Nov 6, 2021

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello everyone,

We’ll be releasing our 1.11 branch directly to stable today. A lot has gone into 1.11 and we want to get it tested by as many people as possible right off the bat, so here you have it. There are quite a few new additions to the world and to gameplay. We’ll go over those below and include the full changelog right here in the update.

We will be wiping servers and suggest all private servers owners do so also. As you know, we try to avoid wipes as often as possible. A lot of changes have gone into 1.11, items have been renamed and recipes adjusted among other factors like home setting, etc. It's best to have a nice clean start with major updates.

Self Defense and PvP Improvements

The PVP system has needed some love and it’s getting attention now. The introduction of the sleeping bag and home claiming system introduced a few issues and we’ll be addressing them in 1.11

Self Defense
We have wanted to work out some kind of a who shot first system for quite some time now. The next version will introduce a basic self defense system. Players will have a set amount of time (currently 2 minutes) to return fire without penalty. This obviously only works if you’ve been hit first. This system also changes when taking home status into effect as explained below.

Structure Defense
The initial reason for this change was to stop players placing sleeping bags and using them to grief other players. There’s a need for a more advanced system but this is a great base to work from and should solve many of the initial issues.

It is now possible for players to protect their own home under any circumstance (without mental health impact) providing the player is inside their home. Homes are now considered to ‘age out’ meaning any home that has been set for more than 12 in game hours. A long standing home was extra right over a home that has just been placed. In the event a placed home is new and not older than 12 hours, that player will face a cool down to respawn.

This isn’t a fail safe solution by any means. Should an attacker age out of a home, placing a bag and making it 12 hours without it being destroyed they will be able to respawn and attack without negative effect. This could basically create a PVP free-for-all if you’re both in your houses shooting across the gardens. This, of course, would only work if you were both in your structures once outside the system reverts to the who shot first system above.

Example of the System
Player 1 is in their home and protecting their aged base (their real home that’s been there for a while). Player 2 places a home near player 1’s base and intends to use it to exploit by attacking player 1 over and over. Previously player 1’s mental health would deteriorate as player 2 could just keep respawning at their home and attacking player 1. This effectively left player 1 helpless, not able to protect their base without suffering from negative mental health effects and eventually committing suicide.
With the new system, providing player 1's base is aged out, they have the right to kill on sight anyone attacking them (regardless of who fires the first shot) without consequence. In the event player 2 gets killed by player 1, they are placed on timeout to spawn at home, in the event their home is close to player 1’s. If player 2’s home isn’t close then they are allowed to spawn at home as per normal gameplay.

Waypoint System

The vibe of Survive the Nights is really starting to come into its own. 1.11 will feature a totally revamped spawn system. As mentioned in the last devblog, the new system will randomly spawn players in structures around the world. This really makes every life and experience unique. Spawning in houses in towns vs spawning in a country house creates a wide variety of gameplay experiences.
Along with the new spawning system, James has spent some time improving and expanding on the quick guides’ abilities and features. New players have a far more task oriented start. The game really is starting to feel like a game with these recent changes. The original ‘hunker down’ vibe is coming back into its own and guiding the player from the start is a big part of our intended gameplay style.
The waypoint system and new help system is meant to gently guide new players in the right direction. It can be fully disabled for returning players and is automatically disabled even for returning players after completion.

Waypoint directing the player towards a wood harvest

Item Highlighting Improvements

Item and harvest highlighting has recently been introduced and James has made some improvements to the system. Current highlighting on harvest machines stays even after you’ve harvested the times from it even if it’s ‘empty’.. The updated system will now remove the glowing effect from empty harvest machines making it far easier to distinguish what you have and haven’t harvested. We'll have some more info in next week's devblog.

Friends on Map and Compass

We’ve always wanted Survive the Nights to be a co-op experience. Surviving with friends is a totally different experience than surviving on your own. We introduced the home system in 1.10 allowing players to set their homes. This feature itself allows for a more cooperative experience. We’ve taken it a step further with the 1.11 update by adding the much requested ability to see your friends on the map.
In 1.11, players will be able to see any of their Steam friends on the map. This should work without the need for you to do anything in game so long as you’re Steam friends. In addition to seeing your friends when you bring up the map, they will also be visible when you inspect your player and bring up the compass UI.

