Super Animal Royale News

We're kicking off phase 2 of the Super Animal Royale v0.96 PTR with big updates to the new game mode based on your feedback from PTR 1, as well as continuing our work on overhauling the game's menus and UI.

This post will only be covering what is new in PTR 2 (v0.96.1) so for the full scope of changes you can read our previous posts:

• Our Dev Blog post detailing the design philosophy behind all the changes
• PTR 1 (v0.96.0) Patch notes

https://steamcommunity.com/games/843380/announcements/detail/2921105984693369530

[h3]Phase 2: Friday, October 16th at 6pm PDT to Wednesday, October 21st at 11:59pm PDT[/h3]



To switch your SAR to the PTR beta branch:

1. Right click on SAR in Steam Library list
   
2. Select "Properties"
   
3. Go to the "Betas" tab
   
4. In the dropdown selector, choose the ”ptr0.96.0” branch
   
5. The game will update to the PTR version.
   
6. Start the game and hit Play!
   

Note: the PTR is only available for players who own SAR (Super Free Edition / Demo users are not able to use Steam betas). You can switch between the PTR and the live version of SAR at any time by following the same steps and changing the dropdown in the “Betas” tab to the version you’d like to play.

If you don't see the PTR in your Betas tab immediately, you might need to restart your Steam client (including fully exiting it in your system tray if you're on Windows). The PTR only has one mode available (the new S.A.W. vs Rebellion 32v32 mode).

For this test we’ll also be rotating through regional servers each day, so you can all get a chance at trying the new mode with low ping. Here's the schedule:

NA: 3pm - 11pm PDT
AS: 3pm - 11pm UTC+9 (Japan/Korea time)
EU: 3pm - 11pm UTC+1 (15:00 - 23:00 UK time)

So without further ado, let's get into all the changes in phase 2 of the PTR:





Game design changes:

• There are now 4 flags to capture (up from 3) arranged in a diamond shape.
  
• The match can be won by holding onto 3 flags for 60s. Capturing the 4th flag will halve the timer. If flags are lost (ie drop to less than 3) then the timer is canceled and reset.
  
• The victory timer is shown below the main gas timer as well as on the map screen.
  
• Lowered XP per flag held, but increased XP for winning.
  
• Players start with a bit of each ammo, 1 super tape, and 50 health juice.
  
• Flags owned will now increase your team's move speed while downed (in addition to the out of combat healing). Also added an icon on the HUD to denote this buff (with info text if the player opens inventory).
  

Additional Improvements:

• Added an indicator arrow on teammates.
  
• New character animation for capturing a flag.
  
• Larger map icons for teammates and they will show if a player is knocked down.
  
• Larger map flag icons and changed their layering to be below players & markers.
  
• Changed end-game "YOU PLACED #2" text to be "YOU WERE ELIMINATED" if you're eliminated before the end of the match. In the case of winning, it will say "YOUR TEAM HAS WON!".
  
• Bug with enemy flight path being broken should be fixed.
  
• Fixed incorrect warning text when leaving a Saw vs Rebellion match after your squad was dead.
  

• New main menu scene, set at Giant Eagleport (GEP), Super Animal World’s main (and only) international airport.
  
• Originally designed for Super Animal World guests, GEP is now the place where Giant Eagles launch, carrying battle royale contestants.
  
• New NPCs join Cackling Carl and Ms. Macawsome in the menus.
  
• Katie O’Prey attends the gate on the home screen of the main menu for her employer, Giant Eagle Airlines (GEA). As with all GEA employees, Katie is a Super Bird of prey, whose uniform is as sharp as her beak.
  
• Doctor Jennifer Dogna, who many of you will already know as the most renowned of the renowned Lab-Labs, is now on hand to help players navigate the Research Lab screen, and turn their hard-earned DNA into new critters.
  
• Your player Super Animal now displays while on the Milestones tab, and will preview whichever item you have selected.
  
• Weekly challenges are now the same for all players each week.
  

• Downed players no longer have collisions.
  
• Reduced overall player collisions size and movement speed while colliding changed from 25% to 30% of normal.
  
• Reverted the change to make rarity apply to weapon recoil (i.e. rarity no longer affects recoil as of this patch).
  
