Update 1.2

## Patches

* Update 1.2 Test Server
* Update 1.2 Patch 1
* Update 1.2 Patch 2
* Update 1.2 Patch 3
* Update 1.2.1

## Highlights

### Random Teams of Three

* Players can now also form and play with random teams of three instead of only being able to play in teams of three with their Steam friends.
* This change opens up 3-player teams to a wider audience, allowing many new ways of playing Bounty Hunt.
* When opting-in to find a random partner in the Lobby, players can now choose between either searching for two player or three player teams.
* Unlike playing in duos with a single partner, teams of three require more discipline and coordination by all members of the team to succeed. Are you up to the challenge?

### Improved Onboarding

* When players start the game for the first time, they are now presented with the option to choose their initial Hunter and enter Training mode.
* This initial offline Training now offers three different levels of difficulty for players to choose from:
	+ Basic (easy difficulty)
	+ Advanced (normal difficulty)
	+ Professional (hard difficulty)

* This allows players to focus on learning different aspects of the game, such as controls, mission flow, combat or fighting the bosses based on their abilities.
* When a player dies during Training, they have the ability to respawn nearby and continue playing without having to restart the mission.
* Completing each difficulty level rewards the player with some Blood Bonds they can use for cosmetic Legendary Hunters and gear, as well as a number of other convenience features.
* Players are now able to go back to Training mode at any point by selecting 'Training' from the Lobby sub-tab in the main menu.0
	+ Replaying the Training allows players to complete previously skipped difficulty settings, claim their reward of Blood Bonds, and maybe even learn a thing or two.
	+ Players will always replay the Training with the Hunter they currently have selected from their Roster.
	+ Hunters taken into Training mode will not be lost after dying, allowing players to experiment with newly unlocked equipment in a safe environment.

### New Melee Equipment

#### Heavy Knife

* Larger and more intimidating version of the regular Knife tool, the Heavy Knife is the missing link between the Knife and the Machete.
* Useful for taking Grunts out with a single slash of its heavy blade and able to hit multiple enemies at once.
* It uses a tool slot and comes close to the Machete's damage, but as it is harder to wield it costs more stamina per attack.
* The Heavy Knife can be unlocked from the Knife category within the Book of Weapons.

#### Knuckle Knife

* The 'bastard child' of the Knife and Duster tools, the Knuckle Knife is a flexible tool that allows for both Blunt and Piercing melee attacks.
* Its regular melee attack does Blunt damage with the same stamina efficiency as the Duster's regular attack, that can be used to kill several Immolators in a row without running out.
* However, its heavy attack causes slightly weaker Piercing damage compared to the Knife, but is still strong enough to kill Grunts with a single stab.
* The Knuckle Knife can be unlocked from the Dusters category within the Book of Weapons.

#### Pitchfork

* Among the selection of fearsome farming tools found by Hunters scattered around the Bayou, the Pitchfork excels at stabbing enemies to death.
* Where the Hammer causes Blunt damage and the Wooden Axes is all about Rending damage, the new Pitchfork causes Piercing damage with its heavy melee attack, similar to bayonets and the Cavalry Saber.
* However, the regular melee attack is much weaker and is performed by smacking enemies with the wooden hilt, similar to push attacks with a rifle.

#### Shovel

* Another new farming tool found scattered through the swamps, the Shovel can be used as a weapon and should not to be underestimated by Hunters.
* The sharpened edge of the shovel blade can be used for regular melee attacks, causing Rending damage that can bring down a Grunt in a single strike.
* The heavy melee attack on the other hand is performed with the broad side of the Shovel, smacking a careless Hunter square on the head with a humiliating \*thud\* sound.

## General Updates

### AI

* AI that is inside a building will now be less likely to react to stimuli from outside.
* Improvements made to the behavior of the Meathead in instances where no leeches have spawned to ensure consistent reactions to players.
* Collisions between Hunters and AI have been improved; AI will no longer block players that run straight at them.
* Improvements made to the Leeches' perception of players in instances where a Hunter is unreachable.
* Improvements made to the way the Armored deals with Iron and sliding doors.

#### Butcher

* Decreased the Butcher’s resistance to explosive damage. It can now be killed with a single BIg dynamite bundle as before.

### Audio

* Piano pieces: The piano’s now feature versions of the songs from the Hunt soundtrack.
* Reverb pass to increase realism, performance and consistency.
* Increased the audio tied to ignited Butcher swing attacks.
* Changed “ear-ringing” audio to be less intrusive for those that have a tinnitus condition.