Friend locations on the map

Friend locations on the compass

Structure Variant (Car Lots)

A vehicle makes survival a lot easier and we would like to get players driving around sooner rather than later. We will be making some adjustments to the guide systems including the task to get a vehicle started. This task will now waypoint players to the new car lot additions on the island. These car lots as mentioned above are spread across the map and there are currently 6 variants although you might not notice much difference initially. We will expand on structure design later, our prefab system allows us to swap out any structure in the game or just make general improvements and changes without issue for the most part.

Black Island Impound Lot

New Impound/Dealership Locations

Patch Notes - Alpha 1.11

Quality of Life (QoL)

Vehicles will now be more common and start with slightly more parts
Increased the size of the cooking surface on the hearth
Sleeping bag recipe now only requires 2 cloth.
Player now start a new life after respawning when not having a home set.
Searched wood/metal/cloth items now indicate that they cannot be searched again.
It’s now possible to equip while in the UI for other machines/looking at cooking surfaces.
Fixed issue that was stopping stewing working correctly.
Increased visible distance of various large/important pickups so that they don't pop on right in front of the player.
Fixed scenarios where machines continued to run after the player left the area.
Optimisations to vegetation rendering.
Pre-warm assets system disabled to fix possible crash issues on startup and improve performance when entering menus/game
Canteens no longer spawn.

New Players

Now spawn inside a structure
Guide order tweaked to work better with new spawn locations.

Solo/Hosting

Solo play now has a disclaimer explaining additional RAM requirements.
Fixed issues that stopped certain player getting into game on solo play.
Added a button to test port status on host tab.
Added warning to host tab that lets players know ports are still closed.
Fixed issues that stopped solo/host servers launching.

Waypoints

Added dynamic waypoint system that guides the player to their next objective.

Self Defense

Added self defense system that allows you to kill a player in the event that they initiate combat.
It’s now possible to destroy other players sleeping bags.
It’s now possible to kill other players while defending home without mental health impact.
There is now a cool down on home respawning in circumstances considered to be exploiting.

Animation

Fixed various scenarios where it was possibly to see extra hands while consuming.

Design

Town sign achievements now work.
Fixed flickering snow on and off when moving around the world
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 13 on the north east corner of the map.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 43 on the north east corner of the map.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 42 north of sage creek
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 15 west of Oldtown.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 45 north of airport.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 62 south of Addersfield.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 53 west of Addersfield.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 56 west side of Black Rock.
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 52 north Addersfield
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 57 on the north east corner of the map.
Added a dealership to terrain tile 28
Added a dealership to terrain tile 26
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 10 north of Union Point
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 35 west of Sage Creek
Added Car Dealership to terrain tile 55 north of Black Rock
Added Car Impound Lot to terrain tile 59 north of Addersfield
Improved water materials on ponds
Added car dealership and variants.

Lighting

Adjusted nighttime lighting for easier navigation
Increased lights from fires indoors
Decreased light from club when it’s on fire
Disabled running animation when flashlight is enabled on a gun
Disabled LED flashlights + windup flashlight
Increased brightness and range of normal flashlights
Removed weird grill shadow from fixed campfire
Fix for flashlight colour not updating when removing flashlight attachment
Fix for weapon not going back to passive carry position when headlamp is enabled

Updated pre-alpha warning message and reduced skip time
Reworded new life UI to better reflect new spawn locations.
Tweaked wording for fire elements of guide.
Added friend position on map and compass within a close proximity
Sniper scopes now render behind other UI so that it doesn't hide other important information.
Added indicator if zombies are nearby to logoff menu.
Item thats just been crafted now selects in the inventory.

PvP Exploit Improvements

Health clamp to 1 system made more lenient so that it doesn’t affect PvP as much.
No longer possible to place sleeping bags in POI’s.

Thank you for the continued support :) We’re working on issues you’re finding so please keep reporting any bugs and sharing your suggestions with us. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

Links

Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net
Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive

Oct 29, 2021

Devblog 56 - 1.11 Preview

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello everyone,

Firstly, a preemptive happy Halloween to you all. We hope you have a fun and spooky weekend. We’ve been cracking along on the 1.11 build and making some pretty massive gameplay changes along the way.

Andre has continued making progress on prepping the new 1.12 zombies. Along with that, he’s altering, improving and removing some of our current zombies. He has recently started working on a random skin generator that promises to drastically improve zombie variation.

Animation additions and improvements continue to be made for 1.11. John’s working with a new model for the first time in quite a while and things are progressing quite nicely. We’re excited to eventually showcase more of the zombie introduction after 1.11 is released and we’re showcasing the 1.12 update.

