Hi all, its that time of the year again - Sketchy Christmas! This is a HUGE update that brings in so much feedback from the community while also bringing new stuff you never saw coming! Let's jump into it!
Before you read through this giant update I just wanted to highlight the importance of everything here. This update focuses on QOL, Player Progression, and Difficulty Balance to get Sketchy's to a place where it feels "right". Before I go to Full Release its important to me to consider all the little things (the things that really matter) from the community and try to tweak as many of them as possible to best reflect the experience of the player.
NEW
New Map: Sketchy Wonderland - this is a permanent new map added to the snow planet that is winter holiday themed. Ride a sleigh with reindeers between security levels, fight the greed who stole christmas and return to Krampus's Cabin where you'll feel small next to giant presents and toys.
Greed Who Stole Christmas returns permanently!
New Plush and Furniture of course!
2New Pet - Evil Snowman!
9 New Weapons - yup there are all new weapons that come with this update, especially for Tier 3! I really want Tier 3 players to have lots of perks and feel god-like so you can expect some pretty cool mechanics from them.
Battle Axe
Galactic Axe
Cyber Sword
Sun Sword
Experiment Ray
Pulse Rifle Delux
Pulse Rifle Supreme
Cosmic Blast
Hypernova
Accelerated Med Gen
Arcade Games
Air Hockey – a really fun way to earn some extra cosmic coins! You can either play against an AI to earn coins or play a PVP version that is FREE to play (NO COINS required and no reward just infinite fun) to mess around with others. It gets real competitive real quick!
Sketchy Duck – another fun way to earn extra cosmic coins where you can drop a rubber duck and test your luck! Yes, the ducks squeak as they bounce.
Featured Community Requests
I've been going through all the ideas and feedback and
New Collectables System– Allows players to convert any loot item into a zero-value decoration preventing that item from being lost when a contract is failed. Converting items will cost credits. Now you don't have to worry about losing that beautifully decorated apartment with 100 Pew Pews when you fail a contract (assuming you convert them all).
New Museum area is a designated area for collection to show off things you collected from different planets!
Added Second Floor to the apartment and moved the Arcade there.
Ship Quick Drop - there is now a mini drop off in the ship that allows you to send loot from the ship to the drop off box saving massive amounts of time between contracts.
Added Misophonia option to Accessibility Settings. If a player has it enabled, the sound of chips will not be played if the person with the option enabled eats chips, not if a player with it disabled eats chips.
Players can now shake the Claw Machine in Frustration. Remember all those times the claw machine just broke? Giving it a good shake should fix it right up(I hope)!
UPDATES
Gathering
Gathering Action Bar - players now have access to a second action bar containing a pickaxe, shovel, and hedge knife that is built into your suit and cannot be lost. This means no more buying gathering tools and having them take up 3 slots of your action bar. I really wanted gathering to be a bigger part of Sketchy's and for more players especially solo to have better and more convenient access to it.
3 New Suit modifiers have been added for upgrading your gathering tools, one for each tool. Rather than purchasing these tools from the store droid, simply go to your suit modifier and upgrade your mining, digging, or herbing to gain access to a higher grade gathering tool that will significantly increase gathering efficiency.
Players must reach lvl 31 to be eligible for point spending in the gathering modifier up to a one upgrade and lvl 61 to be eligible for point spending in the gathering modifier up to a second upgrade.
Gatherables are now labeled as either “Common, Quality, or Rare” when scanned.
Gatherables are no longer “locked behind specific Quota requirement”. Instead, more valuable/rare gatherables have a significantly increased chance to spawn the higher your quota gets. Remember though, gathering tools have been updated as well so getting higher tier gathering tools increases the speed of gathering. For example: a Iron Pickaxe will take a long time to mine a rare Ore Vein while a Carbon Pickaxe will mine a rare Ore Vein with normal speed.
Progression
Exosuit Overhaul - Renamed to "Shield" and replaces dodge. Using the dodge key now activates an energy shield that lasts 2.5 seconds and reduces damage taken by 10%. Each point spent in the Shield Modifier Increase damage reduction by an additional 10% but reduces the duration by .25 seconds. A fully upgraded shield reduces damage taken by 100% for 1.25 seconds. Stamina cost is scaled based on maximum stamina. Higher Shield = Higher stamina cost.
