DRG Season 4 TEF buff, mechanics, and some bugs (especially with spreaders) 

edit: as of 6/26, septic spreader AI seems to be fixed. And a mistake at 3:57, 4 stacks of the boost lasts for 9/8 shots if you are/aren't overheating, not 10/9. These specifics about hot bullets didn't get into the minigun video(besides the pinned comment), so I'm glad to have an excuse to mention them here. Also, shoutouts to Riku and SplitSentro on discord for being(to my knowledge) the first people who noticed this aspect of TEF's damage staging. Other drg test/info videos: ru-vid.com/group/PLqTo6tQ9tCOrABARyls3C94qzGo6TW3h_

DRG programmer here! The sceptic spreader tweaks happened because the old line of sight check behaviour would make it try to shoot you through walls. We will adress these new issues in a future patch. It was never intended as a nerf. And yes, you did lure me in :(

Squashing all the visual bugs in the weapon terminal must be like a really scuffed game of whack-a-mole

I've been tricked! Bamboozled! Now I'll have to share this knowledge so it gets fixed! Damned you LazyMaybe!!!!

I saw two septic spreaders performing a weird mating ritual with doretta while my friend was off gathering nitra before we started the heartstone, so the ai bug doesn’t only happen between the spreaders and the players

dude the spreaders are broken to the point where they've helped me more often then they've hurt me, one time in a mission i fell into a hole and was attempting to platform out when one of them just phased through the platform and lifted me out so i could run to the drop pod quicker

Septic Spreaders definitely seem like a counterpart to webspitters. Useless by themselves but in the middle of a swarm they can become very deadly

Thank god someone is talking about the spreaders. I'm console so my first ever interactions with them was like "Oh, they're pathing must be bugged or something"

Legend says one of these days lazy will finally realize theres a community page

Lazy, dwarfellow, pls come back :( Your content, especially from the start of full review on the weapons era (and I'm talking not only about weapon reviews themselves, but every single video since then), is T H E best DRG content for me here. Nothing else I rewatched so many times, and not cos I have some troubles with memory for builds or rewind buttons, but cos of the sheer enjoyment I get from competent dwarf with gallant manners and good sense of humor whole through his journey in the world of "how this funny game works in reality". And I will continue rewatching every single DRG video o this channel, but new ones, for other equipment, maybe enemies and other stuff, are appreciated anytime!

I'll be honest, even on season release spreaders felt incredibly weak. Huge weak point and low health meant they would always die pretty much instantly, and even when they got a shot off it wasn't nearly as dangerous as getting randomly hit by an acidspitter or something.

Septic spreaders really are just big puppies right now 😢 I want to convert one into a steve

I was wondering why septic spreaders went from “Interesting ranged threat mortaring you from beneath a ledge” on release to “I’m going to hug the dwarves and become a discount exploder” at current. Always love these technical deep-dives!

Quite the tricky trickster you is. In all seriousness, I noticed as well and feel the same. Their near artillery attack style of going over small ledges was such a unique challenge compared to all the other bugs in the game. I hope that they're able to revert or find a middle ground somewhere.

when the septic spreader walked up to me the first time i thought it was just going for a melee attack or something but instead it just wanted to give me a smooch and then run away i guess

Spicy peppers (Septic Spreaders) Were terrifying at the start of the season, fight me if you think Im wrong, dont really care because its subjective, because they didnt really make any noise, youd just randomly get hit with a high damage projectile, and they were everywhere. Im all down for the roar before shooting, but they definitely shouldnt be this passive.

Found this channel recently after playing DRG for a good while with friends. It's been an incredible place of knowledge and I really appreciate the work you put in to test and explain things for the community. Your breakdowns especially have been my favorite content, and I've been binging them to soak up as much information as I can about the game lol. I hope you make a full breakdown dedicated for Driller's Crispr, as you have with many other weapons. It's my favorite weapon in DRG, and I'm sure there's bound to be things I still don't know about it despite it being my most used weapon. Thanks again for all your work!

