Feb 5, 2024

Raw Metal - ArcticK9

Hey, Scavengers!

Buckle up, this is a big one: our last major update before our release on March 19th. This has been an amazing journey thus far, and we're extremely excited to share what we have in store for all of you today for Steam Next Fest. Let's dive into some of the new major features:

Gear Visuals

At long last, gear now has visuals. Any gear you equip will appear on your character, adding visual depth and expression to the game. By popular request, we're working on a system to allow players to earn the ability to swap visuals between pieces of gear, so in the full game you won't have to sacrifice style for function.

We've also added Scav to the hideout when you're gearing up, so you can see what you'll look like before heading out.

New Tutorial

We've completely redone the tutorial from the ground up to more clearly teach new players certain core mechanics. It covers different kinds of attacks, launches, wallsplats, and even has a system to help with dodge and parry timing. We hope this will help newer players get a better foothold in the game before getting thrown in the deep end.

Training Mode

On the topic of practice, we have a new training mode! Accessed from the main menu after your first raid, you can spawn guards, practice combos, and test out whatever gear you have in your stash without risking anything. We're looking forward to see what kind of crazy combos and strategies players will be labbing in the training area!

Full Changelog

We have many other changes and features in this update, so here's the full changelog.

Features

Gear models!!! Gear now has visuals!!!

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Sneaking has been reworked:

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It is now a toggle input by pressing Left Control on keyboard/Click Left Stick on gamepad, rather than a hold/analog stick input

The amount that sneaking slows you by has been greatly reduced, and instead the camera now zooms in as both an indicator and a slight drawback of sneaking

The scavenger now uses the sneaking animation for this state rather than dynamically blending into it based on the proximity of enemies

Increased sound volume from walking at lower than maximum speeds to better encourage sneaking and increased scavenger’s minimum walk speed when not sneaking

Title screen changes:

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Added the Scavenger to the hideout! They will now appear when selecting gear to show a preview of what your loadout will look like

Added a “Quick Start” option on the title screen to quickly start a run with no gear

Added short descriptions for each button on the title screen

Added a proper loading screen for going between the title screen and a run

Decreased the fade out time after pressing the button to start a run

The tutorial has been reworked:

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Made tutorial popups significantly simpler/less wordy

Added an “objective” and checkpoint system to teach the player more specific concepts like sneaking and wallsplatting

New layout and design that teaches more concepts in a more engaging and less overwhelming way

Player health is hidden for duration of tutorial, then appears after to more intuitively communicate that you can’t take damage during the tutorial

Replaying the tutorial will still show all the info popups, even if you have already seen them

Certain tutorial popups will now contextually appear outside the tutorial if you have not seen them yet

The “Info” box will no longer appear during combat to avoid an information overload. Instead, the most recently queued info box will appear once combat is finished

Added training mode:

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You can enter training mode from the title screen after completing or skipping the tutorial

In training mode, you can practice fighting guards. You can set the number of standard and taser guards, change their behavior, and adjust other settings from the pause menu.

Unlike during combat during a normal run, you can access your inventory during training mode to equip any gear you have in your hideout, allowing you to test out various setups. You also have access to infinite gadgets and taser darts

You can view damage data such as individual attack damage and DPS

You can turn on a timing assist to tell you when your dodges and parries are too early or too late

Boss 1 balance changes

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He is now immune to the stun effects of taser darts when his armor meter is active, but they will now deal damage to the armor meter

It is now extremely rare for him to block attacks when his armor meter is active

The armor meter recharges slightly slower but has a slightly shorter cooldown and takes slightly less damage from attacks

Concussion grenades now deal damage to the armor meter and cause the boss to flash white to indicate the normal effect was prevented by the armor

Other Features/Changes

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Running kick and quick kick 3 now act as OTGs, meaning they can be used to hit enemies who are in a grounded landing/getup state. Hitting an enemy with an OTG when they are in such a state causes the move to be unable to launch or wallsplat, and instead forces the enemy back into a standing state

Removed the twinkle that appears when an enemy is starting an attack, as many players assumed this effect indicated dodge or parry timing

Replaced this effect with a HUD warning effect that flashes faster as the attack is closer to coming out - this effect also appears for offscreen enemies, making situations with many combatants more fair

Guards now detect you more slowly when you are spotted while in shadow (except if they were alerted by a security camera), and do not track the player during shadowed detection, giving you a chance to get out of the way or slip by for a sneak attack. The distance and angle requirements for a guard catching you have also been made more strict to enable dodging out of the way to avoid getting caught

Floors are now referred to as “Sublevels”

You can now spend grymite to start your run at any sublevel you have previously reached (at a cost of 200 per floor) by pressing A/D or Left/Right D-Pad before selecting “New Run” or “Quick Start.” Players who have already reached floors past Layer 1 Sublevel 1 will need to reach those floors again in order to unlock the ability to skip to those levels, as this data was not previously saved

Added elevator UI that displays which floor you are currently on, as well as which floor is coming up next when you have the elevator access card

You can now select a type of control scheme to override control prompts, as Steam typically defaults all controllers to be detected as XBox controllers, which prevented control prompts from displaying correctly in some cases

Adjusted escape success screen to display full level names (i.e. “Layer 1, Sublevel 1”) rather than abbreviations (i.e. “L1F1”)

Adjusted running punch to be slightly easier to land when close to an enemy

Adjusted running kick to be slightly easier to land and to allow easier juggling after landing a hit

Added KO screen boom sound effects and made music cut out when getting scrapped

Added basic UI sound effects and looting sound effects - subject to change

Added sounds related to Boss 1’s armor meter (armor hit, armor break, armor regen)

Added functionality for noisemakers in combat — when a noisemaker is activated in combat, the nearest guard who can act will immediately run up and attack the player. You can use this to bait guards into hitting each other or set up for an easy counter-hit hard attack

Adjusted Riot Armor’s dodge knockback effect to be unblockable and interrupt enemy attacks

Removed Charge Braces, as they were an extremely strong gear piece that trivialized resource management and encouraged unwanted camping strategies during combat

Certain pieces of gear have been removed from the loot pool as they are designated to be obtained by non-standard means

Adjusted walk animation speeds to better match the physical movement speed

Added dead zones for analog sticks on gamepad (no settings for these yet)

Guards now play a hit animation before transitioning into the dazed animation when they are broken by the player’s attack

Fog colors now fade smoothly between levels that have differing fog colors

Updated some tips with new information and images

Guards will now play a “lost sight” animation when the player is in shadow for a time during combat, similarly to how Boss 1 works – this animation is also now used when a guard loses track of you during a chase

Guards no longer regenerate health or recover from the broken state when trapped, launched, wallsplatted, or electrocuted

The time a guard stays broken has been increased to 3 seconds

When a guard is highlighted for a sneak attack, all guards in the room will now be highlighted as well to display how many enemies will enter combat if the player sneak attacks

The room that combat starts in is now dependent on who initiated combat – if the player initiates combat, it will start in the room the attacked guard was in. If the guard initiates combat, it will start in the room the player was in. This was adjusted to better reflect the appearance of sneak attacks in stealth mode, especially when using gear that increases sneak attack range

Added a secondary attack animation for guards

Added a lock status indicator to gates and the elevator terminal that displays red when locked, yellow when the player has the required access card, and green when unlocked

Guards take even less heat when out of the player’s attack range, and broken guards take none unless the player is in range

Guards now take a small amount of heat upon being wallsplatted, and are allowed to attack earlier after recovering from any vulnerable state (wallsplat, launch, electrocute, etc.)

Adjusted Chest Rig effect scaling to be a linear increase

Adjusted running attack hitboxes and timing slightly

When using gamepad, the left stick now acts the same as the right stick while aiming a taser or gadget

Added on-screen control prompts that display the inputs to use gadgets/tasers

Taser guards can now spawn for elevator ambushes, with a 1 in 6 chance on Sublevel 1, a 1 in 5 chance on Sublevel 2, and a 1 in 4 chance on Sublevel 3

Removed randomness from the duration of delays between level loads and slightly shortened delay times

Added support for screen resolutions up to 4K 4096x2304

Fixes

“Effect Down” broken gear effect now correctly applies

Gear that reduces max HP no longer incorrectly changes the order of health + armor pips

Fixed a bug where when wearing gear that reduces max HP, armor points would not be used when taking a hit at 1 health

Fixed a bug where, when reaching 0 HP while carrying two of the same piece of gear, the game would not play the “Scrapped” screen and instead would allow the player to continue the fight

Corrected motion of camera when transitioning out of combat start cutscenes to avoid the camera looking down for a moment

Combat camera is now less likely to get stuck in a position where the target guard is not visible

