CULTIC News

[p]Hello all![/p][p][/p][p]I'm really hoping this is the last major patch for this beta branch and it can move on to the public branch, but I crammed some pretty significant changes in here so I expect there are probably gonna be some edge cases (or not-so-edge cases) that I missed when testing stuff out. Fingers crossed, but as always, let me know in the Bug Reporting forum if something is amiss![/p][p][/p][h3]Changes[/h3]

• [p]Burn Damage has been completely rewritten for all non-boss enemies. Previously, burn damage was applied against an enemy's "burn threshold", and if that value exceeded their current HP, they entered a burning state. This system seems to be a bit more confusing than intended and can also result in molotovs/flares/etc. sometimes feeling like they aren't dealing any damage, if the enemy has a high enough burn threshold / enough health to withstand the burn damage. The burn damage model has been changed so all burn damage is now applied as basic damage, and if the burn damage deals the final fatal damage, the enemy will ignite. This has a few advantages:[/p]
  • [p]An enemy such as a Peacekeeper or Harvester who is hit with a molotov/lantern/etc. will take continuous damage, and even if they don't take enough damage to fully ignite, they will still have taken a ton of damage from the flame particles and be easier to finish off.[/p]
  • [p]Enemies can be started burning with flame weapons, and then hosed down with damage from other weapons, which will whittle away their HP on top of the fire which is also burning away their HP, so a tough enemy such as a Peacekeeper who would normally soak up an entire molotov, could be made to catch fire by dealing a little bit of extra damage while he's burning. You could do this with the old damage system but less efficiently.[/p]
  • [p]Enemies will not be able to put themselves out by jumping into water, since they have to be at 0 HP to ignite to begin with. Enemies that are currently burning from a flame weapon that jump into water will not take additional burn damage until they leave the water, but if they're already in their burning state, it will still be fatal.[/p]
  • [p]Players using the "Show Damage Numbers" option will be able to see a more straightforward representation of the damage enemies are taking.[/p]
• [p]Enemies that are immune to burn damage will now immediately extinguish any flame particles stuck to them, making it more apparent when fire is ineffective against them.[/p]
• [p]The Harvester now aims his hook near the top of your collider, meaning that it can be reliably crouched under now - just make sure you crouch after he throws the hook - if you crouch early, he'll just throw it at your head's crouched position instead.[/p]
• [p]The Harvester's Hook travel speed has been slightly reduced[/p]
• [p]Selecting a Custom/Map Loadout from Scene Select and starting on The Manor will now cram the selected loadout into the player's Stolen Gear, while still spawning the player with no equipment.[/p]
• [p]Chapter Start Maps (E1M1, E2M0 "Interlude", E2M1, etc.) will no longer forcibly wipe the player's loadout, so you should be able to use Custom/Scene Select loadouts to start a new run of Ch.1/Interlude/2.[/p]

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Mopped up some outstanding instances where the Screen Shake/Tilt settings weren't being applied, resulting in screen shaking/tilting even when turned to zero[/p]
• [p]Custom Loadout Ammo sliders for Shotgun/TNT/Molotovs have been fixed to have the proper max values[/p]
• [p]Using the "Load Saved Loadout" function for Custom Loadouts should now properly apply upgrades from that save file[/p]
• [p]The player's bullet tracer origin was fixed on a few weapons where it was spawning in an improper location[/p]
• [p]Damage Numbers, when enabled, should now properly reflect burn damage[/p]
• [p]Infested Armor/Arbalist enemies now properly take impact damage from Incinerator projectiles[/p]
• [p]Enemies that were in a burning state when the game was saved should now properly load in dead[/p]

[p]EDIT 2 --[/p][p][/p][p]Another small hotfix to apply the automap fix to Manual/Most Recent loads, rather than just Quickloads[/p][p][/p][p]EDIT --[/p][p]A small hotfix was released to push this to v.201d to fix an issue with messages getting cut off. Didn't think it needed it's own post, so I'm just adding it on here![/p][p][/p][p]Hello all![/p][p][/p][p]Hope everyone is enjoying Chapter Two and having a great spooky season so far![/p][p]Had to pause Ch.2 patches for a bit as I worked on an update for Bonerooms for a charity stream, but now I'm back to work on getting the Automap Beta ready for the main branch![/p][p]There are a few significant changes and additions, full details below![/p][p][/p][h3]Changes[/h3]

