With our largest game update yet also comes our first public, large-scale community gathering: ScavLab!
If you were a part of our Discord community before the launch of Early Access, you’ll know what ScavLab is, as we hosted a private, pre-launch celebration in it. For newcomers, let’s get to the details:
WHEN IS SCAVLAB?
This Saturday, May 29th, at 11 AM PT / 7 PM BST!
HOW DO I GET IN?
No need to download a different client, just make sure Scavengers is patched, load it up before 11 AM PT on Saturday, and queue up for ScavLab from the main menu. For players with newer Nvidia cards, please update your drivers to ensure you get the smoothest experience!
NOTE: There is a current player cap of 5,000, which operates on a first-come, first-served basis, so get in the queue early! Additionally, if the servers do get filled up but some participants drop out, vacancies can open up immediately, even after the event has started. Just keep an eye out on the ScavLab mode button - if it's greyed out, it means we're at maximum capacity. If it's not, then space has been freed and you can join in!
For those of you loading up but who don’t want to participate in ScavLab, please make sure you switch over the Mode option in the lobby to Expedition, as our countdown to ScavLab will be the default option.
WHAT IS SCAVLAB?
We’ll quote ourselves here: “Through our Early Access prep, we’ve been collaborating with Improbable’s London game studio on a very experimental sandbox testing platform, using Scavengers gameplay elements. We’re calling it ScavLab.
ScavLab was concepted by our London partners as a technology experiment, where we could host a massive amount of players, entities, and unique gameplay features in a single, shared communal hub. But scale isn’t exciting without purpose or fun, so we threw in some wild, conceptual ideas for Scavengers and it grew from there.
What we see in ScavLab is the opportunity to test a wide range of features - at scale and all together - in consideration for the core game. ScavLab is our new community event and testing space.”
WHAT’S IN THIS SCAVLAB?
Because we’ve been heads-down focused on the core Scavengers game, we don’t have too many changes to introduce from last time. That said, we have analysed the last event, went through feedback and have been working on balancing difficulty levels, improving overall performance and smoothing some of the features out.
We also felt it was a great time for everyone to come together to hang out with Josh, hear about upcoming Scavengers content, and maybe even get to ask some questions via Discord.
All-in-all, expect to have some serious fun sliding down a mountain, collecting datapoints, and battling thousands upon thousands of Thresh on a beautiful snowy lake (with jump pads…).
This ScavLab event is expected to run once for ~30-45 minutes. No repeats!
CAN I STREAM SCAVLAB?
Go ahead! If you’re a content creator or streamer who wants to stream this ScavLab event or participate in future ones, join in, stream the event, and tag us in your social posts!
JOIN THE DISCUSSION!
Like last time, we’ll also be hanging out in the ScavLab chat channels on our official Discord before, during, and after the event to discuss. Drop your feedback there!
May 26th 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 now live!
With this update, we also performed an account wipe, resetting your account to level 1. To thank all our Explorers for their dedication and passion so far, we’ve credited active players with Pioneer Rewards - including some sweet cosmetic items based on what your account level was pre-wipe.
Social Features
We’ve heard your feedback that our social system could use a few improvements, especially to make it easier to find a party and stay together after elimination. In this update, we’re making it easier to play as a squad.
Here’s what’s changing:
Parties are given the opportunity to stick together when leaving a match after being eliminated
You can find players you recently played with and easily add them to your Friends List
Party members now stay disconnected after match exit, even if they are eliminated
You can find recent players by opening up the Social menu and clicking on the Recent tab. Simply send a Friend request to add players to your Friends list and you’re ready to invite them to your squad!
Your full in-game name, including the unique identifier, has moved from the main lobby to the top of the Social menu. You’ll still need the full IGN (in-game name) to add players you haven’t recently teamed up with.
Research and Progression
Part of the reasoning for wiping progress now was so we could rework and improve parts of the Research system. We hope that as you progress and unlock Research, it will provide a better experience.
The power system was intended to reinforce session pacing and encourage playing multiple Explorers. Players’ perception of the system and prior experience with ‘Power’ mechanics resulted in some negative expectations that weren’t intended. We took this feedback on board and decided that the negatives outweigh the benefits of the system, so we’ve unplugged Power.
Here’s what changed:
Removed Power from the Research System
Overhauled and adjusted the Research unlocks and recipes
Salvage contents and resources have been reworked to provide smoother progression
Sliding
Explorers can quickly and easily slide down a hill - until they jump. Landing after a jump forces you to stand, when sometimes all you want is to continue sliding. With this in mind, we’ve made some changes to sliding and jumping to make it more exciting:
You can continue sliding even after an epic jump! While in the air, hit the CTRL key to go into a crouch. Upon landing, your Explorer will continue to slide without losing any momentum
Jump animations have been adjusted to better fit each Explorer’s build
Cosmetics
We already announced the new cosmetics coming with this update, but those aren’t the only changes! We’ve also added some new emotes and Keeper frames. Here’s all our new cosmetic adjustments:
Added: Weapon skins
Added: Account banners, emblems, and titles
Added: New emotes for Explorer progression
Added: New Keeper skins
Explorers
Kali
Added: Heartseeker X-Fyre
Deals fire damage over time on hit
Kali now remains cloaked while reviving teammates
Kali does not show up on the Radar while cloaked
Fixed: No longer uncloaks from friendly fires
Tarik
Added: Longstriker Desperado
Chance to trigger an explosion when the target is killed by a headshot
Adjusted: Stun Trap
Stun Trap cooldown increased to 25 seconds
Changes to Stun Trap effects when stunned:
Improved worble effects
Increased falloff for screen brightness and stun effects
Halden
Added: Strike Rifle Vigor
Chance to cause a brief slowdown effect on hit
Curative Aura no longer cancels Executions that are in progress
Fixed: Area of effect correctly matches visuals
Jae
Added: Maverick Adze
Deals double the damage against energy shields
Causes a brief slowdown on hit
Added: Maverick Depthcharger
Deals bleed damage over time against enemies with no armor
Refills stamina when hitting an enemy
Valora
Added: Devastator Corsac
Higher rate of fire, with a bigger magazine compared to Devastator
Deals lower damage per shot
Deals acid damage that will corrode enemy armor over time and deals additional damage to enemies without armor
Added: Devastator Nemesis
Fires a slow-moving bolt that can cause explosion damage upon impact
Fixed: Accuracy penalty immediately after exiting sprint while using Devastator
Cruz
Added: Cazador Shiver
Deals freeze damage on hit
Freeze damage slows down the target for a period of time and reduces their temperature
Talent Improvements
We’ve made updates to several Talents. We also heard your feedback that it can be difficult to determine what a Talent does. So, we’ve updated the Talent descriptions with more detailed information, to make it easier to understand what it does before you use it. Here’s what has changed:
Explorers with the Acrobatic trait (Kali, Valora, and Cruz) have had their Utility Talent Radar Blocker swapped with the Ninja Utility Talent Limbered Up
Radar Blocker is now available to Jae and Tarik
Talent descriptions updated with detailed information
Many Talents have been reworked and rebalanced
Fixed: Talents now work correctly after respawning
Fixed: Power Surge will now trigger correctly
Fixed: Heal Burst will now trigger correctly
Fixed: Power Reroute will now trigger correctly
Fixed: Cold Blood now lasts the entire match
Weapon Tuning
We did a weapon tuning pass, to re-balance many of the weapons in Scavengers. The following weapons were adjusted:
Longstriker and Predator Sniper Rifle
Reduced the projective velocity
Reduced the zoom magnification slightly
Reduced vertical push recoil on snipers - they now settle closer to the original aim
Added damage falloff
Snipers now exit ADS (aiming down sight) to perform bolt action
Warsong
Damage decreased
Sidekick
Rarity changed to Uncommon
Damage increased
EF-1 Microburst
Damage increased
Zoom magnification increased slightly
Opus
Rarity changed to Epic
Increased the damage
Slightly increased the headshot multiplier
Damage falloff extended slightly - targets can now be a bit further away before the long-distance effectiveness is reduced
Sweeper and Renegade SMGs
Damage increased at close range
Snowpiercer
Rarity changed to Rare
Improved accuracy and damage when rapid firing, using short draws
Deals bleed damage over time to unarmored targets
Can rapid-fire much faster than other bows
Harvester
Deals additional bleed damage over time to unarmored enemies
Outlander Melee Weapon Brainer
Damage increased
Outlander Melee Weapon Ripsaw
Damage increased
Outlander Melee Weapon Hackblade
Heavy attack damage decreased
Outlander Melee Weapon Chainshark
Basic attack damage greatly increased
Heavy attack damage slightly increased
Letty’s Rosie revolver
Reduced the headshot multiplier slightly
Kali’s Heartseeker
Damage falloff range extended
Cerberus bow has increased accuracy
Shockwave bow explodes on impact instead of attaching and exploding after a delay
We also made some adjustments to recoil spread. Overall, these changes should decrease your overall recoil spread, making it easier to hit your target.
Reduced the movement accuracy penalty for all weapons except pistols
Removed the movement accuracy penalty for only pistols
Reduced the accuracy penalty after reloading
Reduced the ADS recoil spread on many weapons
This is most noticeable when using a Rattler, Sweeper, and Renegade
We’ve updated the maximum ammo capacity for some ammo types.
