Log #1: Thoughts on Season 3 Changes and Plans

Hey there, thought I would try something new for you absolute chads who are supporting me on here. I might not be fast enough to make entirely new video content just for the patreon but what I can do is audio logs like this one. It'll be a bit looser than my usual content but if you hang out on my Twitch channel, it'll be pretty similar to there only I wont be getting distracted every nine seconds when trying to give my thoughts on a subject. Let me know what you think and if you would like me to keep doing these on any aspect of the game. Some of them might even turn into full video scripts, who knows?

Alright lets get started, Ill just be going through the patch notes loosely but if you would like to read them yourself youll have to look them up to follow along.

So, the main meat of Season 3 is obviously the Lithophage Outbreak warning and the infected Glyphids that come along with it. Long story short, you call down a cleansing pod, foam up and suck up the glowing growths around the contagion spike while avoiding the infected bugs and larvae that come out of it to stop you, along with any other nuisances that decide to come your way. Right out of the box, I think this event, while adding slightly less than the enormity of an entirely new mission and enemy type like with sabotage, is a very well made addition to the game. They're disruptive like a hazard should be without totally changing the way you engage with a mission. Interesting too that theyre a second primary objective rather than being solely an event or a secondary objective. Its a bit like a deep dive stage in that regard. I have yet to encounter a meteor mid mission as of recording this but I have seen the aftermath above some contagion spikes and it looks sick.

The infected bugs themselves? Its cool how theyre tougher than normal but can still be killed in less ammo than is normally required if youre good and getting angles on them. It makes them easy when isolated but also very dangerous when covered by other enemies and lost in a crowd. The Rock Pox status effect works a lot like ice in the way in immobilizes you and like fire in the sense that it does damage over time. Can totally screw you over mid fight if youre not careful. Not mention they have a protruding arm that sprouts from their abdomen to fling projectiles that apply the status effect quickly. Its gonna be fun having them mix things up on occasion, especially during Rock Pox special swarms.

Things Id improved or changed? Rock Pox takes a bit of time to clean up so Id like to see the number of Contagion Spikes adjusted for player counts. Solo should have no more than 2 and it can go up to 3 and 4 once you add another miner to the equation. Bosco is fast when vacuuming up foam and the foamer has good range but its still difficult to get done when youre under stress, like during point extraction missions. Other than that, Id just like to see the larvae do more than simply squirm towards you like the parasites. Would be cool if they could infect grunts or praetorians if allowed to spread unchecked. It would make the infection seem more intrusive and alarming to deal with. I dunno, just despawn a bug thats infected and spawn a plagued one in its place. If I could make the larvae attack anything but the player Id be able to do that with the twitch integration mod so I know the devs can, but hey, theyre still neat regardless.

Moving on now to the grenades. Ill give some TLDR impressions, use cases and criticisms on them. My dedicated grenade video script will be updated with the new stuff when its more concrete so look for that in the future.

Stun Sweeper. Very cool and very fun to use, 8 charges is a good number too. I have trended towards using it for groups of bugs that are at medium to close range to take the pressure off me, similar to how scouts other grenades are used. The difference here is that this grenades can actually hurt and kill its targets with no added assistance, at least in the case for grunts. Its more versatile than cryo, does more guaranteed damage than pheromones and doesnt require any further ammo usage to do its job unlike IFGs. Im still a bit perplexed on it, since at times it can feel a bit anemic to use, especially when dealing with armored bugs. Still more flexibility than with the very limited pheromones and cryos though. Save it for trash enemies like grunts when theyre grouped up in front of you or when youre cornered and need a quick stun. I think it should do more damage on hit personally.

Springloaded Ripper. I fucking love this thing. Its fun to throw, sounds awesome and absolutely tears up swarms, with no limit to how many bugs it can plow through besides the timer. You have to be VERY careful about your positioning and the size of the room youre in so you dont hit yourself, it can do a ton of friendly damage. I do think they need to reel in the self and team damage slightly but that is the downside of a very powerful tool like this, so I guess well see. Its going to be fun making traps on terrain to safely use this thing to its fullest later on. Just be careful with it.

Shredder Swarm. Another winner in my book. It give engie another way to automate the bug clearing process and can be an absolute savior when you need to do something other than fend off bugs for a moment, not to mention it can hunt down smaller enemies and wipe them out which can save your ass on low hp. They act as a generalized sweep and clear in contrast to the high damage, localized area denial and distraction of his other grenades. They cant stack but can follow you around while active so thats cool too. They also sound like theyre trying to say rock and stone when idle, which is adorable. Id like to see them be stackable, or at very least extend the timer for them. Maybe add an armor shredding effect to them? Not sure if they already do that actually, hm.

Ok, and lastly, the Tactical Leadburster. This thing does damage. A LOT of damage. To bugs, you and your team. Its so goddamn dangerous and if youre unlucky it can strip your hp in very little time. Definitely want to see that retuned because currently you have to throw it and find geometry to hide behind, which is ok but hard to do in the thick of thing. I do like the use though, tears up unarmored enemies fast and offers gunner a unique way of dealing with mactera that doesnt have him tossing stickies and clusters way up in the air hoping theyll stick. If the friendly damage is toned down, I can see this being a fun way to clear the immediate area from inside of a shield during a swarm.

