The Final Days v0.24 update is here! It contains a lot of changes, but the main focus was on overhauling the scoring system, tracking best scores, and Steam leaderboards support.
Here's a summary of the score related changes:
- Your best scores are now saved for each mode/map/difficulty and shown at the start of the game and in the HUD. Last Stand mode also tracks the highest stage you survived and the most waves you survived. *
- Added support for Steam leaderboards * Compete against your friends and others for the best score!
- Scoring Changes:
- Scoring is no longer based on damage done to enemies. Instead enemies have a fixed base score of 100 for normal enemies, 300 for tanks, and 1000 for mini-bosses.
- Tweaked/Balanced amounts awarded for all bonuses
- Added "Long Shot" bonus which gives you +15% for long distance shots
- Can now receive "stealth" and "assist" bonuses from explosive damage
- Added "Solo Bonus" which gives you +10% points when you are the only player alive
- Added "Survivor" bonus which is awarded at the end of the stage if you didn't die. It gives you +20% of the points scored during the stage. If no damage was taken, the "Unscathed" bonus is also awarded which gives you +30% points.
- Last Stand mode now resets the score at the start of each day.
The reasoning behind this is that this is an endless mode, so it made more sense for the score to represent your best score for a single day. This means that you don't need to play from day 1 to get the maximum points. You can just keep playing from the last day you got to to potentially get an even better score. It also makes more sense for multiplayer games as late joiners can still compete for score against people who have already been playing for a while. - Campaign & Last Stand modes now only show rankings at the end of each day
- Note that Escape mode scoring still needs more work. I decided to postpone overhauling this mode so that I could get this update out sooner to you all.
- * DISCLAIMER: While I'll try to avoid this where possible, your scores may get reset from time to time. This is because Final Days is still under development and the scoring systems may change further.
I also made a few other changes based specifically on feedback I received:
- Enraged enemies now always show up on the mini-map. This should make it easier to find the last remaining enemies.
- A message is now shown when you're the last one left alive, and when you're the only one alive and another player spawns.
- Each players respawn timer is now shown in the players list. So now you can easily see how long you'll need to hold out before dead players can respawn and help again.
- No longer auto-switches to High-Ex when you pick it up because it's so easy to accidentally blow yourself up when this happens.
I've said it before, but I really appreciate all feedback I receive. I do consider all of it (it just sometimes takes me a while to get to it). Please keep it coming! :)
And here are a few other changes of note:
- Fixed a bug (introduced in v0.23) where enemy numbers were not scaling correctly based on the number of players. This resulted in too few enemies for multiplayer games.
- Changed when enemies enrage. They now enrage sooner, but the timer resets whenever an enemy is hit.
- When a player dies, they now drop up to 5 items that they were carrying (pipe bombs and full clips get priority)
- Added a torso bobbing animation for players based on speed. This should help highlight that moving forwards is faster than going backwards.
- New main menu screen!
There were also many other changes and fixes. For further details, you can view the full changelog on the forums.
If you have any issues, feedback, or suggestions, then please let me know! As usual, the best place to reach me is on the forums. For other ways of contacting me, check out the "Welcome to Final Days" forum post.
By the way, Final Days now has an official group on Discord! You can join for general chat and discussions about Final Days, as well as finding other people to play with. I'm also posting announcements there as another way for people to keep up to date with Final Days. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/RfYdZ45
Thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy the update! :)
Cheers,
Mike