The hotfixes were exciting, but we’re ready for some bigger fish to fry! Now that we've got the first immediate fixes out of the way, we're putting all our development focus into our first big content patch.
We're very excited to say we're addressing your concerns as well as adding some new content to Earthfall!
Performance optimization! This is our main focus at the moment. In regards to performance, we have a few different areas that are getting attention:
Our first focus is optimization in regards to enemy pathfinding. We've had feedback about significant performance issues as more aliens spawn, which is partially a product of the AI pathfinding interacting with the physics engine. We've decided to redesign the pathfinding code to greatly improve performance across the board, so we can maintain intensity without sacrificing performance.
The second focus for optimizing performance is with our maps. We've been working hard on making them pretty, now we have to make the art efficient! Some of the levels (such as Supply Run and Radio Silence) need a little more time and love to get them to run well.
More info to come! Along with regular weekly Wednesday updates from now on. See you next week!
• Kells
Earthfall Community Manager
Earthfall Battle For Charity
Earthfall is teaming up with military charity, Stack-Up, to raise donations for veterans! From May 19th-21st, three teams of streamers (TRUgaming, Misfits Enterprises, and Bay Area TV) will race against one another in Earthfall to win prizes and raise the most in donations for the troops!
During this time there will be TONS of awesome Earthfall gameplay on Twitch! Follow the TRUgaming, Misfits Enterprises and Bay Area TV teams, as well as our own twitch page to check out the action!
The primary purpose of this update is to implement an FOV slider as requested by a number of our community members and potential community members. A more complete list of changes includes:
<*>Implemented an FOV slider under Settings -> General so you can set your preferred FOV in order to minimize discomfort for players sensitive to motion sickness.
<*>Implemented an FOV toggle for sprinting so you can specify whether you want the FOV to change when you run.
<*>Implemented a mouse sensitivity slider for ADS separate from the general mouse sensitivity slider in Settings -> Controls.
<*>If you used the Options menu on the End of Round Screen, when you closed it, your mouse cursor disappeared and your ability to control the results screen was lost. Fixed.
<*>On the End of Round Screen, the Timer now correctly reflects that you’re going to return to the Lobby.
Hot Fix Release Notes 5/4/17 [12679]
We very much appreciate the feedback we have received from the community since our first release into Early Access on 4/26. While we expect our usual cadence of updates and fixes will not be as frequent as weekly, there were some relatively fast, simple changes we could make and we wanted to release those quickly.
Changes since our first release to Early Access include but are not limited to:
We decreased the frequency of a couple crashes that could occur as you were starting a level or exiting a level. Having more players helped us determine where to look for these.
Fixed a bug where Quick Play (and sometimes Find Game) could stop searching prematurely. You should be more likely to successfully find a game now.
Fixed a bug where, if you accepted an invitation while hosting, it would prevent others from joining you. Other players can now join you successfully. (Note that you will not join the friend who sent the invitation.)
We changed the UI in the End-of-Round screen. There is no longer a [Go to Main Menu] button, and the host now has a [Go to Lobby] button. This should help prevent teams from inadvertently breaking up after games.
Added the Steam copyright notice to the Credits.
Improved the sounds of most weapons per player feedback.
If you’re holding down the fire button while reloading an automatic weapon, you should continue to fire after the reload. Fixed.
Added a slight delay between grenade throws. Prior to this change, folks sometimes felt like they were throwing multiple grenades at once.
We decided the Whiplash was spawning too often, making the game too difficult at times. We tweaked it so that it doesn’t spawn if too many players are already down. Similarly for the Thresher.
Fixed a bug where characters kidnapped by the Whiplash could get dropped through the world.
When you’re badly injured, there is a red overlay on the screen to let you know. We’ve added a green one to let you know when you’re being damaged by Sapper gas.
With graphics settings on Low, fire was not visible. Neither was Sapper gas. Both can be deadly so it’s good if you can see them to avoid them. Fixed.
If the host of a game timed it just right, they could trap a client player on a health station indefinitely. Fixed.
Fixed a bug that was causing some folks with Razer equipment to be unable to play. While troubleshooting this, we implemented an INI setting that enables turning off Razer integration. This should never be needed but, in case of unforeseen problems, you can disable Earthfall’s Razer functionality by editing your GameUserSettings.ini and adding:
[EarthfallGeneralSettings]
UseRazerChroma=false
Swapped the order of Breakdown and Supply Run. Supply Run should be a slightly easier level and doesn’t have a printer or health station so it is a better level for learning to play as a team and explore for supplies. Then, in Breakdown, you use those skills plus the new mechanics of the printer and health station to beat a more difficult challenge.
Supply Run:
Fixed a bug where the beast would get trapped outside a corner of a fenced backyard, waving his arms in frustration, and fail to move from there.
Tweaked the spawns after you get through the fence and before you get to Zippy’s so that this area will usually be easier to get through. Usually. Not always.
There was a bug that prevented you from shooting through a chain link fence that you should be able to shoot through.
Fixed some issues with the fence near the RV at the Zippy’s sign that caused aliens to fail at climbing.
If you died on top of the box truck outside the garage, AI companions couldn’t rescue you. Fixed.
Fixed a bug where dying at the end resulted in you floating in the air.
There were areas near the rally point where you could stand thinking you were in the rally point but you weren’t. Made the rally point a little bigger to fix that.
Data Recovery:
Fixed an issue where folks could end up locked out of the fun, stuck behind a closed door, unable to help their comrades during battle.
Radio Silence:
Moved a cocoon in order to avoid inadvertently triggering a holdout.
Increased the size of the rally area at the end.
New Early Access Price!
We’ve received great feedback from happy players, but also from potential new customers who have been disappointed by early access games in the past. While Holospark has a number of veteran staff with a strong track record of shipping games, we know that, as a company, we’re new to you. We know we need to earn your trust. Therefore, we’re reducing the price of Earthfall during Early Access to $14.99. (Folks who buy now still receive the second campaign of 4 additional levels for free).
We’re taking this step to bring in as many players as we can to help playtest Earthfall and also to build a relationship with our community that lasts through Earthfall’s release and to future games. We’re in it for the long term, and we’d like you along with us.
Those who purchased Earthfall at the full release price of $29.99 should fill out this form to request a refund from Valve within a week of your purchase. We appreciate your early support and apologize for the inconvenience.
Release Notes 4/26/17 [12644]
This is the first release of Earthfall to Early Access, and we appreciate you playing and giving us feedback. We’re a small company making our first game, and your feedback is crucial to helping us find bugs and tune the game, so thank you!!
This Early Access release comes with one full campaign of missions. By launch, we will have two campaigns, new weapons, new enemies, and more. We'll be doing regular updates on the way to full launch to polish the game in terms of bug fixing, new animations, AI work, and so on.
Here are some of the current issues that we’re aware of and are working to resolve:
<*> Difficulty levels are in the process of being tuned, and can be very challenging at times.
<*> Performance isn’t as good as it should be. This is predominantly a CPU problem related to the way enemies path-find, and requires a significant re-architecting to solve. Because the Host handles all AI pathfinding, you’ll see reduced frame rates on fifth generation or earlier Intel CPUs.
<*> Performance on ATI cards is significantly worse than comparable Nvidia cards. We expect this is a bug between the rendering engine and the ATI drivers.
<*> Controller support is usable right now, but we'll be continuing to improve it.
<*> The visual experience on lower video settings is currently done algorithmically, which is a quick way to get performance, but we'll be hand-tuning it to take best advantage of the assets.
<*> If you have significant performance problems, try lowering your screen resolution and your in-game graphics settings. (Options -> Video)
<*> Level loading is slower than it should be.
<*> There is no built-in voice chat. We are looking into incorporating a 3rd party system in the near future, but for now, we suggest if you are playing with others, to set up your own voice chat solution.
<*> There is a rare crash that can occur loading into a lobby. If this should happen to you, just try again.
<*> There are a few places where the AIs can’t attack you.
<*> There are some animations that are missing and some minor issues that can make movement look awkward at times.
<*> There are edge cases for joining a game in progress where the client and host may see different things at times. For example, if you join a game in progress, you may not see the weapon a teammate printed, or you may not see a team member manning a turret. This is resolved as soon as there’s a state change (the team member jumps off the turret) and shouldn’t re-occur in that game session.
<*> Of course, in addition to the above, we have known bugs that that don’t have a significant impact on the game (because they're rare, or minor, or edge cases) but we'll be working to fix those as well.
Early Access Release Date!
The Steam Early Access release of Earthfall will be available on April 26th!
The Early Access release will have the entire first full campaign containing four levels, with a second campaign coming later this year.
When you buy during Early Access, you will automatically get both campaigns (and much more) when we launch in full!
