Road to 1.0: Free Weekend Insights

[COSMIN]

Hello Responders!

It’s been a few weeks since our second Free Weekend ended and since then we have continued to work on 1.0 with your feedback in mind. Today, we wanted to catch up on some topics we heard about often during the Free Weekend and share some changes being made to address them.

These are only a small selection of a much larger changelog shipping alongside 1.0’s new content offerings, so we ask that you keep in mind that some of these adjustments will be affected by other changes not yet revealed.

Improving the Pace of Melee Combat

Ever since the Genesis update’s balance hotfix, we’ve been hearing lots of feedback around melee combat, especially when it pertains to one-handed slashing weapons. Free Weekend also allowed us to get thoughts from those who were unfamiliar with our melee system entirely on where other pain points exist and what we can do to elevate close-quarters combat.

One of the largest changes planned for 1.0 is a general responsiveness increase when it comes to strong and charged attacks. One-handed weapons will be receiving a universal 10% speed increase to their strong attack windup alongside a 20% speed increase to their charged attack windup. This is separate from the actual swing speeds of individual weapons, which are receiving more targeted balance. Two-handed weapons will also receive a 10% speed increase to their charged attack windup

Slashing weapons will see 5 stability damage added to quick attacks across the board and 10 stability damage added to strong attacks (for context, 20 stability damage triggers a zombie stagger), to better open up combo opportunities based upon each weapon’s strengths. Trading hits with zombies will be generally less common, but still a threat if you aren’t conscious of how you start an engagement. Closing the gap or making a hasty escape will also be more feasible as we’re bringing improvements to sprinting and stamina, with sprint speed increasing slightly and stamina beginning to refill quicker after use.

Overall, these changes should allow melee to feel more dependable, opening up more room in gameplay to learn quirks and master each weapon’s strengths for greater reward. We’ve really appreciated all the detailed thoughts shared with us as we work to improve this aspect of the game!

Expanding our Difficulty Scales

During the Free Weekend, we got to see how our current difficulty offerings feel for players less familiar with No More Room in Hell 2 and where new players gravitate to start. The vast majority of players played Classic, which led to a large drop in the extraction rates across maps for that difficulty as new Responders learned the game. However, this is a trend we see generally even when our dedicated core has been playing the live game the past few weeks.

Free Weekend Extraction Rates

Map & Mode

Casual

Classic

Hard

Nightmare

Power Plant

49%

18%

35%

46%

Pottsville

67%

43%

63%

65%

Lewiston

70%

49%

68%

83%

Broadway

68%

37%

57%

66%

Hospital

55%

21%

41%

48%

Flooded*

87%

72%

80%

74%

Average

66%

40%

57%

63%

w/o Flooded

62%

34%

53%

62%

Post-Free Weekend Extraction Rates

Map & Mode

Casual

Classic

Hard

Nightmare

Power Plant

84%

78%

81%

76%

Pottsville

89%

89%

92%

88%

Lewiston

90%

91%

92%

93%

Broadway

89%

85%

89%

89%

Hospital

86%

82%

86%

82%

Average

88%

85%

88%

86%

This data highlights three key concerns we plan to address with difficulty changes in 1.0:

• “Casual” and “Classic” send the wrong message to new players generally on the intent of these difficulties and where you should start.

• Classic is too hard for the average player compared to dedicated players.

• Nightmare isn’t reaching the emotional highs (and extraction rate lows) we want the mode to deliver.

We have several changes coming to tackle each of these points, from adjustments to zombie variety based on threat level to how we handle holdout objective zombie spawning, but for this preview we want to focus on our approachability changes. 

Casual and Classic are now renamed Beginner and Normal to better position them as a place to learn and place to refine skills respectively. (we’ll have more information around Tutorialization in a future blog, stay tuned!) Beginner will feature a time-based respawn system that gives players a better chance at completing objectives without wiping, and the existing objective-based respawn system is moving into Normal.

This allows for a much better transition between these difficulties as well as lowers the concern for permadeath until you choose to enter Hard. It is still a threat on lower difficulties during extraction, so saving resources and smart play are still required to keep your Responder alive and gain levels. We’ve also added an additional layer of challenge to the respawn-disabled difficulties by reducing the ammo found in weapons to require more conscious use of unloading.

Well-Earned Credits

Our changes to the Credit economy in Revelation are a big departure from how flush with currency players were in earlier updates. This is an intentional shift towards a more streamlined system for 1.0 and onwards, however we recognize that this transition isn’t fully realized and has left the current version of the game in a tight spot. Free Weekend especially highlighted this as we had many players with no Credit stockpile who could outspend their earn rate in scenarios that didn’t feel fair.

In 1.0, we will have an additional way of earning currency as well as an overhaul to the pricing of loadout equipment to encourage more spending to boost your Responder’s starting odds. Perks and their reroll costs remain a priority for the team headed into the future, with some changes coming in 1.0 as well as in post-launch updates.

We want Nightmare to be achievable both by those whose knowledge and skill allow them to perform even on a default loadout and those who instead slowly level a Responder up the difficulties and invest in their growth to ease that journey. Finding that balance between reward and challenge is our goal and will be something we continue to watch for at release.

What Lies Ahead

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be dropping in occasionally to share more info about the 1.0 update through blogs about various topics; from a deeper dive into Survival and a particular rural farmhouse in Pennsylvania to controller support and performance improvements that benefit both consoles and PC.

As always, stay safe out there!

The NMRIH2 Dev Team

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