**Developer note:**
*We received a number of requests in regards to changing this sound due to the discomfort it can cause those that suffer from tinnitus or similar conditions. With this in mind we have decided to remove the tonal part of this audio completely. The goal here is to keep the audio penalty while ensuring it does not cause harm to those listening to it. Please let us know if you have any feedback on this change.*

### Bounty Hunt

#### Boss Whisper Changes

* Removed the inner and outer warning ranges and consolidated it into a single 50m radius.
* While in range and in Dark Sight, players will receive the following warning feedback:
	+ Normal whisper sounds and a continuous white UI flashing on the top-left target icon if no enemy players are within the 50m radius.
	+ Aggressive whisper sounds and a continuous red UI flashing on the top-left target icon while enemy players are within the 50m radius

* There are no more one-off UI notifications or audio stingers when entering the radius.
* The whisper mechanic works similarly to the "Red Clue" mechanic, but is exclusive to Dark Sight.
* Added tutorial pop-up hints and loading screen hints to further explain the whisper mechanic to players.

**Developer Note:**
*The introduction of the boss whisper mechanic with update 1.1.3 was intended to reduce camping in or around the boss arenas (either camping a dead boss, or waiting while the boss is alive to ambush others) which is something that seemed to occur more and more after the 1.0 release. This addition was intended to give new players more info to work with when approaching compounds and entice them into engaging with the boss more frequently. The initial idea was pretty straight forward: The boss makes additional sounds that can be heard by players in range with the intent of drawing them in for the fight. If any hunter is close enough to the boss, the whisper became more aggressive and agitated which can then be heard by players at a farther range, warning them if the potential imminent threat of an ambush.*

While on the test server, we found that these additional sound cues were perceived as being quite intrusive by players so with this feedback, as a last minute change, we moved the whispers to only be available when using Dark Sight. On top of this, we quickly introduced a one-off red/white flashing UI stinger to notify players outside of Dark Sight before pushing this update to live. As the holiday period was approaching fast, Iterating further on this would have put us at risk of not being able to apply an update before the end of 2019, which is something we wanted to avoid. We felt that pushing this to live would be a minor point of contention given that the update as a whole had many other highly anticipated fixes and content and that it was something we would be able to approve upon after the holiday period. However, by making these last minute changes, the mechanic became very confusing for many players as the provided information could often result in false-positives. On top of this, we were unable to finish the tutorial aspect, which only served to further complicate the situation as there was little explanation of how the mechanic works in-game.

With all of this in mind, we have decided to move the whisper mechanic to be more in-line with the already known and proven “Red Clue” warning mechanic ensuring that all players receive the same consistent warning. This change also helps us to strengthen the importance of Dark Sight overall. Players now have to actively pull the required information by entering Dark Sight, which comes at the cost of situational awareness making it something that you do not want to use all the time. We have removed the UI notifications to further reinforce the use of Dark Sight, instead, while in Dark Sight a constant white or red effect will be shown on the respective Boss UI element in the top-left corner to provide both visual and audible feedback.

We hope that these changes will be more effective and will help to reduce certain types of disruptive boss camping scenarios as well as becoming a feature that is much easier to learn, understand and utilise in comparison to its previous iteration.

As always, we want to thank you all for your constructive feedback and for participating in our survey on this topic as it did a lot to help us better understand and address your concerns in regards to this feature.

#### Solo Play Rewards

To make it more interesting for players to go for the bounty, we have increased the Underdog Bonus:

* Solos fighting against duos will now receive +250 Bounty for every token they can extract (was +100 before).
* Solos fighting against trios will now receive +500 Bounty for every token they can extract (was +200 before).
* Duos fighting against trios will now receive +125 Bounty for every token they can extract (was +75 before).

### Controller

#### Auto-Move

* Added a time buffer to prevent the accidental cancellation of Auto-Move just after triggering it.
* Added small stick dead zone to prevent accidental cancellation of Auto-Move when doing small stick movements.
* Now can be triggered more consistently during movement.
* Now automatically transitions intro sprinting when already moving forward while triggering.

### Gunplay

#### Talon Changes (All Variants)

* Damage of the Talon's heavy melee attacks increased to match the damage of the Machete's heavy melee attack (to 135 from 120).
* Decreased stamina cost of the Talon's heavy melee attacks to match the Machete's heavy melee attack cost.

