In anticipation of DoN's Lifecycles Act 2, this patch brings major improvements to the game that significantly bolsters gameplay experience, fixes several long-standing issues and improves upon nearly every aspect of the game.
Patch Notes
For a full list of improvements see further below.
When will Act 2 release?
Act 2 will release in January 2018, the exact time period in still being worked out.
Several factors contributed to this delay, let's look at some of them below:
1. The decision to finally develop a Save/Load system for DoN as part of Act 2 was one source of delay. The game's living plant simulation (where plants germinate from seeds, sprout leaves, blossom, etc) proved exceptionally complex to distill into a compact save file.
Saving/Loading was finally achieved last week though and is an important milestone for the game as players will soon be able to save their Lifeycles progress and eventually even share their Sandbox creations/etc.
2. Apart from infrastructure dev, there was the need to polish and fix outstanding glitches in the existing game before adding new content. These needed a fair amount of time to build and test as well.
That's ultimately the purpose of today's patch, so let's review that:
v.3.0.4 List of improvements:
Lifecycles Act 1
- A.I. growth capacity significantly bolstered by smarter movement, evasion and foraging.
- Now the A.I. will not only keep pace with you, but swiftly outgrow you if you don't keep up :)
- Egg-sac occupants are now prevented from accidentally falling out of the egg sac / flipping over.
- Visual glitches while picking up pollen grains fixed. Camera no longer jerks around! Creature turning anim plays properly too.
- Pausing the game before narration no longer causes narration to get stuck after unpausing.
- Bonding follower now behaves like a spectator during playfight (instead of annoyingly getting between you and the opponent :))
- Grooming while climbing atop another creature (usually your Mother!) is fixed
- Female Jumping Spider's texture details are now more evident (like the male) while growing to better emphasize their growth.
- Added reminder to Act 1 outro that players can use the "Survival" mode to play as adult Jumping Spider even now :)
- Egg emergence input cue changed to simply "Hold W" (instead of the previous "hold W/S/D/A")
Combat System
- A.I. combat intelligence significantly improved, Combat logic fully reworked. A.I. can handily defeat players now!
- Combat face/off distance is now correct for smaller-instars playfighting with larger-instars. Previously they'd end up under the larger creature.
- Heavy Strike audio cue now plays consistently. It was previously getting swallowed in certain cases.
A.I. Locomotion
- Creatures no longer fall off when bumping into another fauna. They hop off intelligently! Especially evident during playfights
- Evasion - Flying creatures no longer get stuck when bumping into each other. Evasion behavior also improved.
- Evasion on vertical surfaces/angles fixed for walking creatures
A.I. Behavior
- Adult Jumping Spider scouting behavior fixed (this was broken recently)
- Major bugfix that vastly increases a creature's ability to perceive flora/food in a map
Camera
- Invert camera option now supports independent controls for Walking and Flying modes
- Look up clamp relaxed for cam to make looking up easier
- Mouse turn-around setting option removed. Streamlining camera management code became necessary due to multiple possible camera paths (spider cam, regular third-person, etc)
World Generation
- Caterpillar now spawn on leaves with gentle slopes (as opposed to steep ones) to make camera viewing angle and movement easier for players.
- Adult fauna spawning for non-Lifecycle game modes fixed
- Population of Monarchs v/s Viceroys and Bees finetuned in favor of the latter (for gameplay)
- Amount of nectar per flower decreased to encourage flower-hopping
UI
- In-Game Clock fixed to show user-friendly time, removed from all modes except Survival and Sandbox
- Stamina/bodyfat alert cue no longer flashes too quickly, readability improved.
Hunting
- Prey Snatch mechanism rewritten; grasping prey with mandibles is more physical now.
- Long Jump aiming+camera improvements in anticipation of Act 2; still more room for improvement here.
- Long-Jump-Snatch positioning issue for Jumping Spider fixed
- Long Jumping onto a creature you can't snatch no longer suspends you in mid-air!
Sandbox
- Floral varieties spawning in Sandbox mode fixed (eg: different colors of Orange Lily flowers)
"Hard mode" improvements
- Hard mode's mandatory "Manual snatch via Shift" for hunting is now explained to player at startup
- Stamina mgmt for JP lifecycles in hard mode reworked
- Grappling in hard mode reworked for all game modes.
Audio
- Increased tempo of bonding-new-bond music cue
- Reduced volume of jump tutorial feedback cue, fixed cross-play / overlap of progress cues
- Eggs cracking open can no longer be heard by farway walking creatures :)
There's still plenty of room for improvement, but for now the focus shifts back to Act 2. Screenshots of new species (NPC) on both sides of the food chain will be shared next week!
Thanks again to everyone for your patience in waiting for Act 2. It is shaping up to be the game's most exciting update yet, so the wait will be worth it :)
Learn to live in the Great Outdoors, Build your own silken egg sacs, March on towards adulthood and beyond!
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan