http://www.firefallthegame.com/about-firefall/
James looks tired and talks about the patch
What is it?: Firefall is an open world shooter with an expanding world, crafting, and player armies. It has PvE open world and a competitive class based PvP with jetpacks and abilities.
When does it launch?: Firefall is currently in closed beta where players will get invites periodically (Gmail system). When it is deemed ready it will become Open Beta. Invites are pretty easy to get however, just ask around or go on twitch.tv streams, or join the IRC channel.
How does it play?: Firefall plays like a class based team shooter in instanced PvP. If you are a good player you will be rewarded for it. All gear is standardized, no pay to win. In PvE go nuts with the crafting system, refining resources from Thumpers and building blueprints you find and unlock.
- Q: Is this a beta or a pre-release demo
- A: It's a real beta. And the early beta for this game was almost an alpha.
- Q: Hasn't this been in development for like 6 years
- A: Sorta. The team split up about 3 years ago and another company came in for funding and licensing rights in other regions. After a hiring spree late last year the team is finally hitting stride.
- Q: How do I get a beta key?
- A: Be active on the forums (Sign in like every month), know people currently playing, hop on a Twitch.TV stream, or join the #Firefall IRC.
- Q: So is there actually content now?
- A: 30 ARES missions and new local events. Apart from improving the existing content/AI/dynamics of it, this is not a huge push for that. This patch is a major overhaul or progression and the crafting system. With an eye towards dynamic content and building the systems in place so they they can apply to other zones there isn't that much more to do, but a lot more to be doing. If that makes sense. Basically there's real progression now, but you are doing updated things.
- Q: Can I play more then 1 or 3 Battleframes now?
- A: Yes, you can have and use and play all 15 of them. They are not limited to garage slots and you start off with the base (and completely viable and different) 5 Battleframes while you can unlock their specializations.
- Q: Is it fun?
- A: Yes.
THE PAX PATCH (v0.6)
Patch Notes Thread << Read this format if you want to save your vision.
Schinder said:Welcome to Patch 0.6!
We heard your requests and our team worked hard to make many of your wishes become a reality. This patch introduces new exciting content, an updated progressions system, a large number of improvements, and laid the foundation for amazing things to come.
As always we would love to hear your feedback. Join us on our journey to make Firefall a remarkable experience!
Social Features
Armies
Armies have been added to Firefall!
You are now able to build an army with your friends
Access the Army panel via the Social section in your Nav Wheel
Name your Army and set the Army Tag that will appear next to your name.
Manage your roster and promote members to help you out.
Get your own chat channel (/a or /army to select channel)
Additional Army functionality in future releases.
Squad
Implemented a search (lfg) feature
Panel can be found under the social section of the nav wheel
/lfg <message> slash command. If message is left blank, the command will toggle the player's lfg status
Friends
Added sounds for when friends come online and go offline
Added chat messages for friends coming online and offline
Chat
Chat now shows army tags for players in active armies
The chat no longer fades out if you are AFK
Emotes are now case insensitive
Removed the Splash Damage tip when taking falling damage
The Red 5 Studios logo has replaced the [R5] tag on developer chat messages
The bonus reward text color has been changed
Chat bubbles have been fixed
The chat is being docked into predefined slots on the New You, garage, and crafting screens to prevent overlap and hiding of key UI elements
Fixed a typo in the chat bubble
Added additional channel sound options
Progression
The new progression system is live!
Weight has been renamed to “Mass”.
CPU has been renamed to “Cores”.
All currently created items in the game have been removed and replaced with starting gear.
Tiers have been removed from the game. Unlocking new Battleframes now costs 10 Pilot tokens or 100 Red Beans. Pilot tokens are awarded at the 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th unlocks in each of the 3 constraint progression trees.
Unlocking progression items in the three trees will increase Battleframes Mass, Power and CPU Cores accordingly. Battleframes movement speed and overall damage will be affected by Mass and Power usage respectively. More constraints mean more room to equip better gear!
Acquiring progression items in the three trees requires Experience, Resources, and a special crafted item for the 10th unlock. Each Battleframe has a different resource requirement and special item needed to progress.
CPU Cores are used to equip abilities. These will be utilized more in a Future Update
You can now preview Battleframes before unlocking them.
As this is a system in progress, please help us by reporting any oddities, and expect changes as we work out the kinks and bring more features online!
