Dev Livestream - Silicon Valley featuring Kiwibird

Instead of Friday, the team hosted a livestream on Wednesday and took players through Silicon Valley with the first appearance of Kiwibird. Silicon Valley is currently available on PTS server and goes live August 5 to all players for free.

See below for an archived version of the livestream as well as transcriptions and images or join the discussion on the forums (Kiwibird focus).

Preface

Why do I highlight Kiwibird? For the players who haven't heard of her, she provides most of the low level interactions with players on the official Defiance forums, replying to threads frequently as well as serving as a point of contact for people with problems and for myself as a community site. The forums became a better place when she arrived and it's nice to see the person behind the profile.

She also has a strange fascination with bird gifs.

Video

Watch live video from TrionWorlds on Twitch

Encryption

An encrypted weapons card

A status effect that applies to weapons or shields that causes them a 3% damage or capacity booost but prevents them from having their rarity upgraded.

When you first log in when Silicon Valley arrives your current legendaries will be encrypted so they get the boosts.

Items that drop from events or lockboxes, if they are epic they have a chance depending on the rarity of the event it will be a 1/4 or a 1/5 chance with rares they are 1/2 chance to be encrypted. These numbers aren't set in stone it can be adjusted based on data from the alpha test server.

Encrypted weapons cannot have their rarity increased further, but other operations that exist will remain unaffected including the ability to trade.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is currently available on PTS server and goes live August 5 to all players for free.

Defiance Data will be doing a more in depth look at Silicon Valley from the PTS server, but you can see a preview of what the folks showed off during the livestream below.

Map showing Silicon Valley and the Miner Conversion Incursion

Zone

So that they could maximize the population inside Silicon Valley it is seperated from the main world. To get there you go to Twin Peaks Station and use a teleporter to Port Bruno Station and can then explore the area. There is a second Fast Travel Point at Water Temple.

Faction vendors apart from the main VBI / Soleptor / Top Notch are also featured at Water Temple. Daily objectives such as Tarr Traxx Crates also spawn in the zone.

You won't be able to have Shadow Wars in Silicon Valley as they work on their queuing system to have a unified queue.

Arkfalls and Arkbreaks will still happen, they can get in the way of eachother and you could have an invasion going on where Grid convert enemies from an arkfall and bring the guys over.

Missions

There will be new mission data recorders with each of the available missions. Some featuring Charlie the construction worker from San Francisco.

Work with Cass and VBI in the area, and things take off on their own. Eventually you'll do missions for your EGO.

Grid Arkfall

Grid do have their own minor arkfalls.

Enemies

Cultist emblem

Cultist Dedicant

Cultist Acolyte

The Cultists have Dedicant and Acolyte varieties and have new combat mechanics. Acolytes have several EGO Powers.

VBI Guard is an NPC controlled by the Grid.

A Guardian found during a Miner Disciples event

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Grid Inquisitor

Also Trick mentioned that they've done some improvements to the Grid Revenants, that they now have a better command of their abilities.

New Incursion

The event instructions for the Miner Conversion Incursion

 

The Miner Conversion incursion features converted 99ers attempting to reach arkfall cores that are protected by Dedicants. They come down a road into the event, and as it progresses spawn drills which take them closer. The aim is to prevent the Grid from capturing Footholds, and if they do the Foothold will disappear beneath the ground.

Conflict Sites

A new conflict site indicator

If the Grid do capture a Foothold, the area will become a conflict site which offers the reverse, where instead of defending against the Grid coming from the outside you need to dislodge them from the inside.

Outfits

from the Corporate Espionage Lockbox

from the Corporate Espionage Lockbox

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Cybernetic Prototype

Bubblegum Killer

They've started a new campaign to create new lockboxes each month, and they will be available on the Lockbox Vendors with something like 50 Keys, some Scrip and Salvage.

The goal is to let people have new outfits and items with synergies on them and be available in game for about 2 weeks exclusively and then cash shop after that.

Edit: August 7, 2014 clarification.

Synergies

Firewall Synergy card

Firewall

3 Part synergy (weapon, weapon, shield) - shield exclusively drops from the Corporate Espionage Lockbox.

1. On shield break, restore health and shields for 5s to surrounding allies. (Cooldown: 30s)
2. On shield break, repair 1 armor plate. (Cooldown: 30s)
3. On shield break, +20% outgoing healing for 10s (Cooldown: 30s)

The Way of Change Synergy card

The Way of Change

3 Part synergy (weapon, weapon, shield) - shield exclusively drops from the Corporate Espionage Lockbox.

1. On melee kill, +30% crit multiplier for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)
2. On crit kill, +30% melee damage for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)
3. On armor break. 10 second blur effect. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Wetwork Synergy card

Wetwork

3 Part synergy (weapon, weapon, shield) - shield exclusively drops from the Corporate Espionage Lockbox.

1. On shield break, grant 15% damage for 5s to surrounding allies. (Cooldown: 30s)
2. On shield break, gain 15% armor penetration for 5s. (Cooldown: 30s)
3. +10% damage when shield is down

Weather

Originally the area had a rain effect, but there were several problems with that which meant that it had to be pulled for this release date. One of the problems were some performance issues and the other was that it could rain indoors. Transparent textures like trees you could see some odd rain effects with it. They want to introduce it later after it's had the bugs fixed.

 

Other

Cloak Fix

The mechanics for Cloak has been updated so that people inside PvP will see the shimmer effect and aren't totally invisible.

EGO Rating Cap Returning

They are going to readding the EGO Rating Cap, it will be raised to 5900. There are enough Pursuits to get past 5900 but they wanted to allow people to reach the maximum rating who were having trouble with a particular Pursuit or if it didn't match their playstyle.

It will be raised when further pursuits are added.

EGO Rating Progression

After Season 2 they may have systems in place to allow the rating to be increased outside of Pursuits.

Additional Land Expansions

We want to extend the Silicon Valley zone further over time. We have other systems in place we want to activate shortly after the season which aren't quite land expansions but are similar. 

New Dynamic Event Manager System

Determines event queues so that all events get hit and has priorities to spawn events.

Tarr Traxx

No new items to the vendor, however there is a new logo on the minimap which helps to determine where the crates are, no longer the star.

Stability

Went free to play on Steam, there has been a huge influx of players. It's stressing the servers which allows them to start expanding and upgrading hardware.

Consoles Free to Play

Should have a date on this soon, may announce the date next week.

Post Season 2 Plan

• Expedition System, having micro instances that you can chain together. (Instant Adventure from Rift?)
• Expanding Silicon Valley.
• Improving Salvage Matrix with options and usability.