Big Balance Update, Version 0.9.9.6.2
We've been busy on testing branch for the last couple of weeks. Our focus this time has been general balance for the game based on player feedback, and we've made pretty extensive changes to difficulty and loot progression for both Horde Mode and Open World.
Also in this update, some big shotgun buffs I've been wanting to do for awhile. They just seemed too weak to me, outside of boss fights. And "outside of boss fights" is most of the game, where you're fighting giant groups of enemies so you really want something with cleave/penetration to deal with the crowds. Due to this, all shotguns now have 1 penetration, so every shotgun pellet can potentially hit 2 enemies instead of 1.
We're getting very close to the 1.0 launch! I'll post news on that when we get closer to it, but it's likely that this will happen some time in May. Please give us any feedback on the updates using the Official Discord or Twitter, links to them are in-game on the title menu.
[h2]Quick Summary of Update Changes[/h2]
- Lots of buffs for shotguns, especially the one that makes all shotguns have bullet penetration through one enemy
- Buffs for other underperforming weapons, such as tier 2 and 3 melee weapons
- Bosses and enemies in general are now much easier to stun
- Many tweaks for throwing items
- A lot of difficulty changes and tweaks, generally a slower ramp up of difficulty in Open World and a higher ramp up in Horde Defense
- New weapon upgrading system for Horde Mode
[h2]Major Changes[/h2]
- Many weapon tweaks, mostly buffs for underperforming weapons, higher tier melee, and the shotguns
- Lots of difficulty tweaking for the Open World modes, both Normal and Hard difficulties
- More chances for higher tier loot in Open World
- Faster XP gain in Horde Mode
- Weapons in Horde Mode are cheaper
- 12 turret building limit in Horde Mode!
- Less buildable space in Horde Mode
- Changed how throwable items are used. Use Item button primes it, then shooting throws it
- Bandages will be automatically added to your quick use slot if you have none equipped
- Character actions now only work with the screen focused
- You can hold SPACE to skip prologue cutscenes
- Enemies will sometimes attack the nearest turret
- Lola can now block and parry while drunk
[h2]Weapon Balancing[/h2]
- Shotguns all buffed to penetrate through 1 enemy, a massive buff
- Hunting Rifle now penetrates through 2 enemies, but gets a small damage nerf, 45 to 40 base
- Tactical Rifle, SWATTER, Minigun, and Minishark all buffed to penetrate through 1 enemy
- The Lighter and Flamethrower get 1 penetration value again
- Tier 1 and Tier 0 loot chances lowered much more as the days pass, making Tier 2 loot more common than it was before
- Shotgun range tweaks, generally now slightly shorter range but faster moving buckshot
- Street Sweeper now fires faster, 0.3 -> 0.25
- Auto Gun fire rate buffed 0.1 -> 0.06
- Super Scoper fire rate buffed to twice as fast, 1 -> 0.5
- Tier 2 and Tier 3 melee weapons lose durability slower
- Buffs to most tier 2 and tier 3 melee weapons, mostly for stamina efficiency
- Buster Sword damage buffed from 40 to 53
- Katana damage buff from 26 to 30, and speed buff from .15 seconds to .12 per swing
- Laserblade big damage nerf if the durability gets too low
- Laserblade now no longer uses battery energy, and can't be repaired
- Door Mines now take 5 seconds to explode when triggered, and prevent the door from being taken down during this
- A bunch of throwing weapons drop rate tweaks, with Door Mines and Water Balloons also now Tier 2
- Much easier stunning for bosses, they lose their stun values much more slowly
- Bosses lose their damage resistance now when stunned
- Reduced Stun breakpoint of Tentacle so it's easier to stun now, 150 -> 100
- Boss stun duration reduced 6 seconds -> 5
- All enemy stun values also easier to stun, same as bosses
- Nails Grenade nerf as the multihits were making it do way more damage than I thought, damage 100 -> 40 and stun 50 -> 20
- The Lighter now takes less premium parts to upgrade, it was using Tier 3 values before when the weapon is only Tier 2
[h2]Changes for the Open World Modes[/h2]
- Victory counter added to character select screen
- Fixed the bosses killed counter for a game being reset if you saved and loaded. This was messing up the endings
- Clamp on enemies limit per day, so crazy unlucky enemy amounts should not happen as much
- Missions no longer disappear when a horde or hunting party is up, they just reposition
- Survivor Sandbox: Survivors respawn with 50% food and life minimum
- Sandbox mode respawn updated
- Structures recover by 30% every dawn in Adventure Mode
- Update for the NPC quests, most will now give a specific tier 1, level 3 weapon and ammo specific to that quest. For example, Father Time will now reward a level 3 Revolver with 40 ammo
- More enemy types the later you go for the ending events
- Midbosses now get more health and damage based on how many previous midbosses you've killed, and no longer based on how many days have passed
- Midbosses spawn in set points now, instead of randomly in a building. Mostly done so the Piggy Bankers don't get stuck in the bank vault
