Unlike a dirt road in the Old West with nothing but tumbleweeds drifting through the dust, there’s plenty to see on West Hunt’s Early Access Road Map!
Check out the infographic below to see what we'll be working on in the next few months as we continue to shape the West Hunt experience and move towards Full Release!
As things in development sometimes go, the Road Map may be subject to change, especially as we take community feedback into account! So please let us know your feedback and suggestions!
Stay tuned for more news and details at the end of the month as some items on the list near completion!
We would love to chat with everyone there and would kindly appreciate any feedback or bugs-reporting you can provide us about your experience! West Hunt is releasing as an Early Access game, so there is still a lot more development and improvements that we are excited to make with the community!
Howdy howdy y'all! So as we're looking to future proof CSD 3 for the years to come something we've wanted to do for a while is redo a lot of the gamepad control code, specifically for co-op. There were moments when menus could overlap each other and such, and those problems were much more pronounced when using an xinput controller such as a PS4 pad.
So we've gone in and replaced a lot of the code to better support two gamepads at a time on PC, and fixed the broken xinput gamepad support since our last patch (apologies for that!). Full details are below- and hey, if you haven't wishlisted our next game, Cook Serve Forever, perhaps you could check it out! It's coming very soon and wishlists GREATLY help us!!
Overhauled gamepad support, specifically for two player co-op, to better prevent rare issues with menu overlaps and bugs when using xinput and non-xinput pads.
Fixed xinput gamepad support (such as PS4 gamepads) for single player and co-op.
We plan on releasing a patch in the future that updates the links in the Socials menu as well as adding a "do not show again" toggle for the opening splash box. Thanks so much y'all for all of the support!!
Fixed - FX issue with critters set on fire. Fixed - Issue with crafting level. Fixed - Backpack item sorting / loading. Fixed - Minor model placement issues. Changed - Reduced dirt devil frequency. Added - Stats for bounty made during hunt.
All feedback welcome and please report any issues in the Bugs section.
So I spent the last week in a nerd trance optimizing Clanfolk. The homesteads have gotten bigger than I ever expected and performance was suffering. It was time to roll up my sleeves and break some code :)
This update took longer than expected (8 days,) and I included all the changelists below so that you can see the fine details/suffering if you are interested.
The long story short is that Clanfolk now runs a LOT faster.
Please be advised, I reworked a lot of core logic and may have broken a few things. The testing branch team has been awesome in finding bugs as I made optimizations, but there may be a few left. I will fix these as fast as I can in the form of hotfixes.
I also plan to be here on Steam and on Discord more again starting today again. The optimization work was complex and intense, so I had to block everything out as I worked.
I also plan to take a day or two off soon. For at least the last 2 months I have been working 16 hour days 7 days a week, and I think that I better stop that for my long term health. I have been in emergency mode for release and then the follow up flurry of bug fixes, but now I would like to get into a mindset of a marathon again where I provide content and bug fixes at a regular, but sane, pace. In the long run this will also make the game better.
Starving Animals Fixed
I am calling this one out specially as it was one of the core reasons for the optimizations. I am sorry that it took so long. Some of the CPU gains that I made were applied to making the Livestock brains update faster. This should be the end of those trough starvations.
Large Homesteads Note
So Clanfolk can now comfortably support 40 humans and 40 Livestock. Eventually there will be some soft gameplay push back as populations get too high since Clanfolk is not designed as a city simulator. The AI is just far to deep to support a huge number of agents at once. To me 40 Clanfolk already looks like an ant colony, but it works now at least :)
Large Task Count (Fewer Tasks Are Better)
There are warnings coming for huge task counts. In some cases I was seeing 200+ Tasks per Unit which is just far too high. It is really not in your best interest to have that many tasks as all those tasks are constantly being evaluated by the AI as well as creating a huge work backlog for the units before they can get to lower priority tasks. They essentially get locked down.
People work around these lockdowns using Boost, but that makes things worse since Boost is an emergency tactic pulling all attention towards one task. Players who keep their task count low (300 or less) and use Boost sparingly report having a much better time and report the AI doing quite well in completing tasks.
