preventing ADS while jumping or falling. This has also allowed us to ease up on some previous combat restrictions around movement and it will now be possible to shoot and ADS directly from sprint. You'll no longer have to wait for your character to slow down and suffer a delay when trying to shoot.

General Weapon Polish

This update also contains a lot of general weapon polish. In no particular order, here's what you should expect to see:

• Historically, melee weapons have been underwhelming and of little use. As a first step toward addressing this, we've increased melee weapon damage across the board. This won't entirely fix melee weapons, but it should be a noticeable improvement:

• Fists: 4.5 damage -> 9 damage

• Combat Knife: 10 damage -> 21 damage

• Machete: 12 damage -> 25 damage

• Wood Axe: 16.5 damage -> 34 damage

• Since our last change to the AK-47 we've been listening to the community and the feedback has been pretty clear: it's not powerful enough when compared to the AR15.

We've been internally testing a faster fire rate for the AK-47 which we'll be rolling out with this update. Here's what you should expect to see:

• The AK-47 should be faster than AR15 in full auto fire, but more difficult to control.

• The AK-47 should be closer in speed to the AR15 when tapping.

• Specifically, the delay between shots has been reduced from 160 ms -> 145 ms.

We think this change will create nice some trade-offs between the weapons and make the AK-47 a compelling choice once again.

• Increased the damage of the R380 from 15 -> 17 to reduce the number of shots required to kill with it by one.

• Decreased the damage of the M9 from 19 -> 18 to allow time to apply healing after taking five shots. Previously it wasn't possible to apply any type of healing before bleeding to death.

• We've made some adjustments to the M47 Gas Grenade that should make them far more viable as a thrown weapon option:

• Damage increased from 1/tick-> 3/tick.

• Duration reduced from 60 seconds -> 20 seconds.

• Depending on the weapon, it used to take anywhere between 0.5 seconds to 1 second to change from one weapon to another. This time has been reduced to 0.15 seconds for all weapons.

• Weapon slots will always be assigned the same number, regardless of whether or not there are weapons in other slots.

Damage Log

We believe that when a player dies it should be very clear to them what killed them. That’s not always the case currently. As a first step towards remedying this, we’ve added a damage log to the death screen that will display how much damage the attack that killed you did and whether or not it was a headshot. Moving forward, the plan is to re-work the death screen so we can display even more information about cause of death.

Body Armor

EDITS MADE

We've also made some changes to the way Armor works that should improve the reliability of body armor:

• The entire body (chest, arms, and legs) is protected by Body Armor.

• Helmets still protect the head.

Hit Reactions

Hit reaction animations would cause the other character's head moved, often preventing a quick follow-up shot from registering as a headshot when it should. Other characters will no longer flinch out of the way when shot.

Camera & Reticle Improvements

We've made a couple of improvements to the reticle.

• We’ve added a new element to the reticle that increases in size to display Cone of Fire information based on player movement.

• Improved color saturation and added clearer outline which should make seeing the reticle, even small reticles, much easier.

• In most cases, projectiles now originate from the camera rather than the weapon model. This change significantly reduces projectile collisions with medium-height cover like fences, rocks, cars, and similar objects and also improves projectile performance when fighting uphill or against players on top of buildings.

In some cases, it was possible for one player to have clear line of sight on another player, due to the camera being offset above their head, while actually being obscured from the other player’s view. We felt this would be unfair, and in these cases (generally, when your character is very close to medium-height cover) projectiles will still originate from the weapon model. We’ve added feedback to the reticle to make it clear when this is happening.

General Gameplay

KotK Crafting

In this update we're also adding some new crafting recipes to King of the Kill.

Makeshift Armor

We're pretty happy with the current scarcity of Body Armor, and like that finding it feels special. However, the changes to Body Armor outlined above meant that players without Body Armor would be at an even bigger disadvantage than before when fighting against an armored player. For that reason, we've added a new crafted armor, Makeshift Armor, which will block one shot and can be worn as a fall-back to Body Armor.

• Components: Components: 1 Duct Tape, 2 Armor Scraps, and 4 Composite Fabric

• Motorcycle helmets can be “shredded” to provide armor scrap

• Military Backpacks can be “shredded” to provide composite fabric

Procoagulant

• Procoagulant is a quick-use item that can be used to quickly stop bleeding without any additional healing effects.

• Components: 10 Field Bandages, 1 Tactical First Aid Kit.

5x Explosive Tipped Arrow

• Obviously, explosive arrows are very powerful, so we'll be keeping a close eye on feedback for this recipe and monitoring its impact on game balance.

• Components: 5 M67 Frag Grenades, 5 Wooden Arrows, 1 Duct Tape, 5 12 Gauge Buckshot Shells.

• There are some small item spawn changes that support the additions to crafting:

• Duct Tape now spawns on the map for use in some of the new crafting recipes.

• Explosive Tipped and Flaming Arrows no longer spawn on the map.

Footwear Changes

With these changes we wanted to create some more interesting choice when selecting footwear. To accomplish this, we're introducing a new type of footwear and making some tweaks to the existing options.

Stealthy Shoes (New!)

• Replaces boots as new starting shoes.

• Similar in volume to bare feet.

• 2% faster than bare feet.

• Reduce falling damage by 5%.

Heavy Shoes (boots & variants)

• Loudest shoes.

• 7% faster than bare feet.

• Reduce falling damage by 40%

Speedy Shoes (conveys & variants)

• Louder than stealthy shoes, quieter than heavy shoes.

• 16% faster than bare feet.

• Reduce falling damage by 15%.

Interaction Responsiveness

We’ve long had problems with delays in picking up items. It isn’t really a combat related thing, but it was a big enough deal that we wanted to pursue a fix for this update. The time it takes to pick up items, open doors, and perform other interactions has been greatly improved and is now nearly instantaneous.

Additional Patch Notes:

• Items should be more consistently highlighted during looting

• Removed dynamic weapon slot numbers from the UI

• The team auto-fill button is back and should behave correctly

• Fixed a bug where hit-markers would occasionally get stuck on

• Fixed a bug where players could not melee others on ATVs

• Fixed a bug where explosions could damage players through structures

• Fixed a bug where the Molotov’s fire effect would sometimes be invisible

• Corrected Molotov behavior so that they damage vehicles but do not cause them to burn

• Fixed an issue where players would render incorrectly if they exit a vehicle at certain distances

• Fixed a bug where thrown grenades could go through players

• Fixed a bug where equipping a weapon while inventory is full could cause the player to lose the weapon

• Fixed an exploit where swapping backpacks a specific way could create infinite bag space

• Fixed a bug where the UI would make it appear that multiple hits were registering at once

• Fixed a bug where character would appear to be falling when strafing against concrete barriers

• Fixed a bug where the reloading the AK-47 while firing could prevent the reload animation from playing

KNOWN ISSUES:

• There is a bug where Bundles of Arrows cannot be picked up using “E.” However, they can be picked up using Proximity (done by opening your Inventory / Tab Key).

• There is a bug where the pickup truck moves slower than usual in Reverse.

• The Auto-Fill button does not appear to be working as intended. We are investigating the issue.