Here are the current values:
Light: Decreased from 450 to 420
Medium: 225 (No change)
Heavy: Decreased from 90 to 60
Arrows: 135 (No change)
Shells: Decreased from 45 to 36
Explosive: Decreased from 15 to 12
General Combat
You can now sprint while reloading, and you will automatically transition back to a full sprint once reload completes. This makes for smoother, more fluid movement during combat
Throwing a grenade no longer forces you to remain unarmed. After throwing the last grenade, your Explorer now automatically switches to the last used weapon
Improvements to make using the controller easier:
Increased the strength of the sticky aim
Increased the hold duration to exit a vehicle to avoid accidentally exiting while pressing the reload button
Fixed: The chance to land headshots when aiming at the chest is no longer easier than expected
General Gameplay
The time of day is now randomized at the start of Expeditions
New Challenges have been added to the game
Improved messaging for players downed; kills, and teammate pings
Your Keeper is more attuned to your status! The Keeper lights will change when you are too cold or have low health
Warlords may now appear during Category 2 storms
Gorthokk, Bylobog, and Omicron have been made more lethal to better combat Explorer teams that wish to take them on
The final circle is smaller, and the final collapse happens more slowly
Decreased the number of Growths (dynamic scoring objectives) that appear at a time
Added more Supply Drop, Orbital Debris, and Data Uplink locations
Data and Data Uplinks We made some changes around the Datapoints to improve clarity and make it easier to upload your Datapoints at the Data Uplinks:
Data Uplinks now upload Datapoints faster
Data Uplink speed increases when more teammates are nearby
Players drop all their Datapoints if they are killed and eliminated after the Dropship has arrived
Data tubes are now represented in denominations based on how many Datapoints they contain
Datapoints can no longer be dropped from your inventory
Scrap We’re continuing to adjust the in-game Scrap balance. We’re adjusting the amount of Scrap dropped when an entire team is eliminated, as it was a bit too high.
The Scrap bonus for a full-team elimination has been reduced by 50%
Audio
Weapon audio improvements across Explorer weapons, Wildcard weapons, and Outlander weapons
Improved audio for boss objectives and AI factions
New audio for teammates downed and respawning
UI
Pings are now semi-transparent when aiming down sight (ADS)
PlayStation controllers are now properly supported by the UI, with relevant buttons
Improved item stacking in the UI. Your inventory will now smart-stack items if you have them split across different slots. You can also click or drag to combine them, they will stack up to the max capacity
The enemy ping is now semi-transparent and no longer shows an icon to differentiate enemy types
New background for the loading screen
Performance, Optimization, and Bug Fixes
Improvements to overall performance and hitches seen in matches
Continuous anti-cheat improvements
Fixed: Several client and server crashes
Fixed: Kill with a Grenade Challenge now completes properly
Fixed: Players no longer get stuck in a crouch after exiting a vehicle
Fixed: Enemies spawning inside level geometry
Fixed: Environment bug fixes for improper collision, mantling failures, visible seams in the ground, and floating set pieces
Fixed: Enemies clipping with environment assets while in combat
Fixed: Rattler audio ending
Fixed: Sound occasionally missing for the player shooting the Argonaut Splash
Fixed: Snow piles can no longer be seen or shot through
Fixed: Sickly Threshes spawning above a ground surface
Fixed: UI elements disappearing upon exiting the Explorer loadout screen
Fixed: Crafting icons appear small when first opening the Crafting menu
Fixed: AI not always reliably executing downed players
Fixed: Slide sound effects ending early
Fixed: Some chests being unable to be looted due to being slightly underground or clipping with snow and other set pieces
Fixed: Missing subtitles for Mother voice lines
Fixed: Dropship collision issues
Fixed: Attempting to craft weapons while downed corrupts the weapon crafting flow
Fixed: Retch enemies missing their spit trail effects
Fixed: Overseer spawning in the ground at Barricade Outpost
Fixed: Leftover collision from bear corpses catches players and causes them to jitter
Fixed: Missing text on unfriend prompt in Social menus
Fixed: The leaderboard can clip with text chat
Fixed: Data markers sometimes show up in regions the border storm has collapsed over
Fixed: Sluka vomit attack doesn’t show its effects
Fixed: Player loot dropping too slow
Fixed: Player cannot close the map and leaderboard screens with their respective keybinds while spectating
Fixed: Issues with Explorer hand positioning on a handful of weapons
Fixed: Missing localized text on a variety of screens
Downtime Announcement for May 26th Update
Explorers,
Scavengers will have a scheduled downtime on Wednesday, May 26th for the game update. During this time, our servers will be offline and the game will be unavailable.
The downtime is expected to begin at 8:00 AM PT / 4:00 PM BST and last approximately 2 hours.
Please note that the estimated duration of this update time is subject to change.
During this downtime, we will address the following:
Wiping account progress for all players.
This is the final wipe and after that, players will play for keeps. Please see previous announcements for more information on this!
Awarding Pioneer Rewards
Thanking our dedicated Early Access players for their support!
Setting our latest game update live, which includes new cosmetic items, improvements to the social system, and more! We’ll release full patch notes before the update goes live.
New Cosmetic Items are Coming!
Explorers,
We’re introducing new cosmetic items, to make the Scavengers experience unique for you as part of the game update on Wednesday, May 26th!
Not all cosmetics will be available immediately and we’ll be adding more options in the future, so please let us know what you would like to see!
New Emblems, Banners, and Titles
You can now show off new emblems, banners, and titles as part of this update. Many of these new items can be unlocked just by playing Scavengers through leveling up an Explorer or participating in events or playtests! These cosmetics are set for your account and will be visible regardless of the Explorer selected.
When you’re ready to showcase a new style, simply open up the Social menu. We’ve added new functionality to this menu, and it now includes all the emblems, banners, and titles. Select any unlocked items and you’re ready to show off to your squad.
These cosmetics are displayed behind your Explorer as you navigate the main lobby. When you join a party, you bring your emblem, banner, and title with you - impress your friends! These items also migrate to the Explorer selection lobby.
We also have a special Early Adopter title for all active players who joined us before the upcoming account wipe on Wednesday, May 26th. In addition, any player who reached at least account level 10 before the wipe will receive more cool rewards - including new Frontrunner banners and emblems!
New Weapon Skins
We’re adding a new way to personalize your in-game experience - weapon skins are coming to Scavengers! We’re starting out with skins for only two weapons, but we’ll be adding more over time. These weapon skins won’t be available immediately and we’ll be adding more in the future. We’re excited to introduce new cosmetic items in the next update and hope you enjoy them. This is only the beginning and we plan to add more ways to personalize your Scavengers experience in the future.
We would love to get your thoughts and feedback on what new cosmetic items you would like to see in the future!
Keep Warm!
Permanent Progression, Rewards, and Unlocked Accounts
Explorers,
The first month of Early Access has been amazing, and we could not have done it without you. Thank you for playing, streaming, and sharing your feedback with us!
We’re excited to release our next game update next Wednesday, May 26th - check back next week for more information on what’s coming. But first, we want to talk about the upcoming account wipe that is also happening next week.
Account Progression
When Early Access began, we knew that there would be one final wipe before your progression became permanent. Having the wipe now is an important part of the process as we continue our work on the console versions of Scavengers (which is making great progress!). This allows us to integrate the console version into Scavengers multiplayer structure.
The final progression wipe will happen on Wednesday, May 26th to coincide with our game update. Any Explorers or Research you unlock, or the progress you make leveling your account will be saved from that point on!
We know the big question that is on everyone’s mind - what exactly is being lost and what is carrying over after the account wipe?
Basically with this wipe, your entire account will be reset. Your account and Explorer levels will be set back to 1 - you’ll start over with only Tarik, Halden, and Valora available immediately. Anything you purchased from the Shop will be removed, Chips will be wiped, and you’ll be starting your Research over.
Unlocked Accounts
We want to give players a chance to experience everything Scavengers has to offer before the final wipe. We’ll be unlocking accounts from Saturday, May 22nd at 12 PM PT / 8 PM BST until our next content update on Wednesday, May 26th!
All Explorers will be unlocked, making this the perfect opportunity to test out new Explorers. We’re also unlocking Research: all Talents, weapons, throwables, and items will be available! Experiment and figure out your optimal loadout as you test out your Explorers in the frozen wasteland.
Cosmetic items such as Explorer skins are not unlocked during this period. You will still need to use Chips to unlock them - just remember, they will be removed during the final wipe!
Pioneer Rewards
We appreciate the commitment and passion our players have shown so far during Early Access. In celebration and to thank you for your support, we’ll be granting Pioneer Rewards to our early adopters and players. We hope all our early Explorers enjoy these tokens of our appreciation.
You will receive additional rewards based on your account level. The higher your level, the more rewards you’ll receive - including Chips to help you unlock your favorite Explorer! Here’s what you can get, depending on your level:
All Active Players:
Pilgrim Backpack
Early Adopter Title
Account Level 10 - 24:
Frontrunner 1 Emblem
Frontrunner 1 Banner
1,000 Chips
Account Level 25 - 49:
Frontrunner 1 Emblem & Banner
Frontrunner 2 Emblem
Frontrunner 2 Banner
1,500 Chips
Account Level 50+:
Frontrunner 1 Emblem & Banner
Frontrunner 2 Emblem & Banner
Frontrunner 3 Emblem
Frontrunner 3 Banner
Frontrunner Title
3,000 Chips
You have until the update on Wednesday, May 26th to level up your account, so take advantage of all the recently unlocked Explorers and weapons to push your account level higher to earn even more rewards!