And onward to more stuff.

Cave Variations? Love it, absolutely love it. These make the game feel so much more varied and bigger with very little that can go wrong. DRG is all about Hoxxes caves and the more the merrier. The new ones Ive seen so far are interesting to navigate and add some more challenge here and there, not mention just looking cool. I hope to see tons more of these in the future because the combinations and variety will breathe life into the gameplay for years.

Rival Content. Im very happy with how theyre treating the Rivals in season 3. Theyre not going away but have become part of the games normal rotation, very cool. I actually do enjoy dealing with them but Im also glad they decided to listen to community feedback regarding their balance. The hacking node range makes it just a bit easier to set up hacks and the time reduction feels good. Patrol bots also got changed and for the better too. I like the slight acceleration speed reduction, makes them less jarring to shoot at sometimes. The cryo change was needed, for those time when you encounter them with the exact opposite of a botkiller build equipped. Damage nerfs were needed to, since I cant tell you how many times Ive been obliterated but a snipe shot or burst by a patrol bot I had no time to react to, regardless of how much like them normally. Interesting that they didnt nerf the turrets. I think its because you have to choose to engage turrets but patrol bots hunt you down so it makes sense they shouldnt be nearly as instantly deadly. Lets just say Im glad I havent finished any of the Rival video content I talked about earlier, this gives me time to adjust the script and a reason to continue to talk about them seeing as well keep finding them in our deep dives and assignments. Maybe even in a future season on their vengeful return? Eh?

Quickly. Assignment variety is always good, I like that their mixing things up and giving us more variety blah blah blah you know.

Onto the weapon changes. I wont read every stat change here, but I will tell you what I think of each one.

Burning Nightmare and Plasma Splash feel great to use and honestly are way more interesting than the previous form of the Tier 5 for the EPC. Hot Plasma was good but just wasnt interesting feeling so it getting merged into Flying Nightmare gives it a nice feel and makes both mods more attractive. Plasma Splash is useful for when you need some AoE, I can see that being helpful early on in progression when options are more limited, even though I dont think I have any builds that scream that they want to use it right now. Very nice.

Deepcore GK2 changes? Love em. While its not the total overhaul or added complexity to the OCs a lot of people were asking for, the change here seems like a shift in the right direction and means that I was right before in saying that the devs seem to want the mod choices and Overclocks to feel more meaningful by shifting a lot of the power to those rather than having everything feel close to the baseline stats no matter what you pick. I can lump the buffs of Electric Reload, AI Stability and Bullets of Mercy in together by saying they all feel a bit more impactful and the weapon overall has a much beefier and versatile feel to it now. Do I want more radical changes to mechanics in the Overclocks? Absolutely, but that can wait for now.

M1000 changes? Buffs across the board. Nothing radically changes but I do have an affinity for both Supercooling Chamber and Electrifying Focus Shot so both my builds involving those only get better since the weakpoint damage bonus and increased electrical damage only make my job easier with those. Im also happy about the SCC ammo changes because damn was it suffering from ammo economy on dreadnought missions. I still want more dramatic mechanical stuff to change with both of these but, thumbs up.

Subata Acid-Coated Bullets. I like the idea here, I am going to miss the Mactera killer focus of the old tier 5 mod but I might be misunderstanding this one. The description says it adds corrosive damage, so maybe the old function is still there? Does it do more damage flat out or add to your damage on impact with corrosive applied enemies? I dont know yet really but the latter is what it seemed like. I know it doesnt apply the corrosive status so theres that. Well have to see, interesting nonetheless and much more universally useful for the little subata.

Convex Lens actually works now yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Zhukov Gas Recycling gets an armor breaking bonus? Sign me up. I feel like I was the only person using this OC but it grew on me after the DRAK video. Even more fun to use now.

HE Grenade change? HELL YES. I have had a soft spot for these grenades but hot damn this change really makes them easier to use. When you get the timing down, you can target groups of enemies like youre using a PGL with proxy trigger now. Not to mention the full damage radius increase means the falloff wont be hampering you as much now. Try these out on a mactera plague mission if you need convincing. They really arent as bad as they seem on the surface and I do end up taking them on occasion.

Alright, just a few miscellaneous things I want to point out now. Bosco can carry the Oil Cannisters which are called Extractors apparently. Very cool for solo escort. Balaclava actually changes color. MASSIVE CHANGE, game is now playable. There was a fix to Magic Bullets ricochets so that might have finally ended the weakpoint bouncing they were doing that Lazy Maybe talked about in one of this videos. Bug fixes are nice, especially the ones concerning the Coil Gun. Also sorting the cosmetics was a great idea, glad to see that too since its annoying to relearn the placements of them every time the list changes.

Aahhhh and were done here. Ive got my work cut out for me but things worked out in my favor since now I can have fully updated info going into season 3 regarding the Rivals and when I move on to the Collette for the next weapon video. Let me know what you think about these logs here, and if you have any direct questions about anything just drop them here in the comments section or put them in the patreon only channels in the discord. Rock and Stone people, catch you later!