Hello folks, Arno here!

In this devlog, we’re talking about new systems, difficulty, replayability, reworks, as well as a lot of new cool visual things to look at while we’re preparing for our Halloween update!

⚠️ Everything below is WORK IN PROGRESS and might not ship as shown. We’re still cookin’ for now! ⚠️

A small change, but one that feels BIG! The pool of Jokers keeps getting wider, which means your chances of landing one that fits your build keep going down. Since melee and gun weapons often have their own specific Jokers, it happens more and more that a Joker is completely useless to you and has to be either broken down for Uranium or swapped at the Refiner. Well, you’ll now get to choose between 2 Jokers every time one drops!

Design and implementation by @Spinker

Obviously, having more choices also means that you’ll more often have a build that fits you, and thus the game will be easier in general. Well, don’t worry, difficulty is also a big topic of this devlog and of the next update! Let’s go to the second topic ⏩

We’ve been wondering about the current state of the difficulty in Far Far West for quite some time, and considering we have a diverse range of players, everybody has a different opinion on what the difficulty should be. Before making any change, we thought it was wise to ask you on different platforms whether you felt Far Far West needed to be more difficult. The poll answers as well as discussions that ensued were extremely interesting, and just as planned, pretty much everyone wants something different. We are also aware that a big part of our community is made of casual players who do not follow us on socials, and that, being casual players, they would probably lean towards not wanting the game to be harder. We’re taking this into account too! So how do we please everyone? We can’t. But we’ll do our best to make as many people happy as possible!

Discord vote / Reddit vote / Twitter vote

Both a replayability and difficulty system at once, the Disturbance system will arrive with the next update! Disturbance will take into account what you accomplish on the map, and at some point will apply a modifier to your game. What, you thought the Overseer was just sassy and not doing anything all this time, just waiting for his minions to be defeated? He was preppin’ his modifiers, indeed!

Modifiers will be separated into two categories, “Easy” and “Hard”, and the modifiers that are applied will be based on the difficulty of the mission selected and the tier of Disturbance reached. In practice, the higher the difficulty you choose, the harder the modifiers you get. This allows us to make sure the base difficulty of the game is not impacted too much at any difficulty level, while still adding a ton of replayability for everyone. Along with the Joker choice coming in the next update as well, we believe this increase in difficulty is going to balance itself out and make most people happy!

Thanks to everyone who participated and shared modifier ideas in our Discord, we read everything and a bunch made their way into the game!

Disturbance & modifiers can be tracked next to your minimap

Gary’s modifier. He’s Gary. Programmed by @Spinker

Farmyard modifier. They’re bad, bad chickens. Programmed by @Spinker

Still, this update on difficulty is not enough of a challenge for a bunch of people, and we hear ya! At this stage, we’re still considering adding a new difficulty level above Nightmare that would be extremely difficult and unfair, and not supposed to be played by most people. The goal of this difficulty would be to offer a real challenge to the best Far Far West players, without touching all the other difficulties, and therefore all the players who already find the game hard enough. Stay tuned!

This is the first step towards end-game content, but definitely not the last!

As stated in our 🚅PUBLIC ROADMAP[farfarwest.notion.site], Cryptic bosses are getting reworked, considering how the game has evolved since release and everything we’ve learned from your feedback. You can expect them to have more patterns, to be less frustrating and overall more interesting! Here’s a deeper dive into our changes for the Saloon and the Vulture, and you can expect the same level of work on the Necromancer and the Train.

Rig by @Adrian, animation by @Calu, patterns by @Jonathan, Gameplay by @Arno

⭐ What is wrong with current Saloon?

• It can be damaged only through its planks, rendering most builds inefficient and frustrating to use against

• It has no evolution between difficulties

• The second phase with the saloon spirit is boring but also confusing for first-time players

• Not really a monster house fantasy?

⭐ What do we change?

• It can now be damaged everywhere, planks remain through the fight and are now used as weakspots

• New patterns for Very Hard and Nightmare, the boss cycle through attacks with a speed based on difficulty

• No second phase anymore

• New animations, new patterns and overall more visual clarity!

Rig by @Adrian, animation by @Calu, patterns by @Jonathan, Gameplay by @Arno

⭐ What is wrong with current Vulture?

• The boss never moves

• It has no evolution between difficulties

• It has some frustrating patterns, such as the shield that can take some time to destroy

• Some attacks are borderline useless, such as the summon of ravens (did you even know it existed?)

⭐ What do we change?

