Neighbors: Suburban Warfare News

Today, we are happy to say that we are releasing our first “real” update! Thank you for sticking with us and giving us your invaluable feedback during our early access!

Ever since the early stages of development we’ve wanted Neighbors to include a wide range of game modes and maps to offer more variety and make use of the opportunities we feel this universe has to offer. This update marks the first step in that direction.

Based on feedback received during the initial part of the Early Access release (as well as testing conducted with some of you) we have also made the decision to make changes to the base game mode, Destruction.

For a detailed breakdown of all the new things, read below! Otherwise we hope to see you in the neighborhood!

- INVISIBLE WALLS

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[h3]New Game mode and Map [/h3]
We are excited to introduce you to the new game mode Team Brawl! Set in our new map, The F.I.N.E Depot, it’s a team based deathmatch where first to 25 knockouts win. This is a new way to play Neighbors which we expect will make it into our other maps within long. Have a look below and don't hesitate to give feedback once you've tried it out!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Resource Changes [/h3]
Another significant change is that we are altering how resources work in our base game mode. Tiers in the shop now unlock automatically at night time, giving both teams a fair chance to obtain new items instead of the first team fight being all important. The resources will still spawn in the Construction Yard, but instead give money to the entire team when handed in.
This is our attempt at addressing some of the concerns related to snowballing and game complexity and was something that showed potential during a closed beta test. As always, we are listening intently with both ears to your feedback and are looking forward to see how this change affects your experience. If the change proves to work as we hope we expect to redesign the visuals of the resources to better reflect the new mechanics.



[h3]New Item [/h3]
We have a long range of items lined up already. However, for this update we are happy to get the Pop Gun in the hands of our Neighbors. As a medium ranged Offensive weapon we can't wait to see what crazy plays will come out of it.



[h3]New Customization [/h3]
Detective P.A. has joined the shop to investigate the recent rise in crime and grindable Prototype Skins for select unique items have been added as the neighbors take the fight to the hardware store.




Aside from above features, we also have a lot of smaller additions, tweaks and fixes.
Expand the list below to see the full list of changes!

[expand]
[h2]Features[/h2]

• Brawl Game mode: Team Brawl - It's actually really simple. Which team can get 25 knockouts first?
  
• New Map: Enter the coolest store in Heartsville - The FINE Depot, the store that has everything your heart desires and beat the soul out of your annoying Neighbors
  
• Resource rework: Tiers in the shop now unlocks automatically at night time giving both teams a fair chance to obtain new items. The resources will still spawn in the Construction Yard, but give money to the entire team when handed in
  
• New item: Pop gun added to the shop on Tier 2 offensive
  
• New Customization: New Purchasable and Grindable Skins added to the shop
  

[h2]Tweaks [/h2]

• Barbed Wire, Baseball Pitcher & Bear Traps now have placement limits for each category of traps along with better visualization of which traps are blocking.
  
• Front fence will auto-upgrade on the first night (when Shop tier 2 becomes available)
  
• Custom shop for Brawl mode
  
• Custom Balloon drops for Brawl Mode
  
• Hammer moved from defence to demolition category in the shop.
  
• All prices in the shop, tweaked to fit the resource rework
  
• Hit registration improvements
  
• Tutorial tweaked to fit resource rework
  
• Hammer base dmg 15->16
  
• Frying pan base dmg 20->21
  
• Tripwire base dmg buffed with 18%
  
• Crowbar removed from the shop - this might return in the future
  
• Doreen's deflective fists, blocking increased from 60%->75%
  
• Epilepsy warning added
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed: P.A.’s helmet now shows the correct HUD icons.
  
