Flying Wild Hog has released the third update for the PC version of Shadow Warrior 2. According to the release notes, this patch fixes the annoying shadow and geometry flickering issues, optimizes shadow rendering performance and defaults to dedicated GPU (when PC gamers are using both dedicated and integrated GPUs).
In addition, this patch fixes the performance issues for co-op partners that have been reported, brings a number of co-op network bandwidth usage optimizations, and comes with various Photomode fixes.
It’s worth noting that this latest update also comes with some balance and gameplay changes, as well as general gameplay and UI fixes.
This patch will be auto-downloaded from Steam, and you can read its complete changelog below.
Shadow Warrior 2 – Patch 1.1.3.0 Changelog:
Balance and gameplay changes:
- “Serene Mind” skill nerfed
- “Auto-Reload” skill nerfed
- “Like the Wind skill” nerfed, 5th stage added
- “Second Chance” skill 4th stage added
- “Arm of Orochi” weapon significantly nerfed
- More auras on single enemy for Hard and Insane difficulties
- More enemies attacking at the same time for Hard and Insane difficulties
- Enemies speed increased for Insane difficulty
- Added 3 new ultra-difficult tiers for Insane difficulty with much better loot to find
- Upgrade drops quality now better reflects game difficulty – on higher difficulties better drops start occuring right from the beginning of the playthrough
- Added cap for gaining experience speed for every difficulty: after reaching certain character level player gets experience much slower, appropriate information added to difficulty description
- Fixed bug when player could get quest reward Skill Points more than once per quest per character. If character earned more than maximum number of Skill Points (level + all quests reward) – Skill Points will be capped
- Due to skills rebalance player will have all skill reset after map loaded – inventory will be automatically opened and message box will be shown
- Crafting result upgrade quality depends on source upgrades quality now, crafting price depends on expected result quality
- Final boss drop (“Ryuken” weapon) now available as final quest reward
- More special enemies, more respawns and better loot on Free Roam missions
- Elite and Superior enemy “Hellhound” won’t fetch grenades now
General fixes:
- Fixed bug when player could pickup “King Skelletor” weapon before designed mission
- Gauss rifle shot tuned down and smoothed, added alternative reload animation
- Fixed bug when dual melee secondary weapon didn’t inherit primary weapon stats (elemental, damage etc)
- Fixed weapon being removed from inventory when spawned as turret on map change
- Fixed “Destroyer of Realms” weapon turret throw animation
- “Damage resist” player stat now works properly
- Fixed “Second Chance” skill bug when player couldn’t die even if none enemy was killed
- Fixed bug when player frezees or looses weapon when damaged or killed during teleporting
- Enemies with “Swift” aura now return to correct speed after unfreezing
- Fixed “Belly” enemy animation when reacting to Grip of Darkness
- Fixed entering T-pose for enemies with uzi.
- Some cutscene fixes
- Some walkmesh fixes
- Some missions fixes
UI changes and fixes:
- Fixed crash when replacing gems in weapons
- Fixed bug when player couldn’t replace gem when all slots were occupied
- Hint area on loading screen now resizes correctly
- Added option to sell all junks with mouse, added confirmation dialog
- Corrected various translation and textual errors, added missing strings
- Fixed enemy “Tumor” mesh in Wanglopedia.
Multiplayer fixes:
- Performance issue for co-op partners fixed
- Fixed bug when “Bunny Lord” didn’t drop loot for clients
- Co-op network bandwidth usage optimizations
- Fixed bug when using “Emperor’s Touch” weapon produced excessive lags
- Fixed issue when client was not able to open Inventory or change weapons when using teleport during (or directly before) cutscene
Engine fixes:
- Fixed bug when game freezes on loading on 2-core CPUs
- AlienFX is now by default disabled due to crashes on some configs (add -alienfx to properties->general->set launch options in order to enable it)
- Added -nochroma switch (add -nochroma to properties->general->set launch options in order to disable Razer Chroma)
- Fixed shadow and geometry flickering
- Fixed recovering from GPU driver crash
- Non persistent console commands (e.g. r_weapon_fov) can now be loaded from autoexec.cfg
- Fixed crash when mfplat.dll is not present in system
- Optimized weapon switching CPU performance
- Fixed “DX11 Device not found” error on some notebooks
- HDR Display options are now only available when Full-Screen mode is selected (as only in this mode HDR Display works)
- Reduced audio stuttering (VO and music)
- Optimized shadow rendering performance
- On first game start dedicated GPU will be enabled instead of an integrated one
Photomode fixes:
- Increased exposure slider range
- Fixed slowmo after exiting photomode bug
- Fixed screenshot rendering (tile mode and anti-aliasing)
- Fixed FOV when entering photomode with weapon zoom enabled
- Fixed tiled screenshot mode artifacts (screenshot resolution multiplier > 1 screenshots)
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Now that’s what I call a patch.
