May 18, 2017

H1Z1: King of the Kill update makes big changes to the map and improves hit registration

Z1 Battle Royale

While PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been grabbing headlines lately, it's not the only popular battle royale shooter out there, and the developers of H1Z1: King of the Kill haven't been sitting by idly. An meaty update to Daybreak Game Company's multiplayer shooter has landed, bringing with it some big changes.

The map has undergone improvements such as lighting and terrain changes, plus three new points of interest have been added in hopes of creating new hotspots for combat and filling up some of the barren regions of The Arena. Hillside Villas is a new neighborhood to the east of Pleasant Valley, Morton Distribution is an industrial zone featuring a tall crane that acts as a landmark, and Henninger Plaza is a new strip mall with a gas station, mega-store, and shops. There are also some new smaller loot spots sprinkled around the map, some new roads, changes to building interiors, and less fog to provide greater visibility.

The patch also brings new vehicle skins for the pickup, ATV, and offroader to make it easier for players to tell at a glance which vehicles can be driven and which are useless wrecks. Skirmishes—special weekend matches with revised rules—are making a comeback, too. The first will be a mode where the only weapons available are shotguns and sniper rifles, so get ready for close-quarter combat mixed with long-distance headshots. Speaking of the shotgun, some changes have been made regarding its spread and damage.

The UI has also been changed, and now inventory and crafting panes appear in a single window, which will presumably make it easier for combining items in a hurry and determining how much room you have available in your pack, pockets, and pants.

Perhaps most importantly, KotK's hit registration has been improved, including tweaks to lag compensation, projectile tracking, and more accurate and forgiving line-of-sight checks. Also, a change has been made to firing while up against an object or wall. From the patch notes:

"Previously, if your character was right up against the collision surface of an object, the system would prevent you from firing entirely. Now, the blocked reticle and gun animation have been removed and you’ll be allowed to fire – though the shot will still strike the blocking object. This is meant to alleviate the distraction of having your gun go in and out of the blocked state as you go in and out of cover."

Check out the developer video and full patch notes below for more details.

Gunplay and hit registration updates

Lag compensation has been optimized to provide more accurate player movement positioning. This system works best when the players are playing in low ping environments.
Projectile tracking fidelity has been increased to ensure the hits are registered more quickly and consistently.
We no longer block you from firing if you are up against and object. Previously, if your character was right up against the collision surface of an object, the system would prevent you from firing entirely. Now, the blocked reticle and gun animation have been removed and you’ll be allowed to fire – though the shot will still strike the blocking object. This is meant to alleviate the distraction of having your gun go in and out of the blocked state as you go in and out of cover.
Line of sight checks should be more forgiving to reduce frustrating moments where it appears you should be able to shoot a target but can’t. It’s still tuned to ensure that one player should never be able to shoot at another player cannot see or shoot back at them.
Pointblank shots in first person should be much more consistent.

Shotgun refinement

Pellet spread is now systematic, with some variance, instead of completely random
Increased the number of pellets
Decreased the damage per pellet
Removed normal damage fall-off over distance; as the new spread mechanic will reduce the number of pellets that land the further away your target is.
Added a 2.7x damage multiplier for headshots, which falls off over distance

The Arena

Empty list Three new POIs have been added around Pleasant Valley to break up some of the larger open areas in the map.
Hillside Villas are just to the east of PV and offer luxurious comfort and loot. They consist of a variety of larger homes that have been built on various elevations which can lead to unique gameplay and firefights.
Morton Distribution and Storage is north of PV, it features a large crane that can be seen from far away. Exploration is rewarded as the gameplay spaces span across the shipping containers providing a unique feel for the game through verticality.
Henninger Plaza was added west of PV on the way to Kurama Hospital. In this location you will find a superstore, gas station, and a few smaller shops making it a good source for loot and intimate gunfights.
Added nine additional loot spots of new variations, small residential areas south east of The Villas, and major roads connecting Hillside Villas and Morton Distribution & Storage to existing highways.
Many building interiors have been adjusted for ease of navigation and increased optimization
Fog has been significantly decreased
Lootable objects now have a small outline at close proximity
Fire extinguishers have been removed from the Arena
Explosive barrels have had their spawn rate decreased by 30%
Shadows have been lightened for better visibility

