Hello, shopkeepers...
I see that a lot of you aren't enjoying the new update, and I'm very sorry to see that so many of you are not having a good time!
With this update our goals were simply for you to have fun, be relaxed, and fully immersive yourself in the world.
I suppose I'm used to updating the game drastically because this is how the game initially looked like in 2019-2020 when I first quit my first job to make this game, previously called Please Buy Something.
It didn't even have any combat or multiplayer. Those were painstakingly added afterwards in 2020-2021. While the mechanics and models have changed, all this code is still running in the game to this day!
I really do believe that this game is 10x more fun than the legacy build with even more of its original soul.
Some players who have left a negative review upon first impression have changed their mind after giving it a little more time. Of course these new systems may not be for everyone but I hope more of you will consider giving it a fair shake too.
Many of the concerns are really only less than 1% of the update, and we're actively resolving them since they're not intentional on our end.
Unfortunately, these initial issues may have overshadowed a lot of the awesome new stuff due to being confusingly frontloaded in the initial experience.
Below, I'll address the main concerns and what we've done so far to resolve them.
ℹ️ = Information
✅= Resolved
✅ Camera Distance
People felt that the camera was too close.
You can change both the camera distance and field of view in the gameplay settings. In combat and when you're holding certain items, it'll dynamically move out farther.
Here's a screenshot from a player (klava) who set their camera distance farther:
For new players, we've listened to the feedback so far and adjusted it to be farther away at a camera distance of 0.2 and field of view of 75.
We aren't able to update your existing saves since we don't want to change your settings, so please change these settings yourself if you've already played the game.
✅ Slow Movement
People felt that the movement was too slow and unresponsive.
We've since tuned it to be faster to match the original movement speed.
The main intent was to make the game more relaxing. I think I've just played too much Counter-Strike and Deadlock so my definition of "relaxing" gameplay is moving around on ice skates!
The other gameplay intent was for you to find items or builds making even faster than even the legacy build allowed, but I do agree that it took too long to get there so I've buffed the movement speed back to normal.
✅ Lighting and Visual Clarity
People felt that the lighting was too bright and there are too many effects.
We have heavily reduced the bloom and removed the depth of field for now.
For players who don't like any post processing, you can also turn off post processing entirely in the graphics settings.
✅ Item Swapping Is Too Slow
People felt that holstering and unholstering items was too sluggish.
The intention for this holstering time was for the item to physically go from your hand to the holster and so this required a 1 second delay when an item was being put away or taken out.
We've cut the weapon swap delay, sped up item placement timing and allowed you to unholster/holster in more situations for a snappier gameplay experience just like the legacy build.
✅ Police Coming Too Often
People felt that they'd get arrested too often even for minor crimes like pushing customers.
We've increased the crime threshold so that police are more likely to just warn you instead of take you to jail.
Sprinting into characters will no longer ragdoll them, which is probably why most of you got arrested.
As for players who are saying that they're getting in trouble with cops for using the mop - that's really not intended and so far we haven't gotten it to happen on our end. We're still testing it and pushing potential fixes.
✅ Stamina Being Too Weak
People felt that they don't have enough stamina.
In a hotfix, we've slightly increased base stamina regeneration and max stamina Endurance rewards to make the early game go by a little faster.
Stamina was slightly rebalanced to match the new combat systems and player upgrades. This is one of the rare cases where we did indeed nerf the starting player experience.
The intent where if you put points into Endurance and Dexterity or find the right items, you'll actually be able to have even more stamina and mobility than the legacy build!
If you're playing a stationary character or have Stamina potions at the ready, maybe you'll forgo such upgrades to go all in on having more damage or health.
✅ Bring Back the Old Character Models!
People don't like the new character models.
I've seen this a few times and I just wanted to clear up that we didn't change the character models.
However, we were thinking of creating new character models so I really hope that goes over well...
ℹ️ Airstrafer Base Intro
People liked the old intro and want it back.