PVE
The Accord Battle Lab
Welcome to the The Accord Battle Lab:
The Accord Battle Lab serves as a basic tutorial for players as they enter the game. This experience will introduce the player to the world of Firefall. It features a series of challenges from movement, combat, character customization, and introduces weapons and abilities for each of the 5 Accord Batteframes. For this patch, all players, when they first log on, will play through this experience.
Things to Expect:
When players enter the experience, they will find that they are in Civilian Clothes, and will be walked through a series of challenges
Players will be given access to each of the 5 Accord Battleframes and be offered challenges to test each of these abilities.
Players will meet both Aero and Oilspill
Known Issues
If you use any of the interactable terminals more than once, you will queue VO lines. This can result in Aero repeating herself.
After selecting a Battleframe from the Holograms you will see 5 challenge Drones. They are friendly. Interact with them and they will give you the appropriate challenge
The Triage Challenge is not working as intended.
Before using an Ultimate, make sure to run over the HKM Power Up. This is mentioned in text and via a Sin Card, but some people miss both of these.
Chosen Warfront
General
Chosen no longer attack watchtowers from random locations on the map.
Attacks now come in more organized groups in much more noticeable ‘warfront’ patterns.
Chosen attack from outposts they control and directly from the melding
New Chosen AI has been integrated into all warfront encounters
Invasions
They’re back, and have been redesigned
The Chosen are focused on invading Thump Dump and Sunken Harbor
The Chosen use siege tactics to bombard the SIN towers as well as invade with ground forces to destroy the shield generators, requiring players to both defend and attack to deal with the threats.
Invasions are designed to be multi-squad encounters
Chosen Scouts & Drop Pods
Drop pods have been redesigned
They no longer spawn everywhere / anywhere in the world. Instead, they are called down by Chosen Scouts.
Chosen Scouts and their drop pods are designed as solo-player content.
Incursions
Incursions have been redesigned
The number of Chosen defending the Incursion has been increased and the number of defending structures has been decreased in order to make the encounter more mobile
Players need to clear out the area around the Incursion in order to spawn a Shield Disruptor
When players use the Shield Disruptor, it begins the defend state. During this time, players defend the Shield Disruptor against waves of Chosen while it brings down a shield protecting a generator.
When a generator is vulnerable, players can quickly blow it up to start the next defend wave, which is harder than the previous wave
After all the generators are destroyed, the Warbringer is vulnerable and can be destroyed
Incursions are designed to be squad content
Watchtowers
When occupied by Chosen, the spawn room contains a device that governs the Chosen’s ability to spawn in that room. Players can interact with that device to blow it up to prevent the Chosen from spawning in the watchtower until a new device is arcported in.
Watchtowers updated with new VO
Watchtowers now display the amount of Chosen in the vicinity (if any) when Accord controls the tower
Watchtowers are no longer revealed by default on the map. They are now associated with certain points of interest (POI). When players uplink to a POI’s SIN tower, the associated watchtowers are then fully revealed.
Watchtowers are designed to be group content
Placement of some glider pads on watch towers have been adjusted so they no longer propel the user into terrain
POI Buffs
POIs under Accord control now give players buffs
Major POIs (Thump Dump, Copacabana, Sunken Harbor, and TransHub) each give a unique buff to all players in the zone while the Accord maintains control of the POI
Copacabana: Increased health regen
Thump Dump: Increased resource gain
TransHub: Reduced cooldowns
Sunken Harbor: Increased XP gain
Minor POIs (Sigu’s Sanctuary, Northern Shores, Cerrado Plains, etc) give a small stacking damage buff that increases in strength the more minor POIs that are controlled by the Accord
When the Accord loses control of these POIs, they also lose the associated buffs
Note: UI is not yet in the game to communicate that these buffs are active, but they are working behind the scenes. We decided to keep the bonuses in-game while we continue to work on the UI for it.
ARES Missions / Local Events
Introduced ARES missions throughout New Eden!
There are many new locations around New Eden where your expertise as an ARES operator is required
Thirty new interior spaces will now challenge you with objective based combat scenarios
Missions vary in difficulty, from solo encounters to five player group scenarios.
Fight through several different mission types with ever changing enemy forces in every one of the thirty spaces.
Earn rewards for the new crafting and progression system.
Nearly 200 unique narrative scripts have been added to these encounters which highlight the role of players as ARES Operators and inform about the state of New Eden and its population.