Bug fixes and quality of life updates

Crafting & Healing timer has been moved so it no longer obscures the crosshair.
Items from the Weekend Challenge (5/13 - 5/14) will be granted with this update.
When using classic hit markers, the marker will turn bold for headshots
Incoming hit sounds should more clearly distinguish headshots from body shots
In team games, teammate chevrons have been removed to lessen the visual distraction they were providing. Activate free look (default: alt) to see teammate nameplates at unlimited range.
Body armor (laminated and makeshift) now always show up on top of parkas.
Players can now disable vehicle degradation sound effects in the useroptions.ini by editing the VehicleDegradationVolume=1 line.
When you get a kill, there is a new UI element that will indicate the name and tier of the player you killed as well as any XP gained as a result.
Icons on the Main Menu have been added to let you know when you have a new item in your character inventory or when there is a sale in the Marketplace.
To make navigation easier, we combined the Unlocked and Locked Crates into a single view.
Items in the Appearance menu now show how to acquire the item (Crate, Scrapyard, etc).
Ping display in the HUD will update more often than it used to.
The Inventory “More Info” panel will now be closed by default.
Parachutes should no longer spin when starting a match.
Removed collision from arrows once they’re stuck in a target to prevent them from blocking other projectiles.
You should once again be able to use voice chat after dying using mouse buttons.
Stun grenades will now affect players in vehicles.
Adjusted the model of the taxi to more precisely match the police car (the collisions were already identical).
Fixed camera issues that could occur when entering a vehicle while prone or crouched.
Fixed the Twitch Prime offroader skin not correctly applying in-game.
Fixed several HUD elements that were displayed incorrectly in some languages.
Kill feed should no longer overlap the score elements in team matches.
Region should no longer change itself after selecting one then accessing Settings.
Fixed an issue where right-clicking on a skin you don’t own could cause the item you previously had highlighted to be scrapped.
Button prompt to open/close Inventory will now update based on keybinding selection.
Pressing escape will now cancel a change in quantity on Inventory stacks.
Stack-splitting will no longer lose functionality if the menu is exited after changing quantity.

Known issues

The Kill Receipt occasionally does not display the name or correct tier of the player you killed.
Playing a Skirmish immediately after playing a Solos match can cause some information to be missing on the End Screen
We are aware of some shots registering as body hits instead of head shots. This is not addressed in this update, but will be soon as we now know what is happening to cause this.

May 16, 2017

Game Update 5/17 - Skirmish, New POIs & More!

Z1 Battle Royale - Greg

All King of the Kill servers will be offline on May 17th beginning at 1:00 PM PT / 20:00 UTC (all in process games will end at 1PM ) for a game update. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 6 hours.

Gunplay & Hit Registration Updates

In our last Producer’s Letter, we outlined a number of the changes that were being made to improve and optimize hit registration and gunplay. In addition to the behind-the-scenes improvements that were made to address “lag compensation,” trajectories, and projectile tracking, we also sought to address specific frustration points among players. Here are some of the specific changes that have been made:

Lag compensation has been optimized to provide more accurate player movement positioning. This system works best when the players are playing in low ping environments.
Projectile tracking fidelity has been increased to ensure the hits are registered more quickly and consistently.
We no longer block you from firing if you are up against and object. Previously, if your character was right up against the collision surface of an object, the system would prevent you from firing entirely. Now, the blocked reticle and gun animation have been removed and you’ll be allowed to fire – though the shot will still strike the blocking object. This is meant to alleviate the distraction of having your gun go in and out of the blocked state as you go in and out of cover.
Line of sight checks should be more forgiving to reduce frustrating moments where it appears you should be able to shoot a target but can’t. It’s still tuned to ensure that one player should never be able to shoot at another player cannot see or shoot back at them.
Pointblank shots in first person should be much more consistent.

