Greetings Survivors!
First of all, we wanted to thank everyone for their feedback on the latest updates, and for your patience while we work towards porting Project Winter to other platforms. This latest update will only be available on Steam at this current moment, meaning crossplay between Steam and Microsoft will not be compatible. This is to prepare for our release on other platforms - which will be announced soon™. We understand that this could bring inconvenience for some players during this time, but we hope that this will better help us get all the platforms on the same content update in the long run due to certification and approval processes.
The last couple of updates have introduced some changes to our beloved roles, and implemented some changes and systems to help improve overall player experience! This update works towards better balancing through additional role changes and improving the social ranking system.
We’re also introducing changes to ghost gameplay! Ghosts now have their own bonus challenges, an inventory slot and more balanced abilities overall! We hope these improvements will allow for more fun ghost gameplay - both for ghosts and the players still alive in the game!
NEW FEATURES & GENERAL CHANGES:
ROLES:
We are working towards an optimal balance of the roles that allows our playerbase to have fun while also maintaining the overall goals of Project Winter. Our main focus is to promote communication and teamwork while providing tools and roles that allow for social deception plays. We are introducing some changes that we hope will be stepping stones towards that balance:
- Soldier, Scientist, Traitor Scientist, Medic, and Traitor Medic roles have been removed.
- Any 3 players can open the armory together.
- The armory can only be opened after the first objective has been completed.
- The armory no longer appears on the minimap for any role.
- Any player can use the lazarus machine.
- The lazarus machine requires meat and fur in addition to a human heart.
- Any player resurrected by the lazarus machine will be on the same team as the player who resurrected them.
- If a traitor resurrects someone, they’re revived as a traitor. If a survivor resurrects someone, they’re revived as a survivor. If an ID thief that has not stolen a role resurrects someone, there is a 50/50 chance of them being a traitor or survivor.
- A new role is added: the Tracker.
- The Tracker can use their ability to “tag” players, bunker consoles, and the second objective (before the repair beacon has been activated).
- Tagging one of the above lets the tracker see where they are in relation to that player/console/objective at all times, similar to a flare or beacon.
- Trackers can only tag one thing at a time, and can switch their tag from their initial target when their ability is charged.
- The defector’s ability charges slowly when they are around many people, and charges quickly when they are around less people.
- ID Thieves can see the location of the first death/dead body in a match on the minimap.
- ID Thief’s role description has been reworded to better communicate the purpose of their role.
- Detectives no longer hear dead body proximity music next to a body once they have investigated that body.
- Dead body proximity for both the detective and ID thief is controlled by the Music slider in the settings instead of the Ambient/SFX slider.
GHOST GAMEPLAY:
- Ghosts can claim ghost-specific bonus challenges from the map outside the cabin.
- Ghosts can only claim one ghost bonus challenge at a time, but can complete an unlimited number of ghost bonus challenges during a match.
- Ghosts get one inventory slot that they can use to pick up and drop loose items.
- Ghosts pick up items much slower than living players.
- Items do not stack for ghosts. Ghosts can only pick up one item at a time.
- If ghosts pick up poison, they can use it to poison interactable objects.
- The visual effects for ghost abilities (ghost freeze, ghost heal, etc) are only visible to the players affected by those ghost abilities.
- Ghost feast and ghost fire are changed to be AOE abilities similar to ghost freeze and ghost heal.
- The amount of hunger granted by ghost feast is increased to 40.
- The amount of warmth granted by ghost fire is increased to 40.
- The amount of health granted by ghost heal is increased to 40.
- The amount of warmth taken away by ghost freeze is increased to 30.
SOCIAL RANK:
We’ve decided to implement some changes to the social ranking system in an attempt to improve the system so that it is more accurate and to better reduce toxicity.
- All players will revert back to the bronze social rank once a month.
- The amount of reputation points a player needs to reach higher social ranks has been adjusted to reflect this change.
- Players receive reputation points for staying in Basic and Normal matches to completion, whether that player is alive or dead.
- Thumbs up have been replaced by commendations.
- Commendations can be given at the end of a match and grant the receiver reputation points, the same as a thumbs up.
- Commendation categories are Friendly, Good Teacher, Good Leader, and Master of Deceit.
- Players cannot give commendations to the same player more than twice per day.
- Commendation counts do not reset during monthly social rank resets.
- Players must have at least 25 total commendations to advance to the silver rank, and at least 50 total commendations to advance to the gold rank.
- Players can only give one type of commendation per match.
- Commendations cannot be given during Custom matches.
- Commendations are displayed on your player profile.
- Players can view the commendation counts and leave ratios of other players in their lobby by selecting their lobby entry.
BALANCE CHANGES:
- Default role distribution in Normal and Blackout matches is adjusted to reflect the role changes.
- The maximum number of Defectors in a match is increased to 2.
- The maximum number of Scouts in a match is increased to 3.
- Buttons for teleporting to other players while playing as a ghost have been remapped to account for being able to pick up/put down items.
- Megablizzard incoming message has been reworded
- Navigation to lobby sorting options on controller has been changed so they can be reached with Y
- Melee weapons excluding the torch will now show the minimum damage to the closest multiple of 5 that's lower.
BUG FIXES:
- Fixed report form navigation on controller for the other toggle showing an input field
- Fixed issue with caching rewards causing rewards to never update.
- Fixed player report form having no navigation
- Fixed dead body proximity music not playing for resurrected roles that should have dead body proximity music
- Fixed an issue where custom settings for min/max traitor values were not handled correctly.
- Fixed issue where player ranks weren't showing up correctly in lobby as well as in game over screen and in commendation block
- Fixed clipping issues with Wild cape white large male cape
- Fixed clipping issues with Wild Cape Brown/Black/White
- Dig photos popup now disables the tooltips from showing up
- [Controller] Crafting info tooltips changed to toggle when you press left/right and disable once you change.
- Fix for the social reward popup blocking UICancel for most other stuff in the scene.
- Improved mkb aiming especially in cases when aiming at targets on the left/right side of the screen
- * when aiming over a valid target, aim shifts very slightly towards the center for more accurate visuals
- * hitscan weapons shoot towards the center of the target as long as it is a valid target
- Fixed retry connection popup not working as intended and attempting to reconnect while the internet remains disconnected
- Added messaging to preferred game mode popup to indicate that the player's region changes to "best" when quick matching
- Fixed issue where players would appear to have more crates in their inventory resulting in opening errors
- Fixed issue where animals (bears) would seem like they were disappearing
- Fixed player list entries to fade instead of being removed. Now players who left can still be reported
- Fixed bug where camera would focus on body, not ghost of dead player in gondola area.
- Fixed bug where multiple updates were causing role ability to flash and the sound to go off constantly
- Fixed early leave timer when a player leaves a game early as red rank.
- Fixed traitors being able to break for free when survivor walked away from their console,
- Fixed bear traps trapping the placer if they've been placed before
- Fixed bug where Nameplate of player was disappearing permanently by using landmine to launch into outhouse.
- Fixed issue where changing custom game objectives would change practice mode menu objectives selection
- [Controller] Fixed navigation issue on Practice Mode menu
- Fixed issue where traitor chat radio tab was not displaying properly for ID Thief
- Deleted poop models
NEW COSMETICS TO EARN
New store items available at 4:30PM EST
* We unfortunately had to disable the Wild Cape (Black/Brown/White) due to a bug it caused. This will be addressed in the hot fix for this update.
Keep your feedback coming!
As always, we are listening and we encourage everyone to leave feedback in our community Discord in the #suggestions channel.
Stay tuned for more updates in the future, and thank you for your continued support!