Update 2.3

**Update 2.3** was released 23th of August 2018.

***Version:*** v0.375

***SteambuildID:*** 3055143

***Client patch size:*** ~11.5GB

## Highlights

* **Water Devil** – Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…. this update introduces a new special AI that will make wading through the Louisiana swamps a bit more of a challenge.
* **New consumables** - Liquid Fire Bomb, Waxed Dynamite.
* **Badges for Rank and Prestige** – Badges have been added to correspond with different ranks and prestige levels which will be displayed on the Bloodline screen.
* **Changes to Fire and Bleed Damage** – Both fire and rending damage are less punishing, making it easier to stop them and also recover burning team-mates more reliably.
* **Endless Rank-up** – Upon reaching max Rank 100 in the Bloodline, players can now continue to progress and unlock additional money rewards instead of Prestiging.

## General Updates

### AI

* Added a new AI - "Water Devil" to the swamps
	+ The Water Devil will predominantly infest parts of the Louisiana Bayou swamps and will react to Hunters entering the water nearby
	+ Hunters can try to outrun, distract or kill the Water Devils, but don’t get caught up in deep water as this can bring a swift death. Tread carefully.
	+ It is possible to defeat individual swarms of Water Devils, but eventually a new swarm will take its place in the area; use the moment wisely.

***Developer Notes:*** *The Water Devil see’s the introduction of the first new AI since we launched Early Access in February. Our hope is that this AI adds a new level of tension to the swamps while traversing through the waters. We are intentionally keeping the number of Water Devil spawns low, resisting the temptation to add them around every corner (we want the water to be slightly more challenging now, not impossible). This means that you will still be able to traverse the water areas as before, using them to attack compounds from unexpected angles, bypass groups of enemies on land, or to make that quick escape to the extraction points to get the bounty to safety. However, we also want players to never again fully trust the calm waters, giving a healthy feeling of paranoia. There might be something lucking beneath the water so take a moment to check before diving in.*

* Bosses will now converge on players that attempt to hide inside the arenas (that corner you thought was safe… won’t be safe anymore).
* We have tuned the behavior of the bosses when players are near the arena. This will mean that their movement will be harder to predict ensuring they are less exposed to high damage opening attacks.
* The Butcher will now always have his fire throwing ability from the start to better deal with players outside of his reach.
* Grunts with torches will now inflict some minor physical damage in addition to setting the Hunter on fire.

### Audio

* Audio pass made to the AI cast to improve audio over distances. It should now be easier to determine how far away the AI is from your location
* Improvements made to the Hellhound audio. Snapping sound radius has been reduced as this was misleading and giving the impression they were closer than they were.
* Based on community feedback, we have reduced the volume of the audio produced on the accolades screen
* Further tweaks and adjustments made to audio occlusion to minimize the edge cases where it is possible to hear through the terrain

### Backend

Change to the remote port for client connection to the backend from TCP 11000 to TCP 61088.

***Developer note:*** *We are experimenting with a new port to evaluate if this resolve some issues certain users have been experiencing with the connection to the backend dropping at random times. If you had to white list ports in your router, please white-list outgoing communication to remote port TCP 61088.*

### Gunplay

* Added new "Waxed Dynamite Stick" consumable that detonates in water with a slightly reduced radius but more power.
* Added the "Liquid Fire Bomb" consumable that will explode on contact with the water and burn for a few seconds.
* Initiating the reload process will no longer cause your hunter to stop sprinting.
* The Poison Bomb’s toxic cloud lifetime has been increased to 120 seconds.
* The insect swarms from the Hive bomb will now linger for up to 30 seconds before they disperse if they do not find a suitable target.
* Increased the damage of the weak and exhausted melee attacks with the Sledgehammers to be more in line with the Wood Axe.
* Weak melee damage has been slightly reduced on all handcannons to be more in line with pistols that have an attached buttstock.
* Romero 77, Romero 77 Talon, Specter 1882 and the Auto 5 now have a reduced crosshair spread giving them slight more accuracy at range.

***Developer note:*** *Shotguns are now grouped into 3 categories (Long barrel, medium barrel and short barrel) with the accuracy of the weapon now being dependant on the barrel length. The longer the barrel, the better the accuracy giving them more reach over their smaller cousins. This change is intended to boost the early game Romero 77 shotguns as well as the base Specter 1882, and Auto-5 Shotguns, making them feel more reliable to use over distance compared to the Caldwell Rival 78, Specter 1882 Bayonet. The medium barrel and handcannon (short barrel) remain unchanged.*

### Hunters

* Hunters can now vault through windows that contain breakable glass.
* Changes to Burning
	+ Holding “F” to stop burning will pause the burning process during the duration of the action (releasing the key will cause the effect to continue)
	+ Standing in fire while holding “F” will not pause the process and you will continue to lose health chunks from burning
	+ The fire effect will only remain visible on a downed hunter while their health chunks are burning away (no fire on a body means the hunter is fully dead and cannot be revived)
	+ Downed hunters health chunks will now burn at a slower rate, giving the teammate more time to revive them
	+ Hunters now need to walk a few meters in the water before the splashes will put out the fire.
* Changes to Bleeding
	+ Holding “F” to stop bleeding will now pause the bleed-out process during the duration of the action
	+ Slightly reduced the distance at which shotguns apply a bleed effect

***Developer Notes:***
*This update sees some big changes to the fire and rending damage, making them less punishing as well as removing some frustration that has been experienced in these situations. Here is an example; you are shot and start to bleed, now even at 1 health point, you can avoid certain death by pressing the “F” key in time to stop the bleeding damage, or save that health chunk from fully burning away. Downed Hunters are also most likely to outlive a lantern or fire bomb thrown on their body as we have increased the time it takes to burn away all of the health chunks. We hope that this combination of smaller changes will make suffering from secondary damage effects easier to combat and recover from.*

### Meta

Equipment price changes:

* Dynamite Stick price reduced from $45 to $20.