Shotgun Refinement

In order to ensure the shotgun is fitting its role in close range combat, and to make it as consistent and predictable as possible, we’ve made a number of tuning changes.

Pellet spread is now systematic, with some variance, instead of completely random
Increased the number of pellets
Decreased the damage per pellet
Removed normal damage fall-off over distance; as the new spread mechanic will reduce the number of pellets that land the further away your target is.
Added a 2.7x damage multiplier for headshots, which falls off over distance

Skirmishes have returned!

What better way to check out the new Shotgun tuning than by playing in a game where most of the weapons in the game are Shotguns!? But watch out for Snipers… Skirmishes will be available on weekends and will rotate to new gametypes on a regular basis.

The Arena

The Arena had a major update including lighting improvements, terrain changes, and three new POIs.

Three new POIs have been added around Pleasant Valley to break up some of the larger open areas in the map.
- Hillside Villas are just to the east of PV and offer luxurious comfort and loot. They consist of a variety of larger homes that have been built on various elevations which can lead to unique gameplay and firefights.
- Morton Distribution and Storage is north of PV, it features a large crane that can be seen from far away. Exploration is rewarded as the gameplay spaces span across the shipping containers providing a unique feel for the game through verticality.
- Henninger Plaza was added west of PV on the way to Kurama Hospital. In this location you will find a superstore, gas station, and a few smaller shops making it a good source for loot and intimate gunfights.

Added nine additional loot spots of new variations, small residential areas south east of The Villas, and major roads connecting Hillside Villas and Morton Distribution & Storage to existing highways.
Many building interiors have been adjusted for ease of navigation and increased optimization
Fog has been significantly decreased
Lootable objects now have a small outline at close proximity
Fire extinguishers have been removed from the Arena
Explosive barrels have had their spawn rate decreased by 30%
Shadows have been lightened for better visibility

Vehicle Skins

The ATV, off-roader, and pickup truck all have three new color variants. They’ll randomly spawn this way in The Arena and should be a bit easier to spot from parachutes and to distinguish from non-drivable vehicles. You can also select these from your appearance menu so that any vehicle you acquire will automatically skin to your preferred color.

Inventory Improvements

Using your Inventory quickly and efficiently is one of the most important elements of gameplay. In this update, the Inventory has been given a well-deserved polish pass with more to come in the future.

The Inventory and Crafting panels have been combined so that all of your item management can take place in a single window. Visually, you’ll notice a few updates to the screen such as a more clear indicator of required ingredients to craft, as well as a preview of how much of your available space will be taken up by crafting or picking up a new item. The crafting process itself has also been simplified as you’ll now be able to craft a single item via left-click or craft max via right-click.

Bug Fixes and Quality of Life Updates

We’ve made a number of quality of life improvements and bug fixes, many of which are the direct result of feedback we’ve received from players.