- Shift+Q to change missions prompt moved so it blocks less
- You now get the base building mini-tutorial mission as soon as you complete the skill point spend mission
- Tutorial missions now moved up to the first slot
- Reduced the amount of enemies summoned by noise by 50%
- Amount of waves in Shots prologue quest reduced to 2, from 3
- Fix for radio messages
- Collider for bridge tank area fixed
- Fix for storage carts and its position on save restore
- Update for map position/scale and icons displayed
- Difficulty adjustement for enemy humans damage
- Stan Shop Repair and Upgrade items only applies to current equipped weapon
- Alterations to the Radio Missions to make it get stuck less on one mission type
- Got rid of the Memories missions completely, as they were more boring versions of the Clean Up Area missions
- Reduced human spawn chance, day and night, to about half in all 3 modes
- Tripled all human weight numbers except Scientist, to make them more rare
[h3]Normal Mode[/h3]
- Much more gradual progression of Cannibal Group sizes, with lower values in the early days
- Slightly slower progression of negative waves
- Negatives shouldn't spawn during the day in first couple days
[h3]Hard Mode[/h3]
- Human quantity day spawn ends at 10 instead of 9
- Smoother progression of Cannibal Quantity Day spawns, but nearly the same
[h3]Nightmare Mode (Work in Progress)[/h3]
- Human quantity spawns at day set to 12 up from 9
- Slight increase and leveling out of Cannibal day spawn quantities
[h2]Horde Mode Changes[/h2]
- New Workbench weapon improvement system in Horde Mode
- Connecting players in Horde Mode should now have a pause menu, which they can use to exit
- Horde Mode tutorial should stop playing if you've done it already
- Turret building limits, currently you can build 12 at a time now
- Coin counts update 50% faster
- Clamp on character creation values to reduce bugs
- Discount bug fixed for cooking
- Kitchen now makes a sound when purchasing food
- Reduced buildable area in Horde Mode by two tiles per side
- Stop Sign Shield now available in starting pre-wave "Weapon O Matic"
- More weapon improvement tweaks for Horde Mode
- Horde price adjustments for tier 2 and 3 weapons
- More Bonus XP in Horde
- In Horde Mode, more players now makes the size of each enemy group spawn in a single wave bigger. This means bigger groups and more danger with more players, instead of inflated playing times that made the last waves slow
- Fix for Horde Mode multiplayer XP sharing
- Fix for showing proper coins for player one in Horde
- Fix for Horde Mode game over screen player heads looking weird
- Buff in Horde for the Smelter
- XP buffs for all the Horde scenarios, so you level up a bit faster
- Fixed some floating eye sync issues in multiplayer
- Tweaks for horde vending machine menus, such as being able to buy with keyboard buttons in addition to mouse
- Possible fix for weirdness when the host player dies in Horde Mode
- Discount bug fix for Horde Mode
- Fix for a slowdown issue in Horde
- Life bar fix for Horde Mode
- Online fixes
[h2]Tweaks and Fixes[/h2]
- Restriction for how closely you can build base lighting
- Purple Eyes now have a brief startup period for their laser before it starts doing damage
- Fix for turrets shooting the player
- Fix for player damage immunity
- Fixed a player animation issue in cutscenes
- Fix for a revive bug
- Enemies no longer destroy environmental objects when you're in the map or inventory
- Removed "None" and "ToDo" placeholder items on game load
- Cannibals will no longer try to use null sprite objects (they were trying to use shields, that caused this)
- Increased the size of the Upgrade/Repair window
- Removed unused weapon blueprints (Shotgun, Boomstick, Hunting Rifle, Ballistic Bow, Rambow, Crossbow)
- Enemy laser rifled damage reduced
- Firefighter Midboss axe throw now does much more damage
- Fix for the home beacon compass icon glitching out
- Interaction UI fix
- Possible fix for enemies shooting more often than they should
- Fix for use of shotguns in quick slot
- Fix in multiplayer for player two getting the health up perks
- Mouse cursor now visible again when pausing, even if you're on a gamepad
- Fix for firefighter animation
- Upgrading base buildings now mentions the building's name
- Nerf Gun now drops premium parts when broken
- Close combat weapons now flash on loss durability
- Loot Notes quest fixes
- Fix for a UI issues
- Fixes for controls interactions
- Fix for a black screen tutorial bug
- Tweaks to controller connect/disconnect behavior
- Fix for some midboss attacks working on pause menu
- Fix for a bug involving the custom controls display
- Fix for a container graphic
- SHIFT+Q to change missions prompt removed if you hit ESC for the buttons menu
- Spanish grammar change
Also in this update, some big shotgun buffs I've been wanting to do for awhile. They just seemed too weak to me, outside of boss fights. And "outside of boss fights" is most of the game, where you're fighting giant groups of enemies so you really want something with cleave/penetration to deal with the crowds. Due to this, all shotguns now have 1 penetration, so every shotgun pellet can potentially hit 2 enemies instead of 1.
