Survive the Nights News

Hello everyone,

Hope you all have had a great week. We’ve had another productive one. James has been working on a few of our long standing issues with player relevancy. Andre has been improving map and compass functionality and I’ve spent time this week tweaking crafting recipes. As always, these blogs are just a tiny glimpse at what’s going on behind the scenes. If you are interested in exactly what we’re up to, check out our changelog.

[h3]Player Relevancy[/h3]
Some of you have surely experienced player relevancy issues. As an example, you and a friend are playing and you can’t see your friend but they can see you, etc.. This issue has persisted in builds for some time and has been a nightmare to pin down. James spent some time this week altering the scope of our network backend while hopefully fixing potential culling issues. This we feel should greatly improve the stability of player position relevancy and hopefully sort the majority of our issues there.

Survive the Nights is a beast of a project for a small team like ours especially when it’s the first. Unity is a fantastic engine and has allowed us to bring our vision to light. It is however not a total answer. When we started development Unity didn’t have a network solution. We obviously needed one as we were making a multiplayer game. Our choice at the time was a rather popular asset called uLink. uLink allowed us to network the game and get the ball rolling when it comes to extended multiplayer development. The team behind uLink has since moved on and we now have access to the source code. This has allowed us to expand on the asset and make tweaks specifically tailored to Survive the Nights.

As mentioned above, we’re hoping that recent tweaks made to the source will fix player relevancy issues. At the very least, the tweaks made for v1.10 will allow us to move forward with greater confidence that the issue lies higher up in our code rather than an issue with uLink.

[h3]Crafting & Nutrition Changes[/h3]
As you know, we’re working through quality of life issues. We’ve set out to dedicate a good chunk of our coming updates to improving our core mechanics. This includes early game improvements.

Crafting and nutrition is something we will be having a good look over. We’ve started adjusting workbench requirements, adjusting hydration levels to canned goods along with adding and removing some recipes. We’ve removed the workbench requirements for fortification materials. We feel this really impeded the flow of crafting. You no longer need to find a workbench to craft the materials needed for a fortification, only the fortification itself. This will allow the player to be ready to craft fortifications when benches are found rather than first having to craft all the materials for it.

Removed workbench requirements on:

• Plywood
  
• Plywood reinforced
  
• Metal Planks
  
• Sheet Metal
  

Crafting Changes
We’ve also altered the scrap requirement to craft steel pipes from 5 to 3 scrap metal. We’ve made some drop changes with these tweaks and in preparation for the coming compass and home improvements.

Compass
We’ve moved away from the dual compass setup. You’ll no longer find a DIY Compass recipe in the crafting list. This has been replaced with a recipe for a standard compass. This just simplifies things and removes confusion.

Sleeping Bag
We’ll be fleshing out and discussing the new “Home” system in the next devblog. James will also go over it with the 1.10 devlog. We have re-added the ability to craft a sleeping bag in 1.10 as this will be the item you place to set your home and be exactly where you respawn.

If you have any crafting change suggestions, feel free to share them with the team via the suggestion ticket (F1) in game.

Nutrition Changes
We’ve decreased the hydration rate of all canned goods to make water harvesting more realistic. Some of our canned goods were giving players more that 50% of their daily requirements for hydration. This is no longer the case. Most cans will now provide 2-3% of the daily requirement. This is just enough to save you from taking damage should you need a can in an emergency.

In Summary
These changes are just some in a long line of planned early game changes. The core of our project is rather impressive. We’ve got a solid foundation to work on and small tweaks and improvements are going to be what sets STN apart from others in the genre. Our goal is to focus our efforts on early game improvements for the time being, improving before adding. That doesn't mean we don't have grand schemes and plans for the project. There's still quite a bit to add and a lot of what we're adding and tweaking now will allow for that.

[h3]Item Highlighting[/h3]
Andre has added a quick and easy change to our highlighting system. This little tweak really shines in the project making harvesting just a little bit clearer, especially for new players. Searching harvestable items shows a blue icon, info icons are now red, locks are orange and containers remain white.



[h3]Last Chance System[/h3]
Adjustments have also been made to player damage. James has added a 'last chance' based system. What this translates to in game is the damage being clamped down to 1. If you take a hit with 10 health left, you won't die. You'll be taken down to 1 health allowing for another second to fight or flee.

In testing it feels right. We've found ourselves feeling 'lucky,' taking out a zed with 1 health left and making it out of sticky situations. Of course this doesn't always guarantee your safety. Let's face it, you're not going to last long with just 1 health but a wise survivor always carries a few bandages.

We'll continue to work on improving early game mechanics and fixing all the bugs you guys have found over the last few builds. Thanks again for the continued support and issue reporting.

