Today we are releasing a small balance update for our SCP: Secret Laboratory Halloween Event, which focuses on some slight adjustments to SCP-330 (the "Take Only Two" bowl of candies), as well as other minor tweaks.
The Pink Candy
The explosive candy was incredibly fun in the first days of the Halloween event, but its destructive power against SCPs was quickly discovered. Today's update limits the pink candy damage dealt to the SCPs while maintaining similar destructive power against other human classes. We understand if our decision won't be appreciated by all of you, but the Halloween update will continue for about a week, and the pink candy already affects the balance of the game to an extent where SCPs are afraid to attack humans classes. The exact changes are:
The lethal explosion range is slightly decreased (by 15%).
The maximum damage a candy can deal to humans is now 200 HP.
The damage is tripled for Zombies (one candy can deal up to 600 HP).
SCP damage calculation is new and improved! For every 100 HP worth of damage an explosion would deal to a human, it will take 10% of the SCP's max health.
The spawn chance for the pink candy has been reduced by half.
Other Candies
We've buffed almost all candies, to make them more useful.
[Blue] Stamina addition increased from 15% to 50%
[Red] Health addition increased from 15 HP to 35 HP
[Green] Unchanged, the Invigorated Effect is given for 10 seconds.
[Purple] Artificial health addition increased from 15 AHP to 25 AHP
[Yellow] Health regeneration is no longer linear, it now starts fast and decays over time.
Miscellaneous
As requested, we have re-added Mr. Nutty chuckle.
Halloween 2020
It's almost Halloween, and you know what that means! As the end of October draws closer, it's time for the facility to get a little scarier. This year, we've prepared a temporary update for you, featuring reskins, new decorations, gameplay changes, and more.
Halloween Decorations
These have been active since the beginning of October. During the month of October, the facility will have a spine-chilling flair, including darkened lighting, pumpkins, candles, and other season-appropriate decorations.
These decorations were implemented automatically — which is why you were able to see them before this update — but they’ve received some extra adjustments here. Keep an eye out later this year, too: Halloween isn't the only time of year decorations will appear in the facility.
Note: We're working on an option that would allow server owners to disable recurring decorations. This already partially exists as a configuration option, but it's not fully functional. For the time being, we hope it isn’t too intrusive!
Skin and Audio Changes
Back in 2018, the Halloween update included changes to the in-game models of SCPs and several human classes. In 2019, Megapatch II may have taken the spotlight, but this year we've once again re-done some models for the holiday season. Most of them are brand new, but you may recognize some making a return.
We've also made some changes to several of the game’s audio assets. Players can expect to hear different sounds when they enter a round, and sound cues where there previously were none — keep your eyes and ears open!
SCP-330
This was by far the most requested change for the Halloween update. For this event only, you can find SCP-330, Take Only Two, somewhere in the facility. It's a bowl of wrapped, seasonal candies, and every one of them that you eat could help or hinder you in a different way.
Take no more than two, please.
For the time being, SCP-330 will remain unique to the 2020 Halloween event. Depending on future feedback, especially impact on gameplay, re-implementation and recurrence could be discussed internally. In the meantime, treat it like an interesting side feature for the holiday!
Status Update - Version 10.1
While making changes for the Halloween update this year, we continued working on and refining version 10.1, which will include SCP-096's rebalance and a plethora of fixes. We're currently planning to release this version very soon after the end of the Halloween event (ideally within a day), but this may change depending on testing results. Until then, enjoy the spooky changes we’ve prepared for Halloween!
We based this update on version 10.0.4. Many changes that are in version 10.1 won't be visible here. This doesn’t indicate that the changes don’t exist, but rather that the Halloween update is built on a version that we know is stable.
Miscellaneous Notes
Re-enabled the Halloween achievement, which is awarded at the end of the round
Fixed some lights not correctly being disabled during October
Disposed of a body in the vents
Conclusion
"The game isn't scary," we hear people say "It just isn't dark; all the rooms are so bright" But we heard your complaints, so starting today We've made the game spooky, to fill you with fright
You've seen some already, they litter the halls Candles and pumpkins and flickering lights Now we've made them darker, and dirtied the walls And packed the facility with fearsome sights
So many people in costumes, looking for treats And for this next little thing, we think you'll be fans A bowl packed with candy, filled with sugary sweets But don't take too many, or you might lose your hands
Now fear the darkness, close up your door Because the monsters inside all have costumes now, too From doctor to statue to doggos and more Cross your fingers, and pray they don’t find you
But you've been reading enough, it's now time to go So flick off the lights and turn on fullscreen It's the update for October, and we want you to know That we wish you a happy and healthy Halloween.
10.0.3 Community Form - We Need Your Feedback!
Hey everyone!
Nostra here, the Feedback Manager at Northwood Studios. On behalf of Northwood Studios, we hope that you are enjoying Scopophobia and 10.0.3’s changes and improvements. In our ongoing effort to improve quality of life, squashing bugs, and adding new features, we would like to hear your feedback on our new small update. In the future, when 096 is re-balanced, we will post another form asking how you feel about the changes so please stay tuned for that. Below are the links to the form, translated into many different languages so we can hear voices from our non-english communities.
Thank you for playing SCP: Secret Laboratory, and see you in the facility. ~Northwood Studios
Maintenance Patch - Version 10.0.4
Today we are releasing version 10.0.4 of SCP: Secret Laboratory. This is a small update which is mostly focused on some anticheat adjustments.
Whilst not contained within this patch, we are aware of an issue concerning some missing files from the server build. We are currently investigating this and should hopefully have a fix ready soon. We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who brought this issue to our attention!
Maintenance Patch - Version 10.0.3
SCP: Secret Laboratory is always changing. Version 10.0.3 is our latest update to the game, bringing with it some stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as introducing a new feature for SCP voice chat. You can find the patch notes below.
Role Indicators
When playing as an SCP, voice chat is often critical to your team's success. Players use it to communicate their wins, their losses, and everything in-between. It also has other uses, like letting your teammates know that you've revived someone as SCP-049 or asking them for directions. It's a very important part of playing an antagonistic role.
Something we've noticed lately is the confusion that stems from memorizing your teammates. Every SCP is different, with the exception of SCP-939 being able to spawn twice in a match, and having to memorize what role each player fills can be stressful, especially in the heat of a fight or escaping from an engagement that went wrong.
To fix this, we've added graphical indicators to represent what class a teammate is playing. Whenever a player uses voice chat as an SCP, an image representing their role will display next to their name for all other SCPs. This should play a big part in eliminating the frustration of memorizing your teammates, and even allows teammates that don't speak to show their role by tapping their push-to-talk key!
This extends to all SCP classes, including instances of 049-2 or any SCPs that are created after the start of the round by server moderators or plugins. When a teammate starts talking, you'll immediately know who they are and what role they're playing.
Note that this feature is only available for SCPs right now - other methods of voice chat that display names, such as radio and spectator chat, won't display any icons. This was a deliberate choice, to preserve the uncertainty and paranoia created over radio. If you've been alone for a while, and you suddenly hear somebody asking if anyone is on the radio, you can't be certain whether or not they're an ally, or an enemy trying to lure you out.
Fixes
Version 10.0.3 features a plethora of fixes and adjustments, which are as follows:
Fixed SCP-096 being unable to leave the intercom room.
Fixed the Epsilon-11's flashlight not appearing when dropped on the ground.
Fixed the Hemorrhage status effect causing damage to stationary players who were holding their Sprint key.
Fixed an issue causing ammo pickups to become "ghost items" if not all of the ammunition was taken from the pickup.
Fixed a duplicate RID in the Entrance Zone.
Improvements to nickname sanitization.
Fixed an exploit causing SCP-079's power to not drain at the correct rate when using a speaker while doors were locked.
Fixed the Motion Blur setting not applying in-game.
Fixed non-civilian classes obtaining the "High on the Wings of Caffeine" achievement while passing the escape boundary with SCP-207 active.
Fixed the audio effect played when attempting to fire with an empty magazine playing twice.
The TIX INFO RA command now requires RespawnEvents permission.
The game client should now work on Wine for Linux players.
MTF Scientists now properly spawn with a disarmer.
Added unique messages for escaping while disarmed, instead of showing the normal escape message for your team.
Players no longer collide with generator doors, which fixes several out-of-bounds exploits.
Anticheat improvements and fixes.
API Changes
This segment is for plugin developers. You can safely skip these notes if you aren't involved with the creation of plugins or mods.
Implements the ForceCuff syncvar on the Handcuffs class. When enabled, the player will be disarmed, even if no other players have interacted with them.
Steamworks has been updated.
What about SCP-096's rebalance?
We're still working on the balance of SCP-096. Our survey, run in late August of this year, has been very helpful in diagnosing some of SCP-096’s problems and getting the community's input about them. We've now playtested all of the options we presented in the survey, and we'll likely be releasing a more detailed post soon describing our balancing process and our final decisions. In the meantime, however, keep an eye out.
Conclusion
This is a small update, but it may be a significant one. Being able to see teammates' roles as an SCP should provide a significant improvement to teamwork potential, and we've fixed several long-standing bugs with the game. We hope you keep enjoying SCP: Secret Laboratory!
SCP-096 Rebalancing - We Need Your Feedback!
Hello, everyone!
We hope that you've been enjoying Scopophobia's release so far. The team has been hard at work squashing bugs and making adjustments; we hope that the improvements offered in 10.0.1 have made the game more enjoyable for you. One of the most challenging aspects of Scopophobia was the rework of the title character, SCP-096. We've heard your feedback, and after extensive internal debate we have a few ideas we think you'll like. We've prepared a brief survey for you to fill out so we can get your thoughts on this.
Hello, and thank you for your attention in this matter. We hear your feedback on all media outlets. While feedback and communication are good on any medium, surveys are by far the best metric we can use to process feedback data, as we have no metrics system implemented in the game. If you are one of the many who want to see changes or give feedback directly to the developers and design, responding to surveys is by far the best way to do such. Thank you!
-Sin, Game Design Manager, Northwood Studios
Thank you for your time, and have fun!
~Northwood Studios
Hotfix - Version 10.0.2
10.0.1, our latest refinement version, introduced some new bugs that we've now addressed. While this didn't have any major consequences, it resulted in an issue related to SCP-096's health scaling, as well as locking 079 into place if they navigated into the containment hallway of SCP-012. 10.0.2 fixes these problems and a few more, bringing the following changes:
Changes
SCP-096 can now charge through the heavy gate on the Surface Zone.
Crosshair textures, as well as the texture of SCP-914’s settings panel, now remain legible even with low texture quality settings.
Slight performance optimizations.
Replaced several textures around the map with higher-quality versions.
These texture adjustments were erroneously featured in the changelogs for our last version, but didn't actually ship with it. We've included them properly in 10.0.2. You can find an example below - the left image is new, while the right image is old.
Fixes
Fixed an issue causing SCP-096 to not gain artificial health whenever they acquired a new target
Fixed death reasons using the server's localization instead of the client's
Fixed an issue causing doors to leave no destroyed versions when they were destroyed with a grenade
Fixed an issue causing SCP-079's view to become stuck in SCP-012's room when navigating to it through cameras
Fixed checkpoint doors occasionally failing to play their closing sound
Fixes towards a bug causing SCP-096 to become locked in their "Try Not To Cry" state
Fixes SCP-173 being able to move freely while blinded by a flash grenade
Fixed flash grenades flashing players through walls, doors, and other objects
Fixed item pickups not appearing in rooms whose doors are destroyed before being opened.
Fixed being able to display the inventory screen before the round has started.
Various anticheat improvements and several exploit fixes.
Improved HTTP requests on Windows, and fixed HTTP requests on Linux servers.
API Changes
Updated NorthwoodLib.
Doors now have a Vector2 variable called PrySpeed, which dictates the speed that SCP-096 moves through them while prying. This is used to allow 096 to move through heavy gates whose sizes are larger than normal (including the Surface Zone’s heavy gate.)
Conclusion
This was a much smaller patch than version 10.0.1, but was necessary to assemble and release a (slightly delayed) hotfix in order to address the issues it introduced. We're sorry for any trouble this may have caused, and we'll be trying to make steps to ensure that such an incident won't happen again.
Thank you for your continued support! It means the world to us. Keep your eyes open for upcoming tweaks and balance changes in the near future.
Scopophobia Refinement - Version 10.0.1
Hey - since Scopophobia’s release, we’ve been continually patching issues that have cropped up, as well as fixing some long-time bugs. Because the release has actually been quite stable, we’ve taken our time with it, but here is version 10.0.1, featuring the following changes:
Changes
UI
Main Menu
The "Create Server" option is now hidden by default.* The -scs startup argument will cause it to be visible on startup, and the new client commands cst and tcs toggle its visibility on and off. See the bottom of the announcement for more information on this decision.
The News tab now properly displays news entries with more than 4,000 characters.
"Light Rendering Mode” has been renamed to “Render Lights.”
The option to play using DIrectX12 no longer appears if the OS is not Windows 10.
In-Game Menu
Adds a Server Info option to the ESC menu, which displays the current server's pastebin info.
Commands
Adds the "RIDLIST" client command, which displays a list of all room ids.
Adds the "PLAYERINVENTORY" remote admin command, which displays all items that a player is carrying. Aliases: "playerinv", "pinv", "pinventory". Accepts player IDs as an argument.
Adds the "ROOMTP" remote admin command, which teleports a player to a specific RID. ALiases: "rtp", "ridtp".
Adds the "CASSIEWORDS" remote admin command, which displays a list of all valid CASSIE words.
Adds the “STARTHOST” client command, which starts a local server. Aliases: “startserver”
Improvements to the "CMDBIND" client console command.
Remote Admin’s “HELP” command now opens a wiki page, instead of a Google Docs document.
Map
Removed SCP-096's containment chamber's chair - its model was very inefficient, and resulted in a number of anticheat problems and glitches.
Fixes
Gameplay
Fixed an issue where, if overcharge was initiated shortly before the end of the round, it would occur in the following round.
SCP-096 now properly unloads when a player is forceclassed from 096 to 079.
Fixed an oversight preventing SCP-939 from seeing moving human players unless they were jumping. This should provide a significant buff to 939’s current performance.
Fixed a variable issue which prevented SCP-096's shield effect from being visible.
Fixed the scaling of SCP-096's ragdoll to match their actual body size.
SCP-173 can now correctly move in darkened rooms as long as a player doesn't see them with a flashlight or NV scope.
Fixed resolution related text disappearing.
Fixed Pause Menu elements being positioned strangely on ultrawide resolutions.
Fixed stuck spots involving pedestals in SCP-096's and SCP-173's containment chamber.
Security
Major anticheat rework: anticheat now only kills players as a last resort.
Fixed players being killed when doors closed on them.
Authentication thread is now exited properly.
The Jump and Sneak keys now have functionality in noclip.
Various other security-related fixes.
API Changes
Note: These are only important for plugin developers and feature no significant changes in-game. This is by no means all-inclusive; our code is changing constantly, and these are only the most significant changes.
Pickups
Removes the PickupInfo struct. Synchronized pickup information (ID, durability, and so on) is now stored directly as SyncVars on the pickup script.
Adds a WeaponModifiers data struct, used to track the weapon mods on dropped guns.
Lights
The FlickerableLight system has been reworked. Rooms have a FlickerableLightController component below the root room itself. This replaces the string system, and handles synchronization automatically. Lights can be turned off in individual rooms with the ServerFlickerLights(float seconds) function.
Wrapping Up
We are, of course, not done making changes to 10.0.0. There are still changes we want to make, and those changes are on the way, especially regarding balance and 096 (which we’ve been extensively discussing internally to try and decide on a solution that’s healthy in the long-term and not just a temporary fix for 096’s issues.)
We’re also aware of an issue affecting the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese translations (among others) that causes some characters to render as blank boxes. We’ve run into some complications in fixing it, but we’re still working on fixing the problem on our end and will hopefully have a fix for it out ASAP.
Keep an eye out for some upcoming changes in the near future, and stay healthy and safe this August.
Footnotes
* This is because local servers have continually become more unstable, and supporting changes specifically for them both segregates the game’s code and is difficult to sustain with our current team. The option still exists for those who use it, but we wanted to make it clear that the option is not our recommended default.
If you use the Create Server feature often, we highly recommend you set up a dedicated server! Making a dedicated server is usually fast and easy, and you can host it on the same computer you use to play the game. You can follow one of our Steam guides for instructions, or download the SCP: Secret Laboratory Dedicated Server tool on Steam.
Scopophobia has arrived!
Hello!
We’re very happy to announce that, after a long and challenging development process, SCP: Secret Laboratory’s next update has arrived and is now fully available to everyone. Scopophobia rivals Megapatch 2 in its scale - this update brings major reworks, large performance improvements, rewritten systems, and more.
SCP-096 Rework
scopophobia (n.) - an abnormal fear of being looked at or seen.
The Shy Guy is among the oldest classes in the game. Although mechanically it mostly works well, it uses an outdated model, and all of its voice files are taken from SCP - Containment Breach. SCP-096 was long overdue for a revamp, and its complete rework is the highlight and namesake of Scopophobia - including a brand-new model, completely revamped sounds, and a fully remade user experience.
SCP-096 is now our most polished and well-presented SCP to date, and we'd like to keep its exact mechanics a surprise for players to discover in-game. As a result, they won't be in these patch notes, but all of the changes to SCP-096, big and small, exist in-game for you to discover and play with - or be killed by. If you've played or followed the beta, you may know already what's in store for you, but if not, then keep an eye out!
SCP-096’s character info screen has also been fully updated to match its new mechanics, to keep you and your teammates up to date. Technically, you can also just go into a local server and view the info screen from there, but is there any fun in that?
In the interest of transparency, though, here's a few highlights you can look forward to: - Full revamp of the rage system, scaling effective health and duration with the amount of targets. - Three active abilities - some used when docile, and some used in rage. - Completely original model, animations, audio, and voice acting made by our amazingly-talented artists and sound designers. - Is now the tallest SCP in the game.
SCP-096 received extensive changes during the beta period for Scopophobia, and right now we hope that they’re in an acceptable state. We’ll be working internally to provide further refinements in upcoming tweaks.
Spawning Tickets
One of SL's longest-standing problems is its respawn system. While it lets players get back into the round after dying instead of having to wait for it to end, it also has no limits; as a result, squads can constantly respawn and go into the facility, throwing themselves at remaining targets until they win through sheer numbers. This never feels satisfying to do, and often results in the game dragging on far past when people wanted it to end - especially if the last squad member is away or hides to wait for a respawn.
Spawning tickets is our solution to this problem. In short, rather than having an unlimited pool of reinforcements, both military teams - the Nine-Tailed Fox and Chaos Insurgency - draw from a limited pool of tickets. Every time a respawn wave occurs, every respawned player consumes one ticket from the pool.
The likelihood of each team spawning is now determined by their tickets. If a team has twice as many tickets as the other, then that team will spawn twice as often. Once a team runs out of tickets, it won't respawn! If this happens to the Nine-Tailed Fox, they’ll be permanently disabled for the match; the Chaos Insurgency, however, can continue to spawn if they gain more tickets somehow. If both teams are out of tickets, the Chaos Insurgency will be the only team that spawns.
Tickets aren't just consumed. Different actions throughout the facility also cause tickets to replenish for the various teams. These actions are as follows:
CI
- Starts with 14 tickets - +1 whenever a Class-D escapes - +1 whenever a Scientist dies - +2 whenever a cuffed Scientist escapes - +2 whenever a Class-D or CI uses an SCP item
NTF
- Starts with 24 tickets - +1 whenever a Scientist escapes - +1 whenever a cuffed Class-D escapes - +1 for every 25% max health lost on an SCP, up to 4 total tickets per SCP
All of these values, including default tickets, SCP health loss intervals, and ticket returns for various events can be configured by server owners in the gameplay config. Additionally, although we highly recommend using the system, owners can opt out of it by simply disabling it altogether.
As a disclaimer, although this is a refinement of the current system and an iteration upon outdated mechanics, we do intend to modify win conditions more heavily in future updates. Spawning tickets may or may not be removed when new win conditions make their way into SL, and we'll likely be refining it as time goes on until that point!
Stamina
From its conception, SCPSL has been a fast-paced game. Human classes can run constantly at a fast pace, and even the slowest SCP classes move at a jogging pace. Going into this update, we wanted to place more emphasis on the movement system without slowing down the overall pace of the game.
In order to accomplish this, we've introduced a new system - stamina, also known as a run meter. While sprinting, you will slowly deplete your stamina, and you can't sprint while out of stamina. Walking, standing still, or sneaking will allow your stamina to replenish so that you can run again.
Default values for this are very forgiving. It takes about 20 seconds at a full sprint to run out of stamina, and it regenerates in less time than that, meaning that you'll still be sprinting more often than not if you like to play the game fast and hard. In order to keep the pace of the game the same, walking speed has received a substantial increase for human classes. Sprint speed has also been increased, but by a much smaller amount.
Stamina's main purpose is as a design tool to interact with various parts of the game in a better way, and we've added a few of these already (as you can see in the Balance Changes segment.) We've been very careful in designing and tweaking stamina throughout the testing period to get it to a point where it doesn't feel strangulating to play with and so that it serves as an addition to make movement more interesting instead of restricting it heavily.
Stamina doesn't currently affect SCPs in any way - only humans. Stamina does, however, play a part in a lot of different status effects, and so disabling it entirely will cause some of them to behave strangely, as well as providing a nerf to revised items such as adrenaline and SCP-207.
A Note on Configuration
When we were initially planning stamina, we were nervous of the public response. As a result, when the feature was announced, and public reception was mixed, we said at the time that we would allow server owners to fully configure, or even remove, stamina.
However, as time has passed, and the feature has become more refined, our development teams have gradually decided that allowing heavy configuration of stamina can and will result in an unhealthy dynamic between servers and the game's overall intended balance. So, at least for the time being, we've decided to keep stamina hardcoded. Unless modified by third-party mods, stamina will be the same across servers. Mods or plugins can modify stamina's values rather easily, but configuration won't be a vanilla feature for the game.
Our reasons for this choice are as follows:
Stamina will play a large part in further balancing of the game. SCPs will interact with it, and disabling or heavily modifying stamina will leave future additions or balance amendments feeling incomplete or broken;
Several important new systems now interact with stamina, such as status effects, and without stamina, they may behave improperly or result in errors;
Server-side stamina configurations will result in inconsistent experiences between different players, and cause confusion as to what is and isn't an intended feature.
This doesn't mean that we're done with stamina, or that we're forcing it to remain in its current state. We know this feature - and this decision - will be controversial, and although feedback has thus far been mostly positive, we'll be closely watching general preferences and the overall public response to stamina. If stamina ends up being a feature that the vast majority of people hate, or that no longer fulfills its purpose, then we may remove it entirely.
We ask that you keep a close eye on how matches flow in light of this decision, and let us know how stamina feels, both as an SCP or as one of the game's many human classes. Feedback is a very big part of what goes into our balance decisions, and this choice wasn't one we made lightly.
Status Effects
Our second Devlog spoke about status effects, and they've been fully realized and implemented in this update. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a status effect is a temporary change to your general condition or the way you play the game; for instance, SCP-207 is a status effect that speeds you up while slowly draining your health.
Scopophobia includes a slew of new status effects! All of them can be applied via a new Remote Admin panel and text-based RA queries, and some of them occur naturally in-game. In addition to migrating all old temporary conditions to the new system (like SCP-268, SCP-207, and the Pocket Dimension), this update includes the following new status effects:
- Amnesia prevents you from opening your inventory or reloading. - Bleeding is a damage-over-time that starts out dealing high damage and decreases over time. - Blinded hugely blurs your screen, preventing you from making out any detail. - Burned increases all damage taken by a small amount. - Concussed blurs your screen depending on how fast you turn your camera. - Deafened greatly muffles everything you hear. - Decontaminating is now a status effect, and drains 10% of your max health per second until death. - Disabled cripples your movement speed. - Ensnared stops you from moving at all. - Hemorrhage quickly causes damage while sprinting. - Poisoned is the inverse of Bleeding - it starts with low damage and slowly ramps up.
In addition, there are also some stamina-related statuses:
- Invigorated causes running to cost no stamina, although running will still pause stamina regeneration even if it doesn't have a stamina cost. - Asphyxiated quickly drains stamina, and drains health if stamina is gone. - Exhausted cuts max stamina and stamina regeneration rate in half. - Panic slightly increases all stamina drain.
Some old mechanics have also been moved to status effects. For instance, 939's vision is now tied entirely to status effects, meaning admins can place the effect onto other classes! However, be careful when using these effects with RA; many aren't intended to be placed onto classes they shouldn't naturally occur on, and doing so can cause glitches and oddities for them.
Medical items can be used to cure status effects to varying degrees. For instance, SCP-500 reduces the damage of Bleeding and Poisoned to their minimum values, while painkillers can remove Concussed and Burned outright. With the advent of negative effects on players, it was astute to give some medical items tweaks to balance, and to give them new niches. Almost every effect interacts with medical items in some way - experiment!
As mentioned before, though some of these are already implemented, some of them only exist in code and remote admin. In adding these effects, we wanted to provide a design tool for the future, as well as give plugin devs and server admins a new mechanic to tinker with in different ways.
Decontamination Displays
This was a feature requested a long time ago by our patrons. Now, in Scopophobia, we were able to make it a reality, thanks to our rewrite of decontamination code!
In both checkpoints in Light Containment Zone, you can now find large screens on the LCZ side of the doors. These displays show the remaining time until the zone is decontaminated, featuring animations for starting up and counting down, as well as an appearance change during the final 30 seconds. If the server has decontamination disabled for whatever reason, it'll simply show the Foundation's logo instead.
A little-known fact is that decontamination actually happens after just under 12 minutes, instead of 15 minutes - this was a deliberate choice to keep the game moving at a fast pace while preserving the feeling of rushing to get prepared and armed in early-game. As such, you'll see this happen in real-time on the displays, which will count down at a slightly sped-up rate, slowing down whenever reaching an announcement or during the final 30 seconds.
Alpha Warhead Lights
In the early versions of SL, whenever the alpha warhead was enabled, all the lights in the facility became red, which increased the tension of the match and provided a better atmosphere. Due to the lights having outdated code, we had to cut this feature some time before Megapatch 2's release. Bringing them back has been requested a lot since then, and as a result, for 10.0, we've rewritten the system and put it back into the game.
Once the Alpha Warhead turns on, all lights in the facility - even those in places that previously lacked red lights, like the Entrance Zone - will turn bright red, reflecting the countdown taking place and providing a visual aid to accompany the siren. The lights will turn back to normal once the warhead is cancelled, but will remain on for the rest of the match if the warhead detonates.
Main Menu and UX Overhaul
Although Secret Laboratory's HUD has always been functional enough to accomplish what it sets out to do, it's very simple - especially its main menu. Part of our update cycle for this patch included a careful revamp of our entire user experience. Not only does this include the in-game UI, but it also includes the whole main menu!
The server browser has been completely revamped. You now have a lot more flexibility over how you find, view, and enter servers, including a long overdue system: Favorites. This allows you to 'favorite' servers by clicking a star icon on their browser entry, then switching to a Favorites tab that lets you see only servers that you’ve marked as favorites. This browser also includes a Refresh button and a Rejoin button, to join the last server you were connected to, and you can click on a server's entry to view its info without having to switch screens.
Other tabs of note are Official, which shows all official servers; History, which shows a history of all the servers you've played on before; and Friends, which shows any servers your friends are connected to. In addition, when connecting to a server, you'll see a representation of your connection progress, along with dioramas from around the facility and tips to offer flavor and advice.
We've also overhauled the Settings tab, which features true toggle buttons, dropdowns, and switching between tabs without having to go into submenus every single aspect of the main menu has been iterated upon and tweaked into a modernized, less simplistic version. You should find the menu faster, more performant, and more effective than it ever has been.
Let us know what you think!
Interactables
In Scopophobia, we've introduced a framework to interact with objects in the facility to display an image on your HUD. This feature is currently very small, and only exists in a handful of places, but we felt it was worth mentioning. In the future, it may be used for things such as computer displays, or documents that provide worldbuilding for SL's setting.
Right now, you can interact with the artwork in the Class-D cells to see a zoomed-in detail view of them. Additionally, in light of our first ARG, which happened during the last weeks of 2019, we've also created an interactable in-game plaque commemorating the event and featuring the names of some of its participants, which is located in the place where it all began.
This feature may see a lot of use in upcoming updates. Stay tuned!
Balance
As part of our ongoing effort to spice up the core gameplay, we've tweaked the balance in the following ways in order to accommodate the new mechanics introduced in Scopophobia.
Hi! It's me, the anonymous voice for developer's notes. We've done these in previous changelogs to show transparency in certain changes and why we've made them, and we see no reason to stop, so you can find little tidbits throughout the balance sections about why we did certain things.
Items
Stamina will undoubtedly change how players move through the level, and so as to not make it an "island" (a mechanic with no interconnecting parts to the rest of the game) we've implemented it in different ways throughout the base game, including shifting some of adrenaline's power to a new stamina-preserving effect. - Flashbangs now cause the Deafened status effect - Frag grenades now apply Burned and Concussed to human players, with duration scaling with range; at point-blank, these effects are applied for 10 seconds - SCP-500 now removes the Concussed and Deafened status effects, and reduces the damage of Bleeding and Poisoned to their lowest possible value - Medkits now remove the Bleeding and Burned status effects - Adrenaline now removes the Concussed status effect - Adrenaline now grants 30 AHP, from 50 - Adrenaline now grants the Invigorated status effect for 20 seconds - Painkillers now remove the Burned and Concussed status effects - When consumed, SCP-207 grants infinite stamina while its effects remain on the player
Logicer
- Deals half damage against SCPs - Magazine size reduced to 75, down from 100
This is a tremendous change, and one with large ramifications. The Logicer has consistently been the strongest weapon since the game's release, sporting a huge magazine, high damage, and rapid rate of fire. Coupled with the fact that all Chaos Insurgents spawn with the weapon, and it meant that nearly any SCP could be consistently killed with relative ease in any situation where more than a few players encountered it at the same time - especially the new SCP-096 - which obviously breaks intended balance.
Next update, we'd like to rework the Logicer into something completely different, or even replace it entirely. However, in its current state, it would be difficult to do this without making the update take even longer or adjusting more weapons, and so, as such, we're greatly reducing its power against SCPs. The weapon still remains a powerhouse capable of effectively dispatching threats at close range, but it should no longer be a guaranteed death sentence for SCPs that aren't 939.
Attachments
The Heavy Barrel in conjunction with the Gyroscopic Stabilizer was an incredibly strong combination, being a straight upgrade in nearly all situations unless you wanted to use a silencer. Both attachments have received adjustments in Scopophobia. - The Heavy Barrel now reduces firing rate by 20% on the E-11-SR and the P90 - The Gyroscopic Stabilizer now greatly widens the crosshair on the E-11-SR
Our intent with these changes isn't to nerf them outright. Heavy Barrel is no longer essentially a straight upgrade, and instead deals the same DPS as the base E-11. The goal of the change is to shift the attachment to be stronger at medium and long ranges (because of the higher damage per shot and thus its decreased falloff) but worse at close-ranges than the normal weapon (because of the slower firing rate making it easier to miss shots.) This change applies to the P90 as well, both for consistency and because the heavy barrel turned the P90 into the weapon with the highest DPS in the game.
The Gyroscopic Stabilizer is another attachment with a straight buff - except in this case, instead of a negligible downside, it has no downside. Rather than a numbers nerf, which feels like a temporary change, we decided to give it a unique downside. This allows it to be a strong attachment for players who prefer to aim-down-sights or use long-range scope attachments without penalizing them for playing to its strengths.
SCPs
SCP-049
-Movement speed increased to 6 m/s (was 5.6 m/s)
SCP-049 has been the slowest SCP in-game for quite some time, and with the increase in walking speed conferred by the addition of stamina, we discovered that people now walked so quickly that SCP-049 could simply be out-walked. Because 049's slow speed has been a consistent problem in the past as well, we've decided to tentatively bump it up to match that of SCP-106, in hopes that the good doctor will now perform better in a post-stamina environment.
SCP-049-2
- Windup on attacks has been removed (was previously 0.2s) - Hands are now less prominent on the screen - Attacks now destroy windows
Zombies have been one of the most inconsistent classes in SL since their original conception due to outdated code and design practices. We recently revisited their code, where we adjusted some of these old elements and removed the windup on the attacks to make them feel less clunky to use. They should now feel much more consistent to play.
SCP-939
- Attacks now inflict Amnesia for 3 seconds - Multiple attacks will add onto the duration of the effect - Attacks now consistently deal 65 damage, instead of a random amount between 50 and 80
SCP-939 fills a strong role right now as a brawler, able to catch up to humans in a chase and bring them down. Stamina may be able to make SCP-939 much stronger, as it'll be able to catch humans after they become exhausted, and so we felt this was a good time to adjust its balance a bit.
Randomized damage numbers are something we've been moving away from, as you can see with the standardization of weapon damage and past changes to SCP-049-2's damage. 65 is the average of the old numbers, meaning its balance will stay statistically unchanged, but players should no longer be able to survive more bites than they should be able to if the damage rolls low, and conversely, they won't be able to survive too few bites if that damage rolls high.
Finally, Amnesia is meant to serve as another way to apply pressure to humans if they're hit once - 3 seconds isn't much, but it incentivizes getting out of range and neuters combat effectiveness towards 939 at point-blank.
Quality-of-Life
- SCP-106 can now walk through windows - Allowed SCP-079 to lock down rooms in Entrance Zone as well as more rooms in Heavy Containment
Miscellaneous
- Tesla gates now do more damage per tick, but only tick three times; the net effect is that the damage per blast is greatly reduced but is still immediately lethal to humans, SCP-106, and SCP-049-2, but will no longer one-shot high-health SCPs
Afterword
These are wide-spanning changes, but they're not final. In fact, it's highly likely they'll receive changes after they've had some time to exist for a bit. For Megapatch 2, we released 9.1.0 - Megapatch Minipatch - as a response to ongoing feedback and to further refine the changes introduced in the update, and it's likely the same thing will happen here. Let us know your thoughts!
Other Changes
This update also includes a bunch of smaller changes that didn't fit into any of these other categories. In no particular order:
Adjusted compression and import settings across many of the game's assets. This has resulted in a dramatic improvement in RAM usage with no drawbacks and no visible difference in quality!
Dropped flashlights now have a light source
Players now leave behind ragdolls and drop their items when leaving the server; disconnected SCPs will play their recontainment announcement
Ragdolls now maintain the velocity their player had on death; this includes SCP-173's broken chunks, each of which have independent physics
The info screen now toggles on and off, instead of requiring a held keypress
The info screen fades in and out, instead of simply appearing and vanishing
Revamped the appearance of the hitmarker to be more consistent and intrude less on the crosshair. Did you know that the old hitmarker was off-center? You do now.
Updated the textures of the Research Supervisor keycard and the Cadet keycard to show their new names instead of their old ones (which were Major Scientist and Senior Guard, respectively)
Remade keycard inventory icons in neutral lighting - they previously had a blue tint applied to them
The health bar now has a more stylized appearance
Artificial health now always displays separately, and shows its remaining amount as a number
AHP is now visible to spectators
Status effects, such as SCP-268, are now visible to spectators
Improved the appearance of the overlay that displays when at low health
Expanded CASSIE's vocabulary, as well as adding prefixes and suffixes to it, such as "pro-", "anti-", "un-", "-ish", and "-like"
Implemented a custom parser for CASSIE so that different localizations of decimal points produce the same result
Trying to fire a gun while it has no ammo in its magazine is now audible to all players, instead of just the person trying to shoot
The MicroHID now breaks windows
Pickup up items now shows a circle around the cursor that gradually fills, instead of a simple progress bar
Picking up items is now handled on the server, preventing cheats from allowing instant item pickups and equalizing pickup times between players with different ping
Decontamination is now handled server-side, and should perform slightly better
Added a new "PLEASE WAIT" screen when launching the game
Updated translations with community contributions
Updated the credits list
Updated the RA interface with new panels for status effects and spawning tickets and added new command queries pertaining to these
Added a new RA command, pfx, to assign status effects to players with the given intensity (syntax: pfx (list of IDs) [effect name]=[effect intensity].)
NOTE FOR ABOVE: Not all status effects utilize intensity; for most effects, you'll want to use tpfx, listed below.
Added a new RA command, tpfx, to assign status effects to players with a duration (syntax: tpfx (list of IDs) [effect name]=[effect duration in seconds]. for example, "tpfx 1 poisoned=10" will assign player number 1 the Poisoned effect for 10 seconds.)
LocalAdmin now uses a cleaner console display and should perform faster
Removed unused script assets in order to improve file sizes and loading times
As a consequence of improvements to door code, the "ACCESS DENIED" animation now lasts about half as long
Fully rewrote some backend systems for stability, expansion, and performance
Greatly optimized tesla gate performance
Blood no longer appears on doors due to consistent rendering issues
Ragdolls now disappear after two minutes to conserve long-term performance; this can be configured per-server using the new config key "ragdoll_cleanup_time". If set to 0, ragdolls will remain forever, identical to the old system
Added additional colliders throughout the level to prevent nonsensical deaths as well as out-of-bounds glitching
Implemented the ability for servers or plugins to change a player's display name
Added the ability for servers to change the intercom's displayed text through RA
Added a server config for a multiplier applied to damage dealt by friendly fire
Bypass mode now works to open the panel in the Alpha Warhead control panel in the Surface Zone
Blocked @here and @everyone mentions in cheater reports. (You jerks.)
Fixes towards players appearing twice on the same server
Fixed several broken achievements
Fixed The Bloodening(tm) by preventing blood decals occasionally having their scale set extremely high
Fixed SCP-207's third-person model having collision
Fixed the Tutorial class model being locked into the pose of holding a keycard
Fixed a malformed collider in LCZ straightaways that allowed players to scale the wall
Fixed a collider in SCP-106's chamber that allowed players to slide down the side of the floating cube to avoid fall damage
Fixed the elevators at Gate A and Gate B teleporting items into the void
Fixed elevators also moving items and grenades that were sitting just outside of their doors
Fixed sinkholes being able to spawn if their spawn chance was set to 0
Fixed a long-standing culling issue when standing inside the Class-D cells
Fixed frag grenade chain explosions not working on dedicated servers
Fixed the squad size limit config being ignored
Fixed some missing materials in room prefabs
Fixed an issue where SCP-939 couldn't see thrown grenades
Fixed SCP-939 being unable to see SCP-173's model through walls
Gate B's elevator interactable on the Surface Zone no longer leads to Gate A in the facility
Huge improvements to our backend systems and performance stability
A lot of other things we probably forgot to list!
Conclusion
Originally, we wanted to release this update in March of this year, in a much different world. In May, we released a public beta so that you could experience the update and have a say in its development. Now, four months past our initial release time, we're releasing it at the end of July. Suffice it to say, a release this late in the year isn't what we had planned. We lost a lot of goodwill when Megapatch 2 took so long, and we wanted to make up for it with this update, and move back towards a regular release schedule.
From all of us: we're sorry it took so long. Though an apology doesn't make up for the delay, we still mean it, and we hope that Scopophobia can be fun enough that it was worth the wait. We appreciate the continued support very much. The amount of changes in this patch is even greater than those of Megapatch 2, and we hope you're as happy with the update as we are.
Expect a patch coming soon within the next few months with refinements that we couldn't squeeze into Scopophobia, as well as changes and tweaks depending on how things go from here. After that, we'll certainly be trying to have some fun with the holidays later this year, and beyond that... well, we have ideas.
In the meantime, enjoy what we've made together... and don't look behind you.
Scopophobia's public beta is now open for testing
Introduction
Originally, we intended to release Scopophobia - which is Secret Laboratory's next major update - in late March. As is now obvious, however, we've missed this release timeframe by a very wide margin, and we feel it's unacceptable to withhold the update any longer after Megapatch 2's delays and missing our own promise to deliver the patch in the first quarter of the year.
As such, we're releasing 10.0 as a public beta, available now for you to play! Although this is a public beta and many things are subject to change, we've decided that, rather than delaying further, it is both fairer to our community and more helpful for ourselves to release a beta for wide-scale testing, and to address issues as they come up.
Obviously, of course, we haven't simply dumped the game onto you for you to QA test for us. We've pressed hard to make the game as stable as we can manage with our limited resources - owing to finals season and the current pandemic of COVID-19 - and we hope that although incomplete, Scopophobia's beta will be fun for everyone who plays it.
How to Access the Beta
We're releasing both the client and the server for Scopophobia's beta. As such, server owners will be able to host their own servers on the new version, while players will likely be able to access the same communities they're familiar with. Here are some instructions on how to access the beta client:
Players
Right click on SCP: Secret Laboratory in your Steam library and select Properties.
Navigate to the Betas tab in the Properties menu
From the drop-down menu, select the branch named "scopophobia". Close the window. IMPORTANT: If you can't see "scopophobia" in the dropdown menu, you may need to restart your Steam client for the update to appear.
Steam should start downloading the beta. Once it's done - as usual, press "play" to start the game.
We've released the server files early for this update to server owners, so if they've opted in and set up a server, you'll hopefully be able to access servers as soon as your update is downloaded.
Server Owners
Repeat the same steps as above. However, instead of SCP: Secret Laboratory, you'll be changing the branch of the SCP: Secret Laboratory Dedicated Server tool on Steam. The overall hosting process hasn't changed significantly since 9.1.3, but you may want to review your configuration files in light of the new changes.
There's a potential risk of memory leaks, which can cause servers to start lagging. We're working on fixing that, but you can temporarily prevent it by restarting the servers regularly (time intervals depend on your hardware, but performance usually stays good for at least 5 rounds).
You may also expect Northwood Staff Members and the Global Moderation to use the Remote Admin for debugging or bugfixing purposes (such us requesting server/round restarts once it gets laggy).
Beta Information
As this is a public beta, you'll be able to participate in the creation and testing of SL's next major update. However, of course, bugs are to be expected, and issues may happen. We'll be monitoring the stability of the game and trying to fix these issues as they appear. Updates to the beta branch may happen with little or no warning. Many features you find may receive significant tuning, tweaking, or even removal between now and the update's public release.
During this time, we greatly appreciate your patience, and especially your feedback. While we've already collected extensive feedback reports from our Patreon betas, this is also a sensitive time, and we'd like to perform as well as we possibly can. This is our first large-scale public beta, and although we expect to make some mistakes, we also want to learn from the experience.
As such, if you have any feedback, input, bug reports, or anything you have to say about the beta, the best place to do so is either our Steam community forums or our official Discord server, which you can find at https://discord.com/invite/scpsl. Sometime in the coming weeks, our feedback team will be releasing a community form, and this survey will be very helpful for letting us know what to prioritize. Keep us in the loop, and help us make this the best update it can be.
We don't know how long the public beta for the update will last. Chances are, we'll close the beta shortly before public release so that we can wrap up our final polish and balance passes. Or, it'll go until the public release, or it may not last long in general. We don't know! We'll be making changes as we go along, and generally doing what we can to stabilize the update and make it more fun to play.
Mini Changelog
Our complete patch notes for Scopophobia are still a work-in-progress, and we don't have time to fully translate them with our limited resources. So, as such, we've prepared a tidy list of the most significant features in the patch, which you can find below:
Completely reworked SCP-096's mechanics, appearance, and audio
Implemented new status effects throughout the game
Added a stamina meter to add a more thoughtful element to movement
Re-added red lights for the Alpha Warhead
Added a "spawning ticket" system to prevent rounds from stalling for a very long time from continuous respawn waves
Implemented countdown timers for Light Containment Zone decontamination in various places throughout the map
Ran a comprehensive rebalancing pass over many aspects of the game in light of the new changes
Fixed a plethora of bugs, exploits, and cheat vulnerabilities
Conclusion
This is a unique time for all of us, not originally what we wanted to do. There are many reasons that Scopophobia has taken as long as it has, but we sincerely hope that this beta release can, in some form, make up for how long the update has taken. We're working as hard as we can to get the update into a state where we can confidently release it to the public without substantial issues we've encountered - including memory leaks, server desync, and especially networking troubles - and we want to thank you for bearing with us in a difficult time and promise to you that we'll do what we can to get the update into your hands as fast as possible.
In the meantime, enjoy the beta, let us know your thoughts, and let's make a spooky game together.
