Hey, everyone.
Welcome to our sixth regular monthly update.
This update is another push forward in quality, including many tower location fixes, small content improvements, adding a few ranged weapon mods, an update to lockpicking, and lots of bug fixes and other improvements.
Update Notes
Content
- added a few ranged weapon mods throughout the game
- tower location: added another possibility to remove permanent weapon
- tower location: fixed an issue with NPCs getting hostile
- tower location: made malfunctioning doors clearer
- tower location: prevent some soft-locks
- tower location: fixed a quest bug
- added dialogue for returning to Aksa
- some level design improvements
- added more audio to Tauris, some skill usage and merchant and container browsing
Gameplay Improvements
- lockpicking: added timing challenge
- lockpicking: failing raises attention on NPCs and makes target object unusable for a short duration
- stealth: fixed a few issues with stealth and NPCs not stopping following player
- stealth: when bumping into a character while in stealth, said character now turns around and increases suspicion
- stealth: updated suspicion decay
- stealth: fixed issues with Vanish ability
- pickpocketing: fixed not working with point and click commands
- pickpocketing: fixed warning icon of nearby NPCs not shown before pickpocketing
- pickpocketing: made failure by nearby NPCs watching more obvious through UI feedback
- pickpocketing: make pickpocket failure through nearby NPCs depend on target position and not player position
- make characters investigate attacks against doors
- updated some NPC behaviours regarding grenades and other explosions
- increased experience points for spider enemy
Technical Improvements
- Unity Input Controller Manager: supporting more controller scenarios and improving check for active device when multiple devices connected
- Unity Input Controller Manager: implemented controller vibration
- updated list of screen resolutions to include those with lower refresh rate than screen max
- Steam Deck: enabled co-op menu
- Cyborg Vision: apply low performance mode when framerate drops too low
- internal framework and tools updates
Usability Bug Fixes
- fixed throwable item selected instead of ability on respawning
- fixed a delay on switching to ranged weapon with right mouse button
- fixed some rare occasions when point and click commands would be used despite right mouse targeting or shift key attack mode
- fixed player character not switching to melee weapon when hovering with mouse cursor over enemy (regression)
- fixed point and click attack commands on destructible doors (regression)
- fixed player character flickering between ranged and melee weapon in some circumstances when hovering enemy
- fixed being able to unequip locked items through rightclick in loot and storage container
- fixed issues with area map tutorial hint
- added max display duration for throwing item tutorial
General Bug Fixes
- fixed dead Fleshworms getting revived on reloading area
- fixed rare case of not being able to spawn in a generated area if reloading savegame
- fixed cancelling skill usage not stopping audio
- fixed knowledge groups shown as hidden when loading from save game
- fixed unarmed NPCs not fleeing in combat (regression)
- fixed turrets etc. reacting to raising attention events
- fixed a few cases of characters getting pushed back through combat actions when they should not
- fixed machines uttering warnings on entering combat even if they have no enemy
- fixed some visual glitches with throwing grenades
- fixed rare occurance of some scene text placed at wrong vertical offset
- updated checking location handling on world map (e.g. fixes when spawning on world map from location traveled to via debug console)
- co-op: don't flip health and stamina bars for second player UI
- fixed some typos
- additional small bug fixes
Thoughts
The lockpicking update is intended to make the lockpicking process a bit more involved than a simple stat check. It's intentionally low on complexity and not a full mini-game, as we still want to maintain a full view of the scene. We would love to hear any feedback about it.
Same goes for the ranged weapon mods, of which we placed a few throughout the game. They should allow a bit more variation and experimentation, and we would like to hear if we're going in the right direction with them, if they're interesting, useful, transparent in their usefulness, or even overpowered.
Internally we have also been improving our tools. It's mostly an invisible part of the game development process, but over here it feels really good and efficient if all those dialogue editor nuisances get patched away, for example. Or when we're getting a better overview of the data in our game.
There are a few bug fixes included for issues that were caused by changes in the last months. The game keeps growing and getting more complex under the hood, so I think this is a natural part of going forward, that existing systems break now and then. These are annoying though and we will try our best to keep the technical and gameplay quality at a high level.
Teaser
Something we're working on: An overview screenshot from one of the areas of the Perished City, a location from the upcoming parts of the game.
Feedback
As always, we appreciate any feedback on the changes we made to the game. Best way to give feedback is through the F1 in-game tool as it adds a bit of game context to every feedback item sent.
We recently added a convenient shortcut if you just want to take a quick look at different things: Open the in-game console with Shift+F10 and enter Playtest to get a list of jump points to the existing content. This won't interfere with your existing save games.
Thank you for your continued interest in Death Trash.
Have a nice week!
- Stephan