• [p]The Flare Gun now has 3 charges instead of being single-shot, and has a new sprite and reloading animation to boot! Due to this change, some flare guns may be removed in the future (such as the third flare gun in Old Town) to balance the newly available charges[/p]
• [p]The finale segment in E2M2 Newbrook Shopping Center has been re-configured so it no longer involves an ongoing sequence, allowing saving to be possible.[/p]
• [p]System/Pickup messages have been completely overhauled and now include some fancy icons, color coded highlights, and a priority system so that some messages like Secrets Found and such will stay visible longer and not get pushed offscreen.
  [/p][p][/p]
• [p]Trying to Quicksave when saves are not allowed will prompt a unique error message with a sound prompt.[/p]
• [p]Peacekeepers are now guaranteed to drop a loot item, and will drop either a First Aid Kit or a full SASG.[/p]
• [p]The "Spawn Aggression" in E2M6 (Old Town) has been lowered, so enemy groups will spawn slower with longer cooldowns. This nerf to the spawn routine is more significant on lower difficulties.[/p]

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• [p]The Automap should no longer wipe itself after save/loads - map colors were being correctly loaded from file, but the actual byte data was not being applied, so it appeared to keep your map data after one load, but it would be lost on the next save/load.[/p]
• [p]Snow should no longer be visible inside the Haunted Dungeon on E2M7[/p]
• [p]Occlusion data has been rebaked for E2M7, which should hopefully clear up a significant culling issue.[/p]

[p][/p]

[p]Hello everyone![/p][p][/p][p]Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to check out the automap and leave feedback! I've got a small patch out now for the beta branch with a few minor tweaks. [/p][p]If you run into an issue where your map exploration data isn't saving/loading properly, and can replicate it, please drop a thread in the Bug Reporting sub-forum and let me know! Had a couple of reports of that but I haven't been able to replicate it on my end.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Discovered secrets are now marked on the map[/p]
• [p]Map Details / Stats are now shown on the map screen [/p]
• [p]"Map Custom Marker" is now rebindable on M+KB[/p]
• [p]"Map" is now rebindable on M+KB[/p]
• [p]The Map Mask now defaults to the smallest size to avoid confusion in smaller, unexplored areas[/p]
• [p]The final boss' weakpoint should properly emit blood particles instead of dust puffs[/p]

[p]Hello all![/p][p][/p][p]CULTIC v.201 is now out on the beta branch! This update contains numerous bugfixes, some further minor ammo adjustments, and most importantly, the new Automap![/p][p]Thanks to everyone for their patience as I cobbled this update together. I've never really built or coded an Automap system like this before, so it was a lot of learning! It was challenging but honestly quite a lot of fun to work on. [/p][p]Give it a whirl, and if you encounter issues or have feedback on the map, please drop me a thread on the appropriate sub-forum! Enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Automap[/h3][p]The automap is complete and available on all campaign maps. The Automap will track what parts of the map you have discovered and explored, as well as mark locked doors that you interact with, and mark some objectives. Be on the lookout for text logs that can contain map markers for certain keys and items![/p][p]Players can tumble, zoom, and pan the map, and change heights. You can quickly Recenter the map at any time, and adjust the amount of masking applied to parts of the map that block your view of your focal point. You can also toggle a single Custom Marker at any point on the map, if you want to remind yourself of a location to return to.[/p][p][/p][p]Map Options[/p][p]You can find new Map Options under Options > Accessibility! These options include:[/p]

• [p]Map Mode[/p]
  • [p]Map + Markers - Displays the map, and any markers[/p]
  • [p]Map Only - Displays only the map, excluding markers[/p]
  • [p]Disabled - Disables the map entirely.[/p]
• [p]Map Palette - Allows you to change the color palette used for the map[/p]
• [p]Map Color Filtering - Toggle whether CULTIC's color palette will be applied to the map or ignored. The Color Filtering may hamper the readability of the map in dense vertically stacked areas, but is more faithful to the "look and feel" of CULTIC, if you want to enable it.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Unity Security Exploit[/h3][p]With V.201 of CULTIC, the game is now using an updated version of Unity, which has been patched to fix the security exploit discovered last week.[/p][p][/p][h3]Additions[/h3][p][/p]

• [p]A new text log in The Swamp near the blasting plunger contains map markers for the demolition charges[/p]
• [p]A new text log in The Slaughterhouse near the front gate contains map markers for the Gate Keys[/p]
• [p]A new text log in The Farm near the blasting plunger contains map markers for the demolition charges[/p]
• [p]A new text log in The Manor near the first Book now strongly hints that all of the remaining books are outdoors, as some players were spending a lot of time scouring the indoor areas for them[/p]
• [p]A new text log in The Bunker near the first valve contains map markers for the remaining valves.[/p]
• [p]A few more molotovs were added throughout early segments of Chapter Two[/p]
• [p]A few additional resources were added to the beginning of The Fairgrounds to help further resupply the player after Old Town.[/p]
• [p]Magnum rounds were added to the Bunker boss arena, as there were previously none there.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Changes[/h3]

