Survivor Mercs News

Commanders, apologies for the glitches and issues with the new story missions. This patch is bringing some important fixes and various improvements to these missions.

We also moved the new Traits with their respective Dashes to the "Talents" category where they belong, and the UI shows more information about the mission objectives alongside some adjustments to fix a few partially broken missions.



We continue to work on further polishing that update and have some exciting things to come!

Here's the full list of changes and in this patch:

• Vampire, Trumpeteer, and Arsonist Talent Traits have replaced the vampiric, flatulent, and blazing Traits.
  
• Treasury and Genome Lab missions are now working as intended and received updates to their objectives and build costs.
  
• Scorch' mission was changed to indicate the correct mission stage in the map overview.
  
• Mission Dialogues trigger more reliably and show additional information about mission objectives and rewards.
  
• The initial 3 Traits unlock correctly with the Genome Lab now.
  
• Room Blueprints no longer show up with white images as mission rewards.
  
• Added a few new radio messages from Mercs to indicate more clearly which mission the captured Payload belongs to.
  
• Improved some of the stuttering visible in the helicopter loading screen.
  
• Fixed an instance where you could get stuck when switching between upgrade card & skill tree views during level-ups.
  
• Improved the animation sequencing for the objective highlight camera transitions (still looking to replace them).
  
• Adjusted and improved various UI sprites.
  
• Fixed the display of Missions in the Pause menu.
  
• Auto-hiding the missions list in the Bunker HQ once you scroll down.
  
• Fixed the room construction popup showing misleading information.
  
• Fixed an issue with healing crit procs not working.
  
• Reduced HP for the Elite Peashooter miniboss.
  
• Fixed an audio issue with Payload objectives and add an indicator to show the movement direction of the Payload (will receive further improvements & variants).
  
• Fixed some damage number & HP bar visibility issues in HUD.
  
• Fixed some issues with auto-scrolling and layouts of lists.
  
• Improved UI for item/loot rarity.
  
• Mission stages only show information about the currently active mission.
  
• Fixed the sorting of missions to show more relevant ones first.
  
• Improved map generation algorithm.
  
• Gear items now correctly unlock with the MVP missions for the respective Mercs.
  
• Fixed some instances where mission dialogues were showing the wrong Merc.
  
• Singularity Launcher is now unlockable again.
  

We continue working on these known issues and are looking to release another patch update very soon:

• Sometimes the mission titles in the Bunker HQ "lose" part of their name. We're investigating this, as it appears to only happen after a run or new session.
  
• The base stat upgrades don't show the bonuses that are derived from them, causing unintended confusion about the usability of these upgrades.
  
• The Armory & Barracks don't show the base stats for Gear and Mercs, so various synergy-related info is only available during an operation.
  
• During a run, skill trees don't display the current stats when selecting the current upgrade node.
  
• The opening animation at the start of a stage is delayed (exiting the loading screen too early).
  
• The camera animations highlighting reward objectives and extraction points are still interrupting the gameplay flow. We're soon releasing a different solution.
  
• Various Gear & Merc skills don't scale as intended with the base stats, or don't display the information correctly. We're currently looking to fix this with high priority.
  

The patch update 0.10.1 is coming to both the full game and the demo version at the same time.

As always, join our Discord or post to the Steam forums if you encounter any issues or want to leave your feedback to help us improve the game.



Lock, load, and loot, Commanders!

Blasting robots is much more fun with friends - in a Strike Squad!

Commanders, report in for your 10th major update briefing - one primarily about friendship and sticking up for each other:

Your Mercs decided to speak up and show face, finally. They will guide you through the game with some unique personality while steadily helping you rescue and recruit new members, construct special rooms, acquire powerful gear, and - of course - stick it to M.E.G.A. Corp.!



And because camaraderie is a virtue, your engineers upgraded your clone-control stations with some additional seats for your friends to join the fight. Just hand them the controller and they can jump in at any time to take over any Merc in your squad.
It even works via Steam Remote Play Together!

If you still need some convincing arguments, check out the new & improved free demo for Survivor Mercs. Share it with your friends or check it our yourself if you don't have the full game yet. It is offering the initial game experience with limited content, and allows you to continue playing with your savegame in the full version.

Apart from these 3 highlights - Story Missions, Hotseat Coop, Free Demo - this update offers many more improvements and new content. Continue reading for the details, but first:

[hr][/hr]
[h2][color]⚠ SAVEGAME NOTICE ⚠[/color][/h2]

Savegame Reset: OPTIONAL, BUT RECOMMENDED

This update introduces many changes to the progression and adds some new content.
If you continue playing with your existing savegame, you are very likely missing out on a lot of the new content but all existing savegames should be fully compatible.

