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[KAG] Pre-Build Summary – Simple Join and New Maps!

Hey guys, another pre-build update here to keep you posted on things coming some time next week. We got a good response doing this last time, so hopefully keeping you in the know beforehand can help each update go smoother.

Hopefully there will be fewer furrowed brows all around with the new simple join system!

Done:

• Simple Join:
  The existing “quick join” buttons have been replaced by a full “simple join” menu. The server browser remains as an option for more advanced players.
  The simple join menu lets players quickly set parameters for a game size and mode to play, and then join the best match.
  The default settings are “dont care” for both size and mode, resulting in joining the best ping, active game.
  Simple join also allows joining modded servers by default, which will hopefully help boost the population in modded servers and alleviate modders concerns of the server browser “blocking” people from trying mods.
  Note that this whole system is still an interim measure, as Norill is working on new menus that will eventually replace this, but if you have any quick suggestions for it feel free to bring them up in the thread. A more sophisticated scoring system may be developed if needed, but the previous (five pass) system was very “opaque” to players, which is something we’d like to avoid.
  A screenshot of the new system is provided here.
• Maps:
  Multiple maps have been added and removed from the CTF and TDM map pools. Most of these are community sourced and some of them have issues, so we’ll be looking for feedback on which ones should continue to be included, and any possible changes to be made.
• Bug Fixes and Small Changes:
  A few bugs have been fixed, most notable ones being more server crashes in the vote system, a server “lock up” issue, and “command missing” spam in vote scripts.
  Trampolines were changed to do slightly larger bounces for a few things (most notably spikes), and digging at the edges of TDM maps was removed.

Still To Do:

• Controls/“Desync” Fixes:
  While these issues are actually ongoing, they’ve become much more common with all the control handling rework from trench run, and can cause synchronisation issues for some players among other bad things.
  Michal will be looking into this and we’re working with testers to try to find all existing cases that cause trouble. This has been hard to find and fix because its a result of multiple systems interacting, not just simple errors in one part of the code.
  We’re hoping we’ll have at least handled the worst of it by early next week.

As always, we look forward to bringing this build out as soon as possible!

Have Fun,

Max/Geti

[KAG] BUILD 1215 – Rebalance and Fix Central

New build for KAG – potentially a little rough around the edges but what’s there needs to be tested with the public before we can move much further.

Now with extra flammable platforms!

New build is going out at the moment, should be a long build but out in 30 minutes or so from this post. There will be the usual lull as servers patch over between maps and the client builds aren’t done, and again as the steam build propagates out – don’t panic if you see lower than average numbers in the next few hours.

Here’s a summary of the more serious changes, split by section:

Balance Changes:

• Knight Rebalance
  There have been some long-standing complaints about the knight; this should help to address a lot of them and help reign in some of the more obscure parts of current knight play.
  • Shield Glide is no longer infinite
    Your shield glide will gradually lose its effectiveness as you fall through the air – you can put more wind into your sails with multiple bomb jumps, but this alone makes knights a lot more prone to gravity (like every other class). You can also no longer infinitely climb up walls with wall jumping.
  • Jab does minor stun
    Players from classic era will remember “slash cancelling” with jabs – while this is very ping dependent, we’ve decided to try it out again. It lets you get a quick, reactive cancel to someone charging a slash or double slash in front of you with jabs.
  • Slash doesn’t break shield for as long
    Slashes will not break a knight’s shield stance for as long, giving them a chance to attack back with jabs if you’re “slash surfing” them.
  • Circle of Power
    All of this together helps enforce a circle of power in knight combat options: slash > double slash > shield > jab > slash – there’s still the wildcard of shield bashing and bombs in the mix to keep things fresh of course, but this should make knight combat a little less slash-heavy.
• Archer Tweaks
  • Reduced stun range
    The range at which arrows stun players has been reduced a little.
  • Special Arrow spam discouraged
    When firing special arrows with legolas, you will automatically switch to normal arrows for the 2nd and 3rd shots. This is to further encourage actually aiming with special arrows instead of just spamming 3 bomb arrows at a tower with triple shot.
• Drills builder only
  At the request of the community by poll, drills have been made builder only for now. We’ll see how this change affects their use and the builder’s place in the game.
• Map Borders
  The map borders are active on all edges, including the top of the map – this prevents simply “jumping over” tall structures.
• Weaker Wall-run
  Wall running has been reduced from 3 tiles to 2, making smaller structures more significant.

Fixes and Smaller Changes:

• Platform Fixes
  Lots of issues with platforms have been cleaned up, most notably grappling them, wallrunning on them, and fire spreading through them. They also got a small sprite facelift.
• Mine Fixes and balances
  Mines explode with much smaller radius, collide with platforms, don’t explode with materials on them, and shouldn’t go invisible any more.
• Spawning timer no longer resets on click
  This only really applies to CTF – TTH still has wave respawning and some limitations there, though it should fare a little better than it did.
• Server Fixes
  A memory leak in the server was identified (finally) and fixed.
• Storage Changes
  The storage is a little more attractive, has damage frames and responds to lantern containment – thanks to community member Skinney for these changes.
• Saw changes
  The saw spews out a slightly more reasonable amount of wood.
• Spectator Fixes
  Several fixes to the spectator mode have been made, most notably including it getting “stuck”.
  Thanks to community member norill for these fixes.
• Interface Fixes
  Some discrepancies with the TDM and CTF spawn time interfaces have been cleaned up.
• Stun Fixes
  Stun is now respected for picking up/throwing items, and for using drills.
• Builder Hitting Fixes
  Builders should have a slightly easier time hitting what they want to hit – theres still a few finicky edge cases but overall it should behave more sensibly, especially when trying to mine tiles near objects.
• Tips on Death
  Some helpful, community sourced tips are displayed while you’re waiting to respawn – you can turn these off (along with other ingame help) with f1.
• Fixed Builder digging in no-build zone.
  No more undermined tents or halls.
• Fixed CTF HUD not showing for 1 flag maps.
  Speaks for itself, annoying little bug.
• Emoticon bindings in EntitiesCommonEmotesEmoteBindings.cfg.
  If you need faster access to some of the emoticons you can now rebind them clientside, though it is a little fiddly.
• “No Chat Bubble” option and some options fixes
  For those sick of seeing chat hovering over someone obscuring the action, you can now turn these off in the options menu.
  Some other options that were having issues being saved should be fixed now too; let us know if any options still fail to be saved after quitting the game normally.
• Fixed lots of Larger Resolution Issues
  Larger resolutions now have fixed size cursors and can aim accurately, and work for vertical aspect ratios too if you’re that way inclined.
• Lots of other fixes and tweaks – changelog too big for tumblr! I’ll put together a changelog to include in the forum post, though it may take a little more time.

