Update 1.14
Overview
During this update I was mainly working on features that would be released later down the line. I was still a feature owner on one of the weapon variants.
I also onboarded other technical designers into the event gameplay systems so they would be able to work with the tools I had created for previous events.
Vetterli 71 Karabiner Cyclone
Design
The Cyclone has high fire rate due to a self-loading mechanism, but sacrifices magazine capacity and barrel length. The shortend barrel creates a distinctive gunshot sound and recoil. We also reduced the muzzle velocity and damage output due to the shorter barrel. These are all the balance measures we took to strike a balance with its fire rate.
Technical Implementation
The biggest hurdle to overcome was that we had to create a new set of additive weapon animations. We weren’t able to reuse on the existing base idle animations since the left hand was placed on the cut off part of the barrel.
Community Reception
There was a lot concern in the community about the cyclone’s fire rate before it was released. Once players got their hands on the weapon they quickly realized that the weapon provides a very hard draw back in the form of the reduced magazine size.
The Tide of Corruption event itself was well received. I was quite proud that other designers on the team were able to use the gameplay systems I had created during earlier updates without issue.