We still display the warning to ask you about resetting your savegame!

By doing so, you will start fresh and a backup of your last savegame is automatically created in your local game folder.

You can find a guide on how to restore savegames from older game versions here: How to access & restore savegame backups (Steam Forums)
[hr][/hr]
Now, on to the details of update 0.10.0 "Strike Squad":

[h2]Story Missions & Progression Changes[/h2]

The most notable change of this update - apart from parts of the UI - are the Story Missions.

Nearly all of your progression and primary unlocks are now tied to different missions framed by the Mercs and Conduit in a similar fashion as the Boss dialogues appeared before.



The mission have different objectives and goals, partially also very different from what you may remember from the last versions. The new Payload mission stages are particularly interesting, as they introduce a new type of objectives mechanic in our pursuit to make the map stages more varied and fun.

We want to note that the missions and new objectives are just the first step here. We have some additional improvements in the works, specifically around the game flow around the Payload stages and the presentation of the missions.

We aim to ship another smaller update soon that is polishing the missions further.

While you're mapping your route in the map overview, you will notice the particular stages that are relevant to the current mission(s).

Since they don't show all of the necessary info at all times, you will find the new Briefing Room in the Bunker, listing all currently active missions.

Aside from the Maps & Mercs, most of the Gear, Weapons, and also the Rooms are now tied to missions. Particularly the UI around the Rooms is still a bit lacking, but we hope that in general the missions break the monotony of the resource grind in favor of a slightly more guided experience with some fun interludes.



If you just start out (or anew), you will find less Mercs and Room blueprints at your initial disposal. In turn, the M.E.G.A. Corp. Test Sites became a more interesting location with a miniboss and more stages to host the first set of mission goals.

The Genome Lab and some later-stage Rooms are now also part of the rewards, but for the more expensive upgrades you should by then already have some loot to spend.


[h2]Couch Coop[/h2]

The second huge highlight of update "Strike Squad" is the patron of its name - the hotseat couch coop mode for up to 4 players!

It's as easy as it can get to enjoy some operations with your friends. Just pick your main input device for the Commander, e.g. your mouse & keyboard, and hand any additional controllers to your friends.

As soon as you start an operator and got your first Merc, any player can just press start to join the action and control any Merc.

We will be posting a more detailed coop guide here shortly after this update is live.

You, the Commander, still control the action and decide the direction and which objectives to capture. The Mercs are able to move around freely on screen, dash into the enemies, and directly control the twin-stick action with the chosen Merc's weapon.

The game and coop mode are now supporting all common controllers. And - drum-roll - you can play even with friends online via Steam Remote Play Together.

The best thing: only the host, i.e. the Commander, needs to buy the game.
But we appreciate if you support us by buying the game, too, or gifting it to your friends ❤️

You will likely find some fun things to do in coop, so just give it a try and let us know what you think. The coop guide will try and list all the controls and details - stay tuned.


[h2]New Demo[/h2]

If you watched the new trailer on our store page or followed us more closely, you may have heard that we're looking to leave Early Access this summer!

While the game is not finished - yet - we are happy to announce that we're launching a new demo for the game with this update.

We would greatly appreciate it, if you shared it with your friends or communities, and if you left a positive review. The demo has its own Steam page and we hope it helps the game reach more Commanders to join our cause!

The demo offers the full early game experience on the first two maps and allows you to unlock a few things along the way.

The savegame is fully compatible with the full version and once you buy it, you can continue directly where you left off. But apart from the limited content, you can enjoy the demo for as long as you like!

And of course the demo will be updated alongside the full game.

[h2]New Weapons & Dashes[/h2]

This update also offers some additional new toys for the battlefield.

Your Commander can now also wield a Flamethrower, and we changed some Traits to enable special Dashes, leaving a burning trail, some toxic gas (yes it's farts), or siphoning HP from your enemies. These things are still WIP and there are already a few more Weapons lined up.

But we don't want to break savegame compatibility - even if we recommend a reset - so we chose to tie the Dashes to the existing Traits: flatulent, blazing, and vampiric. This will most likely already change with the upcoming patch update, and these Dashes and Traits will move into the Class category to prevent the different Dashes from conflicting.