I (JB) have spent my time in the last week or so introducing new design to the world in the form of car dealerships and impound lots. There are currently 6 variants of these scattered all across the island and we’ll likely update and refine the structures via our prefab system as we move through the development cycle and have more time and resources to dedicate to structure rebuilds. As of now these areas will serve the purpose of providing new and returning players alike a place to reliably find vehicles, vehicle parts and tools.

Self Defense and PvP Improvements

Yes, yes we hear you! James has begun implementing quite a few general PVP changes along with the changes made via your suggestions. The PVP system has needed some love and it’s getting attention now. The introduction of the sleeping bag and home claiming system introduced a few issues and we’ll be addressing them in 1.11

Self Defense
We have wanted to work out some kind of a who shot first system for quite some time now. The next version will introduce a basic self defense system. Players will have a set amount of time (currently 2 minutes) to return fire without penalty. This obviously only works if you’ve been hit first. This system also changes when taking home status into effect as explained below.

Structure Defense
The initial reason for this change was to stop players placing sleeping bags and using them to grief other players. There’s a need for a more advanced system but this is a great base to work from and should solve many of the initial issues.

It is now possible for players to protect their own home under any circumstance (without mental health impact) providing the player is inside their home. Homes are now considered to ‘age out’ meaning any home that has been set for more than 12 in game hours. A long standing home was extra right over a home that has just been placed. In the event a placed home is new and not older than 12 hours, that player will face a cool down to respawn.

This isn’t a fail safe solution by any means. Should an attacker age out of a home, placing a bag and making it 12 hours without it being destroyed they will be able to respawn and attack without negative effect. This could basically create a PVP free-for-all if you’re both in your houses shooting across the gardens. This, of course, would only work if you were both in your structures once outside the system reverts to the who shot first system above.

Example of the System
Player 1 is in their home and protecting their aged base (their real home that’s been there for a while). Player 2 places a home near player 1’s base and intends to use it to exploit by attacking player 1 over and over.

Previously player 1’s mental health would deteriorate as player 2 could just keep respawning at their home and attacking player 1. This effectively left player 1 helpless, not able to protect their base without suffering from negative mental health effects and eventually committing suicide.

With the new system, providing player 1's base is aged out, they have the right to kill on sight anyone attacking them (regardless of who fires the first shot) without consequence. In the event player 2 gets killed by player 1, they are placed on timeout to spawn at home, in the event their home is close to player 1’s. If player 2’s home isn’t close then they are allowed to spawn at home as per normal gameplay.

Car Lots

Black Island Impound Lot

Current Placement (Likely to change)

Halloween Event

The Halloween event is in full swing and will run until November 7th. You’ll notice Jack-O-Lanterns scattered around the world, a ‘Trick or Treat’ door knocker and the reintroduction of the feature length film "Night of the Living Dead." You can receive the film as a treat and load up the projector in either of the island's drive-in movie theaters. Below are two quick videos showcasing each of the Halloween event features.

Drive-In Film: Night of the Living Dead

Watch the full length movie right in the game. Find a film reel while trick or treating. You can take the reel to either of the drive-in theaters and play the movie via the projection room. Try and survive a couple of hordes while watching a classic film!

Trick or Treating

You'll find most of the structures in the game will currently have decorations around the doorstep and a new door knocker. Use the door knocker once the sun sets for a trick-or-treat. Tricks aren't always fun but the treats should make killing them easier ;)

Halloween Sale - 40% Off

Survive the Nights is now 40% off for the Halloween Sale! You can also participate in our in-game Halloween event. If you have any questions before purchasing, please join our discord and speak with the developers or players within our friendly community.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/541300

Halloween Merch Sale - 25% Off

https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive?pr=SPOOKY25
Use promo code SPOOKY25 on Teespring to receive a 25% discount on all merch now through November 7th.

Links

Oct 1, 2021

Devblog 53 - 1.11 Preview | Future Plans++

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

1.10 is out on our default branch as of last week and it seems to be doing well after a quick hot fix from the team. We’ve spent the last couple of days sorting out our 1.11 and 1.12 plans and they’re pretty big! This first blog basically lays out our game plan for the next update.

We plan on a quicker 1.11QoL/Halloween update in the next few weeks. This update will be the main focus of this quick devblog. The team will share greater details and expand on all the planned features as we work through the development cycle. We’re hoping to have this update out before Halloween.