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

We’ve made great progress burning through issues and making improvements to core mechanics. James has been working on the ‘home’ system for the new gameplay styles. John has been tweaking and improving animations. Andre has put some polish on the swimming mechanics and I’ve spent my time working on the upcoming improvements to our guide system. As always, feel free to check out exactly what we’re up to via our changelog.

[h3]Swimming[/h3]
Terribly sorry, that’s the best way to start after having tested the swimming implementation. Wow, was that needed! It really brings the world to life not having to constantly worry about death when you’re near a body of water. Andre spent the week adding all the finishing touches to the swimming mechanic. Proxy animations have been added so you don’t look like Jason Voorhees walking across Crystal Lake anymore. Stamina now affects how far you can swim before you start sinking so don’t go thinking you can swim right off the map. Players will be able to freely dive for quite a few seconds before taking damage to drowning (underwater caches, perhaps?!). You’ll receive ‘warning gulp’s’ before drowning to alert you to make your way to the surface. Now it’s time to start thinking about boats and fishing!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Animation Improvements[/h3]
Part of the quality of life improvements and general game improvements we’ll be focusing on in the coming updates is fluidity. Weapon animation speeds were something that needed addressing. John has spent the week tweaking and changing animations and animation speeds. He's made reloading animations around 1.5x faster than they’ve been in the past across the board. You’ll also notice a new last round and partial clip reload animation.

New mid clip reload

Along with reload animation tweaks and speed tweaks, we’ve adjusted cleaning speeds on all weapons.

Clean Lengths

• ARG 15 - Old: 14.6 | New: 9.1
  
• Clintchester - Old: 11.3 | New: 6.9
  
• Double Barrel - Old: 9.8 | New: 6.0
  
• Double Barrel Sawn Off - Old: 9.8 | New: 6.0
  
• FRKS - Old: 9.9 | New: 6.0
  
• Pump Action Shotgun - Old: 9.6 | New: 6.0
  
• R-6804 - Old: 8.0 | New: 4.8
  
• 357 Magnum - Old: 5.2 | New: 3.0
  
• Bateman - Old: 5.9 | New: 3.4
  
• Lola And Garry's Iron - Old: 8.0 | New: 4.8
  
• Rauser Rig - Old: 7.8 | New: 4.8
  

[h3]Zombie Fixes[/h3]
Looking through player created tickets we’ve noticed and have personally run into stuck zombie issues. This occurs a lot around intersections and complicated world areas. The majority of the issue was due to an AI vision check being reversed. That has been sorted and it seems to have fixed the issue during internal testing. Below is an example of of the current issue or a variation of it at least. If you have any further issues like this when version 1.10 is released, please share with the team as soon as possible.

Zombie stuck (fix coming in 1.10)

We'll continue to work on improving early game mechanics and fixing all the bugs you guys have found over the last few builds. Thanks again for the continued support and issue reporting.

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Happy Friday the 13th! We’ve spent the week working on issues and game improvements for 1.10. A lot of what’s being worked on for these updates isn’t very devblog worthy. Unfortunately, bug fixes don’t make for very exciting devblogs. We’ll discuss just a few of our planned changes below, what we’re working on and what’s to come.


[h3]Compass Improvements[/h3]
Currently in the game you have two compass options. A DIY compass you can craft with a few bits and a found compass. The only difference between the two currently is the speed at which your position is displayed. The DIY compass is far slower than the one you can find in the world. When the player opens the maps, the compass takes time to calibrate. The time it takes is the difference between the two. This system works and it’s pretty unique but it’s not very intuitive and for the most part, takes far too much time and effort.

We’ve decided to concept and start implementation of a new compass system. Once the player finds a compass in the world or crafts one, they’ll be able to see their position on the inspection menu. Currently the inspection menu is defaulted to ‘F’ . It's the menu that comes up when you want to inspect anything on your person or your stats. The current concept includes the ability to display a graphical N,E,S,W compass on the top of the screen. Along with the general direction, Andre has included the functionality to add icons of all kinds.

We’ve yet to decide what this new implementation will mean for the dual compass types. Our current ideas include DIY compasses showing fewer or limited icons with the opposite being true for the found compass. The video below is a showcase of a work in progress feature and may not represent the final product. If you have any ideas for improved compass features please feel free to share them with the team.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Chat Improvements[/h3]
Andre has made further progress on chat improvements this week. The task is actually harder than it may seem. We’ve tied a lot of important ends and odds into the chat system and converting them all to a new and improved system takes a bit of time. The job is getting sorted now and Andre made great progress this week. The concept you saw a couple of weeks ago has been implemented and it’s currently being tied into all of our chat based mechanics.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Tools of the Trade[/h3]
A lot of what we do first needs doing, if that makes sense. Unity is a fantastic tool and we’ve relied on the community and numerous assets during development. We’ve also created a fantastic amount of in house tools from fence and power pole placement systems to loot spawners and general design managers. We’ve essentially developed a game engine inside of a game engine mostly out of need but also with the idea of modding in mind. If we make tools that are easy for anyone on the team to use they should be no issue for a player to use further down the line. Below is an example of a tool Andre has created for the dynamic help system. This system will allow any of us to easily extend the help system. Ideally we’d have a fully integrated in-game help system so you’re never leaving the game to get assistance.