We're getting very close to the 1.0 launch! I'll post news on that when we get closer to it, but it's likely that this will happen some time in May. Please give us any feedback on the updates using the Official Discord or Twitter, links to them are in-game on the title menu.
[h2]Quick Summary of Update Changes[/h2]
- Lots of buffs for shotguns, especially the one that makes all shotguns have bullet penetration through one enemy
- Buffs for other underperforming weapons, such as tier 2 and 3 melee weapons
- Bosses and enemies in general are now much easier to stun
- Many tweaks for throwing items
- A lot of difficulty changes and tweaks, generally a slower ramp up of difficulty in Open World and a higher ramp up in Horde Defense
- New weapon upgrading system for Horde Mode
Full List of Changes (Version 0.9.9.6.2)
[h2]Major Changes[/h2]
- Many weapon tweaks, mostly buffs for underperforming weapons, higher tier melee, and the shotguns
- Lots of difficulty tweaking for the Open World modes, both Normal and Hard difficulties
- More chances for higher tier loot in Open World
- Faster XP gain in Horde Mode
- Weapons in Horde Mode are cheaper
- 12 turret building limit in Horde Mode!
- Less buildable space in Horde Mode
- Changed how throwable items are used. Use Item button primes it, then shooting throws it
- Bandages will be automatically added to your quick use slot if you have none equipped
- Character actions now only work with the screen focused
- You can hold SPACE to skip prologue cutscenes
- Enemies will sometimes attack the nearest turret
- Lola can now block and parry while drunk
[h2]Weapon Balancing[/h2]
- Shotguns all buffed to penetrate through 1 enemy, a massive buff
- Hunting Rifle now penetrates through 2 enemies, but gets a small damage nerf, 45 to 40 base
- Tactical Rifle, SWATTER, Minigun, and Minishark all buffed to penetrate through 1 enemy
- The Lighter and Flamethrower get 1 penetration value again
- Tier 1 and Tier 0 loot chances lowered much more as the days pass, making Tier 2 loot more common than it was before
- Shotgun range tweaks, generally now slightly shorter range but faster moving buckshot
- Street Sweeper now fires faster, 0.3 -> 0.25
- Auto Gun fire rate buffed 0.1 -> 0.06
- Super Scoper fire rate buffed to twice as fast, 1 -> 0.5
- Tier 2 and Tier 3 melee weapons lose durability slower
- Buffs to most tier 2 and tier 3 melee weapons, mostly for stamina efficiency
- Buster Sword damage buffed from 40 to 53
- Katana damage buff from 26 to 30, and speed buff from .15 seconds to .12 per swing
- Laserblade big damage nerf if the durability gets too low
- Laserblade now no longer uses battery energy, and can't be repaired
- Door Mines now take 5 seconds to explode when triggered, and prevent the door from being taken down during this
- A bunch of throwing weapons drop rate tweaks, with Door Mines and Water Balloons also now Tier 2
- Much easier stunning for bosses, they lose their stun values much more slowly
- Bosses lose their damage resistance now when stunned
- Reduced Stun breakpoint of Tentacle so it's easier to stun now, 150 -> 100
- Boss stun duration reduced 6 seconds -> 5
- All enemy stun values also easier to stun, same as bosses
- Nails Grenade nerf as the multihits were making it do way more damage than I thought, damage 100 -> 40 and stun 50 -> 20
- The Lighter now takes less premium parts to upgrade, it was using Tier 3 values before when the weapon is only Tier 2
[h2]Changes for the Open World Modes[/h2]
- Victory counter added to character select screen
- Fixed the bosses killed counter for a game being reset if you saved and loaded. This was messing up the endings
- Clamp on enemies limit per day, so crazy unlucky enemy amounts should not happen as much
- Missions no longer disappear when a horde or hunting party is up, they just reposition
- Survivor Sandbox: Survivors respawn with 50% food and life minimum
- Sandbox mode respawn updated
- Structures recover by 30% every dawn in Adventure Mode
- Update for the NPC quests, most will now give a specific tier 1, level 3 weapon and ammo specific to that quest. For example, Father Time will now reward a level 3 Revolver with 40 ammo
- More enemy types the later you go for the ending events
- Midbosses now get more health and damage based on how many previous midbosses you've killed, and no longer based on how many days have passed
- Midbosses spawn in set points now, instead of randomly in a building. Mostly done so the Piggy Bankers don't get stuck in the bank vault
- Shift+Q to change missions prompt moved so it blocks less
- You now get the base building mini-tutorial mission as soon as you complete the skill point spend mission
