Hi everyone, 

The Test server has been getting a few updates over the last week and now it’s time to bring all of that to the Live servers. The update should be coming tomorrow 4/13. 

We are making some changes about the recursive destruction based on your feedback. We will be taking this feature out of tomorrow’s publish to do some additional design work before implementing it again. Thanks to everyone who took the time to jump onto the Test server and provided feedback. It’s this type of player interaction that we hope to foster more of moving forward.

Right now we are working on a few new things for Just Survive that you should see come to the Test server in the near future. We’re in the process of integrating our AI system (used currently with zombies) into the other creatures of the world (Deer, wolves, bears..etc). This change should address a lot of issues we are experiencing with wildlife currently. We will be applying the limited area build rules to all PVE servers. If the base decay works as planned and frees up the world from cluttered bases we want to start increasing zombie density by raising global NPC caps.

The update will come with a full player and world wipe. With the dupe bug fixed and the base decay being added we think now is a great time to jump back in to Just Survive and stake your claim. Patch notes for the update will be coming soon. Keep an eye on Reddit and our social channels for that announcement. Thanks!

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to give this a read.  I know that many of you have poured countless hours into H1Z1 and all of the developers thank you for that. 

I am going to change the format up a little bit this week to put a focus on relevant topics to either provide visibility, clarification, or context on anything happening within the game.  Let me know what topics you want to see discussed through Twitter @H1Z1KotK, make sure to use #H1Feedback.

Ignition

We have delayed our next test of Ignition because we were wrestling with a couple of nagging bugs, and I did not want to put up a test scenario with a known problem that would have prevented us from collecting the feedback we need to make it better.  We’ve had several internal playtests, and Ignition is playing much smoother today than it was last week, and we will be scheduling another public run on Test servers as soon as we can.

Removal of Vehicles in the Box of Destiny

Let me provide some context as to why we made this change.  We did have an annoying bug with the vehicles and tombstones causing some real chaos in there.  While we properly fixed the explosion bug, we also talked about the current box of destiny experience and felt that vehicles were a detracting experience.  We received lots of feedback saying that it was fairly obnoxious to have cars flying all over the place, running into you, along with all of the other things that were happening.  We really feel like the experience is better without them for now.  In the future we are looking at revamping the box of destiny and will have a better plan for the role vehicles will play there.

Removal of Fog

To provide context on the recent changes to fog (not poison gas, but fog).  Many players were complaining about the fog effect and its implementation.  Instead of leaving it as is while we work on a proper fix, we decided to remove it for now while we work on it in the background (as the proper fix will take some time).  When we have an implementation that we are happy with, we will put it back up.

Gunplay

Definitely seeing the notes and reports of weapons not behaving as expected.  Currently, the team’s highest priority is looking into these issues.  We are running every single weapon through a test matrix to provide us data on how it is performing and uncovering anomalies that may exist.  I will continue to provide updates on this as we work through it.  Right now we are gathering the data, looking at bullet travel, and hit registration.  From there we can move on to obstructed paths, exploits, and other areas of the gunplay.  The shotgun is definitely exhibiting some unintended behavior and we want to be sure that all of the weapons are consistent and predictable.

Recent Bug Fixes

The team is still focused on bug fixes and quality of life.  We tweaked the bombing runs around air drops, something happened where they occurred too frequently, so we made an adjustment.  We are rolling out some fixes to the spectator cam along with some other smaller bug fixes.

There will be a small update heading out to King of the Kill today with some of these changes in it as we begin to roll into our weekly update cadence.

Don't forget to take part in the discussion about this video on the r/h1z1 subreddit.

Just Survive and King of the Kill servers will be coming down tomorrow (4/1) at 3:00AM Pacific for approximately 4 hours. 

There will be additional bug fixes coming for the next patch, tentatively scheduled for April 6th. Tomorrow’s hotfix will address the following issues: 

• (KotK & JS) Fixed some camera clipping issues while using a higher FOV setting.
• (KotK & JS) Fog density has been reduced significantly
• (KotK & JS) Fixed mouse wheel rotation issues and general responsiveness
• You no longer need a compass in your inventory to see your heading. Heading will always be shown.
• Tombstone no longer explodes in Box of Destiny
• We've added a setting in the option panel to silence proximity chat while in the Box of Destiny. Proximity chat will be available when the round begins, even with this checkbox selected
• Vehicles have been removed from the Box of Destiny to improve the overall experience 

Source: H1Z1.com

H1Z1 Quick Hits for March. 31st, 2016 

Hi everyone! 