Known issue
Sometimes the Arcporter does not appear at the end of an ARES mission. If this happens, you may need to re-enter the mission volume and exit again to make it appear.
New Event: Player Created LGV Races
A new item called “Starting Line” is craftable at the manufacturing station, and becomes a consumable.
Place the Starting Line anywhere in the world. You are automatically given the Finish Line which you place a minimum of 500m from the Starting Line.
Anyone can participate in the race by interacting with the Starting Line.
The race will stay in the world as long as players keep using it.
Thumper and Scanning Improvements
All of the thumper costs and capacities have been adjusted.
New sizes of Personal and Squad thumpers have been designed by Accord engineers and are available for manufacture. Find the thumper that best fits your squad’s gear and skill!
Personal Thumpers are designed for 1-2 players. Resources recovered are split amongst the squad.
Squad Thumpers are designed for full squads. Resources are shared equally amongst the squad (no splitting).
Creatures spawned by the thumper are much more region-specific.
The balance and timing of all thumper spawns have been adjusted.
Completing a thumper to 100% yields a double resource bonus.
Completing a thumper to 100% results in an XP reward for the squad.
Explosive Aranhas killed by players only have small explosions instead of their large self-destruct explosion.
If you help a squad with their thumper, you will receive a small resource reward from the Accord.
Thumpers now have global mapmarkers – check your map to find a nearby squad with an open slot that is digging for a resource you need.
Lots of new voice over and feedback has been added to the thumper encounter.
Thumper placement rules have been adjusted to reduce positional exploits.
Players are now able to thump in flat water and wet sand
Many other small improvements to thumpers including: visual effects, lighting, creature spawn positions, thumper health, new creatures, etc.
You can only see the Thumper map markers if you’ve connected to the SIN tower for that area
Scan Hammer visuals have been improved – the SIN data should be much easier to read in order to find the best veins.
Open World
The Sunken Harbor watch towers now have unique names
Sunken Harbor spotlights now move even if players are not looking at them
Several NPCs in Trans Hub now have different names
Floating buildings around New Eden have been put back on the ground
Various floating rocks, bushes, etc. are now back on the ground
Various texture glitches have been fixed
Various texture seams have been closed
Hisser nests now align properly to mountains
Fixed auto turrets that clipped through the ground
Antennas are now properly displayed from far away
Plugged terrain holes in the Dig Site 5 cave
Plugged terrain holes in the back of the Cliffedge Encampment near Copacabana
Plugged terrain holes around the Broken Shores Secret Lab
Plugged terrain holes around Thump Dump
The SIN Tower in Thump Dump now has collision
Shield barriers of the SIN towers in Sigu and Stonewall are now correctly aligned
The /cheer emote of the female character no longer loops
Removed some rocks in the middle of the road by Cerrado Plains
SIN Imprints
Fixed some SIN imprints that were not playing
Playing a SIN imprint will interrupt other SIN imprint recordings
SIN imprints are now prettier and easier to see from a distance
Missions & Encounters
Daily missions are now resetting properly
Players no longer get double rewards for the Holmgang mission
Dynamic events are now spread out in a more distributed pattern
Chosen have a ton of changes.
Crafting
We have laid the foundation for our new crafting system!
Resources
Resources now only have 3 aspects (down from 5): Power, Mass, and CPU-Cores
Like the previous resources, each resource in a family is "best" at a specific aspect
An additional stat on resources is called "Purity" which influences the the refining process (read below)
The number of resources are changing from 3 families of 3 (9 total) to 5 families of 3 (15 total)
Resources and families have new, less cryptic names
Creatures now drop only crystite and have a chance of special drops which are used in many recipes
Resource Refining
Raw resources
All resources are acquired as "raw" and must be refined before they can be used in crafting recipes
Aspect stats of raw resources persist into their refined versions
Refining takes the raw resources and splits them into multiple results:
Seed Crystite (currency)
Refined resources (used for crafting)
Crystite Hybrids (used for crafting)
Crystite hybrids are used in the new crafting system to power the more powerful weapons and abilities
For every unit of raw resources being refined, there is a 0.1% chance of getting a crystite hybrid
If you refine 1000 units of a raw resource, you get 1 crystite hybrid 100% of the time
If you refine more than 1000 units you have a +0.1% chance of getting an extra crystite hybrid per unit being refined
Refining 1355 units of a raw resource means you get 1 crystite hybrid, and have a 35.5% chance of an additional crystite hybrid
The higher the purity of the raw resource, the more units are outputed when refined
Crafting & Components
All Battleframe modules & weapons now have component-based recipes
To build a Plasma Cannon I, you must first build two components: the Plasma Cannon Barrel I and the Plasma Reactor I, each requiring refined resources
Each component affects a different attribute of the master item – the Plasma Cannon Barrel I affects AOE radius, the Plasma Reactor I affects damage
The quality of the resources used determine the quality of the component crafted – the higher the component’s quality, the better it affects the related attribute
There are 4 stages of crafting planned per item, this patch features the first two
The higher the crafting stage, the more complex the recipe and the more powerful the item
More powerful gear will be more constraint-hungry – see the Progression notes!)
