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Akumos
Sep 10, 2006


Won a trial earlier. But in other news, I found a hilarious bug. This is a bot game but lol look at the floating punjis and snares:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YJcpvUi3A&hd=1

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Maarek
Jun 9, 2002

Your silence only incriminates you further.
Was that a fluke game or is the new meta to avoid fighting until the very last second?

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
Avoiding fighting is generally a poor plan, but it works out sometimes. Personally I love checking the scoreboard and seeing that my few remaining competitors have 1 kill between them; chances are they aren't very good at the combat.

woozy pawsies
Nov 26, 2007

Sokani posted:

Avoiding fighting is generally a poor plan, but it works out sometimes. Personally I love checking the scoreboard and seeing that my few remaining competitors have 1 kill between them; chances are they aren't very good at the combat.

I've been wrecked by a few people who avoid fighting and farm func all game to get a gun, and wait until there is 1 person left to engage. Probably one of the more frustrating losses, especially when you've racked up 5-8 kills.

CuddleCryptid
Jan 11, 2013

Things could be going better

woozy pawsies posted:

I've been wrecked by a few people who avoid fighting and farm func all game to get a gun, and wait until there is 1 person left to engage. Probably one of the more frustrating losses, especially when you've racked up 5-8 kills.

The worst is when you are Rambo-ing your way through the last of the other players, racking up seven kills with a sword or whatever by dueling in the center, come out victorious by the skin of your teeth and then some guy with a pistol shoots you down for his one and only kill.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
I regret buying this. The combat is bad and the minimum system requirements were a dirty lie. I'm praying they give me a refund since my playtime is 2 hours on the dot.

Jo
Jan 24, 2005

:allears:
Soiled Meat
I'm actually having a lot of fun with this. I don't feel like the hand-to-hand is too boring, especially when people mix it up with perks that drop your stamina. The shove/attack/block combinations make CQC feel like a game of violent rock paper scissors. I do have some issues on higher-latency servers, when I can see someone attacking but can't seem to get my character to react fast enough to block. I transitioned from sniper to trapper to brawler in the course of my adventures, and now kinda' stick with 10% damage bump, leg day, and stamina recovery (for when I run into people that drain stamina).

I'll start by crafting the blowgun because it's quick and does per-second damage, then run to get to the supply sources quickly in the hopes of finding a melee weapon. I can usually hand fight early enough in the game before people get hammers and poo poo. If I don't get anything I'll try to transition to making traps and stuff, but I get too impatient with snares not doing enough damage.

I still suck at the game, though. :(

DreamShipWrecked posted:

The worst is when you are Rambo-ing your way through the last of the other players, racking up seven kills with a sword or whatever by dueling in the center, come out victorious by the skin of your teeth and then some guy with a pistol shoots you down for his one and only kill.

Or when you're having a friendly game of killing with someone and then an uninvited person crashes your party and kills you and your quarry. :mad:

Akumos
Sep 10, 2006
Won $50 in a streamer tournament earlier, can watch some fights/wins here

I ran a cheese build in the qualifier so only one fight/win here:
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=1h21m10s

And then this is the final match i won:
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h26m15s (first fight)
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h36m40s (second fight)
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h39m00s (last fight/win)

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.
Anyone interested in some games tonight? I'm sitting in the steam group chat.

Maarek
Jun 9, 2002

Your silence only incriminates you further.

Akumos posted:

Won $50 in a streamer tournament earlier, can watch some fights/wins here

I ran a cheese build in the qualifier so only one fight/win here:
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=1h21m10s

And then this is the final match i won:
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h26m15s (first fight)
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h36m40s (second fight)
https://www.twitch.tv/xelltwitch/v/63802323?t=2h39m00s (last fight/win)

Oh man, if I was the guy from the first fight I would have been so angry.

woozy pawsies
Nov 26, 2007

So I've been running a Speed build since pretty early on, and up until this last patch it was working for me. Now, it seems like the health build is the safe bet. After a long losing streak of getting killed by people with 150+ health, I gave in and switched and now I'm back to winning almost all my games. Bludgeons are still probably the best melee weapon, but I'm loving the trident.

milkman dad
Aug 13, 2007

Whatever changes they made to combat feel really clunky. Maybe they'll revert? Currently feels broken, or maybe I just don't know how it's supposed to work now.

PantsBandit
Oct 26, 2007

it is both a monkey and a boombox
I'm juuuuust about ready to be done with The Culling I think.

I'm just not good very good at the combat. I can generally make it to the very end of any game I'm in using strategy but when it comes down to "Who can shove/block better" in the last couple minutes I pretty much lose every time to the careers.

If they introduce matchmaking of some kind I'll probably jump back in but looking at a twitch stream or two makes it very clear that almost every game is going to have some people in it that win like 75% of their matches because they've got some rainman level skill with the combat.

I'm not mad though, I got 67 mostly fun hours out of it.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

I'm flipflopping on dropping $15 on this because regardless of the state of the game right now I think it could be something special some day and 15 bucks isn't that much

PantsBandit
Oct 26, 2007

it is both a monkey and a boombox

voltcatfish posted:

I'm flipflopping on dropping $15 on this because regardless of the state of the game right now I think it could be something special some day and 15 bucks isn't that much

I'd say go for it. It's not in a great place right now in certain ways but it really is a completely unique experience and is a lot of fun if you have someone to play it with.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

I bought it. Its'fun.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

To be honest this is honestly one of the better EA titles I've played

but one of the biggest problems with The Culling I think is there's no real point to spectate matches, they should figure out a way to fix that

Angry_Ed
Mar 30, 2010




Grimey Drawer
Gotta say ever since the latest hotfix I think I've really lost my touch at combat. Blocking just seems to do nothing. Might've just been lag on my end but I'm not sure.

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
Culled a bunch this weekend, still a fun and good game. They fixed the long boot/join times, so that's nice. I've gained a new appreciation for the bows as well. They are fairly easy to get and absolutely wreck people who try to play slow and block a lot. I've also started running the Immunity perk, which is immensely useful in team mode. Not only do a lot of people try to play for backstabs, but if you're fighting a group as two separate 1v1s you can suddenly break off to assist your ally, netting a backstab on his opponent without all the risk that would usually entail. The bonus damage is usually enough to secure the kill and turn the fight into an easy 2v1.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

A big patch dropped

http://blog.theculling.com/patches/2016/5/19/the-culling-update-incoming-revision-91351

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe

Sounds good outside of the changes to crates. 100 for a blue crate is way too much and 200 for a gold crate (with only Body Armor, Orange Juice, Dynamite, Med Kit, X-plosive Runs, Stamina Boost, MuscleMan Milk, Iron-4-Skin) is insane.

Also I don't know why they dropped Loot Pinata down to one crate.

Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 23:24 on May 19, 2016

HellCopter
Feb 9, 2012
College Slice

Call Me Charlie posted:

Sounds good outside of the changes to crates. 100 for a blue crate is way too much and 200 for a gold crate (with only Body Armor, Orange Juice, Dynamite, Med Kit, X-plosive Runs, Stamina Boost, MuscleMan Milk, Iron-4-Skin) is insane.

Also I don't know why they dropped Loot Pinata down to one crate.

Those price increases sound insane (I've never even held over 150 FUNC at a time) but it sounds like the increased bounty prizes are high enough to make it work.
Gold crates, specifically as "it's the end of the match, you're kitted out so you don't need FUNC for weapons, here's drugs" makes a lot of sense.

Loot Pinata with one crate is probably to prevent some lucky rear end in a top hat from getting 2 free airdrops when everyone else is too far away.

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
Loot Pinata was a little too powerful. Look at the other events like 3 Crate Monte, which gave one loot crate that you'd probably have to take damage to get. Then there's the events that drop a single crate at a particular location or a random one (I hate the random one, though sometimes you can find the pad it will arrive at before the event kicks off). Seems consistent with their goal of a slower ramp-up in player power.

Not sure how I feel about some of the changes, but a lot of them are subtle combat changes that have to be experienced to be judged. I like the emphasis on killing players with the weaker weapons so that you can afford stronger ones, and greater rewards for killing killers.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Another big Culling patch has Culled

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
Here's the notes, bold mine:

Culling posted:

It’s time for a fresh new update, and this is another big one! The brand-new Showdown feature is a fun and exciting way to keep teaming issues in check - forcing players players who work together in Free For All to duke it out for the right to remain on the island. We’ve also done a major balance pass on perks that might make you think twice before equipping Big Boned or Dig Deep. Additionally, melee combat has received some fine tuning to improve the overall experience. Plus there’s the usual grab bag of polish, bug fixes, and even a few new buildings in the map for you to explore. Though, we apologize in advance that Frank isn’t around to give you a tour - he’s a little… tied up at the moment.

notes posted:

Added a brief visual intro and outro to the block animation that indicate your client is responding to input before the server has acknowledged you’ve entered or exited your block state. This does not affect block timing or gameplay functionality but should make the controls feel more responsive

Removed test server experimental feature that allowed players to be staggered if they were struck while shoving. We feel that the stamina cost is enough to curtail excessive shoving

Reduced stamina cost of shove from 10 to 8

Taking damage no longer breaks a player out of a stagger. This was allowing the staggered player to reliably counter-attack after the stagger was broken

Taking melee damage while charging a melee attack no longer causes a stagger, but instead cancels the charged attack and plays a hit reaction. Charging attacks risked being punished with two attacks, which overly discouraged players from attempting charged attacks during combat except against a staggered opponent


Expose wound applied by traps when using Trapper perk set to 30% bonus damage instead of 50%

Players now receive an error message when a friend invite fails (i.e. the friend is connected in a different region)

Revised Tutorial lighting and visuals

Fixed an issue where some weapons had inconsistent attack and shove ranges

Fixed a bug where player would not spawn with Alarm Gun when using the Red Gunner perk

Fixed a bug where Master Crafter was not reducing crafting times for some items

Fixed a bug where Armorer perk was not applying the Crafted Armor automatically

Fixed a bug where Trapper perk arming and disarming times were not reduced consistently

Fixed a bug where Trapper perk did not consistently apply Expose wound to trap victims

Reduced 1st-person volume for Alarm Gun audio (3rd-person volume not changed)

Fixed a bug where AI bots were not behaving properly in the tutorial, which prevented some tutorial lessons from being finished

Fixed an issue where Mandroid bots in the tutorial were wearing clothing

Fixed several text issues with perk descriptions



For those of you who missed the last Test Server build, here’s a breakdown of the rest of the changes we’ve made since our last update to the live game:

Showdown! Allegiances on the Island are about to get more interesting, and bloody.

Teamwork is good, except when it’s bad. The top cause of angst in the community lately has been the rising prevalence of teaming (both ad hoc and premeditated) in Solo and Trials matches. After much deliberation between Chas and Frank, we’ve decided to add a new match event to Solo and Trials matches: Showdown.

Rather than trying to prevent teaming completely, we’ve decided to try a method that keeps it from being a winning strategy. When you’ve been flagged as colluding with a teammate, attacking another player will spawn a Showdown arena. If you are tagged in a Showdown, you must quickly enter the arena (if you’re not there already) and fight your former ally until one of you is left alive. If either player attempts to escape the arena, they will be executed. When one of you dies, the Showdown ends and the remaining player is free to proceed in the match. If neither player dies before the timer runs out, both of you will be killed.

While we’re not going to delve into the specifics about how the system works, we have taken pains to ensure that non-teaming behavior will not be misconstrued as teaming (i.e. chases, stalking, temporary truces). If you do find cases where the system fails to catch teamers or misidentifies teaming activity, please let us know!

Combat and Netcode

Our approach to combat netcode relies heavily on client prediction to allow for the smoothest, most responsive experience possible. When you press a button, your client expects those things to happen when those inputs reach the server, and will start playing animations in anticipation. The reason actions have some windup time (in addition to looking better) is to allow some wiggle room to allow for players of differing pings to both participate in the “shared illusion of playing a fun game together.” Most of the time this works flawlessly and neither player knows the difference. Unfortunately, this prediction can break down in some situations, such as when both players are simultaneously sending block and attack commands which are going to pass each other in flight to the opposing player. Those situations end up with results that can feel arbitrary at best, or infuriatingly buggy at worst (“HOW DID HE PUNCH ME THROUGH MY BLOCK?! *ragequit*”). It isn’t an easy problem. For those of you who are so inclined, here are a couple of overviews that begin to scratch the surface of the forces at work and the wide variety of issues that present themselves in the process of solving these issues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTH2ZPgYujQ
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014345/I-Shot-You-First-Networking

The underlying netcode has been modified to favor accuracy over input responsiveness (subject to further iteration, of course). Most players should hopefully not notice a huge impact on their play, but blocking may end up feeling more sluggish for players with higher pings. We await your feedback before we invest more time in polishing the presentation of this approach.

When equipping a bow, you now need to nock an arrow before firing.

Perk Changes

Defensive perks are firmly in our crosshairs and all of them have been rebalanced. Because they were so powerful, the majority of players have been taking at least one of them. As a result, they extend the length of most fights, which upsets the general balance of the game. Our approach to the rebalancing is that perks that are completely passive (require no player skill) and are useful in all situations have been set to a new baseline value. The bonuses applied by the perks improve as they become more situational or skill-based. While many perks have been hit hard, we believe that they are all still viable.

Big Boned now expands your health pool by 10 hit points (previously 25)

Tough Mother damage mitigation reduced to 10% (previously 15%)

Thick Skin damage mitigation reduced to 30% (previously 50%)

Thick Skin no longer defends against firearms damage

Bomb Suit now defends against firearms damage in addition to explosives damage (remains at 50%)


Trapper no longer increases damage of traps, but instead applies a 30% Expose wound to a target that has triggered your traps.

Faster Trapper has been removed and Trapper now also includes faster trap placement and disarming

Cannibal now restores 25 hit points and completely fills your stamina (previously 35 hit points and 35 stamina)

Maniac has been removed

Leather Hide has been removed

Blowhard redesigned to increase the sickness applied by the blowgun to allow for two vomits

Man Tracker perk now allows you to move while man tracking in addition to spawning with a Man Tracker

Dig Deep now restores 15 hit points (previously 30 hit points)

Dig Deep now triggers when the player reaches 1 hit point and clears bleed wounds when it triggers

Angry Octopus cooldown increased to 120 seconds (previously 30 seconds)


Renamed Thicker Clotting perk to Wound Less to better reflect its general nature

Armorer now spawns you with Crafted Armor instead of Body armor

Red Gunner now adds *Bleed, *Expose, and *Cripple to your shots

Alarm Gun ammo can now be crafted using rocks instead of explosive barrels


Stealthy now allows players to craft quietly

Master Crafter now allows you to craft 50% faster in addition to dealing bonus damage with crafted weapons, traps, and explosives

Faster Crafter has been removed

Longshot now makes a distinct sound when you hit a target at greater than 40 meters, so you know it’s working and when

Other Changes

Culpepper Outfitters has had a full art pass

Fix for point of aim not matching point of impact with bows

Replaced Gold Crates with Holo-Spawners. These appear as the match nears completion and preview the item you can purchase for 100 FUNC.

Overhauled drainage tunnel under the mountain to include more gameplay elements

Reduced interaction time with FUNC barrels and FUNC piles

Increased Medkit application time to 4 seconds from 2.5


Fix for bug where control sensitivity did not reset when being disarmed while aiming a ranged weapon

Improved visuals for being struck while initiating a block to communicate better

Increased Stun Gun recycle value to 20

Reduced Recurve Bow recycle value to 20

Fix for axe weapons applying the wrong wounds when thrown

Fix for the crafted knife and crafted snare so they can now be picked up with the number keys

Fix for disarmed snares leaving a trigger volume behind in some situations

Lowered audio volume in lobby

Lowered volume of first-person movement sounds while Stealthy (does not affect how audible you are to other players)

New locations in Southeast and Southwest corners of the map

Removed “Grab My Package” match event for now (very similar to “Loot Express” but was failing to drive players to contest the Airdrop)


Ware are updating our teaming policy to reflect design changes. You can expect the new policy to be rolled out with the patch tomorrow

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

I'm glad for the defensive perks Nerf, and the drainage pipe area being revamped to not be boring as poo poo

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
I was having trouble connecting to the matchmaking servers after the patch. If anyone else has that issue, the solution is to change your region in the settings to something other than automatic.

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe
I'm starting to play again and it seems like push is a 50-50 crapshoot. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

But running a stamina drain build is fun. People can't run away but they still try.

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe
There's massive changes in the test server.

quote:

The Test Servers will be live today from 4PM until Midnight (EDT).

Test Server Changes

- Netcode performance improvements

With our netcode performance improvements we believe we’ve seen the last of the late item spawn bug.

- Welcome the Auto Bow. The Auto Bow allows a quick burst of three shots before a somewhat lengthy reload. The individual shots deal only a fraction of the damage from a Compound or Recurve bow, but if you hit with all three the damage is comparable to that of the Compound Bow. This behavior makes it roughly equal to the Compound Bow. Although not a devastating weapon, it’s quite demoralizing taking so many shots in quick succession and suddenly feeling like a porcupine.

- The Gas Grenade allows you to craft a new type of grenade off of a gas pylon. When deployed it creates an area of gas very similar to the one created by the gas pylons themselves, just a smidge smaller and shorter lived. (Rock + Pylon) For only 15 Func.

- Smoke Bomb recipe changed to Rock + Explosive Barrel to make room for the Gas Grenade’s new recipe.

- The Culmination will now be one of three different layouts, the original that we’ve come to love and two new configurations. You never know which Culmination layout you’re going to get until the match starts. The new configurations are using placeholder art, but that’ll get revved soon.

- New Airdrop - Demon Hunter - Auto Bow, Smoke Bomb, Caltrops x2 (175)
- New Airdrop - The Imp - Auto Bow, Crafted Armor, Tomahawk (225)
- New Airdrop - Viking - Tomahawk, Crafted Armor, Muscle Man Milk (125)

- FUNC Survival Bonus - The player is now awarded with 25 FUNC after 3 minutes alive, 25 FUNC after seven minutes alive. And 50 FUNC is awarded after eleven minutes alive.

Why? We like the pacing that was created by our last updates to the FUNC economy. We’re no longer seeing endgame weapons appear so early and late game airdrops being called in within the first 2 minutes of the game, those are positive changes. That’s great for the pacing in general, however, Airdrops can be difficult to work up to currently and often you finally reach your desired FUNC right as the gas rolls over your Airdrop Pad. We were also often in a position of feeling unwilling to craft or spend any FUNC early game because of the high prices on some of the Airdrops. Now you can get your early crafting and scavenging game on, while not completely ruining your end game Airdrop plans, assuming that you survive that long.

- Blue Crates have been retired and replaced with Holo Spawners, very similar to the Culmination Holo Spawners. These new Holo Spawners will have the same loot table and same cost (100 FUNC) as the old Blue Crates, but now you’ll see exactly what you’re going to get. Holo Spawners decide what they’re going to provide at the start of a match, but each match will be different. Holo Spawners currently spawn: Tier 3 Melee Weapons, Orange Juice, Dynamite, Impact Grenades, Compound Bow and the Auto Bow. Known bug: Dynamite spawns are offset incorrectly, and will be fixed in a future patch.

- Suiciding into the gas will now reward your kill and FUNC reward to the person that most recently dealt damage to you in the area near your death. There are restrictions on this based on time and distance. So the small skirmish you had with an opponent at the start of the match won’t give them the kill or FUNC if you suicide into the gas 5 minutes later on the other side of the map.

Balance Changes

- About half the weapons have had their damage adjusted up or down a step to better account for all the combat changes we’ve rolled through in the last patch or two. In some cases we were over-valuing certain aspects of a weapon’s balance, either speed or wounds. We’re now accounting for those things having changed in value with our combat changes. So weapons that have previously been “OP” should fall better into line with their tier mates. We’re not looking to re-balance everything so it was generally only weapons that were out of line and we tried to only touch their damage.

- Backstab damage has been reduced to 50% for all weapons. Sneaky Poker and Brutus have been increased to 50%. We’ve run the numbers and incredibly devastating hits are still very possible, but it brings us a step away from the one shot kills, which we’ve never been fans of.

- Throw Damage values have been adjusted slightly, in general throw damage was reaching beyond where we wanted to even without Golden Arm.

- Golden Arm changed to +25% velocity, +100% damage for thrown weapons (+50% for crafted). Golden arm is still very strong and valid even with the perk change and the throw damage balance changes, but it will be a little more challenging in the early game and you’ll need those late game weapons to get the kind of damage you’ve become accustomed to.

- Jab-Back, as it's fondly being referred to. This is the phenomenon within a melee fight where one player has been staggered by a “bad” action, like attacking a block. The stagger plays out its duration, while the opponent is charging an attack. The charged attack lands on the staggered opponent invariably within tenths of a second of the stagger ending. The staggered opponent takes the charge attack as he should, but since the stagger ends, he can immediately start a new action, while the guy who just landed the charge attack has to finish his animation and start a new one. So the guy who was staggered retaliates with a jab and gets damage that feels “free”.

We’ve been looking at this a lot. We believe it's working technically correct, but still just doesn’t feel good. So we’re going to adjust it a bit with two timing adjustments, one to stagger length and one to charge time of all weapons.

The combination of these two changes is a slightly longer stagger, and a slightly faster charge attack. This allows, in testing at least, the guy charging the attack to get another action in just before the stagger wears off of the staggered opponent. So the charging guy gets his half to full charge attack off, and then can get a block up just in time to prevent the jab-back.

If you charge too long, you’ll still experience the Jab-Back, because the stagger on your enemy has ended. If you decide not to block after your charge attack, you can take another action instead like pushing or jabbing based on what you think your opponent will react with.

We’ll refrain from giving you the actual math on the numbers we’ve changed because we want you focused on the feel, does it feel good or bad. Better or worse. Suffice to say, that we’re dealing with tiny fractions of a second here, and have only made very small changes to an already very fast system.

If you feel like Jab-Back can still occur to you too much, try charging a little less, there is a sweet spot there that you can find with all three weapon speeds that prevents Jab-Back completely, and will allow you to get inside your opponent's head once again.

This might not 'nail-it' but we're looking to take a small iterative step in the right direction with this change and not change the entire feel of the combat system. Your feedback on these changes will help us continue to tighten up melee combat.

Other Changes

- Fix for picking up materials instead of crafting with a resource that was just spawned
- Aiming sensitivity with ranged weapons is now adjusted properly when zooming, which broke last patch
- Weather and Observation have had their art passes and are looking sick (like rad sick, not sick sick)

http://blog.theculling.com/blog/2016/6/16/test-server-session-today

CuddleCryptid
Jan 11, 2013

Things could be going better

Man they do not gently caress around with their changes. If they want to change one thing then they are going to rework their entire game

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe
They pushed the patch out to everybody.

Sokani
Jul 20, 2006



Bison
Hotfix came in

hotfix posted:

Rebalanced spears to have lower base damage, axes to have higher base damage
Fix for issue where shove/block would behave unreliably under certain circumstances
Fix for issue where mouse would lose focus, forcing user to exit application
Provide error message when unable to connect Steam during game startup
Fix for issue where Stun Gun sometimes spent both charges at once
Fix for inaccurate bow bleed wound intensity HUD tooltip text
Fix for Stun gun interaction with Woundless perk
Fix for some cases where Stamina would fail to regenerate
Fix for undroppable disposables (Snares, Stun Gun)
Fix for collision issue in center arenas

So far my experience with the patch has been good, but I've only played a few matches.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

http://theculling.com/patches/2016/7/27/july-lightning-update-today-92896

Big culling patch.

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe
Bummer that everybody abandoned this game for Dead By Daylight. Maybe the devs need to add a pointless level system/perk tree to keep people's interest.

Queering Wheel
Jun 18, 2011


I stopped playing this because it just feels lovely to play. Just not a fan of the clunky engine, and how the combat is basically flipping a coin and guessing as to whether they will shove or attack you.

SolidSnakesBandana
Jul 1, 2007

Infinite ammo
How does this game compare to Ark Survival of the Fittest?

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe

Call Me Charlie posted:

Bummer that everybody abandoned this game for Dead By Daylight. Maybe the devs need to add a pointless level system/perk tree to keep people's interest.

....I was just joking, developers :ohdear:

quote:

Greetings Contestants!

With Lightning Round out of the gate, this is the perfect opportunity to update you with what’s going on in the world of The Culling in Early Access, as well as share some of our big plans moving forward and invite you to share your opinions and ideas.

First off, Early Access has been a wild and exciting roller coaster ride for our small and passionate team here at Xaviant.

Since our launch at the beginning of March, The Culling has been updated, patched, and hotfixed 18 times. That’s an average of nearly once a week over the course of the first five months of Early Access!

Those are some serious changes!

While we’ve introduced several new features (Trials, Showdown, and Lightning Rounds to name a few), our efforts have focused primarily on the core gameplay experience: combat mechanics, game balance, bug fixes, optimization, and finalizing artwork.

As we’ve worked furiously to improve the fundamentals of the game, we’ve also been looking at the bigger picture.

What does The Culling need to transition from its current Alpha state to Beta? What is the next big step towards a full release of the game? We think we have some answers to that question and in the coming weeks we’ll be sharing those answers with you to gauge your feedback and generate input.

In general, we believe that The Culling needs to offer compelling reasons to keep players engaged and returning to the game. This applies to newly recruited contestants and grizzled veterans alike.

Here are some of the systems we’re currently developing to support that goal:

Seasonal Ranked Play: Offer a higher level of competition for players who want to see how they stack up against other psychopa...err..contestants, while also letting new players get their knives wet.

Challenge System: Deliver fresh in-match objectives that extend beyond simply winning, provide accomplishment and progression that isn’t exclusively linked to wins, and encourage players to experiment with a variety of play styles.

Player XP and Leveling: By playing matches, players earn XP and Levels, unlocking rewards and bragging rights along the way. You hear that Frank, we’re better than you!

Player-Facing Stats: Allow players to see their stats. How many matches have they won? How many kills have they gotten? How many times have they accidentally slipped off a cliff and ruined an amazing win streak?

New Cosmetics: Our contestants are characters and need to express themselves. Look for some unlockable Taunts, Weapon Skins, Victory Animations, and Culling Cards.

Match Events: The Culling is a murderously hilarious game show, and what are game shows without wacky gimmicks?! Adding to the likes of Loot Pinata, it’s time to add some more spice to this meatball.

Revised Rewards System: A whole new scheme for rewarding match performance that, among other things, converts duplicate cosmetic items into currency that can be spent to unlock the items of your choice. Basically, no more sloppy seconds.

Optimization: You SHOULD be aware that The Culling will be entering the Xbox One Preview program soon. One benefit this offers for Early Access players is that graphics and memory optimizations for the Xbox One will have immediate benefits for PC players. Yes, you just read that, a console version will actually help the PC version. Mind. Blown.

In the coming weeks we’ll be drilling down on each of these features and sharing more about the philosophy behind them and the details of their design.

These are big new features, bigger than anything we’ve added to the game so far.

Big features like these are difficult to segregate from the rest of the game while they’re in development, which means the pace of our updates will slow while we focus on getting them ready for you to try.

In the meantime, we will continue to address critical bugs and make adjustments to balance of weapons, perks, and the FUNC economy.

While the next couple of months will be a bit lighter on game updates than usual, we will take extra measures to keep you informed.

We assure you the wait will be well worth it.

See you on the island!

http://theculling.com/blog/2016/8/2/the-big-picture-the-culling-roadmap-update-2

I hope that means that controller support will be officially added for the PC version. I barely use bows/guns as is so I wouldn't mind being at a disadvantage as long as I can relax while trying to murder people with a stone knife.

CuddleCryptid
Jan 11, 2013

Things could be going better

Call Me Charlie posted:

....I was just developers

You say that but there is a reason why progression mechanics are so important. I stopped playing Culling because all the matches ended up feeling samey, either die early or survive long enough to get to the end and play "Who found a gun"

Call Me Charlie
Dec 3, 2005

by Smythe

DreamShipWrecked posted:

You say that but there is a reason why progression mechanics are so important. I stopped playing Culling because all the matches ended up feeling samey, either die early or survive long enough to get to the end and play "Who found a gun"

How does adding a pointless xp system change that?

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CuddleCryptid
Jan 11, 2013

Things could be going better

Call Me Charlie posted:

How does adding a pointless xp system change that?

It doesn't, but if gives the *illusion* of progress. It's all skinner box stuff, you go from "I lost that match, drat" to "I lost that match but got some xp, so net win"

I didn't say it was good game design, just that there is a reason why it's in every game

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