Adjusted some camera paths to make low-visibility situations even less likely

The low HP “Caution” effect now correctly disappears when teleporting guards out of combat

Security camera sound effect now fades out when the game is paused

The elevator camera can no longer be triggered when outside the elevator during combat

Other minor fixes to camera triggers (should hopefully a few many camera-related issues)

Moves that change a character’s collider size no longer apply to the environment collider, preventing the player (and hopefully guards) from clipping out of bounds

Additionally, character to character colliders have been sized up vertically to prevent launched characters from getting stuck on top of other characters

You can no longer exit the elevator while its door is closing

Sneak attacking a guard trapped in an electromagnet will no longer cause the guard’s combat start cutscene animation to be delayed

Trevor’s forward movement when throwing his pickaxe is now done physically rather than just through animation, preventing visual errors such as clipping

The game will no longer be prevented from loading if you pause right as you start or continue a run (as you can no longer pause the game during this time)

Taser guards will no longer incorrectly play a combat start cutscene animation when getting wallsplatted during combat if they were in the aiming state when combat started

Guards can no longer be teleported into locked rooms using tear modules (don’t worry, the player still can)

Guards are now set to be inactive after being teleported out of a fight until the fight ends, which should prevent them from being visible on the KO screen

Other tiny tear module fixes that may have fixed a softlock? Maybe?

Guard heat indicator will no longer persist for a short time after a guard is KO’d

Fixed a bug where the cost to replenish armor points would be incorrectly calculated if the armor was not completely depleted

Slightly adjusted guard parry timing to be more in line with its animation

The player no longer receives the “Damaged [POINTS RESET]” penalty when inflicting self-damage, such as with Warhead Gauntlets or Boots

You can no longer perfect chain attacks that hit an invulnerable guard, and attacks against invulnerable guards no longer register on the combo counter

Corrected access card interaction prompt text to read “Access Card” instead of “Keycard”

Fixed a bug where pressing pause to view “more info” for a tip would not properly select the tip if it had previously been unlocked

You can no longer pause the game when you are prompted to perform dodge or parry inputs in the tutorial to avoid time scale issues

The encumbrance meter no longer displays the exact weight value outside of menus and instead shows the weight rating (Weight OK, Encumbered, Overencumbered) as intended

Quitting to the title screen from the pause menu or getting scrapped now saves all unlocked tips and info

In the inventory, fixed a bug where pressing left on controller while a piece of gear was selected would sometimes not properly move to highlight the head slot

You can no longer target disabled security cameras with the taser

Guard hit sounds are no longer tied to animation and will now play properly when a guard is stuck in another animation

Removed a line of code that caused guards to attack less frequently when hit

Forge now correctly auto-selects the first consumable slot when scrapping your last piece of gear

You can no longer buffer a hold select action on forge action buttons by holding the select button while canceling and then reselecting the same gear or gadget and holding down the select button

Fixed visual bugs when discarding gear in the inventory that would cause the next selected gear to not appear as selected and for it to have a red highlight as if it were being discarded

Corrected a light region in L1F1

Fixed a problem where dust trail effects would persist after they should have stopped, in some situations. This bug is hard to test so it’s possible that there are still some situations in which it may occur

When using keyboard + mouse, pressing the WASD keys while aiming a taser or gadget no longer will move the camera

Taser guards are now correctly highlighted when approaching for a sneak attack

The player’s aggression rating is now saved correctly to prevent players exiting the game and continuing their run in order to reset this value

Fixed a layout issue that would cause certain menu button prompts to be positioned incorrectly

Encumbrance is now recalculated immediately upon retrieving items from the Contraband Station

Made certain character states that previously did not apply any friction value apply one, in order to avoid situations where the character can slide indefinitely

Upon activation, the Emergency Shock Rig now puts enemies in their “sent” animation rather than the standard launch animation

Fixed a bug where characters could not enter their landing/tumbling states when landing after being launched if they were still in hitstun by making it so hitstun is canceled when landing

Guards can no longer see or hear you when you are in the process of descending or ascending in the elevator (except for guards spawned for elevator ambushes, of course) – this fix probably fixed the bug where guard hearing indicators would get stuck on screen between levels

Fixed a bug where dropdowns would have their text become hidden when exiting and re-opening their parent menu while highlighted

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As always, thanks for all your support and good luck in the mines!
- Crucible