Using the Unity timeline feature Andre has made a simple cation system possible. The ability to easily add captions to any gif/video will allow for quick and easy feature expansion. Like a lot of the tools we create, this one is future proof (for now at least).

Unity timeline and help video captions

This is the scriptable object that will allow for quickly updating the help system. Allowing for quite a good deal of customization.

• Title: The title of the help gif/video.
  
• Video: This is where you’d drop the actual file.
  
• Captions: This gameobject would have been saved via the caption system seen above and include all the needed captions for the gif/video.
  
• Help Image: No video? No problem we can also use a screenshot or diagram etc.
  
• Help Info: This is the text displayed in the large help window in the menu.
  

Scriptable in-game object

We'll continue to work on improving early game mechanics and fixing all the bugs you guys have found over the last few builds. Thanks again for the continued support and issue reporting.

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

We’ve had a decent week making progress on 1.10. Andre has spent the majority of the week working on swimming and it’s coming along great. James has been working on hardcore and standard modes and John has been polishing up some animations and adjusting manipulation speeds.


[h3]Swimming[/h3]
It’s happening! Swimming has been missing since day one. As much as we didn’t think it was a big deal (easily avoidable), wow, it really does make a difference. Originally we didn’t know exactly how the mechanic was going to work out and just what we could pull off. Andre has done a fantastic job so far and we already have an excellent base for the feature. You’ll be able to swim, dive and see underwater. Stamina will take effect and you’ll only ever be able to go as far as your stamina allows before you take damage. We’ll expand on this feature and tweak it as you all provide feedback.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Improved Animation Speeds[/h3]
Many of you have requested that we speed up world interaction slightly. John has spent the week tweaking animations/manipulations and we’ve come to what we feel is a nice spot. Generally most things have or will be sped up over the coming quality of life patches. Weapon reload is a big request and that’s what we’ll showcase below. Reloading and cleaning/gun interaction speeds being tweaked slightly like this seems to make a dramatic and enjoyable difference in game. We’ll tweak further with player feedback. Currently speeds are around 1.5x faster than their original state as shown below.

ARG Cleaning animation (OLD)

ARG Cleaning animation (NEW)

[h3]In Game Guide System[/h3]
As mentioned last week we plan on introducing a dynamic in game guide for new and returning players alike. Andre has begun the visual implementation of both the in-game even based guide and the menu based guide. The system is being developed in such a way that we can easily expand on the system should the community request more guidance. Please keep in mind everything in our devblogs is subject to change and under constant development. We’ll keep you posted on features as they develop throughout the builds life cycle.

In game event based system

Menu based guide system

[h3]Additional Bug Fixes[/h3]
A lot of what’s going into the next couple of updates isn’t pretty and shiny. There’s not a lot of great preview pictures or gifs/videos. We’ve spent the last week going through our internal ticket list and cleaning up all of your reports while working on some of the most requested fixes and tweaks. Below are a few of the things that we’ve fixed in the last week or so. As always, you can follow along via our changelog.

• Vehicle issues: Vehicles have been problematic for a few builds now. Driving as a passenger is very glitchy. Player lag is currently felt hand in hand with a vehicle/player rotation issue. James has sorted this rotation issue and driving is far smoother than it has been in some time if not ever. There are currently other issues to take into account when it comes to driving and sector loading and we’ll be doing so shortly. That being said the experience is improved tenfold and you should notice it instantly when cruising with friends.
  
  
• Inventory scrolling issues: Currently you can end up in a situation where your inventory is expanded above the top edge of your screen. This can cause the player to have to scroll up to see a single item sitting at the top of the list. It can cause the player to assume they have nothing in their inventory when they actually do. This issue has been sorted and you should now always see the first item in your inventory space.
  
  
• Removed logoff from bus stop: This has been a confusing sticking point for some time and as we removed bed logoffs this feels fitting. Remember, you can currently log anywhere in the world.
  
  
• Increased damage effects for low health: We’ve added the critical stat notification and thought an improvement to the low health effect was called for (previously not noticeable or working in some builds). Andre has reworked and improved the low health effect and it’s far more noticeable now.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We'll continue to work on improving early game mechanics and fixing all the bugs you guys have found over the last few builds. Thanks again for the continued support and issue reporting. Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

We’ve had a productive week. We’ve spent time cleaning up the issue tracker while gathering new and duplicated backlogged issues alike. The team has put together the attack plan for our next version. We’ve decided while there may be major issues fixes going in, we’re not moving to a major build and will continue to use the 1.10.44 format. Our next version will be called 1.10.

James has released the 1.9 devlog which we posted on YouTube. We updated the last devblog to showcase the video but we’ll include it in the post below in case you’ve missed it.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This week's devblog will be a bit different. As we’ve mentioned above, the team has spent the week taking notes and planning for 1.10 and setting up our workflow. We’ve concepted a few ideas for quality of life improvements and have put together a massive bug fix list. Below we’ll go over just a few of the planned fixes and additions, a preview for 1.10.


[h3]Early Game Improvements[/h3]
A big part of the early game experience is well, the first hour or so of the game. Quite a few players seem to struggle with early game mechanics and game flow. This is something we’ve wanted to address for some time and 1.10 seems a perfect time to do so. We’ll be introducing a sleek and simple help system. This system as we’ve concepted it will be interaction based along with a complete menu system. New players will be guided with simple easy to understand gifs and also have access to a built in menu based game guide. This will be toggle based and returning players shouldn’t worry about annoyance. We’ll include a couple of concept shots below. Please keep in mind we're in the first days of concepts here and all of this is subject to change as we move forward.

Menu guide concept

Interaction based guidance will trigger when near a fire

[h3]Swimming[/h3]
After careful consideration, we’ve decided to remove the water entirely and replace it with lava. This removes the need to swim at all... ːsteammockingː Swimming has been an issue since the start and we’ll be addressing that issue in 1.10. We’ll be introducing a basic swimming system, it won’t be over complex. We may or may not initially introduce a diving system. We’ll have to see how it goes. We’ll likely introduce the mechanic with a velocity based dive system so you go under when jumping from heights adding a bit more realism. The player will swim along the surface of the water plane until they run out of stamina at which point they will start taking damage and drown. This will answer some abuse concerns right off the bat and we’ll tweak the mechanics should there be a need to do so.

[h3]Chat Improvements[/h3]
As you know, the in game text chat can be useless at times. There are a good amount of issues with the current system, enough in fact to require a total rework. The chat in the game now is dark, the text is hard to read and there is a good deal of console information cluttering it up. The system doesn’t match the inspect style and just doesn’t provide a good experience.

We’ve concepted a new chat and think it will work much better. We’ve introduced a gradient style background matching that of our inspect menu and the coming help system. They system will be sleeker while at the same time being clearer to use. We’ll be removing the console clutter as well. Information like “Jayty has joined the server” will now display in the small notification area on the top left side of the screen. Below is a concept of our plan for the new chat and you should see that in the 1.10 build. Keep in mind, this is all subject to change and we’ll be doing our regular weekly updates to keep you up to date with exactly what is going on.

Chat Concept

[h3]Hardcore and Standard Game Modes[/h3]
There’s a divide, a pretty big one actually. The community seems split between hardcore and casual players. A couple of updates ago, we introduced our game mode system and in 1.10 we’ll be expanding on both sides of the token too. We’ll be introducing new mechanics to standard game modes and hardcore modes. The ability to easily develop both modes will allow us to trial and error some of the features you see in coming builds. Nothing is set in stone here and, as always, we’ll take community feedback and adjust as we see fit.

Hardcore
Hardcore mode will now truly be so. We'll be introducing a proper perma death system. Your player and world will completely refresh on death the database will be removed and you’ll need to start from scratch. We’ll be improving and fixing some horde issues. We’ll be making hordes more difficult and tweaking horde numbers. Previously, there were some balance issues with hordes making later stages impossible to complete. This will be addressed and sorted out in 1.10. We’ll likely introduce more hardcore features in this build and we’ll keep updated via our weekly devblogs.


Standard Gameplay
Looking for a more casual experience? We have the ability to accommodate both play styles even with our small team this doesn’t really slow us down. Most of us (a2z) prefer the hardcore game mode. This is how we envisioned the game, however, not everyone is looking for a hardcore experience. It’s a lot easier to make things easy when you’ve already made them difficult, if that makes sense. We’ve decided to give the player that option. Standard gameplay will be a far more casual experience while still retaining the challenge and gameplay creepiness.

The major difference between the modes is permanent death and the ability to ‘claim’ a home base. The concept as it stands will allow the ‘standard gameplay’ player to respawn at a fortified base. This base or ‘home’ system will also disable spawning zombies without the need for fortifications. These are early concept ideas and as mentioned above we’ll be expanding on these ideas during the development cycle. If you have any ideas for hardcode and standard gameplay features, feel free to share them.

[h3]Weeklong Deal - 35% Off Sale Reminder[/h3]
Survive the Nights is currently 35% off until Monday, August 2nd. If you have any questions before purchasing, please join our friendly community on discord.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/541300

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

[h3]If you're enjoying the game, please consider writing a review or updating your current one. Thank you! :)[/h3]

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/REE088A.png

[h3]Links[/h3]
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive