Greetings contestants! Last time we spoke we were beginning what we thought was a short road to Xbox Certification. A few weeks later, it appears that road mightve been a bit longer than our GPS led us to believe. In retrospect, using Mapquest in 2018 was probably not the best choice. Jokes aside, were still in the midst of the certification tornado. Standing squarely in the center, its difficult to say exactly when the Xbox One version will be given the green light, but were hopeful that itll be sooner than later. Though this process can be somewhat nebulous, well continue to keep you updated whenever anything of note changes or if any setbacks occur. While the Xbox One version is still our priority, we know that the current patch on PC has gotten a little long in the teeth. Even though its almost Halloween, its time to file those fangs down. Tomorrow a brand new patch will be delivered that reaches from gameplay to matchmaking and beyond. Servers will be down to deliver the patch tomorrow, October 25th, at 8AM Eastern Time for up to 4 hours. We know that many aspects of tomorrows update touch upon key issues within the community, and will usher in sever quality of life changes to improve the overall matchmaking experience. We want to thank you not only for your feedback but also for your patience as we work as hard as we can to bring Origins to everyone. Until next time, See you on the island Patch notes:

• For consistency, all items now apply a brief interrupt when they are thrown.
• Bots are used to fill open slots in online matches - Bot kills count towards XP and stats (including leaderboard kills) - Bots do not provide score bonuses for leaderboard score - Various improvements to bot behavior - Bots have been assigned customized names and outfits
• All hair cosmetics are now available to equip on male and female contestants
• Your most recently applied weapon skin is now previewed in your characters hands on the main menu
• Your character can now be rotated on the main menu
• Chemist Perk now applies exclusively to MuscleMan Milk, X-plosive Runs, and Iron-4-Skin stims
• Fixed a bug where melee damage would not scale appropriately based on charge percentage, which resulted in partially charged hits dealing jab damage
• Fixed a bug where Weakness wound was not applying its status effect, set its duration to 12s to match other weapon wounds
• The hit reaction that plays when you are struck with a shove, jab, or charged attack (assuming this action does not result in a full stagger) no longer roots you in place, eliminating the mini-stagger effect
• Store preview screen now displays a list of outfit contents
• Fixed a bug where region names were not consistent
• Fixed end of match scoreboard to allow all contestants names to fit
• Matchmaking system will now enforce bands - players will not be matchmade against other players with significantly different matchmaker skill rating
• Fixed a bug where armor would not disappear after being destroyed
• Made a handful of performance optimizations Increased stamina regeneration rate while walking or standing still
• Reduced the stamina cost of bow shots
• Fixed a bug where incorrect attack animation would sometimes play, depending on how far the attack had been charged
• Fixed a bug where headshots would bypass armor but still apply damage to it
• Improved input queuing behavior when transitioning out of a block
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Deuce achievement from unlocking
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Trapper airdrop from being included in the random list
• Fixed a bug where the Weakness wound would not be applied properly, correctly set duration to 12 seconds re thrown and hit a targets back
• Restored full controller support (was missing from recently added store screens)
• Players are no longer staggered when they are hit with pepper spray Armor no longer protects against alarm gun wound
• Fixed issues with certain keyboard keys not being mappable
• Bow velocity is no longer reduced when players stamina is empty
• Fixed a bug where Blue Crates would not spawn in all available locations
  
  [ 2018-10-24 19:01:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! The air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to change, pumpkin spice is in our lattes, fall is officially upon us.Though the clocks are soon to be moving back, this change in season has us looking at the road ahead. Origins has been a passion project for us here at Xaviant and we’ve been moved by the kind words, well wishes and messages of support you’ve given us since its release. We know that The Culling is as special for many of you as it is for us and we’re thrilled to return to the island once again. As exciting as Origins is, it is just the first big step in what we hope is a much longer journey. As we enter a new season, today feels like as good a day as any to share some of our far-reaching plans, as well as deliver a state of the union as to what’s currently cooking at L’Studio Xaviant. Immediate Xbox One: Our focus is to launch The Culling: Origins on Xbox One. We’re currently in the thrall of the Xbox certification process which makes it difficult to pinpoint an exact date, but we think we are down to a matter of days, not weeks. We’re committed to delivering on our promise and bringing free-to-play to all contestants as quickly as possible. Server Stability: We’re strengthening our online infrastructure to be faster and more reliable. We’ve rolled out several fixes and improvements already and we will continue to implement new upgrades on a regular basis. Short-term In addition to launching Xbox One version of Origins, we are also hard at work on a new update that includes quality of life changes and improvements for all users. [These changes are planned to go live following The Culling: Origins on Xbox One]

• Mini-Stagger: You’ve made yourselves clear, it’s time for mini-stagger to go, and go, it shall. The removal of mini-stagger is in its final stages of internal testing and will be included (or is that excluded?) in the next update.
• Showdown: You made it clear that you’d like to see Showdown return. We intend to make some improvements to ensure that it communicates clearly and traps as many no-good teamers as possible.
• Enhanced Matchmaking: The Culling is a lot of fun when everyone in the match has a chance at a win. Our existing matchmaker prioritizes queue times and full matches over making sure you’re matched with players of a similar skill. Our new formula will be unwilling to match new players with veterans. - To bolster this system, bots will be used to fill out online matches in low-population situations. As such, bots are receiving a round of cosmetic and behavior improvements to ensure that they enhance, rather than hinder matches where they appear.
• Early Closure: In case a match is full of highly aggro contestants, you’ve asked that we keep the action moving quickly and shut the match down early. We’re working on a simple method to shave a few minutes when the conditions are right.

Greetings Contestants! It’s been a very busy week here at studio Xav. We’re having a blast with Origins and we’re proud to say that many of you have reached out to share that you feel the same way. We’re doing our best to get as many new contestants onto the Island as possible and to spread the good news that is Origins. You may have heard that we have announced The Culling: Origins Island Invitational, a $25K streamer tournament coming up this weekend. We haven’t announced all of the participants yet, but you’ll be able to check them all out on Saturday, September 29th at 8pm ET / 5PM PT on Twitch. We’re super excited to showcase The Culling: Origins on a grand stage, but we’re also looking to get the game to a stage it has been on before and one that you’ve been asking about quite a bit: Xbox One. As of this moment we’re getting close to submitting the Xbox version to certification. Our target timeframe to get Origins to the Xbox is two weeks, just in time for October. Please keep in mind though that this process can be fluid, and while we’d like to share a concrete date, we simply cannot do that at this point. We hope to know more info in the coming week. On the gameplay front, you’ve been talking and we’ve been listening. We think the current live build is exactly what we wanted to achieve with the Origins launch - as close to Day 1 as makes sense. That means we’ve arrived at a point where we can carefully and methodically make some changes, specifically changes that you’re asking for. Before we go into those, we want to take a second to talk about the future. It’s the “anything can happen” atmosphere that only The Culling provides that makes the game unique. Chasing the mythical dragon that is perfect balance is not only resource-consuming, in a game like The Culling it’s nearly impossible. We’ve been down that road before, heck, you’ve been down that road with us. It’s not fun. Not for you, not for us and certainly not for new players. Rather than devoting a big chunk of time to obsessing over each weapon/item/perk/etc. being equal, we’d rather celebrate what The Culling is and look for ways to build the experience with new content and features. This doesn’t mean that we’re done making targeted changes to existing systems, what it does mean is that we don’t expect every aspect of the game to be perfectly balanced. Tweaking gameplay and emphasizing quality of life changes is important, but we want to see The Culling grow. We think deep down, you do too. Now, let’s get down to business. Here are a few topics you’ve been very vocal about: Mini-Stagger. In Day 1, if you were jabbed or shoved, your hit reaction animation briefly overruled your movement input, resulting in a short ‘mini-stagger’ where you could still rotate and fight but you could not move. We later removed this component, allowing you free movement, but we put it back into Origins for the sake of matching Day 1. We tend to agree with the feedback we’ve been hearing - it doesn’t feel good to get rooted in place, and being able to do it reliably in a 2-on-1 situation can lead to a stun-lock that’s really not fun. Showdown. Showdown is a feature that uses an in-game event to curtail teaming. If two players get too chummy for too long, they initiate a showdown. They must remain within the Showdown circle until one of them is dead. Of course the system isn’t perfect and can potentially lead to false positives, but you seem to feel that the benefits outweigh the risks. Early Gas Closure. Another feature that was added later but removed for Day 1 was population-based map closure. The basic idea was that if a match is progressing rapidly, that is, players are dying quickly, then the gas starts its closure early so that things stay lively. This also helps during off-peak hours when matches might not fill completely. We’re very interested to hear your opinions on these features. Should we leave them as-is or make changes? Please chime in on our new survey and let us know what you think. Until next time, We’ll see you on the Island.

Greetings contestants! As we close in on a week of The Culling being free-to-play, we have our first post-Origins patch inbound. Rather than making sweeping changes this new patch is intended instead to get melee combat feeling even closer to Day 1, as well as to address some big quality of life issues and bugs. We’ll have more to announce about our longer-term roadmap, including when you can expect Origins on Xbox One, soon. Servers will be down Friday, September 20th at 8AM Eastern for up to 4 hours. Changes - Melee Combat

• Melee attack animation playback speed is no longer affected by weapon speed (to match Day 1 combat timings)
• Fix for hit reactions when Shoved not looking correct from some directions
• Fix for melee input queuing bug resulting in the ability to charge attacks while shoving
• Reduced melee input queuing window to reduce unwanted queued actions
• Shove animation duration now 0.8s to match Day 1
• Shove range reduced from 2.0m to 1.75m to match attack range
• Striking a Shoving player now consistently applies a Stagger (this required special timing in Day 1) Dev comments: Please see our recent dev diaries, which explain these items in detail. All of these changes are intended to either get combat closer to Day 1 or address inconsistencies from Day 1 that muddied the experience. We will continue to follow community feedback regarding the melee combat systems.

Dev comments: We like seeing guns turn up in crates occasionally, but the drop rate was high enough that you usually saw several guns in many matches. The drop rate has been reduced by roughly two thirds.

Dev comments: You can still get explosive mines and remote explosives from green crates. This was something we talked about in a previous dev diary but didn’t implement.

Dev comments: This bug was introduced when we made some bow accuracy changes for Origins. We’ll be keeping an eye out for Bow accuracy feedback now that this issue is resolved.

Dev comments: This is not intended to affect ranged weapon balance, we felt that the crosshairs were a distraction when aiming down the sights.

Greetings Contestants! Yesterday, we shared our findings related to shove spam becoming a “thing,” and took you down the rabbit hole explaining how we intend to make some small tweaks to help you escape the grasp of a nasty shove sandwich in duos. As it turns out, the rabbit hole goes quite a bit deeper. Some of you have noted that combat still feels a little off compared to Day 1. You’ve given us the feedback that fast weapons are too darn fast and that the meta is evolving into something generally spammier than it used to be. One intrepid community member even took the time to create a side-by-side video that illustrated some differences. As a result, we’ve taken a deeper dive and we’ve found a couple of likely suspects. In the Day 1 build a bug with the weapon speed system resulted in all weapons jabbing at the same rate (once every 0.67 seconds), regardless of their speed. The attack animation played faster for fast weapons, but was followed by a brief pause after the animation before you could take another action. With slow weapons, however, you could take another action before the attack animation completed, which felt so margarinely-smooth that you wouldn’t believe it’s not butter. In the Origins build, this bug is rectified, which means that you are able to take another action immediately after your jab is finished. For fast weapons, this means an action every 0.57 seconds. For slow weapons, every 0.8 seconds. These may seem like a matter of only tenths of seconds, but the net result is that fast weapons have a significant mechanical advantage in Origins vs. Day 1, and slow weapons are at a significant disadvantage. Furthermore, with a fast weapon you can engage in far spammier behavior than you could in Day 1. But wait, there’s more! We also took a closer look at Shove, and found that the Origins shove animations last 0.67 seconds (which matches the base jab time). In Day 1, the Shove duration was 0.8 seconds. Again, only about a tenth of a second, but it can make a big difference in terms of feel, risk, and spammability. So what are we going to do about it? Here’s the thing: This sucks and it represents a pair of major oversights on our part. We worked hard to deliver Origins to you in a timely manner and these deviations from Day 1 were not intentional. Moreover, they are definitely not in keeping with our commitment to preserve Day 1 combat. At the same time, a big motivator for sticking with Day 1 combat is to prevent players from having to re-learn combat because we keep making changes. Making changes now, as always, risks alienating players who like combat in Origins just the way it is. The only good answer, in our humble opinion, is to remain committed to Day 1 parity and fix these issues. Our plan is as follows:

• Weapon speed will no longer scale attack animation speed. This means all attack animations will be consistent across all weapons (at 0.67 seconds) and weapon speed will only impact charge time. From a gameplay standpoint, this will match Day 1, but from a feel standpoint it represents a small improvement over Day 1, as fast weapons will no longer force you to wait for a fraction of a second after the animation completes before you can take another action. This is how the system should have been implemented in the first place.
• Shoves will return to their Day 1 timing of 0.8 seconds.

Greetings Contestants! Thank you all for coming out en masse for the Origins launch! We’re happy with our initial results but we’re certainly not satisfied yet. We think there are plenty of potential contestants out there who don’t even know about The Culling or that it’s free-to-play. We’ve got some big plans to change that, so stay tuned. We also want to thank you for being so excellent about reporting issues and giving feedback. Origins was always intended as a fresh start and that means there is plenty of forward progress to be made. This means a new opportunity for us to put lessons learned into practice. First off, we want to address the issue of missing Tokens. We know that some number of users have not received the Tokens that are included as part of the Founder’s Pack. We are working on a fix to prevent this from happening. Once the fix has been implemented, we will go through all users to ensure they receive the Tokens they are entitled to. We apologize for the inconvenience. There are several other items we’ve been hearing about that we’re looking at. Among them are Push-to-Talk, Bow Accuracy, Teaming, and a handful of significant bugs and exploits. We intend to roll out a patch as soon as possible (hopefully before the end of the week) that addresses many of these. A NOTE ON DAY 1 SERVERS As we set about writing this diary, we found ourselves wanting to go back to the Day 1 Reference servers to do some research. We found that this was harder to do than we wanted because those servers required 8 players to start a match. Moving forward, you can start a match with as few as 2 players, so we encourage you to do what we did. Grab a friend and compare Day 1 with Origins for yourselves. SHOVE SPAM In this diary we want to drill down on one particularly hot topic — SHOVE SPAM. The situation that highlights this problem is when combat becomes a 2-on-1, where a team can permanently stun-lock a single player by doing nothing but shoving repeatedly. It’s worth noting that we did not intentionally make any changes to combat mechanics in Origins vs. Day 1 and we approached this problem assuming we may have missed something. As such, we’ve taken another close look at Day 1 side by side with Origins. Here’s what we’ve found: DAY 1: In this build, being shoved (as long as you’re not blocking) is a lot like taking a tiny jab. You take a small amount of damage and you play a brief (roughly 0.8 seconds) hit reaction animation, which also moves your character a short distance opposite the direction you were hit from. During this hit reaction, you are unable to move, but you are free to take other actions. If you are struck while shoving, you can receive a full stagger, although this can only happen during a small window. We also found that in Day 1, the range of shoves is nearly 15% larger than melee attacks. This allows a player to execute a shove without being hit by a counter-attack. ORIGINS: In the Origins update, things are very similar to Day 1. One difference is that if you are shoved from the front or from behind, your first-person hit reaction is visually bugged. Being shoved from behind actually causes the camera to detach from your character, and you see your headless body lurch forward. Despite the visual differences being off-putting, this functionality behaves the same as Day 1, with the same timing and potential for stun-lock if you are shoved repeatedly. One thing that did change slightly in Origins is that if you jab a shoving player, your window to stagger them is larger, but it still feels inconsistent and requires precise timing, so jabbing does not feel like a useful counter to shove-spamming. Origins retains the inconsistent range of shoves vs. attacks. THE PLAN We remain committed to the rules and feel of Day 1 combat, so we want to minimize changes. That said, when things are inconsistent, buggy, or don’t communicate well, it’s worth fixing.

• With that in mind, there are three problems to address: In Origins, being shoved doesn’t communicate properly due to animation bugs.
• In Origins and Day 1, jabbing a shoving player doesn’t consistently result in a stagger.
• In Origins and Day 1, shoving has an advantage over attacking due to a longer range. Our fixes are as follows:
• When you are shoved, you play a hit reaction animation similar to that when you are jabbed. This tells you you’ve been struck, but your hands remain on-screen and you know you are free to take combat action, even if your movement is briefly impaired.
• If you attack a shoving player, they will be staggered, consistently. This makes the rule clear: Jab beats shove. Shove beats block. Block beats Jab.
• Shove’s range is reduced to match that of jab (and charged attacks). This means consistent range for all combat actions across all weapons.

Greetings Contestants! Battle Royale is back. Not only is that the official tagline of The Culling: Origins, but it’s also very true, which makes it the best slogan of September 2018. With Origins right around the corner, we think it’s time to give you an overview of the update as well as answer some lingering questions. We’re in the relative calm before the storm of our relaunch, so it seems fitting to take a moment to speak from the heart. Two months ago, our studio felt like we’d crashed into the rocks. We were stuck and there was no clear path forward. We had to take a moment, take a breath, and think about how we’d steered our ship into such a predicament. After some real, serious soul-searching, we realized that there was no clear path forward unless we went back to right some wrongs in our past. The Culling is the game that put us on the map and presented us with some amazing opportunities. But you, the community, are the people who made that opportunity real. Somehow we lost sight of that, and we lost our way when we let you down.
When we decided to return to our origins by returning to The Culling, we knew it was the right thing to do. We didn’t know if that choice would keep our studio alive, and to be honest, we still don’t know for sure. What we do know is that there was a tremendous outpouring of hope and support from the game’s most hardcore fans and from the community at large. Your hope is infectious and your positive messages put wind back in our sails. Admitting failure and choosing a path forward wasn’t easy, but once we started to put one foot in front of the other, plans fell naturally into place. Looking back, the last two months have been an utter joy. We’re a group of developers who love making games, and this Origins update has given us an opportunity to tackle a new challenge together. The stakes are incredibly high for us, but that makes the challenge even more exciting. Adding to our new sense of purpose is the fact that you have been with us each step of the way. We’re still not perfect and we have a lot of room to grow, but we did our best to share our plans and gather your input as we went. And from where we sit now, it feels like the process is working. The Culling, which started out as a great game, is better than ever with Origins. It’s one of the grandfathers of the Battle Royale genre, and even today it stands alone as a completely unique experience. The Culling is brutal. It’s in your face. It rewards patience, strategy, and smart decisions as much as mechanical skill. It’s now a game that’s confident in its own skin, a game that has been shaped by your influence. It’s a collaboration in the truest sense of the word. Whatever happens in the coming weeks and months, we are grateful for this second chance. We can hold our heads up high knowing that we chose a path less taken because it was the right thing to do. Thank you for that. Now, let’s talk about what we have in store for you this week.
What is The Culling: Origins? It goes without saying that the biggest change is that The Culling: Origins is free-to-play, which has been one of the most requested features from our community. Yet, there’s much more to Origins than simply a change in format. When The Culling originally launched in March of 2016, it had an exciting, “anything goes” approach to battle royale that was eventually sanded down over the course of many updates. Origins brings back that special mojo by returning to the game’s roots, incorporating the spirit of Day 1 combat, perks, airdrops and overall gameplay. Blending the classic with the new, Origins also offers some big improvements over the original. Origins introduces a stunning new art direction that modernizes the original feel of The Culling. It also adds new features, including XP and leveling, leaderboards, Cull Crates, hundreds of new cosmetics, new weapons, skill-based matchmaking, and voice chat. There are some systems (such as wounds) that don’t match Day 1, nor do they utilize what was in the latest live version of the game. Whenever we encountered a situation where we felt that the Day 1 approach wasn’t viable, we utilized surveys to gather community feedback that informed our decisions. If you’d like to read up on the details, you can find our Dev Diaries at theculling.com. When can I play The Culling Origins? The Culling: Origins launches this Friday, September 14th at 12PM Eastern Daylight time for Steam PC. How does free-to-play work in Origins? All aspects of gameplay are completely free-to-play in Origins. If you do want to support The Culling and spend real money, we’re offering ways to purchase premium cosmetics (clothing, weapon skins, taunts, victory celebrations, and Culling Cards) through premium currency and paid DLC. The cosmetics system works like this: As you play, you earn XP. When you’ve earned enough XP, you level up, which grants you a Cull Crate. Each Cull Crate awards 4 items. These can be standard cosmetic items or stacks of Credits. Credits, which are also awarded whenever you receive a duplicate item in a Cull Crate, can be used to directly purchase standard cosmetic items. Origins adds Premium items and currency to the mix. Some items (many of which are newly added to the game with the Origins update), are designated as Premium and can only be purchased with Tokens. You can also use tokens to buy packs of Cull Crates. Tokens are purchased with real money and also infrequently drop from Cull Crates. In addition to Tokens, there are paid DLC packs with exclusive items. The Culling does not (and will never) feature any pay-to-win mechanics. All premium purchases are cosmetic and intended as a means to support the dev team and the game.
What if I bought The Culling before it was free to play? All players who bought The Culling before it was free to play are entitled to our “Original Gangster” founder’s pack. For new players, this DLC package is priced to reflect the highest price we ever charged for The Culling. It includes two full “O.G.” outfits, 1000 Tokens, 10 Cull Crates, 4 Culling Cards, 2 weapon skins, a Taunt, and a Celebration. All of the cosmetic items contained in the DLC are new and exclusive to the Founder’s Pack, meaning that you can’t purchase them individually or get them from Cull Crates. The Founder’s Pack is meant to show our appreciation for the game’s original supporters as well as provide an avenue for new players to get in on the action. If you are a returning player who played The Culling after the Big House update, all of your stats, progress and unlocks are retained in Origins. This includes all of the exclusive items from the past, such as the Trials Winner t-shirts, which were limited-time and cannot be unlocked by new players.
When is The Culling: Origins coming to Xbox One? We don’t have a firm date yet but we’re working to get the update to Xbox players ASAP. There is custom work required to support free-to-play on Xbox One as well as a certification process that must be passed. We’ll let you know when we have a better estimate. What maps are included in The Culling: Origins? For many players, the Island map is emblematic of the true essence of The Culling and delivers the gameplay experience you most associate with the world’s deadliest game show. Because of this, Origins features the Island map for online play. While it is not currently fully supported (and lacks the Day 1 tuning it will require), players can still experience the Prison offline as well as in online custom matches. We will consider re-introducing the Prison for future updates, but for now we want to ensure the best possible queue times and matchmaking, so limiting the game to the original map makes the most sense. Can I create custom matches in Origins? Yes, players are free to create custom matches in Origins on Steam PC. Though Xbox One did not support custom matches in the past, we’re happy to report that they will be able to access this feature soon. What regions is Origins available to play in? We have server clusters available in North America (East and West Coast), Europe, and Oceania. Future region support will be determined by player demand. How does Origins deal with cheaters? The Culling: Origins features Easy Anti-Cheat protection. We are committed to an ongoing effort to keep cheaters and toxic players out of the game. How do Leaderboards work? Leaderboards in Origins are seasonal. Ranks are displayed for top winners, top killers, and top scores. Scoring is based on your ten best match scores for the season. Match scores are based on your placement, kills (kill value increases as the match progresses), and time alive. To achieve Diamond rank (and have a chance to be seen by everyone), you’ll need to win 10 matches with an impressive number of kills in each match. There are separate leaderboards for Solo and Duos. Will The Culling be updated in the future? Yes! Origins represent a new beginning for development of The Culling. We have lots of ideas for the future, but we also want to know what you’d like to see. Here are some of the things we’re thinking about, in no particular order:

• Ongoing bug fixes and stability improvements
• Ongoing optimization
• Minor balancing based on community feedback
• Improved custom match support, with mutators that allow the host to
• customize the experience, dedicated spectator slots, and the ability to kick
• players from custom lobbies
• New perks and airdrops
• Battle Pass to encourage varied play styles and provide a means for
• players to experience incremental performance-based progress and rewards
• Limited-time game modes
• More robust support for teams matches, including revive mechanic (possibly in Perk form), Team-focused perks, more teams in a match, and larger team sizes
• New cosmetics and avenues for customizing your experience
• Player reporting system

Xaviant Director of Operations Josh Van Veld offers a special announcement on The Culling: Origins Watch here

Xaviant Director of Operations Josh Van Veld delivers a development update for The Culling and shares when you might expect to be playing Origins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZqIzZUBpq4&feature=youtu.be

In preparation for the Origins update and a shift to Free-to-Play we have taken The Culling (incl Day 1) off of sale on Steam. We want to offer a huge thank you to all of our founders for your support.

If you haven’t heard, the team here at Xaviant is working on a big new update called The Culling: Origins. The goal of the update is to take the game back to its roots. The look and feel will be very close to the Day 1 version, but we’ll be keeping the bug fixes, improved art content, and performance optimizations that were solid steps forward. Along with this update, The Culling will also become free-to-play. We’ve been looking closely at the Day 1 Reference build and also reviewing all the changes we made made way back in the day. We know the game wasn’t perfect on Day 1, but we also recognize that on the whole, our changes took things in the wrong direction. As confident as we are in our abilities, we also need a process where we can make improvements and additions without jeopardizing what made the game so special in the first place. Some of those changes will be coming with the release of the Origins update, so we need to open up lines of communication right away. Right away as in right now. We don’t want any surprises and we feel it’s important to give all of you an opportunity to weigh in with your opinions and ideas. Let’s be real: Even with better communication, we’re bound to make mistakes. With that in mind, we want to assure you that when we do put a foot wrong, we’ll be listening to feedback and we won’t be too proud to roll back a change that isn’t working. Our goal with our Dev Diary posts leading to Origins is to cover the major aspects of the game. If we’re planning to make changes that deviate from Day 1, we’ll explain the problem we’re trying to solve and the plan we’ve put together. We’ll give you the opportunity to weigh in on each topic. Before we start tackling big topics, we want to outline our approach. These are some internal rules we’ve been making for ourselves:

• When it comes to the mechanics, rules, and timing of melee combat, you can’t change anything without forcing everyone to relearn the game. Leave Day 1 alone.
• Many systems were a lot more fun on Day 1. Only change what you have to. That includes Perks, Airdrops, Economy, Looting, and more.
• Sometimes small changes have a bigger impact than you expect, so be careful and don’t fix something that isn’t broken.
• The game features lots of highly lethal items, i.e. explosives, firearms, Stun Guns, etc. Finding a balance between high lethality (which can be a lot of fun) and easy accessibility (i.e. Stun Guns in cheap airdrops or Dynamite in Green Crates) is a tough proposition. Careful tuning is key. No dramatic changes.
• On Day 1, the look and feel of the game was more sinister. Let’s get away from the brighter sci-fi look we introduced with The Big House and get back to The Culling.
• The pacing and freedom offered in Day 1 was a lot of fun. Don’t force players to follow a specific path through a match and allow for gameplay creativity.

Find out more about The Culling's journey to F2P and return to active development in our latest Developer Video Diary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo5f5ByDplk&=&feature=youtu.be

Greeting contestants! Our main focus here at Xav HQ has been to get The Culling polished, full of Day 1 goodness, and to F2P as soon as possible. At the same time, we also know that we need to do some housekeeping when it comes to the Day 1 Reference Server experience if we hope to be accurately inspired. So, that’s exactly what today’s patch focuses on. We know that there are likely others you’d like to see addressed as well, but it can be a fine line. Along with wanting to keep the server as “vanilla” as possible, we also don’t want to split our resources, slowing down our ability to bring The Culling back to action on Xbox and PC. Still, based on your feedback, we know that these are some of the main quality of life issues you wanted addressed to deliver a more stable feedback platform. We will continue to monitor your feedback, along with player activity and behavior as we move forward. Servers will be down for around 1 hour beginning at 10AM ET / 7AM PT today. You can find the changes to The Culling Day 1 Reference below:

Greetings Contestants, Get ready to party like it's 2016 because murder is back on the menu, starting….today! After a hiatus during which we needed to learn some major lessons and get our heads straight, we’re putting The Culling back in development. Our mission is to rebuild our relationship with you and regain your trust. We’re taking the first step today as we bring back the Day 1 build. That’s right, the literal Day 1 version of the game from way back in March of 2016 will be deployed on what we’re now calling our Day 1 Reference servers (formerly known as Test Servers). As we move forward in development, this build will remain live to serve as an ongoing reference point to keep us from losing our way. If this comes as a big surprise, please refer to our recent announcement. LINK. If you own The Culling on Steam, you will be able to play The Culling: Day 1 Reference now, for free. All owners of The Culling will see Day 1 Reference as a separate app in their Steam Library. With the Day 1 Reference servers live, the team will move forward toward our next goal; a relaunch of the latest version of the game updated to feature all of the gameplay elements of the original. Think of it as a modern remaster that is as true to the original as it can be, but still retains all of the bug fixes and optimizations. From there, we will continue development of the game with a new philosophy that centers around preserving and maintaining what made the original release so special. Don’t be scared, because we will bring you all along for the ride and keep you informed at every step along the way. The Culling: Day 1 Reference is limited to PC only. Since this is literally the same client we released in March of 2016, it is not Xbox One compatible. We would love to make it available on Xbox, but that would require weeks, if not months of work. Rest easy though Xbox One players, because we will be bringing all of our future changes directly to you as well. At first, The Culling: Day 1 Reference will only be available on our North American servers, but we are already working on European servers and expect to have it available to our European players very soon. We may consider other regions, but we’re not ready to discuss that at this time. In case you haven’t heard, when the mainline version of The Culling relaunches it will be free-to-play. We want you to have plenty of friends to play with (read: murder) on the island and we think F2P is the best way to lure fresh meat to the servers. We need to do more work before we can provide a timeline or even predict what form it will take, but we will announce our relaunch date as soon as possible. We know we’ve made serious mistakes as a studio, but we’re not ready to throw in the towel. Every last one of us wants a chance to get things right and show you that we’re just a good group of people who love making games together. At minimum, we want to give you a fresh opportunity to enjoy The Culling the way it was meant to be. We can’t do it without your help. We hope that you can find it in yourselves to give us the chance we need. This is a new day. Tonight, the sun sets on the island, but not for the last time. We’ll see you there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnnsR1pn_0k

We ask that you please watch the following video for an update on the status of our studio and the future of The Culling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24rR69Ygn20

Greetings contestants! After a long journey, we’re pleased to launch The Culling out of Early Access and Xbox Game Preview into full release. Server maintenance will occur today, Thursday, October 5th. PC servers will be down at 2PM Eastern. Xbox One Servers will be down at 6PM Eastern. Maintenance on each platform is expected to last up to four hours on each platform. This update also coincides with the start of a new leaderboard season. Features

