We’ve been hard at work improving Survive the Nights. We’ve added requested features, improved existing ones and addressed some of your common concerns. We have a few big plans in the works for 1.20 but for the time being check below to see exactly what you can expect to find in today's 1.19 release.
Quality of Life Improvements
We’ve spent a good deal of this development cycle working on quality of life improvements. Small issues, some of which have persisted for some time now need addressing. We’ve started the process of addressing these annoyances.
Fortifications and Weapon Switching
This has been an issue pretty much since we introduced plank fortifications. Approaching a window with hammer in hand your fortification options appear. This is intended behavior and works fantastic until a zombie appears on the other side of the window. Before this fix you were stuck in fortification mode, scrolling the mouse wheel simply rotated your selected fortification it didn’t switch weapons as you would expect it to. In the same situation you will now scroll to your weapon, you can still rotate planks by holding shift while scrolling.
Scroll to weapon
Placement Mode Improvements
Placement mode has had some optimization and improvement. In the past you’ll have noticed that while in placement mode items would often clip red informing the player they weren’t placeable. The system that checks whether or not there’s a obstruction of the item is placeable was rather sluggish. The improved system in 1.19 is nearly instant.
Improved placement
Tree Fix!
Yes, we know about the trees flying off into space like some kind of UAP looking for the mother ship. This issue has been a thorn in our side since the concept. The tree chopping system in one of the oldest systems in the game. It was one of the only things to do in our first stress tests. We have spent time patching it up over the years but the flying logs persisted through all versions of the feature. Andre has dedicated a bit of development time this cycle putting this issue to bed and you should find chopping trees far more pleasing now.
Felling a tree no flying off
Tree chopping and staying put
There are a lot of other general quality of life improvements. Most of the changes in general quality of life are made due to community feedback. Thank you for the continued support it makes finding and fixing theses issues possible.
- Fixed issue where item would disable for a second after placing it down
- Faster animations for opening of Lock/Hasp that is placed on a door
- Fixed scenario where drops would fall through interior objects (cabinets/kitchen/tables/beds).
- Guide no longer restarts when joining a new server. Providing a sleeping bag has been placed at least once.
- Fix for slow orange highlight when harvesting items4
- Harvesting now disables on zombie + animal rag dolls once they have been successfully searched.
- Movement of items in placement mode now more responsive
- Items going red in placement mode now more responsive
- Fix for drops being hard to pick up when placed on top of harvest machines and containers
- Allowed interacting with traps when looking through door ways with a tool equipped
- Fixed issue where player couldn’t drop/place items when standing in front of an open doorway
- Slight increase to interaction distance
- Scrolling now switches weapon instead of rotates plank when looking at a window with a tool. Shift scroll can be used to rotate boards.
- Allowed logging off near zombies that aren’t currently chasing someone.
- Allowed logging off near dead zombies
- Fixed issue where map would stay open when disconnecting from a server
- Increased swimming speed when trying to swim to the surface of the water
- Tab is now used as the default inventory button with “I” as a fallback input.
- Player list moved to “P” key binding by default
Horde Avoidance
We will be reintroducing a much requested feature in 1.19. Horde avoidance, this time we’re doing it properly. We’ve spent the time to ensure the feature works as intended and is plainly obvious. Currently there is no way to avoid the nightly horde. The flee mechanic that was in pre 1.16 allowed the player to run from their current surrounds and after a set number of meters the horde was cancelled.
In 1.19 players will be able to simply crouch anywhere in a secured structure and skip the horde all together. This duplicates our original concept in that players are able to hide in a corner an not have to worry about the dead coming for them.
Once you receive the first notification that a horde is approaching you can crouch and start a countdown. Once the avoidance meter is full the horde will be skipped.
Avoiding horde
Hordes
- Fixed scenario where horde would start as soon as you join the server.
- Added way to avoid horde by crouching and hiding inside of a building.
Container and Vehicle Animations
We have spent some time adding a much requested feature. Animated kitchen containers and vehicle doors. This small detail really does add a good deal to the ambiance. We plan on making more of these small design and animation improvements moving forwards.
Container animations
Vehicle animations
Trap Improvements
We’ve made some tweaks and improvements to the current traps in game, this is in part preparation for new traps coming shortly. We’ve increased damage on some traps, improved AI particles when effected by traps, made sure traps are more visible and actually destroy when activated. Along with these changes trap UI has been improved, removing some confusion around the current system.
Traps are something we will be adding to before leaving EA. We’ve made quite a few improvements to them in the 1.9 build.
- Shotgun trap now activates on shell being added rather than a separate input.
- Increased damage from nail bomb traps.
- Nail bomb trap is now enabled by default when placing it
- Firecracker trap is now enabled by default when placing it
- Firecracker trap wire length increased
- Firecracker trap now has firecracker in the crafting recipe instead of as a required item
- Firecracker trap now gets destroyed when triggered
- Fixed fire trap not doing damage after enabling/disabling it
- Improved and optimized particles when zombies are on fire
- Fixed lingering particles when a zombie on fire dies.
- Made nail bomb trap wire more visible
- Made firecracker bomb trap wire more visible
- Made airhorn trap wire more visible
UI Improvements
We’ve continued to improve our UI system and we’ll continue to do so moving forward. We’re adapting a cleaner more ‘modern’ look. The latest build contains new UI elements, improved current systems like the fortification UI, added UI elements that previously hasn’t had any.
Fortification UI improvements nail count
A new UI element is the current/next weapon wheel it the bottom right corner of the screen. This system allows the player to see what item will be next in hand should they scroll in either direction.
Scroll preview
- Removed 'E' key functionality for various interactions to save confusion when trying to interact.
- Fixed controls for drive-in cinema not working after new interaction update.
- Light improvements to horde UI to indicate that the hordes can be skipped again.
- Ammo type now shown when looking at gun drops
- Fixed some UI being blocked when hovering over + and - buttons when interacting with items
- Fixed issue where fortification UI is hard to read with a flashlight enabled
- Reworked equipped weapon UI.
- Added system for showing UI for next and previous weapon when scrolling.
- Tweaks to player vitals UI so that they are bigger and easier to read.
- Current nail/screw amount is now shown on boards while fortifying
- Added color and animation indicators when player doesn’t have items/fixings while fortifying
Weapon Improvements
- Gun is now only used as a melee weapon automatically when the gun is out of ammo
- Added input for using gun as a melee weapon (V)
- Moved flashlight input to X to allow for melee input
- Increase to aiming down sight speed
- Removed initial delay from weapon switching to make it more responsive
- Slight increase to weapon equip animations
Performance
- Improved lag on the server caused by having many items near a player
- Improved rain particle performance
Graphics
- Increased field of view while running
- Improved anti aliasing
Animations
- Added animations to vehicle doors
- Added animations to vehicle hood when accessing engine
- Player now has to be outside of a car to access engine
- Fixed help UI for enabling siren and disabled open engine UI while in vehicle
Links
Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Patreon: https://patreon.com/a2zinteractive
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive