We released a teeny new patch today that fixes a bug where you're unable to tell Mila your backstory at the beginning of Chapter 7. We've also streamlined a few of the achievements to make them slightly simpler and verified that all achievements can be accessed in the current build. You can save Zvezdana, we promise! It's tough but it's possible!
It's been over a month since the last progress update and a lot has been going on behind the scenes, so I wanted to give you all some insight on what's happening with and what to expect for Update 13.
There was an issue with the new AI that caused the game to crash and I was stuck on it for almost two weeks without making any progress on finding a fix. A problem like this wasn't necessarily a surprise when you take into account that this was my first iteration of making the new AI, which means that a lot of things were scattered, very messy, and extremely buggy. To get out of this rut, I made the decision to put aside that version of the AI and create them again with everything I learned.
Luckily, it only took about a week or so to do this revision and the resulting AI are so much cleaner and nicer to play against and for me to work with (and later expand, too). I made sure to retain the same aspects that made the last AI great such as cover, teamwork, and performance, but I also changed a few things. Unfortunately, I needed to temporarily scrap grenades because I have better plans for an AI grenade system that would take more time than I have to work on it right now.
The other major change is that the revised AI are now more aggressive. I enhanced their flanking and team coordination to make them more likely to move up to the player's position, suppress, corner, surround, and/or flush you out of your hiding position. I made this choice because I want to make each faction feel different to fight against, so considering that most of the current missions have you face off against the Viet Cong, I want to emphasize their real life guerilla tactics that set them apart from regular armies. In the future, I'll design US, PAVN, ANZAC... AI as more defensive and have them focus on working as a larger group rather than independently or small teams.
While this is all very exciting and I am working hard to make the AI as awesome as they can be, please keep in mind that PunjiVR is still in early access and active development. There will very likely be many bugs and issues that I couldn't catch or wasn't aware of before launch and a lot of planned features can't make it in right away, so I really appreciate all of your feedback, bug reports, and patience. There is still a lot to do before Update 13 is ready for release, but I feel confident that this update will be the first big step in taking PunjiVR to the next level and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
If you want to follow the game closer and be a part of the community, feel free to join any of PunjiVR's official social media places below. Thanks for reading and don't forget to check for leeches!
The recent Global Closed Beta brought in the largest number of players we've seen yet. It was truly incredible to see so many Wayfinders curious to explore Evenor and provide constructive input! Each playtest has been instrumental for us to enhance and improve Wayfinder, all because of your feedback. It’s tough to imagine what Wayfinder would look like without our remarkable community supporting us every step of the way, and we cannot thank each of you enough.
Here are just a few numbers from the Global Closed Beta:
183,691 Hunts completed with Bosses slain
13,600,000 Enemies killed (with 852,000 Baby Spiders being squashed)
415,000 Expeditions into Lost Zones completed
Global Closed Beta Takeaways and Next Steps
While we’ve fixed close to 2,000 bugs since that test, we’ve also been hard at work adding things based on your feedback into the game so it’s ready for when we hit Early Access this summer!
Combat Movement As cool as sliding past your enemies without a care in Evenor looks, sometimes that’s not the intention. We’re disabling forward movement if the target is in active hit range to avoid overstepping and sliding past them. This will prevent players from directly intersecting with enemies less often, with the added benefit of improved visibility.
Targeting Stick to your intended target! We’re fixing a targeting issue with all weapons that was most felt when using two-handed weapons. Sometimes in combat, players would slide attack, but move past their intended targets and frequently switch targets. We’re making changes that will allow players to stick to their desired target more consistently as well as making lock-on camera improvements. Additionally we’re fixing a bug where dead enemies would remain a viable target unintentionally and could cause players to remain targeted on the dead enemy and keep sliding past their intended target.
Defensive Maneuvers Previously, players could only parry, block and dodge at specific frames during melee attacks, and understandably that didn’t feel great when reacting to enemy attacks. We’re improving the interrupt windows significantly so players can parry, dodge and block at any frame during melee combat to improve flexibility and responsiveness. We’re also working on standardizing the attack warnings to make it easier to correctly time interrupts across all enemy types.
Short and Long Term Progression In Wayfinder we want you to feel like you’re always progressing and getting stronger in the world. One thing we heard loud and clear from players is they want the ability to pick and choose the order of their abilities to unlock, so we’re making that change right away.
Additionally, while we have a lot of systems in place for progression, one that we think needs clearer goals for players is long term progression. We don’t want you to feel like you're missing out when not playing your “main” character or favorite weapon, so we’re folding in some of our planned systems for character progression and implementing them on an account level. This means more meaningful long term progression beyond small stat boosts into full blown abilities and power-ups you can earn at the account level via “Archetype” and “Armory” level progression systems. We’ll have more on this later!
