After two well earned extensions, we’re closing the door on the OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead Closed PC BETA. I’d like to take this opportunity to convey our greatest appreciation to everyone who participated, and especially those of you who took the time to send us your feedback, bug reports and love.
We've had a lot of fun playing with you during the Closed PC BETA, and look forward to seeing you again on the release of OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead on November 6th.
Also, a big thank you to everyone who saw us and played the game at Walker Stalker in Atlanta, Georgia.
Talk to you in our next Walking Dev update, and see you on launch November 6!
Best regards,
OVERKILL_Saul
Challenge Completed! BETA Extended to Sunday!
Survivors!
Congratulations and well done! We made it to the 20 Million killed walkers before Thursday. As we write this post, we've downed 49,350,937 in total, and the number keeps growing at an insane pace!
As promised, we are keeping the BETA open until Sunday the 28th!
https://youtu.be/lCKz015i4z4
Keep sharing your "Shit Hits The Fan" moments to our Twitter @OverkillsTWD - we love seeing your best clips.
See you at the Anderson Camp!
OVERKILL_Saul
Developer Update #6 tomorrow at 7pm CEST
Hey everyone!
Developer Update #6 Tomorrow!
We're back with another Developer Update on OVERKILL's The Walking Dead! Tune in tomorrow at 7pm CEST for our sixth Developer Update where we will talk about the Closed PC Beta, Walker Stalker and more for OVERKILL's The Walking Dead!
Thank you all for being a part last time, we're looking forward to do this again with you!
Where will Developer Update 6 be streamed?
The stream will be hosted tomorrow at 7pm CEST at our channel as usual at https://www.twitch.tv/starbreeze
How is the Community Challenge going?
We asked the community to kill another 8 million walkers in order to get the beta extended to Sunday on the 28th! We will give you all an update come tomorrow on how we're doing. Looking forward to have you on the stream!
If you have any questions or comments you want us to have a look at before the stream, post them below!
See you tomorrow at 7pm CEST!
OVERKILL_Almir
Survivors! We Made it! BETA Extended to Thursday!
Survivors!
Congratulations and well done! We made it to 10,000,000 killed walkers before end of the day. Having counted all the bodies, we're looking to be somewhere around 12,146,909 as of now.
As a reward, we are keeping the BETA open until Thursday the 25th!
Here's our next challenge to you: until Thursday, if you kill another 8,000,000 so we rack it up to a cool 20 million total kills, we will extend the final period through the weekend, until Sunday the 28th.
It's great seeing everyone play, watching streams and interacting with you in our community. Developers from the team are jumping in and having a lot of fun playing.
We look forward to seeing if you can complete our next goal!
See you at the Anderson Camp!
OVERKILL_Saul
BETA - Part 3 - New Missions and Patch Notes
Hello survivors!
Hope you had a great week, now it’s time to jump back onto the streets of Washington DC with the third and final part of the closed PC BETA. If you didn’t check out our latest developer update, make sure you do, because we have a Community challenge for you over the weekend!
https://youtu.be/_Pcz-ufgMDw
New Content
Progression Updates Happy Beta 3 to all! We have a tons of progression updates for you, including character and level centric content. We are increasing the maximum character level cap to 10 and setting the stage for the new levels.
Increasing maximum character level 5 > 10 during the beta
West End Area route is available from the start of the game.
West End Area route scrap and equipment cost reduced to 0 for players with an existing save file.
New Levels We’re cramming in two more missions for this weekend as well. “Worse Than Walkers” will pit you against The Family who are looking to steal your camp supplies. Meanwhile, “Listening In” will have you sneaking through moonlit streets of the West End Underpass, infiltrating an outpost belonging to the same faction. We also have three new Expeditions, centering around Samson Bros. shipping. All the quests associated with these new missions will be unlocked as well.
“Worse Than Walkers” mission added and unlocked from the start during the beta.
“Listening In” mission added and unlocked from the start during the beta.
“Samson Bros” expeditions can be unlocked during the beta.
Adding two new bounties for “Listening In” on normal difficulty and hard difficulty.
“Hard” difficulty unlocked from the start for “The First Shot”, “Hell or High Water”, “Worse Than Walkers”, and “Listening In” during the beta
Hard Difficulty Unlocked And finally, for those thinking normal is becoming too easy, we’re unlocking “Hard” difficulty for all story missions, as well as keeping normal difficulty opened.
Balancing
Bandage Bandage cost was reduced to give non-Maya teams a fighting chance out in the wild. While you won’t have an amazing revive speed, this reduction in cost will enable medic-less teams to fight on longer.
Bandage crafting cost reduced 3/3/3/3 > 2/2/2/2
Mechanical Tool Kit The mechanical tool kit cost was shifted to make it not overlap with the same design space as the Power tool kit. This means certain characters now have a more efficient tool option with regards to cost distribution on their loadout.
Weapon Spread This most strongly applies to sniper rifles, as we have noticed many people missing shots that should have landed. This means overall players will be more accurate with all weapons, especially while aiming down sights.
Spread for many weapons has been tightened dramatically.
Heavy Bandit While the heavy was quite a menacing enemy, we saw that fighting against him did not happen as we intended. To address this, we reduced his overall health and armor resistance. We increased his reactiveness and aggressivity. So now he’s even more of a threat at close range.
Lowered Bandit Heavy health, shield and armor values, increased chance to stun or stagger, decreased aiming time, and increased his damage output.
First Shot Slightly lowered the number of zombies on First Shot Normal difficulty
Hordeometer We’ve made improvements to the Hordemeter system that should lead to more tension when a new level of Hordemeter is reached and give more time to recover after the noise dies down
Improved how quickly the horde responds when a new horde level is reached. Increased the down time between waves of enemies in the horde.
Explosive Barrel We at Overkill believe that there is nothing better than crispy fried walkers in the morning, noon, and night, so we’re giving you a second barrel for those extra crispy lovers out there.
Increasing explosive barrel amount during camp defense 1 > 2
Survivor Missions Players were using high level survivor missions less as a way to get high level rewards, and more as a "trial by fire" for their poor level 1 survivors. We have adjusted the failure XP for mid and high level survivor missions as a result.
Survivor Mission Tweaks
Fixes
XP on failure modifier for survivor missions at level 4, 5, and 6 reduced 50% > 25% of the success value.
XP on failure modifier for survivor missions at level 7, 8, 9, and 10 reduced 50% > 10% of the success value.
Adjustment on Survivor Mission threat levels
Fixing common weapon reward icon to use "?" instead of assault rifle picture
Part 3 is now Live. Have fun!
OVERKILL_Saul
OVERKILL's The Walking Dead - 5th Developer Update Stream tomorrow October 18!
Hey survivors!
Developer Update #5
Tune in tomorrow at 7pm CEST for our fifth Developer Update where Saul and I will talk about Part 3 of the Closed PC Beta for OVERKILL's The Walking Dead! We're having a great time doing these, hope you find them informative and useful as you prepare to venture into Washington D.C. once more.
During the stream there will be talk of a new mission, an increased level cap and more - make sure to check it out!
Where will Developer Update 5 be streamed?
The stream will be hosted tomorrow at 7pm CEST at our channel as usual at https://www.twitch.tv/starbreeze
When does Part 3 of the Closed PC Beta start?
Come Friday part 3 of the Closed PC Beta will start, and we can hear the hordes of walkers approaching already... ;)
If you have any questions or comments you want us to have a look at before the stream, post them below!
See you tomorrow at 7pm CEST!
OVERKILL_Almir
BETA - Part 2 - HOTFIX - PATCH NOTES
Hello survivors!
In our continuous support, today we are pushing a HOTFIX to improve the gameplay experience, addressing some of the major issues that the community has been reporting.
It is a blast watching you on streams, and we are having a lot of fun dropping in random matches to play with you all!
Bug-squashing
Improved matchmaking logic for public groups of 2-3 players
Fixed an issue where some clients were getting a black screen when loading into levels, depending on the connection of the host, especially if they were dropping-in
Visual settings are now being saved between restarts, skipping the auto-calibration process, if settings are saved at least once
Clients weren't sent to the matchmaking menu when the party lead already started a matchmaking, leading to confusion
Anderson Camp Hub Briefing screen was missing its background video
Player characters sometimes entered into T-Pose in third person, when using the call out with a two-handed weapon equipped
Added more precise version number in our UI for BETA
Keep having fun!
Note: If you missed our announcement for Season 1 and Season 2 (both free!), you can still check it out here, and discover all the content coming to OVERKILL's The Walking Dead on release... and beyond! Also don't hesitate to share your Shit Hits The Fan moments in our twitter, we'll show the best ones on our next stream!
OVERKILL_Saul
BETA - Part 2 - PATCH NOTES
Hello survivors!
It's finally time for the second part of the OVERKILL's The Walking Dead BETA. Starting today and running over the weekend.
We have a lot of improvements and fixes for you, though as always, if you find any bugs, make sure to report them on our Steam forums.
Thank you all for joining us, we'll see you in camp.
Balancing
Shiv The shiv was underperforming, the increased damage will be especially noticeable versus the Heavy, who will feel the effect much more than before.
Damage increased 150 > 300
Smoke Grenade Smoke Grenade was becoming a bit too staple as both an offensive and defensive ability, so we lowered the duration at the base level significantly. We love Heather being a ninja while standing in smoke, but we want to be sure other characters have room to shine as well.
Base duration lowered 20s > 10s
Flashbang Players (and let’s be honest, some of us devs) were having trouble judging the range of effectiveness on the Flashbang. We’re giving a small range buff on the stun so it’s easier to use and to increase the viability of the Flashbang when compared to the Smoke Grenade.
Base stun radius increased 5 meters > 6 meters
Molotov The Molotov didn’t feel efficient against walkers, so we gave Grant a special recipe to mix in. TL;DR Stronger vs. walkers, just as strong vs. humans.
Base burning duration shortened by 75%
Base damage per second vs. walkers increased by 270%
Base damage per second vs. humans increased by 175%
Burn Unit Upgrade: Damage per second upgrade increased 25% > 140%
Weapons per character We want to really encourage the weapon proficiencies for each character, and we know damage is the quickest way to a walker slayer’s heart.
Any character using a weapon they are proficient with will now deal an additional 10% damage while using that weapon.
Car Traps We noticed many people accidentally (or “accidentally”) setting off car alarms, then in their moment of panic, beating up the car, trying to turn off the alarm. We really enjoy this reaction, and have allowed players to take the fight to the streets, beating up on cars to turn off the alarms.
Allowed players to deal damage to cars with alarms. Dealing enough damage will silence the alarm. Permanently.
Family Heavy Unit (shielded) We noticed that the Heavy's weaknesses weren't obvious enough to players, so we've made it easier to stun and leave him exposed on normal difficulty. This will give players more opportunities to experiment and familiarize themselves with the enemy. To compensate, he now takes less damage when shot in the head when his helmet is off.
Lowered the Heavy's helmet health on normal difficulty, from 800 to 400
Lowered the amount of damage needed to stun the Heavy when damaging his shield on normal difficulty, from 300 to 150
Lowered the amount of damage needed to stun the Heavy when damaging his legs on normal difficulty, from 600 to 100
Decreased the headshot damage multiplier on the Heavy, from 1.5 to 1.0
Family Sniper Unit The Sniper was very punishing and hard to notice when bullets started flying. We’ve increased the time it takes for him to shoot when he has acquired a target.
Increased aim time before the bandit sniper takes his shot 2 - 2.5 seconds > 4 - 4.5 seconds
Hordeometer The horde meter was even more intense than we had hoped for, so we've increased the time players have to recover between waves of walkers (so it’s not a tsunami of dead flesh anymore)
Players will now have longer breather moments when the horde meter is level one or higher
Respawn Due to the difficulty level of the game we noticed people dying a lot more often than expected so we tweaked the respawn times to keep you playing, not spend all the time waiting in spectator mode.
Base respawn time lowered 60 seconds > 40 seconds
Respawn time increment lowered 30 seconds > 20 seconds
Everytime the player has damage immunity they also have grapple immunity against walkers. We also increased the immunity after respawn to allow players to orient themselves after reentering the action!
Players are now immune to being grappled when respawning
Damage immunity increased 3 > 4 seconds
Progression
BETA Access to levels Players were having some difficulty with the first mission, and we don’t want to keep people in the beta from experiencing the entire offering, so we’ve unlocked all of the missions from the beginning.
Unlocked access to The First Shot, Hell or High Water, and Anderson Camp Hub at the start of the game.
Lowered cost of route to 0 for players who already have save data, but don’t want to restart to unlock Hell or High Water
Camp Vendor To help those continuing to have a bit of trouble, we’ve also unlocked Peggy Ann, Anderson camp’s resident weapon vendor, to help make your weapon selection a bit easier. Provided you have the camp supplies, of course.
Peggy Ann, weapon vendor extraordinaire, has been unlocked at the start of the game for all players.
Menus, UI and HUD
Disable Steam voice chat by default so you can use your favourite software without hearing echoes
Added user settings for mouse sensitivity per popular demand
Change Loading Screen Z Order to avoid floating icons on some loadings
Improved health bar animations
Bug-squashing
Removed empty spawn pawn entry in spawn zone that could lead to floating weapons before a player fully joined
Fixed crash when starting executable directly
Fixed issue with clients ragdolling alive enemies
Fixed nav mesh issues in Camp Anderson that made walkers not be able to access some corners - So you can’t hide from them anymore!
Fixed crash when starting without Internet connection
Fixed crash that happened sometimes on mission end
Fixed crash on game start due to the player spawner sometimes not having his character fully set up
Fixed crash in analytics thread
Fixed walker capsule location issue that led to “invisible grapples”
Fixed issue with low LOD in menus that made characters not look as cool as they are in real life
Fixed issue where preview was unavailable for equipped cosmetics
Fixed issue where clients got black screens on loadings
Fixed issue with defender human AI ignored players while defending
Fixed issue where Sniper AI sometimes can't find players in Camp Anderson yard
Fixed issue where walkers would float if the connection had severe lag or ping drops
Fixed issue where drop-in clients can get misaligned with ladders
Fixed issue where melee hits weren't properly replicated, leading to some missing hits
Fixed issue where clients suffering from high latency would sometimes fly after vaulting/mantling
Fixed issue where expeditions weren't spawning properly
Fixed banner text being stuck on screen for too long
Fix for a party host canceling matchmaking during party joining remote session
Added missing transition between walking backwards and vault
Fixed bug with interaction progress
Hid credits button
Hope you'll enjoy this update!
Note: If you missed our last stream, check it out here, and discover all the content coming to OVERKILL's The Walking Dead on release... and after!
OVERKILL_Saul
OVERKILL's The Walking Dead - Dev Update #4
Survivors!
Tune in tonight at 8pm CEST for our fourth Developer Update stream where we will give you an update on the Closed PC Beta, look back at the past two days, as well as share some initial information of what the release will entail in terms of content. Tune in at https://www.twitch.tv/starbreeze! #OTWD #ThinkFightLive for OVERKILL's The Walking Dead!
The stream will be hosted at 8pm CEST on our channel as usual at https://www.twitch.tv/starbreeze
If you have any questions or comments you want us to have a look at before the stream, post them below!
See you in two and a half hours!
OVERKILL_Almir
OVERKILL's The Walking Dead - PC Closed BETA - Part 1 Ending Soon!
Hello everyone and welcome to OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead beta!
We genuinely hope you’ve enjoyed the apocalypse so far, we’ve had a blast during these first 24 hours watching you play and taking in your feedback.
The beta will run in three parts to allow us to make tweaks along the way and test the game from different technical perspectives.
Part 1 - Tomorrow morning CEST the first period will be completed and we'll have a small pause until Friday for us to update the BETA
Part 2 - Starts this Friday the 12th and ends on Monday the 15th
Part 3 - Starts the following Friday 19th and ends on Monday the 22nd - you’ll be able to enjoy new maps and an increased level cap as well
Yes, your progress will be saved in between the parts of the BETA.
We’ll host another stream over on our Twitch channel tomorrow evening CEST where we’ll look back into the past two days, as well as share some initial information of what the release will entail in terms of content.
We’re additionally looking for further feedback on a few topics, if you would like to take time to give us your voice, we’d greatly appreciate it!
We’ve seen some players struggling with the Bandit Human Tank, we have a strategy in mind where you need to collaborate to take him down. He has several weak spots you can take advantage from. With this extra information in mind, does he still feel like a challenge?
What’s your favourite level The First Shot or Hell or High Water? Why? Any info you can give us will help us secure even cooler levels for launch and future levels we’ll release.
What about the characters? Which one are you having more fun with?
As I mentioned previously, come Friday you’ll see an update to the game where we’ll focus on some of your most urgent concerns like in-game voice chat (voice will be off by default, you can enable PTT in the Steam Voice settings) and mouse sensitivity, between other important tweaks and fixes that we’ll recap in our patch notes.
