Hotfix 0.2.0.3 + Additional Info

Hi!

Hopefully you have had some good experiences with Build 2 and the Nomads so far!

First few important topics:

Quick info about SAC

I have been fighting against Microsoft Smart App Control (SAC) yesterday and this entire day which suddenly started to randomly recognize new upcoming RTV builds potentially harmful, so if you ever get any weird "policy errors" like this:

it's simply just random Smart App Control (SAC) stuff that I cannot really control until I have went through rather official route of "whitelisting" / validating all the upcoming builds with third-party certificate vendor.

Disclaimer: By the time your reading this, this issue might already be solved or might not even impact majority of the players. If the issue persist, restarting the PC will most often also solve the issue.

Steam Autumn Sale (-25%)

Then just a quick reminder that RTV is now -25% discount during the on-going Steam Autumn Sale, since I have had so many emails and messages about the sale topic of when that starts.

Build 2 Feedback & Initial Thoughts

I have been reading a lot of feedback (thanks for that), watching gameplay and playing the build myself, so here's few key takeaways:

Good

• It seems that all the optimization work towards the AI has kept the game performance pretty good even though the active AI count is sometimes x2 compared to the Build 1.
• The new AI sensor, AI vs. AI combat and all the AI threat priority stuff where the AI switches targets based on different threats is pretty solid for as an initial implementation.
• People seem to find Guards and Military more dangerous (related to accuracy / amount of active agents) which correlates nicely for this dangerous journey towards east ideology for the game.

Needs Balancing

• The AI vs. AI has made Area 05 pretty hectic (like expected), where the "feeling" changes from calm to constant warzone. In theory this is somewhat good thing, but since this is tied to RNG (how many Nomads there are), some players with "bad RNG" might experience the warzone feeling many times in a row and the threat of Bandits becomes quite minimal.
• This AI vs. AI topic creates nice amount of non-player created action, but the initial "what's going on there" feeling after many hours of playing might easily turn into "I hope it would be silent for a while" especially in maps like Village / School where Nomads and Bandits spawn relatively close together.
• High-end attachments could spawned on Bandits / Nomads, which was not intended so this created a weird "end-game loot" on "early game maps" design issue.

Of course there are much more balancing topics in general, but those were my main thoughts for the Nomads and AI vs. AI stuff after few days of having the Build 2 live.

Since Early Access is a nice platform to test all kinds of things, I want to try to balance this AI vs. AI topic a little and if this balancing goes too far, then we can always go back or make additional tweaks until there's a "sweet spot" for this AI vs. AI.

Before the actual hotfix changelog, I also want to point out that I fully recognize that many people are looking for more progression-based content and new stuff to do in the game, so this build might not deliver on that aspect but Build 3 (Quests/Missions etc.) is all about that and comes at the end of this year like promised in the roadmap.

So here's changelog for the Hotfix [0.2.0.3] that should be available now:

• Existing save files are compatible when updating from [0.2.0.0] -> [0.2.0.3].
• Existing mods that were converted to support [0.2.0.0] should be compatible
• Nice to know: [0.2.0.1] & [0.2.0.2] got "blacklisted" by the SAC so we skipped those numbers :)

Additional Nomad randomization to make spawning occur less often

Nomads / calendar prop for tutorial (visual reference for new players)

Intoxication / drunken effect [~30sec] (Kilju)

Windows Smart App Control (SAC) could block the game from launching

High-end attachments no longer spawn on Bandits/Nomads

Limited high-end attachments may spawn on Guards/Military

Invisible backpacks were interactable/lootable from AI

AI could still fire towards player when starting transition

AI could still fire towards player when interacting with trader

Flashlight/NVG sound had compression / stereo issues

Player could get stuck on certain Nomads (Outpost)

Ambient water audio loop was completely missing (Bridge)

Certain shadows with large props were not rendered

Main menu music didn't loop after the track ended

Transmission event description referred to Build 1

Causing damage to Nomads reduces more reputation [10->20]

Minor tweaks to certain equipment / item stats

Minor tweaks to audio levels and ambient SFX

Minor tweaks to shaders and full-screen effects

After this hotfix, I will start working on those main patches for the Build 2 which will fill out all the tasks for the new traders (Driver / Hunter), add the missing Airfield buildings and the additional Nomad features that didn't quite make it to the initial Build 2 release.

Also feel free to comment if you agree or disagree with my initial takeaways, even though I might not be answering the comments here, I still read each of those :)

Thanks,

Antti (Developer)