- Tutorial missions now moved up to the first slot
- Reduced the amount of enemies summoned by noise by 50%
- Amount of waves in Shots prologue quest reduced to 2, from 3
- Fix for radio messages
- Collider for bridge tank area fixed
- Fix for storage carts and its position on save restore
- Update for map position/scale and icons displayed
- Difficulty adjustement for enemy humans damage
- Stan Shop Repair and Upgrade items only applies to current equipped weapon
- Alterations to the Radio Missions to make it get stuck less on one mission type
- Got rid of the Memories missions completely, as they were more boring versions of the Clean Up Area missions
- Reduced human spawn chance, day and night, to about half in all 3 modes
- Tripled all human weight numbers except Scientist, to make them more rare
[h3]Normal Mode[/h3]
- Much more gradual progression of Cannibal Group sizes, with lower values in the early days
- Slightly slower progression of negative waves
- Negatives shouldn't spawn during the day in first couple days
[h3]Hard Mode[/h3]
- Human quantity day spawn ends at 10 instead of 9
- Smoother progression of Cannibal Quantity Day spawns, but nearly the same
[h3]Nightmare Mode (Work in Progress)[/h3]
- Human quantity spawns at day set to 12 up from 9
- Slight increase and leveling out of Cannibal day spawn quantities
[h2]Horde Mode Changes[/h2]
- New Workbench weapon improvement system in Horde Mode
- Connecting players in Horde Mode should now have a pause menu, which they can use to exit
- Horde Mode tutorial should stop playing if you've done it already
- Turret building limits, currently you can build 12 at a time now
- Coin counts update 50% faster
- Clamp on character creation values to reduce bugs
- Discount bug fixed for cooking
- Kitchen now makes a sound when purchasing food
- Reduced buildable area in Horde Mode by two tiles per side
- Stop Sign Shield now available in starting pre-wave "Weapon O Matic"
- More weapon improvement tweaks for Horde Mode
- Horde price adjustments for tier 2 and 3 weapons
- More Bonus XP in Horde
- In Horde Mode, more players now makes the size of each enemy group spawn in a single wave bigger. This means bigger groups and more danger with more players, instead of inflated playing times that made the last waves slow
- Fix for Horde Mode multiplayer XP sharing
- Fix for showing proper coins for player one in Horde
- Fix for Horde Mode game over screen player heads looking weird
- Buff in Horde for the Smelter
- XP buffs for all the Horde scenarios, so you level up a bit faster
- Fixed some floating eye sync issues in multiplayer
- Tweaks for horde vending machine menus, such as being able to buy with keyboard buttons in addition to mouse
- Possible fix for weirdness when the host player dies in Horde Mode
- Discount bug fix for Horde Mode
- Fix for a slowdown issue in Horde
- Life bar fix for Horde Mode
- Online fixes
[h2]Tweaks and Fixes[/h2]
- Restriction for how closely you can build base lighting
- Purple Eyes now have a brief startup period for their laser before it starts doing damage
- Fix for turrets shooting the player
- Fix for player damage immunity
- Fixed a player animation issue in cutscenes
- Fix for a revive bug
- Enemies no longer destroy environmental objects when you're in the map or inventory
- Removed "None" and "ToDo" placeholder items on game load
- Cannibals will no longer try to use null sprite objects (they were trying to use shields, that caused this)
- Increased the size of the Upgrade/Repair window
- Removed unused weapon blueprints (Shotgun, Boomstick, Hunting Rifle, Ballistic Bow, Rambow, Crossbow)
- Enemy laser rifled damage reduced
- Firefighter Midboss axe throw now does much more damage
- Fix for the home beacon compass icon glitching out
- Interaction UI fix
- Possible fix for enemies shooting more often than they should
- Fix for use of shotguns in quick slot
- Fix in multiplayer for player two getting the health up perks
- Mouse cursor now visible again when pausing, even if you're on a gamepad
- Fix for firefighter animation
- Upgrading base buildings now mentions the building's name
- Nerf Gun now drops premium parts when broken
- Close combat weapons now flash on loss durability
- Loot Notes quest fixes
- Fix for a UI issues
- Fixes for controls interactions
- Fix for a black screen tutorial bug
- Tweaks to controller connect/disconnect behavior
- Fix for some midboss attacks working on pause menu
- Fix for a bug involving the custom controls display
- Fix for a container graphic
- SHIFT+Q to change missions prompt removed if you hit ESC for the buttons menu
- Spanish grammar change