Patch 1.0.19 — audio overhaul, campaign payout fix, balance pass

Thanks to everyone who picked up Arcade Survivors on launch day. This first patch fixes what I found while playing it myself over the past week.

AUDIO

Every weapon now has its own fire sound. Five of the base weapons were falling back on a generic hit sample, which is why sustained fire started to sound like hammer blows after a few minutes.

Fire sounds are now rate-limited and duck on repetition, so a full loadout reads as a combat bed instead of a machine gun.

Two sound effects turned out to be 25-second recordings imported as one-shots. One of them played on every single sprint. Both are trimmed.

Pausing now silences everything except the music. Previously, whatever was mid-sample kept playing under the pause screen.

READABILITY

The aiming reticle now has a dark outline, so it stays visible on the brighter maps instead of blending into the floor.

BALANCE

Pizza Parlor: one enemy there applied a slow that lasted longer than your invulnerability window, so repeated hits could keep you at half speed almost permanently. The slow is now much gentler.

Campaign maps were paying around 40% fewer Tokens than the same run in single-map mode. Clearing a campaign map now pays what it should.

Adventures token rewards reduced. They were paying between 8x and 100x the campaign rate, which meant the three side modes could unlock the entire game in about an hour and there was no reason to play the 28 maps. They are still the fastest way to earn, just not a shortcut around the game.

Bonus EXP gems reduced from +10 to +4. Levelling was heavily front-loaded — most of a run's progression happened in the first minute.

More to come. If you hit anything odd, the discussion board is the fastest way to reach me.