• The boss now has new patterns that make it move around the arena

• New patterns for Very Hard and Nightmare, the boss cycle through attacks with a speed based on difficulty

• Frustrating patterns have been adressed and are now more regularly counterable

• New animations, new patterns and overall more visual clarity! Some patterns have been combined to make the fight more interesting

The Woodlands have been out there for so long, and they still don’t have a single quest. Wtf right? Well, this update will have you meet Lady Granny and her weird shenanigans, right in the middle of her Woodlands side job! I wonder if this questline will unlock the Redwood map though… (It does)

VERY WIP!! / Very not-frustrating gameplay! / Programmed by @Spinker

Concept and 3D by @MashArt

The lobby is getting ready for spooky season! This year, we’re going for a weird laboratory vibe, along with the classic field of pumpkins!

Level Art by @Borealis, atmosphere by @Spinker

As we stated in the previous 🎃DEVLOG - SEPTEMBER - 01[farfarwest.notion.site], we wanted to make the game a tad more spooky overall! Lucky for us, Area 41 was just waiting for it, and got even stranger!

Level Art by @Borealis

Spooky season means spooky characters! All of these characters will be available to unlock through our upcoming Halloween event, then vaulted until the next spooky season!

Concept and 3D by @MashArt

Rig by @Adrian

Concept by @Capp

3D by @Capp

WORK-IN-PROGRESS!! Concept and 3D by @Capp // might be a boss? who knows? (me, I know)

In line with our goal of balancing out the number of skins between male and female characters, 3 new female skins are making their way into the game for Halloween as well!

Original concept by @Shoony (community), reinterpretation and 3D by @Capp

Original concept by @EarlGoupil (community), reinterpretation and 3D by @Capp

Concept and 3D by @MashArt, rig by @Adrian, animation by @Calu

On the side, we’re still researching themes for all of our weapon skins, and making sure we’re ready when the time comes! Here’s a bunch of new models made since the last devlog.

Concept and 3D by @MashArt

Concept and 3D by @MashArt

We’re still hunting the disconnections and crashes that have been happening since the game launched, but we’re also aware that the recent update brought new issues of the same kind. Thanks to the new tools presented in our previous DEVLOG - SEPTEMBER - 01[app.notion.com], we’re doing all we can to hunt them down as well! A lot of things are being reworked internally (for the greater long-term good!), which unfortunately means a few new issues have appeared along the way.

As for optimization in general, we found new ways to increase your framerate by fiddling with our different systems! These improvements apply to everyone, but people hosting lobbies, especially on higher difficulties, should see the most difference when the update comes around.

We’re doing all we can to fix disconnections, but obviously they can still happen. Because of this, we’ve implemented a feature that has been asked for a LOT!
-> If you reconnect to a game you’ve been disconnected from, you will now get your found Jokers BACK!

We’re playing Kinda Hard Golf[kindahardgolf.com] (you should try it!) every week with the team, and since I am the one writing the devlogs, I can do whatever I want. Thus, it’s only natural that I post last week’s results, since I won and I am unequivocally the best g@m3r at Evil Raptor. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

New fanarts have also been added to the lobby, the halloween event is shaping up and more! Stay tuned.

THANK YOU for playing Far Far West and sticking with us <3

See you in the next one.

Howdy y'all!

As promised, here's the batch of bug fixes and balance changes. We're still working hard on fixing more bugs; these are just the ones we focused on first! :)

IF YOU HAVE AN AMD GPU PLS READ THIS PLS!

We are still encountering the same AMD Frame Generation issues mentioned when we launched the update. If you encounter any kind of performance issues or crashes, please try turning AMD FSR ON or OFF. AMD is looking to release a patch to resolve this issue soon, so please bear with us! <3

• 🔼 Knuckles: XP multiplier increased from x0.5 to x0.7

• 🔼 Lasso: XP multiplier increased from x0.5 to x0.7

• 🔼 Dual Revolvers: the attack speed upgrade is back!

• 🔼 Banjo:

  • XP multiplier increased from x0.6 to x1

  • Now gives XP based on the amount of HP healed to players, including yourself

  • Base damage increased from 8 to 9

  • Slam base damage increased from 20 to 25

  • Heal range increased:

    • Base: 650 > 1024

    • Joker Lullabard: 1300 > 2048

• 🔼 Frost Cube: the cast animation can now be canceled by holding the click while casting the spell, allowing more control and faster reactions

• ↔️ Swapped Frost Cube and Frost Breeze in the Frost spell tree progression (Breeze is now the first spell, Cube the third)

• 🔼 Cryptic Horseman: Joker reward odds improved

  • Normal: from 5% to 0%

  • Fine: 50% (unchanged)

  • Prime: 20% (unchanged)

  • Mythic: 20% (unchanged)

  • Legendary: from 5% to 10%

• 🔼 Wandering Trader: prices decreased from 10 > 20 > 35 > 50 > 65 to 10 > 20 > 30 > 45 > 55

• 🔼 Blueprints

  • Primary and secondary weapons cost reduced from 12 to 8

  • Utility cost reduced from 6 to 4

Very minor bug fixes and tweaks are not listed

• Fixed +100 bugs, including:

  • The Gamma setting works again!

