Changelog

Summer may be slowly coming to a close, but there’s no time for rest and relaxation on the island. We’re sweating our… coding fingers.. off, as we’re putting together a whole slew of shiny new additions and features that will make The Culling more thrilling, more adrenaline-filled, and more buzzwords that basically mean even more fun!

While those tasty treats are baking in Frank’s (non trademark infringing but easy to use) oven, we’re also watching you play and listening to the incredible #Cullmmunity feedback. It’s not creepy, we swear. We do it for the better of the game. But make no mistake, we’re always watching.

Our latest update will arrive on Wednesday, August 24th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for \*up to\* 4 hours.

Contestants can expect to see significant tweaks and improvements to the core gameplay. Axes have a new lease on life, explosions are no longer insta-wins, and guns take longer to pull out - requiring players to use safer combatraseptives.

We hope that these changes will bring some more action to the island and we’re excited to see you duke it out. Remember, we’re watching. Always.

See you on the island!

**Balance and Gameplay**

* Base damage of Axes increased by a small amount; duration of Expose wound decreased to 6 seconds (from 20 seconds)
	+ Dev comments: Axes now offer a slight advantage in terms of maximum damage potential (when exploiting their Expose wound) compared to the other weapon types, but the duration of the Expose wound has been reduced significantly, meaning that the benefits of Expose will no longer be guaranteed in a given melee exchange. We expect this will increase the viability of axes somewhat as well as making the Expose wound more interesting to use (and counter). Will axes fully return to their former glory? Time will tell.
	+ Crafted Hatchet: 6-17 (10% Expose)
	+ Ice Axe: 7-23 (10% Expose)
	+ Cleaver: 8-22 (15% Expose)
	+ Tomahawk: 7-25 (15% Expose)
	+ Fireman’s Axe: 9-29 (20% Expose)
* All weapon- and trap-applied Cripple wounds now last 5 seconds (previously Cripple \* and Cripple \*\* lasted 10 seconds and 7 seconds, respectively); Explosives now apply Cripple \* instead of Cripple \*\*\*
	+ Dev comments: In a previous effort to make Bludgeons more appealing, we buffed multiple aspects of the Cripple wounds. This was effective at making Bludgeons (and the Stunner Perk) more popular, but long-duration impairing effects are frustrating for players and make the Wound Less Perk feel like a necessity for many. Explosives are powerful enough without the added benefit of a strong Cripple wound, so they now apply the weakest Cripple.
* Dig Deep now restores 15 HP when taking fatal damage (from 20HP)
	+ Dev comments: Dig Deep went from being one of the most popular perks (when it restored 25HP) to one of the least popular (when we reduced it to 15) and then shot back to the top when we found the middle-ground at 20HP. We give up! We’re not going to set it to 17.5HP (we discussed it, it would be silly), so we’re putting it back to 15 HP.
* Equip time for guns has been extended
	+ Dev comments: Some intrepid players have become adept at utilizing melee combat stagger window as an ideal time to equip guns and score easy hits. We’ve extended the equip time for guns to make this more difficult.
* Dynamite maximum damage reduced from 80 to 75
	+ Dev comments: Dynamite has always been very strong. It is now slightly less strong.
* Remote Explosives maximum damage reduced from 95 to 75
	+ Dev comments: We’ve repeatedly found that one-shot-kill weapons generate more frustration on the part of the victim than they provide satisfaction to the killer. Especially given that these can be found in green crates, we’ve decided to reduce their damage.
* Maximum throw damage for Javelin and Tomahawk has been increased (to 21 and 24)
	+ Dev comments: We have a soft spot for Golden Arm, despite the perk being tricky to balance. Our last set of changes saw Golden Arm fall out of favor. We’re hoping that boosted throw damage for these weapons will see it make a small comeback.
* Slightly reduced melee action queuing windows
	+ We made another small tweak to the melee action queuing windows to avoid cases where a player inadvertently executes one action when they intend another.

**Bug Fixes**

* Fixed a case where a player would not be fully staggered when shoved from the front while blocking
	+ Dev comments: The “mini-stagger” is a stop-gap solution we implemented for cases where a player is shoved while blocking but the default stagger backwards animation would not be appropriate (i.e. the player is shoved from the side or back). We recently discovered that mini-staggers could be triggered from the front. With this change, whenever a player is shoved from the front while in their block state, they will now be subject to a full stagger. As always, we appreciate the community sharing captured footage to bring issues like this to our attention!

* Chopper and Basher Perk description text now properly reflects that they reduce throw charge time in addition to melee charge time
* Golden Crowbar prototype is gone. We mean it this time!

### Patch 93315 (August 10, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

If you’ve read our previous Big Picture blog post - and if not, go do that now- you know that we have some MAJOR features in the works that we won’t be ready to release just yet, but are excited for nonetheless.

Yet, we couldn’t live with ourselves if we didn’t continue to update. To beat the summer heat, we’ve been devoting a lot of attention to bugs and game balance, and we are already finishing up a new patch. Highlighted by a complete rebalancing of The Culling’s arsenal, the new patch will have a significant impact to the current state of the game.

So let’s get this out here right away:

This update will arrive on **Wednesday, August 10th**. Servers will be down starting at 8AM **Eastern** for up to 4 hours.

Our goal is to become even more transparent with our updates and their schedules. We want to continue to do Early Access right, and that means shining some light into the present and the future of The Culling.

While our Big Picture post was a good start, it doesn’t necessarily reflect everything in the pipeline and you can expect to hear more news, regularly, here on The Culling.com very soon!

See you on the island!

**Balance and Gameplay**

* Lightning Rounds are being retired temporarily
	+ Dev comments: Lightning Rounds proved to be immensely popular. We’re taking them offline for maintenance, but we expect they will be back eventually with some new twists.
* Longshot Perk now grants bonus damage to targets beyond 35 meters (previously set to 30 meters, despite UI text stating 40 meters)
	+ Dev comments: Longshot has been set to 30 meters since prior to Early Access launch, but we failed to realize that until it was pointed out by the community after the last patch. This would ordinarily call for a simple fix to the text, but Longshot has gained enough popularity since the last patch that we chose to extend its range to 35 meters (and update the text to reflect that).
* Mangler and Submission reduced to 80% bonus Stamina damage (from 100%)
	+ Dev comments: Mangler and Submission skyrocketed in popularity after the last update, so a small adjustment is in order.
* Crafted Hatchet Expose and Crafted Cudgel Cripple wound intensity reduced by one
	+ Dev comments: A previous effort to improve the popularity of Axes and Bludgeons included a step up to tier 2 wound intensity for the crafted versions. Cripple and Expose are now powerful enough that the base level wounds are appropriate for the crafted weapons.
* Regenerator Perk increased to 1 hit point per 4 seconds (from 1 per 5 seconds)
	+ Dev comments: Regenerator is one of our least-utilized Perks. We are hesitant to give it a major boost, but we hope a moderate buff will make it appealing, at least to certain play styles.
* Bow ammo capacity is now 18 arrows (from 24 arrows)
	+ Dev comments: We’ve heard several calls from the community that arrows are in too much supply, especially at the end of matches, so we’ve reduced max ammo that can be carried - which should allow for more wrinkles in ranged play.
* Dig Deep now restores 20 health when taking fatal damage (from 25)
	+ Dev comments: The buff Dig Deep received with the last patch skyrocketed it in popularity to the top of the Perk list, so we’re bringing it down...a notch.
* Mantracker can be used while moving without requiring the Mantracker Perk
	+ Dev comments: Feedback from users is that the Mantracker is unintuitive to use when it requires the user to be stationary, so we’ve removed that requirement.

* Weapon Damage Rebalance Pass
	+ Dev comments: We have long wrestled with the challenge of how to provide significant variety across melee weapon types (and individual weapons) and still achieve a state of overall balance. What we’ve learned through multiple iterations and experiments is that pure DPS is king when it comes to players’ weapon choice. Even the mighty cripple wound on a Bludgeon cannot compete with the raw damage dealt by its Axe counterpart. As such, we’ve adjusted damage and wound intensity for a large number of melee weapons in order to achieve nearly equal DPS (our calculations take bonus damage from bleed and expose into account) output. We believe that this will free players to choose the weapon they feel offers the best synergy between play style, Perks, and Airdrop, or go for a generalist build that allows them to play effectively with whatever they happen to come across in a match. The list below includes all the parameters that were changed. You may notice that in order to achieve the desired balance, we’ve broken the long-standing rule that fully charged attacks deal exactly 3X jab damage. We don’t expect this pass to be the final word in balance, but we do hope that it will provide a solid baseline that we can use to make smaller corrective changes and quickly arrive in a happy place. Changes (only values that have changed are represented here):
		- Crafted Hatchet: 6-16 Damage, Expose Tier 1
		- Crafted Cudgel: Cripple Tier 1
		- Crafted Knife: 6-17 Damage
		- Crafted Spear: 6-18 Damage
		- Ice Axe: 7-20 Damage, Expose Tier 1
		- Cleaver: 7-19 Damage, Expose Tier 2
		- Machete: 7-22 Damage, Bleed Tier 2
		- Tanto Knife: 6-19 Damage, Bleed Tier 2
		- Javelin: 7-22 Damage
		- Tomahawk: 7-21 Damage, Expose Tier 2
		- Bowie Knife: 7-23 Damage
		- Kukri: 8-24 Damage
		- Sabre: 7-23 Damage
		- Tactical Machete: 8-24 Damage
		- Survival Spear: 9-27 Damage
		- Fireman’s Axe: 9-25 Damage
		- Katana: 9-26 Damage
		- Trident: 10-30 Damage

**Bug Fixes**

* Fixed a bug where .357 Magnum and SMG would play their SFX/VFX twice with each shot
* Fixed a text bug where Basher Perk erroneously stated it reduced melee charge time by -20% (actual reduction is -30%)
* Fixed a text bug where Disability insurance said it applies to Gas Grenades (it doesn’t apply to Gas Grenades)
* Fixed a bug where Trapper Perk wasn’t properly reducing trap placement times
* Removed Golden Crowbar from the map (this was an unintentional preview of a prototype match event)
* Removed Taunt prototype (whoops, you weren’t supposed to see that yet!)

### Patch 92896 (July 27, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

We’re dropping a big update today. In additional to the usual boatload of balance changes, we’re adding an all new game mode. Lightning Rounds pit 8 contestants against one another. Everyone has the same perks and Airdrop, and that airdrop is available from the start of the match (there is a landing pad at each start location). This is the most fast-paced, aggressive version of The Culling you’ve ever seen! Lightning Rounds are also a great way to unlock Airdrops you may not have already, including the new Hawks Eye, which provides a faster way to guarantee yourself a Compound Bow.

Servers will be down starting at 10AM Eastern for up to 4 hours.

**New Features**

* Lightning Round game mode
	+ 8 players
	+ Played on a subset of the normal map
	+ Shorter match length
	+ Fast, free Airdrop at start of match (all contestants receive the same randomized Airdrop)
		- Known Issue: Game menu does not properly reflect the designated Airdrop
	+ Preset perks (Cannibal, Mantracker, Backpacker)
* Hawk’s Eye Airdrop
	+ Compound Bow
	+ Smoke Grenade
	+ Gas Grenade
	+ Cost: 175 FUNC

**Balance and Gameplay**

* Stun Gun has been refactored
	+ Holds 1 charge
	+ Must be charged up briefly before it can discharge
	+ Will not discharge unless it hits a contestant
	+ Disarmable
	+ Range reduced
* Firearms
	+ Headshot bonus set to 50% (from 100%)
	+ Increased cost of all Airdrops with guns by +75 FUNC
	+ Max ammunition limited to one full magazine (previously 2 magazines)
* Alarm Gun
	+ Deals 10 Damage
	+ Max ammo of 1
	+ Reload cost increased to 10
	+ Barrels required for reload
	+ Reduced alarm wound duration to 60 seconds (from 120 seconds)
	+ Reduced drop rate in buildings
* Cripple Wound
	+ Damage no longer removes cripple wound
	+ Cripple \* = 95% of max movement speed for 10 seconds
	+ Cripple \*\* = 90% of max movement speed for 7.5 seconds
	+ Cripple \*\*\* = 80% of max movement speed for 5 seconds
	+ Cripple \*\*\*\* (falling and explosives) = Max 70% movement speed for 5 seconds
	+ Note: All cripple wounds clear movement speed buffs
* Cudgel and Hatchet can now be crafted into bows
* Blades: Minor reduction in base damage of all blades to better account for benefits of bleed wound
* Chopper and Basher Perks now have -30% reduced charge time (previously -20%)
* Pierce characteristic of Spears no longer bypasses armor, but instead provides significant bonus damage against armor
* Angry Octopus cooldown reduced to 60 seconds (from 120 seconds)
* Blowgun deals 6 damage (from 5)
* Blowhard perk now adds +100% damage
* When killing another contestant, players now receive +15 HP and +50 Stamina by default without requiring the Cannibal perk
* Cannibal perk now provides an additional +15 HP and +50 Stamina
* Submission and Mangler Perks now deal 100% of damage to Stamina (from +50%)
* Longshot perk bonus now deals +60% bonus damage at long range (from +40%)
* Bomb Suit perk now reduces damage from Firearms and Explosives by -30% (from -50%)
* Master Crafter damage now offers +10% damage bonus (from +20%)
* Added Holo Spawner to Sat Com building
* Added a recycler to lower level of Sat Com building
* Impact Grenade now deals 50 damage (from 65)
* All crafted traps are now destructible (via melee or explosives)
* All steel traps are now destructible (via explosives)
* The Chokening match event now triggers with less warning to other players
* Cameras no longer track players using Inhuman perk
* Grab My Package match event is back by popular demand!

**Bugs and Polish**

Swamp building full art pass

* Level lighting polish passes
* Fix for exploit allowing stagger to be canceled
* Fix for exploit allowing Punji Sticks to be stacked
* Fix for some collision issues in Sat Com building
* Fix for a hitch in disarm animation
* Fixed some bugs with Holo Spawner behavior
* Fixed some issues with rifle aiming animations
* Fixed collision issue with front window of Culpepper Outfitters
* Fixed a bug where moving door physics could result in unusable items
* AI behavior improvements for tutorials
* Art pass on air conditioners
* Fixed exploit that allowed players to avoid falling damage under certain conditions
* Removed Independence Day cosmetic items, they were ridiculous while they lasted
* Art pass on console to initiate The Chokening match event
* Updated explosion VFX
* Bot optimizations
* Fix for bug with thrown weapon physics
* Fix for bug that allowed physics objects to fall through the world in some cases
* Made it slightly easier to quickly pick up items
* Polished spear attack animations
* Several bug fixes for tutorials

We'll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 92449 (June 30, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

We’re rolling out a new hotfix that addresses a handful of issues. Servers will be down for up to 4 hours as we roll out the update.

**Hotfix Changes**

* Fixed bug that prevented players from using the in-game text chat feature
* Fixed an exploit related to Stun Gun ammo
* Fixed issues related to the mouse cursor losing focus under certain conditions
* Modified action queuing behavior to be less intrusive
* Implemented a “convenience tax” on Holo Spawners. Items in Holo Spawners now cost 150 FUNC (instead of 100). This is intended to delay the appearance of higher tier weapons in the match

We’ll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 92358 (June 27, 2016)

Hotfix Changes

* Rebalanced spears to have lower base damage, axes to have higher base damage
* Fix for issue where shove/block would behave unreliably under certain circumstances
* Fix for issue where mouse would lose focus, forcing user to exit application
* Provide error message when unable to connect Steam during game startup
* Fix for issue where Stun Gun sometimes spent both charges at once
* Fix for inaccurate bow bleed wound intensity HUD tooltip text
* Fix for Stun gun interaction with Woundless perk
* Fix for some cases where Stamina would fail to regenerate
* Fix for undroppable disposables (Snares, Stun Gun)
* Fix for collision issue in center arenas

### Patch 92253 (June 22, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

Just in time for Summer we have a refreshing new patch that new and old players are sure to love. Major optimizations, new features, balancing, seasonal hats, and bug fixes make this the best patch yet. So shake the salt off, grab your swim trunks, and come meet us on the island!

Servers will be down at 8AM (EDT) for up to four hours.

**New Features**

* Significantly optimized netcode
* Improved framerate performance for many users
* Matchmaking system that pits players of similar skill level against one another
* New Auto Bow weapon. Quickly fire a magazine of three bolts before a lengthy reload. Bolts deal less damage than arrows
* New craftable Gas Grenade weapon. On impact creates a large cloud of poisonous gas. Crafted using a Smoke Bomb + Poison Gas Vent
* 2 new layouts added to the Culmination. A layout is chosen randomly by the server at match start to add variety to the central arena
* New Airdrop: Demon Hunter: Auto Bow, Smoke Bomb, Crafted Caltrops, Crafted Caltrops Cost: 175 FUNC
* New Airdrop: The Imp: Auto Bow, Crafted Armor, Tomahawk Cost: 225 FUNC
* New Airdrop: Viking: Tomahawk, Crafted Armor, Muscle Man Milk Cost: 125 FUNC
* New FUNC Survival Bonus. The player is now awarded 25 FUNC after 3 minutes alive, 25 FUNC after seven minutes alive, and 50 FUNC after eleven minutes alive. The current Airdrop economy is doing its intended job of relegating high-tier weapons to the later stages of the match, but many players find the costs to be intimidating. This change will put high-value Airdrops within reach, but prevent them from appearing too early
* Blue Crates have been retired and replaced with Holo Spawners. Holo Spawners contain the same loot list as the Blue Crates (Tier 3 Melee Weapons, Orange Juice,Dynamite, Impact Grenade, Compound Bow, Auto Bow), but provide a preview of the item you will receive
* Suiciding into the poison gas will now award the kill credit and FUNC to the person that most recently dealt damage to you in the vicinity of your death, with some restrictions
* Added limited-time 4th of July (American Independence Day) hats! These are available to all players for a limited time

**Balance Changes**

* Increased FUNC cost for Carjacker, Guerilla, Pothead, and Trapper airdrops
* Reduced Bleed wound applied by Bows (including the new Auto Bow) to Tier 1 (6 damage over 10 seconds)
* Reduced crafting time of Hatchet, Spear, and Cudgel
* Showdown behavior modified to account for end-of-match scenarios
* Rebalanced roughly half of the melee weapons to more accurately account for tier, speed, and wound. Weapons should now match well against their tier-mates and we should no longer see weapons from a lower tier that are effectively stronger than those in a tier above. This was generally accomplished through bumping the base damage values up or down by a single point
* Backstab damage has been reduced to 50% for all weapons. Sneaky Poker and Brutus have been increased to 50%. A backstab will still set the tone for a fight, but will no longer be as lethal, especially with lower-tier weapons
* Throw Damage values have been adjusted slightly. Throw damage was reaching above where we intended, even without Golden Arm
* Golden Arm changed to +25% velocity, +100% damage for thrown weapons (+50% for crafted). Golden Arm will still be a valid build, but you will no longer be able to deal devastating damage with crafted weapons
* Jab-Back (the phenomenon where after staggering and attacking your opponent, they were consistently able to land an invisible jab against you as they exited the stagger state) has been mitigated through a few changes. We fixed the bug that would prevent you from seeing a jab-back attack animation under some conditions. We have reduced the charge time required for a charged attack and increased the duration of the stagger. This gives ample time to land an attack against a staggered opponent and subsequently defend yourself. If your timing is too slow, you may still experience a retaliatory attack, which is by design

**Bug Fixes**

* Fix for bug where Shove would sometimes fail from certain angles
* Fix for right click interrupting Stun Gun / Pepper Spray attack
* Fix for bug that allowed players to break out of stuns
* Fix for bug where stamina would fail to regenerate if a player dropped a weapon while blocking
* Fix for bug where some items’ physics behaved badly when dropped
* Fix for late item spawn bug (related to netcode optimization)
* Fix for bug that allowed faster reloads when switching weapons
* Fix for picking up materials instead of crafting with a resource that was just spawned and while equipping a weapon
* Aiming sensitivity with ranged weapons is now adjusted properly when zooming

**Other Changes**

* Users selecting North America West as their preferred server region are being redirected to the North America East servers for the time being to improve queue times
* Weather and Observation building has had a full art pass
* Improved start of match spawn box behavior
* Tutorial polish pass

### Hotfix 91794 (June 3, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

After digesting the feedback you delivered during the final Test Server and into the early hours of our latest update, we’ll be bringing down the servers shortly for a brief downtime (roughly two hours) in order to hotfix a few issues with the latest patch.

**Hotfix Changes**

* Trapper perk now applies Expose wound only to Crafted Snares and Steel Snares, not Caltrops or Punji Sticks
* Fixed a bug that allowed players to equip legacy perks and use them in online matches
* Trapper preset now includes Brutus instead of Faster Trapper
* Fixed a server crash bug
* Fixed several (but not all) game text issues with perk and weapon descriptions not matching functionality
* Fixed a bug where players could get stuck in a blocking animation
* Fixed a bug where charging a bow shot would affect mouse sensitivity
* Fixed a bug where users in North America could not connect to the server if their region was set to auto detect
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to stack multiple Punji Sticks on top of one another

### Patch 91706 (June 2, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

It’s time for a fresh new update, and this is another big one! The brand-new Showdown feature is a fun and exciting way to keep teaming issues in check - forcing players players who work together in Free For All to duke it out for the right to remain on the island. We’ve also done a major balance pass on perks that might make you think twice before equipping Big Boned or Dig Deep. Additionally, melee combat has received some fine tuning to improve the overall experience. Plus there’s the usual grab bag of polish, bug fixes, and even a few new buildings in the map for you to explore. Though, we apologize in advance that Frank isn’t around to give you a tour - he’s a little… tied up at the moment.

Our servers will be down tomorrow (Thursday, June 2nd) for up to four hours starting at 8AM EDT as we roll out the patch.

In the meantime, we’ve put this build up on the Test Servers for you to preview. The Test Servers will be live from now until Midnight EDT.

We’ll see you on the island!

If you joined us on the test servers last Friday, you’ll see that we’ve made a handful of changes to that build:

**Changes since the May 27th Test Server Build**

* Added a brief visual intro and outro to the block animation that indicate your client is responding to input before the server has acknowledged you’ve entered or exited your block state. This does not affect block timing or gameplay functionality but should make the controls feel more responsive
* Removed test server experimental feature that allowed players to be staggered if they were struck while shoving. We feel that the stamina cost is enough to curtail excessive shoving
* Reduced stamina cost of shove from 10 to 8
* Taking damage no longer breaks a player out of a stagger. This was allowing the staggered player to reliably counter-attack after the stagger was broken
* Taking melee damage while charging a melee attack no longer causes a stagger, but instead cancels the charged attack and plays a hit reaction. Charging attacks risked being punished with two attacks, which overly discouraged players from attempting charged attacks during combat except against a staggered opponent
* Expose wound applied by traps when using Trapper perk set to 30% bonus damage instead of 50%
* Players now receive an error message when a friend invite fails (i.e. the friend is connected in a different region)
* Revised Tutorial lighting and visuals
* Fixed an issue where some weapons had inconsistent attack and shove ranges
* Fixed a bug where player would not spawn with Alarm Gun when using the Red Gunner perk
* Fixed a bug where Master Crafter was not reducing crafting times for some items
* Fixed a bug where Armorer perk was not applying the Crafted Armor automatically
* Fixed a bug where Trapper perk arming and disarming times were not reduced consistently
* Fixed a bug where Trapper perk did not consistently apply Expose wound to trap victims
* Reduced 1st-person volume for Alarm Gun audio (3rd-person volume not changed)
* Fixed a bug where AI bots were not behaving properly in the tutorial, which prevented sometutorial lessons from being finished
* Fixed an issue where Mandroid bots in the tutorial were wearing clothing
* Fixed several text issues with perk descriptions

For those of you who missed the last Test Server build, here’s a breakdown of the rest of the changes we’ve made since our last update to the live game:

**Showdown! Allegiances on the Island are about to get more interesting, and bloody.**

* Teamwork is good, except when it’s bad. The top cause of angst in the community lately has been the rising prevalence of teaming (both ad hoc and premeditated) in Solo and Trials matches. After much deliberation between Chas and Frank, we’ve decided to add a new match event to Solo and Trials matches: Showdown.
* Rather than trying to prevent teaming completely, we’ve decided to try a method that keeps it from being a winning strategy. When you’ve been flagged as colluding with a teammate, attacking another player will spawn a Showdown arena. If you are tagged in a Showdown, you must quickly enter the arena (if you’re not there already) and fight your former ally until one of you is left alive. If either player attempts to escape the arena, they will be executed. When one of you dies, the Showdown ends and the remaining player is free to proceed in the match. If neither player dies before the timer runs out, both of you will be killed.
* While we’re not going to delve into the specifics about how the system works, we have taken pains to ensure that non-teaming behavior will not be misconstrued as teaming (i.e. chases, stalking, temporary truces). If you do find cases where the system fails to catch teamers or misidentifies teaming activity, please let us know!

**Combat and Netcode**

* Our approach to combat netcode relies heavily on client prediction to allow for the smoothest, most responsive experience possible. When you press a button, your client expects those things to happen when those inputs reach the server, and will start playing animations in anticipation. The reason actions have some windup time (in addition to looking better) is to allow some wiggle room to allow for players of differing pings to both participate in the “shared illusion of playing a fun game together.” Most of the time this works flawlessly and neither player knows the difference. Unfortunately, this prediction can break down in some situations, such as when both players are simultaneously sending block and attack commands which are going to pass each other in flight to the opposing player. Those situations end up with results that can feel arbitrary at best, or infuriatingly buggy at worst (“HOW DID HE PUNCH ME THROUGH MY BLOCK?! \*ragequit\*”). It isn’t an easy problem. For those of you who are so inclined, here are a couple of overviews that begin to scratch the surface of the forces at work and the wide variety of issues that present themselves in the process of solving these issues:[[1]] [[2]]
* The underlying netcode has been modified to favor accuracy over input responsiveness (subject to further iteration, of course). Most players should hopefully not notice a huge impact on their play, but blocking may end up feeling more sluggish for players with higher pings. We await your feedback before we invest more time in polishing the presentation of this approach.
* When equipping a bow, you now need to nock an arrow before firing.
* Reduced stamina cost of shove from 10 to 8
* Taking damage no longer breaks a player out of a stagger. This was allowing the staggered player to reliably counter-attack after the stagger was broken
* Taking melee damage while charging a melee attack no longer causes a stagger, but instead cancels the charged attack and plays a hit reaction. Charging attacks risked being punished with two attacks, which overly discouraged players from attempting charged attacks during combat except against a staggered opponent

**Perk Changes**

* Defensive perks are firmly in our crosshairs and all of them have been rebalanced. Because they were so powerful, the majority of players have been taking at least one of them. As a result, they extend the length of most fights, which upsets the general balance of the game. Our approach to the rebalancing is that perks that are completely passive (require no player skill) and are useful in all situations have been set to a new baseline value. The bonuses applied by the perks improve as they become more situational or skill-based. While many perks have been hit hard, we believe that they are all still viable.
* Big Boned now expands your health pool by 10 hit points (previously 25)
* Tough Mother damage mitigation reduced to 10% (previously 15%)
* Thick Skin damage mitigation reduced to 30% (previously 50%)
* Thick Skin no longer defends against firearms damage
* Bomb Suit now defends against firearms damage in addition to explosives damage (remains at 50%)
* Trapper no longer increases damage of traps, but instead applies a 30% Expose wound to a target that has triggered your traps.
* Faster Trapper has been removed and Trapper now also includes faster trap placement and disarming

* Cannibal now restores 25 hit points and completely fills your stamina (previously 35 hit points and 35 stamina)
* Maniac has been removed
* Leather Hide has been removed
* Blowhard redesigned to increase the sickness applied by the blowgun to allow for two vomits
* Man Tracker perk now allows you to move while man tracking in addition to spawning with a Man Tracker
* Dig Deep now restores 15 hit points (previously 30 hit points)
* Dig Deep now triggers when the player reaches 1 hit point and clears bleed wounds when it triggers
* Angry Octopus cooldown increased to 120 seconds (previously 30 seconds)
* Renamed Thicker Clotting perk to Wound Less to better reflect its general nature
* Armorer now spawns you with Crafted Armor instead of Body armor
* Red Gunner now adds \*Bleed, \*Expose, and \*Cripple to your shots
* Alarm Gun ammo can now be crafted using rocks instead of explosive barrels
* Stealthy now allows players to craft quietly
* Master Crafter now allows you to craft 50% faster in addition to dealing bonus damage with crafted weapons, traps, and explosives
* Faster Crafter has been removed
* Longshot now makes a distinct sound when you hit a target at greater than 40 meters, so you know it’s working and when

*Other Changes*

* Culpepper Outfitters has had a full art pass
* Fix for point of aim not matching point of impact with bows
* Replaced Gold Crates with Holo-Spawners. These appear as the match nears completion and preview the item you can purchase for 100 FUNC
* Overhauled drainage tunnel under the mountain to include more gameplay elements
* Reduced interaction time with FUNC barrels and FUNC piles
* Increased Medkit application time to 4 seconds from 2.5
* Fix for bug where control sensitivity did not reset when being disarmed while aiming a ranged weapon
* Improved visuals for being struck while initiating a block to communicate better
* Increased Stun Gun recycle value to 20
* Reduced Recurve Bow recycle value to 20
* Fix for axe weapons applying the wrong wounds when thrown
* Fix for the crafted knife and crafted snare so they can now be picked up with the number keys
* Fix for disarmed snares leaving a trigger volume behind in some situations
* Lowered audio volume in lobby
* Lowered volume of first-person movement sounds while Stealthy (does not affect how audible you are to other players)
* New locations in Southeast and Southwest corners of the map
* Removed “Grab My Package” match event for now (very similar to “Loot Express” but was failing to drive players to contest the Airdrop)
* Ware are updating our teaming policy to reflect design changes. You can expect the new policy to be rolled out with the patch tomorrow

### Patch 91351 (May 19, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

We know It’s been a while since our last update and that’s because we’ve been trying out LOTS of changes on our Test Servers. The Test Server program has allowed us to experiment with new features and changes to the game, but most of all it allows us to pull in incredible amounts of feedback from within the community before bringing updates live.

The dust has finally settled and we’re ready to roll out the changes. If you joined us on the Test Servers last night, you’ll recognize this update, but with a couple of tweaks:

**Changes since the 5/18 Test Server Build**

* West Coast North America servers are live!
* Shove stamina cost set to 10
* Blocking no longer drains stamina (but you don’t regenerate while blocking)
* FUNC reward for killing another player increased to 40 (the +15 bounty per kill remains)
* Fixed a bug where controls could become unresponsive when player was in low-stamina state

For the rest of you, here’s a breakdown of all the changes you’ll see since our last hotfix to the live game:

**Melee Combat Mechanics**

* All weapon attack animations and timings normalized to match the \*\*\* speed weapons. Weapon speed rating applies only to charge time. The goal with weapon speeds is to provide consistent attack control feel for all melee weapons (equivalent to the Early Access launch build) while requiring greater skill to maximize charged attack damage against a staggered opponent using slower weapons
* Shoving now costs 10 stamina (instead of 3). This is intended to make players more judicious with the shove, as it is the only combat action that doesn’t have a staggering counter-action
* Shoving an opponent who is not blocking will no longer visually appear to damage the receiving player (we think this was confusing some shoved players into believing they had been attacked, which naturally led to blocking, which encouraged spamming of shove)
* Fixed an issue where charging an attack did not yield a consistent, linear increase in damage. Damage scaling now matches the charge level shown on the HUD charge indicator
* Correctly matched some weapon-specific animation timings for combat interrupts that showed you returning to idle before your stagger was complete, giving the false impression that you could take action while you were still stunned
* Reduced the window where players were vulnerable to shove after dropping their block
* Damage will now interrupt the stagger state, preventing players from landing multiple consecutive jabs on a staggered opponent (you must now charge your follow-up attack to maximize damage)
* Slightly increased the period of time after launching an attack where the game checks to see if the attack is striking a target, making it easier to land attacks in some situations
* Reduced and standardized the time after completing a combat action (attack, shove, or jab) before another action could be taken
* Removed the ability to instantly transition to a shove when cancelling a charged attack via blocking. Shove cancelling is still possible, but there is a brief transition
* Added a brief minimum block time when executing a block to increase the risk of tapping and releasing block to bait a shove from the other player

**FUNConomics**

* We want to slow down the weapon progression in matches. The current 50 FUNC cost to open a Blue Crate is trivial and has a decent chance of equipping you with a Tier 4 weapon within the first few minutes of the match. Our goal is for each tier of weapon to have its place within the match progression, with Tier 4 melee weapons and guns appearing closer to the finale. We’ve made several changes to nudge things in that direction. Tier 1 and 2 weapons are obtainable early and should be valuable during the first half of the match. Tier 3 weapons are harder to reach because the FUNC cost of Blue Crates has increased. Tier 4 melee weapons and guns are only available through Airdrops and Match Events, and the costs of those Airdrops are significantly higher
* FUNC Bounty on death. The base reward for killing another player is now 40 FUNC, but a player’s value increases by 15 FUNC for each kill they’ve gotten during a match (i.e. a player with 2 kills is worth 70 FUNC). Keep an eye on the scoreboard to see who the juiciest targets are
* We’ve done a full pass on the Air Drop values, with Tier 3 weapons generally requiring 100 FUNC and Tier 4 weapons generally requiring 200 FUNC.
* Blue Crates now cost 100 FUNC to open (previously 50)
* Blue Crates no longer have a small chance to spawn a Tier 4 melee weapon or a gun
* Gold Crates have replaced the blue crates near the central arena. They cost 200 FUNC and contain items that might give you an edge if you have FUNC to spare going into the final stages of the match: Body Armor, Orange Juice, Dynamite, Med Kit, X-plosive Runs, Stamina Boost, MuscleMan Milk, Iron-4-Skin (all with an equal chance to drop)
* Ammo reload for guns now costs 100 FUNC (previously 75)
* Increased cost of crafted knife to 7 FUNC, reduced crafting cost of spear, hatchet, and cudgel to 0 FUNC
* FUNC recycle value for all crafted melee weapons has been normalized to 4
* Destroying a red barrel awards 5 FUNC
* Crafted Explosives now require 30 FUNC to craft. Damage has been increased to 35 (from 20) and radius has been increased to 6 meters (from 4 meters) - This increases the time required to open a Red Crate at the start of the match
* “Loot Pinata” event now spawns one crate instead of two
* Stun Guns now spawn in Green Crates and no longer spawn in Blue or Red Crates

**Balance**

* Reduced Crafted Blowgun max ammo to 6 (from 9)
* Reduced Crafted Blowgun sickness duration to 10 seconds (from 15 seconds) and allow a single vomit per sickness (instead of 2)
* Increased Chainsaw damage
* Reduced duration of Stamina Stim to 30 seconds (from 2 minutes)
* Stamina regenerates faster in most situations
* Golden Arm bonus damage now scales with charge percentage (no bonus damage is applied if the throw is not charged at all), Golden Arm previously applied its full bonus regardless of charge level
* Cyclops Air Drop now includes Steel Snare instead of Orange Juice
* Trident damage reduced to 9-27 (previously 10-30)
* Axes felt weak compared to spears, so the Expose was wound increased to 10%, 15%, 20% (previously 5%, 10%, 15%)
* Blades felt weak compared to spears, so Bleed wound damage was increased to 6, 10, 14 over 10 seconds (previously 4, 8, 12 over 12 seconds)
* Damage to Stamina caused by Mangler and Submission perks reduced to 50% of weapon damage (previously 135%)
* Removed the interrupt stagger when being struck while holding a ranged weapon (you will still be disarmed)

**Other Changes**

* Max FPS is unlocked by default
* Shadow Quality at Low now has even greater performance optimizations by reducing shadow resolution and accuracy. Shadow Quality at High now includes greater accuracy in shadows and will incur additional performance cost
* New announcer VO for Med Stations
* Removed Cheapskate perk
* Revised scoreboard visuals
* Improved shove animations
* Bridges now have Airdrop landing pads with shorter flight paths (but more exposed to other players)
* Fix for a bug where invisible player collision would remain after death
* Polished spear attack animations
* Fix for bug that allowed players to interact with Airdrop landing pads through barriers
* Fix for bug where starting with Mantracker or Alarm Gun in practice mode positioned the item incorrectly in the player’s hand
* Fix for a bug where you could stack Punji Sticks in certain situations
* Fixed a bug where perks and customizations would not always load in offline mode
* Removed the player highlight that was indicating a player had Dig Deep perk equipped (looked too much like Iron-4-Skin highlight, we’ll implement something custom later if the UI icon is insufficient)
* Med Kit now fully heals players with Big Boned perk
* Fix for floating lily pads and detritus allowing traps to be placed on top of them
* Fix for bug where disarming a player who was charging a throw was not always working properly
* Changed default video settings, added option to auto-detect video settings (from front end menu)
* Improved several hit reaction animations and reduced the distance players move when taking the hit

Once again we appreciate your patience and support as we continue our mission to do Early Access right.

We’ll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 90926 (May 6, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

We’ve released a hotfix today that makes the following changes:

* Framerate improvements
* Reduced load times
* Fix for issue where some users could not progress past a black screen when launching the game or loading into a match
* Fix for issue where some users were missing perks and/or clothing upon loading into a match

Hotfixes represent a platform for us to deliver small changes ahead of our update schedule. If you continue to have issues, please report them at help.theculling.com. You can read all about the Trials of the Isle update here.

Though combat and balance changes are not being introduced in this hotfix, we have listened to your feedback and more changes are on their way! Our process for combat iteration moving forward looks like this:

* Work with the community to compile a definitive list of issues (i.e. bugs, design/balance, network performance)
* Assemble a plan of attack (and tell you about it)
* Roll out a preview build on a test server (that all players can access should they choose)
* Iterate as necessary
* Release a comprehensive combat update to the live game

We have completed step 1 and we’re nearly finished with step 2. Our current goal is to announce our planned changes and launch the test server next week in lieu of the regularly scheduled patch.

Additionally, we here at Xaviant want to thank you for your overwhelming support and patience as we continue to evolve The Culling. Your feedback is not only welcome, but necessary as we continue our mission to do Early Access right.

We’ll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 90682 (April 29, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

Thank you all once again for sticking with us as we continue working to do Early Access right. Your support has been incredible and we would also like to thank you for your feedback and patience as we continue to evolve The Culling. With your help, we’ve tracked down two major elusive bugs in the melee combat system.

We’ve made several fixes today to address issues in the recent update. You can read all about the Trials of the Isle update here.

We are still investigating several known issues, including one that sees some hardware configurations (typically closer to min-spec) experiencing prolonged black screens on start-up and long load times into levels.

**Fixes**

* Fix for bug where being shoved could break control input when blocking (this was creating stun-lock scenarios)
* Fix for bug where shoving while charging an attack could break weapon input
* Fix for players crashing when joining a match late (related to long load times on some hardware configurations)
* Cleaver now benefits from axe perks (instead of blade perks)

Hotfix 90745 (April 28, 2016) ===
Greetings Contestants!

We’ve made several fixes today to address issues in the recent update. You can read all about the Trials of the Isle update here.

**Fixes**

* Made changes to address issues some users (typically with min-spec or below hardware) are having with long startup times and map load times. This fix should help many users, but we are continuing to investigate reports. Please submit a ticket at help.theculling.com if you are experiencing issues.
* Added an “off” setting for shadows, which should improve performance for some players

Fixed a bug where Steam Items for Pixie hair and Bun hair items were not referencing the appropriate in-game item (the Steam Item now appropriately determines which in-game item you own)

* Crafted Cudgel now benefits from Master Crafter Perk and Bludgeon Perks
* Air Drops once again sort by FUNC cost
* Cleaver is now referred to as an axe in the main menu
* UI descriptions for Crafted Armor and Body Armor reflect correct armor values
* Fixed Alarm Gun terminology related to Inhuman Perk in UI
* Crafted Cudgel and Crafted Hatchet now display proper names when they are lying on the ground
* Weakness replaced with Expose in UI elements for Axes
* Fix for players not being allowed to issue invites to friends whose Steam profiles were set to “private”
* Increased cost of Cyclops Air Drop to 135 from 110 FUNC
* Fixed issue where HUD was reporting Trident’s melee damage value as being higher than it actually is
* Fixed issue where spears were applying a bleed wound on throw
* Fixed bug where Bait Crate detonation effects play each time you select a customization item while Bait Crate is equipped
* Missed in original update notes: Poison gas map shutdown is now triggered when the match reaches 3 players (previously 5 players)

### Patch 90634 (April 27, 2016)

Greetings contestants!

The team here at Xaviant... and Frank... have been hard at work on our biggest, bloodiest update yet, “Trials of the Isle.” We hope you come out and join us when it launches tomorrow (Wednesday, April 27th). Servers will be down from 8 AM until Noon (Eastern) while we roll out the patch.

Bring a friend, or a mortal enemy, because The Culling will be available at a -10% discount on Steam until Monday.

We’ll see you on the island!

**Highlights**

* New Features
* Private lobbies. Up to 16 friends can compete in free-for-all mode and decide who truly is the master of the island.
* SteamOS support. Spread mayhem at your desk and in your living room.
* Female playable characters. Play as a female contestant with an extensive suite of customization options.
* Trials Matches. Trials Tokens are awarded for winning free-for-all matches. Spend tokens to compete in weekly free-for-all Trials Matches (at designated times) against other winners for a chance to score exclusive, limited-edition loot.
* New customization items. Spice up your gear with new shirt designs by Filthy Casual and Design By Humans as well as limited-edition hats!
* New weapons. Spill even more blood on the island with the Crafted Cudgel (Tier 1 Bludgeon, Crafted Hatchet + Rock, 2 FUNC) and the mighty Trident (Tier 4 Spear)
* New Air Drops
	+ Polecat: Trident, Survival Spear, Javelin (105 FUNC)
	+ Cyclops: Trident, Orange Juice, Body Armor (110 FUNC)
	+ Bait Crate: Decoy Air Drop that will explode upon opening to deal 20 hit points of damage. Available by default (50 FUNC)
* New weapon wounds. Each weapon type now has a unique wound.
	+ Expose: Axes. Intensity 1,2,3 increases damage of next attack made against the expose target by 5%, 10%, 15% respectively.
	+ Pierce: Spears. Piercing trait on Spears allows all damage from the spear to bypass the opponent’s armor. Intensity of the pierce represents how much of the armor is also removed on each hit. Tier 1:12.5%, Tier 2: 16.7%, Tier 3: 25%.
	+ Bleed: Blades. No changes to wound functionality.
	+ Cripple: Bludgeons. No changes to wound functionality.
* Throw Damage is now an independent weapon stat (no longer directly tied to melee damage) in order to further differentiate individual weapons
* Some weapons now excel at throwing and others are less effective. There are now fewer weapons that can achieve extremely high throw damage values when combined with Golden Arm.
* New Perks
	+ Dig Deep: Gain 30 Health when damage would kill you. (Once per match, visible to your opponents via HUD)
	+ Angry Octopus: When reduced below 30 Health automatically drop a Smoke Bomb (30-second cool-down, does not require Smoke Bomb in your inventory)
	+ Inhuman: You can not be tracked with Man Tracker and are immune to Alarm Gun
	+ Thicker Clotting: Reduce duration of all wounds by 50%(Clotting Agent and Hearty Constitution removed and replaced with Thicker Clotting)
* Armor Changes
	+ Crafted Armor now reduces incoming damage by 30% for 30 hit points (previously 30% for 20 hit points)
	+ Body Armor now reduces incoming damage by 50% for 50 hit points (previously 50% for 30 hit points)
* New baked lighting scheme improves graphical fidelity and improves rendering performance
* Shove Changes
	+ Increased launch delay of shove to closely match that of block and attack. Shove was previously faster which gave it an advantage.
	+ Shove no longer causes a stagger interrupt against a player who is charging a power attack. Players will continue to charge their attacks even if they are shoved.
	+ Shove now does negligible damage (previously 2 hit points per shove)
	+ Increased time between shoves to reduce effectiveness of spamming shove key
* Cosmetic Loot Rarity
	+ We have added two new levels of ultra-rare loot and adjusted our rarity color scheme to suit. Rarity progression is now: White,Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Orange, Red.
	+ Limited-Edition Items. Some items will drop only in Trials of the Isle matches and for a limited time.
* Crate Drop Distribution
* Spears, Blades, Bludgeons, and Axes now have an equal chance of dropping from all crates.
* Tier 4 melee weapons now all have a small chance to drop from Blue Crates

**Changes**
Graphics Settings

* Graphics settings will have a greater impact on your system’s performance
* Render Quality. This setting previously affected resolution only. It now also affects characteristics of the game’s new lighting scheme. The Extreme setting may represent a performance decrease for some users (but a significant fidelity increase over the previous version of the game) as a result.
* Texture Quality. The streaming pool size has been raised for users on the High and Medium settings and lowered on the Low setting to better handle different video card memory limitations. The Low setting should resolve hitching issues on low-end cards.

Gameplay

* Fixed a bug in Baseball Bat shove behavior
* Fixed a bug in Crafted Knife shove behavior
* Weapon balance adjusted for addition of Expose and Pierce, not as sweeping as previous balance passes. We like the jobs that each weapon is doing, but several needed their damage, speed or wound adjusted for Expose and Pierce.
* Perk: Poking deeply removed as it no longer fits with spear wounds.
* Bridge art and audio improved.
* Explosive Barrels and FUNC Barrels damage now properly falls off over its explosive range rather than ramping up.
* Fix for Bloodbath not applying its effect on throws. Changing the way we decide if an incoming bleed wound should replace an existing bleed wound. Before the one that had the longest remaining duration would apply, now it's the one with the highest remaining damage.
* Fix for Bomb Suit perk sometimes causing all players in theexplosion radius to get its benefits and not just the player with the perk.
* Fix for players being able to block while puking.
* Perks Code Red and Alarm Gunner combined to create Red Gunner
* Perk Blowsafe removed
* Perk Blowzoom removed
* Perk Master Crafted damage bonus increased to 20%
* Perk Tough Mother mitigation bonus increased to 15%
* Perk Big Boned health bonus increased to 25 hit points
* Charged attacks no longer break out of the charge anim when hit by a ranged shot
* Cleaver is now considered an Axe type weapon (apparently this is true in real life, because chopping?). We don’t have perfect balance of types yet (X # of Axes vs. X # of Bludgeons etc…), that is something we’re working on for the future, but we’re taking small steps like this where we can to prepare for those changes.
* Fix for Stun Gun using both ammo shots on a successful hit.
* Steel Snares were bugged and doing 15 damage instead of 25, this is now corrected.
* Recycle Costs and Airdrop Value bug fixes, some old values were still set in recycle values giving bad value to airdrops.
* Scoreboard no longer displays list of player names in a match until the first contestant is killed

Audio

* Alarm Gun SFX added when target is shot while Inhuman Perk is equipped
* Added new announcer death notifications for Spear kills.
* Added new announcer death notifications for Axe kills.
* Added new announcer death notifications for Fist kills.
* Added new announcer death notifications for Bow kills.
* Added new Health Machine phrases and random barks.

Level

* Map texture and material improvements.
* New south water treatment building WIP cleaned up meshes and landscape around area
* Fixed some door locks on the Southern water works
* Added new water works entrance piece
* Extensive support and level art changes to support new optimized lighting solution
* Adjusted container and recycler and health station locations to work better with the new lights and to avoid access through windows
* Toned down the bloom and contrast on the spawn box so the players screen doesn't white out on release

Character/Animation

* Animation speed improvements to better match current movement speeds (crouch, walk, sprint).
* General animation improvements to the attack animations to reduce popping and erratic behavior.
* Weapon animation fixes for hand IK
* Did some sword animation cleanup; added two missing 3P Sword Attacks to match the 1P versions; 1P camera animations are less erratic
* Leg IK cleanup
* Feet should only rotate to match normal of contact surface when IK is actually active (fix broken ankles when jumping / falling)
* Changed the anim length of crafting poison darts to match the craft time
* Animation polish for weapons while sprinting
* Added hip leaning / spine twisting when characters are turning
* Various female character supporting changes
* Created Bat heavy attack version for 1P and 3P which is two handed.
* Did some upper-body bow run polish.
* Added blinks and lessened the degree of head turn to the front end female idle.
* Separated hits reacts into new groups for better blending between hits and attacks
* Created recycle anims for the brass knuckles.
* Fixed skin weighting on balaclavas that was much more apparent with graphic versions

UI

* Added Icons for new Perks, Updated some others.
* Outline added to FUNC symbol in hud
* Crafting Guide Updated with Cudgel
* Loot rarity color is visible in front end for cosmetic items

Other

* Fix for Baseball Bat not showing charge meter for throwing
* Potential fix for input becoming stuck after item use is interrupted by puking. Now the item use will be canceled.
* Fix for players sometimes being able to spectate someone other than their teammate in a teams match
* Added protections against movement speed perks being permanently removed by cripple or low stamina state or edge-case scenarios.
* Fixed hover tooltips in front end menus to match perk descriptions
* There is a bug that is still allowing the Man Tracker to track female targets, Frank is apparently unable to resolve it this time around, maybe next patch.

### Patch 89935 (April 13, 2016)

Greetings Contestants!

It’s time for another patch. Our servers will be down tomorrow (Wednesday, April 13th) from 8AM until Noon Eastern. We hope you enjoy the changes, as well as the new format for the patch notes.

As always, our help center offers tools to submit bugs, suggest changes, and report cheaters should you come across any. Please keep the helpful feedback coming our way.

We’ll see you on the island!

**Highlights**

* Weapon speeds have been rebalanced, weapons are now faster across the board
* Thick Skin now protects against thrown weapons, making this perk a viable counter to Golden Arm
* Changed item lists for green, blue, and red crates, primary goal is to reduce the frequency of impact grenades and dynamite in the early game
* Fists, rocks, and branches are less effective in combat, making unarmed play riskier
* It now takes fewer strikes to harvest rocks and branches
* Replaced Weakness wound with Cripple wound for axes and bludgeons, Cripple wound is intended to be a viable counter to movement speed perks
* Addressed some balance and communication issues with shove mechanic
* Reworked Stealthy perk and crouching audio implementation to be more polished, crouching and Stealthy are no longer effective at silencing movement in water
* Movement speed perks now affect only sprint speed in an effort to reduce lateral movement speed in combat situations
* Gas iris can now start early if the match is down to five contestants and has an additional 1-minute small-radius stage at the end of the match to prevent players from hiding in the gas and healing to win

**Changes**
Gameplay

* Thick Skin perk now protects against all ranged weapons (including thrown weapons)
* Fall damage now interrupts med kit and bandage use
* Tutorial now features a checkpoint save system
* Fixed bug with attack animation duration for Fireman’s Axe and Sledgehammer
* Fix for Cannibal perk not replenishing stamina properly
* Fix for remote mine placement not being interruptible
* Green top crates no longer spawn Impact Grenades or Dynamite and have a reduced chance to spawn Explosive Mine and Remote Explosives
* Blue Top Crates now have a small chance to spawn Impact Grenades and Dynamite
* Red Top Crates now have a chance to spawn Impact Grenades and Dynamite
* Fix for a bug allowing stacking of punjis for a brief window after having switched weapons and back to the punjis.
* Branches, Rocks and Fists can no longer backstab
* Branches, Rocks and Fists no longer apply bludgeon related wounds
* Branches, Rocks and Fists now all deal 5-15 damage
* Hits required to harvest Branches and Rocks reduced by 35%
* Cripple has been broken into 3 intensities that set a crippled target’s speed to a specified movement speed regardless of buffs or perks currently applied.
* Tendon Cutter and Crippler (Chance to cripple with spears and blades) removed from perk list for now
* The bow perk Stunner now has 100% chance to apply Cripple at \* wound intensity
* Bludgeons and Axes now deal Cripple wounds of varying intensities
* Weakness has been removed to be reworked (replaced with Cripple for now)
* Shove will now interrupt during the transitions in and out of block to help meet expectations
* Stealthy perk tweaks:
	+ No longer provides quieter crafting - moved to Faster Crafting
	+ Footsteps are no longer barely audible, but will instead be audible to both yourself, and very near observers.
* Running through water is loud, regardless of how sneaky you are.
* Faster Crafting perk now includes Craft quieter in addition to faster.
* All weapon speeds increased.
* All weapons rebalanced to account for a greater differences in damage on faster and slower weapons.
* All weapons wound and damage values adjusted to account for Bludgeons and Axes now applying Cripple wounds.
* Bludgeon and Axes now have a few weapons balanced at the fastest speed, as do Blades and \*Spears have some slower options.
* Fixed issue where shove was instantly effective unlike other actions that have a brief delay to account for animation timing
* Fixed a bug where Golden Arm perk velocity increase was not working, set velocity increase to 25%

Audio

* High Pass Filter for gas now includes the new audio busses for Announcer and Health Machine
* Low Pass Filter for shellshock now includes the new audio busses for Announcer and Health Machine
* Removed Cone Attenuation from the Special Death SFX (scream in distance). This was causing the sound to be dimmed if the death wasn't "aimed" at you
* Lowered the volume for headshot received -4db. This was literally skull-crushing!
* Corrected the stereo spread in the Equipment\_Near attenuation set (stamina breath, interactions, etc.) to reduce positional sway while moving
* Replaced the single airdrop pad sfx sequence with multiple versions (and hold music!)
* Replaced the temporary rifle shot sfx with something in the same family as the revolver
* Created bathroom stall door open sfx
* Eliminated an annoying part of the temporary gas choke vocal sfx
* Lowered the volume of the distant animals and cameras -4dB
* Large throw loop was glitching at the end; it has been corrected
* Created new sfx for opening a medicine cabinet on the wall. Previously, it was using a larger locker sfx
* Created impact sfx for the airdrop crates when they fall from the drones
* Created proper door open/close sfx
* Created sfx for deploying and picking up C4 (+ new attenuation set for proper volume falloff)
* Revised the impact sfx blend for the revolver when thrown
* Created impact sfx blend for the Man Alarm Gun when thrown
* Created SFX for the mech bridge release and reset sequences. Will have to hook it up to test
* Added a Bridge attenuation set to give this a custom volume falloff and frequency decay
* Created SFX and blends for thrown Chainsaw impacts vs materials
* Created SFX for opening refrigerator door
* Created new chainsaw motor and attack SFX with new sequence blends & setup
* Added metal footsteps for Land, Sprint, Walk, and Stealth
* Attached new rifle sfx to rifle and hunting rifle
* Created anim synced sfx sequences for reload on revolver and rifle
* Created sfx for picking up ammo for guns (handful of bullets)
* Added event to cancel the health station barks
* Removed the baked in AKEvent from the reload animation (was playing old sfx on top of new)
* Hooked up new C4 deploy sfx
* New refrigerator door opening sfx
* New medical cabinet door opening sfx
* Hooked up new Man Alarm Gun impacts (when thrown)
* Hooked up new Chainsaw impacts (when thrown)
* Added keypad seq sfx to the controls that raise the bridge
* Swapped in better concrete stealth footsteps
* Added stealth landing sounds for all materials
* Added new switchgroup to handle stealth perk on and off

Art

* Change made to metal vents on lockers, made metal less contrasty
* Fixed collision on Crafted Smoke grenade, impact grenade, punji sticks and Tonfa to prevent strange bouncing and rolling behavior

Animation

* There is now a unique “shoved” hit reaction animation that looks significantly different from the “shoved while blocking” stagger animation, should make the block-baiting tactic a little less effective
* Fixed various run bugs happening like the pistol run cycle not playing properly in 1P, added slight shoulder animation in 3P and less movement on the knife and club arm in 3P.
* Fixed the pops that were happening between the start loop and end animations noticeable in 3P jump animations
* Got rid of the popping and erratic movement in some first-person attack animations
* Fixed bug where 1st-person and 3rd-person Fireman’s Axe attack animation timings did not match
* Added exhausted state attack for Fireman’s axe
* Fixed some visual issues with some throw animations
* Throwing stims and bandages no longer includes “pull the grenade pin” element of the animation
* Added custom animations for using func recycler
* Added proper animations when walking / running with the mantracker, alarm gun, and the blowgun
* Polished several hit reaction animations

Level

* Fixed granting func for entering basketball court bath house
* Bridge placement collision fix
* Additional cover rocks in the southern part of the map
* Gas iris changes
	+ Iris now start 11 minutes from match end instead of 10
	+ Iris closes to a 6 meter radius in the last minute of the match
	+ Med stations are all toggled off when the second phase of the iris begins
	+ Iris can now be triggered once the map is down to 5 players
* Some buildings now feature lootable toilets!
* Updated some art assets in the tutorial level
* Fix for dummies in explosives tutorial registering double hits
* Fix for stuck spot involving a floating bush
* Touched up landscape paint: Blended more dirt in and added some natural paths with dirt, and filled in some large areas of rock by blending grass and dirt as well
* Some building art overhauled

UI

* Fixed issue where switching presets in the character customization menu could cause the character to use the wrong body mesh

Other

* Fix for infrequent start of match client crash

### Hotfix 89742 (April 5, 2016)

Greetings contestants!

We have just released a hotfix with a few changes to improve your experience:

* Fixed a bug where thrown weapons would sometimes hang in the air briefly before traveling to their destination
* Made throw charge times consistent across all weapons, rather than scaling based on weapon speed rating (this was an unintended side effect from the weapon speed changes introduced in the March 30th patch)
* Reduced the FUNC cost of Health Stations from 1 FUNC for 2 hit points to 1 FUNC for 3 hit points. The goal is to find a good balance of value between Bandages, Med Kits, and Health Stations

As always, your feedback is appreciated.

We’ll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 89623 (April 1, 2016)

Greetings contestants!

Frank typed up a completely hilarious list of lies and jokes to use as a fake April Fools patch preview, but like most of the things Frank makes, we unceremoniously deleted it.

Instead, we’ve decided to offer up a tasty hotfix. Our goal with Early Access is to continuously evolve and grow the game with your help and support. Sometimes that means making big changes to find the limits of what’s fun and then dialing them back to find optimal numbers. This is one of those times!

The new hotfix contains the following changes:

* The slowest weapons are now 20% faster, which means there are now equal steps from slow to medium and medium to fast (the slowest weapons were previously ~40% slower than the medium weapons)
* Player capsule friction has been re-enabled, but with a lower friction setting. This will reduce sliding in melee fights, making it easier to track your opponent and land hits, while still allowing the opportunity for players to disengage from melee combat should they choose to

We’re always listening to your feedback and our goal is to use Early Access to make The Culling the best battle royale game in the genre. Thank you for your support and for being awesome members of the Cullmmunity.

We’ll see you on the island!

### Patch 89529 (March 30, 2016)

Greetings contestants!

Our servers will be down tomorrow (Wednesday, March 30) from 8AM until
Noon Eastern so that we can roll out a new patch. We are settling into
our cadence of updates every two weeks, which we will stick to as
closely as we can for the duration of Early Access.

As always, our help center offers tools to submit bugs, suggest
changes, and report cheaters should you come across any. Please keep
the helpful feedback coming our way.

We’ll see you on the island!

**Major Changes**

* Initial optimization of network code to reduce latency (optimization is ongoing)
* All melee weapons rebalanced in terms of jab and charged attack speeds
* Several fixes to issues that were allowing Crafted Punji Sticks to be abused
	+ Crafted Punji Sticks can no longer be placed on top of each other
	+ Crafted Punji Sticks can no longer be placed on walls, doors, or pylons
	+ Crafted Punji Sticks can now be destroyed by taking damage
* Rebalanced movement speed perks
	+ Leg Day perk movement speed reduced from 10% to 7%
	+ Speedy Spear and Runs With Knives perk movement speeds increased to 13% from 10%
	+ Movement speed perks now cost additional stamina when sprinting
* Reduced firearms damage by 2 hit points per bullet
* Fix for bug where some players could not see their unlocked items in the front end menus

**Minor Changes**

* Fixes for several spots on map where players could get stuck
* Replaced lots of placeholder map art assets
* Fix for intermittent issue where gas iris would not appear at end of match
* Fix for players being able to stand on another player’s head
* “Surprise Me!” Airdrop will no longer call itself
* Fix for crash when anything other than a player is caught in a non-explosive trap
* Fix for being able to avoid another player’s block by aiming at their feet or above their head
* Fix for backstabs not registering if they were aimed too high or too low
* Fix for bug where hitting an already stunned player with a Stun Gun would partially free them from the stun effects
* Fix for destroyed explosive barrels remaining interactive
* Fix for being able to escape a snare by placing an object or using a stim
* Fix for generating a duplicate stim if it was thrown while being used (the duplicate could not be used but it could be recycled)
* Turned off shadow-casting on water plane
* Fix for Explosive Mine detonating when an Airdrop container landed on it and causing additional bugs
* Fix to prevent melee and thrown weapon damage from being applied by dead players
* Small leaves and branches will no longer collide with projectiles
* Fixed issues with larger trees whose bases didn’t fully intersect with the ground and had collisions issues
* Disabled feature that created friction when players collided
* Fix for bug where throws would offset the thrown weapon depending on cardinal direction facing of the player
* Art passes on several buildings
* Crafted Smoke Bomb description no longer makes false claims about not affecting teammates
* Fixes for several animation-related bugs
* Fix for White Culco Graphic T-Shirt and Grey Culco Graphic T-Shirt having the same name
* Differentiated DBH Logo 1 t-shirt (which only dropped as an item during Closed Alpha) from the default DBH Logo shirt (now DBH Logo 4)
* New art for toilets and refrigerators
* Fix for 2nd place player not seeing “Hunted” screen on death
* Fix for bug where gas hazard sometimes wasn’t visible
* Fix for rare bug where blindness wound effects did not go away when the wound expired
* Reduced range of Pepper Spray from 7.5 to 6 meters
* Chemist perk rebalanced to offer 2X Stim effect duration instead of 3X
* Submission and Mangler perks now deal 135% melee damage dealt to opponent stamina instead of 200%
* Bows now use sights for aiming when zoomed instead of crosshairs
* Polish pass on player hit reaction animations
* Rebalanced loot rewards to prevent players with poor scores from having a chance at higher-rarity items. Top-scoring players can no longer receive lowest-rarity items.
* Cannibal perk now heals for 35 instead of 25 hit points
* Players are forced out of crouch stance when shoved or receiving a melee combat interrupt
* Fix for issue where Mantracker was placed incorrectly in Airdrop containers
* Orange Juice buffs reduced from 20% to 15%
* Projectile weapons now line up with crosshairs better
* Chopper and Basher perks charge time reduction now applies to throw charge time as well as melee charge time
* Fix for bug with shove distances when holding some non-weapon items
* Increased placement time of Explosive Mine and Remote Explosive from 0.5 seconds to 2.0 seconds
* Fix for bug where center kill switch would not activate pylons that had already been used
* Improved UI message for player who have been banned for cheating
* Fix for server crash related to thrown weapons
* Bleed wounds rebalanced to deal 4, 8, or 12 damage depending on wound intensity (down from 6, 12, 18)
* Increased duration of weakness wound to 12 seconds from 5 seconds
* Health Station FUNC cost doubled to 1 FUNC for every 2 hit points from 1 FUNC for every 4 hit points
* Three Crate Monte now uses a new explosion type to prevent players from opening the crates without receiving damage
* Fix for weapon attack speed ratings not affecting weapon combat performance as expected
* Added spear attack animation variety
* Fix for bug that allowed a spectator to win a match under certain conditions
* Texture size optimization for several character assets
* Bows now use varying bleed wound intensities:
	+ Crafted bow = \*
	+ Recurve Bow = \*\*
	+ Compound Bow = \*\*\*
	+ This is now reflected in HUD.
* Medkit now heals to full when players have Big Boned perk (previously restored a max of 100 hit points)
* Fix for camera speed not being reset if a player was disarmed while zoomed

### Patch 89106 (March 15, 2016)

Greetings contestants!

Our servers will be down tomorrow (Wednesday, March 16) from 7AM until 10AM Eastern so that we can roll out a meaty new patch.

Today we moved our European servers to a more central location and we’re excited to introduce regional servers for Oceania with the new patch. Please keep in mind that we have some general network optimization work still ahead of us.

Starting with this patch, we are entering a more predictable Early Access update cadence, which means patches and major updates will be announced ahead of release.

Our help center offers tools to submit bugs, suggest changes, and report cheaters should you come across any. Please keep the helpful feedback coming our way.

We’ll see you on the island!

**Major Changes**

* Added Oceania regional servers
* Rebalanced Stun Gun (Ammo reduced from 3 to 2, Stun wound duration reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds, Self Defense Airdrop cost increased to 90 FUNC, Stalker Airdrop cost increased to 100 FUNC)
* Med Station healing is now interrupted when healing player performs combat actions
* Players who disconnect now have a timeout before exiting (no more rage-quitting mid-fight to deny your opponent a kill)

**Minor Changes**

* Addict Airdrop cost reduced to 75 FUNC
* Fix for text chat input disrupting camera control
* Fix for several text-related bugs
* Bows found in Airdrops now include 24 arrows and text descriptions reflect that
* Fix for a bug that allowed a bow to be duplicated
* Fix for a bug where changing server region reset graphics settings
* Fix for several stuck spots in the map
* Airdrops are now sorted by FUNC cost
* Pressing Left Mouse Button during trap placement or stim usage will no longer cancel usage. Right Mouse Button now cancels
* Players with Blindness wound can no longer see opponents’ HUD Health/Stamina/Wound display
* Using the Center Kill Switch to activate gas pylons will now give the button-pressing player credit for resulting kills
* Rocks and Branches now deal reduced throw damage (which does not scale when charged)
* Removed backstab bonus for thrown weapons
* Crafting and item interaction are now interrupted when player performs combat actions
* Rebalanced Faster Trapper perk. Now affects trap disarm time in addition to trap deployment. Deploy and Disarm times are reduced by 75%
* Fix for some Med Kits allowing three uses
* Fix for inventory items temporarily disappearing for some players

### Hotfix 89102 (March 11, 2016)

Today we've released a hotfix for a few issues discovered after the "King of the Kappa" patch. Fixes in revision #89012:

* Fixed issue with ping displaying incorrectly
* Fixed bug where remote explosive could not be activated with remote detonator
* Fixed intermittent server crash at match start

We'll see you on the island!

### Hotfix 88985 (March 9, 2016)

The Culling team is proud to announce our first patch, which we're naming "King of the Kappa" to commemorate our surprise Early Release Island Showdown Tournament! This patch delivers European server support, as well as several bug fixes and gameplay balances. At Xaviant, it's our goal to deliver consistent updates throughout Early Access to provide the best player experience possible.

We'll see you on the Island!

Revision #88985 (Changes since Revision #88858)

**Major Changes**

* Added European regional servers
* Health Station now requires players to face the front of the station while healing (Note: \*We are investigating additional changes)

**Minor Changes**

* Added LIRIK Early Release Island Showdown Tournament Winner banner to central arena
* Added an exclusive t-shirt for Early Release Island Showdown Tournament participants to be awarded soon!
* Fixed several spots in the map where players could get stuck
* ESC key at Hunted screen now takes player to spectate mode
* Fix for player being able to partially cancel bandages and med kits and still receive the heal while moving
* Updated artwork for under-mountain tunnel
* Improved animations while holding various weapons and interacting with objects
* Hunted/Victory screens now display player’s match performance ranking
* Hunted/Victory screens now display loot rarity via colored icon border (work in progress)
* Fix for t-shirts clipping through character when wearing athletic shorts
* Fix for several text typos (thanks eagle-eyed community!)
* Fix for bug where "Grey" The Culling Logo Graphic T-Shirt was mislabeled as "White," which also caused the Grey version to always show as newly unlocked
* Fix for bug where sounds could get stuck with Punji Stick deployment
* Fix for bug where sounds could get stuck with Recycler and Open Crate sequences
* Improved accuracy for Recurve Bow and Compound Bow
* Fixed bug with animation where player disarms a trap they are caught in
* Reduced throw damage for all non-weapon items
* Rebalanced match rewards distribution
* Crafted Smoke Bombs and Crafted Caltrops no longer activate when dropped
* Potential fix for bug where player could be unable to move after canceling a Med Kit use
* Improved physical placement of items within Airdrop containers
* Updated game credits to include a shout-out to our phenomenal PR team at Evolve PR
* Crafting Guide now accurately displays FUNC cost of Crafted Snare
* Fixed bug that allowed SMG to be reloaded for 50 FUNC (now costs 75)
* Increased FUNC cost of Lumberjack Airdrop to 115 from 85
* Steel Snare in Thief Airdrop now includes 4 charges instead of 3
* Fixed bug where low-stamina player breathing sounds were not playing
* Fix for mouse sensitivity resetting when changing a keybinding
* Added animations for bush interaction while holding various weapons
* Added animations for FUNC-related interactions while holding various weapons
* Three Crate Monte match event no longer unlocks Airdrops when opening “trick” crates
* Fix for arrow not appearing on bow after crafting new arrows from zero ammo
* Fix for being unable to reapply stims while using Chemist perk
* Fix for Alarm Gun having physics issues preventing it from being easily retrieved from lockers
* Fix for intermittent bug where all HUD elements were stuck on in the UI
* Fix for poison gas visuals sometimes displaying in safe areas

### Hotfix 88858 (March 4, 2016)

Hi All,

We decided to release The Culling a few days early because we love you so much!

Here's what's changed:

Revision #88858 (Changes since Closed Alpha Revision #88624)

**Major Changes**

* Rebalanced FUNC economy to reduce early-match access to firearms and limit ammunition
	+ Crafting costs
	+ Airdrop costs
	+ Recycle values
* Rebalanced Crafted Blowgun
	+ Reduced max ammo from 12 to 9
	+ Reduced magazine size from 6 to 3
	+ Requires ammo to be crafted at Poison Gas Vents (cannot use rocks)
	+ Damage now scales based on level of charge
* Sickness wound default duration reduced, reduced intensity of screen effect
* Fix for player stun-lock condition that could occur with ranged projectiles (especially from SMG) and chainsaw
* Fix for occasional crash on player death
* Fix for occasional server crash that appeared to cause players to spawn in water
* Backpacks and Body Armor are now applied automatically if players use Backpacker and Armorer perks
* Added “Surprise Me” Airdrop, which provides the player with a completely random Airdrop from the list, making it easier to unlock new Airdrops
* Bleed wounds deal more damage
* Player can be disarmed while charging a throw
* Fix for Stealthy Perk not properly reducing the volume of sounds made by the player
* Improved throw damage bonus provided by Golden Arm perk from 25% to 100%
* Increased time required to fully charge a throw

**Less major, but significant when taken as a whole, changes:**

* Refactored collision in center arena to resolve bugs related to traps and items falling through world
* Airdrops now travel in a fashion that makes them hover over the landing zone longer to encourage other players to attempt to intercept them
* Refactored crafting recipe help screen
* Fix for bug that prevented players from re-applying buff stims (still not working properly with Chemist perk)
* Fixed exploit that allow player to apply a crafted satchel without consuming it
* Reduced cost of snare by 2 to compensate for increased caltrops cost
* Fix for bug where doors would prevent a snare from activating
* Added small delay after dropping or throwing an item before it can be picked up again
* Fixed several spots on the map where players could get stuck
* Added Tactical Machete (Tier 3 Blade) to blue and red crates
* Fix for blue crates sometimes failing to activate
* HUD updates while using Med Station no longer lag behind
* Caltrops no longer deal damage when triggered (still apply bleed and cripple wounds)
* Fix for being able to place snares in mid-air
* Single snare pegs no longer snare players
* Snare disarm progress is saved
* Fix for Airdrops being unopenable when failing to right themselves after being shot down
* Fix for vertical camera flipping bug that usually happened on spawn
* Player outline in teams mode now includes head and hair
* Fix for bugs where ammo counts for weapons were inaccurate until they were fired after being retrieved
* Fix for multiple items unintentionally spawning from the same locker
* Body armor can no longer be applied unless it improves the player’s armor stat
* Added collision to blocks surrounding the comms tower
* New reload animation for .357 Magnum
* Updated several placeholder art assets throughout the map (ongoing)
* Fix for Airdrop HUD element failing to refill after calling it once
* Players start without clothes in the UI to make first-time navigation easier
* Fix for bug with SMG death announcements
* Adjusted SMG recoil properties
* Improved mouse sensitivity slider range
* Fix for menu appearing if player hit ESC in Hunted/Victory screens
* Disabled numpad VO to resolve several bugs
* Announcer VO weighting to reduce instances of multiple voices overlapping
* Fix for last contestant killed not receiving Hunted screen (or seeing loot reward)
* Removed debug functionality previously mapped to F6/F7
* Disabled announcer voice in main menu from Med Station
* Changed placement of Med Stations and Recycling Stations so they are - further apart to resolve issue where Med Stations would sometimes fail to activate
* Fix for some announcement audio not matching the proper location name
* Fix for cases where gas iris would not trigger and end the match
* Fix for water blocking attacks and projectiles, especially in the Advanced Tutorial
* Polish pass on several combat and crafting animations
* Improved messages and handling of network connection status and issues
* Reset local player save file settings from closed alpha

Holy fuck that took me forever to format