• [p]The text log in The Shipyard detailing the location of the Captain's Key now adds a map marker as well[/p]
• [p]The text log in The Fairgrounds detailing the locations of the power switches now also adds map markers for them[/p]
• [p]The Devourers in the flooding chamber of The Bunker have been removed[/p]
• [p]The valve in the flooding chamber of The Bunker has been moved to just after the chamber, as players were commonly missing it amidst all of the chaos of the fight. The small room previously containing the valve has been moved higher up in the chamber as well.[/p]
• [p]The valves in The Bunker were adjusted to squeakily rotate back to their starting position if not turned fully, as some players were mistakenly letting go too early thinking they had fully turned the valves.[/p]
• [p]The first teddy bear in The Train Station has been removed, since it is considered part of the first "zone" and would despawn when leaving that area. The teddy bear for that map is located in the final segment.[/p]
• [p]One of the demolition charges from The Farm has been removed, with it now requiring only 3.[/p]

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• [p]The new Chapter Two survival maps should now properly store local scores under the correct map ID.[/p]
• [p]The teddy bear icon on the Results screen should now properly display if you skip the results.[/p]
• [p]The BB gun should no longer use the damage value of the weapon you were last holding.[/p]
• [p]The "Prop Sniping" achievement should now be working properly, no longer counting any kills from 25m+, and correctly checking for damage dealt by thrown props.[/p]
• [p]Unlit TNT bundles that are picked up now give the actual TNT weapon, rather than just TNT "ammo"[/p]
• [p]A bug that was causing difficulty-dependent enemy spawns to not work properly in a specific scenario has been fixed[/p]
• [p]A bug related to the above spawn bug that was causing some enemies to be immortal has been fixed[/p]
• [p]The "Betrayal" achievement should now count all of the boss' attacks, other than those that do not normally deal infighting damage.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where Armored Amalgamation could cancel his death animation if the player was within melee range during it[/p]
• [p]A couple of decorative unhinged doors in The Fairgrounds castle have been fixed to no longer be openable[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello everyone![/p][p][/p][p]Since we're about two weeks post-launch, I wanted to get another dev log out and catch everyone up on where I'm at with everything CULTIC![/p][p]Overall, launch has still been going well, and I want to give a big thanks to everyone who has been posting valuable feedback and helping with troubleshooting tricky bugs! [/p][p]The next update is going to be an actual full patch, bringing CULTIC up to version 2.01. With this version, I'm going to be trying to tackle all of the current bugs that I can replicate, as well as tackle one of the two most commonly reported issues - navigation in Chapter Two's larger maps.[/p][p]You can read on below for more details on all of this, but the Automap is mostly finished already, with all maps for all levels complete, all objective markers that I wanted to add are completed, and things seem to be working! I need to make some readability adjustments to the map shader and do some testing, but I'm hoping this will be ready for the beta branch within the next week![/p][p][/p][h3]Automap[/h3][p][/p][p]Navigation has by far been the most common issue players have run into besides ammo/resources (which is trickier to tackle, I'll cover that further below), and unlike resource usage, navigation is not really meant to be part of the difficulty. I really didn't receive many issues from QA from navigation throughout playtesting, but that's the trouble with a small sample size! [/p][p]I burned some serious midnight oil over the last week and got a fully functioning Automap put together! With this map system, the map starts out hidden, with a somewhat large radius marked as "discovered" as you walk around, getting painted in a dark color, and then a smaller radius is marked as "explored" getting painted a lighter color, so players should more easily be able to track where they've been and what they can still go explore. [/p][p]Any locked doors you try to open will also be marked on your map, allowing for much easier recall of where you can return to to try out new keys you've acquired.[/p][p]The map can be freely tumbled/panned, and I've also got a separate mode where you can view the map from your current first-person perspective, making orientation a snap in more complex/vertically stacked areas.[/p][p][/p][h3]Key Features[/h3]

• [p]Dynamic map that reveals ground as you explore and marks nearby ground as "explored"[/p]
• [p]Map markers for some objectives to aid in finding key items[/p]
• [p]Map markers for previously visited locked doors[/p]
• [p]Multiple map modes to suit player's preferences:[/p]
  • [p]Map + Markers[/p]
  • [p]Map Only[/p]
  • [p]Map Disabled[/p]
• [p]Tumble, pan, zoom, and height controls[/p]
• [p]A quick re-center hotkey to return to the player's position[/p]
• [p]A first-person map mode[/p]
• [p]A few map color palettes[/p]