[h2]UI & UX Improvements[/h2]

Apart from many new effects and animations, you will hopefully enjoy the improved navigation and separation of some menus for clarity. This is an ongoing effort, and we really love your feedback to help us further improve.

In this update, you will find the Gear and Weapons separated into the Depot and Armory rooms respectively. In addition, the map selection and operation selection are also split in two consecutive menus, de-cluttering one of the most overwhelming menus.



The de-cluttering is also noticeable in some other menus, e.g. the Pause screen or some of the upgrade and informational screens like the end-of-battle summaries.

In some areas we added more elements like helpful descriptions, or more visually distinct upgrade cards. In others we are still working on improvements, especially for these 3 things:

• show more details about the secondary effects of Base Stat upgrades
  
• show the base stats for Gear, Mercs, and Weapons in their skill trees
  
• replace the camera cutscenes for objective highlights with a fundamentally better system
  

The goal is to improve that already with the upcoming patch update.


[h2]More Additions, Fixes, Adjustments, Improvements & Details[/h2]
As always, there are many more improvements, changes, and fixes:

• Reduced number of enemies spawning on Danger Level 2 to make initial operation less brutal.
  
• Adjusted number of objectives spawning in various stages to make it easier to capture most of them.
  
• Gear items can no longer be upgraded, instead they roll in various rarities. Not all Gear has been adjusted to reflect the new synergies for them (see known issues).
  
• Complications are no longer a choice - each one can appear randomly and will impact your strategy for the current operation. In turn, we aim to introduce Advantages as "counters" soon.
  
• Reduced timing for barrage at end of stage and increased time on map slightly for multiple stages.
  
• Added a "shield" effect to bosses to show when they are invulnerable during phase changes.
  
• Improved the aiming indicators and attack indicators for both Commander, Mercs, and enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple simultaneous animations could put the game in a locked state (could normally be un-locked with random inputs).
  
• Fixed various instances of unnecessary auto-scrolling in UI.
  
• Added a much nicer loading screen between stages and bunker.
  
• Added many new animations and VFX to menus.
  
• Fixed some missing or broken sound FX.
  
• Fixed various cases where input could not register correctly.
  
• Made camera cutscenes snappier until they can be replaced.
  

There is much more under the hood, but we'll reveal that with the next patches to fix some of these...
[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• Stats don't show up in skill trees when looking at the node for your current level.
  
• Base Stat Upgrades don't show their secondary effects (yet).
  
• GriftLift may sometimes not take damage from certain Mercs (investigating).
  
• Locked Rooms don't show their unlock condition like other things do.
  
• New Dashes are still hooked up to Traits that could cause conflicts with other Traits.
  
• Map & Operation modifiers can stack too many negative things together with Complications, will be addressed in next patch.
  
• Not all Gear uses the newly defined synergy stats to scale more noticeable with Base Stats.
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
"Strike Squad" is major Early Access update #10 for Survivor Mercs.

It brings a lot of changes both over and under the hood. Please report any issues or bugs you encounter to help us fix these as quickly as possible.

We are already working on a patch update with additional balancing improvements and adjustments to synergies, as well as showing more detailed stat upgrade information. Also, we had plans to already include more settings, especially for input remapping, but this still needs a bit more work, but should be done soon.

As we are approaching the v1.0 release, we will release more smaller updates now. So please "Follow" the game to be notified when the news drop.

Our plans for these upcoming updates include:

⏩ doubling-down on the new Map & Operations structure to provide even more varied runs, new Objectives, and less randomness while squad-building

⏩ further refinements for UI & HUD to improve action readability and immersion

⏩ deeper gameplay and improved replayability by refining squad-builds & synergies and expanding the number of challenges and procedural generators for the maps & operations

⏩ better performance while improving enemy & Merc AI behavior

⏩ settings for input mapping and other accessibility options.

And, of course, we will continue to work on more content along with these features.
[hr][/hr]
Commanders, we are truly grateful for every one of you who supports us with feedback and input during Early Access.

[color]Please don't forget that the game is still under development. All your feedback helps us make a better game and iron out some of the remaining rough edges, imbalance, and bugs![/color]

We hope this update gets you as excited as we are for the future. We are dedicated to listening to you and building Survivor Mercs into an outstanding game. Please, help us grow the community with a positive review and get involved in the development by participating in our community projects, and sharing your feedback, insights, and ideas on our Discord server (or the game's Steam forums).




Let's continue making a great game, together ❤

Lock, load, and loot, Commanders!

Commanders!