Steve George (@ShockDev) here with a quick update regarding H1Z1: Just Survive. I know some of you are thinking, “Wait a minute, why isn’t Executive Producer Chris Wynn writing this?” Simple. Chris and I share many duties across the H1Z1 franchise, but Just Survive is my primary focus so it makes sense that I provide the dev updates for that team and give you insight into how things are coming together. 

To begin, I want to thank you all for transitioning with us when we spun-off Just Survive and King of the Kill as two separate products back in February. The overarching goal has always been to regularly iterate on Just Survive based on its exclusive needs. The reality is we still have many issues to resolve which are pertinent to both games. This is the main reason you are still seeing live updates for both products in synchronization. We are two separate teams; however, there are many of our technical process that can be synced with one another, which is why for the time being you will see some hotfixes that address issues on both titles. 

Also, thanks to those of you that helped us identify duping issues. We’ve identified it internally and are actively working to get that fix in game 

Current Focus for Just Survive 

Base building is an important part of Just Survive. We want you to feel like you’re staking your claim in this world. Base building in its current state has left the world cluttered and messy. We hope the following changes will help keep the atmosphere of Just Survive more aligned with our original design for the game. You can expect more changes and features added to base building in the future. Some upcoming additions: 

Base Decay 
There has been a lot of discussion on our end regarding ways to keep the world free of derelict bases and other structures. One of the things we’ve identified is the length of time it takes for a base to decay and disappear. Keep in mind while you are reading this, we’re not trying to make it more difficult to maintain your bases. In Just Survive, we have property which we want you to build on but there should be some general guidelines to the use of this property. We believe that if you want to own a base in the world, you need to login and play at a reasonable frequency. At this time, with “reasonable,” we mean about once a week. Going forward, anything beyond this play frequency will result in your base decaying. So, in a nutshell, log in weekly and repair your base at a bare minimum and this change should have zero effect on you. 

Base Destruction 
Recursive base destruction is being turned on. What does this mean? When something is destroyed, anything attached to that unit is also recursively destroyed. So if you build a stack of items on top of each other and destroy the bottom one, everything above will also destroyed. This may sadden those of you that build stairways to heaven or those that use sleeping bags as roof tiles, but those are examples of unintended functionality. More importantly, this feature will help facilitate cleaning up the world and mean no more random floating base elements 

Limited Base Building Servers 
Due to positive community feedback on the matter, we’re converting 5 more servers (2 EU) to limited base building worlds. The following servers will all be converted to PVP worlds: 

•Decay 
•Fiend Fire (EU) 
•Axe Away 
•Barricade 
•Belgrade (EU) 

Release timing for these changes: 
Tentatively April 6, 2016 

Additionally, you can expect an update to the Live servers with more bug fixes very soon. As always, for this post and those in the future, I look forward to feedback from the community! 

Adding new trees swaying in the breeze for the new map @H1Z1JustSurvive #treeporn https://t.co/h2IVPR4Scw

— Sebastian (@crowempires) March 15, 2016

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to give this a read. I know that many of you have poured countless hours into H1Z1 and all of the developers thank you for that. We are in a phase where we are regrouping and refocusing, so your dedication is really appreciated.

I wanted to start a weekly update to share some visibility into what the team is currently focused on and highlight some of the latest work. I will write this up every week and shoot to post an update each Friday. If I am out of the office then I might not be able to write up an update, but I will try and get the news out when it will not happen.

It will be pretty brief, I am prioritizing speed and timeliness over a beautifully written piece. I just want to get a more regular system in place to provide updates out to all of our players. Each week I will provide a brief update on the current priorities and focuses for the teams, along with updates to the next planned update.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at what the King of the Kill team has been focused on over the last week.

Ignition available for testing this weekend!

Our new mode in King of the Kill, Ignition, will be up on our test servers starting Friday, 9am PST until Monday morning, 9am PST.

At the start of the match players will find themselves on an ATV with explosives strapped to them. Players will need to quickly come up with a strategy for scavenging for gear to defend themselves and to make their way to one of a limited number of safe areas. If they are not in the safe area at the end of a countdown, their explosives will detonate and eliminate them from the match. There are fewer safe areas each wave, so the action only gets more intense as players fight over the remaining areas.

I really recommend trying it out. We will gather all of the feedback that we can from this test, make some changes and iterations and then find a good time to do it again. I see us going through a few iterations of that before it will be ready to go onto our Live servers.