[p]With the addition of map markers for some objectives, an adjustment was also made to how readable notes work, so some readable notes can now provide the player with map markers. This change involved also needing to know if a note was read yet or not, so now readable notes also have a little glow to them if they haven't been read yet![/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]I do understand that most players didn't have much issue with navigation, or did to some degree but overall enjoy the exploration, but unfortunately this was not everyone's experience. The different map modes should be a good option for everyone's needs - if you feel the markers are unnecessary, you can try Map Only mode, where only map exploration is tracked! If you prefer the classic experience, you can disable it altogether as well.[/p][p]If you want to see some more technical info on the Automap, I've got that at the end of this post if you keep scrolling down![/p][p][/p][h3]Ammo Updates[/h3][p]After navigation issues, the concerns about ammo/resource availability was definitely the second most common issue. I'm continuing to monitor feedback on this and weighing some options. I mentioned this in the previous dev log too, but this issue is a bit trickier because CULTIC does lean into the survival-horror aspect to a degree, and there is intentional design in the ammo economy, and the majority of the playerbase has been enjoying the resource-minded gameplay - so I need to be really careful in my approach to this as I don't want to trivialize the game for the majority of players to solve an issue affecting a small percentage of players.[/p][p]HOWEVER - that does not mean that no steps have been taken or no further steps will be taken, just that I'm being a bit more careful in the approach. [/p][p][/p][p]Ammo Changes Made So Far:[/p]

• [p]Shotgun Ammo Box pickups were increased in value slightly from 12 > 14[/p]
• [p]Magnum Ammo Box pickups were increased in value slightly from 8 > 10[/p]
• [p]A significant amount of resources were added to Old Town to aid players in that fight[/p]
• [p]A significant amount of resources, including a mounted machinegun, were added to the Bunker boss arena[/p]
• [p]A few more molotovs were added to early game areas so players can experiment with them more[/p]
• [p]Penetration value of Sniper weapons was increased from 2 > 3, matching the Lever Action and Revolver[/p]

[p]Changes coming in 2.01[/p]

• [p]Magnum rounds will be added to the Bunker boss arena, as I realized there currently aren't any at all[/p]
• [p]A small sprinkling of Molotovs will be added throughout all of Chapter Two so they're not quite so scarce[/p]
• [p]Re-supply points after larger fights will be re-evaluated to see if they need souped up for players who run dry during those fights[/p]
• [p]All maps will be audited to try and identify significant gaps in resource availability - e.g. long periods of time where there are no pickups for a particular ammo type [/p]

