Hi gang!
It's been a month and 10 days since the last demo update and we're back for another!
While a lot of our time and effort has been on content beyond the demo region, we've still managed to have a significant number of changes for the demo.
I'll leave you with a list of highlights followed by the detailed release notes, that might be interesting to someone.
Suggestions and feedback are very welcome! Come talk to us on Discord or here on the Steam forums!
Highlights
Major Rework of Aiming:
We've heard from quite a few of y'all in the feedback forms about the un-good aiming in the previous version. The aim assist was aggressive and sticky, it was required for aiming to work at all, the mouse movements would get stuck on the corners, and aiming behind the car was clunky and unintuitive.
We've been trying a lot of things out and we're happy enough with the progress so far to add it in this update. There were many little changes and fixes that I won't go into, but the gist is that the aim should just feel better now, as we've fixed all the issues I mentioned in the first paragraph and then some. Importantly Aim assist is no longer required to be playable, it acts more like a magnet to targetable things and is only enforce on flying units; since aiming controls are horizontal only, this is still needed. I still think some aim assist is more fun with this kind of control scheme, but it's optional now. Additionally, the reticle now interacts directly where you're aiming at, instead of finding hotspots to lock onto, helping to feel more responsive.
Also in this update, we've added many more aiming poses for Lucky so she can track targets vertically and instead of blocking Lucky at the back angles, she'll snap into the other direction immediately so it feels seamless to aim backwards (she contorts herself a bit, but we're prioritizing function over form today).
Burning Rubber Upgrade feelin' oomphy:
It just feels nice to use now. When you have this upgrade, use the "Heavy Drift" button to use it. Left Ctrl on keyboards, Left Trigger on gamepads.
Balance Changes:
I'm using a lot of big sounding adjectives in this update, but I mean it, lotsa things. All player weapons have had some changes with a focus on "feel and function" first and balance in close second. Effective DPS is fairly similar between weapons, but it depends on the target. Each gun has it's favoured usecase:
- Shotguns focuses on being effective against large, or many targets, at a close range. It's easy to aim, but not all pellets will hit the target.
- Burst rifle focuses on being effective against one or two target sweeps at medium range. It's fairly easy to aim, but the bullets travel slower than the Power Rifle and can miss.
- Power Rifle focues on being effective against single targets at far range. It hits hard, has a higher chance to "crit", upgradable crit damage, and has the unique chance of piercing through a target to hit others. It reloads slowly, as a downside.
Many permanent and temporary upgrades have also had a balance pass. Eg. Scoville's fire effects are more effective now, while Berzerk and Double Shot have been nerfed a bit.
Status Effect Descriptions:
Before this version, there was no way to know what the "Inspire", "Intimidated", "Burning", "Berserk", etc... status effects were actually doing. These are now described along with the Reaper upgrade that unlocks them.
Note: "-30% seconds" in that upgrade description is not on purpose, it should read -0.03 seconds I think. That's on me, I messed up.
Gamepad ForceFeedback
The ForceFeedback is important to sell the feeling of firing a weapon or smashing into a car. I've gone over much of the effects we had in there and adjusted it for my Xbox Series controller, especially for things that happen often. I've reduced a lot of the frequent extremes that felt a bit annoying on the hands, and made some of the guns feel more crunchy.
Detailed Release Notes for v0.7a-7
I like reading release notes, figure someone else out there might too.
Forest Boss
- Fixed Musical Note Bombs triggering damage more than once and causing WAY too much damage
- Improved the Boss' movement to better keep his distance from the player
- Added a specialized boss camera for a better and smarter view of the combat arena
- Slightly increased the boss health and balanced his attack damage/speed
- Fixed the boss death animation to properly play the mass blood-feast animation
- Improved the Boss' attack visual tells, vfx, and sfx
- Added a pre-beat visual and audible tell for the Lead Guitar speaker beam attacks
- Added a new Vincent Von Velvet health bar, with his proper name displayed and faction colours
- Fixed popping and missing Foliage LOD meshes during the boss fight
- Trees now go translucent to get out of the camera's way
- Fixed some attacks ignoring the player armor when they shouldn't have
- Updated Vince's Blood Feast vfx to better line up with the victim
- Fixed boss combat music never ending after dying
Devil
- Added a specialized camera view when the devil appears
- Devil Screenshake now persists and instead lowers its intensity dynamically
- Fixed the rapid disappearance when the devil leaves the scene
- Added new sound effects and demon presence ambiance
- Fixed a bug where the Devil's darkness effects and sounds would not disappear
Graphics
- Reduced Autodetect benchmark requirements to attain Medium settings (as we optimize the game, the graphics requirements for higher settings can lower)
Upgrades and Status Effects
- Increased damage and better explained effects for: Burning status effect caused by Burning Rubber, Brick Oven, and Screaming Hot Shot (Scoville upgrades)
- Significantly improved the look, sound, and feel of "Burning Rubber"
- Burning and Decay status effects now ignore armor (damaging health directly)
- Camera will now zoom out to show effects of Burning Rubber
- Reaper Upgrades will now describe their status effects on hover
- Overall improvements to Reaper Upgrade descriptions, especially those that replace weapons
- Changed BoneLance spikes to always be extended and to have all forward lances at level 1
- Changed the visual effect on "Shielded" and Decay
Misc Combat
- Swapped gamepad button for LockOn target to Right Shoulder (left trigger is already in use for drifting)
- Fixed cases where armor could take damage on the wrong side when hit
- Fixed a bug where Hellhounds could start an attack after being killed
- Added more Combat Quip dialogues
- Added cap to damage resistance (max 95% damage resisted)
- Reworked many of the Gamepad force feedback effects
Balance
- Rebalanced the drop rate of cash and junkparts
- Slightly increased bullet speed (6000cm/s to 8000cm/s)
- Many changes to the player weapons and weapon upgrades were made in this build. Focusing on "feel" and DPS balance.
- Took a pass at Permanent Upgrade prices (Demo only supports up to max level 3 for all upgrades)
- Many of the Enemy stats and behaviors were adjusted in this update (damage, health, speed, aggressiveness)
Enemies
- Cultist behavior will now focus aggressively on the chained-down target
- Increased cultist animations and reaction time
- Increased aggressiveness and improve positioning for the ATVs
Bugs
- Improved suspension physics to be more stable at low framerates
- Improved vehicle movement when facing the opposite direction, reduced situations where enemy vehicles would rapidly accelerate in the wrong direction
- Fixed a crash during chain throws from cultists
- Fixed Vehicle Engine sounds playing when paused
- Fixed Cultist chains from flipping and flopping about
- Fixed Burst Rifle and Power Rifle to use the proper force feedback settings
- Fixed the broken chains on the vampire Cultists
Aiming
- Added vertical aiming for Lucky
- Improved aiming responsiveness, especially when wrapping around to the other side
- Fixed mis-aligned 2H weapon poses for Lucky that were offset from the actual aim direction
- Fixed the 2H gun hovering above the left hand
- Changed the Aim reticle to follow the tip of the aim beam instead of being based on aim assistance. This was a bit of an overhaul so feedback is definitely appreciated here.
Optimizations
- Fixed Vampire Bat Swarms tanking framerates and improved their targetability, movements, and animations
- Fixed several VFX that would stay around, slowing the game more over time
- Plus lots of minor things not worth itemizing
- Fixed Burst Rifle and Power Rifle to use the proper force feedback settings
UI
- Added animations to the Weapon HUD UI
- Fixed the "click to continue" mouse icon in dialogues to properly change with the input mode