Bug Fixes and changes (in the patch that went out overnight)

• Prone spamming round 2 to fix the prone, crouch exploit that came out on the test servers
• We removed the FOV camera change when sprinting
• Hot fixes for an updated patch going out as soon as we can - Status
  • We are still working on the camera fix for inside buildings, the melee bug, and standing in truck beds. Our plan is toget those fixed as soon as we can and push another patch. My expectation is that will happen early next week along with some other fixes that we are tracking down.
• We put in some server optimizations to shorten queue times.
• Distinct audio now plays based on where your opponent was hit to provide feedback on whether you struck them in the body, head, hit armor, or hit a helmet.
• Our new and improved gas visuals are no live. The impending gas ring now looks a lot nicer than it used to.

Current Focus for King of the Kill

The King of the Kill team is shifting some resources over to focus on console support to build up that game for the launch this summer. There is the underlying tech and rendering that is being worked on, as well as controller support (PC and consoles) and UI. Gameplay wise we have some work happening around recoil and a lot going into a brand new HUD.

Next Planned Release

Tentatively April 13, 2016

Source: h1z1.com

All servers will come down for maintenance beginning at 3:00 AM PT (11 AM GMT) for a game update.
Downtime is anticipated to be minimal.

Server Ruleset Changes

The Cerberus and Bandit servers in the US region have been changed to "Restricted Base Building ruleset."
Both servers are PvP flagged and will prevent building near POIs. 

New Horrors

When society collapsed and zombies became a reality, people believed that their worst nightmares had come true. But that nightmare had just begun, and now, new zombies have arisen to hunt the living. Survivors have spoken of zombies with strange new behaviors and properties, making the already slim possibility of survival that much smaller. New tactics will be needed to confront these emerging threats, and those who cannot adapt quickly will likely meet a terrifying and grisly end.

Zombie Updates

• Zombies now spawn with more visual variety in their clothing and postures.
• Zombies can now properly attack you when they are fast enough to catch up to you.
• Zombie grapple has been removed while we review the way we handle grappling and resolve the various issues the current system creates.

Items

A new type of grenade can now be crafted that will attract the attention of zombies before exploding, killing any zombies within the blast radius.

Quality of Life Improvements:

• Hospital spawning issues should be resolved
• Empty repair boxes can now be picked up by those with build permissions (Hold E key).
• Repair boxes are able to be used immediately after being placed.

The Wasteland Crate is here!

• Crank the madness to the max with the new Wasteland Crate! Includes 22 new skins to make the end of days a little more stylish.
• Crate Keys to unlock your Wasteland Crates and bundles of Unlocked Wasteland Crates are available for purchase in the H1Z1 marketplace.

Shotgun Consistency Improvements

• The pellet spread patter of the Shotgun has been made significantly more consistent. This should result in more predictable damage output at all ranges. We had the following goals for the Shotgun with this change:
• Close range (less than 5 meters): Our goal is that the Shotgun to be extremely lethal within this range. In the past, the random nature of the Shotgun often resulted in the Shotgun doing significantly less damage than expected in cases where its pellets spread out more than expected. One time it’s a one-shot-kill, the next time it does 15 damage. This change should ensure that well aimed Shotgun shots at close range should, at minimum, deal significant damage and, in most cases, be fatal.
• Medium range (10 to 15 meters): We expect moderate lethality from the Shotgun at this range. Generally speaking, it should be possible to get kills with the Shotgun at this range, but the time it takes to do so will mean the Shotgun is slightly less effective than automatic rifles at medium range.
• Long range (greater than 20 meters): By this range, the Shotgun has moved beyond its expected effective range. With the old, random spread, it was possible for pellets to, at times, clump up more than expected which resulted in the Shotgun occasionally dealing more damage than expected at long range. This change will prevent significant pellet clumping at long range and prevent the Shotgun from being a significant damage threat beyond its expected effective range

Consistent Helmet Functionality

We’ve had two helmets that function differently for some time now. As we analyzed them, it became apparent that, having both were too weak and neither was accomplishing the gameplay goal we had for them. Instead of continuing with distinct helmets that have clear weaknesses, both Tactical and Motorcycle helmets now function consistently across both helmets. Both have 20,000 durability and will break after one shot. In most cases, helmets will nullify all bonus headshot damage, leaving players fairly healthy after a single shot to the helmet. The one exception to that is the Hunting Rifle; headshots with it are lethal whether or not a helmet is equipped.

Combat Feedback Improvements

Crosshair Hitmarks

• Successfully shooting an opponent will cause the reticle to briefly flash, indicating shots which have landed.

Audio Feedback

• Distinct audio will now play when enemies are shot that provides feedback whether the target was struck in their body, head, body armor, or helmet.