Level Cap increased from 70 to 90 for Tier 3.
The amount of damage gained from leveling between 30 – 60 has increased from 2% per level to 3% per level.
The amount of damage gained from leveling between 60 – 90 has increased from 2% per level to 4% per level.
The amount of health gained from leveling between 30 – 60 has increased from 10 per level to 20 per level.
The amount of health gained from leveling between 60 – 90 has increased from 10 per level to 30 per level.
Player damage now scales down to the Maximum Suit Level of the Tier the player is on. For example, if a Level 70 player signs down to T1, their damage will scale down to the magnitude of a Suit level 30 player because Level 30 is the Cap for Tier 1.
Planet Chronis, Gaia, and Area 31 are now Tier 2 and 3 ONLY planets.
Players now need to reach specific Quota requirement to purchase certain furniture in addition to reaching a specific tier. The more expensive the furniture, the higher your Quota will need to be to purchase it. This gives more incentive to push for higher quota.
Tier 2 now has an uncapped quota requirement like T3. Players can still sign T3 at any point once they reach the requirement.
New Player Experience
T1 is going to be a place for NEW PLAYERS and learning how to play Sketchy’s. This means that T1 will not contain certain content that is considered difficult/challenging. Here’s a break down:
T1 Night Walkers are significantly weaker and sell for cheaper.
8PM creatures only spawn on T2 and higher.
Deadly creatures only spawn on T2 and higher.
Night Substances only spawn on T2 and higher.
Level 1 and 2 Mimics hit significantly less hard and sell for cheaper.
No slimes sense slimes cannot be killed with T1 weapons.
Infinite Revives.
Currency Changes
Cosmic Coins are now granted on Chained Quota again rather than needing to complete a full 3-day contract.
Claw Machine Coins have been renamed to Arcade Coins.
The max number of Cosmic Coins players can earn from a contract is now capped based on their suit level. For example: Level 1-10 each contract can grant a max of 50 cosmic coins while level 20-30 can grant at max of 125. Leveling up your suit makes you eligible for higher earnings!
However, Cosmic Coins are now earned as a fraction of the Quota Requirement. For example, A level 30 player doing a 200 requirement-quota on T1 will earn 12 coins for a contract while doing a 1600 quota-requirement on T1 will earn 125. There is now an incentive to complete higher quota requirements because the reward is significantly increased.
Credits awarded is now scaled as a fraction of your current Quota Requirement over the Maximum Quota requirement of your current contract Tier (same system as cosmic coin scaling). If you want more money, do higher Quota Contracts. Farming low quota will yield low payout. For example, completing ten 200 quota requirement contracts will yield the same number of credits as doing a single 1600 quota requirement contract. Cleary doing 1600 quota requirements contracts is the most time efficient way of playing.
Simply put - the higher your Quota the more you get paid.
Penalty System Changes
Players will no longer drop credits when they die.
Failing a contract will not delete items that have been converted into collectables.
Failing a contract no longer drops you a Tier. You will simply drop to the starting quota for your current Tier.
Difficulty and Player Balancing
Custom Difficulty Sliders for Damage and Health modification now only yield increased loot value when playing on a Tier 3 contract.
Subject 6 damage reduced from 135 to 100.
Subject 6 has had its Weakness Updated.
Evil Snow man has been moved to Sketchy’s Wonderland Map.
Evil Snowman weakness has been updated.
Weapon/Item Changes
T3 Weapon Perks now only activate when playing T3 contracts. You will still benefit from the damage or healing increase of a T3 weapon on T2, but you will not benefit from the powerful perks unless you do T3 content.
NEW Boombox Models for Tier 1 and Tier 3 boomboxes.
Pulse Rifle now has T2 and T3 variations.
Supernova no longer has the exploding proc effect. The effect has been moved into the T3 variation of the Supernova called the "Hypernova".