Version 1.11 Roadmap

PVP and player interaction improvements and fixes
Flexible waypoint system
Lighting improvements and changes
Preparation for zombie replacement + zombie functionality improvements + animation improvements
Halloween content

1.10 featured some big changes to the early game experience, especially for new players. We spent a good deal of time working through player reported issues and we plan to carry that early game polish, feature tweaking and issue fixing through to 1.11.

PvP and Player Interaction Improvements

PvP was never our main focus, most following the project know that. We've always wanted Survive the Nights’ main threat to be zombie based. That being said, we have also always realized PvP is of course part of apocalyptic survival. We haven’t spent much time on the PvP interactions and 1.11 will change that. Below are some of our planned PvP changes. We will also be working on your reported PvP exploits and issues.

Sleeping bag issues
Setting home and placing sleeping bags was introduced in version 1.10. This introduced some unique camping and respawn issues. We will be concepting and introducing a cool down system for respawns when being killed by PvP. This should balance player experiences nicely.

We will also introduce the ability to destroy other players' sleeping bags. The introduction will likely see this process take quite some time to accomplish. We’ll likely tweak once again based on your feedback.

Mental Health and Self Defense
We have wanted to introduce a ‘who shot first’ style system on top of our mental health system for some time now. Version 1.11 will introduce the beginnings of a self defense system. The idea being those who are firing in self defense will receive little or possibly no negative mental health effects.

Player Interaction Improvements

Player Relevance
Player to player interactions will get some attention in 1.11. We have made recent improvements to player relevancy and plan to continue fixing issues moving forward. Relevancy is a big part of a co-op game and we will do our best to get it 100% reliable.

Friends on the Map
Survive the Nights has been developed to be a co-op experience. It’s easier to survive with friends around and the current system doesn’t always make this ideal. We’ve recently made big improvements to the map and the compass system. Players can now craft a compass and see a digital display when inspecting. This on screen compass shows the player icons like their home setting, death markers and horde direction. This along with the new set home feature has helped players group up and it shows in videos and player discussions.

We will be introducing what is essentially a friend system. This is the basics to a group system that will allow players to mark each other on their maps. So you should always know where your friends are making the co-op experience far more fun and fluid.

Improved Tutorial and Player Spawns

We have spent a lot of time developing our core mechanics. Our development really exploded shortly after our public alpha release in Nov 2019. From concept to that release we spent most of our time basically learning how to actually develop a game, run a business, interact with the community, etc.

We have tweaked and changed small game ideas but the general concept of Survive the Nights remains the same. We do realize however that some new players might not really know what that vision is. Survive the Nights’ concept featured a general theme, prepare during the day and hope to survive the night.

While developing the game we have slowly introduced all of our planned features and while most features from our concepts are now functioning, they can feel disjointed at times. We plan on getting back to our roots over the coming couple of update cycles.

We will be concepting a random spawn system that involves starting players directly in a structure somewhere on the map. This should add for a great deal of variety in gameplay experiences. This is something we’ve always intended to be a feature. You may spawn in a town, you may spawn on farm. This will drastically change how each new life and each survival situation plays out. This will also allow us the ability to easily expand on the quick guide checklist. We'll be showing players exactly how the game is intended to be played and walk them through the process from starting a fire and healing, to fortifying a structure and preparing for the nights onslaught.

This system will likely be in place for 1.11 and we’ll be expanding on the idea in 1.12. Introducing new traps, fortification options and general structure improvements. We’ll focus more on these improvements as we work through them in the coming weeks.

Flexible Waypoint System

1.10 introduced a new quick guide system for starting players. This system has a highlight feature that will showcase and illuminate the next item of interest on your quick guide. We will be expanding on this system, adding an on screen waypoint system to guide you to your next objective.

This system can be rather dynamic, allowing us to easily expand on game features like the guide. It will also allow us for future implementations like basic fetch quests or perhaps more elaborate ‘missions’.

Preparing for Zombie Improvements

Models
The time has come. When we first started Survive the Nights, there weren’t a fabulous amount of amazing assets available. We had a 3rd party designer make most of our current zombie assets. A few of them are still original concept assets, I believe.

Times have changed and in big ways. There are some great small teams producing assets for unity and other engines at the moment. It seems insane to not take advantage of this fact and dive into model replacement.

Halloween Event

We had a ton of fun last year with the Halloween event. We’ll likely tweak that a bit and maybe add a few more goodies. It should be a great time for new players and returning players alike. We’ll be sure to get the film back into the project for the holiday and likely leave it in for those who wish to watch a movie in a game year round.. Below is the video we posted for last year's event. The world also featured a trick or treat event and the houses decorated with jack o' lanterns and such.

This is not a simple process as you could imagine. We will spend the majority of the coming version importing, testing, tweaking and figuring out new assets. The process is time consuming and demands the whole team's attention. It’s not a process we’ve looked forward to to be honest but one we realize is needed and now that we’ve sat down and planned for it we’re very excited. You’ll not get any sneak peeks from us today though!

This short blog really only scratches the surface. There's a lot more to discuss and we’ll be bringing you progress updates every Friday until release. Once again, we hope to have this next Quality of Life update out before Halloween.

Special Promotion - 60% Off Sale Reminder

Survive the Nights is now 60% off until Thursday, October 7th. If you have any questions before purchasing, please join our friendly community on discord.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/541300

Thanks for the continued support :) If you're having issues in the game please report them via the F1 in game reporting system. Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

Links

Sep 23, 2021

Patch Notes - Alpha 1.10

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

We’ll be releasing our v1.10 update directly to the stable branch today. We have done a good deal of improving and fixing here. A lot has gone into 1.10 and we want to get it tested by as many people as possible right off the bat, so here you have it. The focus for this and coming builds has been early game and polish, a task which isn’t always exciting for people interested in our development. It’s also not always a quick process Sometimes the last 10% of a feature can take just as long as the first 90%.

We’ve made major changes to our quick guide and game introduction. We’ve added the ability to swim (finally) and we totally reworked the in game chat system. We’ve added a hardcore/normal gameplay setting allowing those who wish to play a bit more casual and spawn at home. The game is starting to really shape up, we’ve relied greatly on your feedback and thank you for continuing to provide it. Have a good play through here with 1.10 and get back to us as soon as you can with feedback.

Swimming

Terribly sorry, that’s the best way to start after having tested the swimming implementation. Wow, was that needed! It really brings the world to life not having to constantly worry about death when you’re near a body of water. Andre spent the week adding all the finishing touches to the swimming mechanic. Proxy animations have been added so you don’t look like Jason Voorhees walking across Crystal Lake anymore. Stamina now affects how far you can swim before you start sinking so don’t go thinking you can swim right off the map. Players will be able to freely dive for quite a few seconds before taking damage to drowning (underwater caches, perhaps?!). You’ll receive ‘warning gulps’ before drowning to alert you to make your way to the surface. Now it’s time to start thinking about boats and fishing!

Chat Improvements

As you know, the in game text chat can be at times useless. There are a good amount of issues with the current system, enough to require a total rework. The chat in the game now is dark, the text is hard to read and there is a good deal of console information cluttering it up. The system doesn’t match the inspect style and just doesn’t provide a good experience.

We’ve introduced a new chat and think it will work for us much better. We’ve introduced a gradient style background matching that of our inspect menu and the coming help system. They system will be sleeker while at the same time being clearer to use. We’ll be removing the console clutter as well. Information like “Jayty has joined the server” will now display in the small notification area on the top left side of the screen.

Setting Home (Game Modes)

For a very long time now, many of you have requested a home feature. Coming in v1.10, this will be possible. The game foundation is changing slightly. With much consideration, we’ve decided to try and provide a game mode for all players. We will be introducing two gameplay modes standard and hardcore.

Standard and Hardcore Game Mode

Those that want a more casual experience will find that standard mode's ability to ‘set home’ dramatically changes the gameplay. In a lot of ways, Survive the Nights was always meant to be a hardcore survival game. On the other side of that coin, setting a spawn point inside a structure allows you and your friends to jump right back into the action.

The player will now be able to walk into any structure in the game, find themselves some cloth, craft a sleeping bag and place it on the ground inside the structure. Doing this will provide a notification in the top left corner informing the player that a home has been set. Your friends will also be able to set homes in the same structure. In many ways, this is the start of a group system that we’ll flesh out in the future.

Home set and home removed notifications

This changes the gameplay for sure, allowing for rapid respawns and getting right back to killing that night's horde or onslaught. This, in many ways, is what we originally wanted for STN. A good chunk of the game is based on our experience with Call of Duty's World at Wars' Nazi zombie map. We were completely addicted to the action and the idea of ‘holding down’ a structure. There are quite a few more changes to both modes we’ve listed below.

Hardcore mode will provide harder zombie hordes, no ability to set home and reflects what we have running on our current official servers. Hardcore mode will allow for more zombies to be ‘alive’ at the same time. This is something that wasn’t possible before.

A lot more has gone into this and James will cover it nicely in the upcoming devlog. We hope to have an experimental build out in the near future and there will be a good deal of testing needed here.

Other Changes and Fixes

Hordes will now start around an hour later than before.
Lower difficulty hordes no longer start later than more difficult hordes. This makes playing with friends easier when you have mixed horde levels.
Homes will now show up on the map and via the inspect menus compass.
Horde arrival window reduced from 0-4 hours to 0-3. Hordes will arrive later but arriving hordes won’t take as long to get to you.
Spawn at home or near death options added on death

Death Screen on Standard Mode (spawn at home or near death)

Compass Improvements

Currently in the game you have two compass options. A DIY compass you can craft with a few bits and a found compass. The only difference between the two currently is the speed at which your position is displayed. The DIY compass is far slower than the one you can find in the world. When the player opens the maps, the compass takes time to calibrate. The time it takes is the difference between the two. This system works and it’s pretty unique but it’s not very intuitive and for the most part, takes far too much time and effort.

We’ve decided to implement a new compass system. Once the player finds a compass in the world or crafts one, they’ll be able to see their position on the inspection menu. Currently the inspection menu is defaulted to ‘F’ . It's the menu that comes up when you want to inspect anything on your person or your stats. You’ll be able to see the direction, your home and approaching hordes.

Map Improvements

Map improvements have also been made. Andre has improved the visuals and mechanics. Below is a snippet from our Changelog and a good chunk of the changes made here.

Player position is now a blue arrow which matches rotation of player.
Player position ping animation improved.
Player position increases in size when zooming out so it’s easier to see when zoomed out.
Zooming should now go where cursor is pointing.
Movement is smoothed out when zooming in and out.
Removed need to scroll 8+ times to fully zoom in, should now be 2-3 times.
Panning now more responsive, removed extremely long elastic movement effect.
Updated look of map border to match look of new UI.
Fonts changed to American Typewriter.
Improved resolutions of text.
Added stationary directional symbol to show where north is

Animation Improvements

Part of the quality of life improvements and general game improvements we’ll be focusing on in the coming updates is fluidity. Weapon animation speeds were something that needed addressing. John has spent the week tweaking and changing animations and animation speeds. He's made reloading animations around 1.5x faster than they’ve been in the past across the board. You’ll also notice a new last round and partial clip reload animation.

There have been a load of animation improvements in 1.10 and we’ll continue to improve them across the board as we move through further development.

New mid clip reload

357 Old Jamming

357 New Jamming around a second quicker and more fluid

Bateman Old Jamming

Bateman new jamming around 4 seconds faster

Along with reload animation tweaks and speed tweaks we’ve adjusted cleaning speeds on all weapons.

Clean Lengths

ARG 15 - Old: 14.6 | New: 9.1
Clintchester - Old: 11.3 | New: 6.9
Double Barrel - Old: 9.8 | New: 6.0
Double Barrel Sawn Off - Old: 9.8 | New: 6.0
FRKS - Old: 9.9 | New: 6.0
Pump Action Shotgun - Old: 9.6 | New: 6.0
R-6804 - Old: 8.0 | New: 4.8
357 Magnum - Old: 5.2 | New: 3.0
Bateman - Old: 5.9 | New: 3.4
Lola And Garry's Iron - Old: 8.0 | New: 4.8
Rauser Rig - Old: 7.8 | New: 4.8

Zombie Fixes

Looking through player created tickets we’ve noticed and have personally run into stuck zombie issues. This occurs a lot around intersections and complicated world areas. The majority of the issue was due to an AI vision check being reversed. That has been sorted and it seems to have fixed the issue during internal testing. Below is an example of of the current issue or a variation of it at least. If you have any further issues like this when version 1.10 is released, please share with the team as soon as possible.

Player Relevancy

Some of you have surely experienced player relevancy issues. As an example, you and a friend are playing and you can’t see your friend but they can see you, etc.. This issue has persisted in builds for some time and has been a nightmare to pin down. James spent some time this week altering the scope of our network backend while hopefully fixing potential culling issues. This we feel should greatly improve the stability of player position relevancy and hopefully sort the majority of our issues there.