Vehicle Updates

The visual effects for smoke and fire on vehicle damage states have been updated. There is also a change to the behavior so that once a vehicle starts burning it will take damage over time.

• Here are the thresholds:
• 100-75% No effect
• 75-50% Light smoke
• 20-50% Heavy smoke
• 10-20% Heavy smoke, light fire – modest damage over time
• 0-10% Heavy smoke, heavy fire, sparks while moving – heavy damage over time and 80% power reduction.

The health/condition resources have been re-calibrated to 3100, so by the time they reach 20% and start taking damage its equivalent to the 2500 points they used to have.

Once the fire starts at 20%, it takes about 45 seconds for the vehicle to expire.

At 10% the damage rate increases and the vehicle drops 80% of its engine torque.

Destructible Objects

• Adjusted the health on many destructible objects in the environment.
• Many objects such as stop signs and barbed wire fences should be easier to destroy, especially when hitting them with vehicles.

Camera Adjustments

• Tweaked the third person camera pitch to lead in and out smoothly when looking up ro down so the character model no longer blocks the reticule. This should improve combat in extreme elevation areas as well as picking up objects off the ground.

Gear Changes:

• Basic backpacks, conveys, incendiary and explosive arrows have new in-world models so they can be more easily identified.

Misc. Fixes:

• Added “Play Battle Royale” button to Server Select Screen
• UI: Marketplace – Spamming the Unlock button when opening Crates will consume a crate and key for each click.
• Hand editing the overall quality in useroptions.ini won’t mess up the setting panel anymore.

Source: h1z1.com

New Horrors

When society collapsed and zombies became a reality, people believed that their worst nightmares had come true. But that nightmare had just begun, and now, new zombies have arisen to hunt the living. Survivors have spoken of zombies with strange new behaviors and properties, making the already slim possibility of survival that much smaller. New tactics will be needed to confront these emerging threats, and those who cannot adapt quickly will likely meet a terrifying and grisly end.

Zombie Updates

• Zombies now spawn with more visual variety in their clothing and postures.
• Zombies can now properly attack you when they are fast enough to catch up to you.
• Zombie grapple has been removed while we review the way we handle grappling and resolve the various issues the current system creates.

Items

A new type of grenade can now be crafted that will attract the attention of zombies before exploding, killing any zombies within the blast radius.

Quality of Life Improvements:

• Hospital spawning issues should be resolved
• Empty repair boxes can now be picked up by those with build permissions (Hold E key).
• Repair boxes are able to be used immediately after being placed.

The Wasteland Crate is here!

• Crank the madness to the max with the new Wasteland Crate! Includes 22 new skins to make the end of days a little more stylish.
• Crate Keys to unlock your Wasteland Crates and bundles of Unlocked Wasteland Crates are available for purchase in the H1Z1 marketplace.

Shotgun Consistency Improvements

• The pellet spread patter of the Shotgun has been made significantly more consistent. This should result in more predictable damage output at all ranges. We had the following goals for the Shotgun with this change:
• Close range (less than 5 meters): Our goal is that the Shotgun to be extremely lethal within this range. In the past, the random nature of the Shotgun often resulted in the Shotgun doing significantly less damage than expected in cases where its pellets spread out more than expected. One time it’s a one-shot-kill, the next time it does 15 damage. This change should ensure that well aimed Shotgun shots at close range should, at minimum, deal significant damage and, in most cases, be fatal.
• Medium range (10 to 15 meters): We expect moderate lethality from the Shotgun at this range. Generally speaking, it should be possible to get kills with the Shotgun at this range, but the time it takes to do so will mean the Shotgun is slightly less effective than automatic rifles at medium range.
• Long range (greater than 20 meters): By this range, the Shotgun has moved beyond its expected effective range. With the old, random spread, it was possible for pellets to, at times, clump up more than expected which resulted in the Shotgun occasionally dealing more damage than expected at long range. This change will prevent significant pellet clumping at long range and prevent the Shotgun from being a significant damage threat beyond its expected effective range

Consistent Helmet Functionality

We’ve had two helmets that function differently for some time now. As we analyzed them, it became apparent that, having both were too weak and neither was accomplishing the gameplay goal we had for them. Instead of continuing with distinct helmets that have clear weaknesses, both Tactical and Motorcycle helmets now function consistently across both helmets. Both have 20,000 durability and will break after one shot. In most cases, helmets will nullify all bonus headshot damage, leaving players fairly healthy after a single shot to the helmet. The one exception to that is the Hunting Rifle; headshots with it are lethal whether or not a helmet is equipped.