[p]If players have any specific areas where they felt they were really being starved for ammo, I'd encourage you to continue to report those to the Feedback and Suggestions sub-forum on the Discussions board! Having those specifics, like "after fight I completely ran out of ammo, and I didn't get any more until ", go a long way towards pinpointing those dry spells![/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]I intend to include fixes for most currently reported bugs that I have been able to replicate! Some of the more minor collision/texture/geometry issues will probably wait until a future patch, but the bigger issues like achievements that aren't firing correctly and the leaderboard ID issues will be addressed.[/p][p][/p][h3]Unity Security Exploit[/h3][p]Some of you may have seen the news yesterday about Unity having discovered a potential security exploit in games that were built using their engine. Steam has already released an update for their platform to address the exploit, and version 2.01 of CULTIC will include Unity's patch for their end of things. There's not currently any real risk or impact to players that's been identified, but just wanted to let you know I'm aware of it and it will also be addressed so that it doesn't ever turn into an issue.[/p][p][/p][h3]Automap Behind-The-Scenes[/h3][p]For those of you more interested in the development side of the Automap, I wanted to detail it's development a bit here just because it's been honestly a really fun little project to tackle. I've never done a map system like this before, and have generally avoided it because it just seemed like it'd be a massive amount of work to manually build a map for CULTIC's levels, especially when even Chapter One's maps were already pretty big - and Chapter One's levels didn't really need a map badly enough to warrant that much work.[/p][p]However, Chapter Two's maps are obviously much larger, and the need for some navigational assistance was felt much more strongly by players. There's an argument to be made for just adding way more signposting, but at a certain point you run into two problems there:[/p][p]1.) The immersion and "real world space" feeling starts to degrade the more "game-ified" the world starts to be, and...[/p][p]2.) If you want to guarantee that no players get lost, you pretty much have to dive into "yellow paint" territory. As much as players hate to see "yellow paint" or other egregious hand-holding measures in games, the fact is that it's most likely there because some players significantly struggled with the conveyance at that point of the game.[/p][p]So, with that in mind, it made more sense to just go straight for a map rather than adding more signposting, which players may also miss, and still be in the same boat - after all, there have been quite a few players that never even saw the actual signposts in Fairgrounds![/p][p][/p][h3]Dumping The Navmesh[/h3][p]I remember looking at DOOM 2016's Automap at one point and thinking "man, that map looks like they just took the game's navmesh (the mesh used to determine where AI is allowed to walk and how to navigate) and extruded it... and then I thought "dang that's a really good idea!" Your navmesh is basically already a simple representation of the valid, in-bounds areas of your level, and would save me from having to manually draw/model out a map of the entire level![/p][p]Luckily for me, the Astar Pathfinding system by Aron Granberg that CULTIC uses has an awesome little feature to barf your navmesh out to an .obj file, which I can open in Blender, and...[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Well shoot, that's a ton of vertices. This is Fairgrounds, by the way. So while this was still a huge timesaver, it was clear that a lot of manual cleanup would be needed. Luckily, using a shortcut in Blender that lets you select all linked vertices meant that I could basically just select vertices that are on a known walkable area of the map, and then select everything that's connected to it, which wound up being another lifesaver! This made it really easy to quickly bulk-select big chunks of the walkable map while ignoring things like the tops of crates, rooftops, inaccessible terrain, etc. that are all technically walkable but still not areas that I want shown on the map.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]From there, it was just a lot of manual cleanup and reducing vertex counts by using degenerative dissolves to merge similar/clustered vertices, and then getting rid of loose vertices and islands. Lots and lots of manual cleanup, but I got it down to where most of these maps were only taking 30 minutes to an hour to finish, which isn't bad all things considered. Here's what Fairgrounds looked like after it was all cleaned up:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Painting the Path[/h3][p][/p][p]The next big task was figuring out how the heck I would handle revealing the map and showing where the player had been. Again, with the goal being avoiding tons of manual work. I figured it'd be easy enough to just "paint" the map as the player explored using vertex colors. Basically, a 3D model is just made up of a bunch of points, or vertices, that are connected together to make all of the polygons that make up the shape. In the above image, every intersection of every line is a vertex, and I can access the positions of those vertices, compare the position to the player's position, and if it's within a larger radius, I mark it as "revealed", and if it's within a close radius to the player, it's marked as "explored". Kind of like a Fog of War system but with two levels. [/p][p]The only issue with that was that some of these maps have a TON of vertices - 16-20K in some instances, and running 16,000+ vertex comparisons each frame was going to be a big hit towards performance, so I wound up writing this function as a C# "Job", meaning it could be taken off of the main thread and basically run in the background until it was finished, rather than the game waiting for it to be finished before continuing. In the end, it was only about a 0.2ms operation, which is spread out across several frames, so the performance impact was negligible.[/p][p]3D meshes can also store a color along with each vertex, so I made it so by default, each vertex in the map mesh is marked with a transparent black (RGB 0,0,0 with an Alpha value of 0). When you "reveal" a vertice by getting within ~25m of it, that color gets changed to a dark blue, and when you "explore" it by getting within 5m of it, it gets marked as light blue. Then those vertex colors are referenced by the shader I made for the map and used to properly render it.[/p][p]I also wanted to be sure that the map was readable even when the player was in an area with a lot of verticality to it - like when they were in a building with multiple floors. I added a feature to the shader that would dither out map geometry that was above the player and within a certain radius, so you can still see the player's location even when there's map geometry directly above you! [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I'm honestly really proud of how this turned out because I only very recently learned about shader building and how to work with nodes, so this is all brand new to me![/p][p]Since the map mesh is build from the levels' actual navmesh, the nice thing was that everything lines up 1:1, so when it comes to representing the player's location or placing map markers, I didn't need to do any scale or transform conversions, I can just use actual world positions for everything, which was a huge relief.[/p][p]It took about a week of work to get this far and get all of the meshes built. I want to make some more readability adjustments to the map so it's easier to view when there are a lot of vertical layers stacked up, but other than that, I've been super happy with how quickly it's come together and hope it helps players out![/p][p][/p][p]P.S. sometimes the navmeshes had little faces in them and this one was my favorite, as it perfectly encapsulates how I felt while cleaning up all these meshes:[/p][p][/p]