V0.247
Made Non Strict Priority checking more efficient
Optimized task checking substantially such that checking for new tasks while other tasks are in progress happens less often, saving CPU
Optimized all "feed object" tasks such that they will only see valid target objects before any expensive checks begin
V0.248
Fixed problem introduced due to optimizations in v0.247 that prevented cooking
V0.249
Upgraded haulable system to better handle large numbers of haulables late game
Upgraded to a newer TextMesh Pro, saving CPU by disabling Text Scaling of all things.
Optimized the roof support updater for blueprints. Saves a lot of CPU when there are lots of roofs active.
Optimized window lighting
Optimized entity distance searches around walls
V0.250
Fixed oddly drawn windows and vents as a result of v0.249
V0.251
Cached tool finding code for large numbers of construction jobs, large CPU savings
Added new internal build task sorting system to prioritize and cull build tasks better. fixes many large hitches when there are lots of build tasks.
Added cached string system to lower memory usage in the Jobs Menu (reduces hitching)
Haulable system checks for haulable destination stockpiles over time instead of on demand (reduces hitching with lots of haulables)
Upgraded the Tasks Menu Updater to make it take 5x less CPU.
Improved memory management with tilemaps.
Fixed broken baby carry due to an optimization in v0.247. No more floating babies
Clanfolk will only go after spoiling food to eat with higher desirability if it is in a stockpile (no more berry parades)
Applied some CPU gains to making the task system update faster at higher time scales. This should lead to more consistent behavior at high speed
Added new high priority Livestock task manager to make sure that they get enough updates when eating when there are a lot of livestock
Added an update multiplier to task manager based on current unit count vs reference count of (20) So at 40 units, there will be double the updates (and cpu cost) But things should run more consistently.
Starving Animals At Troughs Fixed!
V0.252
Updated French Language
Fixed case where packing up an object on top of floor or roofs being built could disable those build jobs permanently
Fixed cleanup of build tasks in the new optimized system that could lead to packup orders being ignored.
Optimized PackupManager such that is tracks only the pack up object instead of all objects because it gets out of hand fast with huge homesteads.
V0.253
Removed a bunch of spam that tends to bloat the log files without providing useful info
Added a sanity checker to try to catch error cases with haulable lists and repair them
Added possible fix that could cause a null entry to be added to the haulable list after an items destruction if timed just right
Optimized the Attribute Updater to use less memory and skip inactive attributes.
Fixed haul not calculating its relative priority to other tasks properly in non Strict Skill Priorities (everything was at priority 5)
Upgraded Closest Entity finder to categorize items in such a way that very large item counts are less of a problem CPU wise.
Upgraded Attribute Manager with mass item finding system
All foods given an equal +2 priority offset so hauling of different food types is consistent but prioritized over normal items
Update Clear Tile and Harvest Tile to segregate their tasks by related work skill to lessen the impact of large masses of tasks
Time Sliced the task update manager to remove the 1 second hitch that was sometimes visible under heavy cpu load.
V0.254
Fixed broken auto farming from V0.253
V0.255
Fixed build tasks that require a tile to be cleared beneath them not showing up in the task list.
Fixed task priorities on tasks on top of tiles that need to be cleared being ignored (was using the skill priority of the clearing task)
Added better handling for paths that take a long time to return. Causes a lot less re-pathing also better task persistence
Added new Trapped Detection that will trigger if a unit is in a room < 50 tiles with no way out. This prevents recurring expensive task finding calcs
Added a Trapped Alert.
V0.256
Changed: Babies trapped state is not checked vs doors since they tend to be carried through doors and don't carry keys
Fixed non built crafting objects being valid for the auto supply checks, sometimes causing the auto supply to fail until the object was built.
Fixed Seniors not getting private room bonus
Fixed Bunny Dump at Butcher Block not working when the Butcher Block is reserved and there is no corpse stockpile.
Next Top Priorities
Getting Hunters to Haul Bunnies when they are cold [DONE Update 2]
Preventing personal needs from breaking chained tasks [DONE Update 2]
Keeping fires lit overnight [DONE Update 3]
Automating burying loved ones [DONE Update 4]
Fixing bed owners stealing unclaimed beds, blocking them [DONE Update 4]
Wells duplicating water jugs somehow [DONE Update 4]
Upgrading the Boost System to also read skill ordering for decision making [DONE Update 5]
Any and all cases of a movement stuck problem causing starvation [DONE Update 5]
Performance upgrades for very large homesteads 40+ Clanfolk 100+ Livestock [DONE Update 6]
System to make large task counts and over boosting less attractive to new players
Carrying Tools back home better
Cats and Rats
Thanks again people on the testing branch. It helps keep the main branch stable. If you like quicker daily updates, come join us in the testing branch too :)
All PC servers will come down for the following update on Wednesday, August 10, at 6:00am PT (3:00pm CEST). Downtime for this update is expected to last up to 3 hours. --
Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions
Mission pools now reset every 8 hours, instead of every 24.
Surveying the Land mission is now completable on Oshur using Trident bases.
Replaced "All Access" icon on Missions and Depot with updated Membership iconography.
Made adjustments to nudge laser guided, lockon, and proximity-lock projectiles back into alignment. Future adjustments may be needed.
Increased the overall tracking speed and maximum velocity of Defector's Hummingbird.
Oshur Seaposts now have Pain Fields in the spawn rooms.
Fixed an issue where Outfit Wars enlistment button would show as lit, but unclickable, despite already being enrolled in a war.
Fixed an issue where Outfit Wars enlistment button could show as 0/48 when 48 players had completed signup.
Fixed an issue causing Spitfire Turrets to use Basilisk audio.
NS-45 "Assassin" Pilot now has access to Darklight and Suppressor.
NS-45 "Assassin" Pilot's rear sight dots no longer hover out of place during a reload.
- A bunch of enemy balances and fixes - Switched memorized rewards between levels 1 and 2. Lowered level 1 threshold. - Update on mastery thresholds - Fixed recipe list after getting the status Confused - Upgrades on turbo mode - Faster death animation on some enemies - Fixed some sfxs not playing - More UI adjustements and typo fixes
The recent Spells in Spades Update included the Inferno difficulty of the Valtan Legion Raid. While Legion Raid Normal and Hard modes prove to be a challenging experience for many— Inferno takes it to the next level. It’s all about proving you’re the among the best of the best in Arkesia, and earning the accompanying prestige. We partnered with veteran Lost Ark raiders Saintone, ATK, and EndieM8 to provide tips, tricks, and other advice for groups looking to rise to the challenge.
Inferno Legion Raids Overview
Before we dive in, here’s a quick refresher on how Inferno mode varies from Normal and Hard. Rather than chasing the normal rewards of gear, honing materials, and everything else you’d receive in a Legion Raid, Inferno rewards instead showcase your victory with titles, achievements, and Stronghold structures! On top of differing rewards, there are a few key changes between Normal/Hard and Inferno difficulties:
‘Scale of Balance’ is applied, and the raid requires use of the Book of Coordination, so everyone’s gear is normalized against the level of your Legion Commander opponent.
The gate progression system will not be active - you can’t make it half-way and come back later in the week.
Inferno mode will not count against your weekly attempt limit for Legion Raids, so you can battle a Legion Raid Commander on Normal/Hard and Inferno in the same week, and try Inferno as many times as you’d like.
Getting Started
From team composition, to Battle Items, to mental approach, there’s a lot that goes into clearing a tough, team-based activity. For each of these sections we’ll provide advice from our veterans, and end with some specific tips for the Valtan Legion Raid. Before we dive in, a word of encouragement from Saintone, ATK, and EndieM8:
“So you’re thinking about challenging Inferno mode! Inferno mode is significantly harder than non-Inferno content, but you are more than good enough to clear it. Inferno mode grants you prestigious titles and other vanity that you can show off with, but by far the best thing about doing Inferno mode is that you’ll learn things about the raids and your class that you didn’t know before. It will help you get better as a player and you can enjoy utilizing that mastery in even your weekly non-Inferno runs.” -Saintone
“I’ve personally increased my performance in raids by a lot after trying out Inferno mode with my friends. If you desire to increase your mechanical skills, playing Inferno mode will definitely boost your performance for regular raids.” - ATK
“The hardest part can often be starting. We all have to start somewhere, be prepared for a few sessions of progression with many wipes. Don't psyche yourself out! It's as challenging as it is fun and exciting— and very doable by anyone!” - EndieM8
Preparation
Commitments Advice - Battle Items & Time
Saintone: Inferno mode can be costly when we consider the cost of battle items used, but the real cost is time. Something that many Inferno mode raiders experience is that they spend so much time and effort trying the fight, that they have no time for dailies and weeklies. Try to allocate a fair amount of time for both, or be prepared to rest your dailies accordingly. Realistically for your first clear, you’ll spend thousands of Gold (or tens of thousand) in Battle Items. The next major raid for the West is coming in September, so this downtime is a great opportunity to make time to try out Inferno mode!
