It’s a Double EXP and Mutator Arsenal Event Weekend
Explorers,
We have some cool events happening this weekend, as you head to the frozen wasteland!
DOUBLE EXP EVENT
Date: July 10th 12 PM PT - July 11th 12 PM PT / July 10th 8 PM BST - July 11th 8 PM BST
The Double EXP event is back! For a limited time, earn twice as much EXP in every match you play. Take advantage of the extra EXP to quickly level up your Explorers.
MUTATOR ARSENAL EVENT
Date: Sunday, July 11th 10 AM - 4 PM PT / July 11th 6 PM BST - July 12th 12:00 AM BST
This weekend kicks off our very first Mutator event! Mutators are small, limited-time events that provide a fun twist to the normal Expedition rules.
We’re starting things off with Mutator Arsenal. While this Mutator event is active, most chests will contain a weapon of Uncommon or higher rarity - including Signature weapons! This means you could come across a high-tier weapon that you’ve been dying to try out for the first time. Don’t miss it!
July 9th Hotfix
Explorers,
We’ll be performing a hotfix on July 9th, around 2 AM PT / 10 AM BST to fix an issue that’s causing a crash while in the Tutorial.
Keep Warm, Midwinter
Our Focus This Week
Explorers,
We’re back with our latest Weekly Focus blog!
This will be a regular series where we’ll take a look at what the team is focusing their attention on this week, as well as their response to some of the top community feedback and suggestions we’ve received.
Developer Focus
Here, we’ll talk about some of the top topics that the team is working on this week. This isn’t their only focus - we’ll be highlighting only the main topics they’re focused on:
Working on Upcoming Features: We’re working on our next content update, which is planned to release in the next two weeks. This week will be spent finalizing the upcoming content and features, so that we can focus on QA and testing.
EXP Rework: We mentioned it in the Resurrection System Change blog, but we are actively working on revisions to EXP that reward time spent playing, first and foremost. More work will be done on this new system, with the changes expected to go live in a future update.
Improving New Player Experience: We’re continuing to evaluate and improve the new player experience. In particular, we realize that more work is needed to teach new players some of the core mechanics, such as Research and Crafting items during a match. These improvements will go live in a future update.
Bugs and Issues: Right now, the team is focused on fixing the bugs and issues that you have been reporting.
Performance Optimization and Stability: Optimization and improving stability continues to be a core focus for our team. We’re interested in hearing any performance issues you may experience, so we can work to correct them.
Top Community Feedback
We’re on this Scavengers journey with you, and we want to improve and refine the game with the feedback and suggestions from our community. Although the team is constantly going through your feedback and incorporating them into our updates and hotfixes, we haven’t had a really good way to let you know what might be coming in the medium to long term.
So, every week, we'll share our thoughts on some of the top community feedback topics that we’ve been seeing on our platforms. We may work on some of these for a future update; some of these could be part of a long-term plan and might not have a date for when they’ll arrive in Scavengers. Others, we may be investigating or considering adding, but can’t promise that you’ll see them in the game. Finally, for some, we want to continue hearing your feedback and thoughts on, to ensure we’re considering the right way to approach it. Let’s break them down:
Interesting: We’re interested in adding these to the game and are currently looking into how it might work. We don’t have any definite plans, so they may or may not be added in a future update.
Datapoint Requirement for Backup Clone Item: We’ve heard your recent feedback that the Datapoint requirement for acquiring new Backup Clone items is a bit too harsh. We’re looking into a few different changes to make it feel a bit better, including lowering the number of Datapoints required and adjusting how quickly Datapoints are uploaded. We don’t have any new numbers to share, but we are interested in testing, and likely adjusting, how it works.
Item Hot Swap Mechanic: While some enjoy the new hot swap feature, we’ve also heard a lot of feedback that it’s a bit too easy to drop the item that you want to use. We don’t want to remove this mechanic, but do want to find ways to make it more understandable. Current ideas range from better clarity when picking up an item requiring hot swapping with a current item, to requiring a ‘Hold’ interaction when swapping items. We would love to hear your thoughts on what improvements or changes you would like to see for this mechanic.
Dropping Items after Leaving: When a teammate elects to leave the game or crashes, all their Scrap, Datapoints, and items are lost. We agree it could be interesting to have players who left drop some items, such as Datapoints or Scrap, from their Inventory. We need to test this though, and consider how each would affect the game.
Adding ‘Ready’ Button: Several games have a ‘Ready’ button, so teammates can indicate to the party leader when they are ready to begin a match. This is a feature that we are interested in looking into.
We’re committed to creating Scavengers with our amazing players. Please share your feedback and suggestions and let us know your thoughts on our focus topics.
June 29th Hotfix
Explorers,
We’re planning to release a hotfix on Tuesday, June 29th around 2 AM PT / 10 AM BST. The main goal of the hotfix is to address the Salvage and Storm issues. It will also include a couple of minor Quality of Life changes.
Hotfix Changes
Bug Fixed: Fixed many instances where players did not receive Salvage after the match ended
Bug Fixed: Reduced the frequency and size of roaming storms
Bug Fixed: Adjusted areas flooded with snow to help prevent some visual glitches
QoL Change: The Map and Minimap now also display the direction to the end of the Storm's path
QoL Change: Item and Weapon pings now display the rarity color of the Item or Weapon
Please continue sharing your feedback and thoughts with us - we’re grateful for all the reports we’ve had from everyone so far. They’ve helped us address key issues quickly and effectively at this early stage. This is all an integral part of the Scavengers Early Access journey and we hope you’ll continue to join us in the months ahead.
Current Dev Focus
Explorers,
We’re back with our latest Weekly Focus blog!
This will be a regular series where we’ll take a look at what the team is focusing their attention on this week, as well as their response to some of the top community feedback and suggestions we’ve received. You can also get a peek at the content and blogs planned for this week.
Developer Focus
Here, we’ll talk about some of the top topics that the team is working on this week. This isn’t their only focus - we’ll be highlighting only the main topics they’re focused on:
June 29th Hotfix: The hotfix this week will focus on fixing the two biggest issues from last week’s game update: not receiving Salvage at the end of the match and reducing the storm frequency to bring it back where it should be. We’ll also have a couple of quality of life improvements in this hotfix.
Kali Rework: Our stealthy archer still has some issues with her Active Camo ability and the Blink Talent. We’re giving Kali a bit of a rework to permanently fix those issues.
Improving New Player Experience: We know that there’s still work to be done to improve the experience for our new players. We’re continuing to look at ways to make Scavengers fun and exciting as our new Explorers are learning the game.
Matchmaking Improvements: We’ve heard your feedback on improving how matchmaking works, to make fun and fair matches for all players. While we’re not quite at the point of adding in a new matchmaking system, we are in the initial stage of developing a better system.
Single Team Hurry: A fancy way of saying that if you’re the only team remaining on the Dropship, it’ll take off faster! Thanks to your feedback, we’re working on adjusting the Dropship timing so that after all enemies are eliminated, the Dropship will take off immediately with the last remaining team.
Top Community Feedback
We’re on this Scavengers journey with you, and we want to improve and refine the game with the feedback and suggestions from our community. Although the team is constantly going through your feedback and incorporating them into our updates and hotfixes, we haven’t had a really good way to let you know what might be coming in the medium to long term.
So, every week, we'll share our thoughts on some of the top community feedback topics that we’ve been seeing on our platforms. We may work on some of these for a future update; some of these could be part of a long-term plan and might not have a date for when they’ll arrive in Scavengers. Others, we may be investigating or considering adding, but can’t promise that you’ll see them in the game. Finally, for some, we want to continue hearing your feedback and thoughts on, to ensure we’re considering the right way to approach it. Let’s break them down:
Interesting: We’re interested in adding these to the game and are currently looking into how it might work. We don’t have any definite plans, so they may or may not be added in a future update.
Showing Research Tier Progress: It’s hard to know exactly how far you are from upgrading to the next Research Tier without manually counting the number of completed Projects. We agree that some changes should be made so that it’s clear how many Projects are needed. We don’t have a date for these changes, but we would like to have them in the future.
Explorer and Account Level Rewards: Similar to the Research Tiers, there’s no real clarity around what is needed to unlock the banners, emblems, and titles, or what sweet rewards you receive for leveling up. Making it easier to know what you’ll receive and when is something we would like to include in the future too.
Developer Thoughts: We love reading your feedback and sometimes, there are game reasons why certain elements are designed a certain way. When that happens, we’ll try to explain a bit of our thoughts around design.
One thing we’ve been hearing from you is the
value of different Salvage options
. We’re aware that some Salvage is perceived as more valuable, especially for high-level players.
The different Salvage items, including their loot, were very carefully designed and we’re pretty happy with how it’s working out so far. We’ll continue to monitor and observe the in-game data and player feedback, but for now we don’t see any major changes coming to the Salvage loot.
This Week’s Blogs
Here’s where we’ll keep you updated on what blog content you might see this week!
We’re kicking off the week with this Developer Weekly Focus but that’s not all we have planned! We’ll also be sharing the full Hotfix Notes, so you know what’s changing before it goes live tomorrow.
At the end of the week, we’ll also share some of our favorite player-created content and streams in the latest Community Roundup.
We’re committed to creating Scavengers with our amazing players. Please share your feedback and suggestions and let us know your thoughts on our focus topics.
June 25th Hotfix
Explorers,
We’re planning to release a hotfix on Friday, June 25th to fix the issues below.
We are aware of and investigating an issue where some players do not receive Salvage at the end of the match.
Bug Fixes
Fixed: Incorrect respawn message when no additional Backup Clone item was in the Inventory
Fixed: Ammo type icon sometimes incorrectly showing on other items in the Inventory
Fixed: We blocked off an area that should be inaccessible to players
Fixed: Corrected an issue that was causing some server crashes
This is only a small portion of the issues that we’re currently working on. Thanks to your reports, we’re still investigating and working to address the other issues. Keep an eye out for additional bug fixes in future updates.
Please continue sharing your feedback and thoughts with us - we’re grateful for all the reports we’ve had from everyone so far. They’ve helped us address key issues quickly and effectively at this early stage. This is all an integral part of the Scavengers Early Access journey and we hope you’ll continue to join us in the months ahead.
June 23rd Patch Notes
Explorers,
We’re excited to release our latest game update and hope that you’ll enjoy the changes in Scavengers. Check out all the new in-game updates that are coming tomorrow!!
The update is expected to go live June 23rd at 8 AM PT / 4 PM BST.
Resurrection Changes
With this update, we’re adjusting the Respawn system to include a Backup Clone item that stores extra lives. This item has its own dedicated slot, and can’t be dropped or lost. You can find all the details around the new Respawn system, including future work, in our recent blog.
Quality of Life Changes
Item Swapping
We’ve made a minor improvement to item swapping to make it easier to pick up a new item when your Inventory is full. With a full Inventory, you simply need to pick up an item and it will automatically be swapped with your active item.
EXP Boost
With this update, the Match Summary will separate your base EXP from any EXP gained through an in-game event or EXP Boost. This should help clarify how you are earning EXP in each match.
Challenges
We’ll continue to adjust and expand our Challenges, to provide players with different gameplay opportunities. We've added some new challenges that focus on finding and using the variety of weapons in the world of Scavengers. You'll be rewarded for dealing damage with weapons in the following classes, so get out there and try out all there is to offer!
Types of Weapon Challenges:
Damage dealt with assault rifles
Damage dealt with SMGs
Damage dealt with melee weapons
Damage dealt with shotguns
Damage dealt with bows
Damage dealt with grenades
Weapon Tuning
We did a weapon tuning pass, to re-balance many of the weapons in Scavengers.
The following weapons were adjusted:
Bows
Added 0.2 second minimum windup time to all bows to control the fire rate when rapid firing
Letty’s Rosie
Increased damage slightly on Rosie
Increased impact damage slightly on Rosie Sledgehammer
Tarik’s Longstriker
Removed the bolt action animation on Longstriker Taskmaster
Longstriker Taskmaster now uses heavy ammo
Rattler
Reduced the recoil slightly
Warsong
Reduced the damage slightly
Cruz’s Cazador
Increased the reload duration on Cazador
Reduced the damage slightly for Cazador Cheetah
Reduced the headshot multiplier of Cazador Cheetah to be the same as the other Cazador variants
Added spread to the last bullets of the burst for Cazador Cheetah
Opus
Increased the damage
Increased the fire rate slightly
Halden’s Strike Rifle
Reduced the damage and slightly more damage falloff for Strike Rifle A-Spec
Reduced the recoil slightly for Strike Rifle A-Spec
Repeating Crossbow
Increased the damage
Increased the fire rate slightly
Reduced the recoil
Devastator
Reduced the explosion damage and increased the impact damage for Devastator Hyperion
Argonaut
Reduced the damage falloff slightly
General Gameplay
New High Value Objective: Growth Cluster
Can appear throughout the match starting at Category 2 storms
Produces 35 Datapoints over 60 seconds
On completion, it produces Scrap and a high-value weapon
Warlords can appear more often
Research costs have been reduced for several items, including Talents and Components
Performance, Optimization, and Bug Fixes
Fixed: Rosie Sledgehammer no longer stun locks the AI on every shot
Fixed: Longstriker Desperado now reliably triggers an explosion on headshot kills
Fixed: Environment bug fixes for improper collision, mantling failures, visible seams in the ground, and floating set pieces
Fixed: Sometimes a player can get stuck in a weird party state where they see default lobby text (every player is Rob)
Fixed: Explorers on draft screen sometimes appear to be invisible, leaving their weapon floating in the air
Fixed: Parties not reliably staying together after match end
Fixed: Camera going through Dropship doors
Fixed: Missing teammate names
Fixed: Cold indicator never stops flashing red if a thermal boost is used in a storm
Fixed: Some players on EGS cannot access in game Shop tabs
Fixed: The draft camera is not highlighting the correct player
Fixed: When using Controller, all controls stop working if a controller is disconnected while loading in a match
Fixed: Dropship safe zone missing an area (sometimes players are left on planet when on the ship)
Fixed: Grenades falling through the world
Fixed: Primary weapon swaps when secondary weapon should
Fixed: Player is able to throw 2 grenades at the same time
Fixed: Camera stutters when using melee weapons
We look forward to working with you as we continue to refine and improve Scavengers together. We look forward to hearing your feedback on the changes in this update!
Upcoming Resurrection System Changes
Greetings Explorers,
We’d like to run through the big change for this next update, and outline a couple changes that are still coming soon.
First up - Scavengers is getting a new resurrection system this week!
BACKGROUND
The old resurrection system of unlimited automatic resurrection, or “Autorez”, was something we were never quite satisfied with. Way back when we first introduced it, Autorez allowed us to sidestep certain issues and focus on other parts of the game. That was important at the time, and Autorez helped us get to where we needed to be. But we always knew it caused issues. Many of you have echoed those issues, and we’ve seen them amplified in the wild.
First, it trivializes death. Death with little consequence impacts gameplay. Strategies that should be a bit risky - such as teams splitting up early on - are without real risk. And without real risk they become the “right” way to play, instead of a choice. Splitting up is doubly advantageous given the team elimination rules, because it lowers the odds of all team members dying at once.
The triviality of death also impacts your connection to the game world. Scavengers is a game of hardscrabble competition in a world where survival is not guaranteed… except that with Autorez, it kinda is. This lowers the stakes and dampens the excitement.
The lack of consequences also greatly diminishes the challenge that AI pose. Death from AI is a very minor setback under most circumstances, and there’s little incentive not to recklessly zerg encounters.
Autorez also leads to bad sequences of events, such as rolling early-game PvP engagements that are inconclusive and dissatisfying, as well as leaving both teams behind the resource curve. Repeated resurrections can become cruel, prolonged death spirals from which there is no escape.
And all of these issues have knock-on effects that stretch beyond the players resurrecting. Everything from resource distribution to storm collapses to AI counts are predicated on player population. Players who are already having a bad time stuck in hopeless death/respawn loops are adding drag on the experience for all players, through no fault of their own.
So here’s what’s changing!
LIVES
Players have lives. Naturally. You land planetside, you’re alive.
Players may also have lives in reserve. Explorers carry a Clone Backup item that stores extra lives. This item has its own dedicated slot, and can’t be dropped or lost.
Players will be able to see how many lives they and their teammates have in their player status trays. Lives are represented by a heart/arrow icon.
If a player dies with no lives in reserve, they are eliminated.
If a player dies with one or more lives in reserve, they will autorez after one minute. When they autorez, one life is consumed.
Players start the match with one life in reserve. So you can die once and autorez. But after that, death will result in elimination unless you gain more lives.
Yes! You can gain more lives! Mother provides!
...provided that you provide for Mother.
DATA UPLINK
If your team uploads enough data at a Data Uplink, Mother will grant every teammate an additional life. If a teammate has been eliminated and is still spectating, they will be resurrected on the spot.
This is a pretty massive windfall. Thresholds are set accordingly:
250 data for a team of 3
125 for a team of 2
One important note on uplink resurrection. This is intended to be the resurrection option of last resort. In a future update we plan to introduce an item that can be used to resurrect teammates sooner and more conveniently. But until then, uplink resurrection is the only option for bringing back eliminated teammates.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
Supporting changes and notes:
Players are no longer automatically eliminated if they die during the dropship phase.
Teams can gain additional lives, but the threshold increases with each life:
250/750/1500 for a team of 3
125/375/750 for a team of 2
Players who were eliminated and then later resurrected at a data uplink will be resurrected with no lives in reserve.
If a player is queued to autorez and their team meets the threshold needed to gain additional lives, the player will be resurrected and given an additional life in reserve.
Given current upload speeds, the data upload thresholds should be met in under a minute of uploading with a full team.
Autorez has been improved to bias respawns to be nearer teammates. Prior to this change, the priority was to respawn further from opponents.
Also note that if all teammates are killed, the team is still eliminated. We know this is a disadvantage to shorthanded teams, and especially punishing to solos. We are working to address this by creating options and incentives so that playing on shorthanded teams becomes more of a fun and unique challenge instead of an occasional misfortune. We really value the awesome stories that emerge from a Scavengers match, and the great underdog stories are some of the best. We need to do more to facilitate those.
Likewise, the current EXP formula puts too much value on competitive performance, which severely limits metagame progress for shorthanded teams, or even just for teams who suffer an early-game misfortune. Players should want to stick it out and see if they can pull off a comeback, or at least feel as though they aren’t being punished for sticking around and playing on their own terms. We are actively working on revisions to EXP that reward time spent playing, first and foremost. Likewise, we’re laying the groundwork for separate systems to reward competitive performance. That way, score and placement are rewarded, but your advancement in the metagame doesn’t depend on it.
Thank you for your dedication and feedback thus far. In total, we hope these changes bring a bit more shape and weight to the match. We want you to split up at the beginning of the match if you choose to take that risk. But we also want the team that stuck together to gain some ground on you when they find you and press their advantage. We want Outlander fortresses to be an imposing challenge that rewards skill and tactics. We want decisive outcomes to engagements. And we want you to be even more scared of bears!
This Week's Dev Focus
Explorers,
We’re back with our latest Weekly Focus blog!
This will be a regular series where we’ll take a look at what the team is focusing their attention on this week, as well as their response to some of the top community feedback and suggestions we’ve received. You can also get a peek at the content and blogs planned for this week.
Developer Focus
Here, we’ll talk about some of the top topics that the team is working on this week. This isn’t their only focus - we’ll be highlighting only the main topics they’re focused on:
Game Update: We have our latest game update going live this week with changes to the respawn system, a weapon balance pass, and some quality of life improvements. We’ll be monitoring your feedback and suggestions, to get your thoughts on how these changes are working out.
Weapon Balance: We’re constantly looking at your feedback and the in-game data on how weapons are performing. We know that keeping weapons balanced and viable is important in shooters, so we’ll make adjustments as needed.
Resurrection Changes: This update brings changes to our Resurrection system, which we’ll go into in more detail in a separate blog. We’re interested in hearing your feedback after you get a chance to use the new system.
New Challenges: We’ve been reading your feedback on the Challenge system and are excited to bring new Challenges with the next update! We have more planned for the Challenge system in the future as well.
Console: After the game update, working on console is our biggest focus for this week.
Top Community Feedback
We’re on this Scavengers journey with you, and we want to improve and refine the game with the feedback and suggestions from our community. Although the team is constantly going through your feedback and incorporating them into our updates and hotfixes, we haven’t had a really good way to let you know what might be coming in the medium to long term.
So, every week, we'll share our thoughts on some of the top community feedback topics that we’ve been seeing on our platforms. We may work on some of these for a future update; some of these could be part of a long-term plan and might not have a date for when they’ll arrive in Scavengers. Others, we may be investigating or considering adding, but can’t promise that you’ll see them in the game. Finally, for some, we want to continue hearing your feedback and thoughts on, to ensure we’re considering the right way to approach it. Let’s break them down:
More Feedback Requested: This is where we need your help! We’ve heard your feedback, but would love more input on a few things. These items aren’t guaranteed as part of our long-term plans, so please continue sharing your feedback on these topics on Discord!
Adjusting Letty: We’re reading your feedback on Letty and that something just feels off, whether it’s her ability, Rosie, or her larger hitbox. We’re interested in hearing which part(s) are most frustrating when you play Letty.
Crosshair Visibility: White crosshair on white snow can make it difficult to see. We would like to know if there are any specific weapon(s) or type(s) of weapons that are more difficult to see than others. We’ll also be investigating ways to visualize the crosshair better, whether it’s changing the color or some other method.
Upgrading Signature Weapons: We hear your frustration with unlocking high tier Signature weapon variants then being unable to Craft them during a match. A suggestion is to Craft the Signature weapon first, then upgrade that to the higher tier variants as the game progresses. We would love to hear more from you if this is something you would enjoy and enhance your game experience.
Upcoming Blogs
Here’s where we’ll keep you updated on what blog content you might see!
This week is our latest game update, so we’ll be rolling out a Resurrection System change blog and Patch Notes so you know what to expect before the update hits.
We’ll be ending the week with another Questions of the Week blog so be sure to get your questions to us!
We’re committed to creating Scavengers with our amazing players. Please share your feedback and suggestions and let us know your thoughts on our focus topics.
June 16th Hotfix
Explorers,
In this hotfix, we’ve fixed a recurring game crash.