That’s a ton of stuff they’ve updated/changed including alot to game balance. I finally felt like I was getting my feet under me to how this game operated now it’s back to the drawing board!
I love this game, absolutely no complaints graphics and performance wise, its great. Then menu’s can feel a bit labyrithine, especially when it comes to putting X upgrade into Y weapon. I’m not sure of the optimal way at all, so far I’ve been trying to make each weapon on the wheel be strong in an element. ie sub machine = ice bow and arrow = fire, etc. Not sure if that’s the most efrficent use or not, or if I should be mixing upgrades.
Did you watch TotalBiscuit’s review?
I’m not saying he’s the epitome of objectivity and perfect arbiter of taste in videogames, but he’s very knowledgeable in various gameplay mechanics and its combinations and unfortunately I have to agree with his quite negative opinion on those RPG elements, loot, crafting, elemental effects and this particular heterogenous form of their implementation into a FPS.
I’d pick Bordellands over this any day.
Anyway, resketp to those Polish devs for being able to put together such a good looking game, but it seems they lost sense of direction during development so to speak and changed/added a lot of unnecessary things just for the sake of change/milk a possible cash-cow in the popular “looter shooter” genre (Bordellands, Fur Cry, Destiny on Peasantation 4 etc.) and prioritized quantity of content over quality.
“I’d pick Bordellands over this any day.”
And you lost me.
The overrated mess that is the Borderlands IP never ceases to amaze me.
the only redeeming value of that series is how much content there is in them.
Can’t press F to pay tributes hard enough.
And maybe, just maybe, my magic conclusion-jumping skill might have been a tiiiiiny teeeeenay liiiiiitle bit OVER 9000!
“….Bordellands…any day…over this…*R. Pitchfork singing*…”time to wake up from this daymare!!!!
Let’s just forget that particular word combo has ever existed.
Memory works in mysteriously selective ways and truth be told the last iteration of Boredomlands was insufferably unoriginal.
I’ll have to start practicing my memory skill tree really hard because apparently it’s still quite underdeveloped.
Not to mention I was clearly under strong influence of Mr. Bain’s persuasive reasoning and forgot to take his typical cynical attitude of a worn-out professional critic who spends most of his time playing, assessing, talking and probably also dreaming about videogames into consideration.
But I’d still wait for a deep discount before purchasing SW 2; I guess the looter shooter genre lost its appeal to me.
Enjoy the game.
“Enjoy the game.”
Likewise ^^
(Y’know, whenever you end up picking it up, that is :P)
The gameplay of Borderlands is undoubtedly solid, which is why BL2 is still one of my go-to games As for everything else, yeah.
“something which I doubt SW2 can ever emulate. ”
has about as many skills and gems to simulate the different classes.
I haven’t played SW2 yet, but I doubt I’ll spend 1000+ hours with it like I have done for BL2.
as have i, but only because i did not have anything better.
I played it because I liked it though. Back when I started I hadn’t played a looter shooter before. And even now to me it’s still the best in that category. Only in terms of gameplay though… everything else is mediocre.
I’ll give you replay value in Borderlands, sure, otherwise, SW2 likewise has solid Gameplay, IMO.
Will eventually purchase it. Haven’t even finished playing through the first one due to a huge backlog. But yes, I love what I’ve seen so far.
Shadow warrior 2’s gameplay is better. The only thing borderlands has over this game is length and story.
I’ll check it out; it’s on my radar.
story? pfffft
I’ll pick Shadow Warrior 2 over Borderlands simply due to the better movement and core combat system.