Echoes The Echo system is something that we love about Wayfinder and while feedback from players has been positive, it’s clear that it can be confusing at times. We’re going to be simplifying Echos by organizing them into clear categories such as attack, defense, etc. We’re also going to introduce a broader range of Echoes that are not just “stat sticks” and allow for even more diverse builds.
Enemies and Enemy Variance With millions of enemies felled in the last beta, we received a ton of data and feedback to pour over. What we found is that encounters with our broad range of enemies need more variance. For example, a small monster could have the same time to kill as a much larger mini boss you’d find in a Lost Zone event. We’re going to be addressing this by having a bit more variance in enemy encounters: players should expect to find weaker, swarming enemies alongside more powerful foes. This should improve the dynamics of gameplay and make for an even more engaging experience.
Social Systems At its heart, Wayfinder is a social game. We heard a lot about the limitations to in-game chat and we’re implementing a series of quality of life improvements to our entire chat system. First and foremost, you’ll be placed in your region’s chat by default so you can better coordinate a Lost Zone expedition or just compliment someone on their dye choice. Global chat will still be there, but won’t be what everyone sees upon logging in. We also are enabling localized chats. This means that if the system detects your language as Brazilian Portuguese, you’ll be in with other players who speak that language. You can also opt into a language if it’s not selected by default. We’ve also improved our spam detection across the board, and yes– you’ll be able to resize the chat window so you can see the memes easier.
Furthermore, we heard you loud and clear that sometimes you just want to play with your buddy... In Early Access when queued as a duo, you’ll have the option to fill your party (by adding a third Wayfinder) or proceed into the unknown with just the two of you.
ICYMI - Previous Improvements
We were thrilled to take action and add a number of other highly-requested features and improvements prior to theGlobal Closed Beta. Some of these features included adding a spry new jump-dash as well as a movement speed increase, a complete camera system overhaul, the addition of a Material Codex, performance optimizations and more. For more details about these features you can read about them here.
Wayfinder’s Future and What’s To Come
While Wayfinder has gone through many changes since you first set foot in Evenor, we continue to develop the game with a vision of a long-lasting, online multiplayer action-RPG that is free and fair for all. Feedback from players like you will continue to play a vital role in Wayfinder’s evolution.
Don’t forget to wishlist Wayfinder to be the first to know when Early Access is available this summer. We’ll have information coming soon on Founder’s Packs and everything you need to know to prepare, so stay tuned!
Turbo Shell's release is now a month ago - thanks to everyone who gave their feedback, be it on or Discord, here on Steam, in streams and on social media! We used the past weeks to eliminate some minor bugs, work on overall usability, and took your feedback regarding the boss of Episode 2, the infamous Egg Canon, to heart.
We hope you enjoy the updated version - and we're very keen to hear your opinion!
Full Changelog:
Optimized difficulty of the second boss (“Egg Canon”, Episode 2 Level 16): • Increased duration of "open" state. • Increased vertical space in horizontal corridors on normal difficulty. • Slightly increased horizontal size of loading area. • Animate side-lights on both sides at the same time. • Sped up barrier-animations slightly to increase visual perception of the "open" state.
Leaderboards: • Automatically do a 'Best' query if the player isn't listed in a 'Self' query. • Correctly show the last updated level when entered. • Reset the 'scroll-state' of the leaderboard table when updating its contents.
Auto-Ray: • Correctly trigger double-push assistance when losing contact. • Tweaked triggering of switches with auto-ray
Audio: • Reduced default audio volumes to 75%. • Reduced volume of 'bang'-sound in startup animation.
Misc: • Grey-out checkpoint display in replays when checkpoints are used up. • Changed name of character 'Fluffy' to 'Fluffy' in all languages (Spanish & French). • Correctly deactivate opposite switches in "Assembly Line" (Episode 2 Level 4). • Increased duration of unlock notifications. • Misc minor tweaks and fixes
Bug fixes: . Particles emission direction UI was disabled (regression) . Copied items from another level didn't collide with the player . Text sound volume was not read properly . Reverted Player hit-box disabled collision shape check-boxes
You may have noticed: Laika: Aged Through Blood was NOT part of this month's Steam Next Fest as previously announced. But that was only half as bad, because we published the promised demo anyway.
It includes the introduction into the game, as well as the first two zones. You learn how to ride the bike, how to handle the weapons, and fight the first two bosses as well!
So, what are you waiting for?! Stop reading immediately, hop to the product page and click the gigantic and slimy green "Download Laika: Aged Through Blood Demo" button. You really can't miss it. Download the demo, start the demo, play the demo. As easy as it gets, right?
And when you've done that, it would be great if you could give us feedback on the demo! Follow the link in the main menu, or click on this link. Any possible feedback we can get is awesome, because we want to make Laika: Aged Through Blood the best possible experience it can be.
Looking forward to sharing more insights into the game really soon. So stay tuned! And if you liked the demo, please consider wishlisting anf following us here on Steam. This would actually help us a lot! ❤️