Shrink total energy has been reduced from 8 to 6.
The "experiment shot" has been remove from the shrink and turned into its own weapon "Experiment Ray".
New gun: Experience Ray – turns creatures into random objects preventing them from damaging you during the duration. 3 total shots.
Ultimate Boombox will now only deal damage to enemies nearby if at least 1 player is standing within its healing radius.
Revive System Changes
T1 now has infinite free revives!
T2 now has 3 free revives for 3 or less and 5 revives for 4 or more players.
T3 has 1 free revive for 3 or less players and 2 revives for 4 or more players.
Revival time is now adjusted based on the type of revive you use. For example, using a free revive takes 30 seconds to revive someone while using a Tier 3 Med gen reduces that time to 3 seconds. There’s a catch though. Tier 3 medical gens can only be installed on T3.
Quality of Life
Placing all items into the drop off/ship storage using the "Drop All Items" will now filter out Player Weapons so that they are not accidentally sold when mass selling items.
Players no longer pick up cosmetics to put them away. While in placement mode, hover over a cosmetic and press the secondary interaction “R” to put it away.
Teleporters no longer require generators to be activated. Instead, when players find a generator on the map, simply interacting with it will automatically activate the teleporter for that level without the need of carrying back a generator to install it.
Helpful tips about the game are displayed to dead players while they wait to be revived.
Changed Colors of the Ship Hatch open/close to distinguish it from the send/finalize quota buttons.
Can now change Boombox music when its placed.
General
Contracts can now only be signed on the 1st day of the contract.
Contract Manager signature page has a new look, showing all 3 tiers side by side so players can easily compare the differences.
The Drop Off box Quota screen has a new look. It now shows a prediction of credits that players will receive based on how much they put in.
Increased the number of burger and cat neon signs you can own to from 1 to 5.
Increased the number of Christmas trees you can own from 1 to 5.
Increased the number of Winter Misc cosmetics you can own from 3 and 5 to 10.
Increased the number of Aquariums you can own from 1 to 2.
The Finalize Contact button at the Drop off has a new look so that it stands out more as a “Big Red Button”.
FIXES
Fixed an issue where Clients with High Ping that enter the water experience loss of swimming control. While this issue should be resolved it’s possible that clients with high ping will experience networking hitching in while swimming.
Fixed an issue with Port Glacial where parts of level architecture were missing.
Fixed an issue allowing players to press the finalize button shortly after pressing the “send” button which could result in a failed contract.
Fixed a collision issue with the shotgun making it awkward to pick up.
Fixed an issue where the Baguette item was not spawning from Access Crates.
Fixed an issue where Elizabeth was setting the wrong value for her worth after turning back into a doll from being animated.
Fixed an issue where the cutlass, baguette, back support, blaster, and helping hand items could not be placed into storage crates.
Fixed an issue where players cannot pick up a 2-handed item if their action bar is full and a gathering capsule is equipped.
Fixed an issue where herbs were not spawning on the Hollow Manor Map.
Fixed an issue where sending a chat message was not making the sent notification sound.
Fixed an issue where if a player died to an enemy that they attacked first, the enemy would become fixated on their corpse and remain targeted onto the player even after reviving.
Fixed an issue with footsteps sounds on the snow sometimes sounded like concrete.
Fixed an issue where the Fire defuff could apply to dead players which could cause them to revive with fire still on them.
Fixed an issue where the area that claw prizes dropped into had an interaction collision that could prevent the player from picking up the prize.
Fixed an issue where slimes were blocking the screen when trying to place them with placement mode.
Fixed an issue causing stamina degen caused by gathering capsules to be much higher than intended if the capsule was filled much higher than the max storage value.
What's Next?
As always I will be keeping an eye out on the new update to make hotfix as things pop up but as for next year, I have 1 more Major Update planned that will set the stage for Full Release. I will do a stream discussing those details next year when I am further into development.
Thank you so much everyone for all the support and feedback you've provided to help make Sketchy's what it is today. I can't believe we are coming up on 2 years this April! I am incredibly thankful for this community and am super excited for next year!