A big announcement today, HQ has developed a new tactic to bolster our battle strategy!

We are opening a playtest of the CO-OP feature that will be coming to Survivor Mercs!

In order for you to join the Playtest, join the Wandering Wizard Discord!



Access the discord and obtain the Survivor Mercs role to be able to see further details regarding how to join the playtest!

When is this happening? Across two days this week:

Friday @ 20-22:00 CEST
Saturday between 16-24:00 CEST

Make sure to keep a keen eye in the playtest chat once you have received the playtester role for notifications and the action!

Have fun and see you out there on the field comrades!

Commanders, we just updated our roadmap outlining the next update(s) for Survivor Mercs:



We will be highlighting some of these upcoming features in more detail soon, especially the main content of the next major update, "Strike Force".

We are well-aware that there are still some rough edges in the current gameplay & meta. In order to tackle that, we call for your support! So please read on and help us make a better game by leaving your feedback:

[h2]Couch Co-Op[/h2]
We had this planned for quite some time and are happy to finally share that you will be able to squad-up with friends & family soon!

Other players will be able to join your squad and take control of any Merc to fight M.E.G.A. Corps' robot goons alongside with you. It is going to be a "hotseat"-like mode, so others can just join and leave your session on your local machine with an additional controller at any time.

Apart from playing locally, the game will support Steam Remote Play Together. So you can enjoy some looting & shooting even when your support is not sitting on the couch next to you.

[h2]Story Missions & Balancing[/h2]
We always wanted to feature the Mercs more prominently and at the same time improve the meta progression by tying new unlocks more tightly to certain achievements and milestones in the game.

With the upcoming Mission system, we're looking to reduce the grind and provide a smoother unlock progression while sprinkling in a bit more narrative flavor throughout the game.

The Story Missions will be tied into your Operations and impact your tactical choices when progressing through the map stages. Alongside your mission rewards, we want to adjust unlocks and potentially introduce some new items like Gear & Weapons.

[color]Here's where your feedback comes into play:[/color]

• We want to learn more about how you're playing the game and why you make certain choices.
  
• Which Mercs do you enjoy and why?
  
• What Gear and Weapons are you using regularly?
  
• Do you mainly play with random Commanders or prefer custom Trait configurations?
  
• Which meta upgrades and Rooms do you prefer?
  
• Where did you struggle with the meta progression and why?
  

We have a good idea where WE think things should be adjusted. But we want to understand better what YOU want. So please join our Discord server to share your ideas and feedback, or hop over to the Steam forums.



[h2]Custom Skins, more Settings, and other Improvements[/h2]
Ever wondered how Silverback would look like if he was a real gorilla?



Soon you'll be able to change and share much of the game's content. It's technically not a full modding support (yet), but we think you'll have as much fun with it as we do.

We're also looking to expand the Settings, specifically with Input Remapping and a few other options to adjust the game more to your liking. This will go hand-in-hand with some general input improvements and UI polishing. [color]What settings do you want to see in the game?[/color]

Overall, we're looking to polish the game experience as we're preparing for a v1.0 launch. That's the reason why we're also looking to offer a new demo for the game and recruit more Commanders for the fight against M.E.G.A. Corp. Some of the top items on our polishing list are:

• improving the meta progression & player experience
  
• crafting better VFX, sound and overall nicer visuals
  
• adjusting the map stages to offer variety and a nice balance between longer and shorter challenges
  
• tweaking or creating new Mercs, Gear, Weapons, Enemies, and Traits to foster fun synergies
  
• and, of course, fixing any remaining bugs.
  

[color]If you want us to focus on specific issues[/color] that you have with the game, join our Discord or post to the Steam forums to help us make a better game.

Lock, load, and loot, Commanders!

Commanders, it's time for another round of fixes and improvements to iron out the remaining kinks of the "Green Hell" update. With this patch, the new Weapon & UI systems are getting ready to power the next set of gameplay improvements and features.

A small change is already part of this patch: the Commander now retains its HP between stages, making it more important to look after your HP. In turn, you will encounter some enemy Medics earlier in each stage to refill your HP for the battle ahead of you.

We're working on a feature to allow you to refill your HP between stages - at a cost.

Some enemies are now also already showing a better visual guide for AoE attacks. This is a first part of improving the "readability" of the action and generally polishing the visual presentation. Some of you have noticed that we removed some UI animations from earlier versions - this is also something we're working on to make the game look and feel much nicer. So stay tuned for the next updates.

Here's the list of changes, fixes, and improvements in this patch:

• The Commander now retains its HP between stages.
  