• Fixed an issue where Voice chat was very low until the setting was adjusted
  
• Fixed an issue where Doreen would equip her hands instead of boxing gloves during Fury Rush
  
• Fixed issues where players would try and enter a lobby and get kicked to menu
  
• Fixed an issue where AOE attacks were blocked by deployables/traps and House Essentials
  
• Placement of Kim’s Garage Door is more forgiving in terms of placement
  
• Improved UI on passworded lobbies
  
• PA has an extra item slot to compensate for his two starter items
  
• Spring traps are now destructible
  
• Fixed an issue where a crash happened after quitting to menu while your party is disbanding
  

[h2]Known issues[/h2]

• Sometimes the loading screen when starting the game can get stuck on “reading friends” for a long time
  
• being prompted to purchase harmonies when trying to unlock a skin you can’t afford leaves the UI hanging until you restart (fixed in next patch)
  
• New loading screen tips and a few tutorial messages are not translated to all languages
  
• delivery truck sometimes throws packages through windows
  

[/expand]

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We are truly thankful for your continuous support, and if you are not on our Discord yet - hop in! It’s the fastest way to get your word through to us, as well as a nice place to hang out.



Speak to you soon!
The whole Neighbors dev team

Greetings Neighbors!

We've heard your feedback and reports regarding a few major bugs, which occurred especially for new players coming in. As first action of the fresh week we are strapping on our finest pest control suit and deploy a Hotfix to fix these nasty bugs. 🪳

[h2]Hotfix Notes:[/h2]

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed an issue that would cause primarily new players not to find new matches.
  

[h3]Known issues:[/h3]

• Some hit registration issues if close to friendly/enemy players - fix coming ASAP.
  

[h3]A small token of gratitude 💛[/h3]
As a small compensation and thank you for reporting the bug with detailed descriptions of the bugs we are giving out the tasty Waffle Chad skin to everyone in the game.

- Invisible Walls Team

It's a beefy post for you today, with a lot of good info, so strap in! 😀

If you'd rather get the full overview in video form, check out our community manager Artjom's video right here. Otherwise, dig into the text version below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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Besides the launch of the ResourceRework beta we are also releasing our second patch today. With this patch we are addressing some of the biggest issues.

[expand]

[h2]Features[/h2]

• Bounties: A new comeback mechanic to combat snowballing and nearly impossible comebacks after losing the initial fight at the construction yard. Players who are on a KO spree without getting knocked out will have a bounty on them, which the enemy team can claim by knocking them out. Players, who have been knocked out multiple times in a row now reward less money until they knocked someone out.
  
• Chat filter: A filter for angry people has been added to block some of the bad words they use.
  
• Multiple region selection: You can now select multiple regions for matchmaking.
  
• Post Game Voice Chat: Players now have the possibility to congratulate each other after the game has ended using the in-game voice chat.
  
• Crime Syndicate Skins: Grampsfather Gramps & Undercover Doreen have been added to the cosmetics shop
  

[h2]Tweaks [/h2]

• General adjustment of every melee item to feel better if you are playing with a wider range of pings - the game should now feel more smooth if you have less than a perfect connection :)
  
• Improved the hit registration of Chads Vacuum Cleaner shots.
  
• We have allowed the players to faster switch between items, independent of animation playback, which hopefully should be perceived less laggy; before the animation had to be finished before you could switch to another weapon/item.
  
• Changed some weapons to behave with line tracing rather than physicalized projectiles, which should lead to better hit registration.
  
• Players should now be able to rejoin dedicated servers more reliably allowing for a longer period of time where we allow for rejoining the server if you happen to crash/lose connection.
  
• Continually adjusting the back-end matchmaking parameters and adjusting where needed.
  
• Went through all of the houses to make sure that they have the same amount of starting items – under evaluation for game balance adjustments.
  
• Kim’s wrench now has an updated model & rare skins.
  
• Oil Wells are no longer able to be placed inside.
  
• Removed hammers from all houses.
  
• Made it possible to open the main menu on the end screen.
  
• Reduced the damage on Louie's Rocket Barrage slightly
  
• - Max-range damage: 25→20
  
• - Mid-range damage: 20→15
  
• - Min-range damage 15→10
  
• - Medium Radius: 350→300
  
• - Close Radius: 200→150
  
• Speed up the level progression time on the scoring screen.
  
• The fireplace now lights up with just a single log.
  
• Reduced respawn rates slightly.
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed cases where egg decals were stuck on your screen even after respawning. They are now properly removed.
  
