Mar 2, 2024

Saleblazers - e Zinc

In this patch, we're unleashing everyone's inner loot goblin.

We hope that with all these changes you'll have a more satisfying time looting and mass-selling items.

This patch is quite big and we didn't write about everything that we did, so read the full patch notes at the bottom for all the details!

Mantling

You can now perform a small mantle by jumping and moving towards ledges. This will cost a little bit of stamina, so be careful!

Loot placed in high locations will no longer be safe from all you loot goblins out there.

Inventory Improvements

Better Inventory UX

We've improved and condensed inventory slot UI quite a bit, which will allow you to see more items at once, access your equipment, and have an easier time moving items around.

Increased Inventory Slots and Upgrades

After hearing and watching lots of feedback, we've also increased the starting amount of slots from 15 to 32 with even more Ambrosia upgrades in store. By unlocking all of Ambrosia's upgrades, you'll have 56 inventory slots to accommodate all your looting needs. We want you to loot to your heart's content!

Remember: you can hold shift to quick swap items between containers.

Scrap All Button on Containers

There's also a new "Scrap All" button that will instantly scrap all scrappable items, making scrap and ammo runs much more convenient and fun for all loot goblins out there. This has been a highly requested feature since launch, and it turned out really fun to implement, so thank you for all the feedback!

Increased Container Inventories

To match all your newfound inventory space, we've rebalanced most of the unlockable containers to have more slots so you can better organize and store items in your shop or base. Our new UI makes accessing inventories with more slots smoother, allowing us to make this change. We also introduced some more early-game storage containers into the research tree to make organizing your initial shops more enjoyable.

Bamboo Storage Box now has 16 slots.
Added Wooden Storage Box with 22 slots.
Added Scrap Metal Storage Box with 32 slots.
Wooden Crate now has 24 slots.
Tall Wooden Crate now has 40 slots.
Carbon Iron Crate now has 48 slots.
Tall Carbon Iron Crate now has 64 slots.

x999 Ammo Stacks

We've unlocked all ammo items to be able to stack up to 999 per slot.

Before, you'd be limited to carrying varying ranges of 15-120 stacks of different ammo types. We found it more fun only to have to dedicate one inventory slot to each ammo type.

Day Night Cycle Balancing

We've increased the amount of time for an in-game hour from 60 seconds to 90 seconds, increased the visibility of nighttime a bit, and rebalanced crafting recipe availability to allow for lighting options earlier on.

This should give loot goblins a better chance to grab a few more things before retiring to the shop for the night.

Enhanced ESC Menu

The ESC menu has been improved with more detailed information about your stats in one place.

Immersion Improvements

We've also made several changes in the name of immersion this patch. You can read the full details down below, but here are some of our favorites:

Citizen NPC Factions

Citizens throughout the Island now have their own unique factions and relationships to themselves and other factions.

Athletes are friendly to Chefs, Fishermen are friendly to Farmers, Gamers are friendly to College Students, and so on.

We've also made more factions neutral to each other instead of being friendly, so you should see brawls occur more often and witness NPCs teaming up.

NPCs Sleeping in Beds at Night and Various Villager NPC Improvements

Villagers will now sleep in beds at night. You should see overall improvements and optimizations to the day-night cycles for villagers in all the major settlements.

"Less is More" Pass on SFX, VFX, and UI

SFX and VFX across the board have been toned down for an overall more enjoyable experience that lets you be more in the moment. Some examples are kill FX, container open sounds, and interaction FX/UI.

Hit Reaction Animations

You'll be able to see enemies reacting to non-hitstun type damage sources now.

Fewer "Ouch" Voice Lines

Instead of playing an "ouch" every time an NPC is damaged, they only play them periodically. It's pretty simple, but it goes a long way in immersing yourself in the game. A notable scenario was when an NPC was on fire -- they'd keep spamming voice lines.

Music Tweaks

It should feel less jarring to rapidly enter and exit combat with a more gradual transition, and some tracks have been shifted around to better match the vibe of the area.

Better "Caught Stealing" Behavior

NPCs will now name the crime that they caught you committing (theft, vandalism) and name the actual item. They'll also return every item you stole and into any valid containers.

Better Village Police AI

The police in villages should be more in tune with crimes committed nearby now.

