Thank you for playing X8! Seeing you all try the game since our official release has been a blast. If you have been enjoying the game, please leave us a review on the Steam store page; we'd appreciate it!
In addition to a plethora of fixes, we are also announcing our Black Friday skin pack, "Onyx".
This iridescent pack is available starting today until November 30th, for 1,500 coins. Please continue to give us more feedback and bug reports! You are an important part of helping us build X8 to be even better. Join us on Discord to provide us with your feedback! https://discord.gg/x8vr
Update changes include:
[h4]Bug Fixes[/h4]
Fixed issue with custom skins not applying achievement progress
Fixed issue with material animations on Onyx skins not playing
Fixed issue with match history not recording
Fixed several client-side crashes
Fixed several server-side crashes
Fixed an issue where Meta/Oculus users got 'Internet Connection Required' even though they had a connection
Fix knife disappearing when hitting an enemy after switching the knife hand
Fixed an issue where the achievement notifications did not show for the full 5 seconds.
Fixed missing sound cues on Mythos knife
Lots and lots of backend fixes
[h4]Known Issues[/h4]
User's profile pages may not update immediately after a match
Users may not get a notification when they level up
Fury NEMS skin is not showing in vending machine
"Triple Threat" achievement is unattainable in certain circumstances
Mythos sound effects are not respecting audio volumes appropriately
Defuser may become invisible after its owner dies.
Users cannot throw knifes through smokes
**Please be advised that players on an older game version will no longer have access to the online servers until you update your game.
Thank you for your patience while we build a better game with your help!
Since the game's launch, we have received your love and attention, and we are truly honored. At the same time, we are actively listening to your feedback.
In response to concerns about the high silent cost in the later stages, we have updated a feature that allows "selling" a whole bonds.
Additionally, we have addressed feedback regarding the overpowering negative effects of certain artifacts and adjusted them accordingly. We have also fine-tuned the guidance approach in the early stages of the game.
Finally！ for the highly requested "Endless Mode," we have already begun its development. Once again, thank you all for your tremendous support.
Here are the details:
Version V1.0.5 New Features: 1. bounds Sale The store can sell the bounds in the shop, and will return all spirit stones at the original purchase price. 2. New Golden Elite Monster in Battle (Probability of appearance) Killing it will grant 100 crystals and 3 irons.
Changes: 1. Adjusted the condition for unlocking difficulty levels to completing the final battle within 30 seconds before unlocking the next difficulty. 2. Changed the prompt for the 20th wave in the store to "Final Battle." 3. Adjusted the number of heart law slots in the store to 4 and removed the purchase function. 4. Adjusted the explanation of the combo attribute (every 10 combos increase damage by x%). 5. Characters are no longer restricted to specific character completions for unlocking. 6. Added background color changes to character icons after completing different difficulty levels. There will be a prompt for cross-difficulty challenges. 7. The background image on the artifact selection screen is now consistent with the background color of the character icon. 8. Difficulty names modified.
Balancing Adjustments: 1. The more you purchase the same bound, the higher the probability of appearance of that kind. 2. Removed the effect of reducing blood gas limit by 50% for the artifact "Bottle of Transmutation." 3. Unlock condition for artifact "Qin of Fuxi" adjusted from killing 10,000 enemies to 2,000. 4. Unlock condition for artifact "The Kongtong Seal" adjusted from killing 2,000 enemies to 10,000. 5. Unlock conditions for artifacts such as "Lotus Lamp," "Armillary Sash," "The Kunlun Mirror," "Nine Li War Drum," "Tribal Drum," "Immortals` Bane," "Fire Whirls," and "Fan of Yin Yang " changed to unlocking with 15 corresponding family heart laws. 6. After equipping the artifact "Banner of the Four Guardians," the Syncr bound "Wealth" (20% extra spirit stones at the beginning of the battle) will not appear in the match. 7. Price adjustment for the artifact "Phoenix Feather": +30% in the store → 25%. 8. Monster health reduction for Difficulty 3 and Difficulty 4. 9. Improved difficulty curve for all difficulty waves.
I am very proud to announce our updated Colossal Cave 2.0, our new ‘enchanted cave’ version! I have always admired this historic text adventure, referring to it as deeply engaging and captivating -- and arguably the spark that ignited the onset of computer gaming – and have desired for many years to bring it to life with beautiful graphics, atmospheric sounds, and characters of charm…or roguery. This has always been an enchanted cave which – beware! -- is also your adversary, and it was important that we capture that imagery and spirit. I am now so excited by our considerable efforts that I urge everyone to check out our latest release, Colossal Cave 2.0. My team and I have been hard at work the last eight months since our January release of Colossal Cave perfecting playability while also enhancing the mysterious, metaphysical, and immersive nature of Colossal Cave.
Ahead of this undertaking, I reviewed the many reactions to our initial release – both positive and negative. I adapted or corrected the unfavorable responses while at the same time maintaining or improving the complimentary ones – though always keeping in mind the essence of the original gameplay which, to me, is sacrosanct. As a game designer myself, I recognize a great design. It is my humble opinion that the original Colossal Cave has stood the test of time due to the innovative and imaginative minds of Will Crowther and Don Woods, the original creators of this classic text adventure game. When Ken and I decided to reimagine Colossal Cave, I swore not to change the gameplay and strategy of these two ingenious men. Although, to be fair, there are those who would argue that by adding 3D graphics, character animations, sound effects, or music – and even a point-and-click interface – that would be changing it. Well, yes – I do agree with that. But still, my assertion is that, as with any script of a story, or a design strategy of a game, the means of experiencing it can be done in various ways or means, similar to reading a book and then experiencing that same story in a movie.
I am very excited for players of all ages – but for those who especially love adventure games – to experience Colossal Cave 2.0. Broadly speaking, here are the enrichments:
Enhanced graphics (higher-resolution textures, post-processing to enhance colors, more real-time lighting and shadows, realistic-looking water, magical effects, particle effects with mist, fog, and smoke – among other graphical embellishments).
The addition of player footstep sound effects while traversing the Colossal Cave world. And I took great care to make them sound very realistic.
More atmospheric sound effects really bring the cave alive. I imagined the cave having a spirit, an essential ‘being’ without a body. There is an ‘aliveness,’ but also mystery and magic.
Improving the animation of the many characters inhabiting the cave – giving them more charm…or nastiness!
The cave itself is your adversary – not any one of the characters. It really is between YOU and the CAVE.
Bettering the IU, the interface. To make Colossal Cave – 2.0 easy to play without having to figure out the interface. Playing the game is enough to think about!
Hello Troopers! It's time for the November Community Q&A. Thanks again for all the great submissions, as always we decided to select questions from a range of topics to answer. This will be the final Q&A for the year, our goal is to continue this initiative in the new year.
Questions
Are there plans to create more communication lines between player characters, like shouting quotes from the movie? Yes, we will be looking to add more voice overs into the game post 1.0 and are exploring a robust Emote system for players to communicate with each other.
Will there ever be more Grenade variants added to the game? We definitely want to add more grenade types into the game. Nothing is planned short term, but new grenade types are in the works.
Will there be customizable Troopers in Game? A big thumbs up to this. Not only will there be customization for you to earn through progression, you will be able to customize three different areas on your trooper. The exciting news Trooper customization will be coming in the December Update! Stay tuned for more info!
Will you consider adding a third-person camera mode? Not at this time.
Was the performance and stability impact from the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade expected? As a team we decided that if we were going to upgrade the engine we needed to do it sooner than later. The more we continued to add features to the game the more complicated it would be to upgrade the engine, as more systems would have to be verified and integrated and eventually the ROI would not be there for the team. So we decided to do the upgrade when the game was still relatively small and had a smaller set of features, maps and game systems to upgrade.
There was expectation that there may be some short-term performance degradation after the update, but the goal was to have performance parity with UE 4.27 or close to. Since the upgrade was also mixed in with feature updates, it became very hard to keep track of the performance across the engine upgrade and new features.
In the end, some upgraded settings and changes slipped past that severely degraded performance, specifically on our server-side. The worst of which did not appear until our production servers were put under load.
Although we did hot-fix the major issues, future updates will further improve performance as we use the new tools available to us in UE 5.2.
What steps are taken to deal with player griefing through Team Killing? Can we have a vote-kick option? Since our game has friendly fire, we need to make sure every report and individual case is handled with as much due diligence and investigation as possible. We all understand this is a serious issue and we look at every player report that is generated when players behave this way.
We are actively managing this through our player support operations and are actively actioning accounts that have been engaging in this behavior. We have acted on over 1000 accounts since Early Access began.
With all this being said in our December update we will be releasing an in-game system that will hopefully put the power to deal with this traitorous behavior back into the hands of all you loyal members of the Deep Space Vanguard. We have codenamed this system Shoot to Kick!
Will there be a Morita Mk3 in the game? Yes, down the road we want to have as many of the weapons from the movies in the game.
When do we get our Text chat to communicate with each other? Text chat will be added in Game Update 6.0. We will also be adding more accessibility features around communication such as Text to Speech and Speech to Text options during this update.
When are you going to introduce weak points on Bugs? We are hoping to introduce this feature around the 1.0 launch of the game.
How do the developers intend to monetize the game in the long term? We have no plans to move away from a buy to play model. Our goal is to offer cosmetics through skins for both Weapons and Troopers. We will NEVER sell POWER!
If this game takes place after the events of the CGI films, why do we have lower grade gear? Our game takes place 25 years into the future from the first live action movie. More upgraded tech and weapons are coming to the game over the next few years, we have just started!
What is/will be the difference in difficulty levels? Currently right now the only difference between difficulty levels are the following:
Recruit
HP/sec = 3.6
Bonus Health = +45
Revive Speed = 80% faster
Bug Health = - 50%
Bug Damage = -25%
Threat Events = Every 720 seconds (12 minutes) starting at 8 minutes into the game, they last 8 minutes
Decrease Bug Speed = -20%
Trooper
Hp/sec = 2 per 5 (0.4 per sec) 37.5 seconds from 0 to full basically
Bonus health = None (Base health is 90 for Hunter + Op, 180 for Bastion)
Threat Events = Every 720 seconds (12 minutes) starting at 8 minutes into the game, they last 5 for minutes.
Veteran
Hp/sec = No Regen
Bonus health = none
Bug Health = +50%
Bug Damage = +50%
Increased Threat Event Frequency = Every 180 seconds (3 minutes) starting at 2 minutes into the game, they last 5 for minutes.
We are planning on updating our approach to mode difficulty over time. The first one is rewarding players who choose to take the fight to the Bugs in harder difficulties. In update 0.6.0 with Trooper and Veteran difficulty levels now having a bonus XP amount per game mode. This new XP reward table will be outlined in the 0.6.0 patch notes.
In a future update, we will offer different enemy challenges and scenarios per difficulty level. So that people who chose to play on higher difficulty tiers will have new interesting game mechanics. More to come on that closer to the design being finalized.
Powersuits/armor? They are on the roadmap to come to the game in the future. Our hope is to get some of this into the game post 1.0. We do not have an exact timeline but we want to include powered armor into the game eventually.
The good news is we have concepts and high level designs on these important aspects of the universe. We also need to ensure the current gameplay balance is not impacted by introducing this impressive tech into the game.
Will it be tied to classes? Will it be world drops akin to power weapons, or will it be tied to base building? All of these scenarios are being discussed internally by the design team. The good news is that everyone at the studio is very gung ho about this feature.
Below are some very early concept images:
Is it possible to change the mutator for different servers? No, currently right now it is a global system, though as we move to the Bug War (Galactic War) we will be adapting and curating the mutator system around the missions you go on.
Are you thinking about a solution for the dropship camping "problem"? Yes, nothing we can share yet, but our designers are working on something.
Bang-On Balls: Chronicles may seem like a small indie game, but that statement couldn't be further away from the truth, last time we showed you the number of bosses in the game, but how many unique items do we have? Play the video to find out! (And there will be even more after we release the Wild West map!)
