goblinAmerica news & patch notes

Hi everyone. I just pushed a patch for goblinAmerica. Here are some patch notes:

Patch notes:

• Substantial lighting pass on every map. Many areas and objects should be better- and more softly-lit for people playing with baked lighting (i.e. without Lumen).
• General performance improvements, particularly targeting older CPUs and low-VRAM GPUs.
• Tweaked aerial browsing behavior to make bounces, boings, and bonks more consistent.
• Fixed the Experience Simulation in the Exposition.
• Improved collision in cliffs and valleys.
• Plugged a hole in the Woods exhibit in the Exposition.

1. The “Lawman” update.

• Added a graphics setting to enable hardware raytracing for Lumen. This should improve and stabilize global illumination for GPUs that support it. If your GPU does not support it, it will not do anything.
• Made some changes to how skeletal meshes (like NPCs) are handled, which should improve performance in areas with lots of guys running around.
• Because of the above two changes, you might have to recompile some shaders the next time you play. That's normal.
• Changed how the nexus engine permutates when observing greater-than-delta oscillations. This should drastically reduce hitching when loading/unloading some zones on the Ford's Theatre and Pan-American Exposition levels.
• Added a setting to disable your crosshair for some reason.
• Fixed a bug.
• Restarting the level from the pause menu (either via the restart button or the change-loadout screen) should be generally less weird.

Hey kid, patch:

• An additional bonfire has been added to The America Project browsing challenge, as well as something to comfort you on your journey.

• A slew of optimizations targeting both GPU- and CPU-bound machines. People should generally see performance improvements, especially in areas dense with goblins.

• The "View Distance" setting in the graphics settings now affects how aggressively NPC animations are throttled by distance. If you have had performance issues in areas with lots of NPCs—or if you have not had performance issues and want NPC animations to be less aggressively throttled—you should update that setting the next time you play.

• Updated goblin LODs to better-preserve important detail on low-end systems.

• Correctly updated the Swamp Sorcerer Hat's provenance. Thanks Lumenoxis.

• Added a 500 FPS cap setting to the graphics menu because somebody named Wormy asked for it. I don't really understand.

• Made some lighting tweaks to the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station.

I was planning on also using these patchnotes to do a little roadmap. But it got late and it's Friday night, and you know what that means: Time to go walk my dog three times in a row. Bye.

• I've added views to see items associated with levels in both the main menu and in the in-game pause menu. This will show you what items you have for each level, or offer a hint of varying usefulness for items you don't have.
• Moved the railroad station platinum key to a more relevant place, and replaced it with a new item. Thanks to the ever eagle-eyed Lumenoxis for spotting this.
• More Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station optimizations, this time specifically targeting machines that were CPU bound.
• Removed the seal counter from the level preview information for levels that don't have seals.
• Fixed hold-to-restart functionality.

• Made a number of performance improvements to the game. This should affect everyone, but should be especially noticeable on lower-end hardware. Please make sure you've adjusted your in-game settings to suit your system.
• Shotgun pass: Rebalanced and did a pass on some of their visual effects. Both the New Yeller and the Course-A-Nature should be substantially improved for movement and traversal. Additionally, the Course-A-Nature's ability to redirect both midair slides and regular jumps has been tweaked.
• Fixed bug causing music to restart in the Educational Website.
• Fixed bug causing incorrect/misleading information about discovered item counts in the embarkation screen.
• Fixed bug causing text overflow on interact prompt if interact was rebound.
• Adjusted enemy movement behavior to be a little more consistent.

• Added a toggle to make the game and world wait for player input upon no-countdown resets.
• Fixed binocular arms overstaying their welcome.
• Another dialogue softlock fix. I know I've said it before, but this time I was actually able to reproduce and locate the bug. We're free.
• Remove a big ladder from the railroad station map so that nobody thinks they're supposed to climb it. Presidents don't know how to climb ladders.
• Plugged some more holes.
• Made some adjustments to browsing to make it more framerate-independent. I'm in the middle of a larger change to browsing that will address some of the feedback I've been getting to make it more intuitive and organic-feeling. However, this will require actually adjusting a lot of the Educational Website level, so it was not ready for the patch tonight.

• Railroad Station has seen some pretty substantial optimizations, especially around level load and the train terminal area. If you continue having problems with crashing on this level, please let me know.
• More changes made to address the dialogue softlock bug. This time for sure. If you still hit this bug, please let me know in the forums and include a screenshot.
• Infragruncher's damage has been retuned to more consistently deal high damage to nearby enemies.
• Resetting with the "Skip Countdown on Reset" option enabled will not begin the game clock until you move or take an action.
• Added a tutorial sign explaining speed boosting by bullet jumping while sliding.
• Plugged many holes in the game's geo.
• Shimrod now more clearly explains where rags are.

• Enemies' aim is more consistently affected by player movement. Their accuracy is better if you're standing still, but worse if you're sliding, high-jumping, etc.
• Made the Clockspewer's clock very sticky.
• Improved the first-shot accuracy and lowered the bloom for the Dooglies.
• Added a toggle for the countdown sequence after level resets.
• Added a volume slider for the "death whine".
• Better standardized sliding and player physics across different framerates.
• Antifoulers balance pass: Decreased their aggro ranged, slowed their projectiles down, and made their projectiles easier to see.
• Made some fixes to the dynamic music system.
• Further lighting tweaks on railroad station.
• Entering the Educational Website teleporter will now save weapons and items you've found in the Exposition.
• Better-optimized the dust particle effects for wall bonks and rocket impacts.
• Fixed visual bug with the Infragruncher's reload during start-of-run countdown.
• Maintenance workers have visited the "Shoots You At Some Point" exhibit.
• Victims of Mitra's wrath should no longer spin around oddly.
• Reduced the brightness on health flasks.

