It’s been awhile since we have given new information and that’s because we have been very...very busy. With what you may ask. So hold on to your sandbags and miasma mines, we are going to give a ton of details below!

Creating a Free to Play version of Block N Load is not something we were just going to “slap together” and in reality, we have touched nearly every single aspect of the game. You will still find the Heroes and gameplay you love, but with huge enhancements to the game that add new strategies, customization and gameplay. OK enough high level babble, some details below.

TL We pretty much touched every part of the game, and this first area of focus we are looking for feedback on the new Heroes with a Player Test Realm going live later this week. More of the below features will be brought online as the test server progresses.

What's new?...

Soft Currency

Gold Bars

We are introducing a new currency that is awarded for all sorts of things in the game. This is our “soft currency”. Play a match, level a hero, complete a challenge (more on that later), level your player level and you will get Gold Bars. These are then spent on various things in the game. Gold Bars can never be bought for real money and must be earned by playing.

Challenges

A good way to earn Gold Bars

Every day a player will get 3 challenges in the following categories:

• Single match challenge - something you can complete in a single match
  
• Multi match challenge - something that may take 2 or more matches to complete
  
• 24 hour challenge- something that will take 3 or more matches to complete, and you can “overachieve” for even more reward.

Some of these will be quite simple, play as “X” role, or place “Y” worth of bricks in devices while others are more skill based and performance. Each 24 hours any completed “slots” will be restocked with a new challenge, and a player can reject/pass on any 1 challenge once every 24 hours if they don’t want to attempt it and get a new one.

Perks

Customize and specialize your play

One of the major places you spend your Gold Bars is on perks. There are 3 categories of perks

• Offensive
  
• Defensive
  
• Hero

Every perk has a bonus, and minor negative a Hero gains when they are equipped, in addition each Perk has 3 tiers to upgrade that increase in power for each level.

In the lobby you can equip 1 from each category for a total of 3 perks brought into a match (although you can own as many as you like). Once you buy a Perk, it’s yours forever. Offensive and Defensive Perks can be used on any Hero once you unlock them but Hero perks are specific and can be only equipped by that Hero.
Examples:

Offensive Perk:
Dig That Ammo - Gain “X” ammo when digging/Lose “Y” base Hero ammo pool

• L1= 2%/2%
  
• L2= 5%/5%
  
• L3= 10%/10%

Defensive Perk:
Walk It Off - Take “X” less damage from splash damage and explosions/Movement speed is slower by “Y”

• L1= 10%/10%
  
• L2= 16%/12%
  
• L3= 20%/14%

Hero Perk:
Lil Buddy Boost - Turret health increased “X” and regenerates health slowly over time/ Turret does “Y” less damage

• L1= 35%/10%
  
• L2= 42%/15%
  
• L3= 50%/20%

There are 9 offensive Perks, 9 Defensive, and each Hero has 3 Perks that you can use to specialize/min max your play style.

We will be releasing more info (and complete lists) shortly. We are still balancing everything so numbers WILL change =)

Hero Leveling

With stats being adjusted with perks, old Hero leveling has been redone completely. You still level your active ability while leveling, but you will also receive soft currency rewards as you level your Hero. Your Hero will be at “full power” by level 10 and we have removed a lot of the “power” from leveling itself, and in addition we have moved the cap to level 100. If you want to play just sarge for a few hundred matches and earn soft currency, go crazy!

Player Leveling

We are removing Player Score completely, and are implementing a proper Player XP curve. You will earn soft currency at milestones as you level and there is NO CAP.

Your player score will be wiped (it does not exist anymore) and your Hero levels reset. We thought long and hard over this, but because of the complete change of how leveling works, and we give you soft currency while progressing, it was “more” fair to reset it all.

Matchmaking

Behind the scenes we have fixed and adjusted a great deal with player matching and how MMR is dealing with teams. We have also added an extra layer (invisible to players) that deals with new players specifically that will heavily bias them to play amongst themselves.

Single/Duo Queue

We will be launching with players only being able to queue solo or duo. We have seen in data that 5 man premade teams were facing players in pick up groups too often and thrashing them so we are addressing this.

5 man premade squads can still play and practice on Custom games, but not in the main queue. As we increase CCU we will revisit this and increase it , or create a bespoke 5 man premade queue.

New Heroes

What would a major update be without new Heroes? We are adding 3 new Heroes to the lineup. Details to follow!

Player Test Server

With so many changes and updates, we need to playtest a ton to get it balanced. To this end we will be announcing a player test realm where many of these features will be available to play, test, and feedback on. This should be live this week, and we are looking forward to your playing matches with you all. We will also be setting up a forum for you to post on and we will be working very closely with any participants. There will be a separate post about how to get into this server, as well as other details.

Store

Content of the store, so what can I buy?

Premium currency only:

• Hero Skins
  
• Block Skins
  
• XP doubler
  
• Gold doubler

Both Premium and Soft currency:

• Heroes

Soft Currency only:

• Perks

As you can see we are very firmly against pay to win. If there is any power to be had, it can be totally earned by playing the game, and in some cases (perks) ONLY by playing the game. Details and specifics to come.

What happens to my stats/levels/attributes after the F2P relaunch?

If you bought Block N Load before the F2P relaunch you will get:

• Tony
  
• Sarge
  
• OP
  
• Eliza
  
• Nigel
  
• Cog
  
• Sweet
  
• Astarella
  
• Genie

Plus all the skins you COULD have unlocked, both block and Hero regardless if you did or not through play. This does not include seasonal or promotional skins. We will also be awarding a skin that ONLY players who owned the game will receive in addition to this.

Additional Features

There are a few other features that will be coming online, maybe for launch, maybe shortly after, we are just sorting out the timing. Some of them are really big deals, and we will release more info once we feel more comfortable.

As you can see there is a lot of new things going into the game and we are very excited to get the updated Block N Load in front of people and see what they think, to get it ready for launch and most importantly make it fun. We are looking forward to seeing you online!


Ben “Can8dnBen” Smedstad
Creative/Design Director.