Update 0.79

Sep 30

Pardon the delay in updates; I've been working multiple jobs over the past year to make ends meet. We've been pushing builds to the testing branch the whole time, and 0.79 brings all of that to the main branch at once.

Merk Mayhem is playable solo now. Pick a mode and a map, set the match size, and bots fill the empty seats. Nineteen modes, two maps, sixteen guns, and Firefight, a PvE survival mode.

Bots & Solo Play

Pick a mode and a map, set the match size, and bots fill the rest.
Match size counts you: six default, twelve ceiling in most modes.
Bots play the objective: points, flags, the King, carriers, and the Mark.
Bot matches count toward stats and achievements; bots never enter Ranked.
Matches return to the lobby; map, mode, and bot count stick.
Bots navigate both maps, sprint, wall run, only chase what they can see, and only shoot inside their gun's range.
Bots no longer spawn on top of you.
Fixed bots arriving without abilities on a guest's machine.
Bot kills never unlock the host's achievements.

Game Modes
Free-for-all

Free For All: first to 25.
Gun Game: Hornets only; kills climb the weapon ladder; the last rung is melee.
Infection: Hound survivors against Hornet zombies, three rounds.
King of the Hill: one rotating hill.
Regicide: the leader wears the crown and scores extra; first to 50.
Amped: kill the buffed player to take the buff; first to 50.
Bounty Hunter: a private target, a hidden hunter. First to 50.
Last Merk Standing: battle royale, three rounds, limited lives.
Hold the Mark: survive while carrying the objective; first to 100.

Team

Team Deathmatch: 50 kills.
King of the Hill: first team to 250.
Capture the Flag: first to 3; your flag must be home to score.
Dominion: three points, first to 300. Holding points and kills both score.
Attack & Defend: capture two objectives, swap sides, beat their time.
Attrition: 3v3, shared respawns, best of five.
Breakthrough: push through the zones, then run the flag home.
VIPs: hunt their VIP while protecting yours; only VIP kills score; first to 7.

And two more

Firefight: PvE survival, one to four players; passive abilities are shared by the team.
Ranked Attrition: 3v3, humans only.

Across every mode

Every mode declares its own winner, and a win pays 250 XP.
Carriers drop the objective on a primary swap or an ability; in Hold the Mark, an ability only.

Maps

Hotel Elysium: urban rooftops. Hand edits, new loading screen art.
Cliffside: a mountainside warehouse. Hand edits, new loading screen art. This map will get some TLC in the coming months.

Weapons & Gunplay

Primaries: Assault Rifle, Burst Rifle, Heavy Rifle, Carbine, Light SMG, Submachine Gun, Heavy SMG, PDW, Shotgun, Auto Shotgun, Marksman Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Heavy Sniper.
Sidearms: Pistol, Revolver, Machine Pistol.
One primary, one sidearm, no weapon pickups; kills drop ammo and Armor Fluid.
Chamber plus one added on every magazine-fed gun except the Revolver; total ammo unchanged.
Headshots cover the whole skull and count on every gun. A headshot kill is a Precision Kill.
Aiming down sights tightens your spread.
Aim assist is capped at three-quarters of a degree; scoped snipers get none.
Both snipers have a second zoom stage (Left Shift while scoped). Quickscoping works.
Sensitivity is one slider on a common FPS scale; ADS is matched at the crosshair.
Heavy Sniper hits for 180, down from 200.
Reloads: fixed the endless reload loop.
Explosives stop killing through walls. Explosive and ability damage needs line of sight.
Auto Shotgun shake is once per blast.
Weapon mastery works: up to 20 percent at level 20 on the gun in your hands.

Kits & Abilities

Three kits: Hornet (140, fastest: double jump, wall run, slide), Hound (200, default: sprint and slide), Heavy (262, slowest).
Kits level to 20. Each loadout carries a tactical, a lethal, and a passive.
Echo Snare added: a sticky disc that slows, grounds, and reveals whoever walks into it.
Shockwave added: a blast off your own body that damages and throws, stopped by walls.
Scavenger added: double ammo and armor from pickups.
Apparition (cloak) hides your gun too; you can aim down sights cloaked, one tap uncloaks and fires, and bots can't see you until you're revealed.
Every ability comes off cooldown when you respawn. Charged abilities start each match charged.
Predator outlines anyone you damage through walls for 3 seconds, on any gun.
Stalker also silences your gun.
Crunch Grenade hits for 90 and only pulls from inside its blast radius.
Blast Pipe and Echo Snare pop from one enemy bullet, never a friendly one, and outlive you.

Movement

Crouch has a Hold or Toggle setting.
Hornet jumps are 30 percent louder.
You can aim straight down, and aim no longer drifts after scoping in mid-jump.

Firefight

Waves get harder by composition, not inflated stats.
Endless.
Shared lives: four per player, refilling up to eight. Squad out, run over.
Passives are shared squad-wide. Duplicates don't stack.
Stuck enemies get moved, so a run can't stall.
Counts toward career stats; your best wave goes to a Steam leaderboard.
Wave achievements pay on completion.