ATK: I recommend to only play Inferno mode a few hours at a time. Inferno uses a lot of Battle Items, but the reward is titles and personal skill gains. Not everyone can be focused for such a long time, and pushing for 5-10 hours can be a waste of time if no real progress is achieved, and can add stress when games are supposed to be fun. It is actually smarter and more efficient to try a few runs for a few hours every day or every week with static groups of the same members.
Inferno Mode's difficulty significantly decreases the more damage you deal, and the more items you throw at the boss. This means using Sacred Charms right away to cleanse negative effects, Darkbombs at every downtime, always using Adrophine in certain DPS windows. If all 8 players have this mentality, you actually use less Battle Items overall.
Finding a Team
From friends, guildmates, Lost Ark Discords, the in-game Party Finder tool and more, there are plenty of ways to find like-minded raiders up for the challenge of Inferno mode. While static groups working together can help promote chemistry and progressing together, there are plenty of dedicated raiders always looking for one more.
Saintone: The trick is to find teammates that you mesh well with, as sometimes even if you’re good enough to pass the encounter, your teammates may require more practice. That’s why my first tip is patience. Everyone learns at different paces, and while you may pick up a mechanic really quick, someone else may require several more tries to get it right. Take breaks occasionally to allow everyone to refresh their mental, and try to look at everything objectively when looking for solutions. Likewise, some may not have a static party for Inferno mode. If you jump from party to party sometimes strangers you meet might not be as experienced as you. You (as a raider) need to recognize when you should ask to leave the party to look for teammates closer to your own skill level. If you ask politely, there shouldn’t be offense taken if you don’t want to be there.
EndieM8: Find a group of like minded players that want to clear the content and have a good time. Encourage your teammates when they make mistakes and be open for suggestions! Learn and have a good time together, and get that cool Valtan Statue for your Stronghold and flex that Inferno clear title!
Composition: Roles & Team Set-Up
When it comes to structuring a team, ATK has has some advice on how to best think about your team’s roles and how to set up classes using the Book of Coordination.
Class Set-Up
Every class is viable for Inferno mode. It’s always about how many skills you can land with giving up time you have. For example, keep asking yourself how many times can you squeeze in more skills while others are running around dodging patterns? Inferno mode really tests your uptime and DPS cycles for your class so it is a really nice content to try to boost your mechanical skills.
As for builds, it’s always about your comfort zone. For example, with Gunslingers, Swiftness makes your character go faster, but you can actually have a build with 0 Swiftness. While it does the most damage, you’d be slow, taking hits, or possibly dying more often which cause resets. When I do Inferno mode, I invest a few of my combat stat points (roughly 200 to 300) into Swiftness to make my animations feel a little more fluid. The lower damage can be covered by higher uptime and faster rotation of skills.
Party Set-Up
When Creating parties, It is critical for the raid leader to understand how party synergies work, like crit synergy from Gunslingers and Deadeye, and back/front attack damage synergies from Deathblade and Gunlancers. You can research and communicate with your teammates what their classes can deliver to your party. It is also very important for someone in the raid to calculate overall DPS outputs in the raid.
While it’s different for every raid group, DPS classes are split into two general groups: broken bone and consistent DPS. For broken bone DPS (which do additional damage during stagger windows) it is important to save all their skills to unload at certain points, such as when Bosses are staggered. Supports will also need to time their buffs and darkbombs at this critical timeframe to best maximize their damage. On the other hand, consistent DPS builds don’t have to worry about saving cooldowns, but their uptime is very important. Since the uptime of landing all skills is very important, the party’s support will need to play around this. Bards tend to activate Serenade of Courage at 2 bubbles, and Paladins take Magick Stream to rotate through their buffs more often. If both broken bone and consistent DPS players exist in the group, they are often split into different parties to organize support buffs accordingly.