* Liquid Fire Bomb - $25 (unlocked at Rank 56).
* Waxed Dynamite - $30 (unlocked at Rank 89).

Summary Screen:

Accolade changes

* Added an Accolade for reaching level 50 on a Hunter.
* Added an Accolade for reaching Bloodline rank 100.
* Added an Accolade to display the earned Upgrade Points for a Hunter that leveled up.

Match score readability improvements

* Bounty, XP and Dollars are now displayed separately for the "Top 5" Accolades and all "Other" Accolades that can only be seen in the details view.
* The "Other" category includes all additional money found from looted bodies or received as Bloodline rank-up rewards.
* Total score for Bounty, XP and Dollars from both the Top 5 accolades and from other rewards is displayed in a separate line.
* Total Dollars earned will be the main indicator of success for completing a contract and are displayed much bigger now.
* Added a conversion rate legend for Bounty into both XP and Dollars for better transparency of the received score (1 Bounty = 4 XP + 1 $)

Endless Bloodline XP loop after Rank 100

* Added a new repeating, infinite rank. Players at rank 100 can gain for some additional money.
* Players will not increase in rank (100 is still the max), but earned XP will still advance their Bloodline progress as normal.
* For every 4000 XP added to the Bloodline, you will receive a reward of $666.

Displayed equipment stat changes

* Adjusted a number of stats for weapons and equipment in the Arsenal and Shop menu.
* None of these stat changes have an effect on gameplay. They are abstract and purely displayed for the purpose of weapon stat comparison.

### UI

* Rank Badges have been added as a reward for progression your Bloodline and ranking up.
	+ Players' Rank Badges will update every time they unlock a new Tier on the Bloodline.
	+ In addition, Rank Badges upgrade every time the player goes Prestige.
	+ The first ten Prestige levels each have a unique design, after that the badge updates every ten Prestige levels up to the max level 50!
* We added some new artwork to the loading screens. We hope you like the new additions.
* Added the Dark Sight Boost time display to the spectator mode UI.
* Updated the news banner.
* Added a confirmation button for leaving the match when with a partner. This will help to avoid instances where you may accidentally click on the “Leave match” button after being downed.
	+ This will only appear if you are in a team (solo play remains unchanged in this regard)

### World

* Ducks added as a new animal attractor:
	+ Similar to the crows, but only found in water.
	+ Reduced the chances of crows appearing on land to ensure balance between the two attractors.
* Improvements made to the spawn rules for bear traps to ensure enough defensive tools are available around the banishing site.
* Reduced the spawn rate of bear traps overall throughout the map.

## Bug Fixes

* Fixed a bug that allowed players to interact with ladders even though they were behind a wall.
* Fixed a bug that caused the "Mute VOIP on death" setting to not be taken into account when spectating another player.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in doors and windows not being destroyed by explosions.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in the aim helper not showing for throwing lanterns if they had been previously picked up/dropped by another player.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Throwing axe and hammer to not spin correctly when thrown.
* Fixed a bug that resulted in your hunter not producing a pain sound when knocked down by the spider.
* Fixed a bug that was causing the audio occlusion of weapons to not correctly update in certain rare instances.
* Fixed a bug that would cause your hunter to not correctly receive damage from fire while in deep water.
* Fixed a bug that made it possible to collect two clues at the same time. This will now only be possible if the first clue in an area does not cause that section of the map to be greyed out.
* Fixed a minor bug that would cause the Hunter to stand for a brief moment during the death animation.
* Fixed a rare issue that could lead to your hunters health regenerating across multiple health chunks.
* Fixed an issue with the Flash bomb aim helper not displaying the correct point of impact.
* Fixed an issue that that would cause switched off lanterns to no longer create an ignitable oil spill below it when shattered.
* Fixed a number of issues with how the accolade rewards were calculated on the summary screen.
* Fixed an issue that could occur when restocking tools from other hunters. In some cases, it showed more uses than were actually available but will now only show the correct amount available
* Fixed a bug that would reload a tool like the Flare pistol of Quad Derringer when looting a dead Hunter. Now the ammo pool will be refilled and will have to be manually reloaded.
* Fixed a bug that could cause your hunter to be unable drop a world item if they are downed or disconnected

## Other fixes

* Updated the Crytek logo due to recent rebranding
* The iron devastator trait description has been updated with the correct information. Previously it was referencing all shotguns rather than only pump-action shotguns.
* Crows no longer fly away with the sticky bomb or chaos bomb attached
* Fixed the leave session button on the contract screen
* Fixed an issue that could cause a new account to be unable to press “back” after pressing play from the Library screen

## Known Issues

* AI may become stuck when navigating around certain areas.
* Hunter heads may snap back and forth if too close to other entities or pieces of geometry.
* Hive swarms are able to attack players through solid walls and small lattices.
* Oil pools are invisible.
* Shadows may not blend together correctly on low end systems.
* In rare instances, players may become stuck on the matchmaking screen at the “Loading Map” stage.
* In rare instances, players may encounter a freeze on the “waiting for other players” screen.
* The 666$ granted for reaching every 4000 XP added to the Bloodline will not be visually communicated in case XP is acquired through Hunter retirement. The money will be correctly added to your account. An informative pop up will be added in a future update.
* The pop-up message on retiring a Hunter contains inaccurate information. It mentions that the XP from retiring a Hunter will not be added to the bloodline while it is actually going to be added.
* Freezing/stalls – Don’t worry, we have not forgotten about this! We are still investigating the causes of the freezing/stalling that has been occurring for some of you as our highest priority.
* Some lines are not localized (showing as @\_\_\_\_)