Survive the Nights is a beast of a project for a small team like ours especially when it’s your first. Unity is a fantastic engine and has allowed us to bring our vision to light. It is, however, not a total answer. When we started development Unity didn’t have a network solution. We obviously needed one as we were making a multiplayer game. Our choice at the time was a rather popular asset called uLink. uLink allowed us to network the game and get the ball rolling when it comes to extended multiplayer development. The team behind uLink has since moved on and we now have access to the source code. This has allowed us to expand on the asset and make tweaks specifically tailored to Survive the Nights.

As mentioned above, we’re hoping that recent tweaks made to the source will fix player relevancy issues. At the very least, the tweaks made for v1.10 will allow us to move forward with greater confidence that the issue lies higher up in our code rather than an issue with uLink.

Crafting and Nutrition Changes

As you know, we’re working through quality of life issues. We’ve set out to dedicate a good chunk of our coming updates to improving our core mechanics. This includes early game improvements.

Crafting and nutrition is something we will be having a good look over. We’ve started adjusting workbench requirements, adjusting hydration levels to canned goods along with adding and removing some recipes. We’ve removed the workbench requirements for fortification materials. We feel this really impeded the flow of crafting. You no longer need to find a workbench to craft the materials needed for a fortification, only the fortification itself. This will allow the player to be ready to craft fortifications when benches are found rather than first having to craft all the materials for it.

Removed workbench requirements on:

Plywood
Plywood reinforced
Metal Planks
Sheet Metal

Crafting Changes

We’ve also altered the scrap requirement to craft steel pipes from 5 to 3 scrap metal. We’ve made some drop changes with these tweaks and in preparation for the coming compass and home improvements.

Compass
We’ve moved away from the dual compass setup. You’ll no longer find a DIY Compass recipe in the crafting list. This has been replaced with a recipe for a standard compass. This just simplifies things and removes confusion.

Sleeping Bag
We’ll be fleshing out and discussing the new “Home” system in the next devblog. James will also go over it with the 1.10 devlog. We have re-added the ability to craft a sleeping bag in 1.10 as this will be the item you place to set your home and be exactly where you respawn.

If you have any crafting change suggestions, feel free to share them with the team via the suggestion ticket (F1) in game.

Nutrition Changes

We’ve decreased the hydration rate of all canned goods to make water harvesting more realistic. Some of our canned goods were giving players more that 50% of their daily requirements for hydration. This is no longer the case. Most cans will now provide 2-3% of the daily requirement. This is just enough to save you from taking damage should you need a can in an emergency.

In Summary

These changes are just some in a long line of planned early game changes. The core of our project is rather impressive. We’ve got a solid foundation to work on and small tweaks and improvements are going to be what sets STN apart from others in the genre. Our goal is to focus our efforts on early game improvements for the time being, improving before adding. That doesn't mean we don't have grand schemes and plans for the project. There's still quite a bit to add and a lot of what we're adding and tweaking now will allow for that.

Item Highlighting

Andre has added a quick and easy change to our highlighting system. This little tweak really shines in the project making harvesting just a little bit clearer, especially for new players. Searching harvestable items shows a blue icon, info icons are now red, locks are orange and containers remain white.

Last Chance System

Adjustments have also been made to player damage. James has added a 'last chance' based system. What this translates to in game is the damage being clamped down to 1. If you take a hit with 10 health left, you won't die. You'll be taken down to 1 health allowing for another second to fight or flee.

In testing it feels right. We've found ourselves feeling 'lucky,' taking out a zed with 1 health left and making it out of sticky situations. Of course this doesn't always guarantee your safety. Let's face it, you're not going to last long with just 1 health but a wise survivor always carries a few bandages.

Patch Notes - Alpha 1.10

Guide Overhaul

Removed trailblazer guide step.
Reordered the quick guide.
Changed the quick guide to be per object based rather than 2 set pages of tasks.
Added support to quick guide to show the amount of items required and the amount currently in the inventory.
Adjusted guide to be more specific and detail oriented to help guide new players.
Fixed issue where quantity of item in crafting recipes would incorrectly display less than was in the inventory.

Swimming

Added swimming system with ability to dive under water.

Home / Base Setting

Added functionality for choosing where you respawn after death. Player can now choose to spawn at home or near their death location.
Added home setting functionality via the sleeping bag. Crafting and placing a sleeping bag in a structure now claims the building. Upon death the player can choose to respawn at home or near their death. Loot and AI also no longer spawn in a claimed structure.
Claimed structures now show on the map as a little home icon.
Last placed locks no longer show on the map. This has been replaced for the home base functionality.

Chat Overhaul

Complete chat UI overhaul to simplify design and make the system clearer and easier to use.

