Hello Responders!

Genesis has been out for two weeks now, and we’ve gotten plenty of useful feedback that we wanted to act upon. As we discussed in our Melee Combat Developer Blog, this hotfix will be delivering a substantial balance update addressing the response to the initial melee combat rework. We also have several bugs we tackled alongside them to overall improve the Genesis experience!

Responder Perk Preview

A small quality-of-life update, players can now see the default perk a Responder comes with when selecting a new one!

Balance Changes

Difficulty

• Melee damage dealt to zombies no longer changes between difficulties.

  • Casual & Classic outgoing damage reduced from 1.25x ➡️ 1x.

  • Hard & Nightmare outgoing damage increased from .75x ➡️ 1x.

This change is to allow players to build muscle memory and streamline the process of learning how each melee weapon feels and performs without running into too much variability as you ascend the difficulty levels. While many of the below balance changes involve some damage reductions, this is in conjunction with the functional 25% increase in Hard & Nightmare damage. Casual and Classic’s combat has been a bit too forgiving, making it more difficult for players slowly gaining experience to transition to those higher difficulties. Now, it should be a steady progression upward in challenge!

Melee Weapons

Damage values shown as X/Y/Z are Quick, Strong, and Charged attacks respectively. When looking at these changes, keep in mind that normal Zombies have 100 health, while Shamblers have 70 & Primes have 130. In general, these adjustments make weapons more responsive & emphasize their tiers of strength (i.e. Tier 1 are weaker than prior, Tier 2 roughly the same, and Tier 3 stronger) while also achieving our goals from the Melee Combat Dev Blog for Slashing & Blunt weapons.

One-Handed Blunt

• Tier 1

  • Pipe (Small)

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 10%

    • Reduced base damage from 18/20/30 ➡️ 10/10/15

    • Reduced headshot damage from 30/40/60 ➡️ 20/25/30

    • Adjusted stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 25/50/50

  • Wrench (Small)

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 20%

    • Increase charged swing speed by 25%

    • Reduced range from 170 ➡️ 160

    • Reduced base damage from 18/20/35 ➡️ 10/10/15

    • Reduced headshot damage from 30/40/60 ➡️ 20/25/30

    • Adjusted stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 25/45/45

• Tier 2

  • Tire Iron

    • Increased quick & charged melee swing speed by 10%

    • Reduced range from 180 ➡️ 175

    • Reduced base damage from 18/20/35 ➡️ 13/15/20

    • Reduced headshot damage from 30/40/60 ➡️ 25/30/35

    • Adjusted stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 25/45/45

  • Mallet

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 10%

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 20%

    • Reduced range from 170 ➡️ 160

    • Reduced base damage from 18/20/35 ➡️ 13/15/20

    • Reduced headshot damage from 30/40/60 ➡️ 25/30/35

    • Adjusted stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 25/50/50

• Tier 3

  • Claw Hammer

    • Increased quick & charged melee swing speed by 20%

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/40 ➡️ 15/20/25

    • Reduced headshot damage from 40/50/80 ➡️ 30/35/45

    • Increased stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 40/55/60

  • Crowbar

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 10%

    • Reduced range from 190 ➡️ 185

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/40 ➡️ 15/20/25

    • Reduced headshot damage from 40/50/80 ➡️ 30/35/45

    • Increased stability damage from 20/40/60 ➡️ 40/60/60

Two-Handed Blunt

• Tier 1

  • Rebar

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 5%

    • Increased charged melee swing speed by 15%.

    • Reduced range from 220 ➡️ 210

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/35 ➡️ 20/20/30

    • Reduced headshot damage from 30/40/60 ➡️ 30/30/40

    • Adjusted stability damage from 20/60/100 ➡️ 35/45/55

  • Pipe (Large)

    • Increased range from 220 ➡️ 225

    • Reduced base damage from 30/45/50 ➡️ 20/20/30

    • Reduced headshot damage from 50/70/100 ➡️ 30/30/40

    • Reduced stability damage from 40/60/100 ➡️ 35/45/55

• Tier 2

  • Hockey Stick

    • Increased quick & charged melee swing speed by 10%

    • Increased range from 240 ➡️ 255

    • Reduced base damage from 20/30/35 ➡️ 20/20/30

    • Reduced headshot damage from 34/50/80 ➡️ 25/30/35

    • Reduced stability damage from 40/60/100 ➡️ 25/40/65

  • Wrench (Large)

