Developer Update – April 5th

Hello people of Metropolis!

Now that we’re a week on from the release of Season 1, in this update we wanted to cover some of the biggest topics we’ve seen among the community, and provide some updates on coming changes and fixes.

STATE OF THE GAME

We are aware of several issues that players have been experiencing since Season 1 launched and have many of these fixes planned for upcoming updates. Below is a non-exhaustive list of some of the most discussed known issues with fixes coming in our next patch.

• Raising Hell issues – A number of players have been experiencing an issue that is preventing their Raising Hell playlist from completing, despite having completed all the objectives.
• Invisible Joker – Some players have been experiencing an issue whereby the model for The Joker turns invisible.
• Black Screen Issues – Some players have been experiencing an issue that results in black screen, with audio still playing after loading into the game.
• Steam Deck – It appears that the most recent patch for Season 1 has prevented the game from being played on Steam Deck/Linux. While Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League does not officially support Steam Deck/Linux., we have taken steps to resolve this.

We are continuing to work on fixes and improvements, as well as monitoring community feedback, for future patches.

UPCOMING BALANCING UPDATES

Following player feedback during the first week of Season 1, we also have several gameplay and balancing changes planned for our next patch.

• Craze Immunity changes
  • Enemies are no longer immune to Venom Frenzy
  • Crazed enemies take 50% less damage
  • Craze Immunity has been renamed to Craze Tolerance
• Pain Suppression changes
  • Damage reduction has been reduced to 50%, down from 95%
• Burn & Poison buff
  • Increased damage over time for Burn and Poison at higher mastery levels.
• Battle Pass XP gain increase
  • Double Battle Pass XP from missions
• Increased drop chance for Master items at higher Mastery Levels
• Damage reduction from Nightmare stacks gained from the Tier 3 Scarecrow Infamy Set bonus has been increased to 20% (Up from 10%)

These changes will keep the fight against Brainiac fun and challenging. We will also continue to monitor community feedback on desired gameplay improvements.

HOW TO UNLOCK THE JOKER

To earn The Joker through gameplay, players must increase their ‘Fear Rank’ (this is the name of the Episode Rank for Episode 1) to 35, by completing missions in Metropolis, Strongholds & Incursions. Once Fear Rank 35 is reached, the Mayhem mission will become available, allowing players to fight a new version of Brainiac, and once he is defeated, The Joker will be added to your Squad roster.

For more detailed information on how to earn/unlock The Joker, please visit our FAQ HERE  

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EPISODE RANK AND MASTERY LEVEL?

We’ve seen that some players are a little unsure on the difference between Episode Rank and Mastery Level and wanted to provide some clarity on the role and intent of each.

EPISODE RANK

• Episode Ranks and their subsequent rewards give a more predictable way to earn the gear in an Episode so you don’t have to grind through Incursion missions hoping to get a specific item. We noticed frustration in Finite Crisis where the RNG gods didn’t always favour you and you ended up having to replay lower tiered Incursion missions because you were missing one or two items.
• If you look through the Episode Rank timeline you can see the new gear available (Legendary items, Notorious items and Infamy Set pieces) in each Episode. Our intent is to make sure you have a predictable way to earn it all and never have to worry about RNG, and you can gauge the time you needed to put into the game to earn a specific item.
• There are also cosmetic items in there, crafting recipes, additional Battle Pass XP and more, getting you a few extra goodies as you rank up.
• In addition, each Episode’s Rank marks your journey and progress through that Episode. When you get to Episode Rank 200, you will have earned all the new pieces of gear that we added in that Episode.
• You earn Ranks by completing missions in Metropolis and, once you have unlocked Mastery Levels, it’s collated from the three highest completed Mastery Levels of the six available Incursion missions.
  • Metropolis missions = 0.5 – 1 rank, depending on difficulty (As indicated above the mission icon on the map)
  • Strongholds = 1 rank
  • Incursion missions = 1 rank
  • Mastery Level Incursion mission = 1 rank for each Mastery Level above the previously completed Mastery Level for that mission
• Episode Rank Rewards are granted as soon as you rank up. If it’s gear, it’s found in the Bat Pod after completing a mission. Everything else (Resources, crafting recipes, XP bonuses, cosmetics, etc.) are applied directly to your account when you complete a mission that results in a rank up.
• Each Episode has its own Episode Rank which starts at 0. For Episode 1 – FEAR, the Episode Rank is called FEAR Rank.
• You can always go back to a previous Episode and increase your Episode Rank in that specific Episode.
• Episode Rank Rewards are predetermined up until Fear Rank 200 and then they are randomized (Gear and resources).

