Ravenous Horde News

Fellow Hunters!

A new playtest is coming this weekend, and with that an update to the game!


Patch notes for v0.0.7:

- Added the first iteration of the perk system! More on that below.
- Updated the Gore system with dismemberment. (also updated all gore effects)
- Added a countdown timer on the server browser menu if the playtest server is offline.

- AI zombies now only use limbs after the halfway point. (halfway point is either when there are more human controlled zombies than hunters or when the timer has passed half of the round time)
- AI zombies now don't stand still anymore when they get confused
- AI zombies now significantly use less resources

- Fixed a bug where zombies could spawn within view.
- Fixed some glitchy spots on maps.


[h2]The Perk System[/h2]
Starting this Friday I'll be away for a week, and I was in the middle of working on the perk system after having finished the gore update. However I didn't want to postpone this update as it does contain performance improvements and general gameplay improvements.

So just to let you all know, the perk system is currently very a work-in-progress. But you'll have access to 8 perks so far, 4 for the hunter and 4 for the zombie. All unlocking on various ranks.
They're functional but unbalanced and the artwork is very much placeholder for now.

There are 36 more perks on the to-do list though so with the next patch expect some solid options to pick from! (hint: some of them involve going all in on your sentry)


Thanks for all the support so far!
- Rinke

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/

Got some bug reports that needed immediate fixing.

Patch notes for v0.0.6a:
- Fixed some glitch spots that prevented zombies from reaching you.
- Fixed a memory leak issue.

Thanks to everyone for reporting said bugs!
- Rinke

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/

Fellow Hunters!

A new playtest is coming this weekend, and with that an update to the game!


Patch notes for v0.0.6:

- Added a new special equipment type: The Sentry, which is available to be equipped from rank 10.

- Weapon unlock ranks are now paced better.
- Updated the default buttons for Puking and Explode as a zombie.
- Disabled the game trying to apply HDR settings when the monitor had HDR options.
- The default video resolution is now the same as the monitor the game is displayed on. (only applies if no settings file is present, so only for new players)
- The default video settings are now set to medium. (only applies if no settings file is present, so only for new players)
- AI Zombies can now divert to their attackers if they are closer than their target.
- The suicide button is now unbound by default. (Useful to bind it in case you get stuck)
- The end of round screen is now shortened in time. (60s -> 40s)
- The XP multiplier is changed (x4 -> x2) as more playtest time will be available.
- AI zombies now leave more room between them.
- Corpses are now impacted by forces.

- Fixed a bug where when dying as a zombie whilst having movement keys pressed would mess with your input when respawning.
- Fixed a bug where your mouse would become invisible and unresponsive in the deploy screen.
- Fixed an issue where the scoreboard would stay visible when the round would end whilst having it shown.
- Fixed several glitch spots that allowed you to be out of range for AI zombies.
- Fixed a bug where you wouldn't get awarded assist XP when the AI zombie would explode itself.





As mentioned in the previous post, the next playtest is once again from 7PM CEST till 10PM CEST on Saturday and Sunday. Some more players who opted in will be accepted on Saturday morning :)

Hope to see you all this weekend!
- Rinke

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/

Fellow Hunters!

As mentioned in the last update, the previous playtest was a great success! And with many more players requesting invites (hundreds more!) it's time to improve how the playtests should run. Therefore every weekend will be a playtest.

Starting from next upcoming weekend 10/11th of August. On all Saturdays and Sundays between 7PM and 10PM CEST the playtest server will be online! I'm currently working on getting it all working automatically so I don't need to interfere every time.

This does mean that every weekend there may or may not be an updated build ready for everyone to test. Sometimes there are big features in the works that take more than a week, so I can't reliably deliver updates weekly. If there are any changes, a news update with patch notes will be dropped on Friday.

Also going forward I'll accept an undetermined amount of playtesters weekly in the weekends from all countries. I know originally I mentioned Europe only as the test server is located there, but if you don't mind playing with a higher ping then I'll leave that choice up to you.