    • Increased range from 220 ➡️ 230

    • Adjusted base damage from 20/30/35 ➡️ 25/25/40

    • Reduced headshot damage from 34/50/80 ➡️ 35/40/60

    • Adjusted stability damage from 40/60/100 ➡️ 45/55/65

• Tier 3

  • Baseball Bat

    • Increased quick & charged melee swing speed by 20%

    • Increased base damage from 20/30/35 ➡️ 30/35/45

    • Increased headshot damage from 34/50/80 ➡️ 45/50/80

    • Increased stability damage from 40/60/100 ➡️ 65/75/100

  • Sledgehammer

    • Decreased quick melee swing speed by 20%

    • Decreased charged melee swing speed by 15%

    • Increased range from 220 ➡️ 230

    • Decreased base damage from 30/45/50 ➡️ 30/35/50

    • Decreased headshot damage from 50/70/100 ➡️ 50/65/100

    • Increased stability damage from 40/60/100 ➡️ 65/75/100

One-Handed Slashing

• Tier 1

  • Kitchen Knife

    • Increased quick & charged melee swing speed by 20%

    • Reduced range from 180 ➡️ 160

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/35 ➡️ 15/18/25

    • Increased headshot damage from 20/30/40 ➡️ 25/38/40

    • Reduced stability damage from 20/20/30 ➡️ 0/0/20

• Tier 2

  • Cleaver

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 10%

    • Reduced range from 180 ➡️ 165

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/35 ➡️ 13/18/25

    • Increased headshot damage from 20/30/40 ➡️ 28/38/45

    • Reduced stability damage from 20/30/50 ➡️ 0/0/20

    • Increased limb damage from 20/30/30 ➡️ 20/30/40

• Tier 3

  • Machete

    • Increased quick melee swing speed by 15%

    • Reduced base damage from 20/25/40 ➡️ 17/22/26

    • Reduced headshot damage from 40/50/55 ➡️ 35/45/55

    • Reduced stability damage from 20/30/50 ➡️ 0/0/20

    • Increased limb damage from 20/30/60 ➡️ 40/40/60

  • Hatchet

    • Increased charged melee swing speed by 15%

    • Reduced range from 180 ➡️ 175

    • Increased base damage from 10/12/20 ➡️ 17/22/26

    • Increased headshot damage from 30/35/50 ➡️ 35/45/55

    • Reduced stability damage from 20/30/50 ➡️ 0/0/20

  • Increased limb damage from 20/30/30 ➡️ 40/60/60

Two-Handed Slashing

• Tier 1

  • Shovel

    • Increased range from 230 ➡️ 235

    • Reduced base damage from 30/35/45 ➡️ 13/18/25

    • Increased headshot damage from 25/34/60 ➡️ 34/38/50

    • Reduced stability damage from 20/20/31 ➡️ 0/0/20

    • Reduced limb damage from 30/30/60 ➡️ 20/30/40

• Tier 2

  • Tree Trimmer

    • Increased charged melee swing speed by 10%.

    • Reduced base damage from 30/35/45 ➡️ 20/25/35

    • Increased headshot damage from 25/34/60 ➡️ 35/35/45

    • Reduced stability damage from 30/30/60 ➡️ 0/0/20

    • Increased limb damage from 30/30/60 ➡️ 30/40/60

• Tier 3

  • Fire Axe

    • Increased base damage from 30/35/45 ➡️ 35/50/65

    • Increased headshot damage from 35/40/75 ➡️ 60/80/100

    • Reduced stability damage from 30/30/60 ➡️ 0/0/20

    • Increased limb damage from 30/60/60 ➡️ 60/80/80

Zombies

All

• When a limb is severed, zombies now react by being interrupted.

Crawlers

• Increased stationary attack range from 85 ➡️ 150

  • Moving attack increased to 155 to allow better distance closing.

• Increased crawl speed from 65 ➡️90

• Increased turning rate from 45 ➡️ 90

Crawlers have been providing a bit too much safety compared to the ease of creating them, so we’ve amped up their movement and range to allow them to threaten players a bit more. Our goal here is to make them still worthwhile as a strategy but with much more risk associated with them and force faster follow-ups. 

Bug Fixes

Combat

• Fixed one issue where queueing attacks after a heavy attack would fail and drop inputs.

• Responders should be able to transition from attacking to sprinting and back with smaller delays.

• Fixed an issue where stamina would not regenerate properly after being downed.

• Fixed some cases where players could get stuck in stamina starved state and not combo attacks

• Tuned various weapon timings.

Animation

• Fixed an issue where zombie hit reaction would play inconsistently based on the movement of the responder.

• Fixed an issue where melee attack animations would appear lower on the screen than intended.

• Fixed an issue where certain guns would appear lower on the screen than intended while aiming down sights

• Updated draw and holster animations for many weapons.

• Fixed the radio draw and holster animations.

Client/Server

• Applied more fixes to prevent an issue where squads would disband as soon as they form.

• Fixed an issue where players would disconnect from a match when a party member reconnected

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where carriable items such as the air filter in Hospital could be duplicated.

• Fixed an issue where the camera would be stuck inside the player’s body briefly when joining a match for the first time after compiling shaders.

• Improved hit registration on breakable objectives, such as outside the Power Plant Bar.

Zombies

• Fixed an issue where Crawlers could be stuck A-posing.

• Fixed an issue where zombie’s limbs would not always properly disappear after being cut off

• Fixed an issue where zombies could get stuck in the windows of Pottsville’s Community Center

No More Room in Hell 2 is still in Early Access, and your feedback is shaping every step forward. Help out by reporting bugs in-game, on Discord, or at nmrih2.com/support!

Stay safe out there,

The NMRIH2 Dev Team