Greetings Contestants!
We want to thank you once again for helping make the Big House update a big success. Just when you thought the exciting updates were over, we’re busting out a new round of changes that are sure to make you squeal in the way people do when they receive a Valentine’s card from their crush or have a stealthy blade slipped between their ribs.
Servers will be down on Wednesday February 1st from 8 AM EST for up to four hours.
First off, we have a fix for the Cull Crate reward bug many of you have been experiencing. This is great news for many and we’ve been working hard to make sure that things are in order. With that said, restoring missing crates is going to take more time and we will have a solution shortly. We will keep you posted.
Next, we’re debuting a big change that we’ve been hinting at for a long time: The Return of the Perks!
Many of your old favorites perks are back and we’ve thrown a couple of new ones into the mix for good measure. The caveat is that now you’re only allowed one perk per category, which should allow for better balancing overall.
But wait, there’s more!
We’re also debuting an important round of combat changes that address the key concerns we’ve heard from you about the latest iteration. More than any other update to the system, this has been a collaborative effort with you, the Cullmunity.
There are dozens of other important changes, but this wouldn’t be a brief intro if we covered them all. While some highly-anticipated features such as Ranked play and filtered matchmaking couldn’t make the cut this time around, know that they’re a priority moving forward and that the team is working tremendously hard to get them into a live state.
Also, please be aware that our patch schedule may slow down for a period of time as we make some important progress on the Xbox One Preview version of the game. This should be a temporary delay and will ensure that when we launch on Xbox One Game Preview Program The Culling is as polished as possible, across all platforms.
In the meantime, we’ll have some new and exciting news to share. But… we’ll save that for another post
Stay tuned and see you on the island!
Balance and Gameplay
Perks
Updated perk list. Includes addition of 12 new and previously removed perks and some rebalancing. See perk list below for full details.
Players may now equip one perk per category (3 perks from 4 categories).
Dev comments: This gating system allows us to bring back several popular perks from the past. We are now able to balance perks within categories rather than against all the other perks in the list, which in turn prevents stacking of movement or defensive perks. We’ve also made some favorites weapon-specific, which we thinks promotes interesting weapon-specific builds.Reduced number of Kill Perks (awarded automatically for killing players) from 5 to 3.
Dev comments: The Kill Perks experiment has proven successful in terms of incentivizing aggressive play, but we felt that trimming from 5 to 3 retains the incentive and frees Leg Day and Dig Deep to rejoin the regular perk list.Melee Combat Changes
Players are micro-staggered if they strike a blocking player (unless the blocking player has Weakness/Feeble). Lasts 0.65 seconds, knocks player backwards, limits player movement, does not prevent blocking/attacking.
Dev comments: The primary goal of this feature is to ensure that the successful blocker is able to capitalize on the Weeakness/Feeble wound. Previously the weakened player could easily escape without taking damage. This has the added benefit of allowing skilled players to crowd-control their opponents, giving them a better chance in 1v2 situations.Added Feeble wound. Weakness progresses to Feeble if you strike a blocking player while Weakened. While Feeble, your attacks deal 10% damage and you are only capable of blocking 10% damage. Lasts for 2.5 seconds.
Dev comments: This addresses the problem where skill could not be used to overcome a significant hit point disadvantage. Previously, the player with the advantage could deal enough damage despite the weakness wound, meaning they could spam attacks indiscriminately and still win. This behavior now results in Feeble, which renders your offense and defense ineffective.Weakness now lasts for 2.5 seconds (previously 3 seconds)
Dev comments: The goal with Weakness and Feeble is to create a specific opportunity for the successful blocker to punish the blocked player. The goal is to allow the player time to close distance and land a fully charged attack without being jabbed back instantly when the wound clears.Holding a fully charged melee for more than 1 second attack drains stamina at a rate of 5 stamina points per second
Dev comments: Now that charged attacks cannot be interrupted, we are finding stalemate situations with one player charging an attack and the opponent blocking. The attacker is at an advantage because they can almost guarantee fully charged damage when the opponent drops their block. This change puts the player who charges an attack for too long at a stamina disadvantage.
Airdrop Changes
Early Airdrops now cost 12 FUNC (previously free)
Early Airdrops no longer contain a stim
Late Airdrops now cost 200 FUNC (previously 250)
Utility Airdrops now cost 75 FUNC (previously 100)
Added Early bow Airdrop, random chance to contain Autobow or Recurve Bow
Added Mid Compound Bow Airdrop, contains a Compound Bow with full ammo
Added Late Gun Airdrop, contains a random gun with full ammo, Tactical Body Armor, and a random stim
Trapper Utility Airdrop contents updated: Backpack, Steel Snare, Steel Punji Sticks, Steel Caltrops, Explosive Mine
Dev comments: We have a few more changes planned that will impact Airdrops, but for now we want to make Late Airdrops more appealing and reintroduce some ranged options.Base crafting times reduced by 25%
Dev comments: Master Crafter was popular enough that we decided a global reduction in crafting times was warranted. The original goal was that crafting would make you vulnerable to attack, but we may have taken things a bit too far.All spawn points in classic mode prison map now have a nearby airdrop landing pad
Teams now spawn at (relatively) equal distances in teams matches
All bows now have max ammo of 18
Chainsaw beast mode activated. Chainsaw now costs less stamina and imparts high-intensity versions of Cripple, Expose, Pierce, and Bleed wounds. Don’t get caught by the chainsaw.
