Dec 13, 2023

Saleblazers - e Zinc

Read up on Update 13, where we made things a lot harder: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1419850/view/3878224909275599112

Since Update 13, we made a few hotfixes (v0.13.0.0 - v0.13.0.5) to resolve several new bugs that were introduced. Thank you very much for the save files you all sent in -- we were able to push out hotfixes very quickly because of them.

Now, we have some breathing room and can focus on iterating on the feedback received from the Steam forums and https://discord.gg/Saleblazers.

Here's a minor update that brings polish changes, gameplay balance, and misc. fixes. Enjoy!

🔫Improved Gunplay

This patch fixes a few issues with our gunplay.

☀️Better Bullet Visuals

Bullet VFX has been improved to better reflect the actual 1:1 hitbox of the projectile.

🌐Improved Client Gun Netcode

This patch considerably improves the responsiveness for shooting guns when you are connected to someone else's server. It also improves it by 1 frame for the host.

Previously there'd be a huge delay when shooting/aiming/reloading as a client, which made it difficult to make high APM plays as it delayed reloads and shot cooldowns.

Try it out! You should be able to do 360 quick scopes much easier now as a client.

💢Improved Hitboxes on Many Enemies

Previously, if you landed a hit on a limb instead of the capsule of an enemy it wouldn't count as a hit. This is what caused you to "miss" on Chickens, Gulpers, Crabs, etc. even though you clearly landed a clean hit.

This is now fixed. See? It wasn't your aim.

🤺Slightly More Lenient Melee Hitboxes

We've tweaked some of the melee code and data to reduce the chance of an attack slipping by an enemy.

🏪Shopkeeping Balance Changes

In this patch, we've ironed out several shopkeeping mechanics to make the experience overall more enjoyable.

Our goal is to make you feel in control of your shop as much as we can, by providing you options to deal with situations and more availability to information of what's going on in your shop.

⌛Patience Balance Changes

We've played a lot of your shops, and we've seen that they can get pretty large with patience getting in the way in an unfun manner.

In this patch, a customer's patience will now regenerate when they are first admitted into the shop.

If all needs are high enough, their patience will slowly recover.

You'll still have to plan out your shop carefully, but you should no longer be punished for having a gigantic shop.

🎲Better Haggling Percentage Chance

Haggling percentage chances have been improved, so go ahead and squeeze out those extra dollars from your customers!

📖Customer Item Context

We've added better visual feedback for what your customers are doing in your shop so that you can tell what's going on at a quick glance.

Customers will:

Put away their existing items when they enter your shop plot
Switch to the item they just picked up from a display
Switch to the item they're trying to buy during the haggling minigame

🚽Updated Needs UI and Needs Balancing

The Needs UI has been updated for better visual clarity.

We've also made a few adjustments to needs stats so that not everyone has to go to the bathroom the moment they enter your shop.

🛒Updated Haggling UI

Traffic now updates alongside your customer flow upgrades, instead of just showing you traffic based on the time of day. The more customer flow upgrades you acquire, the more arrows you'll have!

📹Camera Stutter Fixes

We're excited to announce that the weird camera stutter when you enter/exit dialogue is finally gone for most interactions. With that, we're able to add in better transitions for dialogue. We've identified fixes for the final few cases, and will push a follow-up hotfix shortly.

You should notice a big difference this patch that'll make gameplay feel much smoother and easier on the eyes.

🤖More AI Fixes

This patch will include various AI fixes that should round out the overall shopkeeping experience. Hopefully this is the last of the fixes required for a good time, but we'll be on the lookout.

Thank you to all the players who sent in their save files. With them, we've managed to track down a lot of bugs in the last few hotfixes in a relatively short timespan.

Final Words

Apologies for the rough start of Update 13. It can be very frustrating to lose your shop to the government, and especially so if it was out of your control due to bugs.

We hope that you'll be able to properly enjoy higher shopkeeping stakes now and we will continue to monitor the situation for any issues that arise.

Have fun, shopkeepers!

- e Zinc

v0.13.0.6 Patch Notes

➡️ Changes

If all of a customers' needs are high enough, they will gain patience over time which should help larger shops keep customers happy
Instead of entering the shop directly if the shop is open, customers will first go to a queue
Added more styling to customer/employee needs UI for better clarity
Cleared velocity and blocked jump inputs immediately after a dialogue, so that spamming space through conversations would not cause you to jump high in the air afterwards
Adjusted bladder stat so that not every customer will immediately go for the bathroom
Adjusted dialogue camera to not be so up close for a smoother experience
Customers will put away their currently equipped item when entering the shop
Customers will switch to equip items they just picked up from a display case
Customers will switch to items that they are trying to buy during the haggling minigame
Prologue tutorial shop now has 4 stars instead of 0.5 stars
Tuned haggling % chance to make haggling more worth it
Adjusted mastery XP for melee and ranged to match other skills
When a customer is let into the shop, they will be topped up to 80% patience if they are below that when waiting in line
Increased responsiveness of firing guns, reloading, looking around, and aiming down sights for clients
Added glowing sphere to bullets to visualize hitbox better
Changed dialogue camera angle to be farther away for an easier viewing experience
Reduced crafting time for Bamboo Tool in crafting benches to match player crafting speeds
Plants that need water will now start with 0% water and will decrease over time
Prologue shop is now 4 stars instead of 0.5 stars for lore reasons
Reduced speed of Medium Box combo attacks and increased cancel time because it looked too janky with no windup time, but increased damage of its second hit
Increased the amount of damage that Gulpers deal
Added text to haggling minigame screen to show how many items are left in the customer's haggling minigame
Added indicator for when a cash register is in use, and made these indicators smaller
AI speech bubble sprite is much more subtle now
Haggling chance bar UI animations are 2x faster
Customer needs have different use thresholds for better balancing
Traffic UI will now show customer flow upgrades too
Added treasure and zipline after the Ronin Skull Camp
Updated spawn timers for Ronin Skull Camp
Added mini boss spawner to Ronin Skull Camp
Adjusted rock texture from grass to rock for skull camp and entire Ronin Skull Camp coast
Customers will pick a random Waiting Queue instead of the closest queue to enter a shop
Added animation to Pop Pop's Saleblazers Intro cutscene
Added 6 new runes and some chests to the Proving Grounds maze
Added indicator for if an electric item is on or off to the Generator and Switch
Renamed Shop Challenge toggle to Shop Loss for better clarity
Increased melee hitboxes slightly
Melee lunging is more lenient and will go farther than before

⚙️ Optimizations

Added "Additional Shadows" graphics setting that will toggle shadows of additional lights (point lights, spot lights)
Reduced shadow cascade distance while maintaining visual fidelity for extra GPU optimization
Added fade to black for Employee Table to mask hitch when opening UI

🛠️ General Fixes

Various fixes to AI behavior trees and code to fix customers being unable to see items
Fixed toggling shop tile type causing items that were on top of it to not be seen by customers
Fixed scenario where customer would walk through employee tiles to get to an item they wanted to go to
Fixed customer having "no display" icon when in the plot area
Fixed camera flickering when exiting dialogue
Fixed GPU instanced trees flickering when moving camera quickly or when exiting the equipment menu (ESC)
Fixed shop loss message appearing even if shop loss mechanic is turned off
Fixed metal Kitchen Sink not being usable for customers
Fixed deprecated crates near the Ronin Skull Camp
Fixed empty response button appearing when kicking out customers
Fixed employee walk animation foot sliding
Fixed skill nodes showing as locked due to shop level requirement even though you are high enough shop level (haggling unlock for employees)
Fixed Large Wooden Display Tray and Large Bamboo Display not being seen by customers because they cut too much of the nav mesh
Fixed selling [REDACTED] item giving a ton of XP to the shop and sometimes even sending it into -214109420919024
Fixed interaction UI flickering at max interact distance
Fixed one case where an AI would be unable to punch
Fixed one scenario where an AI employee would fight the air after going on a break
Fixed Gulper shooting the ground instead of at you
Fix for one scenario where haggling would cause you to get stuck
Fixed one scenario where haggling at 100% base price would cause a failure when it shouldn't
Fixed employee inventory weapons not saving and loading
Fixed employee prioritize dialogue not showing up with the right tasks
Fixed locked and floating items at the end of the Ronin Skull Camp reward room
Fixed employee needs loading as 0 and having incredibly fast burn rates
Fixed several cases in which music wouldn't play properly, especially for clients
Fixed client not playing hitmarkers when killing non-humans
Fixed employee table unlocks not setting active nodes to green
Fixed generators loading in with 0 power sometimes
Fixed punching causing weird rotation behavior
Fixed some weird rotation behavior on Apex NPCs