Today, in a forum post, CCP Rattati released the patch notes, as well as a spreadsheet, for Hotfix FoxFour, which was originally supposed to be called “Foxtrot”, but the community made a joke and attached an EVE Online developer’s name to it. CCP FoxFour writes the API for EVE and is responsible for much of the EVE/DUST link. He has also worked on Planetary Conquest.
Rattati’s thread asked the DUST 514 community for feedback on his proposed changes. There is no release date at this time.
The changes proposed for Hotfix FoxFour, by CPM2 and Rattati are as follows:
Shield Tanking
‘We are taking a major step towards a balance between Armor and Shield tanking with this new Hotfix, radically strengthing the shield recharge rates, recharge delays and damage thresholds of Caldari and Minmatar Dropsuits. We also reduced the CPU cost of Shield Regulators by almost 20%t to top it off.’
HAV/AV Balance
Increasing the HAV’s weak spot. This will ‘allow dedicated AV and other vehicles to use positioning, speed and skill to heavily change the outcome of each encounter without having an effect on Dropships.’
Changing the profile of the Swarm Launchers to Missile Explosives. Therefore Caldari Commando will receive the damage bonus to the Swarms. This will leave the Minmatar Commando with the Explosive – Explosives damage profile.
With that said, ‘all Explosive Weapons to deal full damage to HAVs, making the Breach Mass Driver a potent AV weapon in the hands of a Minmatar Commando. Same thing for Assault HMG’s and Nova Knifes.’ I am just going to call this now, Minmatar Commando with Breach MD and Nova Knives. Watch out, tankers. Seriously.
Lastly, Rattati has proposed “reducing the Swarm Launcher lock-on range, hit impact and turning radius”.
All of these AV buffs and nerfs will be met with ‘a strong buff for Caldari HAVs in the form of increased recharge rates and decreased recharge delays.’ “What about Gallente HAVs?” you ask. CCP Rattati remarked saying, ‘The Gallente HAVs are strong enough to deal with it.’
Rifles
‘The range discrepancy has made it very difficult to align the purpose and behavior of the fully-automatic rifles. They will therefore all be brought considerably closer to each other, with the Gallente Assault Rifle unchanged.’
As everybody knows, both the Scrambler Rifle and the Assault Scrambler Rifle are over powered. Therefore the Scrambler Rifle’s charge shot will cost more heat, which will reduce the number of follow up shots after shooting the charge shot. ‘The difference should be around 4 shots for a fully skilled Amarr Assault, more for non-skilled users.’ Movement speed will also be reduced by 20% while the charge is being held. The Assault Scrambler Rifle will use more heat per shot and the damage will be brought down ‘to where the other rifles are on the curve.’
‘The Gallente Assault Rifle family is fairly underpowered to the rest of them, not statistically per se, but due to other Assault Dropsuits having better Skill bonuses.’ The Gallente Assault suit bonus will increase the rate-of-fire.
Caldari Assault suits will be getting a kick/recoil reduction bonus for the Rail Rifle
Other Weapons
The Breach Shotgun will be getting a buff to their overall ammo capacity. Pre-Hotfix, their ammo was at 14, post-Hotifx ammo will be 20.
The Bolt Pistols will be getting a ROF nerf. Pre-Hotfix numbers were a 135 ROF, while post-Hotfix numbers will be a 100 ROF.
Assault SMGs, Assault Scrambler Pistols, and the Scrambler Pistols will be getting a ROF buff. The Assault Scrambler Pistols will go from a ROF of 400 to 444, and the Scrambler Pistols will go from a ROF of 353 to 400. The numbers for the Assault SMG ROF buff are not in the spreadsheet at the moment. The Assault Scrambler Pistols will also go from 8 rounds in the clip to 12 after the Hotfix.
Touching on the Assault SMG again, it will receive a buff to clip size, ammo capacity, and damage at the advanced level, while the prototype level will see a buff to damage. Advanced Assault SMGs will go from a clip size of 68 to 90, ammo capacity of 408 to 450, and a damage buff of 18.1 to 19.1. At proto level, the Assault SMG’s damage will go from 19 to 20.
‘MagSec gets a healthy damage buff and a charge time reduction.’ Old charge up time for the MagSec was 0.3, which will be buffed to 0.1. Across the board (Militia, Standard, Advanced, and Prototype), the MagSec will see a damage increase of about 3 points.
All Locus Grenades will have the same damage. The only difference between the tiers will be the blast radius. ‘We are also fixing the Packed Locus and buffing the Fused Grenades considerably.’
Modules
‘We wanted to improve the Biotics family so are reducing the PG cost of the KinCats, buffing the Cardiac Regulator. We normalized the Myofib damage bonus but increased base Melee damage on all dropsuits to make up for it.’
As mentioned at the beginning, Hotfix FoxFour has no release date. If you have any questions about anything in this, please refer to Rattati’s post and the spreadsheet.