MASTERY LEVELS

• Mastery Levels work the same as they do in Finite Crisis. You unlock them by completing the Mayhem mission (defeating Brainiac) in the Episode.
• Mastery Level is the increasing difficulty/challenge level that you can select when taking on an Incursion/Mayhem mission.
• Different blocks of Mastery Levels drop different Tiers of Infamy gear:
  • 1-13 – Tier 1 Infamy Sets
  • 14-23 – Tier 2 Infamy Sets
  • 24+ – Tier 3 Infamy Sets
  • All sets are re-added to the pool at 55+
• Mastery Levels are used for Leaderboard placement.
• Higher Mastery Level = higher challenge = more rewards.
• Your three highest completed Mastery Levels from the six Incursion missions make up your Episode Rank after you have unlocked Mastery Levels. We picked the three highest so you always have a choice of which Incursion missions to play and won’t have to play through all of them, allowing you to focus on your favourites or decide to mix things up and play different ones.
• Higher Mastery Levels are unlocked based on the three highest Mastery Levels completed from the six Incursion missions, but the available Mastery Levels are active for all six Incursion missions. So, if you focus on playing only three out of the six Incursion missions, you will still have unlocked those Mastery Levels for all six Incursion missions (and the Mayhem mission as well).

DAMAGE REDUCTION & AFFLICTION RESISTANCES

We’ve seen questions about how Damage Reduction and Affliction Resistance works in the game, so we wanted to provide a more precise explanation for you build-crafters.

DAMAGE REDUCTION

• If you have two items that both give 50% damage reduction, you won’t end up with 100% damage reduction. You end up with 75% damage reduction. 50% from the first damage reduction, and 50% of the remaining 50%.
  • 1,000 damage with 50% damage reduction = 500 damage taken
  • 1,000 damage with an additional 50% damage reduction = 250 damage taken
• You can never reach 100% damage reduction, unless you have an item that makes you temporarily immune to damage (Eg. Hugo Strange’s Specialization or King Shark’s Power of the Ancients).
• Enemies do more damage in higher difficulties/Mastery Levels, and our intent is that you can either lean into glass cannon builds and leverage your skill with traversal and situational awareness to avoid damage or lean into damage reduction to ‘tank’ your way through it.
• Some characters are inherently more tanky, so in Incursion missions where there’s a lot of AOE damage, you might want to consider playing a more tanky character to push up your Mastery Levels.

AFFLICTION RESISTANCE

• Affliction resistance augments reduce the duration of the affliction. I.e. if you have 50% affliction resistance, you are Frozen for 50% less time.
• Affliction resistance augments are not diminishing since they work on a duration basis. If you have two augments that both increase affliction resistance by 25%, then the total would be a 50% reduction in duration.

STATUS EFFECTS VS AFFLICTIONS

With the introduction of Poison in Episode 1, we wanted to share more details on the differences between Afflictions and Status Effects.

There are only 4 Afflictions: Diablo Blaze, Deep Freeze, Livewire Bolt and Venom Frenzy. Any effect that references Afflictions applies only to these 4. Enemies can only have 1 Affliction applied to them at a time, and applying a second Affliction overwrites the first. These are primarily applied by Melee weapons and Grenades that have been empowered by Ivy to apply an Affliction, but can also be applied by certain Legendary, Notorious and Infamy weapons (Black Mask’s Bulletstorm, Sick Burn, The Cooler etc.). There are no current plans to introduce further Afflictions to the game, although new ways to interact and synergise with them will come in future Episodes.

Status Effects are debuffs applied to enemies, which can have a range of effects. Several examples include Slo-Mo, Bleed and the newly introduced Poison. Multiple Status Effects can be applied at once and they do not overwrite Afflictions,  so an enemy can be Frozen and Poisoned simultaneously. New Status Effects with different effects will be introduced in future Episodes.

STRONGHOLDS

We’ve seen some in the community discussing Strongholds and what those are, so we wanted to clarify this.

Every Episode, Brainiac renews his endeavour to control Metropolis by phasing in Strongholds that the Squad will be tasked to take out to push back Brainiac’s larger invasion effort.

Strongholds are phased in chunks of an Elseworld that Brainiac is using to further his goal of terraforming the planet. In Finite Crisis, these are the Terraformers and the Artillery Cannon that you encountered in Chapter 7.

In Episode 1 Brainiac will be phasing in parts of The Joker’s Elseworld and setting up a new set of Terraformers in addition to some Bug Outposts that you can take down for Resources, Gear, Promethium and Battle Pass XP.

CHEATING

Over the last few weeks, we have identified a number of accounts that have bypassed our anti-cheat systems to gain an unfair advantage, most obviously when taking top leaderboard spots. We have now taken action against several offenders who have engaged in practices that violate our terms of service, giving them a temporary ban and resetting their accounts. Any further infractions from these accounts will result in a permanent ban. We thank you for your patience as we continue to monitor this situation.

That’s all for this week. Thank you for joining us in Season 1

See you in the Elseworlds,
Darroch & the Rocksteady team.