Crafting & Healing timer has been moved so it no longer obscures the crosshair.
Items from the Weekend Challenge (5/13 - 5/14) will be granted with this update.
When using classic hit markers, the marker will turn bold for headshots
Incoming hit sounds should more clearly distinguish headshots from body shots
In team games, teammate chevrons have been removed to lessen the visual distraction they were providing. Activate free look (default: alt) to see teammate nameplates at unlimited range.
Body armor (laminated and makeshift) now always show up on top of parkas.
Players can now disable vehicle degradation sound effects in the useroptions.ini by editing the VehicleDegradationVolume=1 line.
When you get a kill, there is a new UI element that will indicate the name and tier of the player you killed as well as any XP gained as a result.
Icons on the Main Menu have been added to let you know when you have a new item in your character inventory or when there is a sale in the Marketplace.
To make navigation easier, we combined the Unlocked and Locked Crates into a single view.
Items in the Appearance menu now show how to acquire the item (Crate, Scrapyard, etc).
Ping display in the HUD will update more often than it used to.
The Inventory “More Info” panel will now be closed by default.
Parachutes should no longer spin when starting a match.
Removed collision from arrows once they’re stuck in a target to prevent them from blocking other projectiles.
You should once again be able to use voice chat after dying using mouse buttons.
Stun grenades will now affect players in vehicles.
Adjusted the model of the taxi to more precisely match the police car (the collisions were already identical).
Fixed camera issues that could occur when entering a vehicle while prone or crouched.
Fixed the Twitch Prime offroader skin not correctly applying in-game.
Fixed several HUD elements that were displayed incorrectly in some languages.
Kill feed should no longer overlap the score elements in team matches.
Region should no longer change itself after selecting one then accessing Settings.
Fixed an issue where right-clicking on a skin you don’t own could cause the item you previously had highlighted to be scrapped.
Button prompt to open/close Inventory will now update based on keybinding selection.
Pressing escape will now cancel a change in quantity on Inventory stacks.
Stack-splitting will no longer lose functionality if the menu is exited after changing quantity.

Known Issues

The Kill Receipt occasionally does not display the name or correct tier of the player you killed.

May 16, 2017

Game Update 5/17 - Skirmish, New POIs & More!

Z1 Battle Royale - Halo117

Gunplay & Hit Registration Updates

Lag compensation has been optimized to provide more accurate player movement positioning. This system works best when the players are playing in low ping environments.
Projectile tracking fidelity has been increased to ensure the hits are registered more quickly and consistently.
We no longer block you from firing if you are up against and object. Previously, if your character was right up against the collision surface of an object, the system would prevent you from firing entirely. Now, the blocked reticle and gun animation have been removed and you’ll be allowed to fire – though the shot will still strike the blocking object. This is meant to alleviate the distraction of having your gun go in and out of the blocked state as you go in and out of cover.
Line of sight checks should be more forgiving to reduce frustrating moments where it appears you should be able to shoot a target but can’t. It’s still tuned to ensure that one player should never be able to shoot at another player cannot see or shoot back at them.
Pointblank shots in first person should be much more consistent.

Shotgun Refinement

In order to ensure the shotgun is fitting its role in close range combat, and to make it as consistent and predictable as possible, we’ve made a number of tuning changes.

Pellet spread is now systematic, with some variance, instead of completely random
Increased the number of pellets
Decreased the damage per pellet
Removed normal damage fall-off over distance; as the new spread mechanic will reduce the number of pellets that land the further away your target is.
Added a 2.7x damage multiplier for headshots, which falls off over distance

Skirmishes have returned!

The Arena

The Arena had a major update including lighting improvements, terrain changes, and three new POIs.

Three new POIs have been added around Pleasant Valley to break up some of the larger open areas in the map.
- Hillside Villas are just to the east of PV and offer luxurious comfort and loot. They consist of a variety of larger homes that have been built on various elevations which can lead to unique gameplay and firefights.
- Morton Distribution and Storage is north of PV, it features a large crane that can be seen from far away. Exploration is rewarded as the gameplay spaces span across the shipping containers providing a unique feel for the game through verticality.
- Henninger Plaza was added west of PV on the way to Kurama Hospital. In this location you will find a superstore, gas station, and a few smaller shops making it a good source for loot and intimate gunfights.

Added nine additional loot spots of new variations, small residential areas south east of The Villas, and major roads connecting Hillside Villas and Morton Distribution & Storage to existing highways.
Many building interiors have been adjusted for ease of navigation and increased optimization
Fog has been significantly decreased
Lootable objects now have a small outline at close proximity
Fire extinguishers have been removed from the Arena
Explosive barrels have had their spawn rate decreased by 30%
Shadows have been lightened for better visibility

Vehicle Skins

Inventory Improvements

Bug Fixes and Quality of Life Updates

We’ve made a number of quality of life improvements and bug fixes, many of which are the direct result of feedback we’ve received from players.