• Fixed the Trickshot Steam achievement so it should now trigger as intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where you were unable to switch server pages in the browser without selecting a top category.
  
• Fixed a bug so the server browser now correctly shows available server
  
• Fixed an issue where the shop would not show the “SOLD OUT” sign on items with 0 quantity.
  
• Fixed some missing collision elements for the Log Cabin.
  
• Fixed a floating construction yard sign.
  
• Fixed a prevalent crash at the end of the game where the characters are transferred to their victory/defeast poses - hopefully should no longer crash, but please report back if it does.
  
• Fixed a server crash (segmentation 11).
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred upon cancelling a microtransaction and getting stuck on the “Transaction Finished” screen.
  
• Fixed more crashes related to the economy system being affected by various instances.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented rebinding the key for "Dash/Sprint".
  
• Fixed a crash caused by changing character/item skins in the main menu and then in the lobby.
  
• Fixed an issue where a player leaving a self hosted game before they started would cause the game to never start in the first place
  
• Fixed an issue where Chad’s Maid skin would make him bulletproof - perhaps the opposite of intended :D
  
• Fixed a bug, where some of the neighbors were still displayed as “coming soon” or locked.
  
• Fixed a visual bug, where the match endscreen displayed a different result (win instead of lose and vice versa).
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur on player death.
  
• Fixed a bug, where the game ends before the end of the warmup period even starts.
  
• Fixed various crashes related to the party invitation system.
  
• Fixed an issue that made it so you would not receive party invites correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause items to hang in mid air when swiftly switching between items.
  

[h2]Known issues[/h2]
We are aware of prolonged match times especially for more skilled players - We are currently working on solutions to alleviate these issues.,

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Exactly three weeks ago, we released Neighbors: Suburban Warfare into Early Access and it has honestly been overwhelming to see players brawl it out in Heartsville. First of all we want to say thank you. 💓

Thank you for playing. Thank you for streaming, reviewing, giving feedback (be it on our Discord or in the Steam forum) - and yes, even refunding. Every signal you’ve sent us has helped to clarify where the game shines and where we need to do better.

And today, we want to share how we’re in the process of fixing it and what we aim to do. But let’s take a step back first and look at what happened since the release.
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Upon release it became apparent that Neighbors has some flaws. And naturally we want to fix these flaws as fast as possible. We’ve heard your feedback clearly and if we sum up the three most important issues it would be:
[h3]

Lag and Hit registration
Crashes
Snowballing & Balancing

[/h3]
The first two issues are technical issues, which are uncovered by having so many players and we take them very seriously. We are however confident that with a little bit of time we will fix these. More on that later.

Snowballing & balancing however is a big problem, and we feel the way the game is set up now encourages it with having the deciding fight right at the beginning of the game. In some instances, players left the game immediately after losing the first resource fight at the construction yard, since the enemy team had upgraded tools and the bigger fence and from that point on…it became incredibly hard to come back. The game is focused around winning and naturally players left the game.

For us this development was surprising, since here at Invisible Walls we play the game in a totally different way. Besides being colleagues we are also friends and like friends we play the game for the fun and chaos and dumb moments like getting hit by the truck in the middle of a fight and laughing our asses off. And we wanted the players to experience something similar.

We want Neighbors to be a game where players have fun no matter if they lose or win!

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In order to achieve this we are taking a drastic change to our base game mode. We’ve tried to alleviate it with changes to the economy, changing the costs for certain items like the crowbar and other minor changes. They were sometimes more and sometimes less effective, but the general “sweatiness” of the game was still there.

Today we are putting out another solution, which hopefully has a big impact on how the game is played: [h3]We are getting rid of resources. [/h3]

Or to be more precise we are removing the necessity of resources to upgrade your house level and thus the shop. The crates will still be in the game, but they will give you money instead. The shop will now upgrade after every day enabling you to buy the next tier of items after every day.

So, a Day 1 battle will only have the Tier 1 items, and so on. Ultimately the Super Jackhammer will spawn, if after a certain amount of time a winner has not been decided. Also the fences upgrade every night - so one less thing to worry about.