For the time being, ALL crafting recipes are available – in a future patch, you will have to research each crafting recipe before you can build the item
Manufacturing UI
A new, and still in development, interface has been added at the molecular printer to allow players to manufacture components and gear.
Recipes are organized by category for organizational purposes.
A search field has been added for ease of finding specific nanoprints.
All players will have 2 available workbenches allowing 2 nanoprints to be built in parallel.
Many improvements to come in future patches.
Old Resources
New recipe added for Beta Crystite Refining
The Beta Crystite Refining recipe takes up to 6 inputs at once
The Beta Crystite Refining process takes 20 seconds regardless of the amount of input
You can use full stacks of resources in the Beta Crystite Refining recipe
Old resources will convert into Beta Crystite at a ratio of 1:1
You may only use old resources for Beta Crystite Refining, all new recipes will require the new resources.
The vendor containing items purchasable for Beta Crystite is not yet in the game, it will be made available at a later date.
Misc
Fixed a launch error when using Russian characters in the name with a windows account
Resume file downloads for the patch files
Reward experience points for zone unlocks
Updated password reset appearance
Adding ‘Forgot Password’ button to login UI
Updated the Red 5 logo movie to be higher res and quieter
Fixed bug where dropship twists on landing pad
Fixed bug where dropship sinks into landing pad
Tweaked gamepad and gamepad aiming
Improved support for Windows user names with UNICODE characters
By default clients entering the game for the first time will play the introduction sequence regardless if the character has seen it already
Lots of installer/patcher changes
Various crash fixes for disconnecting in various error scenarios
Fixed a crash when restarting a replay as spectator
Changing the default fly cam FOV to 90 degrees to better align it with the game FOV.
Visuals
Outline shader improvements
Improved the artistic style of character and object outlines to have a more SIN feel
New Water Rendering
Rewritten and massively improved
Screen Space Emissive Lighting
Each pixel on the screen is an emissive light source.
Very expensive effect, not enabled by default (not even on Ultra settings)
Watch as your Battleframes and the world light up!
Smaller worst-case patch sizes
Added support for high-DPI display settings
Multi-monitor surface support (Eyefinity, Surround)
Fixed a bug to restore the camera when exiting vehicle
The vertical FOV is now preserved when the window is wide
Enabled the area light on grass
Reduced the moon size in the moon illusion effect to make it look more natural
Updated video quality auto-detect settings
Decals have shadows now
Vegetation (i.e. grass) bends when players walk through itMade the lens-flare effect look more dirty
High sun intensity will boost sky intensity to provide an "HDR-ish look"
Enabled terrain normal maps on medium shader quality which is an huge improvement at a moderate cost
Audio
Added sounds to the character create screen
HMG and Sniper flybys are now playing properly
Improved the music system
Fixed a bug where the HMG weapon sound would loop
Increased the SIN imprint audio volume
New jumpjet sounds have been added for Dreadnaught, Engineer, Recon and Biotech
Performance
Performance Improvements (both CPU&GPU)
40% improvements on some CPUs/GPUs
UI improvements
20% improvement of the user interface
Fixed a memory leak in matchmaker
Plugged a physics engine memory leak
Plugged a UI memory leak
Fixed several 64bit fixes
Fixed a bug that caused the system to assume the client was running on a 32-bit system and thus trim down some memory pools
Fixed a particle bug where deleted memory was accessed
Tweaked terrain for ultra settings
Added water performance improvements for low to medium lighting quality settings
Various latency tuning and cleanups
Fixed parallax mapping, now twice as fast
Implemented additional fine-grained shadow quality settings
Tweaked shadow cascade distances for overall performance and quality improvements
Fixed large frame time spikes in physics engine when many enemieswere killed in close proximity
