The Dead State Beta is finally here! If you've activated your Steam key, your copy of Dead State should automatically update. If you never received your key or lost it, please message us on Kickstarter and we'll try to get back to you with your key as soon as we can.
Since I don’t want to keep you in suspense, I’ll kick off this announcement with our impressive changelog:
- 75+ new locations
- 30+ new allies
- 500+ new dialogues
- Crisis events
- New enemy types & factions
- Vehicle travel
- Skill perks
- Ally traits
- Thrown weapons
- Data system (basic)
- Dog allies and enemies
- Special weapons
- Neutral encounters
- Tutorial elements
- Pause menu
- New save & load screens
- New goals
- Allies tracker on Goals screen
- Fence attacks
- New jobs
- Shelter upgrades
… And a whole lot more cool stuff!
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Known Issues and Missing Features & Content
Remember how I said there were a few bits missing and some kinks still being worked out? Right here, I’ll tell you about some of the big’uns we’re aware of.
For the longer version of the Known Issues list, go here.
AI:
AI is still pretty basic right now. We’re already working on vast improvements to the AI system that you’ll see in the first patch. Eventually, enemies will exhibit more advanced tactics and behaviors that vary among different enemy types.
Dialogue and Scripting: Dialogue and scripting are one of our highest priorities and are constantly being added to and improved.
- There are still a few missing dialogues for specific characters, and more dialogue may very well be added in polish stage.
- A number of world events are not scripted yet so if it seems like something more should be happening in a scene, chances are you’re right
- Scripting is also missing or minimal in numerous ally encounters, so sometimes dialogue may not match up with what actually happens when you meet a new ally out in the world.
- There are a few neutral encounters already in the game, but more are planned for the future.
Pathfinding:
- There are still a few weird behaviors being exhibited during pathfinding, such as jittering, sliding, occupying the same space, and meandering. There’s also some lag that comes up occasionally while pathfinding. Pathfinding optimization will happen closer to final release.
- There’s currently an issue where allies do not follow the active character up or down stairs. This is a very high priority issue for us to fix in an upcoming patch.
Combat:
Weapons, armor, medical items, combat skills, special attacks, and combat encounters are still being balanced and tweaked. Roof behavior is still not ideal and we have plans to make sure the roof stays invisible when any ally is inside of it, among other things.
Crashes and Locks:Crashes and locks are one of our absolute highest priorities, so rest assured that we’re working on solutions for these even as you read these words. Right now, these are the known crashes that occur in the game:
- There is a rare crash that occurs when players begin to load into a location from the area map and then click somewhere else on the map before the location loads up.
- Rarely, the game soft locks after an ally panics
- the player character’s turn starts and s/he has zero AP and the game is stuck on the player’s turn.
- A crash occurs when a character with no weapons equipped attempts to stand up from knockdown.
- A crash occurs when player wakes up their PC after it’s entered sleep mode with the game open.
Save/Load: The biggest issue with saves right now is that some save files are getting corrupted after players explore a large quantity of locations. This is a critical priority for us, so hang in there! Again, please save your game in multiple files to lower the risk of losing your game progress until we get this fixed.
Levels:
While many levels are fully playable, there are also a few levels at various stages of completion. Some levels may be missing loot, enemies, or even props, and there are certainly plenty that still require additional scripting too.
Perks:- Leadership Commands are not fully implemented in the beta yet. Only "Go!" and "Aim for the Head" are working right now.
- A few other perks are also not functioning as designed in the beta; they will be fixed in a future update.
Again, the full list of Known Issues is available here.