Better Bullet Trails

Trails from bullets linger for longer in the air to better communicate where they originated from and also increase the intensity of firefights.

UI Button Prompt Visibility Option

If you want to enable or disable button prompts (such as the one at the bottom left of the screen), there's now an option for it. By default, this is set to "minimal".

Improved Game Areas

We've heavily modified several areas in the game to improve level design, add new encounters, add additional runes, fix minor issues, and further optimize the game, especially for lower-end machines.
There's too much to write about here, so we'll just put a star ⭐ on the ones that have more changes.

⭐Areas From Pop Pop's Shop Shop to Pop Pop's House

⭐Areas around Pop Pop's House

⭐Beach Near Pop Pop's House

⭐Ronin Skull Camp

Aiden's Tower Hill Entrance

Karrax's Arena

McQuillan's Ranch

Prairie in Front of McQuillan's Ranch

Ambrosia's Hill

Pippo's Bakery

Better Gameplay Simulation During Sleep

When you sleep, the following is now simulated:

Employee Activity
Crafting Items
Customer Activity

That means you'll be able to make money while sleeping in your shop instead of having to leave and come back.

Detailed Shop Summary When Returning to a Shop

When returning to a shop after being away for a while, you'll now see a satisfying summary of what your shop did as a chat message. It lists information about items gathered, crafted, and sold, as well as employee wage cost details. At the end, it'll print out a neat net profit amount for you.

Prologue Improvements

We've simplified the prologue's Survival Training and added a way to skip Survival Training altogether by interacting with the Cafeteria door.

We originally removed the prologue level because it was too long. With these flow improvements, the prologue is now the default way to start playing Saleblazers again!

Loot Container Respawn Timers

In a previous patch, we fixed an issue where loot inside containers was respawning every time that container loaded in. A side effect was that containers no longer respawned their loot at all. So, for our loot goblin patch, we added timers for loot respawns so you can plan reoccurring run-throughs of areas and get fresh loot each time.

Common chests respawn after 18 hours.
Crates and barrels respawn after 24 hours.
Uncommon chests respawn after 24 hours.
Rare chests respawn after 36 hours.
Ammo crates respawn after 48 hours.

If you deposit new items into these containers, new loot will skip the slots you leave it in.

Death Box Treasures Quest Overhaul

We received some reports that there were some issues with this quest. We decided to do a significant overhaul to remedy them, updating many aspects of the quest.

You can now find Miyuki in Kazai Settlement to experience this grave-robbing side adventure, and we've added Coal Tycoon Sylvester Friedamp to the Kazai Village Inn, where there's another piece of the quest to discover. We hope you enjoy it!

Significant Optimization to Killing Enemies and PIcking Up Items

We noticed that on some computers, you'd experience a huge CPU-based FPS loss every time you killed an enemy or picked something up (especially items from Salvage Crates or trees). This is now fixed with a few reworks on our end!

More Aggressive Outlaw Enemies

Outlaws will be more aggressive, have ranged weapons more often than melee weapons, and engage you at farther distances for a more intense experience. In exchange, we've added more ammo drops to Outlaws for you to loot!

Upcoming Patches

In the next few patches, we'll be focusing on improving more game areas, adding new defensive items, and ramping up the survival aspects of the game. You'll want to loot as much as you can to prepare for these future patches, as we'll be introducing new challenges!