• Max carried grenades set to 4.
  
• Removed movement slow after firing the Sniper.
  
• Bunny hop mechanic reverted to old style (100ms timing and no buildup).
  
• "Armor Pierce" renamed to "Armor Break" in tooltips for English.
  
• Adjusted some automatic weapon recoil patterns, and increased AK spawn rate slightly.
  
• Added (A) controller icons beside more main menu buttons (such as Discord, Feedback, and Leave Party buttons).
  
• "TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN!" no longer displays if you did not win but were present at the end of a match.
  
• Fixed blank names for people using angle brackets (ie rich text).
  
• Fixed being able to change main menu tabs while unlocking an animal.
  
• Fixed bug where maximum Sparrow ammo was 30 (should be 35 now).
  
• Fixed a bug where non-looping emotes on Animal Pass, Store, and Milestones wouldn't go back to idle after animation finished.
  
• Improved server performance that was causing crashes in the previous PTR.
  

We also made some changes while the previous PTR was live, which we posted as comments on the previous patch notes. We'll be continuing to make changes throughout this PTR as well, so you can check the comments of this post to see those changes. For convenience I've collected all of the changes made in between the previous PTR patch notes and these patch notes here.

Client Patch:

• Animal Pass screen has a new design and background.
  
• Adjusted the price label location to be more clear.
  
• Animal Pass level on main menu is clickable to open the pass itself.
  
• Page dots are clickable on the Animal Pass screen.
  
• Fixed a double-click issue on the S.A.W. Tickets screen.
  
• Added translations for some of the main menu and Animal Pass.
  
• Creep zoom no longer works while capturing a flag.
  
• Fixed "Sparrow hits in one match" displaying the wrong numbers on the milestones page.
  
• Updated the sound for the enemy's flag capture to have less accordion.
  
• Teammates' help/danger/gogo pings in Saw vs Rebels will play a sound now (in addition to showing up on the map as it already does). There is an anti-spam period too to prevent sound overload.
  

Server Patch:

• First set of mole crates in S.A.W. vs Rebellion will avoid spawning at far edges of the map.
  
• Mole crates will spawn more ammo for each weapon they dropped.
  
• Rebel caches will spawn more ammo with their weapon.
  
• First capture of a flag will now include 2 super tape and 1 large health juice (in addition to the 2 legendary weapons).
  
• Subsequent captures of flags will drop 3 super tapes, 3 large health juices, and an assortment of ammo.
  
• Slicing grass in S.A.W. vs Rebellion has 2x normal item drop rate.
  
• Breaking boxes in S.A.W. vs Rebellion has 1.5x normal item drop rate.
  
• Added some lag checks for downed players who are trying to shoot still.
  

The PTR is all about getting your feedback on the changes we’re making, so once you’ve spent some time in the PTR, we’d very much appreciate it if you use the feedback button in the game’s main menu, or visit our Discord server and leave feedback in the #sar-ptr-feedback channel! We’ve set the new channel to slow mode so you can gather all your thoughts and not worry about them being bumped by conversation.

The Super Animal Royale Public Test Realm (PTR) is now available for you to take an early look at what’s coming in our next update and give us your feedback on it! We’re laying the foundations for v1.0 of SAR, so your input today will be fundamental in shaping the coming months and years of Super Animal World.

We wrote a deep dive two weeks ago into all of our design thinking behind the changes, so if you haven’t read that yet, you can check it out here on Medium. Make sure to give it a read if you haven’t since we’ll be focusing more on the specifics of the PTR itself in this post.



[h3]Phase 1: Thursday, October 8th at 7pm PDT to Sunday, October 11th at 11:59pm PDT[/h3]

The first phase of testing begins now! We’ll be running a second phase of testing next week as well, so there will be more chances to play before the update goes live if you miss this one.



To switch your SAR to the PTR beta branch:

1. Right click on SAR in Steam Library list
   
2. Select "Properties"
   
3. Go to the "Betas" tab
   
4. In the dropdown selector, choose the ”ptr0.96.0” branch
   
5. The game will update to the PTR version.
   
6. Start the game and hit Play!
   

Note: the PTR is only available for players who own SAR (Super Free Edition / Demo users are not able to use Steam betas). You can switch between the PTR and the live version of SAR at any time by following the same steps and changing the dropdown in the “Betas” tab to the version you’d like to play.