Ranked & Progression

Ranked Attrition: 3v3, humans only, teams drafted by rating.
Bronze to Diamond, three divisions each, then Sovereign. No placements.
Wins add, losses subtract. Bronze climbs at double speed, losses below Diamond are halved, streaks nudge it.
Rating only moves with a human on each side.
Your peak never drops. Rating and peak post to Steam leaderboards; one point of decay per week away from ranked.
Combat Rating overhauled: non-competitive, from lifetime stats; bot kills count a tenth; provisional until 10 matches.
XP in every mode: kill 100, assist 50, capture 25, point defence 15, Mark hold 5 per 5 seconds, win 250.

HUD, Scoreboard & After-Match

A flat Game Info strip: score, target, clock and objective pips.
Objectives read by shape: yours circles, neutral squares, enemy diamonds.
Mode callouts land in the kill feed in team colour. Kill feed colours are relative to you, on guests' screens too.
Carriers wear the Merk Mayhem logo above their head, never over your own.
A flat kill banner with a class icon. Wording follows the mode.
Killed By card added: your killer, their class, their health at the kill, and a damage breakdown.
The death camera orbits your body.
Respawn button added to the pause menu. Counts as a death.
Each mode labels its own columns and sorts by its own score. Dead players are greyed out.
The end-of-match card shows on every machine, one card in every mode.

Menus and lobby

Build loadouts from the menu.
Lobby settings, ready-up, and team switching all work.
Loading screens show the map's art and the mode's rules.
Controller support: every menu, rebindable buttons, sensitivity, vibration, aim friction.

Team Colours

20 colours: Ally Blue, Enemy Red and 18 named swatches.
Under Settings, Gameplay, Teams, the pickers are a swatch grid that works on a controller.
Colours are relative to you: allies always your ally colour, enemies your enemy colour.
Changing a colour repaints everything at once.

Audio

Your own gun plays flat and close; everyone else's sits in the world.
Distant gunfire falls off properly, carries 150 metres and arrives with a room tail.
Wall muffling fades instead of snapping and covers bullet impacts.
Bullet whizzes added, weighted by weapon class. Enemy rounds only.
Most guns have their own firing sound. Every hit and every kill is audible.
Dead players keep hearing the fight; spectators hear from the player they watch.

Performance & Stability

Fixed the hitch every 61 seconds, and guests stuttering more the longer a match ran.
The game ships a precompiled shader cache.
Disruptor and Shockwave effects no longer spike the frame rate. Bullet impacts are capped.
Removed the Epic graphics tier; the ladder tops out at High.
Fixed a crash from Steam callbacks at match end, and a crash loading into a second match.
Fixed a near-death freeze and an error when opening the settings.

Joining Friends

Matches are hosted by players.
Steam's connection relay is on.
Fixed the second match disconnecting everyone but the host.
Fixed a leftover Steam session making every join fail until restart.
Fixed guests getting thousands of network errors mid-match.
Team callouts, scores, clocks, and pickups display correctly on every machine.
Fixed inverted team selection when joining, and 6v6 teams spawning on top of each other.
The host runs at a 60 tick rate.

Achievements & Steam

Fixed achievements that could never fire, among them Now You See Me, Shockwave Specialist, and Stim Savior.
Lifetime stats are protected against a bad read from Steam.
Steam leaderboards carry ranked rating, peak rating, best Firefight wave, time played and matches played.
Win/loss comes from each mode's declared result.
Knocking someone off the map credits you.
Assists survive shield fights, and capture medals go to the players on the point.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the "statue" bug: bodies ignoring every movement input from round two.
Fixed level 20 Heavies immune to self-damage, and Hornet poison scaling too high.
Fixed the Blast Pipe missing crouching and sliding targets.
Fixed sniper rounds landing a hidden second hit.
Fixed leg shots skipping their damage reduction.
Fixed third-person tracers and muzzle flash sitting on the wrong spot.
Fixed a melee lunge locking onto a cloaked player.
Fixed passives not returning after a flag drop or capture.
Fixed aiming wiping reveals, scoping overriding cloak or Stalker, and outlines ghosting across your scope.
Fixed guests getting the team scoreboard in free-for-all.
Fixed text chat dying after the first match, and the ten-second loading screen back to the lobby.
Fixed toxin and thermite clouds muting every gunshot.
Fixed the grey health pack, and removed leftover developer messages.

Known Issues

Mixed versions can't connect.
Launching without Steam running may block joining a Steam host.
Guests can spawn with the default loadout from the second match on.
Bots skip jump and wall-run routes, so they won't carry the flag on Hotel Elysium.
Hotel Elysium has far fewer spawn points than Cliffside.
The MVP's scoreboard row isn't highlighted.
Switching modes resets the bot count.
Only the host picks the next map.
The game occasionally hits an engine error while closing.
The team colour grid is new; tell us if it misbehaves, especially on a controller.

Thanks for giving it another go. See you in a lobby, even if it's full of bots.

Join the conversation and stay connected!

Control the Chaos: Master the Mayhem

Zachary Tirgan