  • HDR should work now!

  • Fixed a very frequent GPU crash

  • Fixed a GPU crash on a specific Linux setup using Vulkan

  • Fixed a crash when starting a mission

  • Fixed a frequent disconnection issue

  • Cinematics should no longer play their audio late for HDD users

  • Fixed the muffled audio on 5.7 surround systems

  • Enemy death sounds should no longer blow your ears when too many enemies die at once

  • Pings should no longer play their spawn sound right after starting a mission

  • The “Twitch” tab in the settings is now gone! It will come back when it’s ready :)

  • The button to open someone’s Steam profile in the session settings works again

  • Any UI element should no longer be interactable while the minimap is open

  • The blue shield effect at the bottom of the screen no longer cuts off abruptly

  • Your shield no longer decays too early when you gain shield while you already have some (indirect shield buff)

  • Pressing left shift while typing in the chat no longer makes your horse run

  • Item meshes such as the Banjo or the Knuckles should no longer be out of scale after unmounting your horse as a client

  • When a client disconnects, the item they were holding is now dropped on the floor

  • Picking up a blueprint now properly removes its ping

  • Snake kills from melee slaps should now count toward the Bestiary tracking

  • The Woodlands and Jungle maps should now properly give the additional difficulty XP

  • Fixed a softlock that could happen if the Overseer talks while you are already talking to an NPC

  • Fixed the textures on the promo-code Ghost Hunter in the lobby

  • Some localization fixes

  • Cryptic Horseman: should no longer spawn in trees or unwalkable areas

  • Cryptic Horseman: should no longer fall through the floor

  • Cryptic Dead Eyes: should no longer move or rotate while frozen

  • Cryptic Dead Eyes: should no longer spawn inside ceilings or walls

  • Cryptics should no longer spawn at 0;0;0 in the lobby, making noise in the new area behind the train

  • Ally NPCs should no longer get stuck (a safety net was added in case they do)

  • Anvil storm: starting one during another storm now overrides the older storm to create a new one

  • Lighthouse: Gold Ore and Coyotes should now be properly visible for everyone, including clients, after completing it

  • Copy Press: a map secret should no longer reset the ink counter to 5 instead of its base value of 4

  • Hellfire secret: pinging ‘The Precious’ should no longer display it as a ‘Healing Bottle’

  • Jungle secret: torches should no longer roll infinitely and clip through the terrain when dropped, which prevented players from retrieving them or grabbing a replacement

  • The “align all the skulls” minigame should no longer count as a success when it is unfinished

  • Arizona Jones: should no longer interrupt her door-unlocking animation to draw her weapon when enemies are nearby, which could block the questline in multiplayer

  • Mounts should no longer take damage from underground lava if you have a Dwarf joker equipped

  • Minigun: should no longer stop spinning after shooting when the ADS toggle option is enabled

  • Minigun: the rev sound no longer stops playing after shooting if you hold the aim button

  • Knuckles, Banjo and Lasso: using the ADS toggle option no longer requires pressing right click twice

  • Banjo: the extra chords should no longer be marked as full when equipping the weapon

  • Bow: inspect is now disabled while charging, to prevent a visual desync with the draw animation

  • Boomerang: its lifesteal should now properly work

  • Sheriff Star: the Draw Speed upgrade no longer speeds up the visuals only, it now properly reduces the weapon’s pre-fire delay

  • Life Steal upgrade: should now properly work on secondary weapons

  • Melee weapons should now charge when hitting the Sky Cannon, the Cryptic Saloon boss or the Cryptic Train

  • Melee weapons should no longer charge on shielded enemies

  • Regular punch melee hits should now display damage numbers on targets at shooting range

  • Piercing bullets should no longer trigger on-impact jokers multiple times on non-valid targets

• ❄️ Frost Bridge:

  • Can now receive electricity on both server and client side

  • The Boomerang, Sheriff Star, Banjo and arrow projectiles now properly apply Elec to it

• 🌵 Cactus Pistolero: the current element should now display properly on the turret for clients

