Anchors away for July's official content update! This month is all about hardiness, sturdiness, and long-term stability. A new ranking system, menu, and a long list of 50+ overdue fixes awaits below! Drop your anchor and check it out!
Features
New Player Rank System! - Introducing Player Ranks to We Need To Go Deeper! As part of our efforts towards making meta-progression feel more satisfying, you now earn XP on your future runs that build towards earning new Ranks for your character!
Ranks show off your Deeper prowess and are shown next to your character's name in online games. As of now, there are a total of 11 Ranks to earn, with 5 sub-ranks to earn in between each, totaling at 55 potential rankings!
Ranks don't simply come with a new fancy badge, however, as we've revamped the method for unlocking items and cosmetics to now be tied to our new XP system as well, so you'll be regularly unlocking cool stuff each time you level!
Note: If you've already unlocked everything you still get to keep the things you've unlocked.
Also, DON'T PANIC. We know what you're thinking when you look at this new Gift Box on our XP screen, and to clarify - these are NOT the loot boxes your grandpa warned you about.
While the rest of the game industry may have ruined the joy of opening a digital gift, we opted for this context because it's fundamentally FUN to unlock things in gift box form, but we promise this will never be tied with any kind of micro-transaction, purchasable currency, nada. The in-game XP or Gold will not be monetized in any way, shape or form, rest assured. Everything is to be earned in-game, exclusively.
New Main Menu! - The main menu has finally recieved a much-needed facelift after getting increasingly cluttered for so long, and in doing so we got to include a lot of cool new stuff to help the community grow!
Latest News is now more prominently featured with a new rotating set of links that will direct folks to info about new Updates, Events, Merch, or Community hubs! There is also a new space for other useful links in the bottom right, and an ever-enticing reminder of your current XP progress and ranking in the upper right.
Your character also gets a moment to shine the moment you open the game now, just to remind you of your handsome self.
Sturdy Fixes Galore! - You asked, and you asked, and sometimes things slide by. This month, we decided enough is enough, and went hard at work fixing as many long-standing issues as we could. It may not be as sexy as more content, but sometimes what's underneath is just as important.
THE BIG FIX & CHANGE LIST:
- Internal Restarting is FIXED! No more program restarts between playthroughs!
-Fixed "the infinite void" bug. You can no longer find yourself in a black abyss of truly desolate nothingness - even if you want to.
-Fixed costumes getting shifted around every time we add a new cosmetic. Ryan is a hero.
-Fixed players getting their heads stuck on low spaces even when crouching
-Players now only lose one max health on death rather than two!
-Civilization shops now offer handheld weapons in addition to their usual repertoire!
-You can no longer pick up a non-stackable upgrade. You can buy it, sure, but uh, I mean you do you buddy.
-You can no longer revive someone after walking away from their dead body. Goodbye, beloved hack.
-The sniper mod finally deals the monstrous damage it's supposed to! Check that baby out!
-Fixed shotgun and sniper mod text not appearing after picking up the upgrades
-Fixed shop cases still showing their item for sale even after being bought or broken
-The time devourer can no longer show up to ruin your day before the game loops.
-Oh, and the time devourer is no longer armored.
-Oh, and the time devourer is very much so mortal now. Kill him. See what happens. See if another just shows up immediately. Be my guest.
-Fixed relics turning gray like ragdolls.
-Fixed players being able to see beyond the loaded level space in the tactical view.
-Fixed the bug where the lair guardian could permanently disarm players
-On that note, disarming has been completely rewritten to make permanent disarms virtually impossible.
-In the same manner, locking your player in place was rewritten too. You should find yourself to be less...sticky?
-You can no longer pick up two items simultaneously.
-Fixed multiple sources of gold and items failing to properly save, and even being outright rewritten with nothing.
-Fixed missing networking on ice chunks, abomination spawners, and barnacle mines which were potentially causing packet buildup
-Networking channel settings have been changed to allow fragmented data in the channel responsible for spawning objects. This is useful for players joining mid-game who need a whole lotta data at once.
-Manowar enemy now properly appears in front of a player's face when attached their head.
-Fixed oddly laid out catalog menu items by runtime rescaling
-Fixed a bug where a player grabbed out of the submarine by a lair guardian would trigger the submarine hatch sound and do a fade to black over and over and OVER.
-Remember those weird artifacts on the health UI? How about other UI? Nick is your man and he has delivered the fix.
-Bots now only flash yellow when they've actually healed. It's a miracle, people.
-Fixed ceiling-walking enemies not falling when they're supposed to
-Fixed ceiling walker y-scaling problems
-All enemies attached to your head now scale correctly. *Phew*. Didn't want my head having any weird upside-down stuff on it.
-Removed all item and cosmetic unlocks caused by raw depth, item use, or weird weird poorly explained external stuff. Gotta use that XP baby!
-Fixed players being able to move, swing their arms, and shoot while in the loadout menu
-Players no longer fire off a packet every frame when holding the interact button next to a door. Hallelujah.
-Fixed a bug where players who had super fast hard disks would find themselves stuck in the ceiling of the Espadon. Classy.
-Fixed a bug where players would be unable to use the periscope after being brigged while on a console or in bed.
-Exterior level chunks now have double the variety at no extra cost! How? Embarrassingly simple math magic.
-As mentioned in the last content drop, all bosses now have 50% less health, and their health no longer scales with the number of crew members.
-Periscope view size reduced 10%
-Fixed the Espadon background to no longer have a teeeeeeny sliver of exterior world that you could see.