Crafting & Healing timer has been moved so it no longer obscures the crosshair.
Items from the Weekend Challenge (5/13 - 5/14) will be granted with this update.
When using classic hit markers, the marker will turn bold for headshots
Incoming hit sounds should more clearly distinguish headshots from body shots
In team games, teammate chevrons have been removed to lessen the visual distraction they were providing. Activate free look (default: alt) to see teammate nameplates at unlimited range.
Body armor (laminated and makeshift) now always show up on top of parkas.
Players can now disable vehicle degradation sound effects in the useroptions.ini by editing the VehicleDegradationVolume=1 line.
When you get a kill, there is a new UI element that will indicate the name and tier of the player you killed as well as any XP gained as a result.
Icons on the Main Menu have been added to let you know when you have a new item in your character inventory or when there is a sale in the Marketplace.
To make navigation easier, we combined the Unlocked and Locked Crates into a single view.
Items in the Appearance menu now show how to acquire the item (Crate, Scrapyard, etc).
Ping display in the HUD will update more often than it used to.
The Inventory “More Info” panel will now be closed by default.
Parachutes should no longer spin when starting a match.
Removed collision from arrows once they’re stuck in a target to prevent them from blocking other projectiles.
You should once again be able to use voice chat after dying using mouse buttons.
Stun grenades will now affect players in vehicles.
Adjusted the model of the taxi to more precisely match the police car (the collisions were already identical).
Fixed camera issues that could occur when entering a vehicle while prone or crouched.
Fixed the Twitch Prime offroader skin not correctly applying in-game.
Fixed several HUD elements that were displayed incorrectly in some languages.
Kill feed should no longer overlap the score elements in team matches.
Region should no longer change itself after selecting one then accessing Settings.
Fixed an issue where right-clicking on a skin you don’t own could cause the item you previously had highlighted to be scrapped.
Button prompt to open/close Inventory will now update based on keybinding selection.
Pressing escape will now cancel a change in quantity on Inventory stacks.
Stack-splitting will no longer lose functionality if the menu is exited after changing quantity.

Known Issues

The Kill Receipt occasionally does not display the name or correct tier of the player you killed.

May 2, 2017

Reddit Q&A - 5/2

Z1 Battle Royale - Greg

Hey everyone!

Big thanks to everyone who came out today to ask questions and provide some feedback. We tried to stick to the theme of things that are on the Test Server, as you can see in the last Producer's Letter.

Here's a recap of our Q&A from today. You can find the full Reddit thread right here - Chris Wynn

Are you currently working on anything substantial to thwart hackers. I know its an on going effort but there seems to be no real reduction in the last few weeks.
The new POI are great, do you have any plans to change the spawn locations to take advantage of these new POI, especially "Beverly hills " (H6) and the "Crate Jungle" (E3).
I love the "new" skirmish mode, Please enable night mode. pretty please, with a cherry on top.
Many players are still getting the infinite running man glitch that was introduced last patch. Any progress on tracking this bug down ?
Many players are also still getting a late spawn. Sometimes several seconds, a game reset seems to fix the issue.

Yes, we are constantly finding known hacks and adding those to our banned list. Thousands of accounts are banned each day. The current build on Test has updated versions of all of our anti-cheat software. We have people dedicated to purchasing hacks from the market and then using those to ban anyone using them. We are also auditing all of our anti-cheat systems and looking to hire an anti-cheat programmer to further add to our arsenal to fight against them.
One thing that is currently in progress and is one of our highest priorities after getting this current patch to Live is a rework of the gas ring dynamics. This also comes with spawn improvements that may address your question here.
Not sure that it will be as fun at night. Sniping will be quite a bit different at night than it is during daylight, and I'm not sure it would be as satisfying.
This one is really difficult to track down because we cannot make it happen, it is seemingly random and almost never happens internally. We are adding some logging to hopefully catch it when it happens to be able to eradicate as quickly as possible.
Interesting, will have our QA team look into this.

