Story mode update (see *TLDR)

• Story mode now has a lot more spare lives per run, but you get a score penalty each time you lose a life. You can therefore maximize your score by not dying.

Improvements

• There is now a Graphics setting, "Minimize when focus lost", that can be disabled to keep the game window visible when you alt-tab away from the game.
  
• The XP multiplier based on difficulty level has been removed, mainly to make Casual difficulty feel less like a punishment, and more like a valid choice.
  
• Max co-op player count has been increased to 4.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Gun for Hire perk would apply and give you credits each time you respawn, instead of only at the end of each combat encounter.
  
• Fixed the energy bridge in the main base in story chapter 1 so that it uses the updated visuals just like the other energy bridges.

*TLDR Story mode update

Background:

All the game modes in Rogue Shift have the same gameplay structure at their core: battle enemy waves of increasing intensity, while you rapidly unlock Psionic abilities, find weapons and apply upgrades during a single run. When the run is over (you are dead, or some victory condition has been reached), you get to post your high score, and repeat. Spanning multiple runs, you can level up your character over time and unlock permanent Perks for that character, regardless of which game mode you choose to play. Between waves of enemies, do some exploring and looting. Etc.

The point is, there is a core consistency between game modes, right down to the fact that you start "fresh", at the beginning, with each new run. This applies to playing (or re-playing) a Story Chapter or a chosen map in Final Stand or Escape modes.

Typically, playing a Story Chapter takes about the same time as playing a round of Final Stand, although the latter can actually take much, much longer if you are having a very good run :)

The issue:

Regardless of this consistent run-based system, a pattern started to emerge in feedback, discussions and some reviews: there was a sense of unfairness and frustration at starting a story chapter at the beginning when your run fails (death).

There are several reasons for this. One reason is that Story chapters offer much larger areas to explore, including discovering secrets and gaining access to optional areas locked behind security systems. When you play a chapter for the first or second time, there is a sense of discovery and exploration. But after dying 10 times without completing the chapter, "finding" the same areas and secrets can get a little old when combined with starting at the beginning of the chapter. Similarly, since there is an actual story and objectives to do, and these a linear, it's not the kind of thing you want to play 10 times in a row, especially if those attempts are all based on failing and just trying to finish a chapter.

This frustration caused players to quit.

The solution (experiment):

This is a bit tricky. Since story chapters follow the same run-based approach with a high score posting at the end of a run, one can't simply turn it into a classic story mode with persistent saves along the way (let alone the fact that it would be a crazy amount of effort to change the systems now).

After discussing many different options for solving this, I decided to experiment with a fairly simple change - depending on difficulty level, you get a lot more spare lives for each story chapter run - but, you get a penalty of -5000 score each time you die and respawn.

This means that there is a fair probability that a new player and a low-level character will reach the end of a story chapter after 1 to 2 attempts, but that a new player is likely to get a much layer score than someone who can get through a chapter without dying.

Fixed an issue where if you "stored" several Level-ups before finalizing (choosing Perks), the Perk selection would not properly randomize between each pick.

Fixed an issue where some barrels would go underground (Final Stand mode, Research Facility map). This caused aiming to go crazy, with the character trying to aim straight down into the ground at certain locations.

Balance

• For each run, Story mode now gives +2 spare lives for Hard, and +4 spare lives for Casual. Other modes are as before.
  
• The Psionic Cell cost of Overdrive has been increased from 1,2,3 to 2,4,6 (Lv1, Lv2 and Lv3).

Improvements

• Perk - "Daze Mod - Targeting". Now targets large enemies instead of small enemies, with a +3s time bonus.
  
• Added a main menu hint (right-hand panel) explaining that you have infinite respawns in co-op, so long as someone is still alive.

Proxy Mine improvement
It was tricky to avoid taking hits from your own mines in the heat of battle, so the following adjustments have been made:

• Activation time (before trigger is possible) increased from 0.5s to 0.8s.
  
• Trigger time (explosion delay after triggered) increased from 0.25s to 0.4s.

Fixes

• Spelling mistake of Perk - "Orb Magent" -> "Orb Magnet".