• Another attempt to fix the dialogue softlock thing. If you still hit it, please let me know.
• Plugged some holes in railroad station.
• Made leaves normal.

• You will now go straight into a slide if you land with your slide button held.
• You can now jump from crouch.
• If you killed NPCs, they have been resurrected. They should not be able to permadie for the next few days. In the near future, I will readd permadeath for NPCs, but you will get more of a warning to prevent it happening accidentally.
• Changes made to dialogue system to address softlock some players hit during branching dialogue trees. If you continue to get this problem, please post a screenshot in the forums.
• If you pick up a weapon, replace it with another picked-up weapon, and then exfil, you should now be able to pick that weapon up again on a subsequent run.
• Cleaned up lighting on Cherry Tree and Railroad Station, particularly in dark and oily places.
• Improved the lightmaps on Benj's Trophy.
• Plugged holes in the ground outside the station terminal.
• Fixed disappearing music in the railroad station.
• Fixed the vault door's unlocking animation.
• Lowered the water level in the heart of the Heart of the City to prevent accidental drowning.
• Tidied some load zones underneath the chillout room.

Hey everyone, Just pushed a patch that should improve performance and latency for many of you. People using DLSS will see the most improvement, but everyone will hopefully see better responsiveness. This should also fix the rectangular flame particles some of you were seeing in the Exposition. Please let me know if you're still getting those.

I'm going to prioritize fixing the dialogue softlock bug—thank you all for being patient with that. If any of you have information about that, please share in the forums. That will go in a patch with a number of other QOL things and small changes people have brought to my attention. Once all the little fires are out, I'm going to target performance again, specifically to address the slowdown people are seeing on the Railroad Station level.

As ever, thanks for the feedback you've been giving in the forums, it's been very helpful.

Hey, everyone. I uploaded a patch a little while ago. Here are some of the bigger things it changes:

• Made some changes targeting the input lag that some players get. If you were getting input lag before, it'd be great for me to hear if it feels at all different to you on this patch. I have some more things I plan to do tomorrow but wanted to get this patch out tonight.

• Hopefully fixed the softlock some players were getting when they had multiple choices in a dialogue. If you had this problem, please let me know if this fixed it for you or not.

• The Deago's accuracy and reload speed have been improved.

• Made the slide less volatile and more easy to control, especially on slopes.

• Motion blur toggle added.

• Reduced Stargazer Robe's floating effect.

• Tweaked collision on the crossbow's bolts.

• Added "Gary's health potions" to the Pan-American Exposition overworld. These are normal health potions that my friend Gary needed me to add.

I have another patch that should go up tomorrow with some more balance changes and tweaks. I'll also share a bit of a roadmap in the next few days. Thanks for all the feedback, and very glad to see you enjoying the game.

• Lumen is now disabled by default.
• Physics objects in the Baltimore & Potomac level have been changed to reduce CPU load in the level.
• Husband now responds correctly to receiving his diary.
• You can now perform a high jump out of a slide.
• Geo in Heart of the City has been tweaked to resolve some navigation problems.
• Shimrod is now a little clearer about where his knitting needles went.
• Virginia is a little better-lit.
• Items that prevent bonking should actually prevent bonking now.

• Improved gunplay. I've made some changes to how shooting works to make it a little more reliable and consistent. If you're aiming at a guy that you're close to, that bullet is hitting him. It will fry him. I hope this will reward players for having wonderful aim.
• Added headshots. Shooting an enemy in the head will deal more damage and allow you to go even faster. It will make a distinctive sound and probably destroy them.
• Enabled loadout changing in-game. You can now change your loadout from both the in-game pause menu and the end-of-run wrap-up screen. You no longer have to back out to the circular president-stretching devices to change your loadout. I hope this is nice. You still CANNOT change your loadout without restarting the level because that is NOT how this game works.

• Updated gear system. I have filled the world with items. Find them and put them on your heads and legs. Smear them on your body. They will make you better and worse at things, and sometimes have other stranger effects.
• Use gear to break seals. I have added a new way to break seals for players that do not care to earn medals. Now you can progress by exploring, discovering things, using those things they discovered. I wanted to support players that prefer going slow to going fast. If you still prefer going fast, don't worry. You're still all set up.
• Strangers with desires. I've added more complex people to the world. Some of them have things they'd like you to do. If you help them, things will change. Maybe you'll have long and beautiful friendships with them. I can't speak more on it.
• Accessibility features. The big one is more granular settings for FoV stuff for people who struggle with motion sickness. Also added an option to keep the timer permanently hidden for people who don't need that looking over their shoulder. More of this kind of stuff coming with EA.
• Weapon swapping. Now you can hold two weapons. And swap.
• New areas. :)

• Sunscorched wizards in the Undergunk and Moon Crypt emit a low hum.
• Wizard projectiles always repel you.
• UI reflects that it is impossible to summon God's Finger or begin conversations while airborne.
• The golden seal in Virginia demands less.
• Some fonts changed.
• Songs restart less frequently, especially in healthcare buildings and swamps.
• Interaction prompts reflect your preferred controller.
• Improved the legibility of flasks.
• The Sunship Wheel appears and disappears at normal times.