-The darkness (or lighting surface) and exterior parallax water are now big enough to accommodate the largest boss camera size without showing beyond them
-Removed a needless additional check for internet connection and confirmed that you have internet if you are able to get your public IP. This fixes the problem where players can get this "not able to connect to steampowered.com" error even after disabling UPNP usage.
-Fixed a memory cleanup bug when removing bots before starting a game
-Fixed mummy ragdoll not showing up after being killed on client machines
-Players can no longer revive multiple skeletons at once
-Fixed several visual glitches in civilizations which allowed players to see beyond boundaries or see blank background
-Grabbing multiple upgrades no longer shows the wrong text
-Increased the shot distance on the sniper modded exterior gun
-Fixed players still getting hit by higher-aimed projectiles even when they're ducking
-RESOLUTION OPTIONS EVERYBODY HALLELUJAH!
-Fixed several cases where players get stuck on sharp corners in caves.
-Particle system setup has been made much more efficient.
-Fixed a typo in the Bobby Suit description.
-Players using Discord or Steam to join a game with a different version will no longer succeed. This fixes incompatible versions with totally different networking from trying to mash together like malformed puzzle pieces until they both break.
-Fixed a particle factory error in the main power console switch
-No longer will you be shackled to the play menu if you have a public IPv4 but are still trying to get a public IPv6! This fixes a case of permanent "Waiting for public IP source"!
-Fixed a serious bug where players were never leaving their Steam lobbies in the first place. This was causing lobbies to appear full and de-list from the lobby browser even when space was available.
-Fixed a bug where players disagreed on which submarine they had actually traveled in when it came time to upload their scores to the leaderboard. Oh boy. How embarrassing.
-The cheat checker should no longer flag odd rapid changes in values that it tracks. Instead, it will now look for absurd values, which is a safer marker for cheating.
-Fixed being able to enter/leave the submarine while chatting after reaching a cave
-Fuel barrels now refill 50% of the sub's fuel meter!
-The X on the relics UI should be working again. How it fell into disrepair is a matter of scholarly debate to this day.
-Players should now have afflictions removed in the bed when at full health. We had forgotten to account for the effect of health potions when doing the math on that.
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Community
::: Player of the Month :::
The Player of the Month for July is..... Thor Odenson!
Not only has Thor Odenson been an active player since release, he's also been a moderator on our Discord for quite some time! Thor Odenson is quick to help others on our channel, as well as join them in online games. If you've ever taken a dive with him, you'd know that he is a skilled player and has a lot of useful insight and tactics to share. Thank you, Thor Odenson! I don't know how we'd do it without you!
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As always, let us know what y'all think of the new update! Happy ranking!
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Patch 1 fixes:
-Fixed the loading/saving problems brought on by trying to fit rank data into an old holder class. This should fix another large swath of cases where gold and depth are completely lost! Unfortunately, any save files which were damaged before this fix will not be repaired by it. This only prevents future damage from occurring to gold, depth, and rank save data.
-Fixed rank-based catalog items not showing up properly.
-Players can no longer go over the rank of captain.
-The internal restart system is drastically more tolerant to errors, including any possible from saving/loading really old versions of game files.
-Shop cases can no longer be infinitely mined for gold.
-Fixed a bug that caused the screen to go dark forever if a lair guardian destroyed the submarine.
-Switched to a much safer style of serializing game save data which does not cause the file to remain open even if an error is thrown.
-Each new game resets the seed for the random number generator to fix cases where the same first biome was seen generating over and over until application quit.
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Patch 2 fixes:
-Your resolution now defaults to the max one available on your monitor.
-Fixed the game resolution getting reset when entering the play menu.
-Fixed a problem where a bug in the first time loading resolution settings could cause them to never save.
-Removed event-specific items from the catalog.
-Removed eldritch staff from the catalog.
-Fixed incorrect rank requirements on the water pump.
-Added a hotkey (default caps-lock) to turn off hard mouse cursor boundaries.
-Mouse cursor boundaries are only enforced in windowed mode.
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Patch 3 fixes:
-Found and fixed a missing networked object which wasn't spawning on the server end and causing networking backup (this time it was the skeleton for recruited civilization crew members).
-Fixed an error preventing deletion of particle emitters when the scene changed.
-Fixed a null reference exception when using the water pump over the network.
-Fixed the bug where the tactical view could be turned on and off when chatting while using the periscope.
-Fixed a casting error when trying to access old player stats files.
-Fixed a regression allowing a fifth invisible player into a lobby.
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Patch 4 fixes:
-Fixed the sunhat appearing in the catalog even after purchase
-Made even more failsafes for getting the submarine positioned correctly after a biome change (see fix for "endless void" bug)
-Fixed a missing networked object - today it was the ghost explosion for ghost hammerheads!
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Patch 5 fixes:
-Fixed still getting gold and XP even in a custom game
-Fixed a logic error in XP progress calculations. After you finish a game for your first time in patch 5, the level up bar animation may be slightly incorrect, but this is likely getting extra experience added back to you caused by times you previously saw yourself level up but went back to the menu and found yourself at the same rank. Each game after the first should have the level up bar at the end of the game correctly reflecting the XP added.
-Fixed an exploit where players could join and leave a game over and over and get expeirence each time they leave. XP is now only given and saved at the end of a run. If you disconect during a run, your gold and depth are still saved so long as it is not a custom game. Reconnecting before the game ends will ensure you still get the full amount of XP for the entire run. It is simply awarded only once.