Believe me when I say I really wanted to keep this in the game since I wrote most of it, spent a lot of money, and worked many longs days + weekends to make it but a lot of players really didn't like it and thought it was too wacky/confusing. Plus, I didn't want to start the game off with bad vibes with the CEO firing/killing everyone at the start of the game.
We'll still keep the fun narrative energy of a linear story as well as a plethora of items to loot when we eventually add a new intro.
For the ones who did like it, we're thinking adding this level back.
ℹ️ Game Economy
People felt that we nerfed their money.
Money was changed from $100 to $1.00, so it was purely cosmetic for a more grounded early frontier economy feel. Achievements are also similarly converted to this scale so nothing fundamental has been changed.
That's why some things are a little cheaper than expected, like the shop plots being just $5.00. This would be $500 in the legacy build.
They've always been relatively cheap to the gameplay and we don't want to change those values yet until we've added more gameplay or story to shop plots for it to make sense.
You will actually make money even faster in this update since you can now sell stacks of items to customers!
We've also added new item bonuses where rarer attributes, crafted items, hot items, and more will increase the prices of each item that will push item values even higher than before.
ℹ️/✅ Combat Too Hard
People felt that combat is too hard.
The early game combat is a little harder, but if you level up a few times and acquire some items you should be even stronger than the legacy build.
We've also added a ton of cool environmental combat features that'll help out too:
You can self-revive yourself if you have money on hand.
Night time reduces enemies' visibility and causes most of them to sleep.
Rain reduced enemies' hearing.
Dexterity sneak attacks are devastating.
You can ragdoll most enemies by doing heavy charge melees or throwing items at them.
You can knock enemies into walls or water for extra environmental damage.
Leg shots can trip up enemies and a new headshot feature lets you do more damage.
There are 200+ player upgrade bonuses and item attributes that make you even stronger than the legacy build.
And much more for you to discover!
There have also been a few tweaks since The Immersive Update to movement and stamina that should help you out a bit.
You can also adjust the game's difficulty in the lobby settings.
ℹ️/✅ Performance and Bug Reports
Various Issues
This is our #1 focus for now. Some minor bugs and crazier physics scenarios have already been hotfixed.
With all new physics, systems, and NPC behaviors it might take us a while to get through all the countless gameplay permutations but we're looking to improve build performance before moving on to another update.
✅ Legacy Build Access
People want to play the old version.
You can still access the old build through Steam's game branches feature using the "legacy" branch we made.
For new players, I highly suggest you to check it out as well to see what all this is about!
Warning: make sure you back up your saves before doing so at C:\\Users\\YOURPCNAME\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Airstrafe Interactive\\Saleblazers\\Saves
✅ And More
Various Feedback
I've only just listed the most common feedback here, but we're listening to every piece of feedback and adjusting accordingly.
There are a lot of cool things in The Immersive Update beyond the first few minutes!
I think the most unfortunate part is that many of the main (and valid) concerns are part of the first impression of the update, but just past that is much of the actual meat of the update.
To name just a few, there are new shopkeeping mechanics, random daily events, seasons, player classes, 100+ item attributes, voices for every character, 200+ Pop Pop voicelines, road encounters, a completely redesigned Kazai Village with new quests, combat progression, and more.
My favorite part is how you can become even stronger than the legacy build and make builds to fit your exact playstyle. I've been having a blast restarting the game as a Mage who mostly uses spells but can also switch to a Revolver when needed.
Knocking police into the water below Kazai Village, hearing them yell about losing the suspect, while the boba seller finally calms down and goes back to work, feels quintessentially Saleblazers to me.
So does sneaking into the quarry in the dead of night to dispatch some sleeping ronin with a wooden chair, then taking the shirts off their back to sell in the shop. So does watching your friend ragdoll through the air after blowing up an outlaw camp with explosive barrels. Moments like these have always been the soul of this game, and this update is full of new ones.
I really do hope that you give it another try!