That being said this weekend you'll be able to test out the new Sentry, which unlocks at rank 10!



Thank you for all your support!
-Rinke

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/

Fellow Hunters!

This past weekend we had the first public playtest! Thanks to all who joined in to try it out :)
Personally I think it was a great success, we had some known players joining and some newer ones too.

Since the latest build I now track (GDPR compliant) some stats during gameplay which will help me identify problems in the game or balancing issues that could be improved. To start I only added some basic tracking such as how many rounds does a player play and how far does the player level up?

Steam already tracks how long you have the game open per session. But that interferes when the server is not always available and it brings the average down as new invitees open the game but find that the server is not online outside of playtest hours. So I had to add my own tracking so I could accurately track how long players play when they're actually playing on a server.

[h2]The Numbers[/h2]

On both Saturday and Sunday we had about ~7 players active during the playtest times when I was online too. (from the 184 accounts who now have access) Often some people would leave and others would join. I think this is a good starting amount for the first tests, so the amount of critical bugs that can affect players is minimal.

Note: the next data is to be taken with a grain of salt due to "low" player numbers. But I still want to post these.

On Saturday the mean amount of rounds played per user was 13.57, which is quite high for some people just checking out a game. On Sunday this was a lower amount: 6.

The mean playtime on Saturday was a whopping 47 minutes and on Sunday 24 minutes. I'd also take this as a good start for a game that does not have a tremendous amount of content yet.

As for levelling, there is some drop-off from rank 2 to 9, but after that every player got to rank 16. After which there's a slow drop till rank 24, which is the highest rank someone got this weekend.


Some other cool facts:

• Most players came from Spain! Followed by Great Britain and Germany. All countries together where good for 39 people checking out the game at any given time.
  
• A total of 22 in-game errors got automatically reported which affected 8 users.
  
• Only 2 actual breaking issues where found.
  
• The test server only sent about 1gb of data throughout this whole month, and received 2.72gb of data. (moving, looking around, shooting etc. all sends out data)
  

[h2]Other feedback and improvements[/h2]

Some things cannot be measured with data, here are some feedback items and things that could be improved:

• I think the default levelling speed is too slow, but the current 4x multiplier is too much. (The multiplier was added so you could level faster since the playtests were limited in time)
  
• It is quite hard to survive a full round as a hunter. Apart from some glitch spots I don't think it's achievable at this moment.
  
• The pacing of getting rewarded felt a bit off personally. Since at this moment you only get something after levelling up you need to play more and more rounds after each level for effectively the same "reward".
  
• Currently it feels like there is about an hour of content until you have seen it all (personal feeling). The rounds end within 5-8 minutes so you'll blast through maps quickly and all their weather conditions. Although there are more guns to unlock, they are currently unlocked towards the higher ranks.
  
• The zombie AIs felt a bit dumb when they walked past you towards their intended target, even if you shot them.
  
• The end of round timer feels too long, you're just sitting there for a minute waiting.
  
  Next to this list there obviously are several bugs / glitch spots that need fixing :)
  

[h2]What's Next[/h2]

First, I've updated the roadmap!



Some features are more important to have earlier, so I shuffled some things around.
I'm going to get all the bugs fixed that were present in the playtest, and then move on onto some of the feedback points which will be improved through the features listed on the roadmap. Having the special equipment and perks will make sure you'll live longer as a Hunter (as a zombie too!). And during Phase 4 having weapon skins and challenges will grant you more rewards for not just levelling up.

[h2]Next Playtest[/h2]



I'd like to check off some things from the roadmap before I can plan a new playtest, because I'm not sure how long they'll take. Ideally the new special equipment called The Sentry should be added, along with the perk system (with some perks) and to top it off the dismemberment and gore update!

I'm estimating 3 weeks to get this done with the fixes from this playtest. I'll write up another post when I'm confident about when it'll be done.


Thanks for reading! If you have any other questions feel free to drop them here or in the Discord server :).

- Rinke

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/