Will the Twitch Prime Offroader Skin be fixed?

We have a fix in place going to Test later today and then to Live once we promote that version up.

ETA on when patch will go to live?

I don't even feel like playing on live with how different the update is on test.

Appreciate that you are enjoying Test. As always, we want to ensure that the patch is ready to deploy and is not introducing new issues. We are still in the testing process with the goal to eliminate all known bugs this week. Then we like to test an unchanging build for a little bit before pushing it to Live.

There will be an improvement soon of the Team Follow Cam ? : - No loading screen when you swap of teammates. - Up FOV in 3rd person, it's really bad atm. - Delete the free look cam ( WAY TOO OP).

Currently on Test we disabled free look and matched the FOV to the default cam.

Can we get clarification on what you guys changed to movement? Everything feels faster, from barefeet, to conveys, to strafing -- Was this intended?
Why is the AR recoil so inconsistent (as shown here: https://clips.twitch.tv/TardyWimpyRhinocerosYouWHY)?
Is there a fix coming to 2-taps where you hit off a helmet, then makeshift/lammy absorbing second headshot?

As we are always working on future initiatives, the Test server may not always 100% reflect what will be going to Live in the next update. As the name implies, it is a chance to test and tweak different elements of gameplay to gather community feedback. We adjusted the speed to see how it would play out. We definitely see the positive feedback around it, but unfortunately there is a large drawback that players can appear to warp from one position to another. We will continue to tune movement as it is a focus in an upcoming content release.
We are looking into this.
This is something that we are investigating as well to see if we can get to the bottom of what is happening in these cases.

How long will the sniper/shotties skirmish last? Will it last a week or two? What are the plans for the next skirmish? Will skirmishes be updated every weekend like it says?

Each weekend through at least May. Maybe June as well, but I don't know quite yet. We have a whole list of other skirmishes to give a go. Shotties and snipers is so popular, we will probably run for a little longer before switching out to a new one.

My personal favorite idea is a red light, green light mode. If the light is red, no weapons work, but when it turns green, all weapons are unlocked.

How satisfied are you with the shotgun right now?

Assuming you mean the new shotgun currently on the Test server. I think it is working much better. We have some further changes going up today to address two things that we saw that we still didn't like. The first is doing a little more damage overall to prevent the cases where you shoot an opponent and they are left with less than 5 health. That should be a kill shot. The other situation is head shots should be more lethal, so we upped the damage multiplier on head shots for the update later today.

Any chance you could add a 5 - 10 second delay from when people start falling with there parachutes so we can all load in at the same time?

We have a system that tries to make the start even for everyone. What is currently on Test has some new tuning done for it to see how it does, and we can further tweak if we are seeing a lot of unfair starts.

When it comes to network and internet speed I really don't have much knowledge. And I don't know how playing with 175 players may effect your ping ( ms ) in game . But I know I am getting almost same ping in othergames whatever speedtest shows . So help me to understand , How I am getting 62 ms on speedtest but 90 ms in game ?

You are measuring to different things. One is to a server setup to measure the time it takes to talk to your computer and the other is a game server. Also probably not measuring the same thing in the same way.

Do you have any plans on implementing increased recoil for AR-15 spam? I think many players would enjoy this and it would add a tiny "skill gap" to the game.

I have seen this one come up a lot lately. As we continue with a large overall gunplay balance, this is something that we will take into account.

