Castithan Charge Pack - Preview

If you haven't been on the Alpha Test Server yet, don't worry. We have. We have been going through the patch notes capturing images for you.

This is a work in progress article for our DLC guide, and is not complete yet, but you can help us compile it.

GENERAL

• The Castithan Charge Pack has arrived! Purchase of the pack includes the new Castithan playable race, the Raptor four player vehicle and Battle Arena missions which provide access to the Thorn Liro vendor.
• Castithan charge blades have been added. Acquire them through Battle Arena mission rewards, from the Thorn Liro vendor or as rare drops from Tier 4 lock boxes.
• Charge weapons have been added. These are available from the Thorn Liro vendor or as random loot drops.
• New Military Academy competitive map has been added! Fight head-to-head in this all new 16 on 16 capture and hold map!
• Dueling added! You can now challenge anyone to a one on one duel anywhere in the world.

Dark Matter Arkfalls

Dark Matter arkfalls are here! Battle Dark Matter forces to take control of arkfalls Sausalito, San Francisco, Marin and Madera!

Arkfalls:

• Dark Matter Mayhem (Minor)
• Dark Matter Obliteration (Minor)
• Dark Matter Extractors (Minor)
• Dark Matter Monolith (Major)

Volge Sieges

Sieges are back! Capture points around the Bay Area and defend them from the Volge threat.

Spotted at:

• North Point Mine
• The Bathhouse
• Kinship Plaza
• Towers Quarry
• Mutant District

Click on the images for a larger version, press escape to close the popup.

 Turret upgrade levels:

CHALLENGES

Increased Scrip rewards on all Hotshots and Rampages to make them better sources of Scrip and Salvage.

EMERGENCIES

• Volge themed emergencies will now appear throughout the world.
• Increased Scrip rewards on all Emergencies to make them better sources of Scrip.

Castithan Race

Character Voices

New character creation options have been added to customize voice.

Voices:

• Professional
• Hotshot
• Veteran
• Lunatic
• Maverick
• Everyman / Everywoman

Voices heard:

• Summon Vehicle

People who purchase the DLC will see the following item in their store claims. Once claimed you will have to exit to the character selection screen and then press the button to Update appearance. 

Character re-customization

The character customization redo will allow you to fully re-create your character:

• Race and Gender
• Appearance
• Name

COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER

Military Academy

The all new Military Academy multiplayer map has been added!

WEAPONS

• Added all new charge weapons, which includes three shotguns, three pistols and three sniper rifles.
• Castithan charge blades have also been added with customizable blade color mods. Blade mods can be found in the Defiance Store.
• Added new Volge LMGs.
• Adjusted time and cost for weapon remastery.
• VOT LMGs, Bolt Action Pistols and FRC Slug Shotguns have new appearances.
• Shotguns are being tuned to bring them in line with the other weapons and personalities we want to obtain with each type of shotgun.
• Mag Size Changes: We have made changes to the mag size of all bonus size mods and rarity bonuses. This was largely due to shotguns getting more shots per clip then intended.
• Rarity Bonuses that increased Mag Size have been decreased.
• Clip Mods that increased Mag Size have been decreased.
• Elemental Proc Chance Change: We discovered that the shotguns were proc-ing per pellet at the full proc chance. This caused the shotguns to have a much higher chance to proc the elemental effect than other weapons.
• Changed the proc chance per pellet of shotguns (excluding Slug based shotguns).
• These two types of Shotguns are being tuned to bring them in line with the other shotguns.
• Rate of Fire change for the VOT Auto Fragger: We have made this change due to speed at which a player could kill its intended target. This weapon now has slightly lower rate of fire to bring it in line with the other combat shotguns. 
• Recoil Increase in the TACC Auto-Shotgun: This change was to add a bit more variance in the recoil with the amount of shells it could shoot from its high mag capacity.
• Faction merchant weapons now have a slight increase in damage.
• Adjusted the requirements for different skill levels with weapons to promote faster weapon skill leveling at lower levels. This should not change your current weapon skill level. If you were close to leveling up already, you might go up by one skill level because your current experience might be above the threshold for the new level. You should not drop in skill level. The overall time to max out a weapon skill should not have changed. Lower levels should be earned faster and later levels will take a little bit longer.
• Added some new mods for Infectors, BMGs, and Detonators. These will allow players to complete more synergies and fill all available slots.
• The SAW LMG’s were performing significantly higher than other LMG’s, so we have reduced the damage that they do to bring them more in line with other categories of weapons
• The Immunizer was tuned down to fit more of the anti-sniper role that it was intended to fill. That role is to flush out the longer range weapon users effectively by allowing for easier targeting and a punishment for standing still for too long. 
• We changed how long it takes to spawn infector bugs while using the Immunizer.
• We decreased the rate of fire
• We also increased the reload time. 
• Fixed an issue that was causing nano-effects to trigger on melee and melee nano-effects to trigger when shooting enemies. This was not intended behavior.

WEAPON MODS

• Mod Hoards are now available from lock box vendors. These can be purchase with Bits or resources and contain four mods of any rarity for each mod slot for random weapon types.
• The Synergy Mod Caches have been pulled from Lockbox vendors. Synergy mods can now be purchased directly from mod vendors. Each mod vendor 
• Fixed a bug that caused the Incendiary Shot Converter mod to not work on the VOT Nano Fragger.
• Mods can now be broken down to Ark Salvage.

VEHICLES

• New Raptor four player vehicle added!
• Additional Challenger variants added.

VENDORS

• Vendors are available during the Dodge Challenger Race events to sell special Challengers. Find them scattered around the world and by the start of the races.
• Added weapon type specific mod vendors around the game world.

OUTFITS

• Factory and Workshop engineer helmets now draw the players head correctly.

Casithan Outfits

Unique Casithan versions of the starting version outfits have been added.

Click on the images for a larger version, press escape to close the popup.

USER INTERFACE

• New and much improved chat window!

• Fast travel points on the map now have hexagonal icons around them to make them easier to select and to see what’s near them.

• New tips now show on loading screens.
• To provide better help information, gameplay loading screen tips will now display approximately 4 times as often as lore-based tips.
• Massive overhaul of the help menu now clarifies functionality.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the competitive outfits tab from being selected in the Loadouts EGO menu.
• New quit menu confirmation
• New tooltips for map

MISCELLANEOUS

• Quick travel points added to Last Chance, Diablo Lighthouse, and the E-rep Commando Camp in Frisco.

• Echelon mercenaries have been added throughout the world and are now recruiting for Shadow War, Competitive Maps and Co-op Maps!

Missions

Arena:

• The Whisper's Scream
• Yuke Liro: Worker Caste Arena

Side Missions

• Energy Harvest

Bugs:

When you complete a one click salvage of a weapon, the button dissapears until you exit the screen or press the select item button, then select an item, it doesn't allow you to just click on another item to salvage.

Chat entered in the popup chat window is not shown in the mini chat on the bottom right.

Cursor changed on challenge screen, to a hand, missing the pointer when mousing over the left or right arrows.

The progress bar at the bottom of weapons seems to have been removed.