#### Romero 77 Hatchet Changes

* Damage of its regular melee attack increased to match the damage of the Machete' regular melee attack (to 90 from 60).
* Damage of its heavy melee attack increased to match the damage of the Machete' heavy attack (to 135 from 120).

#### Explosive Blast Changes

* Improved detection of explosions; it is now less likely for (partially) obscured explosives to apply full damage.

**Developer Note:**
*It is still possible that a well placed grenade or dynamite can severely damage or kill a player if it finds gaps in nearby walls or obstacles, or if the shrapnel ricochets a bit around corners. However, now this should happen far less often, making explosives overall much more predictable.*

#### Winfield M1873 Aperture Changes

* The peep sight on the Winfield M1873 Aperture variant can now be toggled on and off using the weapon function key (default: X).
	+ Camera Sensitivity will change accordingly as well - with the aperture sight on, it will use the 'Aperture' setting and without it, it will use 'Aim Down Sights' setting.
	+ This turns the Aperture sight into a proper flip-side, allowing players to be more precise at medium to long distance on demand, but otherwise retains the situational awareness of basic iron sights.

* With the introduction of the weapon function toggling to the Winfield Aperture we also want to improve the feeling for the Lemat and other future weapons
	+ Holding down ADS during the weapon function animation will now transition back into ADS at the end of the animation.

#### Bornheim No.3:

* Slightly increased the recoil to make it harder to stay on target while rapidly firing.

#### Bornheim No.3 Extended:

* Slightly increased the recoil to make it harder to stay on target while rapidly firing.

#### Machete:

* Decreased stamina consumption on the Machete's heavy attacks slightly (will now perform 5 heavy melee attacks up from 4; that's 2 more than the heavy knife and one more than a Hatchet, giving a standalone Machete an advantage in economy).

#### Cavalry Saber:

* Decreased stamina consumption on the Cavalry Saber's heavy attacks slightly (will now perform 5 heavy melee attacks up from 4 and one more than a Riposte, giving a standalone Saber an advantage in economy).

#### Flare Pistol:

* Increased the damage of the initial hit from 10 up to 75 to allow it to be more viable in PvP encounters.

#### Derringer:

* Increased the maximum effective range of the Derringer.

### Performance

#### Client

* Changes made to focus on relieving the performance issues on machines with low core count (Intel® Core™ i5 or similar).
* Improved the responsive times when opening and closing the map in-game.
* General optimization of the scripting virtual machine.
* Optimized specific features that rely on visual scripting:
	+ Clues.
	+ Compass.
	+ In-game item selection.
	+ Despawning of entities.

* Reduced the number of animations being processed per frame for entities that didn't require such frequent updates.
* Improved synchronization of animation jobs.
* Reduced the number of dynamically loaded libraries.

#### General

* General CPU optimization.
* General AI related performance optimizations.

### Server

#### Rubberbanding:

* Improved the cost of processing client disconnections in order to reduce rubberbanding cases.
* Optimized network system update costs on the server.

### Store

* New tool added: Heavy Knife: $45 (Knife variant unlock).
* New tool added: Knuckle Knife: $65 (Dusters variant unlock).
* Sticky bomb price increased to $64 (previously $30)
* Bornheim No.3 price increased to $96 (previously $80)
* Bornheim No.2 Extended price increased to $131 (previously $131)

### UI

* Players will now receive an in-game warning when maintenance is due to occur.
* Banned players will be hidden/removed from the leaderboards automatically.
* Added a communication list in game to allow muting or unmuting of players that are speaking in your area. Only applies for the current mission (not persistent across missions).
* Streamer friendly UI for 1.2 - Option available to turn off names and voice icons from being displayed in HUD.

#### World

* Burn duration of oil pools has been increased from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

**Developer Note:**
*Oil pools always had untapped potential for deliberate defensive strategies that we could not utilize until now. However, with the Choke Bomb now available, players have a hard counter in their inventory which allows us to have persistent fire shape the battlefield in a more drastic way.*

### Other

* Game updates should now complete much faster in Steam (less disk verification required) especially on slower hard drives.