I've personally had only a handful of interactions with spreaders, but of those interactions a lot of them have been weirdly notable. First, a Spreader in a EDD was running sideways and made me accidentally shoot my driller in the ass with Hyperprop, downing them instantly, the second was in a Salvage Mission where two Spreaders where behind cover just lobbing shots over onto the Uplink Zone, making it nearly impossible to defend and almost getting a team wipe, forcing me to Iron Will and our Scout to hunt them down and then consequently die far enough away from the Uplink Zone for us to be unable to reach him, and making the mission INCREDIBLY difficult in a way I'm sure wasn't intended (so I'm glad they fixed the issue of Spreader's LoS checks, even with the new bugs), and one where we just had like four Spreaders spawn and completely fuck up the Scout and only the scout, even when Gunner put a shield down on him and revived him they just stayed Laser Focused on the Scout.

"We've Been Tricked, We've Been Backstabbed and We've Been Quite Possibly, Bamboozled."

I'm not sure it was really a 'nerf', at least not intentionally. The addition of a sound, yes, and a deserved one as they were one of the only enemies in the game without some distinct sound cue. The targeting changes I thought were to try and fix the fact spreaders would often try and attack through terrain, as they have done that in my experience.

Spreaders were such a huge threat at the start of the season that I would focus them asap upon seeing them. I thought I was acting super fast and was so proud of my self with how rarely they would get to attack during the last few days but turns out they are just bugged lol

Thank you for the updated info as usual! Deeply helpful.

The goo + explosive reload combo might be unintentional but it does kinda make sense given the effects of said goo

I was unaware of the nerf to spreaders and subsequent unintended borked behavior. They were a pinch brutal at first but I choked that up to them being new. Hope they get uhh, the help they need.

I had noticed spreaders getting up in my face snd not attacking, but i hadn't payed much attention to it. Thanks for pointing that out.

I like your work. hope to see you do more breakdowns on weapons and stuff. its clean and clear and easily my favorite. Please keep it up.

On the console version of Season 4, for some reason the version we got of the update included two bugs: 1. Infinite Rock Pox build up without there being any actual infected enemies or terrain left in the mission (the only way to cure this is to get downed and revived). 2. Progression on building or repairing objects and objectives goes back down to zero if you stop or get interrupted at any point, instead of the progression being kept. Engineer turrets, mini mules, uplinks, fuel cells, black boxes, pipelines, buried resupply pods, cargo crates, machine events, and the Caretaker’s shield batteries are all affected by this and it makes missions feel much less flexible than before. The PC version of the game got these bugs fixed in subsequent patches, but this is the first console build of the update we got. Why we got this bugged version of an updated Season 4, I’m not entirely sure, but I’m certain they’re trying to fix it. It’s been 2 days and haven’t gotten an update or fix for it.

I love and appreciate the work you put into your videos. Keep on keeping on dude.

Love how you have to guess where the spreader is by looking at where the projectile are being fire at like the old version but yeah now it just kinda run at you and died like a worst version of the readioactive exploder

An incredibly well done and informative video. Thanks for this!

yes you did thought now that you talked about the drak, you make me want to watch a drak breakdown video

New balance change, hope you make more videos!

a wonderful short video thank you LazyMaybe

I always found it a bit odd that spreaders aren’t able to shoot you point blank or at close range like the web and acid spitters.

the septic spreader ai issues caused some funny moments in a mission i did today. the best was when i was reviving a downed teammate, a septic spreader just ran up to me and pushed me away from the guy and canceled the revive, and then he just ran away lol i was so confused why it did that, this video clears it up thankfully

Always love your choice of music 👍

Reporting bugs in bug behavior at the end of videos just seems very natural for videos as informative as yours. I didn't think there was any sort of trickery going on. I also hadn't noticed this behavior bug, that did notice that spreaders seemed a lot less deadly lately. At first I just chalked it up to playing Scout more, but now that I think about it I did play thriller a few times in between and still found them to be much less deadly.

LazyMaybe should be working at bugfixing and weapons adjustments at GSG at this point. This guy never misses a thing!

You lured me in by releasing two vids recently.

I still find it funny that spreaders have those massive mouths with all those teeth and then they don't have a melee.

Yes! wanted to see this

The devs are well aware of the issue with the Spreader. I remember them talking about it on their stream.

All this video has done is convince me that septic spreaders should be tameable.

I'm just glad they fixed the wavecooker bug.

I've only played thrice in S4 and I also noticed a distinct difference between launch day Septics and the last couple day's Septics. I wasn't 100% sure about it but in the back of my overcomplicated set of thought processes, there was this one pinging around that read "Why are the biological mortars not mortaring..."