• Medic enemies spawn more frequently at the beginning of the battle in a stage.
  
• Shooty enemies have been slightly reduced in early stages.
  
• Impact enemies show a subtle AoE indicator to better gauge their explosion radius.
  
• Added a (temporary) skill tree to the Nerd Glasses Gear.
  
• Pause menu & Stats Overview menu show much more information about your current squad, including detail views for Mercs & Gear to check upgrade trees. Some stats and windows are still WIP and may display some incomplete information.
  
• Improved the performance and reliability of the object pooling system to reduce micro-lags.
  
• Auto-scrolling UI elements are more reliable and no longer cause massive delays on upgrade popups or in menus.
  
• Fixed some rogue separator glyphs in the stats display containers.
  
• The skill trees in various popups should now be fully navigateable again.
  
• Adjusted the layouts of Merc skill trees to make it more obvious which upgrade trees are exclusive and which one holds the general upgrades.
  
• Fixed various typos or misleading/deprecated information in UI labels and descriptions.
  
• Fixed the "critical health" animation playing during stage intros.
  
• Fixed the Bunker menu scrolling up or down erratically when building rooms or entering the menu.
  
• Fixed various issues with scrollbars not appearing correctly or misbehaving.
  
• Fixed the issue with overlapping icons and text for map & operation modifiers.
  
• Fixed an issue with potentially overlapping panels for locked and unlockable equipment in the Armory.
  
• Fixed the modifiers for Complications showing both + and - icons.
  
• You can click the "back" button when viewing skill trees in upgrade cards again.
  
• Fixed some visual glitches with the screen distortion effect in various menus.
  
• Fixed an issue with grenade projectiles, e.g. Curveball & Nubetube, that caused erratic visual behavior.
  
• Armory, Genome Lab and Barracks now show the correct numbers for "unlocked / available" items.
  
• Fixed an issue that could display a Commander HP value greater than your max HP.
  
• Fixed the "sorted" Trait to give the correct loot bonus.
  
• Your settings now save more reliably also when adjusting something from the Pause menu.
  
• The unlocking of new rings should now work correctly at all times in the Genome Lab.
  
• Objective defense sentries are now correctly using the enemy base configuration and show correct damage numbers.
  
• Heavier enemies are slightly more resistant to knockback.
  
• Fixed an issue with directional melee attacks not always going into the aiming direction (e.g. Quaker Hammer weapon and Silverback's Bulldozer lane).
  
• Fixed an issue preventing the upgrades for Quaker Hammer to persist.
  
• Nubetube's reticles should show up again to indicate their target destination.
  
• Explosive Fire grenades and shells should show their explosion AoE correctly again.
  
• The Defender trait's "shatter dash" works as intended to spawn friendly shrapnel when dashing through enemy projectiles.
  
• In-game HUD now shows the 3 different loot types instead of the deprecated Carry Capacity & inventory weight.
  
• Fixed an issue with the bunker room building UI that sometimes built the wrong room when selecting a blueprint with mouse instead of keyboard or gamepad.
  
• Fixed various display issues with loot not being shown correctly in combat or in the end-of-run screens.
  
• Dying on or aborting an operation does no longer pay additional loot instead of dropping it for your grave.
  
• Tags for Mercs, Gear, and various upgrades have been improved and show the correct icons.
  

We continue working on these known issues:

• Some prior existing synergies have been disabled for the moment. We are looking to re-introduce these or similar ones soon alongside new and improved ones.
  
• The Armory & Barracks don't show the base stats for Gear and Mercs, so various synergy-related info is only available during an operation.
  
• The opening animation at the start of a stage is delayed (exiting the loading screen too early).
  
• Various UI animations are still deactivated and will be re-introduced to match the new UI system.
  
• Icons and some thin lines in the UI are not scaling nicely or disappear. We're working on that to ensure clean scaling across all resolutions and screen sizes.
  
• We're working on more balancing adjustments to create a smoother unlock experience, primarily for Mercs & Rooms, and more exciting challenge progression throughout the operations.
  
• The camera animations highlighting reward objectives and extraction points are too jarring and interrupt the gameplay flow. We're testing a different solution but are leaving that in until a better system in in place soon.
  
• Modifiers for Objective Capture Speed are inversely colored (positive = red, negative = green)
  

As always, join our Discord or post to the Steam forums if you encounter any issues or want to leave your feedback to help us improve the game.



Lock, load, and loot, Commanders!