## BUG FIXES

#### General

* Fixed a bug that caused Tier 2 hunters to be available in place of Tier 3 Hunters in instances where only Tier 3 hunters should be available.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the Chaos Bomb audio persisting after being defused with the dauntless trait.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in not being able to retrieve Crossbow bolts and Throwing Knives when thrown/shot at certain objects. (e.g Flares, etc)
* In instances where a player becomes stuck in the “searching for servers” state, the client will now cancel the matchmaking request instead of sticking indefinitely.
* Fixed a number of minor localization issues.

#### AI

* Fixed a bug that caused AI to not correctly respond to stimuli produced at long range.
* Fixed an issue that caused AI to become stuck when walking close to certain objects (Barrels, generators).
* Fixed an issue that caused AI to become stuck when they were disrupted from their normal navigation paths.
* Fixed a bug that caused Grunts to teleport to feeding positions upon spawning.
* Fixed a bug that would cause the Meathead to become stuck and flicker in instances where they have fallen from a bridge (and other similar areas).
* Fixed a bug that caused the Meathead to become stuck if he performed a charged attack that took them outside of their normal navigation paths.
* Fixed an issue with the animation that occurs when leeches are spawned.
* Fixed a bug that could result in a crash when the Immolator or Armored were trying to navigate through doors.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the Armored not attacking when very close to a player.
* Fixed a bug that caused AI near active generators to ignore the player and face all in one direction
* Fixed a bug that would cause the Spider to walk backwards when switching targets during frenzy mode.
* Fixed a bug that could cause the Spider to jump the player multiple times in a row.

#### Gameplay

* Fixed the aim sensitivity settings for scoped Springfield and Marksman variants.
* Item Box: Fixed a bug that could result in receiving 3 consumables with one interaction.
* Item Box: Fixed an issue that caused the UI notification to not appear when receiving a new consumable.
* Item Box: Fixed a bug that could remove the consumable Ammo Box when interacting with the Item Box.
* Item Box: Fixed an edge case where the Packmule trait would only provide one item even when it is possible to replenish 2.
* Tutorial: Fixed a bug that caused the bleeding audio to persist after respawning if player was also poisoned at the time of death
* Looted consumables are now correctly listed as contraband items.
* Choke Bomb: Players did not receive the correct camera aim punch while coughing.
* Fixed a number of client and server crashes.
* Fixed an issue that prevented Players from playing the tutorial missions while the game is in Maintenance mode.
* Fixed a bug that prevented players from interacting with special ammo packs while reloading.
* Fixed an issue that prevented lanterns from exploding instantly when throwing them while on fire.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in tools and consumables floating in the air.
* Fixed issue with tool pickup in quickplay when already owning same items.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Pitch Fork to be stuck in the ground vertically.

#### Animation

* Fixed a broken Hunter animation when entering the ladder climbing animation in specific circumstances.
* Fixed some animation issues when reloading the Bornheim.
* Fixed an issue where the camera snapped to a different direction after reviving a Hunter.
* Fixed a number of other minor animation issues.

#### Audio

* Tentative fix for a bug that caused stuck breathing audio in specific circumstances.

#### World

* Fixed a bug that would cause the clones of the Assassin to become stuck in a side room inside Fort Carmick.
* Fixed an issue that caused the Assassin to die in spots that were inaccessible to players.
* Fixed an issue that caused the building at Lawson Station to not be visible over long distances.
* Fixed an issue that caused performance drops while navigating through compounds.

