Beta Changelog 1 - September 26, 2018

'CHANGELOG NUMBER ONE! SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 by Patches '

Here's a series of quick update posts in anticipation for our second Closed Beta test (September 28-30th) about the feedback we heard from the previous test and some changes we made based on that feedback. If you have any questions/suggestions for how we should use this #changelog-notes channel, please ask us in #q-and-a !

NOTE: This isn't comprehensive or anything, just wanted to let you know how your feedback has been helping us make the game better. :) (and it really has!)

CRASHES/HANGS/BLACK SCREENS
This isn't particularly interesting design-wise but it was VERY helpful to us to have lots of people on all kinds of different hardware and internet connectivity playing lots of missions. Hopefully you will see better improvement regarding stability compared with the first closed beta test.

LADDERS
Lots of ladder issues. AI on ladders, players on ladders, AI and players on ladders... We got a lot of great comments both about what people were encountering but also important we heard what people expected to happen, and so both of those pieces of data were useful to help us improve ladders in a bunch of ways:
 * many code fixes regarding climbing up a ladder with a hatch at the top and other problem scenarios. These are edge cases that had to be discovered before we could figure out how best to fix them. So beta feedback helped here.
 * AI are more competent in general with ladder usage. They were getting stuck at the top, especially in the aforementioned problem areas.
 * If players and AI are on the same ladder, the AI will now consistently pull you off the ladder and you'll both end up at the bottom in a grapple (which was the general expectation of what should happen).

HIT BOXES LARGER FOR SEVERAL SITUATIONS

 * It should now be easier to get on a ladder, especially from the top
 * Various items much easier to pick up, not always necessarily when standing, but usually from a foot or two away you should be able to grab most items now consistently. (Let us know what doesn't meet expectations here) (I think this was DanteFaust)
 * Various pieces of mission evidence or bonus evidence that you had to record should be easier to capture now. (MrMusicMan789 suggested this among others)

BALANCING/CHALLENGES
Some of you may not love to hear this, but the game is more challenging now. In part, this is due to a lot of AI bugs being discovered and fixed, but also we have done some tuning changes to our Procedural Mission system as well as AI awareness based on the feedback from survey responses and the discussions we read on the Discord.
 * AI are more likely to be in places you need to reach, such as near objectives or along the likely paths between objectives.
 * The Shape is harder to fool... (Keep trying, anyway!)
 * Enemies from far away will no longer rush over to see what's going on if you already have a bunch of enemies on you. (aka "the dogpile problem")

LOCKPICKING REQUIRES LOCKPICKS NOW
Before, we had a mechanic where you could lockpick slowly, or RUSH the lockpick which consumed stamina and risked making extra noise. This seemed to confuse folks and didn't work how they thought it would. We've removed this system.
 * Now, lockpicks are a new form of loot you can find in the world. You also start each mission with 3 in your inventory.
 * If you are out of lockpicks you can only kick in a door to open it. You also need to use lockpicks to open locked chests during certain missions (or kick them in).
 * We would love to know what people think about this change!

NAVIGATION IMPROVEMENTS
People got lost a bunch. It's probably not perfect yet, but we've made some improvmenets since last time.
 * Our mission system has a better understanding of where the player likely wants to go to reach the next mission objective, so we've got a more responsive "Golden Compass" aid on the player HUD. This is the yellow diamond which you see at the top of your screen which should point you in the general direction of where you are heading as well as if the objective is above or below you.
 * The Shape should more consistently able to travel using Red Doors. People had reported this not always working as you'd expect.

LEVEL GEOMETRY CHANGES
We are still in active development! The maze is always under construction... ;)
 * There will be some areas you became familiar with during the last test which may be different now. I won't spoil the fun of discovering what is different for yourself. But hopefully the overall flow of some areas is better now.
 * NOTE: Some areas from the last playtest are also OFFLINE now. They will come back eventually. Overall, there might actually be slightly less surface area which you can unlock in this beta test compared with last time. That's because you pointed out some valid issues with those areas and we want to make them better.

WINDOWS AND GARAGES CAN BE OPENED FROM THE INSIDE
This might have been our #1 most requested feature_ And so we have delivered! A major problem we saw in Beta Test 1 and also during PAX was that people would often get themselves in dead-end situations either by being in a house where the randomized windows were all closed, or by being in a garage that was closed. No more! You can open windows from the inside and you can open and close garages with a switch from the inside.

MORE NEW AUDIO - MORE NEW UI
We are constantly working on improving audio across the board, either removing old temporary assets with final-quality assets from our excellent Audio Designer Patrick, or with new UI screens, icons, and layouts from our awesome UI Artist Sam.
 * Some people had issues with various menus they called out in the surveys so these got a second pass.
 * Also various elements of presentation that seemed confusing to people, we took a second look at.

STALKER MODE DISABLED FOR RENOVATIONS
Stalker was a mixed bag. Lots of people loved it, but some people got overwhelmed when trying to figure out the game and having Stalkers run amok. Our actual #1 most requested feature was preventing Stalkers attacking solo players.
 * We are taking the Stalker mode offline this test and doing some deep dive fixes to make this experience better for both Stalkers and Club Members. In particular NEW players and SOLO players, who were just getting destroyed
 * Our focus for Closed Beta 2 is making sure the core coop experience is fun! Stalker will be back someda

PRANK CALL BALANCING
People figured out how to make the Prank Call power pretty OP last test. A few of you in particular really knew how to abuse it!
 * Prank Calls might still have some of the cooldown issues (we can't fix everything in a month) but it is a bigger sin than before in the Shape's opinion. So keep that in mind before you go crazy with it...

GOOD SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE CONTENT/UPDATES
In addition, various users also gave us some cool suggestions and food for thought about what we can add next or how we could expand certain features/powers/missions/etc. Particular shoutouts to Arkanolmadness, [huff], Zombra, 彼女の歯でのVex💗, TwiztedMNKY, virikats, Halestorm, Brack, Tmeik, King_Lou- and many more for all your great ideas and suggestions!

Hope that wasn't too much boring info. Thanks to Ergo for reminding me I owe our helpful testers some feedback on... well, their feedback! So here's some stuff we've done to take your suggestions to heart and hopefully keep trying make The Blackout Club the best game it can be!

If you have any thoughts on how this #changelog-notes channel can be improved, ask us in the #q-and-a.

If you do get to play in the next Beta Round, please remember NO RECORDING/STREAMING ALLOWED YET until we are a little bit further along. Thanks for being a tester and helping us make the game better! We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this next round in the #beta-feedback, #feedback-and-suggestions , and #bug-reports channels. See you this weekend!

P.S. If you haven't got a key yet and you signed up for the newsletter/filled out a form/signed up at PAX, I am still DMing people as we grow the beta tester pool larger and the Shape lets us invite more to the club. Also we are doing giveaways every so often and so please keep an eye out for more #announcements. We're glad you're here and hope you get a key soon! Thanks for checking out The Blackout Club!