Overall Health

Overall health can now be raised within a window of time rather than exactly at sunrise. This gives the player time to address their stats.
Made overall Health staying the same more lenient.
Murders committed in day is no longer considered for overall health changes. Mental state is used instead.

VFX

Improved burning club fire particles.
Fixes for stretching of fire particles on wooden club.

General Quality of Life

Removed hand warming mechanic as it wasn't very good and interfered with weapons.
Work lamps disabled until electrical update.
Wooden club strength increased.
Removed various hints that were bombarding the player with information.
Reworded various hints that were overly complex.
Fix for issue where you can’t always place the campfire grill on the campfire
Adjusted hydration levels to canned goods.
Removed burning to cooking mechanics to reduce confusion.
Removed stick/kindling requirements on fires. (wood stove, hearths, barrels and campfires)
Fixed the yellow highlighting of harvest machines in the tutorial steps not working on various items
Building interiors now load while in the loading screen.
Improved entry into game loading times.
Improved network culling in relation to player to player visibility. To improve scenarios where other players are not visible.
All Gun Cleaning Animations have been sped up by 1.5 times faster.
Improved issue where vehicles would lag and glitch when driver experienced lag.
Lowered the crafting times on various high frequency items like bandages.
Sped up consuming of items across the board by 15-25%.
Improved system for allowing interactions to still succeed if animation isn’t quite finished.
Picking up items is now slightly quicker.
Fix for scope blurring staying on while health is low
Fixed collision and grass on police station gardens
Increased damage effects for low health
Fixed player floating before joining causing the player to fall slightly on every join.

Crafting

Removed workbench requirements for fortification parts IE you don’t need a bench to make plywood but you need one to make the plywood fortification.
Removed workbench requirement for Plywood.
Removed workbench requirement for Reinforced Plywood.
Removed workbench requirement for Metal Plank.
Removed workbench requirement for Sheetmetal.
Reduced Scrap requirement from 5 to 3 on metal pipe.
Removed the DIY compass.
Added a standard compass recipe.
Re-added the sleeping bag recipe and drop.

Hordes

Earliest horde start time now 1 hour later than before.
Lower difficulty hordes no longer start later than more difficult ones.
Horde arrival window reduced from 0-4 hours to 0-3.

Fix for zombies stop and are unable to reach the player in certain scenarios

Animations

Lowered the animation for inspecting on the M-357 so that it's not blocking vision.
Fix for animations not playing when doing in hand actions like consuming.
Lowered the hands slightly in the inspect animation when having nothing equipped.

Fix for time saying “-” at midnight.
Improved new day UI to make it easier to read.
Improved UI ordering for game entry to make it easier to digest.
Improved map panning and zooming functionality.
New compass UI added which shows when inspecting.
Compass UI shows position of set home.
Compass UI shows position of current horde.
Consumables now default to Place button instead of drop.
Improved frame rate while in the inventory screen.
Added colors to item hover icons to make it easier to spot the difference.
Solo and Host tabs no longer grey after getting disconnected to menu.
Drop button now always says drop while in the inventory. Previously the word was changed to 'cooking' 'purify' etc however the functionality was still drop.
Created and applied missing GUI artwork (hammer, scrap metal, fan belt, spark plug, cooking pot, coal)
Scroll position is now set to the top when opening the inventory to prevent scenarios where it appears as though the inventory is empty.
Clicking the search field in the inventory now scroll to the top of the list so that the top item isn’t hidden.
Changed text displayed for current overall health. Now changes between Very Weak, Weak, Average, Strong and Very Strong
Mouse clicking outside of the inventory window now closes inventory.
Cancelled interactions like consuming now notify the player more clearly.
Fix for unarmed or melee notification staying up indefinitely after moving from weapon with low ammo/condition

Pickups

Removed water purification tablets as they generally only added confusion.

Environment

Tweaks to ambient lighting to make interior lighting more accurate
Removed logoff from bus stop

Sounds

ARG15 reload sounds now line up correctly.
Volume sliders now provide improved control over volume.
Fix for music being muted when joining for the first time.

Special Promotion - 60% Off Sale

Survive the Nights is now 60% off for two weeks until Thursday, October 7th. If you have any questions before purchasing, please join our friendly community on discord.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/541300

Thanks for the continued support and continued issue and suggestion reporting :). Below are some helpful links to anyone new and interested in the game. If you'd like to follow a bit closer, please consider joining our Discord. We're here, we're listening!

Links