• 🌵 Cactus + ⚡ Elec Strikes combo no longer damages the caster

• Voodoo Corruption: should no longer corrupt the Coyote, which did nothing anyway

• Joker Swift Shot: should no longer stay permanently active from hip-fire, it now only triggers while aiming down sights

• Joker Relentless: now properly grants +30% damage instead of +10% while below 30% HP

• Joker Last Dance: now properly grants +30% movement speed instead of +36% when dropping below 30% HP

• Joker Scout’s Honor:

  • Client shields should no longer drain to 0 instead of stopping at 10 SP when no damage is taken

  • Now starts generating shield as soon as the game starts if no damage is taken

• Joker Switchshot: now boosts the damage of the entire shotgun blast instead of a single pellet

• Joker Scrub Hit: hitting a target should no longer clear the Joker Mark Ace buff

• Joker Magic Friendship + Joker Tin Man: the combination should no longer trigger an unintended shield gain during level loading and train extractions

• Joker Riposte:

  • Now boosts the entire Boomerang throw instead of only its first damage tick

  • Now boosts the entire shotgun blast instead of a single pellet

• Joker Tin Man: should no longer grant shield points before you reach full health

• Joker Last Stand: should no longer over-heal you as a client

• Joker Consumer + Joker Magic Reload: casting a spell should no longer make switching back to your weapon trigger a reload and waste ammo

• Joker Vampire:

  • Now works as originally intended

  • Melee attacks should now properly trigger its lifesteal

  • Overkill damage is no longer taken into account in its lifesteal

  • Now properly triggers its lifesteal when damaging bosses such as the Cryptic Train and the Cryptic Saloon

• Joker Execute:

  • Enemies killed by it should now trigger on-kill Jokers, such as Joker Life Pact

  • Killing an enemy with it should now increment your kill streak

• Joker Coinflip: its +100% damage bonus and -50% damage malus are now calculated correctly

• Joker Ricochet + Joker Eagle Lever: secondary impacts should no longer reset the damage stacks

• Joker Spell Roulette: should no longer get stuck rolling only the Cactus Mino spell when your spell cooldown reduction is too high

• Joker Fanning Ace:

  • A high reload speed should no longer let you trigger it indefinitely by simply holding down the attack button

  • A high reload speed should no longer prevent it from triggering on consecutive reloads, so it can properly be chained

• Joker Homing Burst: now properly triggers on the eighth shot instead of the sixth

• Joker Jump Star: the extra jumps should no longer persist after switching away from the Sheriff Stars

• Joker Bardbarian: rapid follow-up attack inputs after a slam should no longer softlock you into an unintended second slam animation

• Joker Swamp Trick: the explosions it triggers on the Dual Revolvers should no longer damage you

• Joker Ultra Draw:

  • Should now detonate gold mines again when using the Pyro element

  • Fully charging an arrow should now properly trigger the intended explosion

• Joker Sky Lash: should now trigger when attacking empty air

• Added support for Vulkan SM5 (in the Steam launch options, you can now use -vulkan -sm5)

• Cached the player inventory to improve CPU performance in the menus

• Added disconnection error messages, such as “Kicked by the host” or “The ban hammer has spoken”, plus numbered codes for technical use

• Improved Arizona Jones’ overall mobility, increasing her base movement speed by 29%

• Joker Sky Lash: no longer stops your momentum

• You can no longer obtain undroppable jokers in the Refiner

• Aiming with the Minigun now very slightly decreases the camera field of view (5°)

• Bow: increased the volume of the charge sound with Joker Overdraw and Joker Ultra Draw to make it clearer and more distinct

• Added +1 ammo bag on the Cryptic Train and Cryptic Necromancer arenas

• The Acid Geyser + ⚡ Elec combo is now more reliable and displays “COMBO!”

• The Acid Geyser + ❄️ Frost combo now displays “COMBO!”

• You can now drop the music disc from your hands in the lobby by pressing the interact button

• During the leaderboard screen, player emotes are now played at the right angle (the piano emote no longer hides everyone)

• You can now send messages in the chat during the end screen cinematic!

• Cryptic Vulture: no longer chases the player, to avoid it running into ceilings. In exchange, the dome arena has been scaled down

Thanks for readin' and keep the bug reports comin'

Time for the obligatory reminder to..

JOIN OUR SOCIALS[linktr.ee]https://linktr.ee/FarFarWest

FOLLOW OUR DISCORD[discord.com]https://discord.com/invite/farfarwest

& REVIEW ON STEAM!! (pls<3)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3124540/Far_Far_West/