Septic spreaders are really cool new enemies. That said, I had at least two spawn at the same time the other day, completely out of sight, and nuking the defense objective during a salvage mission. By the time I saw where the shots were coming from we were all dead. Someone used Iron Will to revive us, but we died again before I could even see them. I actually didn't mind the extreme damage on the new bugs. It made them an immediate and serious threat, but those things were launching mortars at us from a fortified position over a hill. It definitely felt bad.

I didn't directly notice it while I was playing but thinking back I do definitely remember Septic Spreaders being considerably less likely to fire shots. Not good for them, though they were a huge pain in that first week so we'll see.

I’ve been getting the load out mid screen bug on multiple stats on ps4. I’m glad it’s just a visual thing.

I had noticed the septic spreaders doing that and they just kinda feel like slightly less threatening exploders as now the on kill goo was doing smth .

huh, I guess that would explain all the kamikaze septic bugs i've seen lately. For a little bit there I was wondering if they were programed to run into objectives like the salvage refuel and communications relay to get killed and leave a septic puddle in the middle of the hold area.

I thought the line of sight check nerf/patch was due to the septic spreader firing over the horizon, meaning the bug knew where you were without actually being able to "see" you and therefore had the potential to shoot you from behind cover. The first few days of gameplay made me really appreciate how hard and unique an enemy it was even if it did feel a little cheap. I understand the bugs are able to path to you in the dark but the arcing shot from the spreader was faster and more damaging than a shellback, and if there was more than one it made moving through swarms very tricky. A DRG programmer in the comments said they were sometimes shooting at walls which I could see as a big problem. But since the patch it has gotten noticeably easier. The new stingtail by comparison got nerfed with a 10m grabby range which is thankfully is a pretty good change I think. But the septic spreader is now such a good boy I almost think beast master will work on him.

Congrats. You did trick me, and I didn't notice it till it was patched again XD

I noticed when playing earlier that the Septic Spreaders weren't doing much and kept getting close. But I was mostly too busy killing them to notice.

The visual bug just looks like it's adding actual minigun's firerate bonus to the shown firerate value.

Septic spreader is having the zoomies

Hey, LazyMaybe. What are your thoughts on the new Stingtail enemy? Although I love seeing new foes being added into the game, my experience with them has been pretty negative not gonna lie. Feels horrible to be pulled from reviving a fellow dwarf or resupplying, worse even to be pulled on to the ceiling or some other place and dying from fall damage. It doesn't help that the weak point is guarded armor from the start. Just wanted to know how you feel about them.

Yeah i was wondering why the spreaders suddenly had the AI of exploders but without the self-explosion part.

I was finishing some assignments today and definitely that septic spreaders were behaving strangely. I used to get tagged by projectiles pretty often in the first few days of the patch, but now they mostly just stand around and occasionally roar

When it comes to the septic spreader, they did need some changes to their LoS check but GSG seemed to have either bugged the bug or went to strict. I have been in at least one mission where a spreader was literally shooting through the Salvage fuel cell from an elevated position. Being solo and not playing Scout at the moment, I basically had to deal with an enemy being able to ping me without being able to ping them back. So, no, I wouldn't consider the Spreaders to be "alright on release" but I agree their LoS check needs to be loosened up a little.

Now that you point it out, I remember having a mission with a ton of Septic Spreaders but not seeing them actually attack at all. Weird!

while its probably not intended to be ding this it certainly is hillarious to see it doing this

Now that you mentioned it, I do t think I’ve ever seen a septic shoot. Although they are my favorite enemy to shoot hands down.

Does anyone know what Lazy's using to display the heat meter on the cursor?

I also experienced the spreader problem on console. Me and my bud just ended up keeping him as a pet because he wouldn't attack since we kept moving around.

Another video? Nice

I perfectly agree about the sceptic spreaders nerf, hope it gets reverted.

