Hunters,
We are happy to report that we now have Update 2.4 on the Test Server for you to try out! Our goal for this update was to provide more settings that can fine-tune performance, with a focus on GPU. But you will probably notice that the update still has some quality issues, game can sometimes become nonreactive (enemies not attacking and not possible to kill, not possible to interact with any items,...) scopes are blurry, and changing some graphical settings while in game can cause issues (For more details read the Known Issues section below). But because we didn't want to make you wait any longer for access (or to hear your feedback), we decided to put this one out in spite of those issues. We also want you to know that we are aware of the listed issues and are already working to fix them. Basically, this is a sneak preview of Update 2.4. We will be delivering patches on the Test Server as we go to resolve the outstanding issues with the new features and weapons.
We are looking forward to your feedback !
Version: v0.399
SteambuildID: 3096038
Client patch size:~1.4 GB
Highlights
- Extended graphics settings - Users can now access a broad set of additional options that can customize their performance based on their hardware
- Loading time improvements - Optimized the time to get into matches on both client and server. (Potential saving of 20-30 seconds).
- Resolution scaling - Players can now scale the game rendering independently of their desired resolution which can significantly improve GPU performance when users are GPU bound
- GPU optimizations - Re-balanced low spec configuration and reduced GPU cost across the board
- CPU optimizations - Mainthread will be more stable and generally more efficient thanks to a collection of smaller improvements in game code and systems.
- New weapons
- Nagant M1895 Officer Carbine - A modified version of the Nagant M1895 Officer pistol with a longer barrel and a stock.
- Specter 1882 Compact - A modified version of the Specter 1882 Shotgun with a foregrip and a sawn-off barrel. Wider spread, but shorter range.
- Crossbow Shotbolt - A hand-crafted crossbow that shoots bolts tipped with shotgun shells. The shell detonates at the point of impact and fires a cone of shotgun pellets.
General Updates
AI
- Reduced the Water devil’s detection range for crouched Hunters
- Water devils that disable themselves if another is already attacking a Hunter will now slightly move towards the attacker before disabling
- Water devils can no longer damage Hunters on land
- Increased the size and speed of the Water devil slightly
Audio
- Improved impact sound of Dynamites
- Improved impact and charge up sounds of the Concertina Bomb
- Improved impact sound of lanterns
- Improved breaking SFX to electric lights
- Improved the audio timing of the Mosin Nagant Avtomat reload animations
- Increased the priority of explosion sounds to prevent them from accidentally getting stolen by other sounds
- Increased the Hellfire Bomb's audibility radius to make it consistent with similar explosions
Gunplay
- Greatly increased the melee damage of dusters and Nagant brawler
- Updated Nagant Brawler animations to properly use the attached dusters
Performance
Developer Note:
With this update we wanted to provide more settings for players to use in order to tune their performance with specific focus on GPU. In this patch the graphics options were extended to let players set the quality of different rendering groups such as post-processing and object quality as well as introducing some new features that can benefit GPU performance overall. In addition to these new options, we have spent some time to make the low spec setting cheaper overall on the GPU with both adjustments to the configs and code and asset side optimizations. Med and High spec have also received some small adjustments with respect to the quality of features being rendered.
The larger of the new features is the introduction of resolution scaling. It is likely that users who are limited by their GPU can get significant gains by down scaling the rendering resolution while retaining their video resolution.
NOTE: We highly recommend players only change the resolution scale before joining a match as it currently requires the game to be restarted in order to apply the changes. We aim to make this setting configurable at run time in the future.
- Added sub-groups and additional options for users to configure their graphics quality versus performance in the settings menu
- Added resolution scaling. Players can now scale down the rendering resolution independent of the resolution the game is running in. This will have potentially large performance gains for players who have slower GPU's. This setting does not scale the UI.
- Optimized all particle effects
- Re-balanced low spec config to improve GPU performance. By default low spec will have a reduced set of features enabled and rendering quality will be slightly lower. Users can choose which features to enable in the graphics options.
- Fixed texture streaming pool incorrectly selecting high resolution texture mips which could result in constant file access on lower end GPUs
- Fixed a bug that caused depth of field to always cost something even when it was disabled
- Fixed a bug that caused certain anti-aliasing settings to produce a black outline around objects
- Allow users to disable some post-process and effects
- Adjusted HDR Bloom quality settings across specs
- Added particle quality settings across all specs
- Added volumetric fog quality settings across specs
- Added descriptions to all menu settings to explain what they will change when different settings are used
- Added a VRAM meter in the graphics options menu to show dynamically the current VRAM usage. This feature is only available on Windows 10.