If you don't see the PTR in your Betas tab immediately, you might need to restart your Steam client (including fully exiting it in your system tray if you're on Windows). The PTR only has one mode available (the new S.A.W. vs Rebellion 32v32 mode) and one regional server for testing (based in NA).



The PTR is all about getting your feedback on the changes we’re making, so once you’ve spent some time in the PTR, we’d very much appreciate it if you use the feedback button in the game’s main menu, or visit our Discord server and leave feedback in the #sar-ptr-feedback channel! We’ve set the new channel to slow mode so you can gather all your thoughts and not worry about them being bumped by conversation.





New Game Mode: S.A.W. vs Rebellion (32v32)
Fight for control of Super Animal World as the S.A.W. Security Forces or Super Animal Super Resistance fighters.

• This will be the only game mode live during the PTR, as we look forward to fine tuning the gameplay with you and ironing out any glitches.
  
• Players will engage in large-scale 32v32 battles, with separate Giant Eagle flight paths and 3 flags to capture that provide a health regeneration buff and bonus EXP for your team (to contribute to your Account Level and Animal Pass). 2 legendary weapons will also drop upon the first capture of each flag.
  
• Your helmet and gravestone will automatically be set to match your team: S.A.W. Forces or Rebellion Fighter.
  

Animal Pass Season 0 and S.A.W. Shop are available for testing!

• The current UI/styling is a functional prototype (more theming to come soon) but you can test out the new system and let us know what you think!
  
• As you play matches and level up, you will progress through the 49 tiers of the pass. Some rewards can be earned for free, but others will require purchasing the pass.
  
• S.A.W. Shop has been added, where you can purchase several new cosmetic items using S.A.W. Tickets.
  
• All players in the PTR will start with 1200 S.A.W. Tickets. These tickets will be removed from your account after the PTR, but every owner of the game will receive starter S.A.W. Tickets as part of the new Super Edition.
  
• S.A.W. Tickets can be purchased in-game through Steam wallet. At the end of the PTR, your purchased S.A.W. Tickets will be returned to you along with a 20% BONUS as thanks for helping us test our work in progress systems. S.A.W. Shop items and Animal Pass progress will also be reset at the end of the PTR.

Earned Progression Systems Overhaul

• Cackling Carl's Cart is open for business! In this rotating shop you can spend Carl Coins (earned by playing the game) on different cosmetic items.
  
• The end-game mole loot drop has been removed, and most of those items have been moved into Carl's Cart. However, 69 of the items will remain as random drops, awarded upon leveling up.
  
• Any duplicate cosmetic item drops will be automatically converted into Carl Coins.
  
• Item trade-up has been removed, as duplicate items are now automatically converted into Carl Coins. We will have more info on this closer to full release.
  
• Super Serum rewards after matches are no longer random, instead 0.45 Super Serum is rewarded per minute survived (rounded). If you get more than one kill in the match, you'll be rewarded with 1 bonus Super Serum.
  
• Super Serum reward for leveling up has been increased from 3 to 5.
  

Weekly and Daily Challenges

• Weekly challenges have been added (and most are unique, new categories of challenges), and now all challenges provide experience rather than items. Re-rolling has been removed since the reward is no longer random.
  
• Daily and Weekly Challenges will now show up in-game in the Paws Menu.
  
• "Place top 5" type challenges now condensed into one challenge that is just "Get top placement in any mode".
  

The Great Gun Buyback

• As part of the Great Gun Buyback, all of the existing basic colored gun skins have been moved to milestones, and can be earned by getting kills with each weapon. The Hunting Rifle, Bow & Sparrow, and Sparrow Launcher now also have new colored skins for their milestones, and a new white color has been added as the final tier for all weapons.
  
• You will also be able to use the Hellfire SMG and Frozen AK skins on the PTR (but not in the live game until the update is live).
  
• You will, however, be able to use the colored weapon skins you earn in the PTR in the live game.
  