Valtan Inferno Advice
Valtan Inferno difficulty requires item level 1445 for participation. Once you’ve set-up your build in the book of coordination, stocked up on Battle Items, and found a team, you’re ready to challenge Inferno. Below you’ll find advice from EndieM8 on first gate and Saintone’s advice on the second gate— but we’ll kick it off with a general tip from ATK:
It is critical to stay alive, so play at your comfort zone first and slowly take risks. Inferno mode often requires you to reset the fight if one person dies, because the DPS checks are really tight. Myself, alongside the majority of players, have problems with being greedy when attacking the boss and taking hits as a result. You are severely punished for taking hits in Inferno mode, (as they often result in death) so prioritize dodging first and rotating your skills, and add in more uptime once you’re comfortable dodging the patterns. You don’t want to die early and force your team to reset, as you won’t get as much practice dodging patterns.
G1 - Wolves
For the first gate in the Legion Raid, EndieM8 has a few tips and tricks to help vanquish Valtan’s beasts:
Every attack in Inferno Valtan hits like a truck. It’s important, more than ever, that you learn and can quickly identify the boss’s patterns. One of the most lethal mechanics in Gate 1 are the slash attacks spawned by bleed stacks. Try your best to avoid all of the attacks from the red wolf (and be sure to use Panacea on yourself at 2 stacks of bleed), or call for a cleanse from your teammates (such as a Paladin or Gunlancer). Sacred Charms are also critical here— use them liberally to prevent your team from eating these lethal attacks. The Purify Rune is also incredibly useful in this encounter to cleanse bleed stacks.
Try and stack up for traps and move together as a group! Every now and then the wolf you are fighting will have a green, blue or red glow in their hands. Try to stack up and stand near each other as a group, since each player will have a trap thrown at their feet. Once the traps have been deployed, move together as a group to dodge the explosions.
The damage check for this gate is tight! An interesting strategy to safely beat Gate 1 within the enrage timer is to use Thirain's Sidereal ability to hit both of the wolves simultaneously. This is often done by first separating the red and blue wolves to 12 and 6 o'clock (North/South) so they don't take reduced damage. Keep in mind it's easier to move the blue wolf than the red wolf, so players targeted by the blue wolf should move away from the red. Try and find the perfect moment to land Thirain (you'll find an almost perfect moment every time) to hit both Wolves and deal massive damage. Thirain's ability has incredible range— but it's not limitless!
G2 - Valtan
Saintone has some advice when facing the Demon Beast Legion Commander at the second gate:
Inferno Valtan is the easiest of the Inferno bosses by a long shot, and as such the DPS check isn’t terribly hard. Because of that, you can afford to play a little more cautiously and you don’t have to be greedy on literally every DPS window while you’re still learning. Focus on positioning and learning the patterns. However, because of the nature of the battle, the more damage you deal, the less dangerous patterns you will encounter. This reduces the chances that you or your allies face a sudden death, which could end up being a domino effect.
It’s possible to outright skip some of the random patterns that frequently cause raid wipes if you can proceed through the fight fast enough. For example, if your damage is on the low side, the 5x counter pattern can occur as early as 90 lines of health, and as late as 30 lines. The pattern isn’t tied to a specific HP amount though, so for some who challenge the fight it might not happen at all in your run.
Bonus tip:
“Did you know? Valtan will periodically prime himself up to do a pizza ground slam, followed by a second slam. If a player gets hit by the first ground slam (preferably a tanky class or support with shield/damage reductions) the second ground slam will be cancelled, potentially saving lives!” - EndieM8
Checkout Saintone, ATK, & EndieM8
With the end-game beginning to enter the Western version of Lost Ark in the Destined for Destruction Update, we hope these tips were helpful! Make sure to follow Saintone, ATK, and EndieM8 for more raiding tips, guides, live high-level Lost Ark gameplay, and more original content on their Twitch and YouTube channels, found here:
We could supply nearly endless tips for these difficult raids. For those looking for more advice, Saintone welcomes all interested raiders to the Hell Academy Discord, a place for Inferno mode enthusiasts to learn more about the fights, builds for classes, and find other raiders in a server that he helps run.
Thanks for joining us for this special edition of Lost Ark Academy, and we wish you luck in your Inferno battles!