📜 v0.14.3.0 Patch Notes

➡️ Changes

Added ability to mantle up on edges by jumping and moving into the ledge
Various SFX improvements to upgrading a skill node
Added shop simulation summary that will display in the chat when you return to a shop, summarizing employee activity of when you were gone (crafting, gathering, selling)
Trash accumulates based on how many days you've been away from the shop
Removed shaking effect from many interactions (damaging items, picking up items, tapping on items, etc.) for better immersion and game feel
Combat music now fades in/out with more subtlety
Adjusted music in several areas of the game to better match the vibe of the area
Added several new game zones throughout the map
Improved audio mixing in general
Reduced audio levels of equip sounds and attached them to the player instead of playing at the location of equip
Reduced audio levels of container open sounds and made them more 3D
Prologue is now the default way to play again
Prologue Survival Training gym area significantly simplified for faster gameplay flow
Minor gameplay changes to the prologue with NPC placements and new Sawed Off Shotgun in firearms training
Added prologue Survival Training skip by interacting with the Cafeteria door
Improved some styling for ESC menu
Added hit reaction animation to all humanoids when damaged
Increased starting inventory from 15 to 32 for more fun starting gameplay
Added 8 more Ambrosia inventory upgrades and rebalanced upgrade costs
Nighttime is slightly brighter
Length of each in-game hour increased from 1 minute to 1.5 minutes
Added Scrap All button to containers
Sleeping and being away now better simulates customer movement
Sleeping now simulates employee activity
Rebalanced XP rewards of quests across the board (increased amounts)
Player inventory and container UI slots are now much closer together, show in a more convenient spot on the screen, and display more items at once for easier usage
Removed inventory tab in ESC UI
Rebalanced loot respawn rates across the map
Moved equipment slots to the inventory tab UI instead of ESC UI
Added transparent section to the skills tab to show that the game isn't paused
Added smooth bullet trail that better communicates where a bullet was shot from
Attribute applying NPCs and item request customers now use the tab inventory UI instead of the pause menu UI to select an item
Increased HP of several Outlaw enemies
Added spawnable rocks to river bed
Adjusted several areas from Pop Pop's Shop Plot towards Kazai Village
Enemy AI will no longer go through doors
Added a more detailed summary of what your employees did while away from the shop
Removed Save button since leaving the game has always saved the game (removed the unsaved progress will be lost message when quitting to title since it wasn't true)
Added a warning to the exit menu for when you're in an area that doesn't allow saving (prologue, boss fights)
If the player leaves with 0 HP, they will now load in the dying state upon loading the game
The player can now use the pause menu while in the dying state (map, journal, quit, etc.)
Updated dying state UI to be smaller and less restrictive
Updated ESC menu with more stats and icons for attributes
Updated interaction beam FX to be more subtle
Removed kill post processing and SFX for a more immersive experience
Characters have a cooldown for playing damaged sounds for better immersion
Improved gameplay and balance of Copper crater in Ronin Valley
Overhaul to Death Box questline
Prey animals will now run away in a scared state instead of fighting back sometimes
Added citizen NPC factions, each with their own unique relationships to themselves and other factions
Changed interaction range from 6 units to 4 units so that hover UI doesn't appear constantly
Drowning now deals damage when you are at 0 stamina and in water instead of when you drain stamina
Groups of NPCs that are following you to initiate a conversation or fight (for example NPCs exacting revenge on you for killing their friend) no longer follow their leader and instead will surround you randomly
Crouching now applies a 65% accuracy increase for guns
Changed styling of many in-game UI elements (quest HUD, hint text, waiting for players text, loading screen UI)
Added more detail to "caught doing illegal thing" conversations
Adjusted many game zones and their music to better fit the game
Updated Karrax Crab slam FX
Employee activity, customer movement, crafting, and crafting fuel consumption is now simulated when sleeping
Police are active during more hours in village hubs
Police are more reactive about crimes in front of their faces
Farmers no longer wield Bamboo Hoes for more fun gameplay and Freda has a Gas Lamp for better quest visibility
Being caught stealing will now return all their stolen items (and into a container if applicable) instead of just the last one
The player can no longer fast travel if a nearby NPC is engaging them in a conversation
Improved music fade to feel less jarring in general and when entering and exiting fights rapidly
