7/13 @ 7:30pm EST - Garry changed the way XP is wiped, allowing server owners not to wipe tomorrow. Therefore, no Rustafied servers will be wiping XP tomorrow! A forced map wipe will still occur on all servers.

7/12 @ 3pm EST - It has been a rocky start for the new XP system. With huge balance issues and poor performance, the team has been scrambling to get everything solid again. Thankfully, they are making some significant strides forward in both categories. There is, however, an impact to these fixes: another full forced wipe is on the way...

Forced wipe incoming (again)

Given the amount of changes to the XP system, Helk has run a save++ (forced map wipe) and a persistence++ (forced XP wipe). That means all maps and levels are going to reset when the next update launches - currently scheduled for Thursday.

Our staging branch server will experience this forced wipe a bit sooner given it’s our testing environment - expect the wipe there to happen sometime later today (or once the staging branch gets a bit more stable).

Edit: No wipe needed anymore!

XP balance

Helk has implemented a bunch of changes to the XP system - nerfing several ways of gaining XP in an effort to find balance. Here are the highlights:

Max XP you can earn from any one player is limited to 6xp.
No more xp gained from the usage of resources - instead its from the first few times crafting an item
XP diminishing is in effect. This means the more someone harvests for you the less xp you get
Radial XP falloff (working on it ) this means that you will not earn xp for player actions farther than n units from your current position, hopefully meaning you'll have to mentor people or be around them rather than AFK in your base.

Edit: For more on this, check out Helk's post on reddit.

Performance enhancements

In addition to balance, performance has been a big issue since the launch of the XP system. Although it’s gotten better - servers are no longer using 30+ GB of ram like they were this weekend - but there is still much work to be done. Thankfully, Garry is working on several optimizations which should have things running smoother by the Thursday update.

Gunplay reboot

Andre’s gunplay reboot has made it to the main branch (meaning it’ll go live this week). As you may recall from devblog 117, this body of work completely shifts how hits are detected and damage is dealt.

With the emphasis on improved hitbox accuracy (no more clothing meshes counting as hits) and greater consistency (no more tiny vulnerable spots), PvP exchanges should feel more precise and predictable as of this Thursday.

DirectX 12 added (sort of)

You may have noticed something new while launching the game - Directx 12 is now an option. I wouldn’t recommend using it, however, as the whole thing is pretty fucked at the moment (missing textures, low fps, etc). I expect it’ll be a while till the kinks are worked out, so stay tuned over the next couple weeks for updates.