Alpha Version 0.2.22.2a - Now live
The hunter crept through the thicket, watching his every step so as not to make the slightest noise that could spook his prey. Looking ahead he sees a clearing in the woods; his quarry in sight. He steadied his stance, raised his bow, drew back, held his breath - for a moment everything went still. It was at this moment that his phone went off with a notification that the 0.2.22.1 patch was now live on Steam. The deer bolted so he rushed home to go check out the sweet updates!
PS. Sorry for the delay in the patch notes on Steam.
Player
- Partial Gamepad support.
- Use a gamepad to control the character. This will be extended further in the next update to include UI control as well.
- KBAG (Key Bindings At a Glance) prompt automatically adjusts depending on your input device.
- Amy may make grunting/disgust sounds when butchering animals (see NPC updates).
- Reduced the stamina drain on all wooden baseball bats by 25%. The metal baseball bat causes the least drain due to its weight.
- Black and white screen saturation removed from damage effect.
- Removed floating leaves created by the character when walking on a forest floor.
- Harvesting stone by hand increased by 10x.
- Harvesting stone with a pickaxe will now give 5x the amount of harvesting by hand.
- Footwear now determines walk angle, by having a "Grip" value. Barefoot being the worst.
- Barefoot the character will only be able to walk a 45 degree angle.
- Trainers have good grip.
- Boots are the best grip, allowing the character to walk at a 70 degree angle
- Can now move the camera up and down while riding the horse.
NPCs
- Introducing huntable deer NPCs. Deer have returned using the AIV3 system.
- New improved deer visuals.
- New improved deers meshes and materials.
- May spawn in a variety of sizes depending on age.
- Deer may spawn as either doe or stags.
- New improved deer movement animations.
- New improved deer sound effects.
- Stags will make sounds when disturbed.
- Improved hoof-impact sounds on all deer.
- Deer are now harvestable.
- Stand near a dead deer and press [F] to interact. Harvesting will provide meat and hide.
- Once skinned, deer will become visually skinned and guts will be visible.
- Deer are very receptive to disturbances and will flee quickly if spooked.
- Deer will bolt away if they see or hear a humanoid.
- Deer will flee if they see another deer being killed in it’s line of sight.
- Deer will patrol and graze large areas of the wildness.
- Improved line of sight detection mechanism for all NPCs.
- Humanoids now have a standard vision cone of 120° degrees.
- Deer have a vision cone of 270° degrees. You have to sneak directly behind a deer to stay out of sight without cover.
- Traders now have special items that they will purchase for a high price but will not sell (luxuries, home comforts, animal skins)
Items
- Balanced loot drops from infected:
- Can now drop all types of ammo.
- Can now drop foraged foods, mushrooms, berries.
- Can now drop high amounts of bucks.
- Can now drop various resources such as feathers, alcohol, etc.
- Balanced loot from trash bags and small trash containers:
- Will now no longer spawn any kind of food.
- Will now only spawn resources.
- Balanced loot from luggage bag containers:
- Higher chance of spawning clothing.
- Lower chance of spawning food and medical supplies.
- Can now spawn a high amount of bucks.
- Balanced loot from large trash containers:
- Can now spawn tinned consumables.
- Can now spawn vegetable consumables.
- Can now spawn popular resources such as feathers, alcohol, etc
- All lootable containers and world items now have a golden shimmer to them when you are standing nearby.
- Clothing/equipment in face, chest, hands, back, feet, waist and legs will now all deteriorate over time the more you put the character through.
- Increased the size of bird nests by 50%.
- All clothing items now impact warmth and cold.
- Increased max gather amounts on scrap items.
- Items now display terrain grip and durability value.
- Durability measures how fast an item will lose condition. The lower the displayed value the faster they will wear down when moving at increased speeds.
- Terrain grip is how well the footwear will grip terrain, allowing the character to walk at a more inclined slope than normal.
Environment
- New pathway and radio tower added in Hanouten.
- New cliff faces, improved hill sides and thinned out foliage.
- New house models for two styles of houses in Hanouten.
- New pathway that leads to the marshland trader, starts at Tamerlane Gas station.
- New cliff faces, walls and foliage outside Tamerlane & Daughter Gas Station.
- New Waterfall location placed at marshland crossing still needs scene dressing.
- Added a Pixel Depth Dither to rocks and cliffs to make them blend with the landscape more smoothly.
- Re-enabled shadows on grass now the density has been lowered.
- Added additional bird nest locations around the map.
- Added new Interactable Garage doors around the world.
- Removed door pausing open/close animation when hitting player.
- Made another pass at road edges filling any gaps or holes.
- Both maple sapling and pine saplings are now harvestable.
- Added single interior to two house variations, more will come in the future.
- Moved the “Car accident” crime scene to Hanouten.
Performance
- Implementation of corpse instantiation for deer, improving performance for dead NPCs.
- Optimised all signposts around the world.
- Removed unnecessary static meshes across the map.
- Optimised additional houses in Hanouten, reducing draws thread calls and actor count.
- Optimised ground clutter on forest floors.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed right hand door of Doms Hardware store not triggering the quest objective.
- Fixed door bugging out when opening or closing it.
- Fixed campfire displaying the incorrect details on the KBAG (Key Bindings At a Glance).
- Fixed holes on the side of road under Tamerlane crossing near decon area.
- Fixed landscape coming through building at "Charlie" Base docks.
- Fixed not being able to take damage from falling impact when having flak vest equipped.
- Fixed Notifications not displaying on some items being added to the inventory.
- Fixed bow and arrow not causing correct damage on hits to the body.
- Fixed not being able to harvest some rocks.
- Fixed not being able to harvest crates on beaches and lakes.
- Fixed condition stat not displaying the correct value.
- Fixed the weight display on the weapon in the character screen not changing from metric to imperial.
- Fixed grass maps being incorrect and rendering grass incorrectly.
- Fixed being able to harvest foliage after they have been depleted.
- Fixed path mesh displaying black when raining.
- Fixed character equipping weapon when mounting a horse.
- Fixed horse stats not being removed from the screen when dismounting the horse.
THINGS TO REMEMBER BEFORE PURCHASING JOE
We are aware that the game is currently very demanding on performance and bugs can cause problems during gameplay. JoE is in constant development by two developers and a single 3D artists. We are keen to resolve issues as promptly as possible, although please understand that they are to be expected as the game continues into development.Please make sure to read the following statement from our Steam store page before considering your purchase, as always your support is appreciated.
BEFORE YOU PURCHASE: AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE DEV TEAM
In the spirit of our ethos of transparency and integrity we want you to know that our game is at ALPHA stage in EARLY ACCESS and will therefore contain many bugs and have performance issues on low to mid-end machines. We’re really proud of how it plays so far (it’s a lot of fun!) but if your rig DOES NOT meet the RECOMMENDED spec then the game may not perform well and as much as we appreciate your support we would suggest that you wait until later in development before you invest your money. We don’t want you buying something that’s going to disappoint you.
Please also be aware that multiplayer is not yet implemented. This is under development and has been pushed back until Q1 / Q2 2020.
COMMUNITY LINKS
Steam Community Forums
Official JoE Discord Server
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