You can get all of the details on the great gun buyback here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/843380/announcements/detail/2892957851495507252
Design Overhaul (WIP)

• The game's menus are being fully redesigned in order to provide easier access to all of the new and existing screens. This has been a big overhaul so it's still a work in progress and we will be continuing to update the UI throughout the PTR!
  
• The new menus are set in the Giant Eagle Airlines terminal, and come complete with NPCs operating each of the services.
  
• Milestones are now claimed in the redesigned milestones tab rather than automatically granted at end-game.
  
• The Discord button in the main menu now displays the number of users online.
  
• Probably the most important change of all: scrollbars in the menus have been widened.
  
• Added mouse-over sounds for many of the main menu buttons.
  

Gameplay Upgrades

• Added Rebel Caches that can be found around the map. When opened, they will drop a rare or epic weapon or level 3 armor, as well as some Super Tape or Health Juice.
  
• Added animated damage numbers when you hit an enemy, including armor hits and poison damage. They can be toggled on or off in settings if you prefer to play without them.
  
• Player collisions have been added (does not apply to teammates). As well, you can collide with emus and hamster balls while on foot. We will be continuing to test this during the PTR, and see how players are liking or disliking it.
  
• Can now ping campfires, coconuts, mole crates, and rebel caches.
  
• Pinging grenades, ammo, health juice, and tape will now show the amount in brackets.
  
• "Sparrow hits in one match" milestone objectives changed to 5/10/20 from 5/15/25.
  
• Creep zoom is maintained during creep roll.
  
• Creep zoom no longer works while on Emu.
  
• Added a 0.25s block on shooting after exiting a Hamster Ball (matches the same block on exiting Emus).
  
• Pressing reload while holding a charged bow will cancel the charge.
  
• Super Skunk Vial changed to now increase movement speed in the skunk gas and skunk bombs by 25%, and reduce their damage by 10%. Please let us know how you find this mechanic, as we are experimenting with different ways to make this item more useful.
  
• Bunny hopping (perfect rolling) now requires tighter timing (70ms rather than 100ms zone), and the movement boost is +3% per successive hop, up to 10% (previously it was a flat 10%). These changes should reward players who are able to continuously perform hops, rather than always having full boost.
  
• Downed players can now eat nearby bananas for health if they have a Banana Forker equipped.
  
• Max carried grenades is now 3. This should help reduce grenade spam, and provide a bit more incentive to use skunk bombs or bananas. Praise banan.
  
• Player markers on the map & minimap now face the direction that the player is looking.
  
• Adjusted a few spots on the map to have better pathing, collisions, and less things to get caught on.
  
• Added more grass in some forest areas.
  
• Bots will occasionally pick up level 1 armor.
  
• Bots will dance if they win a match.
  

Weapon Changes
The following weapon changes help reduce certain guns from hitting players at far ranges for very little damage, often shredding armor:

• Shotgun bullet range lowered to 45/48/51 (by rarity respectively) from previous values of 59/63/66. Due to having shorter range, damage has been increased slightly at these ranges.
  
• Epic JAG-7 bullet range lowered to 43 (previously was 63), with per-pellet damage of 4 at this range (previously was 3.75).
  
• Legendary JAG-7 bullet range lowered to 47 (previously was 66), with per-pellet damage of 5 at this range (previously was 4).
  
• Pistol bullet ranges changed from 94/102/111/119 to 92/96/100/104. Damage is slightly increased at these new ranges.
  
• The SMG's bullets were previously able to reach 120 range, but were doing 5/7/9 damage at that range (depending on rarity). They have now been adjusted to be 102/106/110 range and doing 9/10.5/12 damage at those ranges.
  
• Epic Thomas Gun bullet range is now 115 (from 120), and 12 damage at that max range (previously 11.5).
  
• Legendary Thomas Gun bullet range remains at 120, but instead will do 13 damage at max range (previously 13.7).
  

Additional Weapon Changes:

• Recoil when firing guns is now a preset pattern rather than random. This should provide more ways for players to learn individual weapons and have more calculated shot patterns, in addition to predicting player movement.
  
• Due to this change, the Sniper can be very accurate with every shot, and so a brief movement slow (that applies in roll) will apply after shooting it. We’ll be monitoring the results of this change and your feedback on it to see whether it’s necessary or needs further balancing.
  
• Weapon rarity will also once again affect the recoil spread amount.
  
• Purple rarity weapons have a reduced spawn rate in the world (excluding Sniper and Sparrow Launcher), but have an increased chance inside Rebel Caches.
  
• Hunting Rifle damage at max range increased from 70/75/80 to 75/80/85.
  
• Sniper damage at max range increased from 85/91 to 92/96.
  
• Magnum clip size changed to 6, and Deagle to 8.
  
• Magnum breaks 2 armor ticks now.
  
• Magnum base bullet speed lowered from 210 to 195, in order to differentiate it more from the Deagle.
  
• Lowered Magnum spawn rate (spawn weight reduced from 30 to 23 since it is more powerful now).
  
• Lowered AK spawn rate (spawn weight reduced from 20 to 15).
  
• Shotgun move speed while shooting lowered from 82% to 77%.
  
• JAG-7 move speed while shooting lowered from 84% to 81%.
  
• Bow & Sparrow damage increased from 34/36 to 55/57, but armor penetration lowered from 60% to 40%.
  
• Sparrow Launcher damage increased from 36/40 to 57/60, but armor penetration also lowered to 40%.
  
• Sparrow Launcher projectile speed increased by ~6%.
  
• Maximum sparrow ammo is now 35 (from 25).
  
• Both bow weapons now spawn with 12 ammo beside them (up from 10).
  
• Poison Dart Gun attack speed increased from 0.5s to 0.44s.
  
• Lowered Poison Dart Gun spawn rate slightly (spawn weight lowered from 10 to 9).
  
• Melee attacks now do 50% damage through armor.
  
• Melee swings only slow movement to 80% now (previously was 73%).
  
• Minigun is only available in legendary rarity tier now.
  
• Reduced range of grenades & explosions destroying bananas by about 25%. Praise banan.
  

Additional Changes:

• We've redesigned the Beta Blue Beanie to be more unique/special (for all of you who played in the beta back in 2018). Since the Beta Blue Beanie is now more unique, we've added a basic blue beanie to the random drop pool (rewarded upon account level-up).
  
• Minimap fades when moused over to make it easier to line up your shots with the enemy is in the top left of the screen.
  
• In order to reduce phantom hits as well as desync-related hamster ball deaths, we are testing an aim lead system for high ping players: going over 180 ping will result in "high ping mode" for the player, where all of their bullets fired as well as hamster ball hits are calculated server-side. What this means is that they will need to lead shots (and hamster ball) on targets in order to hit them. The amount to lead depends on the ping.
  
• Increased maximum simultaneous audio sources from 32 to 64.
  
• Made a bunch of performance improvements to several parts of the game, especially memory allocation that was happening mid-game, sound loading, and line of sight calculations.
  
• The S.A.W. vs Rebellion mode, however, can be a fairly taxing game mode, so we will continue to look for optimizations during the PTR.
  
• Adjusted lighting so it more closely matches the original art assets (especially less over-exposure in the snow biome).
  
• Fixed a bug where other players were not visibly charging their Bow & Sparrow properly.
  
• Fixed a bug where players with altered system clocks were having daily challenges constantly trying to reset.
  
• Fixed a bug where lag during the Eagle would sometimes result in being disconnected once landing.
  
• Fixed a bug where some milestones would notify the player as being completed despite the game being over.
  
• Fixed a bug where some ground-level sounds could be heard while in the Giant Eagle or parachuting.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would drop empty ammo boxes upon death.
  
• Fixed a few rare soft crashes.
  

Translations are not quite ready yet in the PTR, but will be added over the course of the PTR.

Thank you so much in advance to all of you who join us for testing. We hope you all have a ton of fun with the new mode and the changes, and look forward to reading your feedback via the in-game feedback form and in our Discord!

First of all, we just wanted to say thank you so much to all of you for your feedback and excitement around the big update and upcoming PTR! We can’t wait to test it all with you, and we’ll be announcing details on how to join the PTR next week.

As thanks for participating in The Great Gun Buyback, everyone who has at least one basic colored gun in their inventory when the script begins running tomorrow will be rewarded with the Hellfire SMG and Frozen AK. You’ll receive the guns when the full update arrives at the end of October, and you’ll also be able to preview them on the PTR.

If you missed the developer blog last week about all of the major changes coming to the game you can read the full post here, but I’ll also quickly recap the details about the Great Gun Buyback here so everyone has it in one place for reference!


Thanks to your feedback in August, we’ve decided to go ahead with moving 91 colored gun skins from random drops to milestones! We felt that the gun skin colors representing mastery with each weapon would be more fun than just just having them as random drops, and more than 80% of you agreed, so this weekend we’re implementing it.

Here’s what you can expect to see in-game:

• We’ll be starting to run a script tomorrow night pacific time (Friday PDT) to convert everyone’s basic colored gun skins into alternative random items of the same rarity tier. For example, if you have 4 rare colored gun skins, those will be removed and replaced with 4 rare random cosmetic items.
  
• You’ll know that the script completed running on your account when you boot up the game and see all your new replacement items pop up!
  
• Basic colored gun skins will also stop dropping randomly, and will no longer be able to be traded up.
  
• There will be a brief period of time in October where basic colored gun skins won’t be available in the live version of the game, since the new milestones are arriving in our Major Update at the end of October. However, you’ll be able to get started on earning those milestones in the PTR, and that progress will transfer to the live game when the update arrives.
  
• None of your special gun skins are affected by the buyback (for example, the Lucky Hunting Rifle that you might have earned during the St. Pawtricks event). The buyback only includes the basic color gun skins.
  
• The script has a lot of user accounts to go through, so we estimate 24-48hrs for it to complete. You should see it take effect sometime over the weekend!
  

When the update arrives at the end of October you’ll also see new white tier gun skins for all guns as the highest tier milestone, as well as new gun color skins for the Hunting Rifle, Bow & Sparrow and Sparrow Launcher (all with associated milestones of their own). In total, there will be 128 milestones associated with weapon mastery in the new update!

We hope you like the skins and enjoy the new system when you get a chance to try it out in the PTR or in the full update! Just let us know if you have any questions here in the Steam Discussion or in our Discord.

Hey Super Animals! You might have noticed that we've been quieter than usual, and that this patch is taking longer than our typical 3–4 week update schedule. We haven't been on a break: in fact we've been hard at work on one of our biggest updates yet. Early this spring, we took a step back to plan out our long term roadmap for the game and decide how we wanted it to improve and expand the world of SAR the coming months and years. This latest development cycle is finally bringing the first batch of those longer term designs to the game!

The upcoming update targets 3 critical areas of improvement for the game:

• Better free version of SAR. We're making the game accessible to more players with a free version that's more generous and feature complete, while also offering new optional, purchasable cosmetic items. At the same time, we're turning the current "full version" into the "Super Edition" which we'll continue to add value to over time.
  
• Progression system overhaul. We're making big improvements here, reducing randomness, adding new ways to earn items, and expanding/improving popular features like Super Milestones.
  
• Major gameplay additions. We're adding new gameplay modes to keep things fresh and fun for longterm players (us included!), and new tutorial/teaching content aimed at helping new players get oriented.
  

We want your feedback on all of these changes before we release them publicly so we're going to be opening up a Public Test Realm (PTR) at the beginning of October so that you can all let us know what you think before we release this major update later in the month!

And we're also hosting an AMA tomorrow (Friday) at 5pm PDT on the r/AnimalRoyale Subreddit (click here to see the event time converted to other timezones) to give us all of your feedback.

We've written a detailed dev blog post all about the changes coming to the game, which you can read right here:
Read the full post

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We're so very hoppy that you could join us for this presentation of the winners of the first-ever Super Art Contest, hosted by esteemed art critic, Rabbita Smith! Watch to see who will be the first winner of the Golden Paintbrush.

We were originally planning on only selecting the Top 10 pieces, but we received so many amazing submissions that we felt that we had to increase it to recognize the Top 20!

Congratulations to all of the winners! View all of the art on the contest website:

artcontest.animalroyale.com