It's been a little over a year since I released SGW3 Improvement Project 0.1 When I started working on this mod in August 2017, I never thought I'd come this far. Thank you to everyone who has come along on the journey by downloading my mod to make a rough gem of a game better.
What is the Unofficial Patch?:
Because I'm making significant changes to the game design in the Improvement Project, I felt it was necessary to split the mod into Improvement Project and Unofficial Patch. The Improvement Project seeks to improve the game design, but if you just want the vanilla experience with keybinding fixes, ToD override, and the infamous NPC spawning problems fixed, then Unofficial Patch is the version for you. Please bear in mind that you do not need the Unofficial Patch if you have the Improvement Project installed. The UP is simply a stripped down version of the IP.
Removed Access to Multiplayer (IP/UP):
This one was a tough call. I may restore MP access in the Unofficial Patch at some point, since the UP doesn't make anywhere near as many changes as the IP, but for now it's been disabled in both versions.
Gamepad Support for Time of Day Override(IP/UP):
If you're someone who plays SGW3 using a gamepad instead of a mouse and keyboard, you'll be pleased to know that you can override the Time of Day by holding down START on your controller. Holding the button will make the game cycle through the four presets selectable on a Keyboard's F1-F4 keys.
Weapon Silencer Changes (IP):
In the vanilla game, silencers reduce weapon noise to almost nothing, but they break frequently. IMO, this is bad design. I've tried to find a middle ground where silencers reduce radius by 50%, but the silencers don't break. This is more in line with how actual guns work. As a side effect, the bow is a more useful weapon since it is no longer made completely redundant by pistols.
Reduced ADS Delay(IP):
Pistols and secondary weapons now have a 100ms delay instead of a 300ms delay when ADS from a sprint. This makes them feel snappier. Sniper Rifles still have 300ms delay.
Reduced XP Allocation(IP):
The vanilla game showers you with XP for pretty much anything that involves shooting people. I've significantly reduced the amount of XP you earn from tasks. In addition, I also...
Removed Some OP Skills from Skill Tree(IP):
In particular, skills that immediately reveal sniper locations through their laser sights, and skills that allow you to see enemies through walls. I feel these drain tension from the game like an axe through the side of a rum barrel.
Reworked Per-Difficulty HUD/Gameplay Options(IP/UP):
I made some changes to the default difficulty settings. The Unofficial Patch is mostly the same as vanilla, but felt some of the Challenge HUD settings such as hiding your stance icon were really not properly thought out. In the Improvement Project, red dot aim assistance is disabled by default on all difficulties, among several other changes.
Fixed Strange Torso Damage Multiplier(IP):
Some NPCs have a rather excessive damage multiplier for toros shots. (10x, compared to 1x for enemies wearing vests.) This meant that simply winging certain NPCs in the torso region immediately killed them. I reduced this multiplier to 1.5x
Sniping Zoom Sway Significantly Increased(IP):
Stance/tripods/etc now have more significant impact on accuracy. If you want to take a shot long distance with any degree of steadiness, you'll need to go prone.
Removed Advanced Tagging (IP):
Enemies tagged using the drone no longer have icons showing you their location at all times.
Removed Auto-Mantling/Takedown System(IP):
The mantling system is decent idea on paper, inconsistent and borderline broken in practice. There's no consistency between whether you'll vault over one waist high wall or another. For this reason I've removed the functionality. You can still perform melee takedowns by pressing V of course.
Removed XP Notifications(IP):
While there is an option to disable these in the vanilla game and UP, I have chosen to disable them completely in the IP. There are few things tackier than a serious FPS game flashing congratulatory numbers on the screen every time you shoot someone.
Removed Aim Toggle (IP):
The game's aim toggle was added in a patch, and it breaks leaning. You can't toggle lean around corners. Which is very bad, and for this reason I've removed the functionality from the Improvement Project version.
Removed Chromatic Aberration(IP):
SGW3 has a particularly strong chromatic aberration implementation that I would reduce in intensity if I could, but since that isn't practical I've chosen to remove it completely. It's optional in the Unofficial Patch.
Removed Ubisoft-style alert ring (IP):
I think that telling the player where they are being viewed from is a tension drainer. With the alert ring removed, you have to peek around corners, hide behind trees, and take pot shots at enemies -- instead of having a big red arrow telling you exactly where the enemies are located so you can shoot them.
Random chance to loot most ammo types (including arrows) from NPCs(IP):
In the vanilla game, you only ever find one or two ammo types from enemies. Which is a huge pain for people who want to use bows, for instance. Or shotguns. Now you have a random chance of finding all the major ammo types during looting.
Increased ammo carry capacity for pistols(IP):
In the vanilla game, you can only carry 3 pistol magazines. I have increased this to 9. This makes using pistols as your primary weapon a far more viable option.
Rebalanced shotgun damage(IP):
I've increased damage dropoff to try and make shotguns a bit less OP at long range. I'm not entirely happy with this adjustment because I think that shotguns should have decent range without being too effective. I'll probably tune it further in future versions of the mod.