These rewards will be added to your account after the content update on Wednesday, May 26th. We hope you enjoy your new cosmetic emblems and banners - show them off with pride!
May 17th Hotfix
Explorers,
With today’s hotfix we addressed one of the larger issues that has been plaguing your Scavengers experience - being unable to use Talents after respawning. You should be able to reliably use your Talents throughout the entire match, not just before your first death.
Talents now work correctly after respawning
We’re continuing to investigate and correct other issues that have been reported by you during Early Access. Keep an eye out for additional bug fixes in future updates.
Keep warm!
May 13th Hotfix
Explorers,
Our main goal during Early Access is to create Scavengers with you, and that means trying things out, listening to your feedback, and sharing lessons. In last week’s patch we wanted to introduce more incentives for PvP (by allowing you to loot enemy weapons on a squad wipe) and create more tradeoffs for running high-rarity loadouts (by increasing Scrap costs and reducing Scrap drop rates from caches).
After assessing the game state, looking at our weekend data, and listening to your feedback, we don’t think we quite hit the mark with our changelist. The changes below are to correct some of the side-effects from last week as we move forward to improve Scavengers.
Addressing Cheating and Exploits
Anti-cheat remains a top priority for us, as we continue to investigate and address reports of cheats and exploits. It’s also worth noting that our anti-cheat systems will become better with time as more data is collected in the wild and fed into these tools.
While we know it’s frustrating encountering a cheater, please continue reporting suspicious activity via Discord or the in-game system, as that’s where we have the best telemetry and can develop stronger, more comprehensive automated responses.
Looting Player Weapons
In the last hotfix, when a squad was eliminated, the players dropped their weapons. This was introduced to provide a reward for getting player kills. After listening to feedback and reviewing the data over the weekend, we realized that this didn’t meet the objective we were striving for.
Filling your loadout by crafting over the course of the session should be a rewarding pursuit. It’s cool and fun to sometimes shortcut that by finding a high-end weapon, but having them drop when a player is killed devalued that dynamic. In this update, we’re reverting those changes.
Players will no longer drop weapons when a team is eliminated. This includes all weapons, not just signature weapons
That said, we still want to reward players for those epic player versus player battles. So we’re introducing a new change:
Any time a player is eliminated, they will drop Scrap
If a team is eliminated, they will drop bonus Scrap
Players are still rewarded for PvP encounters, but the emphasis is now on crafting their loadout build rather than picking up enemy weapons.
You can read the full details around the Scrap adjustments in the section below.
Scrap Adjustments
Last week we adjusted the amount of Scrap received from strategic caches to create more tradeoffs for running high-rarity loadouts. The optimal strategy was for teams to split up to unlock strategic caches while avoiding PvP fights in the early game. And once late game started, the scarcity of Scrap made it harder for teams to craft late-game items.
We want players to have access to Scrap at various points during the match. During the beginning, players can level up by the Scrap available in Strategic Caches and AI units. As players pivot to focus on other goals (crafting high tier weapons, gathering the most Datapoints, hunting down the opposing team) the ways to collect Scrap shift. With fewer large PvE sources in the late game, players can still collect Scrap through PvP and PvE sources.
PvP Scrap Source
A killed player will drop a small portion of the Scrap in their inventory which other players will be able to pick up
This Scrap penalty upon death ensures that we don’t inflate the Scrap economy throughout the match, and to provide a consequence for engaging in risky strategies. The amount of Scrap dropped should generally be a small percentage of the overall inventory value, unless the player is only carrying a small amount of Scrap. This Scrap penalty also adds a consequence to risky strategies as players lose a not inconsequential amount of Scrap.
The amount of Scrap dropped depends on the player’s shield level, with a bonus for eliminating the entire team:
Common (White) Shield:
Teammate: 25 Scrap for each death
Last teammate (when team is eliminated): 150 Scrap
Uncommon (Green) Shield:
Teammate: 50 Scrap for each death
Last teammate (when team is eliminated): 300 Scrap
Rare (Blue) Shield:
Teammate: 100 Scrap for each death
Last teammate (when team is eliminated): 600 Scrap
Epic (Purple) Shield:
Teammate: 150 Scrap for each death
Last teammate (when team is eliminated): 900 Scrap
PvE Scrap Source We’re also adjusting the Scrap from PvE encounters. Scrap gains from AI is to bring the Scrap economy into a little more balance where player teams can accrue scrap through the natural course of play without feeling forced to pursue strategic camps to progress.
Here’s the breakdown:
Non-Elite AI: Increased frequency, so Scrap will drop more often
Elite AI: Increased frequency and 30% more Scrap is dropped
Crafting Costs
When crafting, we want to introduce strategic choice. Do you want to upgrade your shield or weapon first? Is now the perfect time to craft a Thermal Boost or save the Scrap for a vehicle?
When looking at the data after the hotfix, we realized that we might have tuned it a bit too far. We want players to have various options but not feel as though some items are completely off the table. We’re adjusting the Scrap cost for most of the weapons and shields. We’re not completely rolling back the changes but it should be slightly easier to craft higher rarity weapons and shields.
Here’s the breakdown:
Uncommon Weapons decreased from 300 to 250
Rare Weapons decreased from 600 to 500
Epic Weapons decreased from 800 to 750
There is no change to Legendary Weapons
Uncommon Shields decreased from 300 to 250
Rare Shields decreased from 600 to 500
Epic Shields decreased from 800 to 750
We also changed the number of crafted Consumables from 2 to 1, which was a mistake. We wanted to heighten the danger of being stuck in a storm, but it didn’t work quite as expected. By limiting it to only one Thermal Boost, it prevented players from crafting items for their teammates. Scavengers is a squad game, so we want to still be able to help out your teammates in a pinch. We’ll look into other methods of heightening the danger when caught in a storm.
We are reverting this change, so get ready to craft two Thermal Boosts next time your team is caught out in a storm!
Reverted: Increased number of crafted Consumables to 2
Salvage
We hear your concerns on the balance of end-of-match rewards—for now, we want to make it less punishing for those who die without extracting, as you can sometimes get ‘stuck’ on your progress trying to get more Salvage for your research, but unable to do so because you can’t make it to the endgame. There are meant to be other sources of Salvage and these will be introduced in future; however, without those in place, the end-of-match Salvage became the only way to progress.
This was never our intention, so we’re making some adjustments.
Players can now keep the Salvage collected by all members of their squad, even if their team is eliminated or they are left on the planet.
Rejoice and enjoy your spoils whether you are eliminated, left on the planet, or successfully extract!
Respawn After Dropship Arrives
When the match comes to a close, all surviving teams scramble to make it to the Dropship and successfully extract. With the circle closing, those who die in the last few minutes of the match could respawn close to an enemy, or at enough of a distance that there is no way to make it to the Dropship on time. We also want to add more risk and consequences when players die—being unable to respawn accomplishes that. Here’s what’s changing:
We’re turning off respawning after the Dropship lands, so anyone who dies will be eliminated.
Bug Fixes
Fixed: Crash when cycling through menus in the tutorial
Fixed: Audio crash
Fixed: Mini leaderboard missing during a match
Fixed: Disabling fog during a match
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 found during Early Access. 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 along in the months ahead.
Scavengers AMA: Wednesday, May 12th at 12 PM PT / 8 PM BST
Explorers!
We’ll be hosting our first Scavengers Reddit AMA on Wednesday, May 12th at 12 PM PT / 8 PM BST! Josh, Mary, and the Midwinter team will be on hand to answer your questions.
We want to make sure that everyone has a chance to participate, so feel free to head over to the Scavengers subreddit ask your questions now! We’ll reply once the AMA begins on Wednesday.
Early Access Week 1: How's It Going?
HI EXPLORERS,
JoshingtonState here. I’m going to open as I did in last week’s letter with a thank you.
Launching Scavengers with you all has been a high point of my career, and the team is so excited to get to work on what’s next - we’re in this for the long haul.
By the time you’re reading this, you’ve probably already played on our first patch, which looks to reinforce our anti-cheat measures, rebalance scrap costs and research progress, as well as fixing some server/lobby stability issues.
We’re also reading and listening intently wherever we can: Discord, Twitter, Steam reviews, everything. We hear you and want to share some of our own thoughts and where we’re at.
OVER HALF A MILLION UNIQUE PLAYERS HAVE PLAYED SCAVENGERS!
That’s a lot of players - honestly more than we were expecting for Early Access. We’ve had great support from our partners at Steam and Epic, as well as positive (and constructive!) feedback from streamers all across the world, the latter of which are leaving us both star-struck and determined to continue improving.
We also know that Scavengers is a unique blend of strategy, survival, and battle royale competition, and that means our playerbase is going to be equally diverse in their perspectives and feedback. This isn’t to invalidate one opinion vs. another, but to highlight that we have a wide range of opinions to listen to, and we want to be equally thoughtful in how we build this game with all of you. Our best path forward is to communicate consistently about the future of Scavengers, and you can tell us if you like what you hear (or not).
For now, Early Access is about stabilizing what we have, with things like...
ANTI-CHEAT
I don’t have much to share in terms of details (and it might give cheaters a heads up), but know that this is one of our top priorities. Please do us a favor and continue reporting any cheaters you run into (both in-game and on Discord!), so we can continue taking action.
RESEARCH, LOADOUTS, AND POWER PROGRESSION
As Wix mentioned in the gameplay balance dev blog, “. . . we know we need to keep a balance between increasing a player’s power and also ensuring that high-level players do not automatically win every engagement.”
I want to acknowledge that this is hard to get right. We think there’s something valuable and unique in the RPG elements of Scavengers: meaningful game-to-game progression, collecting salvage for research, trying out new loadouts, and researching toward a new ‘build.’ That said, we never want Scavengers to feel pay-to-win, or that certain fights are unwinnable because you had less stats. Tuning this balance is what Early Access is for, and it’s why we want to do at least one wipe before we officially launch.
Throughout Early Access, you’ll see us pulling a number of levers (aka tuning) with regards to power and progression. At this moment, nothing is off the table, including adjusting scrap costs, research speeds, material gains, weapon balance, and overall distribution of research items.
We also believe there’s a lack of transparency when it comes to assessing enemy power levels. There’s a lot of per-match strategy involved in Scavengers that contributes to player power, including map movement, crafting prioritization, and a bit of luck. We want a majority of your power and success to come from what you do in any single match - let’s say roughly 70%. We also want research progress to give you interesting strengths - and weaknesses (like higher-rarity loadouts taking more resources) - but it shouldn’t be the deciding factor between two equally skilled Explorers.
MID-TERM FEEDBACK AND PRIORITIES
These are focuses for our next big update (our biggest ‘type’ of content drop, going hotfix > patch > update), coming in just a few weeks. Not all of them are guaranteed, but we want to be proactive in communicating our intentions.
Fixing bugs. A big priority. In terms of identifying bugs and issues, nothing beats stress testing the game with hundreds of thousands of matches being played. Keep the reports coming, and we’ll keep on tackling our known issues.
Performance optimizations. As I mentioned above, Scavengers is also being played on hundreds of thousands of unique machines, specs, and environments, and with that comes a lot of valuable information on performance. In the coming weeks, expect us to continue optimizing the game, and if you still get choppy FPS, let us know.
Game balance. As I mentioned above as well, nothing is sacred. We’ll continue to tune Explorers, weapons, the map, in-game economy progression, and out-of-game research progression.
Polishing core gameplay. We’ll continue polishing movement, shooting, and all related gameplay features.
More stats! We want to expand our leaderboard support to let you track accomplishments and make comparisons against your friends.
More strategy! We’d like to implement more strategic options when it comes to scoring and extraction that don’t necessarily demand PvP mastery. We’re also keeping an eye on dropship extractions and the pacing of how matches are ending.
Better social features. More ways to find, connect, and remain partied with other players.
More cosmetic options. We know you want more personalization and individuality in Scavengers.
CONSOLE
As we see in all of our social comments, console is a huge request and one we’re working on. We’ll give an update when we have one, but expect this to be a matter of months, not weeks. Staying nimble and focused on one platform helps us ensure Scavengers is fun to play before going wide and multi-platform.
FINALLY, WE WON’T STOP LISTENING AND COMMUNICATING
Early Access is for learning and developing together, and that means it’s on us to be constantly engaging. If you haven’t been keeping up with our communications, here are some of the ways to stay connected to us, and some of our future plans.
We run ‘Questions of the Week’ every week or two from the dev team and source questions from anywhere
We use the official Scavengers Discord the most, and have dedicated feedback channels there that the whole dev team reads
We also want to host an intimate feedback session with content creators to hear more from those who play Scavengers for larger audiences (if you’re interested, stay connected to us via our Scavengers content creator program)
Details on the last two programs will come next week! Your feedback helps us make this the best experience it can be, so keep the discussion flowing and we’ll talk to you all soon.
Keep warm.
Josh & the Midwinter Team
Early Access Hotfix Updates
UPDATED MAY 6TH
Explorers,
It’s been an incredible week 1 of Early Access and we want to thank you all for playing.
Our plan is to be as responsive as possible throughout all of Early Access and, with your help, we’ve identified a few high-priority issues to hotfix. We’ll be pushing out this hotfix on Thursday, May 6th around 2:00 AM PT / 10:00 AM BST. There will be no downtime with this hotfix! If you are in the lobby, you will be kicked from the game and will need to restart. You will not be kicked from an active match - you will need to restart Scavengers after completing it.
This is by no means a complete update or fix for all problems, but we hope this resolves some things while we continue to investigate and work on the rest. Midwinter creative director and co-founder Josh Holmes will also have an update later this week on what we’re focused on as a studio.
Research Update
When considering progression, it seems reasonable to think that weapons and items that require higher progression are more powerful. Scavengers is designed differently though, and we didn’t do a very good job communicating that clearly. This has led to some players feeling betrayed in two ways: those who haven’t progressed feel like they’re behind and those who have progressed are disappointed that they don’t see raw power boosts for being ahead. We have three main goals when it comes to progression:
Give players the tools you need to compete right away
Give players a space to experiment with strategy and play-style over time, instead of just advancing power
Allow players to progress even if they don’t extract
Right now, we’re not hitting our goals. We’ll be making some changes to help us hit our goals, beginning with offering our more generically powerful options at a lower level, and increasing the drop rate on certain research items.
Moved Warsong, Predator, and Quicksilver to Tier 1 (basic) Research, adjusting the cost to research them
Adjusted drop rates to smooth out some of the bumpy parts of progression:
Scourge Biomass now has a chance to grant Collagen or Resin
Doubled the chance of acquiring Rare or better resources from Industrial Byproducts
Crystalline Formation grants 35% more resources.
Crystalline Formation has a chance to grant Petroleum
Common materials grant more nanites
Expensive Uncommon materials grant more nanites
Addressing Cheating and Exploits
We’ve closed the loop on a couple of exploits and fixed an issue that allowed player names to visually change midway through a match, making it difficult to submit a player report. Now you can rest assured that if you need to report a player, you are reporting the correct one!
Please continue to report players you see exploiting glitches and abusing the game. Our team is monitoring all your reports, but it helps us best if you can report in-game and via Discord, as that’s where we have the best telemetry. We appreciate all the information you can give us to help investigate and address exploits and cheats.
Adjusted Crafting Costs
We’ve been listening to your feedback around crafting - especially with high-level players taking over matches quickly with high-rarity loadouts. We want there to be meaningful tradeoffs for bringing in higher-rarity loadouts—like having a weaker early game—but many players are rocketing past the early game due to low scrap costs and high rewards. The Scrap cost is now more in-line with the quality of the crafted gear, and we’ve toned down how much Scrap can be acquired from caches (the ones your Keeper has to scan to unlock).
These changes should incentivize more strategic planning for gathering and using Scrap. Here’s the breakdown:
Rare weapons increased from 400 to 600
Epic Weapons increased from 500 to 800
Legendary Weapons increased from 600 to 900
Rare Shields increased from 400 to 600
Epic Shields increased from 500 to 800
Decreased number of crafted Consumables from 2 to 1
Decreased amount of Scrap received from Caches from 525 to 450
Looting Player Weapons
We hear your feedback in wanting more rewards or incentives for getting player kills, but also want there to be strategic tradeoffs between power-clearing camps (more resources, EXP, and scrap) and hunting other players (more datapoints and stealthy map movement). We’re going to be cautious with our approach because we don’t want to heavily disrupt the match economy (yet), so a straightforward and intuitive benefit for squad wipes feels like a good start.
Upon wiping an enemy squad, they will drop all of their weapons - including signature weapons!
Friends List
Some accounts have gotten into a bad state after linking and unlinking their Improbable and Steam/Epic accounts. This has led to players being unable to add friends, invite friends to a party, or friends appearing offline. Thank you for sticking with us as we worked to fix these issues and get everyone teaming up again. With this hotfix, you will be able to invite your friends and squad up, to defeat the Scourge together!
Bug Fixes
We’ve also fixed some issues, to make your life on the frozen wasteland more enjoyable:
Crashes and Desyncs
Fixed: many of the most frequent causes of the server crashes
Fixed: issue where there were large movement desyncs after reviving a downed player
Fixed: issue where the client closed after being left open for an hour
Fixed: issue where the server crashed when exiting a vehicle
Collisions
Fixed: players hiding and shooting from inside the Dropship’s upper ramp
Fixed: Issue where gun crosshair would lock onto larger trees
Lobby
Fixed: issue where players were not receiving the in-game Research rewards if they experienced server issues, or were dropped from the game unexpectedly
Fixed: issue where crafting Kali’s Heartseeker or Jae’s Maverick did not count for the ‘Craft a Signature Weapon’ challenge
Adjusted: the end of match feedback survey will only appear for the first few matches. After that, we’ll call you at the end of every day to ask how things are going (kidding!).
Pings
Adjusted: the enemy ping icon will only stay in place a for few seconds to show last known position
Explorer
Fixed: Letty’s Rosie Vendetta can no longer be activated by hitting teammates
Storms
Adjusted: shrank the initial storm circle size by reducing the safe radius around the starting locations. This was done to reduce the overall distance of storm collapses in subsequent storm categories
Adjusted: we’ve made improvements to the collapsing storm to reduce long runs for players who get caught on an unlucky side
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 along in the months ahead.
If you haven’t already, join our Discord to talk to fellow Explorers and our team, or follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates!
