The Hot Fix for Patch 1.0.12 has gone live and is now available. If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
We've addressed three issues in this hotfix:
EAC should no longer be kicking players out of matches due to "Untrusted Hosts"
The shotgun now does 60 damage at point-blank range
Fire, Acid, and Shock effects should now disappear from The Fiend after a few seconds
Thank you for your patience in this matter! We'll see you soon for Patch 1.0.13!
Sincerely,
Brother Justin
Last Year Patch 1.0.12 Has Arrived
More good news from the team:
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters! It’s here, and as promised, it’s a doozy!
We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.12 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.12, we’ve made more improvements to your Last Year experience:
1. Easy Anti-Cheat Integration: As promised, we’ve implemented more robust reporting/banning tools to ensure a healthy, happy community. Players will now be able to report toxic behavior through an in game “report” button on the “Start Button” screen. The report button is located right next to the mute button. These reports will be reviewed by the development team, and should there be a solid case for banning individuals from play, we can now ban them from the game for a certain period of time, or give them a permanent Steam Game Ban. As we’ve said before, we prefer if people played with good sportsmanship in mind, but we are not afraid to remove bad apples to preserve the health of the community.
2. “Free For All” Mode: We’ve changed the Unranked Matches to allow players to start a match with fewer than 6 players, but no less than 2 (a Fiend and a Classmate). This will allow friends to experience the game together regardless of party size, and allow experimentation and learning in a safer environment than online play. This is the first step in our on-boarding overhaul, with many more features and content geared towards making the game more accessible to new players coming in the following weeks/months.
3. Tool Tips: We’ve reinstated and updated our Tool Tips feature, which will now be present in both the Loading Screens and the “Home” page. These are helpful tips geared towards new players. This is another step in our on-boarding overhaul.
4. Map Vote: We’ve implemented a Map Vote feature in the Lobby menu, both in Ranked and Unranked matches. This allows all players to vote for which map will be played next. “Undecided” votes do not count towards the total. In the case of a tie, the game chooses between the two or three maps that have the most votes. Be warned, however: the more Classmates vote for the same map, the more powerful the Fiend’s vote becomes!
5. Balance Changes: Patch 1.0.12 contains a few minor foundational changes for our balance overhaul that will be completed in 1.0.13. These changes are needed, but do not represent the sum total of where we see the “meta” heading next. However, this should help reduce some frustrations on both sides:
Classmates will no longer drop their old helmets when crafting a new one. Effectively, only Assault Classes can now wear helmets.
The Proximity Mine’s damage has been reduced to 120 damage, and has had its scrap cost increased to 16 scrap.
The Pipe Bomb’s damage has been reduced to 120.
The Pain Pills now only restore 40 health over 10 seconds, reduced from 80 over 15 seconds, and has had its scrap cost increased to 12 scrap.
The Shotgun now deals 80 damage per hit, at its most effective range.
All Scrap takes 10 seconds more to respawn in maps.
Traps now break after 30 damage, and only last for 5 seconds after a Classmate has been trapped.
The Giant’s hold time has been reduced from 15 seconds to 6 seconds.
6. Bug Fixes: We’re continuing to address bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:
Both Classmates and Fiends now have a “Bloody Screen” feedback when hit by each other (except punches, because you really shouldn’t be punching the Fiend). Classmates’ screens stay bloody under 35 HP.
It is no longer possible to move at walking speed while crouching.
Classmates can no longer use any form of attack and land hits while in a Smoke Bomb.
As we stated last patch, this patch is much more focused on quality of life features, and begins the groundwork for both our balancing overhaul (which hopefully will be completed in 1.0.13) and our on-boarding overhaul (which will continue over the next few months with lots of new features and content).
We’re also going to remind the community that there will be no patch next week, February 3rd-7th, so the team can focus on delivering Patch 1.0.13 for the following week. It’s going to be a big update, and we’re excited to see you all there and to hopefully bring in new players and entice old players to return!
As always, we would encourage those who may have left a negative review of the title to consider changing it to positive if our fixes and improvements have addressed your concerns. We’re always reading our reviews and the Discord server to see how we can best improve the game for our community, and some of the features in this patch were directly requested or inspired by comments we’ve seen there. We hope this is appreciated by the community and could hopefully be reflected in your reviews.
We thank you all for your continued support and patience. We’re very excited to bring you all 1.0.13, it’s going to be one hell of an event! Please join us tonight for our Live Dev Stream on twitch.tv/lastyeargame, starting at 7PM EST. We’ll be answering questions from the community, and hosting our first #FearsomeFiend match-up against the very talented Marth!
Speak to you soon, Brothers and Sisters!
Sincerely, Brother Justin
Last Year Patch 1.0.11 Available Now!
The patches keep on coming via Brother Justin & the Elastic Games Team!
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters!
Another week at Elastic Games, another patch for Last Year! We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.11 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.11, we’ve made more improvements to your Last Year experience:
1. Starting Currency: We’ve increased the Tokens for new players to 6500. The intent is to give new players a bit more choice in their starting builds, and help them see the value of Spells earlier in their experience.
2. Optimization: We’ve done another pass of optimization to help improve performance and reduce drops in FPS. We’ll be continuing to see what other improvements can be made without sacrificing quality of experience.
3. Bug Fixes: We’re continuing to address bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:
Classmates are no longer able to enter the Belltower area before the blowtorch objectives are completed.
Huddle Up spell now grants extra health for the second and third disk objectives in the Library.
Fiends are no longer able to enter the bell tower area before any objectives are completed.
The Spider’s new execution now has SFX.
Technicians can no longer cancel barricades while a Fiend is destroying it to put up an indestructible one afterwards.
Opening or Spamming the Emote Wheel button will no longer revive incapacitated Classmates.
Classmates with an active Leave Penalty are no longer able to play in Ranked matches by joining a Classmate party.
Players with a penalty timer (Classmate or Fiend Penalty) are now able to move their Unranked Party to the Lobby.
If Classmate Party Leader with a Penalty invites a Classmate with a longer penalty, they will now see the longer penalty of their teammate after their own penalty expires.
Copy/pasting long unicode into the in-game chat will no longer crash the game, but it will cause the offending player to freeze for roughly 10 seconds.
Copy/pasting a large amount of text into the in-game chat will no longer kick the player from the match and still reward Tokens and Stash Cards.
Strangler is no longer visible inside vents during their Ambush.
Strangler no longer loses functionality of his left click after clicking it once in an ambush spot.
Fixed multiple VFX issues with the Crowbar and the Cricket Bat.
Button to press when ambushing on controller is no longer missing from ambush prompt.
We know this patch is very focused on bug fixes, as we’ve had to react to certain exploits being taken advantage of in our community. We’ll be tracking down the rest of the bugs that have been hampering people’s experience, and we’re still working on bringing a more robust banning system to the game to promote a healthier community.
While this patch is lighter on content and features than our last two, we’ve already begun work on Patch 1.0.12… and it’s a doozy. We’re hoping to bring you both new features to aid in quality of life, balance changes to shake up the meta, and new content to keep things interesting. After that, unless there’s an urgent need in the community, we may take a little bit more time (days/weeks, not months!) for Patch 1.0.13. Trust me when I say that if all goes according to plan, that’ll be something very special and delightful for everyone!
As always, we would encourage those who may have left a negative review of the title to consider changing it to positive if our fixes and improvements have addressed your concerns. Our review percentage is slowly getting better and better over time, and every positive review helps to support the game and its community. We’ve also noticed that reviews get significantly more positive the more hours played. We see this as validation that we need to improve our on-boarding and new player experience, but we also encourage those who put the game down quickly to give the title another chance with these changes, and with the promise that even more will be coming soon.
We thank you all for your continued support and patience. We have big plans for the next few weeks, and we can’t wait to see how the Last Year community grows with the game! Until then, don’t forget to join our next Live Dev Stream Thursday, January 30th at 7-9 PM EST. We’ll be answering questions from the community, hosting our first #FearsomeFiend match-up against the very talented Marth! Believe me when I say you won’t want to miss it!
Heed The Signs, Brothers and Sisters!
A MESSAGE ON IN-GAME BANS
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters.
I am here to give a small update about our community.
We here at Elastic Games are working hard to bring you the best version of Last Year possible, and we appreciate all the support this community has given us so far.
However, like any other community, there are always some who will seek to actively harm other members. In this case, it manifests as people who use external means and software to cheat and exploit our game, or who behave in toxic manners.
This will not be tolerated, as it is not in the spirit of our game or our community.
As such, we have put in a temporary banning feature in the game with our last patch to deal with the most egregious offenders immediately. They have been banned, based on reports we’ve received from the community with explicit proof.
We are also currently developing more robust features that will allow players to report cheaters and/or toxic players directly in game, and will give us more tools to ban users.
We are also aware that there is currently a bug in The Belltower that can be exploited to complete the level quickly. This will be fixed in the next patch, 1.0.11. However, until then, we ask that you refrain from abusing this bug, and that if you are reported using it, we will ban you for unsportsmanlike behavior.
Last Year is meant to be a game. Games are meant to be fun for everyone playing. Cheating is only fun for cheaters. So stop. Or we’ll stop you.
Thank you for all those who are embodying the spirit of the game in a positive way. We appreciate your support, and will continue to improve the game for players like you.
Sincerely, Brother Justin
Last Year Patch 1.0.10 is here!
There's no rest for the wicked; Brother Justin has brought us Patch 1.1.10!
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters.. The patches just keep on coming!
We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.10 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.10, we’ve made more improvements to your Last Year experience:
1. Legendary Drop Rates: We’ve increased the drop rates to be Wood = 5%, Silver = 10%, and Gold = 15%. We’ve also changed slot 3 from Wood to Silver. As a reminder, even though getting zero escapes/kills visually looks like “Wood,” it is a different state and has a 0% chance of getting Legendary Skins.
2. Disconnects: Any players who disconnect from now on will be penalized for poor sportsmanship. Multiple disconnects, from either Classmates or Fiends, will result in players not being able to queue for a certain period of time. Even once the period of time has elapsed and games can be joined, the poor sportsmanship score will only reduce once the player fully completes rounds. Right now, it's a "3 strikes and you're out" system, to ensure people aren't penalized for legitimate connection problems.
This value can be altered, so we'll monitor the community to see if there's issues and adjust accordingly. This is part two of our solution to the disconnection problems we’ve seen in the community, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation to see if player behaviour improves. We may pursue additional solutions in the future, such as rewarding good sportsmanship, but this may have to wait for other priorities to be tackled.
3. Optimization: We’ve done another pass of optimization to help improve performance and reduce drops in FPS. We’ll be continuing to see what other improvements can be made without sacrificing quality of experience. We've also done some clean-up of files and reduced the package size of the game by 3GB.
4. NEW WEAPONS!!!: We’ve introduced a few new “findable” weapons in the world, as well as a brand-new execution animation for Afterdark's Star Fiend:
The Crowbar: the crowbar has 8 durability, and does 10 damage per hit. It’s also got a faster attack speed than the Baseball Bat or Pipe.
The Cricket Bat: the cricket bat has 3 durability, 10 damage per hit, but has nails attached to it for 15 bleeding damage over 5 seconds (this cannot be stacked with the same cricket bat, so be sure to maximize your use of it by pacing your hits). Its attack speed is slower than the Baseball Bat or Pipe.
Both new weapons have a fixed spawn point in each map, as well as a randomly spawning one, like the hockey stick. The only exception is The Library map, which has 2 randomly spawning Crowbars.
We’ve added a new Spider Execution animation, which is triggered by approaching a downed Classmate from their left side.
5. Bug Fixes: We’ve begun to address certain bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:
The Spider’s SFX can no longer be heard while in Predator Mode
Fiends can no longer spam traps as quickly, and cannot place them on top of one another
Classmates who do not pick a Class before the timer expires will still have their HUD/UI upon spawning into game
In the Belltower Map, players can no longer get stuck in the boxes near the garbage, near the yellow tripod in the belltower, or in the dumpsters near the Rescue Room
PTT settings, as well as all settings, will no longer reset to default once set. You may need to reset to defaults manually before this fix takes effect
Incorrect Card Assets will no longer be displayed for Classmates on the Rewards Screen when a Fiend Disconnects
Classmates will no longer krump when Strangler presses the Chain Grab input while doing a Claw Attack.
Players will “push” each other less, resulting in a smoother gameplay experience.
We’re going to keep the patches coming in the following days and weeks. We still have a lot of changes and improvements we’d like to make, and will be focusing on bugs and balance for the upcoming patches. We’ve also taken our first steps in this patch for new player accessibility (better Legendary Drop rates, more weapons in the world, discouraging disconnects), and will be continuing this initiative with more impactful changes in the coming weeks/months.
Once again we'd like to encourage those who may have left a negative review of the title to consider changing it to positive if our fixes and improvements have addressed your concerns. Our review percentage is slowly getting better and better over time, and every positive review helps to support the game and its community. We’ve also noticed that reviews get significantly more positive the more hours played. We see this as validation that we need to improve our on-boarding and new player experience, but we also encourage those who put the game down quickly to give the title another chance with these changes, and promise even more will be coming soon.
As we've said before, it’ll take all of us working together to support this title and make it a success, and a few good reviews from solid players goes a long way. We’re going to continue improving the title, so stay tuned for more updates in the near future.
We thank you all for your continued support and patience. We’ll see you tonight on Twitch for our 1st Live Dev Stream of the year, at 7-9 PM EST. We’ll be answering questions from the community, hosting our first #DreamTeam match-up, and have an EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK of upcoming content!
Heed The Signs, Brothers and Sisters!
Sincerely, Brother Justin
Last Year Patch 1.0.9 is LIVE!
Brother Justin brings us more good news from the team at Elastic Games:
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters! Happy New Year from everyone here at Elastic Studios!
We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.9 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.9, we’ve made more improvements to your Last Year experience:
1. Fiend Disconnects: Classmates will now receive rewards regardless of Fiends Disconnecting. If a Fiend disconnects, Classmates will be taken to the rewards screen, where they will be awarded with any Tokens earned until that point in the match, and will be awarded Cards/Skins based on how many Classmates were alive at the time of the Disconnect. This is just the first step for addressing this pain point, and we will be looking at more ways to encourage players for continuous play, and discourage players (on both sides of the game) from disconnecting.
2. Optimization: We’ve done another pass of optimization to help improve performance and reduce drops in FPS, specifically when a Fiend spawns in and out of the world. We’ll be continuing to see what other improvements can be made without sacrificing quality of experience.
3. Balancing: We’ve continued to adjust the balance of the game to reduce player pain on both sides of the experience. Here is a list of the most impactful changes we’ve made:
Proximity Mine feedback is now more accurate.
The Shocker now has a damage threshold, and will release The Fiend after they receive 30 damage.
The Flamethrower’s scrap cost has been reduced to 20.
Explosives now do more damage to Classmates.
The damage of the additional explosives generated by “Cluster Bomb” has been reduced.
The activated time for “Speedy Recovery” has been reduced to eliminate “double” uses of the Spell.
4. Bug Fixes: We’ve begun to address certain bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:
The Strangler no longer does double damage with his Claw Attack during his Chain Attack cooldown.
Players are no longer able to create unbreakable barricades on doors.
This is our first patch of many coming in the following days and weeks! We have a lot of changes and improvements we’d like to make, based both on the community’s feedback and our desire to surprise and delight our players!
In the meantime, we would encourage those who may have left a negative review of the title to consider changing it to a positive if our fixes and improvements have addressed your concerns. It’ll take all of us working together to support this title and make it a success, and a few good reviews from solid players goes a long way <3
As stated before, we’re going to continue improving the title, so stay tuned for more updates in the near future. We thank you all for your continued support and patience. We have a lot up our sleeves, and we can’t wait to share with you all the upcoming plans for Last Year!
In that spirit, don’t forget to join our Live Dev Stream Thursday, January 16th at 7-9 PM EST. We’ll be answering questions from the community, hosting our first #DreamTeam match-up, and we may have another surprise or two for the audience!
Speak to you soon, Brothers and Sisters!
Sincerely, Brother Justin
Elastic Games is Back!!!
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters!
Elastic Games is back!!! We've returned from our short holiday, ready to keep kicking ass and taking names in 2020!
We've been paying attention to the community for the last few weeks, and we have a lot of ideas of how we can both improve the game, as well as surprise and delight you all in the upcoming weeks and months.
While we ended 2019 with the Teaser Trailer for Chapter 2... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MhLk4Q-S2c ...we still have a lot that we want to accomplish for Chapter 1.
That means more patches with feature requests, bug fixes, and balance changes... but we also have a few tricks up our sleeves that we want to reveal in the coming days/weeks.
We'll also be continuing our Live Dev Streams, which will not only be the place to have all your Last Year questions answered, but will also begin to start featuring members of our community who are #FearsomeFiends and #DreamTeams!!!
Our first Live Dev Steam will be Thursday, January 16th, and will feature none other than our Discord Classmate Leaderboard Champ, Baefu and his #DreamTeam! We'll be posting another announcement closer to the date with a Twitch link and a start time.
If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Dev Stream, make sure to post your prowess on Twitter and #LastYearGame and either #FearsomeFiends or #DreamTeam. We're always keeping an eye on it, and will be reaching out to you all very soon to feature you playing with our devs!
Stay tuned to this space, as we're going to be communicating with you a LOT more than ever before, and we're going to be pushing changes to the game very soon.
Speak soon, Brothers and Sisters!
Brother Justin
Last Year Chapter 2: Resurrection 1666 TEASER TRAILER | HD
Liberate tuteme ex inferis...
Last Year Chapter 2: Resurrection 1666 TEASER TRAILER | HD [previewyoutube="9MhLk4Q-S2c;full"]
Last Year Patch 1.0.8 has Arrived!
The Dev Team has been hard at work to bring you more good news:
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters!
We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.8 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.8, we’ve made more improvements to your Last Year experience:
1. Push to Talk: We’ve introduced Push to Talk functionality to the VOIP system in Last Year. It is on by default, but can be switched to a toggle mode in the Audio Settings, and can be bound to any key on the Keyboard. The toggle mode is especially useful for players using a Gamepad.
2. Fiend Lobby Queue Feedback: We’ve introduced feedback in a Fiend’s lobby to display an estimate of their position in the queue. This can help players better gauge the Fiend lobby wait times.
3. Optimization: We’ve done a second pass of optimization to help improve performance and reduce drops in FPS. We’ve also specifically optimized performance when The Spider spits their Venom ability. We’ll be continuing to see what other improvements can be made without sacrificing quality of experience.
4. Balancing: We’ve continued to adjust the balance of the game to reduce player pain on both sides of the experience, this time with more of a focus on competitive play between expert Fiends and Classmates. Here is a list of the most impactful changes we’ve made:
Acid now deals damage to incapacitated Classmates.
The Execution Prompt now appears much sooner after incapacitating a Classmate.
Hitting Classmates who are gassed now releases them from the gassed state.
The Damage Reflection effect of “I am Rubber” has been reduced.
The Bleeding Damage effect of “Bloody Gash” has been reduced.
The cost of Smoke Bombs has been increased to 12.
The shotgun has been optimized further to ensure ease of use.
The damage done to a Classmate when thrown by The Giant is also done to other Classmates when they are hit by the throw.
The base attack of The Strangler’s Claw attack has been increased to 25, and his health has increased to 230.
All animation montages stop when triggering a trap, preventing “double trapping.”
All Fiend abilities no longer “reset” their cooldowns when Spawning Out.
There is now a small percentage chance (1%) of Legendary Skins dropping for 1-3 Escapes/Kills. The percentages at 4 and 5 Escapes/Kills have been reduced to 5% and 10% respectively.
The maximum tokens players can earn in a round have been changed to 1600 for killers and survivors. Escape/Victory bonuses have been reduced, but other actions have been increased.
5. Bug Fixes: We’ve begun to address certain bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:
Classes are no longer pre-Selected, which resulted in several bugs.
Fixed infinite hang when a player left a lobby after the match started loading.
Shotgun hits now register more frequently. This is the first in more planned improvements to this item.
Fixed Fatal Error Crash while loading into levels.
Fixed issue on Belltower where Fiends could attack Classmates through the Gear Gates.
Fixed issue where removing the first lock from the sewers would make the Classmate back into the ambush spot of The Strangler.
Fixed issue where Kitchen Rescue Room spawned no Classmates during the first phase of the match and removed Kitchen from potential Rescue Rooms when Classmates have reached the Belltower Courtyard.
Fixed issue where it was difficult to place a trap on the last ledge of the escape sequence in The Belltower.
This is likely the last patch we release before we break for the Winter Holidays. We’ll be monitoring (and playing!) the game during the holidays to see how the meta settles and prepare for what changes and improvements could be made in the New Year. Until then, enjoy the game, and please support our community by being respectful, fair, and by displaying good sportsmanship while playing Last Year.
We thank you for your continued support and patience. We’re all humbled by the outpouring of love and support we’ve received since launch, and we remain committed to growing this title and its community in 2020!
Dev Stream and Exclusive Chapter 2 Sneak Peak on Friday, December 20th!
Come join us for another Live Dev Stream this Friday, December 20th, 2019 where the team at Elastic Games will reveal an exclusive sneak peak of Last Year: Chapter 2!
Come watch the Last Year Devs play & discuss their latest balance changes this Friday, December 20th on Twitch from 7-9 PM EST. Twitch.tv/LastYearGame
Stay until the end of the Stream to see the exclusive sneak peak of Last Year: Chapter 2, and to find out how you can WIN a copy of Last Year: Chapter 1 Afterdark for you & a friend!