Added Clothing as a shop specialty category
Crime UI is now removed since police in this game don't actively hunt you down constantly and thus was cluttering up the screen
Changed Karrax's music and look to be more serious
Significantly increased explosion SFX/VFX across the board
Added gameplay option to turn off interaction button prompts at the bottom left of the screen and when hovering over an object
By default, the interaction prompts at the bottom left are no longer visible (you can turn this back on by selecting "Full")
Updated interaction beam material
Improved status effect text styling and animation
Exiting a zipline will now send you into sprinting mode
Rework to village NPCs for more interaction and added ability for them to sleep in beds at night
Increased inventory size for containers across the game
Added several storage container recipes to the research tree with rebalanced crafting recipes now that they are larger in size
Reduced intensity of health bar UI shake
Reduced SFX/VFX for eating and drinking for immersion
Replaced critical hit glowing pink FX with text
Bullets can now be stacked up to 999 instead of 90, 60, 30, etc.
Various level changes to path from Pop Pop's Shop Shop to Pop Pop's House, areas around Pop Pop's House, Aiden's Tower hill entrance, Karrax's arena, McQuillan's Ranch, prairie in front of McQuillan's Ranch, Ambrosia's hill, and some caves near the bakery
Slightly adjusted pathing near Wizard Camp to make it more visible from Kazai Village
Outlaws drop Pistol Ammo and use Revolvers more often
Pink beam player downed state VFX changed to be blood spurts instead to have better immersion
Ranged attack engagement distance raised from a default of 7 units to 14 units
Ranged enemies have more aggressive attack behavior
AK47 Boar Riders now drop AK47s and their guns are attached to their ragdoll now
Lakes are now considered "Still Water" instead of "Fresh Water"
Increased the EXP reward for all quests
Polished fireball VFX
Added Cowboy Hat as item that outlaws will wear
Outlaws now mag dump instead of shooting in bursts
Water no longer receives light in an unrealistic way
Jump drop kick and punches have more accurate hitboxes
Added Microwave collector encounter to the Bamboo Forest
Added Red Soda encounter to the Bamboo Forest
Moved Elman Klepto and the ruins he spawns in towards the beach for better immersion at the shop
Moved Elman's camp to the northern end of the beach
Rebalanced effects and price of soda items
NPCs can now briefly unlock some locked doors to walk through them and have them lock again behind them
Heavy large box charge attack now has more time for you to combo into the 2nd hit
Updated various 3D and 2D elements in the main menu
Customer wallet now only shows if they are heading to a shop for better immersion
Changed armor break FX for immersion
More physics layers are eligible for "roofed" status (items and walls)
Updated visuals of Pop Pop's House and added a Rune in certain situations
Campfire is now unlocked by default in player crafting menu due to night time changes
Mop is now the first Research Tree unlock
Torch is now the second Research Tree main line unlock
More lobbies are visible (full lobbies)
Rebalanced some research tree node costs and unlocks
Pop Pop's hot springs linked to special event
Added harvest damage to Scythe which will ignore structures to make farming more convenient
Removed waterfalls around Kazai Castle area
Added working display containers for more NPC shops
Added more NPC encounters throughout the world, such as the Kazai Village gazebo
Rebalanced many bodies of water for drinkability
Trash Cans in Kazai Village are no longer locked (but are illegal)
Rebalanced several rock areas in the starting area to be mantle-able
Added dialogue explanation for certain enemy type in Bellstalker Mountain to a statue
Lowered spawn rates and balanced the spawn positions for a certain enemy type in the Bellstalker Mountain Proving Grounds
Added several runes to rooftops of Snowville and New Bedstone
Updated hot springs VFX
Updated Totem firefly VFX
Adjusted sundown lighting to not be as abrupt feeling
Reflection probes now update more smoothly to avoid instances where water and shiny stuff feels too bright
Adjusted tiling values for some terrain materials
Bamboo Crossbow has significantly faster reload speed
Bamboo Crossbow bullet trail adjusted and can now leave decals too
When consuming items, you will now be limited to jogging instead of walking
Consume progress bar UI is now hidden for better immersion
Significant addition to runes, added encounters, optimized meshes, and overall improved level design of the following areas:
1. Pop Pop's Shop Shop
2. Beach Near Pop Pop's House
3. Pop Pop's House
4. Aiden's Tower Entrance
5. Pippo's Bakery
6. Ambrosia's Hill
7. Karrax's Arena
8. McQuillan's Ranch
9. Prairie
10. Ronin Skull Camp
Updated Apex footstep VFX
Shop Policies and Research Tree UI now have backgrounds that scroll with your mouse
Added new timescale console command (~) cheat to change the flow of time

⚙️ Optimizations

Significant performance improvements to NPC deaths
Significant performance improvements to item interactions (pickup, destroy, use)
Dramatically reduced mesh and vertex count in several areas across several areas of the game (same areas as listed above)
Reduced lag in the in-game map screen
Minor optimizations to Pop Pop's house during key story moments
Changed some UI elements of NPC shop UI
Reduced lag of many particle effects throughout the game (item break, item damage, blood spurts)

🛠️ General Fixes

Fixed Norman Blair NPC quest issues
Fixed summary of shop performance not appearing all the time when returning
Fixed "Broker" achievement unlocking because of default owned shop plots (you can only unlock this by buying a shop now)
Fixed several issues with Death Box Treasures quest
Fixed Kazai Mountains game zone not covering some areas
Fixed Press [interact] to give up on dying state UI being hard coded to E instead of showing the actual binding
Fixed one variant of a bottle crate not saving properly
Fixed a case where a player could die while they are fast traveling
Fixed employee drop down sorting in UI
Fixed several cases of materials appearing pink
Various fixes to Kazai Village and Kazai Settlement
Fixed prologue security guards taking too long to disappear
Fixed Golf Club Display restocking when it shouldn't in the Golf Course area
Fixed being able to parry bullets without seeing the parry FX
Fixed a case where a save file could be saved in the title screen, thus wiping the save file
Added a fallback to automatically use a backup save file if the current save file cannot be loaded (start button not highlighting green)
Fixed 7 duplicate Ronin Tax Collector NPCs in Kazai Settlement appearing when they shouldn't
Fixed being stuck in sprinting mode when exiting a glider and standing still
Fixed item rotate UI not being centered
Fixed several particles disappearing too quickly because of a low pool count
Fixed Broker achievement being unlocked upon joining a game
Fixed chat not appearing sometimes for players
Fixed ragdolls not floating properly
Fixed Adrian seeming to lag in the prologue Cafeteria
Fixed Adrian disappearing without teleport FX in prologue Cafeteria
Fixed some floating trees
Fixed stacked items floating if items underneath were destroyed
Fixed a case where an AI that tries to start an encounter while another AI starts an encounter is stuck in a bad state
Fixed some flickering shadows in prologue
Fixed several cases of trees loading incorrectly after updating the game to a new version
Fixed tree data sometimes not updating even though trees were destroyed
Fixed ragdolls not floating in water properly
Fixed water footsteps not triggering in very shallow water
Fixed a case where police would be stuck searching for a player after fining them
Fixed chat not opening in some cases when messages were sent from other players
Hovering over items that have no interact ability should no longer show the interact button prompt
Fixed an animation blending jitter when landing while jogging or sprinting
Fixed one case of employee data not syncing to the client properly
Fixed item slot remaining on cursor if you select an item from a container then close the container
Fixed dark grass rendering as light grass
Fixed crafting table overrides for shepherd batteries in the electronics lab and plastic in the recycler not using their more efficient recipes
Fixed case where some dead enemies would have pink materials
Fixed Cowboy Hat being invisible when held or in the world
Fixed Cowboy Hat appearing as a bowler hat on female rigs
Fixed scenarios where dropped items would be invincible when picked up
Fixed drop kick jump attack causing stamina to not regen
Smoothed collision on Ambrosia's tents
Fixed fences with missing collision in Kazai Village
Fixed scenario where items placed into a container would be cleared if it re-rolled its contents
Fixed floating rune at Skull Camp
Fixed game zone UI disappearing earlier than it is supposed to
Properly cleared networked spawned list when leaving a server as client
Fixed AI character meshes floating slightly
Fixed dirt floor collider not matching visuals
Fixed chairs snapping to world rotation if they were offset in non-yaw axis
Fixed totem VFX not being visible initially sometimes
The player will now perform a physics check to make sure they aren't spawned in the void (especially due to map changes and old saves)
Fixed some floating items in the Wizard Camp
Fixed Pop Pop's North Star component staging area popping in
Fixed invasion fade to black being canceled by start game fade
Fixed "too far" warning not turning off after invasion is over
Fixed NPC shop UI re-opening when walking away with certain button combinations
Fixed NPCs getting out of chairs causing them to stand on top of the chair
Fixed Large Wooden Bed sleeping socket point
Fixed broken collision leading into wine hobbyist's house
Fixed thinking NPC idle animation causing their held item to clip into their head
Fixed collisions on rooftops of Snowville
Fixed flickering black artifact in Prologue when you jump into the hole
Fixed several terrain seams throughout the map