The Apocalypse Keeps Getting Better

As the year draws to a close and the nights get longer and colder (at least on our side of the globe), it’s common to exchange gifts… which means that EVERYBODY GETS A WIZARD VAN!

After updating the game with the new patch, use your radio menu to call in the delivery, and moments later you’ll be riding in style. (It’s okay if you didn’t get us anything. We know we’re hard to shop for.)

But the fun doesn’t stop there! This update also features plenty of improvements to the experience of playing State of Decay 2, including several fan-favorite suggestions. We’ve highlighted the most exciting items in each category, but we recommend reading the whole list to see all the changes.

Thanks for your support, and we’ll see you in 2019. Until then, keep playing State of Decay 2!

Highlights

  • We made several balance changes to the Daybreak rewards — CLEO guns are better, CLEO ammo can be crafted, and Red Talon contractors are cheaper … though a bit more unruly.
  • We added some new facility actions — you can craft Ammo, Meds, and Food, and you can teleport gas cans and repair kits straight into parked vehicles.
  • We amped up the benefits of allied enclaves, and added the option to dismiss trader enclaves when you’re trying to summon a new one and there isn’t any room for them.
  • We added the ability to use simple consumables while in a vehicle.
  • We bumped up the size of zombie hordes late in the game.

Click through for the rest of the notes!

Daybreak Mode & Content

  • CLEO guns have been rebalanced to make them more valuable in the base game.
    • All CLEO guns are 20-40% lighter.
    • All CLEO guns (except bolt-action rifles) are 15-25% more durable. (Bolt-action rifles can’t be more durable than they already are.)
    • All CLEO guns (except pistols) are about 20-30% faster to reload. (CLEO pistols were already unusually quick.)
  • CLEO ammo is now much easier to acquire in large amounts, though it still always costs prestige. 
    • The Red Talon Crafting Station allows you to manufacture CLEO ammo at will, spending prestige, circuitry, and Ammo from your resource stockpile.
    • The CLEO Relay now offers a CLEO Drop alternative that delivers 8 stacks of CLEO ammo.
  • We worked with members of the community to rebalance Red Talon contractors, so that they are no longer 100% overpowered. Now they are more like 85% overpowered. 
    • Existing Red Talon contractors now have the potential to run wild and waste resources if their morale is low.
    • Existing Red Talon contractors are now “Irritable” towards others, which makes them more likely to start fights when their morale is middling to low.
    • However, we also changed the threshold that causes “Irritable” characters to fight, so that fights happen less often, across the board.
    • Newly-recruited Red Talon contractors now come with minor downsides tied to their fifth skill. Hackers snack more than other people, Logistics experts use up extra bed space for storage, etc.
    • Red Talon acknowledges that attrition has made their pool of recruits shallower, so they now only charge 2750 prestige for their contractors (down from 3250).
    • In summary, if you keep your morale high, your current Red Talon contractors should be just as awesome as they’ve always been — but it’s more important now to keep maintaining that morale. New contractors now have minor drawbacks, but they also cost less.
  • We now refund the full prestige value when you reject a Red Talon recruit. This removes the old incentive to exploit the system by restarting the game. And it’s just nicer. Thanks for playing Daybreak. 
  • Ferals should no longer occasionally enter a “T-pose” when moving through the environment.
  • Hostile NPCs should now properly trigger the detonation of deployable minefields they stumble into.
  • Followers should now properly follow the player when in the vicinity of a deployable minefield.
  • We improved performance and reliability of VO playback during various moments in the game.

Gameplay

  • Many simple consumables can now be used while in a vehicle. 
    • This includes bandages, painkillers, and other consumables that don’t involve throwing, placing, or playing a complex animation.
    • Consumables that cannot be used within a vehicle are now shown as unavailable in the HUD while you’re inside a vehicle.
  • Allied enclaves now offer a greater variety of more powerful enclave benefits, to make the time spent befriending and supporting them more worthwhile.
  • Late in the game, zombie hordes can now be up to three times as large as before. (You asked for it …) 
  • When summoning a trader over the radio, you will sometimes have the option to dismiss an existing trader to make room for them, if that’s what it takes to get them into the map. 
  • Ranged weapons no longer jitter in your hands as you aim left and right.
  • A new option in the Gameplay section of the Settings menu allows you to ensure that no weird zombies (such as clowns, coneheads, and war reenactors) appear in your game.
  • We fixed a bug related to rapidly placing explosives that could result in premature detonation and character death. Sounds painful.
  • We increased the size of safe zones created by clearing large sites to more accurately encompass their area.
  • Survivor traits that reduce the number of required beds should be accurately counted by morale system.
  • We fixed an exploit that prevented hostile enclaves from defending their base when mines were planted in the area.
  • We solved a rare crash that could result when destroying a plague heart with ignited bloater gas.
  • Zombies should show up more often inside buildings while you are exploring.
  • On the other hand, random zombies should now NOT show up inside an infestation that you’ve just cleared.
  • Any attempt to pick up stackable items from the ground now tries to pick up all items in the stack.

Facilities

  • You can now produce Ammo, Meds, and Food at your base with the right facility and ingredients. 
    • Meds are produced in any Infirmary from parts, chemicals, and ethanol.
    • Ammo is produced in any Workshop or Armory out of parts and chemicals.
    • Food is produced in any Kitchen by spending seeds and ethanol (yum).
  • You can now use your Parking facilities to move gas cans and toolkits directly from your community’s inventory into parked vehicles. 
  • The Infirmary now uses characters’ nicknames, instead of their full names, making it consistent with the rest of the game.

Missions

  • Missions that involve searching dead bodies or killing zombified humans now pinpoint the corpses with icons on the minimap, rather than requiring you to hunt for them near a marked location.
  • We resolved an exploit that let players cancel Threatening to Leave missions by quitting and restarting the game.
  • We fixed a potential case where some NPCs in an enclave would not be visible during an objective to kill them all.

Graphics

  • We “tightened up the graphics” to achieve higher and more consistent resolution and frame rate on the Xbox One. 
  • We improved the camera transition when moving into or out of a crouch while zoomed in.
  • We reworked our anti-aliasing system to reduce ghost outlines and blur artifacts when rotating the camera. 
  • Lens flare effects are now smoother and crisper.

Multiplayer

  • The Multiplayer section of the Settings Menu now has options for voice chat, and is generally awesomer. 
  • Most notably, we’ve added a push-to-talk option, and left it unbound for players to assign as they wish.
    • On a controller, we recommend D-Left (Emotes) if you want to swap out something that doesn’t directly impact gameplay.
  • When a player speaks over in-game chat, their player indicator pulses to indicate which character is talking.
  • When a client is tethered to a host who is driving a vehicle, they now land in a passenger seat in that vehicle, rather than being dumped by the side of the road like garbage.
  • We fixed a rare case where the host would think a client’s character died if they sustained many injuries, healed, and then sustained more injuries
  • We fixed a rare crash bug that could occur when an Xbox client joined a UWP host just as the host is completing the search of a building.
  • You can no longer make progress toward the Citizen Z achievement by using the “Stuck” radio command, or by choosing and then cancelling the “Volunteer” or “Call for Help” commands.

Interface

  • We reworked the use of icons in the HUD and the Character Panel, so that the icons that pop up next to the Health, Stamina, and Infection meters can be followed all the way into the deepest menu to find out what they mean.
  • The “Show HUD” and “Show Notifications” options in the Settings Menu now consistently turn on and off their respective UI elements.
  • We clarified the visual language of the infection meter, to make it clear that you are progressing from a minor infection towards full-blown blood plague.
  • On PC, the game will now recognize any plugged-in controller as belonging to the player, rather than specifically requiring the designated “Player 1” controller.

 

Happy Holidays from all of us at Undead Labs!