- Added larger texture-pool configurations up to 8GB
- Optimized Schematyc update scheduler data structures to reduce CPU cost on main thread. This should provide a base improvement for all users constantly as well as reducing spikes in the framerate when entering new areas of the level.
- Adjusted particle screen fill settings to improve performance when particles occupy a lot of screen space
- Optimized ironically expensive display of performance information that could cost too much on the main CPU thread. Heisenberg wept.
- Adjusted shadow casting min-spec setting on some detail vegetation
- Flagged some detail objects as hidden on lower specs
- Corrected a number of config settings that were not being set properly
- Optimized some level features that updated every frame and on both server and client unnecessarily
- Moved performance HUD settings into graphics setting menu (previously HUD settings)
- Exposed several advanced options for, surface format optimization and 2 pass rendering
- Disabled FPS limit option when VSYNC is active
Meta
Equipment rank changes:
- Nagant M1895 – Unlocked at Rank 4 (previously 10)
- Nagant M1895 Brawler – Unlocked at Rank 40 (previously 17)
- Nagant M1895 Officer – Unlocked at Rank 10 (previously 40)
- Fire Bomb – Unlocked at Rank 2 (previously 4)
New equipment:
Pistol:
- Nagant M1895 Officer Carbine - $86 (unlocked at Rank 17).
Shotgun:
- Specter 1882 Compact - $65 (unlocked at Rank 91).
Crossbow:
- Crossbow Shotbolt - $305 (unlocked at rank 85).
UI
Endless Bloodline loop:
- The progress of the endless loop is now visualized on the Bloodline page.
- Gaining $666 by retiring a Hunter is now visualized on your bank account.
World
- Reduced the placement range of bear traps
- Increased Twig AI Audio stimulus from 15m to 25m
- Fixed an exploit where interacting with two clues at the same time, would grant two region shrinks even though one of the clues would be inaccessible afterwards.
- Fixed an issue where AI would not spawn at the Extraction vehicles, even though they should.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where bear traps didn't deploy properly, but just got dropped instead.
- Fixed a crash that happened when trying to start the game through a symbolic link.
- Fixed an issue where the Water Devil’s audio was missing.
- Fixed an issue where the hunter didn't play audio feedback when jumped at by the Spider.
- Fixed the link of the tutorial video in the main menu to point to the updated version.
- Fixed an issue where players didn't get to select their spawn location.
- Fixed a couple of issues where throw helpers were off or inaccurate in certain situations or for specific items (e.g. frag bomb).
- Fixed an issue where players could get stuck between a roof and a tower at Scupper Lake.
- Fixed some view distance issues for shutters, doors and windows on low and medium spec.
- Fixed an issue where the hunter didn't automatically switch back to a weapon after using a syringe.
- Fixed an issue that broke world items (couldn't be picked up anymore) when interacting with them in quick succession.
- Fixed an issue where the water devil could randomly disappear after being aggroed by a player
- Fixed the sound of some rooftop tiles
- Fixed an issue that caused the (own) death screen not being displayed correctly after spectating another player that left the session.
- Fixed the physics of lanterns when thrown on water, making them behave more realistically and bounce less.
- Fixed an issue where explosives were instantly triggered when hitting concertina wire.
Known Issues
- All scopes are currently blurry and therefore cannot be used properly.
- Reducing the resolution scale below 75% and scaling back up to 100% leads to objects not being rendered anymore. (occlusion buffer doesn't update properly anymore)
- If 2 players invite each other via steam (without one of them accepting) they can be stuck in that invite state and will have to wait for a bit or restart their client in the worst case.
- Dark sight boost sometimes gets consumed faster than it is supposed to.
- Direct hits with Fire Bombs and Lanterns don't knock down AI
- Crossbow Shotbolt’s icon tiny in the shop.
- Hellhounds kills don't count if they are aggroing a player from another team the moment they get killed.
- The AOE (self-) damage indicator on the throw helper of the liquid fire bomb is not in sync with the actual AOE/damage range.
- There is currently a 1-2 second delay until health gets replenished after using a first aid kit.
- The view distance of throwable objects is very short.
- Depending on the area, windows might show wrong reflections.
- Tooltip images for Specter 1882 Compact and Nagant M1895 Officer Carbine currently don't display the correct weapon models.
- Not possible to switch off Tessellation, 2 Pass Scene Rendering and 2 Pass Lighting in the advanced graphical options