Neighbors: Suburban Warfare News

Hey there Neighbors!

Hope you've had a good weekend, with a few neighborhood brawls! 💥 This week is going to be a big one for Neighbors, with updates in the game, as well as more info on future upcoming content.

We'll kick the week off by posting the curated version of the live Q&A our CEO did this Friday. For a detailed breakdown of a bunch of the questions you've had since launch, check out the video! 🙏

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

For you who don't have the time to watch the whole thing, here's a compact text version of the content:

Q: Why is the matchmaking system sometimes unfair?
A: The matchmaking system has been a work in progress, especially during the early days. Initially, players had a lot of experience due to pre-launch play sessions, which led to unfair matchups. We're making improvements, including introducing a "new player" tag to help beginners get a more balanced experience in their early matches.


Q: What is the plan to balance characters?
A: Balancing is an ongoing challenge, especially as a small indie studio. We're working to adjust characters that don’t work as intended, like PA and Kim. The goal is to strike a balance without aiming for a perfectly balanced game. We want to ensure each character feels unique and satisfying to play.


Q: Are there any technical issues being worked on?
A: Yes, we are constantly working on technical improvements. Some of the issues being addressed include hit registration, lag, and improving the overall gameplay feel. We’ve already implemented multiple patches to fix various technical issues, and we have a large update planned for the near future that will address these problems even further.


Q: Is there a penalty for dropping out of a game?
A: Currently, there is no penalty for leaving a game, especially in casual play. Instead, we aim to reward players who stay through the entire match, even if they lose, with a bonus multiplier for their next game. However, we are considering changes in the future, such as making early-leaving more costly to the player who chooses those actions.


Q: Is there any plan to improve the anti-cheat system?
A: Yes, we are implementing stronger anti-cheat measures, including player reporting. A system is being put in place to allow players to report cheaters in-game, and we'll take action based on those reports.


Q: Will there be more game modes in the future?
A: Yes, more game modes are on the way! The next update will include a classic team deathmatch mode, with even more crazy modes planned for the future.


Q: Will the game feature more neighbors in the future? A: Yes! There are already two new neighbors in the pipeline, each with unique abilities. Stay tuned for the official roadmap next week to see when they’ll be added.


Q: Are there any plans for a console release?
A: A console release is in the distant future. For now, the focus is on optimizing the game for Steam, as it allows for faster iteration and testing based on player feedback.


Q: Is there a plan to add more events or challenges in the game?
A: Yes, we're planning to add more achievements and challenges. The goal is to make the progression system more rewarding with unique milestones to achieve.


Q: Are there any plans to add a ranked or competitive mode?
A: While we're not planning a ranked mode, there will be a competitive mode for players who want to focus on more intense gameplay. This is something that's coming soon.


Q: Will there be more skins or content after level 20?
A: Yes, we plan to extend the progression system. More skins and content will be added for players who reach higher levels, though we want to avoid adding too many tiered skins in between.


Q: What was the reception of the game’s launch?
A: The launch wasn't a runaway success, but it met our expectations. We’re focusing on long-term improvement and expanding the game with more features, game modes, and content.


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[h2]Invisible Walls x Ghost Ship Games Stream![/h2]

In other news: Invisible Walls will visit their real life neighbors Ghost Ship Games tomorrow Tuesday! Okay...it's still a 10 minute walk, but we consider them as our neighbors. 💛

Kat and Artjom are going to join them in one of their weekly developer streams to talk about Neighbors and play some games together with Jakob and Marc from Ghost Ship and the Deep Rock Galactic community. Rock and Stone meets Heartsville chaos. 💥

The stream starts at 13:00 CEST Tuesday over at twitch.tv/Ghostship_games.



Thanks for your support and see you soon! ✌

[h2]Hello Neighbors![/h2]

First of all, a massive thank you for your support during these first few days of the Neighbors: Suburban Warfare Early Access release.

We launched Neighbors: Suburban Warfare into Early Access because we need you to be part of the journey and help us make this into something special. While the majority of you have recognized the potential and shown your appreciation of the world we are building, it is clear that we need to address the initial state of the game.

Your feedback through this first phase has been invaluable. Over the first couple of days we released a series of hotfixes that addressed some of the early balancing issues while also trying to mitigate issues with lag and matchmaking. However, we are far from done, we know.

Instead of presenting our Roadmap we recognize there are some fundamental areas we need to set straight first.



[h2]HERE ARE THE THINGS WE WILL FIX FIRST[/h2]
[h3]New Player Experience & Balancing[/h3]
It quickly became clear that our matchmaking didn’t work effectively in grouping new players and experienced players. This, on top of a game that has a noticeable learning curve and still lacked proper balancing clearly ended in a lot of players having a rough time. We are currently working on:

• Improved matchmaking and a “New Player” experience where you are only grouped together with other new players.
  
• Simplification of “Resources” to reduce complexity, snowballing effects and make the game more intuitive in general
  
• Re-work of traps and movement impairing effects to reduce frustrating game moments
  
• General Balancing and tweaking of perks to reduce advantage through progression and instead focus on evolving gameplay styles.
  
• Introduction of an “Item Bar with Hotkeys” to make item handling less convoluted
  

[h3]Hit Reg, Lag and Game Feel[/h3]
A lot of players have reported fundamental issues with Hit Registration, Lag and/or Game Feel. We are hard at work at this and while this will be a continuous effort we hope we in our next few updates will be able to solve the majority of reported issues by.

• Improving region matching
  
• Tweaking of projectiles and charged effects
  
• Improving Item Switching
  

[h3]Technical Issues and Cheaters[/h3]
Finally - we have run into a series of challenges where our attempt at mitigating cheaters unfortunately lead to a lot of players getting a black screen instead of being able to launch the game. We are constantly looking into this since day one and we hope we have finally managed to solve the black screen issue. However, we recognise that cheating is increasingly a problem. For this reason, we will try to get the following into our next updates::

• A report system to help us collect information on cheaters
  
• Improved Anti Cheat
  

[h2]WHAT'S NEXT[/h2]
Above improvements are our highest priority for now, but rest assured we are also working on bringing you more content in the form of maps, game modes and Neighbors.

[h3]Join the Conversation - Your Feedback Shapes This Game[/h3]
We want your thoughts, questions, weird screenshots and chatter. Please head over to our official Discord channel - it’s the best place to:

• Share feedback directly with us
  
• Get early info on upcoming patches and events
  
• Scream about the jackhammer with us
  

From the whole dev team, thank you again for your trust and energy. This is just the start - we’re in this together and we can’t wait to build the future of Neighbors with you.


Hope to see you in game soon!
Invisible Walls

Another day, another patch!

[h2]Patch Notes:[/h2]
[h3]Matchmaking Adjustments:[/h3]

• Improved matchmaking for new players to ensure a smoother onboarding experience.
  

[h3]Exploit Fix: [/h3]

• Resolved an exploit where baseball turrets could be placed inside House Essentials.
  

[h3]Map Update: [/h3]

• Added hammer spawn to the Old Mansion house.
• Removed all remaining baseball bat spawns from houses.
  

[h3]Collision Fix:[/h3]

• Fixed a collision issue where Kevin’s grappling hook would hit a faulty hitbox on the drive-by van. (Special thanks to Lirik for spotting this!)
  

[h3]Country specific servers:[/h3]

• Adding Japan based server for better connection.
  

[h2]Black Screen Issue: [/h2]
This the biggest issue we've faced so far. After a lot of testing and doing dedicated trials with players in dedicated beta branches and builds we can confidently state, that the issue is tied to Neighbors not being recognized as a safe file by various anti-cheat applications.

If you are affected you will now receive a more specified notification after launching the game and also a link to our FAQ with detailed steps to bypass the issue. We've tested these steps and if followed concretely you will be able to play the game.

You can also access the FAQ here.

• Updated in-game message if their antivirus is blocking the game, including a link to the FAQ.
  

This may be a temporary issue until we have sorted things out with our partners and will update as soon as we have more news.

- Artjom

Hello dear Neighbors,

We are releasing another Hotfix to polish the game.

[h2]CHANGELIST HOTFIX #3 [/h2]

1. Neighbor limit: Based on the feedback we've received it became apparent, that certain Neighbor compositions are too oppressive. Due to that we've decided to decrease the max. number of unique neighbors per team.
   
   
   • Reduced the maximum number of unique neighbors per team from 2 to 1.
     
   
   
   
2. Combating the "Rushing Meta":
   After careful observation and valuable feedback from the community, we've identified that the "rushing" strategy had become overwhelmingly dominant. This was largely due to the overly fast access to demolition items - like Hammers & Crowbars - without requiring sufficient resource investment. As a result, rushing was consistently outperforming other strategies and reducing overall gameplay diversity.
   
   
   • Reduced the max number of hammers spawning inside the house. Now there will only be 1 hammer inside the garage.
     
   • Removed the chance for hammers spawning inside the house.
     
   • Reduced construction damage of the hammer by 20%.
     
   • Increased the number of required ressources for the crowbar to 2.
     
   • Increased the number of required ressources for the saw to 5.
     
   • Removed the chance for Baseballbats inside the house. Only accessible via the Mystery drop.
     
   
   
   
3. Mary-Jean: To make Mary-Jean more viable we've decided to increase her unique ability.
   
   
   • Reduced lockpicking time by 30%.
     
   
   
   
4. P.A.: We've recognized, that P.A.'s cannon has become a bit oppressive by using it primarily for mobility allowing him to traverse the entire map from the safety of his own property.
   
   
   • Reduced range on P.A. cannon. Reduced by ~30%.
     
   • Reduced health on P.A. cannon. 70 -> 40.
     

Have a nice evening/day!
Artjom

Hello dear Neighbors! 🙂

We are releasing a second Hotfix. This time we are addressing some more substantial elements of the game and also tune back a bit of Kevin's damage, since it appears too strong now. We mistakenly over tuned him a bit last night. Please continue giving us feedback and we look forward to adjust accordingly.


[h2]CHANGELIST HOTFIX #2 [/h2]

• Security: Fixed multiple cheats and exploits.
  
• Hit registration: Refined hit registration with a primary focus on melee items.
  
• Launch Errors: Fixed a bug where some users could not launch the game due to 1001, 1002, 1003 and 1004 errors.
  
• Kevin: Nerf for Kevin's ranged abilities to bring more in line with the other neighbors.
  

[h2]Modern TV Chad Twitch Drop[/h2]
Additionally, we are going live with a Twitch wide drop, where you will be able to earn the other half of our beloved Modern TV skin duo: Modern TV Chad!



What you need to do:

1. Connect your Twitch account on: https://www.neighborsgame.com/drops
   
2. Watch any streamer playing Neighbors: Suburban Warfare.
   

Have a nice evening/day!
Artjom