Having played only shotty sniper on the test server (other than killing greg

Vehicle skins should be on marketplace, not to make it easier for new players to see vehicles, they should have to learn the game and spawns like everybody else. (overall make the game take time to learn and get good at)
The Highlighted loot makes missing items virtually impossible, at least make people pay attention when looting, and it looks cartoonie (cartoony?)
With the last update I've been getting screen tearing alot, and this patch is even worse about that, including FPS, I like new POIs, but maybe less stuff outside of cities so FPS is consistent.
Also why loot bag priority change in inventory? it's scrambled now, used to be bandages, medkits, ammo, etc now no real set order?

We have to keep new players in mind as well. A piece of feedback that we have received a number of times is that a new player cannot distinguish between a drivable car and non-drivable car. I don't think this will remove a skill gap at all as driving and positioning still need to be learned to play at a high level.
This was done to increase pace of play. We want you to be able to size up an area at a glance to know what to get and what to ignore, keep you focused on the fight as much as possible.
Have you tried turning on v-sync?
Will be addressed.

Have you considered increasing the speed of patch iteration? Currently we see long periods of internal testing between gameplay patches, often time the community is not in favor of changes that are made, and sometimes changes do not work correctly or have unintended side effects. KOTK has an extremely large playerbase, especially for an early access games, and it could be utilized much more. Instead of internally testing a patch and possibly taking a week to find a bug, if nightly patches were pushed to the test server the community could greatly aid in reproducing and tracking down the source of bugs.

We have patched much more frequently over the last six weeks. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but there has been a number of them.

Our cadence is structured roughly like this right now:

- Hotfixes can go at anytime they are warranted or needed
- Game Patches are going every two weeks, usually with a collection of bug fixes or small changes
- Content Updates are every six weeks, this is when we make larger changes to the game. What is on Test right now is our next Content Update.

Has the sniper been changed at all in the test server? It feels different overall.

No changes to the sniper rifle on Test.

What is the word on FPS limit. This was working fine until last patch and was wondering if it would be fixed in this patch.

Hoping to get it resolved this week, but it may not happen quite in time for this update. If not, we will work it in as soon as we can.

Hi,

I just have 3 questions about the balance of the game regarding the last update.

With the new areas, will you keep the same amount of cars all over the map or will you add more cars?
Do you plan to add more areas in the future or to revamp old ones?
Finally, I sometimes find 4 Kevlar in the same building and sometimes no kevlar in a whole area and I think it unbalance the game a little bit (you will say you have to aim the head and not the body :D ), but an idea could be to spawn at least one kevlar for each area, then random. What do you think of that?

Thanks for the Q&A anyway!

Right now, no plans to add more cars. We have spawning and gas ring changes coming up and I want to see how those play out before adding more vehicles.
We are evaluating that right now, we have not yet made a decision.
We are working on a brand new loot system to directly address issues like this one. We are just about to start testing it internally to see how it is performing before committing to a release timeline.

Do you have any plans to change where Laminated Armor spawns, or adjusting how they affect early game in any way? I don't agree with many of the communities opinions about "skill gap," as most of them are just people complaining, but lammies definitely ruin games for players during the very first phase of the game.
The test server is a great idea, and the Nightmare mask promotions are a great way to get more people playing them, but when you're not doing that promotion, it's almost impossible to play a full game on the test server and really judge how the game plays. Do you have any plans on an incentive for players to play on it? I'm happy to test new features out and provide feedback, but it's not the same environment as the main game, which doesn't help with testing things.
With a shotgun rework now on its way, do you have any plans for reworking the AK-47? From my point of view, the gun seems almost irrelevant past the 80 or less player mark of the match. Dying to one past that mark is a very, very rare sight indeed. I would love to be playing with more than just 2 ARs and a Shotgun in my inventory.

Love the game, guys. You're all doing great, keep up the great work.

I touched on this in another answer.
We have talked about a reward system where your play on Test could count towards your Live progression, but that is pretty far down the priority list to be honest. We are using the different giveaways as a fun way to do something a little different in the game.
We are currently looking at every weapon in the game, the shotgun was in the most need of a rework so we are pushing that one out now, but we plan on addressing the entire suite of weapons.