Rifle now deals 40 damage, has much slower rate of fire (from 25 damage)
Poison Gas Grenade now expands instantly on impact
Reduced number of hits required to mine rocks and sticks for most weapons, for a max of 4 hits and minimum of 2 hits
Survival Axe now deals 9-23 damage with *** Expose wound
Rebalanced XP awards
Dev comments: Our first stab at XP awards proved to be a little too generous, which is better than being too stingy, but worse than being just right. Hopefully this iteration will feel just right.Bug Fixes and Polish
Fixed some bugs that we believe were responsible for the bulk of the stability issues (read: crashes) users experienced with the Big House update
Fixed bug that prevented some users from receiving Cull Crates when leveling up
Players cannot exit the booth backdoor in Lightning Rounds (to prevent players missing their airdrop pad)
Suicide button now works properly in custom matches
Fixed bug that allowed .357 Magnum to have extremely high rate of fire
All spawn points now have guaranteed rocks and sticks for crafting
Fixed bug where XP would not appear correctly on match summary screen
Cleaned up start of match sequence to hide UI and in-game elements until loading is complete
Fixed several hit reaction animations that were still moving and potentially stun-locking players
Reduced the amount of camera movement imparted by attack animations and hit reaction animations.
Visual changes to make Lightning Rounds more distinct and to help players obtain their airdrops
Fixed visual issue with wrist on female Formal Top clothing
Fixed bug that made Stealthy Stim ineffective
Added Red Crates to prison map
Fixed text bug that described Crafted Spear pierce intensity of *** (it is actually *)
Roll-up doors in prison now have SFX
Dirt road texture no longer has a stone with a faint blue outline that tricked players into thinking they might be able to pick it up
Prison architecture now properly blocks explosions and interactions
Fixed issue where Loot Express arrived a minute early (now takes 2 minutes and matches announcement)
Polish pass on in-game menus
Polish pass on front-end menus
Concrete surfaces can now be mined for rocks in prison map
Fixed Belgian flag Culling Card. Sorry Belgium!
Fixed several clothing clipping issues
More Holo Spawners added to prison map
Better visual and audio communication for Weakness/Feeble wounds
Fixed bug where some weapons did not display crosshairs when equipped
Fixed HUD description of damage values for Yari and Sabre
Stun Gun and Pepper Spray now recycle for 10 FUNC regardless of ammo
Weapon and item skins now appear in items spawned from lockers and green/red crates
Fix for rocks and sticks spawning underneath roads
of collision fixes in prison map
Renamed Rekt-Em-Juice back to Orange Juice. Let us never speak of it again.Perk List
Combat: Basher: -15% melee charge time with all Bludgeons
Combat: Brutus: +50% backstab damage with any Blade
Combat: Golden Arm: +25% velocity, +100% damage for thrown spears (+50% for crafted) Maximum effect at 20 meters.
Combat: Mangler: 80% of melee damage dealt with Axes is also applied to opponent's stamina
Combat: Ranger: +10% damage with all ranged weapons
Combat: Trapper: -75% time to place and disarm traps. Snares apply a 30% expose wound.
Movement: Leg Day: +5% movement speed
Movement: Recovery: +30% faster stamina regeneration
Movement: Speedy Spear: +7% movement speed while holding any Spear
Movement: Stealthy Blade: Your movement is nearly silent while holding any Blade
Survival: Angry Octopus: When reduced below 20 Health automatically drop a Smoke Bomb (Once per match)
Survival: Bomb Suit: Reduce all damage from firearms and explosives by 30% while holding any Bludgeon
Survival: Blood Guzzler: If someone is bleeding within 15 meters of you, you gain 1 health per 3 seconds.
Survival: Cannibal: Killing an opponent restores 15 health and full stamina
Survival: Dig Deep: Recover 20 Health when you drop to 1 HP. Happens once per match.
Survival: Immunity: Immune to bonus damage from backstabs and headshots
Survival: Inhuman: You can not be tracked with Man Tracker and are immune to Alarm Gun
Survival: Regenerator: Recover 1 health point every 4 seconds
Survival: Sixth Scents: Become alerted when a player is within 20 meters. 30 second cooldown
Survival: Thick Skin: Reduce all damage from bows, blowguns and thrown weapons by 30% while holding an axe
Survival: Tough Mother: Reduce all incoming damage by 5%
Utility: Bow Flexer: +25% arrow velocity with all Bows and -25% charge time
Utility: Backpacker: Start the match with a Backpack in your inventory
Utility: Chemist: Stim effects last 50% longer
Utility: Load Dropper: Airdrops arrive much faster
Utility: Man Tracker: Start the match with a Man Tracker in your inventory
Utility: Master Crafter: -25% crafting time
Utility: Moneybags: Gain +2 bonus FUNC each time FUNC is gathered
Kill Perk: Big Boned: +10 health pool
Kill Perk: Big Lungs: +20 stamina pool
Kill Perk: Ol Painless: +10% general damage