Combat Feedback Improvements

Crosshair Hitmarks

• Successfully shooting an opponent will cause the reticle to briefly flash, indicating shots which have landed.

Audio Feedback

• Distinct audio will now play when enemies are shot that provides feedback whether the target was struck in their body, head, body armor, or helmet.

Vehicle Updates

The visual effects for smoke and fire on vehicle damage states have been updated. There is also a change to the behavior so that once a vehicle starts burning it will take damage over time.

• Here are the thresholds:
• 100-75% No effect
• 75-50% Light smoke
• 20-50% Heavy smoke
• 10-20% Heavy smoke, light fire – modest damage over time
• 0-10% Heavy smoke, heavy fire, sparks while moving – heavy damage over time and 80% power reduction.

The health/condition resources have been re-calibrated to 3100, so by the time they reach 20% and start taking damage its equivalent to the 2500 points they used to have.

Once the fire starts at 20%, it takes about 45 seconds for the vehicle to expire.

At 10% the damage rate increases and the vehicle drops 80% of its engine torque.

Destructible Objects

• Adjusted the health on many destructible objects in the environment.
• Many objects such as stop signs and barbed wire fences should be easier to destroy, especially when hitting them with vehicles.

Camera Adjustments

• Added a slight FOV shift to sprinting.
• Tweaked the third person camera pitch to lead in and out smoothly when looking up ro down so the character model no longer blocks the reticule. This should improve combat in extreme elevation areas as well as picking up objects off the ground.

Gear Changes:

• Helmet skins can now be used on any type of helmet (tactical or motorcycle).
• Basic backpacks, conveys, incendiary and explosive arrows have new in-world models so they can be more easily identified.

Misc. Fixes:

• Added “Play Battle Royale” button to Server Select Screen
• UI: Marketplace – Spamming the Unlock button when opening Crates will consume a crate and key for each click.
• Hand editing the overall quality in useroptions.ini won’t mess up the setting panel anymore.

Source: h1z1.com

Chris Wynn (Executive Producer) has just published the second of the new weekly "Producer's Updates", you can check it out below, they have also published the February Art Wrap-Up video which can be seen below too.

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to give this a read. I know that many of you have poured countless hours into H1Z1 and all of the developers thank you for that. We are in a phase where we are regrouping and refocusing, so your dedication is really appreciated.

This week’s update will be a little more brief than last. I have decided to split these in half and one week will just talk about Just Survive and then the next week talk about King of the Kill and continue to alternate like that each week.

Before I jump into what’s to come for Just Survive, there is one overall topic that I wanted to address first and that is in regards to trade delays on Steam. We are watching the player feedback on this topic and discussing internally. For context, we instituted trade delays to deal with significant organized fraud being attempted against the marketplace. That fraud is bad for the game, bad for the company, and bad for players. No one wins. That being said, timers for trade lockouts are adjustable, and we will make changes going forward to try and find that balance between convenience and fraud control. No updates to the timers this week, but this is something that we will use data and your feedback to determine in the next several weeks and see what we can learn there.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at what we changed in Just Survive this last week. All of these changes are now on their way to our Test servers and will be pushed to the live servers on March 9th.

Bug Fixes

• Silent bullets should be gone, you should hear those suckers now.
• The popping up on a door to teleport to the roof glitch is gone. For now, to fix this we simply removed doors from the top floors of buildings. We are closing in on a proper code fix to this issue, but went ahead and removed the doors to get rid of the exploit.

Current Focus for Just Survive

For the most part, the team was very reactionary this week. We attempted to push an update that included the new zombies (Screamer, Gasser, and Exploder) and zombie AI last Friday. This update failed internally and as we started to unravel it, we determined that it would be easier to cease that effort and begin getting ready for a full update to our test servers which had not happened in some time. We are in the final stages of testing that update right now. This update will include some cool things, including the stuff that I discussed last week.

• New zombie types as discussed previously.
• Better zombie AI, way harder to deal with zombies now.
• On the Cerberus and Bandit servers in the US region, these are the two servers where we are going to test the restricted base building. You will not be able to build a base near an urban area and will need to move out into the country a little bit. Both of these servers will be PvP, and you will see this functionality when we push the update up to our Live servers on March 9th.
• Visuals are being upgraded across the board, from animations to our new map (codenamed Z2) which still has a lot to do but is looking fantastic. You can check out some of the work in progress here 

Next Planned Release

Tentatively March 9, 2016

Source: h1z1.com