• NEW! Golden Weapons Dev Comments: Rather than delivering traditional airdrops for award-based match events (such as Grab My Package and Loot Express), we are now sending a crate with a single Golden Weapon to up the stakes of each event. These are Tier 3 weapons for mid-match events and Tier 4 weapons for late-match events. Their stats are generally identical to their non-golden counterparts, with a major twist. Our goal is that these weapons will provide a competitive edge, but won’t guarantee that you’ll win the match.
• Bleeding Blade - This Katana delivers a bleed that lasts until the victim heals. Triflector - This Trident deals 2 points of damage to your opponent every time you are struck
• Nutcracker - This Sledgehammer can be charged for up to 3 seconds to deliver up to 60 damage
• Axetinguisher - While this Fireman’s Axe is equipped you are immune to all wounds
• VomiHawk - This Tomahawk inflicts a sickness wound with every strike
• Vampire Bat - Recover 2 hp each time you strike an opponent
• Doppledagger - When equipped, this Bowie Knife allows you to double-jump
• nfinity Pole - This Yari returns to your hand each time it’s thrown NEW! Voice Support (Xbox)
• Proximity chat and Teammate chat
• Both of these features can be disabled in the options menu NEW! Cosmetics
• Creepy Clown Outfits, Hair, and Masks
• 8 new Victory Celebration animations.
• All weapons receive two new skins
• 26 new Culling Cards NEW! Achievements (for Steam and Xbox Changes and Bug Fixes
• Improved leaderboards interface to display a detailed breakdown of the matches contributing to your score
• Revised leaderboards scoring criteria
• It is now more challenging to attain higher ranks
• Lower match placement positions pay fewer match points
• Fixed several UI-related crashes
• Fixed bug where automatic region selection was not working properly on Xbox
• Fixed bug where thrown items would sometimes fall through ground
• Fixed a bug that caused a hitch on player death
• Fixed a bug where poison gas visuals could be offset from the hazardous area
• Fixed a bug where kill notifications were sometimes blank
• Added tournament winner banners for “The Cullminator” and “Killer Island” community events
• Fixed a bug where controller vibration setting would not save properly
• Fixed a bug where a piece of invisible collision was created after throwing a poison gas grenade
• Fixed a bug that allowed clothing to be unequipped entirely
• Fixed a bug where snare wires would sometimes fail to connect if placed at max range
• Fixed a bug that prevented users from progressing past the splash screen when offline
• Scoreboard now displays icon for weapons that killed dead players
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to attempt to invite a teammate from the splash screen
• Bouncing crate for Boom Box event can no longer launch players into the air
  
  [ 2017-10-05 13:59:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Contestants, In this edition of the Island Diary, we’re thrilled to bring you not one, but two major announcements! Our first piece of news is that this Friday, October 6th, we will roll out the next update for The Culling on both PC and Xbox One. This update brings new additions and improvements such as new cosmetics, Xbox Voice Support (proximity/team) as well as several key tweaks and bug fixes. The highlight of the update for many players will undoubtedly be the brand new Golden Weapons. As per usual, we will have full patch later this week when the update drops. Buuuuut we wanted to give you the full rundown on all eight of the new, shiny toys that will be dropped into the arena via match events. Golden Weapons Match events that deliver rewards, such as Loot Piñata and Loot Express, now deliver crates containing Golden Weapons. Mid-match events deliver Tier 3 Golden Weapons, Late-match events deliver Tier 4 Golden Weapons.  These weapons are generally comparable in stats to their non-golden counterparts, but they offer a bonus twist. Our goal is to make these events worth fighting for, without guaranteeing a win to the player who emerges wielding the golden weapon.  Without further ado: Bleeding Blade - A legendary sword so sharp, it cuts so deep that the bleed it imparts lasts until the victim heals. Think of it as the worst paper cut ever.

VomiHawk - This Tomahawk inflicts a sickness wound with every strike. That means not only can you take out your opponent, with the VomiHawk you can take them down with the sickness. Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah.


Now, time for for the second announcement.. This Friday’s launch marks The Culling’s exit from Early Access and Game Preview! When we launched The Culling in March of 2016, we were the first built-from-the-ground-up Battle Royale title and now we’re becoming the first entry in the genre to make a full release. What that means for you is more polish, fewer bugs, the addition of achievements for PC and Xbox One, and more. As excited as we are to reach this finish line, we’re not done. Not just yet. There will be more to look forward to in the future, but that will have to wait for a future diary. Until Friday, See you on the island.

[ 2017-10-02 19:01:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! Thank you for joining us once again for another diary. It’s here that we sneak out and leak out some of the newest features and game-changing elements coming to The Culling. Though we’ve been known to talk about long-term goals in the past, this time around we’ll be breaking down what’s coming in the very near future. While we don’t have a date to share just yet, there’s more than enough here that this edition is sure to be interesting, insightful and all the other adjectives that begin with the letter i. New Cosmetics We know that the best part about The Culling is smashing your opponents and climbing your way to the top. At the same time, what’s a moment in the spotlight worth if you’re not able to shine? We will be introducing a heaping helping of new cosmetic items for contestants to unlock and to show off their twister personalities. With new Culling Cards, new victory celebrations and new weapon skins, there’s sure to be something for every contestant. Plus, with summer coming to an end we’ve gotten into a festive, carnival mood. In addition to the above, we’ll be adding new hair, masks and some particularly dark clown outfits to bring a big smile to each of your faces. Xbox Voice Chat The next update will introduce voice communication options to contestants on Xbox One. We know that while many players enjoy coop with their friends, some simply enjoy the dynamics of working with a teammates and don’t always have a buddy, friend or a pal ready, willing and able to join into the action. Also, we know that when playing with a random teammate in the wild you can be left at a slight disadvantage, with pre-made teams often using lobby chat to strategize and gain the upper hand. Adding team chat both levels the playing field and opens up coop to a new crop of contestants who may have been intimidated to jump into the mode in the past. In addition to team chat, we’ll also be rolling out a much-requested communication feature: proximity chat. Though we’re not quite ready to talk shop on this just yet, it will also be included in the next scheduled update! Bug Fixes Each new update presents an opportunity to add, but it also goes without saying that they also allow us to address several key bug and issues head on. Some of the highlight fixes in the next update are changes automatic region switching (Xbox), thrown item disappearance, gas grenade glitches, unequipped cosmetic and more. We’ll have more details when we roll out official patch notes. Golden Weapons The wise philosopher C.H.A.S once said, “Not all that glitters is gold, but all weapons that are gold are FUNC’ing awesome!” Possibly one of the biggest additions to The Culling yet, golden weapons will shower the arena during event airdrops and offer players a never-before-seen level of power. There will be be no less than 8 Golden Weapons available next update (4 Tier 3s and 4 Tier 4s), each with their unique sets of abilities and modifiers. The entire Golden arsenal has been locked in, but you’ll have to wait until the patch notes to learn about them all. Until then, however, we have been able to sneak a couple out of Culling HQ to share with you early. Bleeding Blade - This legendary sword is so sharp and cuts so deep that the bleed it imparts lasts until the victim heals. Nutcracker - Though it’ a tad weaker than a regular sledgehammer under normal conditions, This Sledgehammer is no joke. It can be charged for 3 seconds to deliver 60 points of damage against any opponent unfortunate enough to be caught by its wrath. Closing This edition of our diary looked at the very near future and we can’t wait to share more details as the date draws near. We feel like each time we come together for these things, we get a little closer, a little friendlier, a little...cullinglier? What we’re trying to say is thanks for joining us again for this look ahead. Until next time, See you in the arena.

Greetings contestants! From new Match Events to new Perks, this is one of our biggest updates ever. The Culling has always been a savage competition and we can’t wait to see which one of you talented contestants rises to the very top of the leaderboard! Cull for glory. PC Servers will be down on Wednesday July 19th at 8AM EST and maintenance is expected to continue for up to four hours. [Note: We are currently preparing a patch for Xbox One certification and we will announce the planned schedule as soon as we have details for the Xbox One Patch.] Features

NEW! Ranked Leaderboards
• Players earn a Match Score based on position, kills, and time alive. Your 10 best Match Scores are combined to provide a singular Season Score.
• Depending on your Season Score, you may find yourself in one of 5 Ranks (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond).
• The top 10 players in each Rank are displayed for all to see. NEW! Cosmetics
• 2 all-new outfits for male and female contestants, with over 150 varieties of track tops, track shorts, turtlenecks, and oxford shorts.
• 8 new Victory Celebration animations.
• 3 new sets of weapon skins: 11 skins each for the Pitchfork, Camp
• Hatchet, and Hammer. NEW! Match Events
• Blood Moon: The sky takes a crimson cast and for a brief time all contestants’ locations are revealed with a spooky red highlight. No place to run, no place to hide. In Blood Moon, nobody is safe!
• Boom Box: A booming red subwoofer crate appears in the center of the Arena. In order to relieve this funky crate you’ll need to drop the beat with a bang. Luckily for you, a helping handful of Explosive Barrels are lowered into the area. Bombs away! NEW! Perks
• Each perk category receives a new up-side/down-side perk. Will the benefits outweigh the risks?.
• “Tight Grip” (Utility): Your ranged weapons cannot be disarmed, but your movement speed is reduced by 5%.
• “Tanky” (Survival): Incoming melee damage is reduced by 10%, but incoming ranged damage is increased by 10%.
• “Jogger” (Movement): Movement speed while fists are equipped increased by 10%, but all incoming damage increased by 10% (regardless of equipped weapon).
• “Berserker” (Combat): All damage dealt increased by 10%, but player loses the benefit of natural Cannibal (no HP restored when killing an opponent). Changes and Bug Fixes
• Fixed several crash bugs that resulted in poor application stability for some players
• Sprinting costs more stamina. Dev comments: We dialed stamina cost way back in the last patch and many of you felt that it trivialized the stamina system too much. This should result in a balance where stamina can still impact gameplay but managing your stamina isn’t a constant chore.
• Added a HUD icon to indicate when the player is crouching, walking, and sprinting.
• “Official Culling” uniform items now appear in “Default” clothing categories instead of “Special”.
• Increased/brightened blue outline for some pickups: Steel Caltrops, Muscle
• Man Milk, Hammer.
• Fixed several fatal errors affecting PC players.
• Fixed a bug where Brass Knuckles were using a longer shove animation than they should have
• Fixed a bug that prevented kill notification messages from properly appearing
• Fixed a bug that could prevent player from using controller to rotate character is cosmetics screens.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes failed to notify players about a match event occurring.
• Fixed a bug that prevented thrown weapons from applying their wounds to armored opponents.
• Fixed a bug where Alarm Gun crosshairs did not match iron sights and could lead to inaccurate shots.
• In addition to the above fixes, several additional fixes from the last Xbox One patch have been brought over to the PC. Please see the “[url=http://theculling.com/patches/2017/6/29/x-marks-the-spot-xbox-update-102949] X Marks the Spot” update notes for details.[/ur]
  
  [ 2017-07-18 16:05:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! Welcome back to the island diary! We’re over the (*whispers*: blood) moon because his month we wanted to shake things up with some immediate developments. From addressing current issues to massive changes on the horizon, this isn’t a diary you’ll want to miss. The good part? You’re already here! So let’s get down to brass tacks! Revisiting Xbox Update #102949 So uh, how about those bows?! Bugs, they’re the bane of any developer and the first Xbox Update addressed a lot of them, improving the overall “quality of life” across the board. Unfortunately, while the update resolved many of the key issues at launch, the it also introduced a pair of notable bugs of its own. The good news is that we are currently in the process of Xbox One certification for a brand new hotfix which will return bows to their intended damage, as well as correcting fixing a bug related to input queuing and inventory management. If all goes smoothly, the hotfix should land on Xbox One early next week! Stamina You can’t run from your mistakes forever, even if you have nearly infinite stamina! Throughout Early Access and Game Preview, we’ve been comfortable experimenting with big changes. Some of them are hits, and some go over like lead balloons. The good news is we always get the opportunity to hear what you have to say, and we’re happy to iterate further when we hear a clear message from you all. When we reduced Stamina costs in the last patch, we achieved our goal of reducing the burden of constant Stamina management as you move through the arena - freeing you to focus on more important things, like stabbing each other - but many of you felt like we took it too far. By eliminating the need to monitor or manage your stamina altogether, we removed something many players enjoy. In the next major update we’ve found a good middle ground that we think leaves players relatively free to sprint about the arena but still requires some care and attention. Patch Preview
As you may already know, over the course of the past several diaries we’ve teased more than a few exciting new features coming to The Culling. We know that many of you have been looking forward to these for a long time, that’s why we are thrilled to announce that a significant update is planned for later this month! You heard right! Before the end of July The Culling will be getting a major update. Among the awesome new goodies slated for July are the much anticipated player Leaderboards, two new insane Match Events, a summer-worthy wardrobe’s worth of Cosmetics and more! After much demand, we’re also working on Team Voice Support for Xbox One! At this point we can’t confirm that the feature will make this update, but we’re doing our best to get it ready for action as soon as possible.


These are some of the most anticipated additions to The Culling yet and we couldn’t be happier to share them with you. If you haven’t been following, you can find more details and information about these features in previous diary posts on theculling.com The update will come first to PC, with the Xbox One version arriving shortly after. We will have more peeks at the content ahead as we approach patch day so stay tuned to our official channels for the latest info! Closing Though we started this month’s diary with a slight look back to last month and a big look forward to all the spicy wings that July has in store. We can’t wait for you to chow down and to get your hands messy with all the new Culling flavor! We will have even more for you next month right here on the island diaries. In the meantime, feel free to come join our official [url]Discord[/url=https://discordapp.com/invite/theculling]. We host custom PC matches at Mon-Fri at 2pm EST where developers and players from around the world come together for an hour of goodness! But, until then contestants… See you on the island! [url]Read the full link here[/url=http://theculling.com/blog/2017/7/7/island-diary-july-7-2017] ​​​​​​​

Greetings contestants!  Let’s get straight into business! This latest patch addresses a number of bugs and quality of life issues from top to bottom.  The patch will be rolled out to PC players today, Thursday June 22nd. Currently we predict that servers will be down at 1PM Eastern with up to 4 hours of downtime to promote the patch. We will keep you up to date on our official Twitter with any updates or changes to the process. We pride ourselves on communication and while we would love to share specifics, we currently do not have a firm release date for the Xbox One release. As this is our first patch on the platform, we have some learning left to do and we’ll share info as soon as we have a clearer picture. We will keep you posted. See you in the arena! Changes and Fixes

• Reduced Stamina cost for sprinting
• Increased duration of stun when struck in the back by a thrown weapon
• Revised aim assist settings for controller
• Increased area where aim sensitivity assist applies
• Decreased area where rotational assist applies for ranged weapons
• Reduced maximum target lock-on duration
• Added Iron Sight sensitivity setting (controller and mouse) for aiming mode with ranged weapons
• Fixed a bug that could cause game audio to become distorted
• Added a detailed map of the Prison to the booth
• Fixed a bug that prevented toilets from periodically spawning items
• Fixed a bug where purchase prices for cosmetics sometimes failed to display
• Fixed a bug that allowed a gun reload to be initiated again before a previous reload action was complete, resulting in the reload sound playing multiple instances
• Fixed a bug that could cause the teammate highlight to fail to appear in some cases
• Fixed a bug where scoreboard would display incorrect player match rank
• Fixed a bug where bows would sometimes fail to fire a projectile
• Fixed a bug where players could become stuck in trees
• Changed settings to allow players to introduce more diagonal movement with the controller without incurring a movement speed penalty
• Fixed a bug where player names would sometimes fail to display correctly in a match (or on the scoreboard)
• Fixed a bug where player cosmetics would sometimes fail to appear properly in a match
• Revised all controller schemes to drop/swap inventory items by holding the X button (based on situational  context), requires less time holding the button to drop/swap
• Fixed bug where players were sometimes unable to activate a Man Tracker
• Fixed bug where Match Summary and customizations menus could freeze if players pressed down on d-pad using controller under certain conditions
• Fixed bug where snare placement visuals were incorrect
• Fixed bug where Victory Celebration animation could fail to display properly based on player state at end of match
• Fixed bug where players that were slow to load into the match could result in certain gameplay  elements failing to initialize properly
• Fixed bug that prevented Linux / SteamOS build from launching properly
• Coop is now defaulted to off in Quickplay filter. Players who wish to queue for teams matches should either team with a partner or remove the filter.
• Fixed a bug that could force players to replay the basic tutorial under some conditions
• Game now re-establishes a connection to game servers more reliably
• Fixed a bug that could allow brief flashes of nudity *GASP* on female character model
• Fixed a bug that caused aim assist and rotational assist to target teammates
• Fix for potential crash when accepting a teammate invite
• Fix for Chokening console sometimes failing to activate  
  
  [ 2017-06-22 14:21:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! Summer is unofficially here and it’s scorching hot. Weekly Diaries are our way of sharing what’s new and popping here in the office and giving you a little glimpse as to what can be expected in the near and distant future. But, since it’s so dang hot, we thought we’d quench your thirst with a little bit of a more substantial leak. This week we’ll be giving you a sneak peek of what’s to come in our next patch which should be arriving very shortly. We expect the patch to arrive in the next couple of weeks on PC, followed by the Xbox version shortly after. Until then, here’s a little extra to wet your whistle! Patch Preview [list[

Greetings contestants! First off - HAPPY XBOX ONE LAUNCH!!! Wooo, yayyyy, ahhh!!!! (that’s us in the office making excited crowd noise) From its inception, The Culling has always embraced the spirit of Battle Royale and has helped pioneer a genre that has grown to heights that we’re not sure anyone could have predicted. It’s an absolute honor to usher Battle Royale to console via Xbox One. The response so far has been overwhelming. The Xbox community has smashed our expectations, going so far as to bring down our servers as a flood of new contestants entered the fold. As of writing this, we’re still actively working on the issue but are confident that it will be resolved soon. We think that it goes without saying that the Xbox launch is exciting, but in the arena there’s no chances to to relax and it’s to get back to the nitty gritty. After missing last week’s journal, we have some juicy updates to share with you that all contestants will really enjoy. One thing to note, however, is that many of the topics this week are subject to change as in many cases they’re in the earliest stages of development. With that out of the way, let’s talk shop! Airdrop-Exclusive Weaponry Combat in The Culling is aggressive, in your face, and deadly. When fights are this intense and visceral, it’s paramount that they have a degree of predictability. At a glance, you should be able assess your opponent and be prepared for most of the potential outcomes. At the same time, too much predictability can make encounters feel stale. We’ve utilized modifiers such as perks to help spice up gameplay and to introduce a variety of ways to approach each match. While we’re continuing to expand upon perks, Airdrops are another avenue we’ve been pursuing. Many of our match events bring in Airdrops, but those drops pull from the pool that players can select. What if there were weapons you could only get your hands on by contesting a match event drop? Not only would that make the match events more enticing, but it would spice up the combat encounters that involve those weapons. We’re currently in the early stages of working on an arsenal of new Airdrop-exclusive weaponry that are part weapon, part perk, and all awesome. These new tools of destruction are like nothing you’ve seen before. Truthfully, we’re slightly hesitant to expand on this too far at this point of development, but here are a couple of conceptual examples which are currently being discussed as templates of these special items that can only be acquired through airdrops: Spirit Knife - A blade for the ninja at heart. Not only is it deadly, but the Spirit Knife allow bestows its master with the ability to double-jump, allowing you to get to traverse the arena with quickness and grace. Vampire Bat - A baseball bat imbued with the power to drain your opponent’s life force, stealing health with each hit. Infected Hatchet - We’ll be honest, the arenas aren’t sanitary. The Infected Hatchet is riddled with bacteria. Bacteria which can be used in your favor as you slice open your enemies and infect them with a violent and immediate sickness effect on each hit. Keep in mind that these are both currently works in progress and though they may make final cuts, they may also endure some changes. But we do hope that you got the idea and we hope that you’re as excited as we are to see these new concepts come to fruition. We know that competition is the pillar of The Culling, but we also know that we all crave excitement and new items such as these will expand upon your abilities as a player while remaining airdrop exclusive and having a limited impact on how the base game functions Closing That’s just a taste of what we have in the works and rest assured that there’s more to come. While you wait for our next update, we would love to hear your constructive feedback and suggestions. This week’s journal was very forward thinking and there’s still a lot of runway for new ideas or concepts. Whether you’re new player on Xbox or have been here with us since day one - thank you for being part of the Cullmunity. We’re excited for wild ride that awaits us and we’re thrilled to have you with us as we map out the road ahead. Until next week, See you in the Arena

Greetings Contestants! We are officially less than a month away from Summer. And you know what they say: sun’s out, guns out. Unlike some secret agents we’re not licensed kill, but we do have a license to patch, which is nearly as cool. [Servers will be down on Thursday May 25th at 8AM EST and maintenance will continue for up to four hours.] Since our last update, we’ve made great strides in improving various aspects of gameplay and addressing key issues that have come to our attention. By utilizing feedback from within the community, we have been able to address many quality of life items that simply make the moment-to-moment, match-to-match experience better overall. Players can expect to see changes to hot-button items such as attack queuing, matchmaking, tutorials and more. We look forward to hearing the response to this update and we will see you in the arena! Major Changes and Fixes.

Hello fellow contestants!  It’s Friday, which can only mean one thing. More inside info from the team here at Xaviant. Last week we kicked off our weekly edition of the Island Diaries and we have been excited by response it has gotten. You’ve made it clear that you truly appreciate a peek behind the curtain, and there’s plenty more to come. Obviously we can’t exactly let you know what has happened to Frank… for legal reasons… but there’s plenty we can share as we move forward. Did you know that our Communications Manager, Brian Sharon, smells like old pierogies? That’s the kind of hard-hitting info that you’ve come to expect.  Joking aside, updating you on what’s going on here in the Xaviant office is not only a great opportunity for you to know what’s on the horizon, but for us to pick your brains and to hear feedback as we develop new content.  So without further adieu let’s get right into the meat and potatoes! … Is anyone else hungry all of a sudden? No, we aren’t either.. Matchmaker Changes Over the past several weeks we’ve been observing a ton of discussion surrounding both queues and Lightning Rounds. It’s clear that for most players, the tried and true Classic game mode is still the major draw. At the same time, many players also appreciate the diversity of play that Lightning Rounds offer.  Additionally, we realize that most players who want to play teams matches queue with a partner. Signing solo players up for frequent teams matches by default isn’t providing the desired experience for many. Knowing the above, we will be making some overall tweaks to how the matchmaking process operates. Moving forward, the matchmaker will have weightings. What this means is that regardless of your filter selections, the matchmaker will prefer Classic Matches over Lightning Rounds. The matchmaker will also prefer Solo Matches unless you queue with a teammate. This means that leaving your filters alone will give you mostly solo classic matches, unless you queue with a teammate, which will give you mostly teams matches. Leaving all of your filters active will mean that under certain circumstances, the matchmaker will periodically place you in a teams or lightning round (think once every 5 or 6 matches instead of every other match). New Perks Last week we introduced you to our newest perk in production, Jump Start. While we have other perks currently in production that we will share with you in the future, we thought we’d share a little bit more behind some of the concepts behind their construction. One of the most unique aspects of The Culling in the world of Battle Royale is the ability to outfit yourself with bad ass airdrops and perks that allow you to shape how you play. At the same time, introducing so many new wrinkles and modifiers has the opportunity not only to unbalance the game, but to create “go-to” perks that render an entire field of options all-but useless. We’re currently playing with some ideas for perks that could be described as “double-edged swords”. A non-specific murdered uncle once said, “with great power comes great responsibility”. He was probably wrong, but we are still willing to run with the idea.  We still have a long way to go and we’ll be sharing more information on perks in the near future. We’d love to hear what you have to say on this topic so please do jump into our Discord and let us know Xbox One If you read the previous Island Diary you know that we revealed that The Culling was in the process of Xbox Certification. The team couldn’t be happier to give you a quick and concise update on this situation: We are thrilled to announce that The Culling is officially out of F.U.N.C.’ing certification and is officially on it way to Xbox One. “That’s awesome, but what’s the release date?! I had a feeling you’d ask that question. You can expect a release date next week.  That’s right. We’re going to be revealing the release date in less than seven days! So be sure to stay tuned because you won’t want to miss it. Closing That’s two weeks in a row. That makes this an official streak.. That can only mean one thing… We’re going streaking!!! Seriously though, thank you for returning to our diary and for supporting all things Culling. There are exciting things ahead and we can’t wait to tell you more. But, that will have to wait until next time. Until next time ! Wait.. didn’t we just say that? Is that, like, grammatically incorrect or does it just make us sound less cultured?  Either way… UNTIL NEXT TIME!

Why hello there. Fancy meeting you here. It’s us, Xaviant - developers of The Culling. How have you been? We’ve missed you. We’ve been so busy here in the office, which means that sometimes keeping up to date with our friends can get a little rough. Actually, that reminds us - that’s why we’re writing this. We can be so silly at times. We were thinking the other day, what if there was a way that we could let you know was hip with us kids on a weekly basis? You know, what’s #trending in the offizle and what’s the latest shizzle that we’ve got going on! Welcome contestants to a new chapter in The Culling. Each and every Friday we’ll be updating this little blog of ours giving you a bit more insight as to what’s being worked on and what players can expect on the horizon. These aren’t patch notes (which will still exist). This is an extra look into the development of The Culling. Obviously, we can’t spill all the beans, Frank needs to eat something, but this should open the valve to some of the leakiest leaks since the great Pump House leak of 2729. We really wa… hmm… you know what? Screw it. No more intro, let’s get right into things. Major Bug fixes The last update brought a whole new version of our game engine along with a complete rework of the input system, so there were bound to be some bugs introduced. It has been our priority to deal with all of the reported issues head on and we’ve been making some major headway. Among the most notable improvements are fixes for the Fatal Error/Crash bugs, as well more mechanical issues with input systems; such as attack queuing and more. This is a positive first step as we move forward and iron out any other lingering issues. We’re also currently investigating a critical obstacle that has prevented many Linux/Steam OS users from launching the game. While we do not have an ETA at the moment, we value the Linux community greatly and we’re working hard to resolve this as soon as possible. We can’t stress enough how helpful the community has been in helping us find and address many of these issues. We encourage you to continue reporting bugs on all of our official platforms, as well as sending in tickets to our support team directly at help.theculling.com. Post Free Weekend With the launch of the Combo Breaker patch we also ushered in a Free Weekend on Steam. This promotion, along with a significant sale, ushered in thousands of new players to The Culling. During this time we were able to gather valuable data, as well as helpful feedback from the community. In response to some of this information, we have plans to make some significant changes in the future. Arming New Players: One of the major lessons that we’ve learned is that even though we’ve added Survival Mode, Offline Matches and Tutorials -most new players jump directly into the action without arming themselves with the knowledge to make them successful. By making new players complete the Tutorial prior to playing online, new players will find themselves better equipped to both understand the basic mechanics as well as to compete with the other, more seasoned, contestants. On the topic of competition, we will also be reintroducing skill-based matchmaking. The system will evaluate player skill and match players up accordingly, offering players a field of opponents who are in their weight class. With that said, we are aware that instituting a system of this type has the potential to slow down queues. So, with that in mind, we have also designed the system so that it will only kick in when there are enough players in queue to allow multiple matches at once. This means that Matchmaking should have zero impact on queue times. Changes/additions: In previous iterations of The Culling, matches trended towards being slightly over-aggressive. With the latest update, new layers have been reintroduced to complement more varieties of play. We’re planning to expand upon this. Soon, a delay will be added to the timing of the gas closure at the beginning of the late-match phase of a match. The concept behind this being to offer contestants more opportunities to call in air drops and to participate in late match events. Additionally, we’re thrilled to reveal that we will begin to expand the perk set in the near future. Jump Start is the first of these new perks. A utility perk, Jump Start spawns players with a random Tier 1 weapon. In the hands of a fresh Contestant it can act as an early leg up on some potentially fierce competition, as opposed to the sticks and rocks we’ve witnessed some new players using. Moreover, though it comes at the cost of a perk slot, having a Tier 1 weapon to begin a game can be a lucrative gamble for aggressive players as well. Some might even say, it adds a little Jump to the Start of your match. Speaking of starts, we’re also going to be making a slight tweak to how Lightning Rounds begin. Though it may seem somewhat straightforward to experienced players, a large portion of new players tend to miss out on the ability to call their free airdrop in the first moments of a Lightning Round. To help curb this, Lightning Rounds will soon begin to deliver airdrops immediately as you exit the booth. This is a small tweak that leads to a far better understanding of how Lightning Rounds operate and increases the efficiency of play overall. Because let’s face it, a Lightning Round without a free air drop is more of a static shock. Xbox At E3 2016 we were proud to announce that we expanding the arena by bringing The Culling to Xbox One, but we didn’t have a release date. Earlier this year, we pulled back the curtain a little bit more, revealing that The Culling would hit Xbox One Game Preview program in “First Half 2017”. We’re happy to announce that not only are we still on schedule, but we’re currently in the process of certification with Microsoft. We can’t go into much more on this topic just yet, but it’s safe to say that you can expect more news about this very shortly. Closing Phew, that was a lot of info. But we’re not done yet. There’s still a lot more going on here at Xaviant and we’ll have more to share in the coming weeks. Expect to hear more about Matchmaker Changes and some exciting new features in the works for The Culling very, very soon! Very. Until next time contestants, See you in the Arena!

Play The Culling for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup The Culling at 33% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play The Culling. If you don't have Steam, you can download it here.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

Greetings Contestants! It’s April and we’re thawing from a winter freeze and feeling the excitement of sunshine and new potential. Earlier this month we leaked a little bit of info about what’s to come with The Culling, and we weren’t fooling. What’s old is new again, and what’s new is newer than ever before. Point blank: Stagger is back. [Servers will be down on Wednesday April 26th at 8AM EST and maintenance will continue for up to four hours.] But that’s not all! Along with the Stagger comes a host of new tweaks and variations to help improve the flow of gameplay and return some of the “show” in the game show that is The Culling. Heck, we even went in and threw in a new training mode for good measure! Many of these changes are based on key feedback from the community and we’re excited to hear what you think about them once they go live! Until then.. See you in the arena.
Changes New Combat Mechanics

Greetings Contestants! We’ve just pushed a patch that enables filtering of game modes. By default, “Quick Play” will queue you for all available modes, but the Queue Filters available from the Play menu will allow you to set preferences for Solo vs. Teams and Classic vs. Lightning. When options are Green in the UI it means you’re willing to queue for those modes. Black means those modes are filtered and you will not be put in those matches. Be aware that the matchmaker will always respect your filters, meaning you will not be placed in games that don’t match your preferences. Fewer filters will generally mean faster queue times. Changes

Greetings Contestants! Spring has officially sprung and new life is beginning to bud. That means that change is afoot, and The Culling isn’t excluded in nature’s plans. There are a lot of exciting things coming to the island in the near future and hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out the latest Roadmap Update. This week’s patch is no exception. Contestants can look forward to a multitude of improvements at all levels of gameplay and we’re beyond thrilled to share them with the cullmunity. Servers will be down on Wednesday March 22nd at 8AM EST and maintenance will continue for up to four hours. With that said there is one thing we need to address. With any change comes a certain level of uncertainty. We’ve run into some last-minute bugs while implementing the filtering system. Rather than pushing these live in this state, we’ll be working on them for a little bit longer to make sure the system works as close to intended as possible once live. This means that Filters will released after this patch. We do not predict a long wait and we will keep you updated in the coming days as to the highly-anticipated feature’s arrival. On the bright side, much like BShar at a donut eating contest, we were able to cram a few more items into this patch than we expected. We’re looking forward to seeing the reception to these new changes and look forward to reading your constructive feedback. See you on the island! Changes Combat

Greetings Contestants! Earlier this month we reached a big milestone: The Culling has been in Early Access for a full year! It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in the last twelve months. With endless hard work from our talented team and unwavering dedication from the community, The Culling has really grown up. Mom would be so proud! Even after 365 days of murder and mayhem, our passion for The Culling hasn’t dulled in the slightest, and we’re thrilled to share a few of our plans for year two. Without further Mountain Dew... Xbox One Perhaps the biggest item on the list for 2017 is the Xbox One launch. Bringing The Culling to a new platform means a whole new audience will get their hands on the game and we couldn’t be more excited to see people bring BR, into the LR. That’s Battle Royale into the living room. We’ve dabbed. We’re Hip. Although UE4 makes it relatively easy for us to add a platform, it’s true that some of our attention will be divided moving forward. With that said, we remain dedicated to the PC and continuing to make smart development decisions that benefit the game’s global audience, ensuring that Xaviant team can continue lavishing the community with updates for a long time to come across both platforms. At this moment we’re still weighing whether to support cross-platform play due to the implications of competing with a controller vs. keyboard/mouse, but full controller support is a feature we know many PC players will be happy to receive. As you can imagine, making the game feel good on a controller is more than just mapping buttons and we think we have a handle on how to let players enjoy both ranged and melee combat using a gamepad. Invert-able thumbsticks? Check. Dual-zone look sensitivity? Check. Aiming sensitivity and rotation assist? Check. Selectable control scheme presets? Check. Combat We have a few important changes coming to combat - and they’re coming with the next patch. The first change addresses the weakness/feeble wounds. After observing the latest combat iteration, we’ve found that skilled players are able to consistently avoid taking damage after receiving a weakness wound, which means blocking still doesn’t offer a significant advantage in combat. We’re upping the intensity of the micro-stagger that accompanies weakness, so that blocking a player’s attack creates a true opportunity to capitalize. The second change slightly more intense(and still subject to change based on internal playtesting before we put it out in the wild). At the upper levels of competition, players are taking advantage of the fact that being in a fully charged attack state is tremendously powerful, leading to stalemate scenarios (i.e. one player holds charged attack while the other player holds block) that aren’t fun to play or spectate. TL;DR: Good players do this weird dance combat that’s as awkward as watching your dad try to both whip AND nae nae. To address this, we’re no longer allowing players to hold a fully charged attack. Once a melee attack reaches full charge, it will execute automatically. Further, players will no longer be able to cancel an attack by blocking. While this technique can create some interesting moments, it doesn’t fit our overall vision of combat. Charged attacks should be very powerful for capitalizing on an opportunity (i.e. against a staggered or unaware opponent), however, they should also be risky under normal combat circumstances due to a likelihood of being blocked. Finally, we are removing the non-obvious mini-stagger that occurs if you are struck by an attack while you are shoving. This was implemented some time ago to discourage players spamming shove, but we don’t think it has a meaningful place in the current combat system. Balance

Greetings Contestants! We’re seeing a lot of positive response to this week’s patch but word on the street is that Frank snuck a few little bugs into the mix to keep us on our toes. We’re back with a quick hotfix, which should help alleviate most of these issues. Servers will be down on Friday February 3rd from 8 AM EST for up to four hours. While we have your attention, we also want to reiterate that we’re aware many of you are highly anticipating the ability to select your method and format of play. While we cannot put an ETA on this immediately, know that Filtered Queues and Ranked play are both our highest priority. In the meantime, we’ll be working on some behind the scenes magic to ensure that matchmaking in the current Quick Play platform is improved, giving a preference to Classic Solo play when queued alone. Additionally, we hear that Frank is working on a very special crate fix that should bring balance to the .. inventory system. But that’s for all for now. Until next time you crazy killers! See you on the island! Bug Fixes

Greetings Contestants! We want to thank you once again for helping make the Big House update a big success. Just when you thought the exciting updates were over, we’re busting out a new round of changes that are sure to make you squeal in the way people do when they receive a Valentine’s card from their crush or have a stealthy blade slipped between their ribs. Servers will be down on Wednesday February 1st from 8 AM EST for up to four hours. First off, we have a fix for the Cull Crate reward bug many of you have been experiencing. This is great news for many and we’ve been working hard to make sure that things are in order. With that said, restoring missing crates is going to take more time and we will have a solution shortly. We will keep you posted. Next, we’re debuting a big change that we’ve been hinting at for a long time: The Return of the Perks! Many of your old favorites perks are back and we’ve thrown a couple of new ones into the mix for good measure. The caveat is that now you’re only allowed one perk per category, which should allow for better balancing overall. But wait, there’s more! We’re also debuting an important round of combat changes that address the key concerns we’ve heard from you about the latest iteration. More than any other update to the system, this has been a collaborative effort with you, the Cullmunity. There are dozens of other important changes, but this wouldn’t be a brief intro if we covered them all. While some highly-anticipated features such as Ranked play and filtered matchmaking couldn’t make the cut this time around, know that they’re a priority moving forward and that the team is working tremendously hard to get them into a live state. Also, please be aware that our patch schedule may slow down for a period of time as we make some important progress on the Xbox One Preview version of the game. This should be a temporary delay and will ensure that when we launch on Xbox One Game Preview Program The Culling is as polished as possible, across all platforms. In the meantime, we’ll have some new and exciting news to share. But… we’ll save that for another post Stay tuned and see you on the island! Balance and Gameplay Perks

Greetings Contestants! First off - thank you for your tremendous feedback. As we launched our biggest update yet, The Big House, you came to our side and offered your support. Boasting nearly double the content found in the game’s Alpha, The Big House was a yuge undertaking and we’re glad to hear that so many of you have enjoyed the fruits of these many months of loving labor. With an update of this magnitude there were bound to be challenges, as we discovered when you descended upon our servers in droves. We’ve put together a hotfix that addresses some of the most pressing issues and we’re compiling a list of tweaks and fixes for our next patch. Thank you once again and see you on the island! Balance and Gameplay

Greetings Contestants! Itâ

Attention Contestants! With the upcoming major update comes some major changes. As of January 10th, The Culling will no longer utilize Steam’s inventory service to track your cosmetic item inventory. Instead, your inventory will be stored on our back-end servers. Along with the new system, some design changes are happening. Moving forward, The Culling will no longer support duplicate items, nor will it support trading or selling your items to other players. This decision was made so that we can utilize the same system across platforms. This change will help us prepare to launch The Culling into the Xbox Game Preview Program for Xbox One, a tentpole that the team is working hard to reach in 2017. When you first run The Culling after the major update, your Steam inventory of Culling items will be taken through a conversion process, which will do the following:

• Give you an equivalent item under the new system*
• Evaluate your full list of cosmetic items and Trials Tokens as an indicator of how much time you played the Alpha version of the game
• Grant you some number of limited-edition clothing and flair items along with additional rewards based on the list of items in your inventory
• Remove all Culling Steam items from your Steam Inventory In order to facilitate the conversion process, we will be disabling trading and marketing of steam items tomorrow, January 10th at 8AM EST. Sincerely, Frank *Be aware that in a small number of cases cosmetic items have been removed from the game and no longer have an equivalent item under the updated system. Don’t worry though, I’ve hacked nearly double the amount of items into the game and discontinued items will still count toward your inventory list when determining your other awards.
  
  [ 2017-01-09 19:11:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

The aroma of sour eggnog and dried blood hangs heavy in the brisk winter air as the team puts the finishing touches on the major update. But, what fun are the holidays without a little cheer? So, before that happens, we thought we’d let you open one last present before the New Year! The new patch will be released on Tuesday, December 20th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. This patch revolves around some seemingly small changes to melee combat that we expect will have a big impact. In an effort to make combat more enjoyable and less punishing, we’ve removed the stagger that previously happened when you struck a blocking player, and we’ve made it impossible for another player to cancel your charged attacks. We like the feel and pace this new aggressive twist brings to the combat system and we’re eager to hear your thoughts. For more in-depth explanation, you can read our recent blog post. See you on the island! Balance and Gameplay Melee Combat Changes

• Charged melee attacks are no longer canceled by taking melee damage
• Blocking a melee attack no longer staggers the attacker Dev comments: For a full description of our melee combat changes and the reasoning behind them, please check out this blog post.
• Late-Match Airdrops are available three minutes earlier. They can be called after 9 minutes have elapsed (16:00 remaining). Previously available at 12 minutes elapsed (13:00 remaining) Dev comments: We’re working to find the right balance of cost and match time availability for Late-Match Airdrops. These contain the most powerful weapons in the game, so we want to hold them back long enough to give value to the lower tiers, but we also want them to be attainable enough to represent a viable strategy. Keep the feedback coming!
• Bow headshots now deal 1.5X bonus damage (previously 2X bonus damage) Dev comments: We realized consistency for headshot damage is probably a good idea, so we’ve made the headshot bonus for bows match the bonus for firearms.
• Blocking now prevents wounds applied by thrown weapons Dev comments: Throwing was not originally intended to be a guaranteed way to apply a wound, so we’ve closed this loophole. Note that hits which bypass the block from the sides or back will still apply the wound, even if the player is blocking.
• Chemist Perk now increases duration of stims by 50% Dev comments: We like round numbers and Chemist was feeling a little tepid, so this is a golden opportunity for everybody to feel good about a change.
• Bait Crate is now treated as Early-Match Airdrop (instead of a Utility Airdrop), allowing it to be called once per match without FUNC cost Dev comments: We like the Bait Crate, but with recent changes to the economy, the 100 FUNC price tag was steep. By making it free to call once, it becomes a guaranteed option to try to hoodwink an opponent and put them at a significant disadvantage. Bug Fixes
• Fix for Brutus Perk applying more bonus damage than was intended Dev comments: Brutus was applying a larger bonus than it should have, this has been fixed.
  
  [ 2016-12-19 18:30:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

It’s hard to believe that almost one year ago we decided to go the route of Early Access for The Culling. After working on the project for a little over six months we realized we had something that could be very special on our hands. Our 16-developer studio had a 16-player game that we playtested several times a day, quickly making it our favorite competitive title. We realized that our 16 individual opinions about aggressive, player-versus-player combat were simply not going to be enough. Despite our collective years of experience, it was clear that we needed to include more viewpoints if we were going to make any changes with confidence. Hence the decision to release in Early Access - a choice that would afford us not only the freedom to experiment, but the opportunity to refine. Since that initial release of The Culling, we have always worked hard to make it a more fun, engaging and meaningful experience. Sometimes we got things right, sometimes we got them wrong. There is no doubt this game is in a much better state than it was nearly one year ago, thanks in large part to the feedback from the community, confirming that Early Access was definitely the smart decision. This January we will reach a milestone in our development. It’s a giant step toward what we would call our “1.0 Release” of The Culling, a goal that we’ve been striving towards for quite some time. As we approach that exciting group of features and additions, we wanted to take one more hard look at our melee combat experience - something which has been hotly debated topic since people started playing the game. In looking back, we see one glaring truth that stands-out: Players spend too much time “disabled.” It’s as simple as that. The fact that a basic attack can easily lead to a hard stun is so utterly disruptive that it is simply not fun. Not for new players, not for skilled players, not for anyone. According to our data, the average melee fight in The Culling lasts about 30 seconds. We estimate that players spend about one-third of that time completely stunned. We need to reduce the number of those disruptive moments to improve the overall experience. So this leads us to two significant changes for our last update of 2016. Although the changes themselves are small, we think they will have a big impact on combat in a positive way. First, we are removing the hard stagger associated with attacking a Block. Blocking a melee attack will still stop all damage, but it will no longer stun or disable the opposing player. The second change is that players can no longer interrupt the charged Power Attacks of other players. When an opponent charges a melee attack, your only recourse is to block, leading to more exciting moment-to-moment confrontations. All other aspects of combat remain the same. In our early tests in the studio we found these two changes to be incredibly positive to the overall experience, even at this preliminary stage. Now, we want to put it in your hands to see what you think. We just ask one thing: If these changes concern you, play before you judge. Bring your constructive criticism to us with some time spent playing with the new changes. It will make that feedback much more effective. With this patch we wish you all Happy Holidays. Expect to hear more about it soon. We look forward to seeing you during the break as players and after the break as we work to finish-up our exciting new features we will bring you in January. Signed, Xaviant CEO Michael McMain

Attention Contestant: You have received a life sentence and are set to report to Cul Country Correctional. See you on the island!

Greetings Contestants! There’s a cold wind blowing on the island, and the inhabitants are ready to get their kill-streaks on. There’s so much to be thankful for: Big bones, big lungs, ol’ painless, leg days, even deep digs. What’s that? You didn’t hear that some old favorites are making a comeback with a twist? Well quit gobbling that buttery corn cob and read on! [b[The new patch will be released on Tuesday, November 22nd. Servers will be down starting at 10AM Eastern for up to 4 hours. This time out we’re focusing on a couple of key aspects of the game: Aggressive vs. Passive play and melee combat mechanics. Aggressive play (which is inherently risky) is not adequately incentivized and leaves the victor vulnerable to vulturing, while passive play (which is dull to spectate and can lead to crowded end-of-match scenarios) presents no major risks or downsides. While we do not intend to eliminate passive play, we do want it to be a risky choice, so we’ve implemented the following changes:

• Kill Perks. As you achieve kills in a match, you unlock a series of perks that improve your combat effectiveness for the rest of the match. While we expect combat skill will remain the primary determining factor in most fights, these Kill Perks will give the edge to an aggressive player.
• Economy Changes. FUNC rewards for kills have been increased and FUNC gained from recycling has been decreased. Late-Match Airdrop costs have increased. This means expensive equipment will be more difficult to obtain for passive players.
• Vulture Reduction. Default health-on-kill has been increased and the radius of combat audio has been decreased. This makes vulturing more difficult and mitigates one of the major risk factors in taking on a fight. It is worth noting that the Kill Perks system is an experimental prototype and is likely to see changes in the future. If this system proves popular, it offers an avenue for more of the game’s classic perks to return in a controlled fashion. On the Melee Combat front, while the last iteration of timing changes (read: slower shove) was successful in its goal of making shoving somewhat risky, it came at the expense of a sluggish feel and jab-back. We want the game’s controls to feel sharp and responsive, and we generally want combat decisions to straddle a fine line between predictive (I expect my opponent to attack, so I’m going to block) and reactive (I can see my opponent is shoving, so I’m going to attack). In order to make combat actions feel quick and responsive, we’ve reduced the time required to shove significantly and made some tweaks to blocking and attacking. All three of these actions are now identical in terms of timing. We have offset the speed of shoving by giving it a period of vulnerability. If a shoving player takes damage, he will experience a “mini-stagger,” which leaves him vulnerable to an additional jab. With these changes, we are one big step closer to putting the finishing touches on the game’s foundation in preparation for the major update. We hope to have news for you on that front soon! EXTRA BONUS SECTION (COURTESY OF CULLMUNITY ORGANIZER ATRIUM_DEV) The biggest tournament ever for The Culling happened this weekend with over 125 of the best Culling all-stars battling it out for over $5,500 in prizes. Backstabs, grenades and BM galore gave us two new champions to add to the Cullmination banners! First off, congratulations to the TWO-TIME champion kvason95 with the patient decisive win over former two time champion PumpgunLouis and front-runner FaKe. kvason95 breathless and exhausted vowed to use the prize money to help out his mother and he’s not sure what to do with the rest quite yet. Watch the finals moments here. Secondly, a HUUUUUUUUUUGEEE congratulations to TheOneXplicitz for his aggressive, bloodthirsty, and frankly terrifying win in the NA Finals. Xplicitz conquered some high level foes (with some added BM) and took out Bombie^ to be your NA Champion. The finish in the blood bowl Cullmunation can be watched here. For all your Cullmunation discussion, highlights and results you can subscribe the survive the culling subreddit and read these threads. And remember to join the Discord to hang out with the champions, Culling developers and other contestants! We’ll see you on the island! Features
  NEW: Kill Perks are now awarded to players when they achieve kills in a match:
  • 1st Kill: +10 health pool
  • 2nd Kill: +10 stamina pool
  • 3rd Kill: +10% damage
  • 4th Kill: +5% sprint speed
  • 5th Kill: Dig Deep (restores 15 health when taking fatal damage) Balance and Gameplay Melee Combat Mechanics
  • If a player takes damage while shoving, he is subject to a “mini-stagger” which is shorter in duration than a full stagger, but still grants the opponent an opportunity to attack
  • Reduced Shove animation duration
  • Tweaked timings of Shove, Jab, and Block to be consistent with each other Economy
  • Increased FUNC Kill Reward to 60 (from 40)
  • Base recycle value of 10 for all manufactured items
  • Rocks and Sticks can no longer be recycled
  • Late Game Airdrop cost to 250 FUNC (from 200 FUNC)
  • Sledgehammer text and damage set to 10-30 Dev comments: Sledgehammer was previously dealing 9-27 damage, but the UI text was incorrect.
  • Reduce combat value of fists, rocks, sticks: 5-10 damage (from 5-15) Dev comments: This is intended to add combat value to Tier 1 and Crafted melee weapons.
  • Duration of full blindness from blindness wound reduced to 2 seconds (from 3 seconds) Dev comments: We’ve seen the effectiveness of a multi-smoke bomb strategy and want to take a bit of the sting out of being blind. Increased base health award on kill from 15 to 30. Note: There is a known issue where this does not work properly in offline matches. Reduced the distance from which combat actions can be heard Bug Fixes and Polish
  • Fixed missing fireworks for Grab My Package
  • Reduced duration of Airdrop notification VO Dev comments: A better long-term solution is in the works, but for now we’ve made these announcements less obtrusive.
  • Trump and Hillary masks retired. See you in 2020!
    
    [ 2016-11-22 14:58:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

The U.S. presidential election is nearly upon us and just when you thought the last political shots had been fired, The Culling has a final trick up its sleeve that could decide the outcome of the race. That’s right: Trump and Hillary masks are making their way to the island (sorry, Gary Johnson). In the final hours before Super Tuesday, Culling contestants will show their support by dressing up as their favorite candidates. Hop on a private server (hosted in Frank’s garage), build a wall around your Airdrop landing pad, and leak the blood of your enemies. Step aside, Washington Post, The Culling is ready to flex its influence and rock the vote! The new patch will be released on Monday, November 7th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. In addition to goofy rubber masks, this patch has A LOT going for it. For months we’ve been systematically targeting various core game systems and overhauling them to be more balanced, more competitive, more fun and more... “more”. This time we have Airdrops, Economy, and Match Events in our crosshairs. You can read the details below, but the short version is that we now have Early-, Mid-, and Late-Match Airdrops that only become available at specific time intervals (provided you have enough FUNC). Coupled with a stingier economy, we expect Airdrop choice to be more interesting strategically and more critical to the outcome of matches. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this round of changes is that for us it represents a critical milestone on our Early Access roadmap. At this point we’ve addressed all of the game systems that required overhauls, which frees up more of the team to focus on the Major Update that’s still in the works. There will be more patches before the update, but they are likely to involve fine-tuning, rather than huge shifts. This is the stimulus package we’ve been looking for. In a tip of Frank’s fedora to the Cullmunity, we’ve made a few timing tweaks to Blocking and Shove, we’ve added Cullmunity tournament-winner banners to the Cullmination, and we’ve made it easier to view the scoreboard when you’re spectating. We’ll see you on the island! #Frank4Pres EXTRA BONUS SECTION: Hot on the heels of their Culloween event, the Cullmunity is gearing up for their biggest tournament yet to close out the year. The Cullclusion (http://theculling.com/blog/2016/11/3/cullclusion-pre-qualifier-event). More guests, more prizes, and the biggest purse to-date; it doesn’t get much better than this. Proceeds from entry fees for the tournament are being delivered to the Texas Homeless Network, helping those in need during this holiday season. That’s literally a win-win when you put your money where your mouth is! You sign up and get more details on the Cullclusion here. (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-cullclusion-2016-tickets-27792364711) But what if you want to put your fist where your mouth is? Well you’re in luck friend, there’s an option for that. Each weekend leading up to The Cullclusion on November 18-20th we will be running Pre-Qualifiers to help contestants book their very own free ticket to the tournament! Windows will be open starting on 12pm EST and closes 6pm EST ( Nov 5/6, 12/13). During this time period, a contestant merely needs to meet the following minimum requirements to be entered in the running. Minimum Requirements: Play at least 10 matches during the time period Win at least 1 game Get a minimum of 3 kills in a single game If you haven’t registered for the free Pre-Qualifiers, what are you waiting for? Click here ! (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pre-qualifier-for-the-cullclusion-event-tickets-28860449381) Cosmetics

• New Trump and Hillary masks are available to everyone for a limited time! Halloween masks have been retired Balance and Gameplay Airdrops and Economy
• New Suite of Airdrops Early (Tier 2 Melee weapon + Crude Crafted Armor + Random Stim) (FREE)
• Random Blade
• Random Bludgeon
• Random Axe
• Random Spear Mid (Tier 3 Melee Weapon + Reinforced Crafted Armor + Random Stim) (100 FUNC)
• Bowie Knife
• Kukri
• Sabre
• Tactical Machete
• Pipe Wrench
• Baseball Bat
• Survival Spear
• Tomahawk Late (Tier 4 Melee Weapon + Tactical Body Armor + Random Stim) (200 FUNC)
• Katana
• Sledgehammer
• Trident
• Fireman’s Axe Utility (can be called up to 3X, available at match start, 100 FUNC)
• Tracker
• Backpack
• Man Tracker
• Alarm Gun
• Silent But Deadly Golden Arm
• Backpack
• 3 Javelins Medic
• Backpack
• Med Kit I
• ron-4-Skin
• Muscle Man Milk Trapper
• Backpack
• Steel Snare
• Steel Snare
• Explosive Mine Bait Crate
• Explodes and deals 50 damage when opened Airdrops now have an elapsed match time requirement in addition to a FUNC requirement. -Early, Utility: Match Start -Mid: 6 minutes elapsed (19:00 remaining) -Late: 12 minutes elapsed (13:00 remaining)
• With the exception of Utility Airdrops, Airdrops can be called once per match
• Airdrops now spawn directly over the landing pad and take 45 seconds to arrive
• Airdrop landing pads no longer spawn randomly, there are a fixed number of pads and locations
• Default loadouts utilize Early Airdrops and Load Dropper
• Improved item orientation in Airdrop crates
• Load Dropper perk reduces Airdrop call-in time from 45 seconds to 15 seconds (previously provided instant delivery) Recycle Value Updates
• Hemo Blast Stim: 10 FUNC (previously 20)
• Explosive Mine: 20 FUNC (previously 25)
• Remote Explosive: 20 FUNC (previously 30)
• Sabre: 25 (previously 30) Removed several activity- and time-based FUNC Rewards
• Time Alive (1, 2, and 3, these were providing a total of 100 FUNC)
• Crouch through trap
• Distance Traveled (1 and 2)
• Stim Use
• Opening various crates Dev comments: This overhaul of Airdrops and Economy is intended to accomplish several goals: Airdrop contents are balanced, allowing players to choose based on weapon preference. While the previous “themed” Airdrop approach was fun (and may see a return in some form), it meant that certain weapons were favored based on the quality of the companion items. The introduction of a time-gate mechanism allows us to control the pace of weapon progression, which in turn increases the relative value of each tier of melee weapon. Tier 2 and Tier 3 melee weapons each enjoy a 6-minute window where they are (nearly) guaranteed to be the strongest weapons in play. When coupled with a more restrictive economy, we expect the choice of an Early-, Mid-, or Late-Game Airdrop will be much more interesting from a strategic risk/reward standpoint. With Early-Match Airdrops available for free at the very start of the match, inexperienced players have a clear path to gearing up that doesn’t require intimate map knowledge (for effective scavenging) or understanding of the crafting system. We’ve all seen new players enter fights empty-handed, which isn’t particularly fun for anyone. We expect some aggressive veterans will also favor Early-Match Airdrops and rely on Holo Spawners and body-looting to provide Late-Match gear. By removing the majority of activity-based FUNC bonuses, including the controversial “charity FUNC,” passive players will have a much more difficult time accessing Holo Spawners or Late-Match Airdrops, creating a strong incentive for aggressive play. While still valuable, Load Dropper is no longer a must-have perk for a player who wants to guarantee an Airdrop. All Airdrops will alert other players to your location and can potentially be contested, but they can no longer be stolen in transit. While some of the gameplay associated with snagging an Airdrop as it traveled across the map was exciting, having all Airdrops spawn directly above their landing pad creates a host of new gameplay dynamics. Melee Combat
• Blocking: Reduce minimum block duration by 0.1 second (from 0.5 seconds), making total minimum block time 0.7 seconds (matches jab time)
• Shove: Extend shove time by 0.1 seconds, making total shove time 1.1 seconds
• Shove Animation: Shove animations should better illustrate the timing of shove, with an explosive pop at 0.1s, and a long follow-through where the shoving player is visibly vulnerable. Dev comments: The community has spoken! Several of you have voiced concerns about the slow feel and added vulnerability of blocking since our last changes, so we’ve reduced the minimum block time by 0.1 seconds. Coincidentally, this makes Jab and Block timing match exactly, which must be fate. We’ve made Shoving more of a risk by extending the duration by 0.1s and reworking the Shove animation to do a better job of visually communicating how vulnerable a player is after a miss. End of Match Map Changes
• End of match gas iris behavior updated. With ~7 minutes remaining, the gas iris pauses for 5 minutes. With 2 minutes remaining “Standing Room Only” begins and stops with 0 minutes remaining.
• With ~7 minutes remaining, “End of Match” Gas Pylons appear near in 4 key locations near the central arena. When triggered these pylons shut down large portions of the playable space, driving players toward the center. Dev comments: We’ve been struggling to find a solution to the phenomenon we consistently see in high-stakes matches (i.e. tournaments): Lots of players alive at the Standing Room Only phase, resulting in a messy brawl with questionable “who can survive longest in the gas?” tactics. When a tournament is on the line, it is difficult to incentivize aggressive play, but punitive action against passive players didn’t seem appropriate. Through changes to gas shutdown timing and placement of strategic gas pylons that only appear near the end of the match, we have created a scenario where we expect much higher attrition during the late game phase (from 7 minutes remaining until 2 minutes remaining), with only a few players remaining as the match winds down to Standing Room Only. Note that “End of Match” Gas Pylons behave identically to all other Gas Pylons in terms of radius, duration, and damage. Level Changes
• Community Tournament Winner Banners Added Dev comments: We are proud to display banners commemorating the winners of notable Cullmunity-organized tournaments.
• Fireworks at Grab My Package destinations Dev comments: This helps draw players to the location where Grab My Package will land, making it more contestable.
• Match Events now occur in 3 phases -Early (@ 4:00 elapsed) The Chokening Loot Express (Can deliver Mid and Utility Airdrops) -Mid (@ 10:00 elapsed) The Chokening Grab My Package (Can deliver Mid, Late, and Utility Airdrops) -Late (@ 18:00 elapsed) Loot Pinata (Can deliver Mid, Late, and Utility Airdrops) Three-Crate Monte (Can deliver Mid, Late, and Utility Airdrops) (Note: Two events happen per match, always at different match phases) Dev comments: We have new events planned for the upcoming major update, but in the meantime we’re embracing the Early-Mid-Late scheme of Airdrops and reformatting our Match Events to create a more cohesively paced experience that still offers the prospect of early access to a higher-tier Airdrop. Spectator Mode Features
• At match end, spectators automatically view the scoreboard
• Holding Tab key allows spectators to view the scoreboard (mappable key) Advanced Tutorial Changes
• Room 1 Mandroid has an on-screen damage display
• Auto Bow and all stims are now included on pedestals
• Recycler is available Dev comments: These changes make our internal QA testing easier and will allow the community to test and confirm their own theories.
• Holo Spawners no longer contain Hemo Blast Stims, have a higher chance to contain ranged weapons
• .357 Magnum, SMG, and Rifle have had minor accuracy tweaks
  
  
  
  
  [ 2016-11-04 19:37:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! There are few things we like here at Xaviant more than a spectacle. As we have our heads down, spilling blood sweat and tears, nothing gets our creative juices going more than a good show. Since our Early Access launch a special group of contestants have fed our blood lust, putting together exceptional Cullmmunity tournaments with big stakes and real-world prizes. We are proud to reveal that we will be helping to make their next event, The Cullclusion, the biggest and best event yet. Running from November 18-20th, The Cullclusion will feature the biggest prize pool in a Cullmmunity event to-date and even more prizes are going to be revealed in the future. Entry is only $2 USD, with proceeds will be going to the Texas Homeless Network, which means that each entry goes to a good cause, helping those in need during the holiday season and beyond. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! For the first time ever, we are announcing a Pre-Qualifier Event. The Pre-Qualifier is an opportunity to join in for Cullclusion fun by paying in blood, not money. Every weekend from now until the tournament, you will have a chance to lock down one of twelve slots for VIP entry into the brackets. That’s it. That’s all it takes. A spear through the heart here, an arrow to the head there, and you could be the next contestant on The Cullclusion! Each weekend leading to The Cullclusion (November 5 & 6 / November 12 & 13) a window will open at 12pm EST and will close at 6pm EST. During this time period, the behavior of contestants who register for the Pre-qualifiers must meet the minimum requirements to be entered in the running: Minimum Requirements: -Play at least 10 matches during the time period -Win at least 1 game -Get a minimum of 3 kills in a single game -Sign-Up here with your information The top twelve performers each weekend will be notified that they have locked in a free entry to Cullclusion, and the dirty dozen will be formed. Just kidding, we know you’re mostly clean. Probably. Register today, kill tomorrow, and don’t miss your chance to be remembered as a legend forever. The Cullclusion is here. For more information and to purchase your ticket for The Cullclusion - Click here To register for The Cullclusion Pre-Qualifiers for free - Click here

Greetings Contestants! Ghouls are lurking, ghosts are twerking, it’s that spooky time of year we all love and have come to know as Culloween. After a series of big changes that have set the stage for the future of The Culling, this patch should feel like a gentle tropical breeze by comparison. The highlight of this week’s update is a shift into how caltrops operate. Rather than sending players into a bloody rage, we’ve increased their cost and decreased their bleed so that contestants aren’t screaming bloody murder. The new patch will be released on Wednesday, October 26th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. Over the past few weeks we’ve made significant advancements with how The Culling plays at all levels and we’re adding several new changes in this week’s patch that continue to enhance the island’s competitive nature. Among other things, we’ve set our sights on improving the balance on ranged weapons, we’ve made Red Crates... crate again, and we’ve tweaked the economy to make sure that the island isn’t being hotboxed by smoke bombs. It can’t be 420 all day every day! These may seem like small adjustments, but they’re positioning The Culling for bigger and better changes in the near future. Oh, and if you’re a glutton for Early Access punishment, don’t worry, we have big plans in the works for changes to the economy and match progression that aren’t quite ready to roll out. As always, we are marching tirelessly toward the major update and we’ll let you know as soon as we have more concrete news. We’ll see you on the island! EXTRA BONUS SECTION: The Culling is nothing without the Cullmmunity and we want to thank Amanduuuh38 and everyone who was involved with, and supported this past Sunday’s EU Culloween tournament. Seeing the incredible response to the tournament gets our adrenaline pumping almost as much watching some of The Culling’s top players go head-to-head. If you missed the fun, you’re awful and you should be ashamed of yourself. BUT WAIT! You can redeem your transgressions November 18-20 when the Cullclusion tournament goes live. You sign up and get more details on the Cullclusion here. Balance and Gameplay

Crafted Caltrops
• Bleed applied by Caltrops is now * instead of **
• Crafting cost is now 6 FUNC (from 4 FUNC)
• Crafted Snare cost has been reduced by 2 FUNC to compensate, Blowgun cost remains the same, effectively increasing its total cost by 2 FUNC
• Individual caltrops now have 5 hit points (previously 15 hit points)
• Caltrops can now be destroyed by stepping on them, even if the player is in the brief immunity period after triggering one
• Reduced individual caltrop count to 12 (from 15) Dev comments: We love that players love using caltrops, but they are frustrating to deal with in certain situations. We’ve made several adjustments with the expectation that they will remain useful, but won’t pack quite as much punch and will be easier to clear from an area. Red Crates
• Adjusted placement of some Red Crates and Explosive Barrels to prevent cases where they could spawn extremely close to each other Red Crates now contain the following:
• Tier 3 melee weapons
• Guns (with half a magazine of ammunition)
• Compound Bow (with no arrows)
• Reinforced Crafted Armor
• Hemo Blast stim Dev comments: Although finding a Tier 4 melee weapon in a Red Crate was rare, it had the potential to dramatically change a match. We’ve guaranteed that the minimum time needed to open one will be a bit longer (requiring you to search farther for an Explosive Barrel). The contents will always be useful (especially if you open one early in a match), but the small chance of a Tier 4 melee weapon has been removed. Guns
• Zoom of Rifle increased in aimed mode
• Rifle hip fire accuracy increased slightly
• .357 Magnum aimed accuracy decreased slightly
• All guns have a base recycle value of 30 FUNC, but the value is increased if the gun contains ammunition when recycled Dev comments: We’re pleased with the small bump in popularity guns have seen since the last patch (they are up to an average of 4% of damage dealt in a match, compared to 2% previously). These changes represent minor tweaks for consistency and aren’t meant to have a major influence on gun use. Bows
• Crafted Bow Crafted Ammo costs 3 FUNC for 6 arrows (previously 5)
• Compound Bow Crafted Ammo costs 10 FUNC for 6 arrows (previously 5)
• Auto Bow recycle value reduced to 20 (previously 25)
• Compound Bow recycle value reduced to 25 (previously 30)
• Zoom of Compound Bow reduced in aimed mode Dev comments: Bows have also enjoyed a small increase in use since the last patch. We’ve made a few economy changes related to bows so that recycle values are consistent across tiers of weapons and to reflect the relative firepower of a bow in its arrow crafting cost.
• Crafted Smoke Bombs cost 10 FUNC (previously 5) Dev comments: Increased crafting cost will force players to think a bit harder about making one of these, and will substantially limit their ability to fill a backpack with them.
• Alarm Gun ammo can be crafted from rocks (previously explosive barrels)
• We have bigger plans in the works for the Alarm Gun, this change is just the tip of the iceberg! Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug that prevented blocking from being effective against certain ranged weapons
  
  [ 2016-10-26 12:02:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Contestants! The Major Update is Coming. As our forefathers have ...fore..told, The Major Update is Coming. As we prepare for its impending arrival, we continue our crusade to address major aspects of the core game, setting the bloody stage for greater things to come. Last week we overhauled our Perk list. This week we’re casting our gaze on a weapon that has been rumored to be found in different area codes. Bows. That’s right. We’ve got bows, in different area codes. The new patch will be released on Wednesday, October 12th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. Over the months since launch, we’ve learned a lot about the role bows play on the island. Bows makes up a small but significant percentage of the damage done in The Culling. Just like traps, explosives, and guns, bows can help you gain an advantage before the axes start swinging and the fur starts flying. A problem we’ve identified is the steep learning curve for bows that prevents many players from using them effectively, while making them an extremely powerful combat tool for those who are able to attain master status. Our goal with this patch is to close the gap somewhat by making bows easier, more rewarding, and ultimately more fun to use, while preventing them from being the only weapon in a player’s arsenal and maintaining a skilled level of play for experienced players. In addition to bow rework, we’ve made some tweaks to a few Perks based on the behavior we’ve observed and feedback we’ve received in the last week. We have a couple more big areas to address before we’re ready to devote all of our attention to the exciting new features we have planned for the major update. Upon its arrival people will tell tales of cold water and chemical combustion. Until then: Stay tuned. We’ll see you on the island! Balance and Gameplay Bows Balance Changes:

• Crosshairs turned on Dev comments: Some players were already using external means to enable crosshairs, which gave them an advantage that we were unable to mitigate. Rather than leave the rest at a disadvantage, we’ve enabled crosshairs for everyone! Note that crosshairs no longer expand/contract based on movement. This was not an accurate depiction of accuracy.
• Arrow velocity increased by 66%, with increased projectile drop from gravity Dev comments: This change supports the general goal that short- and medium-range targets will be easier for most players to hit. Bow users will not have to lead moving targets as much, but will have to increase elevation compensation at greater range.
• Removed bow accuracy penalties Dev comments: To be Frank, our accuracy system for bows was somewhat disjointed. There was a baseline accuracy modifier, which was intensified by low Stamina and hip fire, making bows somewhat unpredictable. We didn’t have a good way to communicate any of this to players. Since bows rely on projectile physics, they already require more skill than a hitscan weapon does. As such, we have removed all of the artificial accuracy modifiers. Note that built-in animation sway has not been changed.
• Blocking reduces damage from arrows by 50% Dev comments: We’ve effectively made bows more accurate, but our goal is not to shift the focus of the game to ranged combat, so we’re giving players a skill-based method to counter bow users.
• Ammo capacity reduced to 12 arrows (from 18 arrows) Dev comments: To further limit the overall firepower of bows, we’re reducing the maximum arrow capacity to 12. Committed bow users may choose to carry an additional bow, but this requires the sacrifice of an inventory slot, which we think is a fair trade.
• Bows no longer apply Bleed wound Dev comments: The power of the Bleed wound meant that landing a single arrow against a melee opponent could give a bow user a distinct advantage in an ensuing melee fight. Removing bleed means bow users will need to land more hits to deal equivalent damage, which should be easier to accomplish with the accuracy measures we’ve taken. Bow Damage Changes:
• Crafted: 5-10 (from 4-12)
• Recurve: 7-14 (from 5-16)
• Autobow: 5 (from 6)
• Compound: 9-18 (from 7-20) Dev comments: Uncharged bow damage gets a slight boost and charged damage gets a moderate reduction. We’re now consistently scaling bow damage from from 1-2X based on level of charge, which supports our goal of spacing the tiers a little more clearly.] Perks Changes:
• Removed Stealthy Perk, replaced with Stealthy Shot stim. The stim behaves like the perk did, lasts 2 minutes, and spawns in lockers Dev comments: with the changes in the last patch, Stealthy distinguished itself with the advantage it offers in terms of sneaking up on your enemy unawares and successfully escaping a fight that isn’t going your way. We like the gameplay Stealthy brings to the table and didn’t want to water down its effects, so we’re moving it to a stim. It requires the Stealthy player to acquire the stim and use it situationally, rather than having it permanently. Angry Octopus Perk Changes
• Smoke Bomb procs once per match (previously 60 sec cooldown)
• Smoke Bomb procs below 20 HP (previously below 30 HP) Dev comments: Angry Octopus also jumped to the top of the perk list along with Stealthy, meaning the island was often difficult to see because of the all the smoke. Based on how effective Angry Octopus is at turning the tide of a fight (offensively or defensively), some rebalancing was in order.
• Removed Immunity Perk Dev comments: By canceling bonus damage from backstabs and headshots, Immunity provided a hard counter for the Brutus perk. While backstabs and headshots are situational and generally require skill to achieve, we’ve decided to remove Immunity as our goal is to avoid perks that cancel one another.[i/i]
• Chemist extends stim duration by 35% (from 25%) Dev comments: Chemist was hit pretty hard with the last patch, so we’re restoring some of its former glory. This means most stims will last for 2 minutes and 42 seconds when Chemist is active.
• Stealthy Stim available in the following Airdrops: Ninja (replaces one Crafted Smoke Bomb), Boar Hunter (replaces X-plosive Runs), Addict (replaces Muscleman Milk) Dev comments: Having a fun new stim means we can add some variety to our Airdrops, so we’ve made a few choice replacements to make Stealthy Shot accessible.
• Increase stamina cost of jumping to 8 (from 4) Dev comments: Now that combat actions don’t cost stamina, we’re free to up the cost of jumping. This may or may not be intended to have a small impact on bow-kiting tactics.
• Master Crafter replaces Stealthy in the Stalker preset Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug where stims and some items can falsely appear to remain in your inventory after use Dev comments: This one has plagued us for a while and we’re happy to report that it’s been resolved. As always, please report annoying bugs at help.theculling.com.
• Fixed a bug where chainsaw continued to use stamina when used
• Removed some invalid game tips
  
  [ 2016-10-11 16:27:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Contestants! We’ve entered the month of October, which means running around in the woods wearing a mask is practically a normal thing to do. We know it’s a bit early, but we already have some tricks and treats up our sleeves and we can’t wait to share. The new patch will be released on Wednesday, October 5th. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. This is the biggest patch we’ve done in a while, so we’re offering a bit more explanation than usual. If you’re a fan of brevity, we’re even throwing in a TL;DR:

• More than half of the perks have been removed from the game, including anything that has a major impact on combat effectiveness or movement speed.
• Melee combat has received an important bug fix for blocking, along with minor timing tweaks to blocking and shoving.
• The bleed wound can once again apply to armored opponents. You didn’t like the change in the last patch, so we reversed it.
• We increased your movement speed by 10% across the board.
• The X-plosive Runs stim now grants you +25% sprint speed, but lasts for 30 seconds.
• Your combat actions no longer cost stamina and the Stamina Shot stim has been removed.
• All Airdrops are unlocked by default (for now).
• Several Airdrops have been removed, and several more have been adjusted, including Sapper.
• It’s a lot easier to see things that fall on the ground. The most exciting change here is to the perk list. We’ve strategically removed 25 perks from the game, including nearly all of the most popular choices. Why? Frankly, because blanket offensive and defensive boosts are boring. Because a permanent 20% movement speed advantage is too strong to justify. And, because we want fights to be decided on the island, not in the Perk selection menu. As the major update approaches (no, we don’t have a date to announce just yet) we want The Culling to be in lean, mean fighting shape. There are a few more areas we intend to revisit with upcoming patches, but in the meantime we’re eagerly awaiting the Cullmunity’s reaction. We’ll see you on the island! Halloween Hats!
• Jack-o-Lantern and Goalie Mask are available to all contestants for a limited time! Balance and Gameplay Perks: Removed the following Perks:
• Armorer
• Big Boned
• Big Lungs
• Bloodbath
• Blowhard
• Bomb Suit
• Chopper
• Dig Deep
• Disability Insurance
• Knuckle-dragger
• Leather Hide
• Leg Day
• Longshot
• Maniac
• Ol' Painless
• Recovery
• Red Gunner
• Runs with Knives
• Sneaky Poker
• Speedy Spear
• Stunner
• Submission
• Thick Skin
• Tough Mother
• Wound Less
• Chemist now extends the duration of stims by 25% (previously 100%)
• Golden Arm only applies to Spears (previously applied to all weapon types)
• Master Crafter no longer provides a damage bonus, but continues to reduce crafting time by 50%
• Trapper no longer applies Expose wound, but continues to reduce trap arm and disarm times by 75% Dev comments: What we’ve found with our old perk list is that if you don’t make the “right” choices (according to whatever the latest meta is) prior to the start of the match, you will be at a disadvantage. Once you’re in a match, it’s difficult to know what advantage your opponent has or how to respond. We’ve concluded that the best thing for The Culling is to move away from perks that simply improve your offense, defense, or movement speed in all situations. Along similar lines, we’ve removed perks that affect stamina and wounds. The following perks remain:
• Angry Octopus
• Backpacker
• Basher
• Bow Flexer
• Brutus
• Cannibal
• Chemist
• Golden Arm
• Immunity
• Inhuman
• Load Dropper
• Man Tracker
• Mangler
• Master Crafter
• Moneybags
• Regenerator
• Stealthy
• Trapper
• Base player movement speed increased by 10% (affects all movement modes) Dev comments: A large proportion of players were using at least one movement speed perk. With those perks out of the equation, the only available boost to movement speed comes from the X-plosive Runs stim. This left us free to increase the base movement speed to allow faster map traversal, which improves the feel of the game. Stamina:
• Combat actions no longer cost stamina (but do pause stamina regeneration briefly)
• Reduced intensity of low-stamina screen effect Dev comments: We like what stamina brings to the table in terms of chase situations (especially with the removal of run speed perks), but many players found it frustrating to try to manage stamina during combat. Stamina management is still a factor, but combat actions will no longer drain your stamina. Stims:
• X-plosive Runs grants +25% movement speed for 30s (previously +15% for 2 minutes) Dev comments: Enhanced movement speed is extremely valuable in The Culling. We would rather see players use bonus speed strategically in short bursts rather than for sustained periods, so the intensity of this stim has improved to allow for the same max movement speed we had previously, but the duration has been significantly reduced).
• Stamina Shot has been removed Dev comments: To better assess changes to perks, stamina, and X-plosive runs, we’ve removed the Stamina Shot. We never had a properly funny name for it anyway.
• Orange Juice improves movement speed for 30 seconds (bonus damage and damage mitigation last for two minutes after OJ is applied), is no longer found in Airdrops. Dev comments: Orange Juice still offers the benefit of all the other stims at once, but the movement speed element is limited to 30 seconds, just like the revised X-plosive Runs stim.
• All Airdrops are now available by default Dev comments: Our upcoming major update will see changes to Airdrops and how we award them. In the meantime, we know some players are struggling with the current scheme, which can make it very difficult to unlock that one drop you’re looking for. In the interim, we’re allowing all players to access all Airdrops without unlocking. Airdrop Changes:
• Juggler, Pothead, and Hoodlum have been removed
• Medic now contains Iron-4-Skin instead of Orange Juice
• Stamina Shot has been removed from Survivalist, Lumberjack, and Archer
• Sapper now includes 1 Dynamite, 1 Explosive Mine, 1 X-plosive Runs stim (previously included 3 sticks of dynamite and Iron-4-Skin)
• Bait Crate now costs 150 FUNC and deals 50 damage (previously 50 FUNC and 25 damage)
• Archer now costs 75 FUNC and contains Crude Crafted Armor instead of stims (from 125 FUNC)
• Hawk’s Eye now costs 225 FUNC (from 125 FUNC)
• Demon Hunter now costs 125 FUNC (from 175 FUNC)
• Slugger now contains Crude Crafted Armor instead of X-plosive Runs Dev comments: Juggler and Hoodlum have been removed, as they were targeted at specific perks that have been cut or modified. Pothead was removed because we no longer offer Orange Juice in Airdrops. Sapper also lands a step down after inspiring rage with its previous dynamite-heavy loadout. We’ve heard several suggestions that we increase the damage done by Bait Crate, so we’re giving that a try as well. It's worth noting that we've decided to start treating the Recurve Bow as a Tier 2 weapon, Auto Bow as a Tier 3, and Compound Bow as Tier 4. This is reflected in where these items spawn and what their Airdrops cost.
• Armor no longer blocks application of bleed wound Dev comments: Prior to the latest patch, blades were dealing far more damage per match than any other weapon type, so we looked at several options to bring them closer in line. We decided to allow armor to block the application of the bleed wound, knowing that bleed is a major factor contributing to the value of blades. While blades have settled comfortably into the #2 position (behind bludgeons) in terms of average damage per match, the community has not embraced the change, so we’re reversing it. We expect that the new changes to perks will have an influence on weapon selection, so we’re eager to see the outcome.
• Blocking: Minimum duration increased to 0.5 seconds (from 0.25 seconds) Dev comments: When we removed the vulnerability to shove during the exit from your block animation in the last patch, it became much harder to shove a player who was repeatedly tapping the block key, which in turn made the “block baiting” tactic more effective. By extending the minimum block duration by a fraction of a second, it will now be possible to react to an opponent’s block with a shove, making block baiting more risky.
• Shove: “Time between shots” increased to 0.2 seconds (from 0.1 seconds) Dev comments: This change effectively extends the overall time of a shove by 0.1 seconds. Shoving an opponent who is not blocking has never been terribly risky because there is very little time for your opponent to punish a missed shove with a jab. By extending the shove time slightly, we extend the window in which an opponent can recognize your failed shove and counter with an attack.
• Blowgun
• Reduce blowgun damage to 1
• Reduce max ammo to 3 Dev comments: We’ve seen some abuse of blowguns by skilled players, so the Blowhard perk has been removed (it allowed the blowgun to deal significant damage). We've also reduced base damage and ammo count.
• Increased visibility for all dropped items, including some items that were not receiving any highlight when dropped, such as the Crafted Bow and Crafted Bandage Dev comments: By popular demand, we’re making it easier to find stuff that falls on the ground. The effect might be a little too intense, but we wanted to err on the side of visibility for this pass.
• Compound Bow no longer appears in Holospawners
• Default character presets have been updated to reflect changes to perks and Airdrops. Bug Fixes
• Fix for Reinforced Crafted Armor not visibly disappearing after it is destroyed
• Fix for issue where First-person block animation can appear to drop before the block has completed in an online match if the block button is tapped briefly Dev comments: After hearing strong community feedback from the last patch regarding the change we made to blocking, we investigated the mechanic more closely and found this bug. The net effect was that a player who quickly tapped the block key would see their block drop almost instantly, even though the other player would see their block come fully into position for 0.25s and then drop. This bug was leading to situations where players felt they were being staggered by a shove, despite their block not being up.
• Fixed cases of explosive barrels that were floating above the ground
  
  [ 2016-10-04 16:11:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Contestants! Change is in the air as the sun begins to set on summer and Speedo season comes to an unfortunate end. But on the island, it’s always Speedo season and the party never stops. We here at Xaviant know how much the Cullmmunity love gruesome mur...The Culling, and since day one of Early Access we’ve leaned heavily on your feedback. Like the most well-constructed of banana hammocks, your support goes a long way, that’s why we recently reached out to you to find out some of the key areas that needed addressing, putting together our “top 10 community fix requests” list. Rather than use our own string theories, we opened a direct dialog and hear exactly what you want. Like Liam Neeson or Santa Claus, we love making lists, we make them all the time. Yet, this one, this list, this one was special because it came from you. And we love you for all of your gruesome gorgeousness. The new patch will be released on Wednesday, September 21st. Servers will be down starting at 8AM Eastern for *up to* 4 hours. Though we’ve only been able to floss out a few of those issues with this patch, rest assured we’ll be wedging in ever more fixes with future updates. That covers what’s happening this week, but what about the future? Unlike Frank, when we make promises we keep’em. We’re committed to delivering new content and features throughout Early Access, and we’ve got some very special buns in the oven. We can’t wait to show you what’s in our drawers. Until next time! See you on the island. Balance and Gameplay

• Players are no longer vulnerable to a shove when transitioning out of their block state Dev comments: Not long ago we removed the “mini-stagger” that would be applied to players if they were shoved as they transitioned into and out of their block state, instead dealing a full stagger. We’ve found that this feels punishing during the outro transition, so players will no longer be vulnerable to shove as they exit their block.
• Golden Arm’s bonus scales based on distance from target, with maximum damage applied at 20 meters Dev comments: Although Golden Arm hasn’t exploded in popularity the way some predicted, it’s still capable of dealing massive damage. To increase the skill requirement, point-blank throws no longer benefit significantly from the bonus. Instead, the bonus damage scales to a maximum of 100% at 20 meters.
• Armor prevents bleed wounds from being applied Dev comments: Blades have been comfortably on top of the heap in terms of melee weapon popularity for several patches. While there are many contributing factors here, one key element is that blades have been nearly as effective against armored opponents as spears as the bleed damage completely bypasses armor. With this change, we’re giving spears a clear advantage against armor. This will also have an impact on bows, but we are working on plans to give more love to bows in the future.
• Crafted Smoke Bomb and Angry Octopus no longer apply bleed wound Dev comments: The blind wound is strong enough (perhaps too strong?) without the additional benefit of bleed.
• Blowhard now increases duration of sickness wound by +25% (previously +100%) Dev comments: Blowhard is now just enough to counter the effects of the recently rebalanced Wound Less.
• Blind wound now lasts for 10 seconds (previously 15 seconds) Dev comments: Crafted Smoke Bombs have seen a recent surge in popularity, likely because it cannot be countered as effectively by Wound Less. We’ve reduced the duration of the blind wound to compensate.
• Disability Insurance now grants affected items (Smoke Bomb, Gas Grenade, Pepper Spray, Stun Gun) * Cripple instead of **** Cripple Dev comments: The cripple wound applied by Disability Insurance was strong enough to guarantee that anyone affected by it was going to have a bad day. The lightest variety of cripple is more appropriate here.
• Players can only trigger Punji Sticks (Crafted and Steel) once every three seconds Dev comments: After fixing several flavors of the “punji stacking” exploit, we’ve decided to approach the issue from a fresh angle.
• Teams mode now triggers map shutdown when player count reaches 4 (previously set to 3) Dev comments: We love teams mode! This community request was straight-forward to address and we are happy to do so. There are more teams mode tweaks in the works. Bug Fixes
• Private lobbies no longer allow more than 16 players to join, players receive a message when lobby is full
• Fixed crafting recipe for Backpack + Rock, it now grants Reinforced Crafted Armor instead of Crude Crafted Armor
• Tactical Body Armor no longer spawns in lockers
• Fixed an audio bug after player dies in poison gas
• Fixed inaccurate description of Alarm Gun
• Fixed inaccurate description of Stamina Shot
• Fixed issues with consistent naming for Crude Crafted Armor, Reinforced Crafted Armor, and Tactical Body Armor
• Performance optimization for one of the Cullmination versions, may have triggered framerate slowdowns in some situations
  
  [ 2016-09-20 18:15:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Contestants! Labor Day weekend couldn’t keep us from laboring over another exciting patch for you, even if we’ve accidentally gotten it sticky with barbecue sauce in the process. In the past we’ve focused mostly on better ways for you to hack, stab, punch, and shoot your way to victory over your fellow contestants, but this time we’re taking a different tack. We’re giving you new tools that will let you withstand more abuse, without making early-match encounters last too long. Want better armor? Craft some if you’ve got the FUNC. Want more hit points? Take this pen thingy and jam it in your arm for a few seconds, it’s as easy as that! Want an armored tank you can drive around the island while you sip refreshing iced tea? We think that would be cool too, but we ran out of time. See you on the island. Balance and Gameplay

Armor Changes
• Crafted Body Armor now costs 15 total FUNC, provides 20 HP of protection
• New: Hardened Crafted Armor costs 45 total FUNC (recipe is Crafted Body Armor + Rock or Backpack + Rock), provides 40 HP of protection
• Body Armor now provides 60 HP of protection, found only in Holo Spawners, Air Drops, and Red Crates
• All armor now absorbs 50% of incoming damage Dev Comments: We have a clear offensive progression in place, where players work to find stronger weapons throughout a match, but until now, defensive options have been limited. Basic crafted body armor is now a bit cheaper, but also less effective. A new tier of Reinforced Crafted Armor has been added, and Body Armor has been improved, but no longer appears in lockers or Green Crates. We hope this will also improve the popularity of Spears, which have stayed below Blades and Bludgeons for some time.
• New Hemo Blast stim: Increases health pool by 10 HP and heals for 10 HP when applied. Found in Holo Spawners, Red Crates, and medicine cabinets Dev comments: Along the same vein as the armor changes, the Hemo Blast gives players another avenue to improve their defense over the course of a match. These are effectively Big Boned in stim form, and they can be stacked. They are fairly rare and it's unlikely you’ll find more than one in a match, if that.
• Expose wound for Axes now applies +10%, +20%, or +30% for *, **, and *** (previously +10%, +15%, and +20%) Dev comments: Axes have spent a couple of cycles at the bottom of the popularity scale in terms of melee weapons, but this change will ensure that they are capable of landing devastating hits, even against these newly armored targets.
• Queued Player Count UI. When queued for a match, you now see how many other players are currently queued in the same region / game mode Dev comments: During off-peak hours this feature should help players determine whether a match is imminent when they queue.
• Pressing Space Bar in Spectate mode selects the nearest player (in solo and private matches) Dev comments: This is intended to make it easier to spectate a fight by switching between the two players involved, rather than cycling through all the living players in the match.
• Wound Less perk now reduces duration of all wounds by -25% (previously -50%) Dev comments: Wounds play a big part in the game and Wound Less is guaranteed to be useful in any match. So useful, in fact, that it’s the most popular perk among winning players! We think it will still be useful at half strength. Gas Changes
• The gas iris no longer closes in after reaching the “Standing Room Only” phase
• The gas iris becomes progressively more deadly the longer you stay in it Dev comments: In competitive play situations, a popular strategy was to focus on living in the gas longer than other remaining players. These changes make this strategy less viable. Fight!
• Dynamite no longer spawns in the central Holo Spawners Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to avoid falling damage under certain conditions 9 LIKES SHARE
  
  [ 2016-09-07 13:25:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings contestants! It’s time for us to cuddle around the bonfire, make s'mores and to talk about some of the additions making their way to the island in the near future in the latest entry of our Big Picture series. In the wonderful world of The Culling, our island is your playground. But, what playground is ever complete without a bunch of toys?! Adult toys! No not those adult toys, the ones that wound, puncture and cause excessive bleeding! Wait, those might be the same thing… We mean weapons! Our slave.. elves have been hard at work in the Cullco warehouse making all kinds of goodies for you good little boys and girls and we thought it was time to show them off. Gallery Introducing the Camp Hatchet, Pike, Survival Axe, Yari and our personal favorite - the Pitchfork (it’ll really fork you up)! The inclusion of new weapons not only gives contestants more options to take out their opponents, but will also mean rounding out the current arsenal. Some existing weapons will also shift in tier and overall availability - meaning that there will be more balance among the different types. For example, these changes create a tier 1 for each weapon type that can be found in lockers as well as two tier 2 and tier 3’s that can be found in green crates, red crates and airdrops. In a previous post we also did our best to peel off the layers and to show off some of our weapons skins . Well, we’re not ready to show off everything, that costs extra, but we wanted to talk a little bit more about how they’ll work. Screenshots Weapon skins are selected similarly to Character Customizations, which you may know from our pre-game, totally not virtual doll, dress up simulator. Once unlocked and equipped, if you find one of the weapons you have skinned in the game, the skin will be applied for the rest of that match. If you’re killed or if you’re weapon is stolen it retains the skin you applied to it for the rest of that match. And yes, that does mean that for the rest of the match people will be running around wearing your skin - a creepy but strangely exciting fact. How does this happen you ask? What’s the logic behind persisting weapon skins? Good ol’ nanites, you should see how fast they can paint a house. Hint, it’s faster than Frank that’s for sure. HURRY UP FRANK THIS ISN’T A UNION JOB. Ahem.. sorry about that. Back on track, these are just a small piece of what we have in store for the major updates ahead. We are always excited to share the amazing stuff we’re working on and we want to thank you for your patience and support. Our goal is to deliver the content that both The Culling and the Cullmmunity (no, we’re never going to stop calling it that) what it deserves. We’re a small team and we know that some of the bigger things may take some time, but we promise it’ll be worth the wait! Until next time contestants, See you on the island!

Greetings Contestants! 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 Dev comments: 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.
• Queues in NA and EU have been optimized to begin with 12 players during non-peak hours, an increase from the previous 8. 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!
  
  [ 2016-08-25 20:37:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

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, at TheCulling.com very soon! You can read about all the Patch changes HERE. See you on the island!

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. You can read about all of the changes here .

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
• Fixed an issue where items would get stuck in the air if thrown in certain spots on the map

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

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

Greetings Contestants! The latest patch has been a huge success, but that doesn’t mean we’re ready to start resting on our laurels. Today’s hotfix brings a few changes that should make your time on the island that much more relaxing, rewarding, and murderous. Servers will be down for up to 4 hours this morning as we apply the hotfix. 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

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. You can read the full patch notes here. We'll see you on the island!

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

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! You can read the full patch notes here . Test Server Instructions Anyone who owns the game should find “The Culling Test” in their Steam Library (you may need to restart your Steam client to see it). Once you’ve installed the test build, you will be able to join us in testing during designated times when the test servers are live. Solo, Teams, and Private Matches are all available on North America East servers.

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

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

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)

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)
  
  [ 2016-04-28 13:43:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Culling is Now Available on SteamOS and is 10% off!*

This week, The Culling is getting its first major content update; including new character options, modes, weapons, customization options, perks and a whole laundry list of fixes.

This update also brings The Culling to SteamOS and includes support for the Steam Controller.

To celebrate, we're running a 10% discount through the weekend.

About The Culling:
In a remote island paradise, 16 contestants have 20 minutes to explore, scavenge items, craft weapons, build traps, hunt and kill each other. There has never been a battle royale game this focused, brutal, and adrenaline-filled! Only one will be crowned the winner, do you have the guts to survive?

*Offer ends May 2nd at 10AM Pacific Time

Greetings contestants! We have completed the patch process and Trials of the Isle is live now. You can check out the patch notes here. See you on the island!

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 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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 this time around,maybe next patch.

Greetings contestants! We have completed the patch process and version #89935 is live now. You can check out the patch notes here. See you on the island!

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

• 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%

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

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

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

Greetings contestants! We managed to complete the patch process sooner than expected, so version #89529 is live now. You can check out the patch notes here. See you on the island!

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

• 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

The Patch for "The Culling Goes Down Under" is now live. You can check out the details here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/437220/announcements/detail/652266282610993172