#### UI

* Fixed a bug that caused the Underdog bonus to be incorrectly displayed in the match summary screen.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Boss’ health bar to appear full briefly after the boss has been killed.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the Steam overlay not appearing when trying to purchase the “Last Gust” DLC legendary weapon.
* Fixed a bug that caused Bloodline rewards and challenges to not be displayed.
* Fixed a number of bugs that occurred when using the weapon sorting filters.
* Fixed a number of minor issues with the Equipment screen.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in being unable to clean dirty weapons while they are equipped to a Hunter.
* Fixed an issue that resulted in Muted players becoming "visually" unmuted when a new player were entering the communication range.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the banishment counter showing 100% for some players, regardless of the percentage that has been completed.
* Fixed a bug that would cause the inspection screen to persist while inspecting someone that leaves the party.
* Fixed a bug that caused tools and consumable to be incorrectly sorted in the equipment selection screen in the Roster tab.
* Fixed an issue that caused traits to be displayed bigger than the black background when a hunter has less than 6 traits assigned to them.
* Fixed a number of bugs relating to the 3D weapon viewer.
* Fixed a bug that could cause a player to be kicked from the legendary tab with certain interactions.
* Fixed a bug that caused the “Your body is burning” message to flicker when the player is fully dead and is then burned.
* Fixed a bug that showed the incorrect loadouts for other team members while in a team of 3.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in deaths from an oil pool not displaying the correct information on the death screen.
* Fixed an issue where dying to an enemy that is no longer in the game would show an incorrect death screen.
* Fixed an issue where dying to an explosive barrel would result in being killed by the Spider on the death screen.
* Fixed a rare bug that allowed the kill view option to be available after being killed by an AI.
* Fixed a rare bug that allowed a player to press the button to spectate even though there were no available targets to spectate.
* Fixed a bug that caused the tutorial hints to continue to be displayed while waiting for the mission to fully load.
* Fixed an issue that could cause the 'Back to Lobby' button to change to the 'Start Training' button when canceling the matchmaking.
* Fixed an issue that could cause the last partner(s) in last match screen to be displayed with "Invalid username", after restarting the client.
* Fixed an issue that prevented you from clicking the the “Allow Teams of Three” Button after going to another UI tab or leaving group if random partner search was set to teams of 3.
* Fixed an issue that caused the Hunt dollars and XP icon on summary screen to be missing textures.
* Fixed an issue that could cause the equipment and upgrades screen to show a plus symbol even though no new items are available upon starting a new mission (disappears after playing a mission).
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the Contract Status accolade to not appear at all in summary screen if you did not extract with a bounty token.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Book of Weapons item unlock popup to repeat after every Training session if an item was unlocked in the last normal mission before playing the tutorial.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Summary screen to show XP gains before displaying the correct value after a mission.

## KNOWN ISSUES

#### Performance & Stability

* Clients might crash when using bomb lance intensively.
* Clients can crash on level unload in rare cases.
* Clients can crash on resolution change.
* Players may sometimes experience desyncs / rubberbanding issues during gameplay.
* Players may experience stalls when initiating the banishing process. This will only occur on the very first banishment.
* Players could get disconnected from a tutorial mission.

#### UI & Meta

* Book of Weapons item unlock popup repeats after every Training session if an item was unlocked in the last normal mission before playing the tutorial.
* Persistent grouping doesn't work sometimes when returning from a match.
* Starting the game with a completely new profile doesn't show the Tutorial Hunter selection screen (the hunter can still be selected manually though).
* Disabled "Auto-Hide Equipment Display" and "Auto-Hide Health and Stamina Displays" can lead to some UI overlapping.
* Chat key can't be customized yet.
* Tutorial: After respawning, guns that aren't fully loaded trigger replenishment icon even if the total ammo is already maxed out.
* Dying to an explosive that exploded due to world fire shows wrong death screen.
* Players might end up in a state where the UI shows them in a group, although they are not.

#### Gameplay

* Stamina consumption for two consecutive heavy melee attacks with Sparks might be incorrect.
* Reloading the sparks right after a shot before cocking the hammer, cocks the hammer twice and delays the reload.
* Player melees when right and left clicking during the revolver spin animation.
* World items in some specific spots might not always be equipable.
* Melee attacks might not break windows when standing very close to them.
* Any attack of AI instantly explodes a barrel that is set on fire (and doesn't damage the AI)
* Tutorial: Camera position might briefly jump to spawn location right before extraction.
* Hive Bomb throw cannot be canceled anymore by holding the item in the hands.
* If a player jumps on a ladder and jumps off immediately he might fall trough the ground.

#### AI

* Spider can become stuck sometimes.
* Spider can bump several times into a player it just floored
* Butcher might teleport to the lower floor in Davant Ranch.
* Immolator can have problems choosing a target when 2 players stand on opposite sites of fences.
* Leeches can sometimes survive the death of their Meatheads.

#### Visuals & Audio

* Texture and/or animation streaming can sometimes be slow.
* Distances for boss whispers are slightly off when the boss is underground.
* In rare cases, players might see a permanent ghosting effect on the skybox.
* Minor animation issues can occur when switching between weapons/items or during exhausted attacks.
* Throwable world items don't get rendered anymore when throwing them very far.
* Aperture sight unfolds for one frame when playing the unfolding animation.
* Player arms stretch in third person when throwing an Axe or Hammer (with Tomahawk).
* Last fanning shot doesn't have muzzle flash and audio when shooting all bullets in one go.
* Grunts might sometimes spawn in players sight.