With this change we want to reduce the importance of the early game skirmish and reduce the tilt factor, which leads to early match surrenders and leaving the game and also make it more even throughout the entire match and forgiving for new players.

This is a drastic change, but we think that this allows for a more even game if players have access to the same items every day. Since these changes are significant we don’t want to just put them out there without proper testing: This is why we are releasing the new game mode on a Steam Test branch!

To join the and test the new mode you need to go over to Steam, click properties and select the beta branch called ResourceRework.



We are leaving it open until next week to see how the players like the changes and collect feedback.

We firmly believe these changes lead to a more enjoyable player experience, where it is more fun for established and also new players coming in.

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Please sign up for the new beta branch if you are curious and keep giving us your thoughts on the game!

We’ll see you in the neighborhood - The NSW dev team. 🏡

It's ya boi out here with a little hotfix for Patch #1 for all of you sassy peeps.

The biggest thing is that we are bringing back Baseball Pitchers inside. We decreased the amount of pitchers you can place close to each other, but we are still not there. We will be updating this functionality very soon.
In general we want to preserve the sense of you protecting/barricading your own house - but we do not want to create a fortress that is more annoying than fun.

Overall a lot of the patch is here to address some issues that caused some nasty crashes. I want to give some great appreciation to the Community, which were the ones that found the issue/gave us the lead so we could solve it. Keep up the good work!
Remember, the only good bug - is a dead bug!

[h2]Patch Notes:[/h2]
[h3]"New Things":[/h3]
Added back the functionality to place Baseball Pitchers inside the house. We also added new placement rules; these are still a work in progress and we will update the entire deployment system very soon.
You can now spin the character on the character screens to show off - weeeee

[h3]Tweaks:[/h3]

• Increased the minimum damage of Kim's throwable wrench slightly - boink
  Remember that if you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a juicy orange flying at mach 5
  
• Slightly decreased the damage output of Louie Rocket Barrage perk

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed an error that could cause you to not being able to buy anything in the shop
  
• Fixed a major crash where Louie’s rocket barrage perk could break the shop, sound and the world
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause party invites to not being sent to your friends
  
• Fixed other various crashes and matchmaking errors

- David

Hello neighbors!

Today we celebrate our first non-hotfix patch as patch #1 is here!🥳

We've been hard at work to implement as much of your noted bugs, glitches and feedback as possible. Today we are deploying a first patch to address balancing and connectivity issues tied to matchmaking. In addition to that we are deploying an in-game reporting to enable players to report cheaters and toxicity.

[h2]Gameplay & Balance Changes[/h2]

Eggs Nerfed: Eggs no longer provide a damage buff.

Kim Adjustments:

• Kim can now place only one oil turret.
  
• Kim's Wrench damage now scales depending on the range of the target ( 33% at minimum range, 100% at maximum range)
  
• Kim's Homing Wrench perk, damage has been reduced by 30 %
  

Baseball Pitchers: Placement inside houses is now disallowed (subject to testing).

Woodworking Perk: Various fixes to improve consistency and performance.

EXP adjustments: Increased the amount of gained EXP per match increased by 25%.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Charged Weapon: Fixed an issue where charged weapons weren’t behaving as intended.

Gramps Revive: Resolved a bug preventing Gramps from reviving properly.
UI & Quality of Life

Queue Timer: Now visible while waiting for a match.

Crash fixes: Fixed various issues leading to crashes.

Network code improvement: Deployed adjustments to improve hit registration and lag compensation.

In-Game Reporting: Players can now report others from both the in-game menu and the lobby. In-game it is accessible via the ESC menu.

Ping Display: Player ping is now visible in the tab (scoreboard) overview.

[h2]Matchmaking & Region[/h2]

Stricter Region Rules: Matchmaking now adheres more strictly to regional settings to improve latency and fair play.

Locked Region: Matchmaking will now only place you on servers in your region. You can however change your region on the play screen. The region of the server is additionally displayed in-game.

[h2]Localization[/h2]
Czech Language Support: Czech has been added to the list of supported languages.

We will be back with the next patch very soon and we thank everyone for sticking around in the neighborhood.

IW Team