On the topic of bugs, I found a pretty weird one. In one of my first missions either a rockpox infector, the spike trail it leaves on the floor caused me to clip through the map and take massive damage if it was applied to certain surfaces. I'm not sure what exactly caused it, but it was consistent within that round that any time I touched that spot in anyway id always fall through. If not for being scout, I'm pretty sure I would've been oob the whole mission

Definitely tricked me, and im glad you brought this to my attention

My problem with the Drak is quite simply: The overheat ring is censored after 80%. That flashing part does not allow you to see just how close you are to overheating. I have no problem with the minigun treating the needle and staying at 99% for as long as I want, but this thing just bullies me.

got me dude, good one

I really think they needed the attack roar and some line of sight tweaks, which they did but obviously messed up. The bug doesn't seem to be with line of sight itself, they seem to be checking from their center now so you can actually see them while they shoot you, like the patch notes said. I think they forgot to re-include what behavior it should do after it fails a check, resulting in it defaulting to whatever the game's default behavior is, which is probably Grunt. The changes themselves are agreeable, since line of sight was annoying before with defense objectives(literally just uplink), so I'm excited to see them actually function fully as intended next hot fix.

Nice Zero PFP by the way.

Shame for what they did to the spreaders. Ghost Ship needs to stop nerfing stuff to accommodate for little Timmies that can't deal with losing a game or two.

The spreader’s AI being broken makes much more sense. I only got the update on Thursday since I’m on console and couldn’t figure out why people were annoyed with them as they just seems to come up next to me and die. Hopefully they get fixed, as it stands now they’re not all that interesting to fight.

I like this

I got tricked! I thought the team got better at finding them, I had no idea they lost all self-preservation

CURSES! How dare you trick me with this wholesome informative video. I will have to give you a like as punishment.

I really hope they fix the Spreaders.

Has anyone else noticed that objects in missions don't retain 'build progress' (engie turrets, mini mules, core events, fuel cells, etc.) I'm not sure if this is just a console exclusive issue.

Are you doing more fun mod explanations? They are really helpful and have changed my gameplay a lot. Thank you👍 if you do more you should do engines auto aim thing

Yeah I was wondering why the septic spreaders kept running at me instead of hitting me from range so I had to check the bestiary again just to see they even had ranged attacks

No wonder the stingtales and goopers don't feel threatening. I keep hearing people talk about how hard these enemies are meanwhile I've only ever seen them attack twice.

So how does the non-linear heat gain apply in reverse (ie cooling)?

What gear mod setup have people found best for TEF?

Megamanzero player , i respect you

Honestly I thought spreaders were fine being able to shoot without line of sight. They're projectile doesn't travel straight, it goes in an arc. So it'd make sense for it to ignore LOS and shoot over obstacles and be extra hard to take out.

I have been tricked, bamboozled, damn you lazymaybe for tricking me into knowing about septic spreaders ai problems

I didn't even notice they were bugged. Because 99% of the time I've encountered them it's been with them crawling in through a small hole I just made only then get almost instantly obliterated before they could get any distance to start doing ranged attacks at me.

Ive seen the opposite with spreaders. I shot one just a few games ago and ive never seen a bug book it away so fast

Cool

The Spreaders felt good on release. Can't believe we have green beards and grey beards alike complaining that they're OP.

I never had an issue with the spreaders. Rockpox spitters tho… those buggers are REAL nasty.

Hey can you discuss if haz 5 got a buff? I feel like the AI changed.

The only thing I would like to change about the spreader, is to change its color. It blends too well with red sugar

Damn I feel bad for the spreaders now. They definitely felt overpowered in groups before, but they made the game so intense, I loved it. Hope they get through the dementia

About the Septic Spreader bug trick: Bold of you to assume I dont instaclick every video you post.

I thought septic spreaders were perfectly fine on release. The way they applied pressure over time by painting the floor was telegraph enough imo.

Tbqh I still think the bonus should start (plus give you an extra stack at max stacks) at 50%. Maybe I'm underrating how strong it would be, but it still _feels_ rather finnicky to actually use, especially if you want to get optimal effectiveness from it. Nerfing Spreaders is a bit weird. They never seemed overly damaging in my experience, especially compared to either spitter variant which you have to be very proactive about spotting and picking off. Springtails seem far more disruptive and harder to deal with, and even then they're arguably balanced, so I'm not sure why Spreaders were seen as a priority here.

Yeah my first encounter with septic spreaders sucked, there were like four of them and they did nothing but die. One survived the entire swarm and still did nothing.

Joke's on you. I came for the Spreader information.