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Changes related to the community balance poll results: I hope you are all excited to see what is changing, have fun this weekend testing these changes and share your experiences and opinions here! Changes will be live shortly after this post, go play! Survivor Pills Results: 66% balanced, 34% too cheap. Proposed change(s): Pills cost +20% (5→6). Drug Pills cost -20% (10→8). Comments: Players who can get a lot of points know pills are abusable. Drug Pills is a great idea, but 10 points is too high to encourage players to use. 8 is more affordable, but still not insignificant to infected players. Tank Heal Cost Results: 75% balanced, 25% too cheap. Proposed change(s): Add tank visible HP bar. Will look as shown: Comments: As most players fall into the balanced category, we don't feel like a change to statistics may be necessary right now. That said, the main issue with tank heals is when it can feel like it is invincible for the survivors - which can be quite unpleasant. This plugin should help reduce that feeling, as survivors (and infected) will now know the condition of a tank, as well as how much impact they are having on it. This doesn't actually change the balance of the tank, but it does provide players with useful information that people may or may not like, so I look forward to seeing what everyone thinks after trying it. Rocket Jockey points & damage Results: 33% balanced, 67% too strong. Proposed change(s): Max Impact damage: -33% (15→10). Max impact distance +30% (1000→1300). Max damage impact point gain 4→3. Fix jockey ride damage per second: 12/13→8. 2 damage per interval, 4 intervals per second. Reduce interval start delay: 1s→0.25s. Comments: Jockeys have clearly been too strong, both for dealing damage, gaining points, and being hard to punish. These changes keep rocket jockeys as a unique player in the infected kit, and keeps them hard to deal with, but brings them to a level where the infected shouldn’t be able to farm them so effectively and reliably. Smoker Effectiveness Results: 83% too weak, 8% balanced, 8% too strong. Proposed change(s): Remove smoker i-frames via plugin. I-frames prevent survivors from taking damage upon smoker grab and release. This results in infected effectively working against their teammates when it happens, and prevents proper chain attacks like hunters pouncing a choked survivor doing no damage (even though it says it does). Movement speed +10% (210→230). Tongue range: +7% (750→800). Tongue hit recharge time: -40% (20s→12s). Tongue miss recharge time: -40% (15s→9s). Tongue miss recharge delay: -40% (2.0s→1.3s). Tongue drag damage amount: +100% (3→6). Choke damage interval: -33% (=0.75→0.5). Drag max speed: +8% (175→190). Drag acceleration speed: +10% (30→33). Comments: Smokers are clearly very weak compared to the other specials, and these changes intend to bring it to a stronger position, making it a more common pick for players who rarely play it, while also enabling players who have a lot of practice on it to have a more rewarding experience. The move speed enables the player to reposition or get to cover quicker after being spotted or having their victim cleared, hopefully without being overkill. The small buffs to many stats intend on improving many quality of life aspects of the smoker, and should give the player more opportunities and variety of how to engage survivors, while reducing easy punishment by survivors. Hunter Max High-Pounce Damage Results: 33% too low, 58% balanced, 8% too high. Proposed change(s): Bonus damage start range: +17% (300→350). Bonus damage max range: +20% (1000→1200). Air travel speed: +5% (700→735). Sky Diver / Parachute: Incapped pounces no longer can count towards the achievements. Max bonus points: +25% (8→10). Bot divide ratio: 0.00→2.00. Incap divide ratio: 1.75→2.00. Less points for pouncing bots and incaps, even less for incapped bots. More total possible points. E.g.: 25 damage on a player → 10pts. 25 damage on a bot → 5 pts. 25 damage on incapped player → 5pts. 25 damage on incapped bot → 2.5pts. Comments: Hunter has been a common pick by many players for its mechanical skill floor and ceiling, but it has not been as rewarding as other specials which have lower mechanical demands. Another consideration for hunters is that they can be killed in the air with relative ease, are deadstoppable, and are not always usable in many areas in the maps which don’t have access to rooftops, or many indoor areas. Thus, the special should be adequately rewarding those who have taken the time to train their skills and take advantage of opportunities to use the hunter. And in allowing high rewards, we also are increasing the distance required to hit maximum damage, encouraging riskier and more challenging attempts by hunter players.

Exciting! Can't wait to try it out this weekend. Thank you to soda and everyone involved in keeping GC alive.

In the immortal word of Mr Burns "Excellent"