This hotfix has some changes that will greatly improve the gameplay balance. We felt these were safe to make, and also important enough for you to play so we can confirm our approach before we refine Beta Weekend 3 content.
Normally, we won't do hotfixes during the weekend to try and keep the experience stable. Additionally, we like to let the team have a well earned rest after a busy few weeks. However, we want to make a few balance changes so we can verify our broader approach to experience and animals - before we start opening up other areas.
Try out the Beta Weekend risk free right now!
Want to try these out? Pre-order Icarus to get access to the Beta Weekend right now. You can play the beta as long as you like and refund at any time before launch no matter how much you play.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149460/ICARUS/
Experience from Crafting Increased Dramatically
We made a lot of changes to the experience balance from Beta Weekend 1 already, but one area missing was the experience from crafting things. As an example, crafting a wall was only giving you experience of half that of recovering a bush. What the object is made of is a big determiner of how much experience you got - but we hadn't balanced it since our last big changes.
This will dramatically affect the pacing of the game. Previous to this update, crafting gave you effectively no experience. Now, crafting things will give you plenty of experience and will speed up your progress in the game.
Player Respawning
In a future Beta Weekend we will be leaving your gear where you die for a period of time. This was considered too risky to include in a hotfix. We have also fixed an exploit where you had full survival stats when you respawn, this is no longer the case.
Weapon Damage Rebalance
Significant changes have been made to weapon balance, specifically:
- Throwing spears will cause significantly more damage (x2 to x4 more, depending on spear type)
- Projectile damage for arrows increased
- Arrows now cause much more critical hit damage (10-25% depending on type)
- Rifle Round causes much more damage
- Rifle Round now causes dramatically more critical hit damage.
Predator Perception Nerfed
- Wolf has perception reduced slightly, and its lost sight radius reduced.
- Bear has perception reduced slightly, lost sight radius reduced, and hearing reduced dramatically.
Miscellaneous Changes
- There was a small section in the BW3 playing area, that was incorrectly set to the be the arctic biome - causing blizzards and storms that were killing people. This has been fixed.
- Reduce all Aluminum recipe costs by factor of five
- Increase Coal yield again, another 20%
- Reduced XP from Oxite and Sulphur
- Fixed Posion Arrow was not doing damage or slowdown over time