TotalBiscuit was spot on with his thoughts but his concerns don’t bother me much. Sure the RPG elements, loot, crafting and elemental effects are half-baked but the game is still fun at it’s core- mowing through countless enemies. Really, I thought of following Borderlands’s looter shooter mentality when I first realized the similarity but after seeing the negligible rewards from the gems and crafting I turn back to Wang mode. Instead of going through a spreadsheet of barely discernible gems like how TotalBiscuit implied, I just look through the top 5 gems- the game even suggests the next best gem to put into your mix.
“I’d pick Bordellands over this any day”
NO. just NO, this game has much better visuals missions and combat than borderlands, in borderlands after a few quests you end up with weapons and shield at inferior levels than the one you are own, so many weapons stuck at some level, being innefective later on, while this game uses gems instead of the same guns with diffirent stats.
Borderlands was garbage.
As much as I agree with TB’s complaints, he went way overboard with it. He didn’t talk about the core gameplay and movement system that much, which is simply stellar. Also, the bullet spongy enemies aren’t as annoying to deal with as they seem. You just have to think like a ninja. If you’re overwhelmed, run out of there, use traps (there are many explosive barrels through the map), ambush them with invisbility, take each enemy from a distance with a bow, etc.
Are the looting and elemental gems kind of tacked on? Yeah, kinda, but you can still make something out of your weapons. I reserve 10 minutes in between missions to tinker around in the inventory and use my imagination. I just apply the most expensive gems (or those that I find useful) and sell the rest.
The result? I have poisoned scimitars, a revolver with rapid fire like I’m a gunslinger, a frosty double barreled shotgun, electric dual uzis, a fiery chainsaw with life drain, a bow with poisoned arrows that deals massive damage with a well-placed headshot (also have equipped with the charge ability), some fancy plasma shurikens and a plague-spreading rocket launcher.
I finally got Shadow Warrior 2 for myself on GOG. (I use paysafecard for my paying method… hey now they give you g2a gift cards when you recharge your account). Performance on my aging HD 7870 is pretty good, I get 60 FPS most of the time, but I have to set everything to low, apart from level of detail which is set to medium and resolution scale to 80% and it still looks nice. So far I have 8 hours into the game and really enjoying it, despite some technical niggles.
I’ve seen TB’s take, and what can I say I disagree on some pretty significant levels. I’m not someone who just hates on TB either, alot of times he does have some insightful stuff to add.
In the case of SW2 though I feel like he rushed into it, had a bad experience on hard difficulty setting and put that on the game instead of evaluating his own play choices. A pretty simple thing he doesn’t take into account, is matching elemental strenghts against t he enemies weakness. He states that SW2’s enemies are bullet sponges, unlike SW1.. except SW1 Insane dif offered up much more Bullet spongey enemies without any repreive. SW2’s enemies are only ammo dumps if you don’t take elemental strengths/weakeness into account which TB doesn’t at all in his review.
I’m not a huge Borderlands fan and would definitly take SW2 over BL’s. The big difference to me, and it’s one that literally effects every level of play is speed of play. SW2’s speed of play is what sets the tone for how you play the game. Borderlands battles while they can be fun happen on a whole other level gamespeed wise, this in turn affects tactics, traversal and just about everything else. That alone is a strong enough difference that it makes me skeptical of people that front the arguement that SW2 is just a BL’s clone.
dont play this game on hard if you dont like bullet sponges damn it.
dammit.. now my farming for skill points on NG+ with Arm of Orochi and gauss rifle comes to an end 😀
Excellent NG+ was piss easy. Super impressed with this patch.
it needs rebalance because – for example for me to get more skill points fastest way was to do story quest on ng+ again, instead of free roam, and also to use arm of orochi almost exclusively because of how good it is – now it’ll force me to diversify the arsenal making it more interesting and also better drops on insane difficulty will make it worth playing (hopefully) on free-roam so.. yeah, good changes all around!
“Serene Mind” skill nerfed
“Auto-Reload” skill nerfed
“Like the Wind skill” nerfed,”
weapons un nerfed? Or still weak?
Just Arm of Orochi, which is basically one of the worst weapons now. Honestly, auto reload didn’t need nerfing. If they want people to constantly switch out weapons, that skill was one of the biggest incentives.