This update introduces the new PvP system.
1. PvP System
- All characters now start with 5,000 Karma. The new Karma range spans from -10,000 to +10,000.
- Killing zombies increases a player’s Karma.
- Killing another player decreases your Karma by 500 to 10,000 points, depending on:
- The level difference between attacker and victim.
- Whether multiple players participated in the attack (shared Karma loss).
- Players with negative Karma can be attacked by anyone without penalty and suffer additional disadvantages:
- Increased XP loss on death
- Longer respawn times
- Visible on other players’ compasses if within proximity
- If a player with positive Karma attacks another positive Karma player, they gain the Aggressor State for 10 minutes:
- During this time, they can be killed without Karma penalty.
- Their nameplate will appear differently.
- Pressing “P” toggles whether you can deal unjustified damage:
- If toggled off, you can only attack:
- Players with negative Karma
- Players who currently have Aggressor State against you
- This prevents accidental PvP engagements.
- However, other players can always attack you (and gain Aggressor State), allowing you to retaliate immediately, even if your toggle is off.
- If a character’s Karma drops below -5,000, the Insanity debuff is applied:
- The player gains stacks of Insanity over time, increasing with lower Karma.
- Each stack reduces damage, HP, stamina, damage reduction, and evasion.
- The debuff is removed once Karma is restored to 0 or above.
- Players with negative Karma will respawn at “Slaughterhouse 05”, the Black Hand faction’s stronghold:
- This location includes essential services like Safehouse access, trade/repair NPCs, and an auctioneer.
- (!) Note: The building is currently a white-box prototype; proper visuals will be added later.
- All information above, along with additional details and examples, can now be found in the Journal, under the new page “PvP System” and its subpages.
2. Balancing
- Increased Skill XP requirements for leveling Harvesting, Melee, Ranged, and Endurance skill trees from level 30 onward.
- Your current skill progress stays the same!
3. Content
- Justice Keeper NPCs have been removed.
- Existing active Karma quests can no longer be turned in.
- Please abandon them manually.
- Updated visuals for many buildings in the game.
- Started replacing vegetation with new assets (Deadend, Black Hand, …)
- Added lights to Chemical Plant Hall, University, Museum and other areas
4. Further changes
- Fixed a bug where using WASD keys made character movements and turns instant. Now behaves as intended (like the arrow keys).
- Added supersonic support to turret SFX handling; updated all turret sound effects.
- Adjusted runtime cell size for lightables in the client project.
- Increased ambient occlusion intensity for better visual depth.
- Updated building material textures.
- Added dynamic bending and wind handling for new vegetation assets
- Fixed bug where bullet casing SFX didn’t play correctly.
- Fixed bug where enemy and NPC markers could flicker for one frame when a creature spawned.
- Updated buoyant behavior of humanoid characters to a much more stable approach
- Corrected broken names of billboard images in creature markers.
- Added landmark buildings, that are rendered more detailed on large distances.
- Switched Default Weapon from Remington to MK 14.
- Started adding localization for various languages (Work in progress).