CULTIC News

Greetings Survival fans

I've gathered the four of you here today to talk about the new v013d patch, which includes some QoL changes and fixes for Survival mode.

[h3]Optimizations[/h3]

• An optimization pass was made for the voxel models in game, which should greatly reduce the amount of verts rendered. A map-specific pass on E1M1 was made that reduced total verts by ~45%, which should dramatically reduce the amount of rendering power needed. Further map-specific optimizations will be worked on moving forward.
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Adjusted Survival starting cash to 750, so a secondary weapon can always be bought on Wave 2 if the player saves their cash
  
• Mowed the lawn at the Asylum to remove some grass that was unfairly obstructing the player's view
  
• Infested Armors can no longer spawn on Wave 2 - they've been moved to Wave 3
  
• Shield Phalanx group (4 shielded enemies) can no longer spawn on Wave 2
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Enemies will now properly have a -chance- to be Chosen (red aura) variants, rather than being 100% Chosen after Wave 5. This chance becomes greater with each wave
  
• The line of sight check for Survival spawns now properly checks head instead of floor height, and the minimum distance check was fixed. This should greatly reduce the chances of enemies spawning within line of sight and immediately attacking the player
  

Hello everyone!

I'm back from Thanksgiving break with another small patch for the Custom Difficulty beta!

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Enemy Bullet Speed is now properly tracked in Presets.
  IMPORTANT NOTE: Any already existing user-created presets will have Bullet Speed defaulting to 10% now, since the stat wasn't being properly tracked at the time that preset was made. You'll want to adjust this to the proper value and overwrite your presets to adjust this.
  
• A rare (but reproducible) issue where Brutes would try to trigger a non-existent X-Death state has been fixed
  
• A soft-lock that could be triggered by trying to create a new preset while in-game has been fixed
  
• Disarmed TNT traps now properly grant the TNT weapon in addition to the TNT ammo
  
• A potential fix was implemented to catch the "immortal enemy" issue when it happens and reverse the effects of it. This is a "reactive" fix to hopefully alleviate the issue until the actual cause is found and a "proactive" fix can be put in place
  
• "Disable Health Regen" will also now disable the OHKO Protection that leaves the player with 1HP after receiving devastating damage
  

Small patch ahoy!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• The below-deck area in E1M2 is now much darker, making use of the lighter more necessary
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Shotgun alt-fire now properly penetrates enemies as intended - test it out on your nearest crowd of cultists or cultist shield!
  
• Shotgun alt-fire now properly fires 2x the pellets of the primary, rather than missing 2 pellets
  
• You should now be able to properly overwrite presets without the names getting reset
  
• A rounding error was fixed that was causing slider values to adjust themselves slightly
  

In case you didn't see, CULTIC's in the running for Best Soundtrack! If you don't have any other nominations queued up, I'd appreciate your vote!

store.steampowered.com/news/app/1684930/view/3530288135712305311

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The 2022 Steam Awards are upon us, and much to my dismay, there's no category for "Meatiest Headshots"! In lieu of that, I'd like to humbly request your nomination for CULTIC for Best Soundtrack!

I'm immensely proud of all aspects of CULTIC, but none more so than the soundtrack that I worked so hard on! Featuring a custom, hand-made soundfont, crunchy instruments, and retro synths, it's a unique and energetic soundtrack fitting of CULTIC's unique visual style and gameplay.

Don't forget you can also grab CULTIC's soundtrack on Steam for a whopping $1.99!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2176420/CULTIC_Soundtrack/

The beta for Custom Difficulty is finally here! It took a bit longer than expected but the randomizer was some seriously hard work. Getting it to play nicely with the quicksave system took much more convincing than I was expecting. Due to the magnitude of changes in this update, and the many many options available in the Custom Difficulty mode, I'm releasing this update to the beta branch first to test the waters before releasing it to the main branch.

If you're not familiar with accessing beta branches, it's simple and easy!

1. Go to your Steam Library
   
2. Right-click on CULTIC
   
3. Click on Properties
   
4. Go to the BETAS tab
   
5. Select "beta" from the drop-down list
   
6. Allow CULTIC to update
   

So what's new in this update?

[h2]Custom Difficulty[/h2]

A new difficulty mode has been added that allows you to deeply customize your play experience. Choose from a handful of modifiers to mix up enemy behaviors, damage, speed, adjust game rules, and even randomize enemy placements!

You can also save presets and load them back in for quick setups! If you want to share presets with other players, they can be located in:

steamapps\common\CULTIC\CULTIC_Data\Presets

The .cdiff file is a simple text file type that can be easily copy/pasted between devices.
A handful of presets come with the update!

• Instagib - One shot and it's over - for you and your enemies!
  
• One Punch Man - Your fists and feet are unmatched in power
  
• Extreme Plus - Extreme, but even harder! Extra enemy damage, speed, and accuracy, and no health regen.
  
• Hardly Extreme - Extreme enemy placements and behaviors, Hard damage/HP values
  
• Bullet Hell - Enemies dish out large quantities of slow-moving bullets vs. a speedy player
  

This update also comes with a fairly substantial amount of changes. More on those below - thanks for your support of CULTIC, and I hope you enjoy the update!

Please report any bugs and feedback in the proper channels on the Steam Discussions forum!

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• A catch was put in place so that corrupted saves/preference files should no longer soft-lock the menus
  
• Map Start/Checkpoints should no longer get overwritten when loading a checkpoint from the main menu
  
• Infected corpses now properly get an explosive damage multiplier as soft targets
  
• Scene Select should properly reflect not having a max kill count for boss maps
  
• Press-and-hold interaction prompts will now show up even when Interaction Markers are disabled
  
• Some easy-to-access OOB areas were blocked off
  
• Render scale should now properly honor native resolutions for those using >1080p resolutions
  
• A potential fix was implemented to alleviate some visual movement stuttering
  
• Lantern is no longer held inside the player's body which should help with throw trajectories
  
• Grabbable props now properly receive impulses from damage sources
  
• Thrown hatchets should more reliably set off bear traps
  
• Incinerator tank leak audio now properly mixed
  
• Pistol cultists now properly check for line-of-sight from their pistol height, rather than hip-height
  
• China Lake removed from E1M6 Scene Select loadout
  
• TNT Plunger skip in E1M5 fixed
  
• Player Run Toggle setting persistent across scenes
  
• Fixed some spots where the player could get stuck on map geo
  

[h2]Additions / Changes[/h2]

• Weapon swapping now accepts input buffers
  
• A weapon swap that was buffered before a shotgun reload starts will cancel the reload
  
• Lever-action reloads can be interrupted with a weapon swap
  
• The FG42's Full Auto upgrade can now be toggled with Tertiary Fire (MMB by default)
  
• There should now be a pickup for all main weapons in all maps, making pistol-start runs more feasible
  
• LAR ammo pickups were increased in quantity
  
• Additional LOS blockers added to mine camp in E1M2
  
• A proper death barrier was added below map geo so players that fall out of bounds are not soft-locked
  
• Burn damage against larger enemies has been nerfed, making it a bit more difficult to ignite them
  
• Maps in Scene Select are unlocked when the map is started, rather than cleared
  
• All difficulties below the highest completed can be accessed in Scene Select
  
• An option to disable music slowdown added to Options > Sound
  
• Backup Map Start saves are created by default to prevent players from losing progress if they forget to create a manual save. These can be disabled from Options > Gameplay
  
• Checkboxes in options are now all left-aligned, for consistency