General Concerns:

• Archer may be too strong
  We’re well aware of the potential for balance changes like this to swing power too far “the other way”. We’ll be watching very closely in the coming week and adjusting things as need be in a follow-up build.
• A focus has been put on Gravity
  A lot of the changes here have put a focus back onto gravity – we want structures to have more of a purpose, people to need builders a little more, and vertical play to be a little more dicey; we also want to see less of people building giant turtle towers behind their base and flying all the way across the map :^) Keep this intent in mind when you’re cursing at not being able to jump up “measly” 8 high tile walls – players are going to have to adjust to more “grounded” play, and that may take some time (at least a few games).

Looking forward to seeing you guys in game to put these changes through their paces! I’ll be around tomorrow to make hotfixes if necessary but hopefully they can wait until next week – after the game re-stabilises.

Have Fun!

Geti/Max

[KAG] Build 1180 – Shop, Boat, Map, Coin Tweaks and Many Fixes

Pretty big build – lots of small changes accumulating over time. We would have liked to have made this as several separate builds but each week the build server had something else wrong with it. However, the more troublesome nodes have been moved to more stable hardware and things have gone along smoothly this week.

• Shop Changes
  Largely a community sourced change, shops now have a nicer button layout, show damage (using the frames that were previously unused), and are generally a little more polished. Notably, quarters now allows sleeping in a bed inside the structure for free, time based healing.
• Tunnel Changes
  Tunnels are now able to be used by both teams – this means that you need to build a vault around any tunnels inside your base to prevent getting invaded through them. This change should make tunnels a more strategically important building for both teams, and help prevent cheesy flag rushes.
• Voting Changes
  Players can now abstain from votes they don’t want to have a say in (to get rid of the box), and admins can now cancel the vote if they have the right seclev set.
• Boat Changes
  Boats have been reworked a little – dinghies and longboats are faster now, warboats do less ramming damage to blocks, and longboats do more (especially with multiple rowers). This should help with the boat’s utility in game, we’ll see if we need to take more measures in this direction after the build has been in circulation for a while.
• Map Changes
  Many CTF maps should be less prone to stalemates or extreme early rushes, and a few maps have been retired completely.
• Coin Tweaks
  There’s fairly dramatically increased coin income from damaging siege weapons and enemy vehicles – this especially applies to archers as an alternative revenue stream from frontline support.
• New Example Mod – M16
  A simple example mod by MM (sprites by me) adding an M16 to the archer in TDM.
• Fixes and Misc Changes
  • No more getting into crates
    As fun as it might be for you, we’re quite tired of complaints about players effectively wasting a team slot by spending the entire game asking their team to carry them into battle. The code is still in there, just commented out for those who want this in modded servers.
  • Fixed minimap sometimes getting “stuck” off.
  • Fixed m_seed defaulting to wrong value – old servers will have to manually change this though (/rcon /m_seed 0, or set it in autoconfig)
  • Static blobs with attachments falling.
    You know how flags sometimes “weirdly” fall through the ground? This should fix that.
  • “Quick Double Slashing” bug fixed.
    If you’ve ever been surprised by a double slash that “probably shouldn’t have happened” but not been quite sure what was causing it, this fix might help there.
  • Spikes give kills
    Builders can now see their kills (or lack thereof) from placed spike traps.
  • See changelog for the rest!

[added] abstaining from votes
[fixed] wierd downward-floating desync for static blobs with attachments
[fixed] knight "quick-double-slash" bug
[added] rayne chicken head (fear the chicken)
[fixed] potential overflow issue with the minimap not showing
[fixed] issue with wood vehicle damages getting passed on for projectiles
[modified] coin income from building workshops (less) and hitting siege (more)
[removed] getting into crates
[fixed] using halls as tunnel as enemy
[modified] removed tunnel travel team limitation
[fixed] broken code in defaultbuilding relying on overlap functions that was breaking for quarters (now uses AABBs)
[added] dinghies cost 100w and 25c (spam mitigation)
[modified] mazey head (5th time now, hopefully last. looks less like a tumour)
[modified] new german official server IP
[fixed] sleeping head frames for people with unique heads
[modified] community fix: spikes give the builder kills (thanks Skinney)
[modified] community fix: ctf shop buttons are laid out horizontally (thanks Skinney)
[fixed] community fix: ctf shops use appropriate damage frames (thanks Skinney)
[modified] community fix: quarters allows free sleeping with a time-cost to heal (thanks Skinney)
[modified] community fix: ctf flags collide with blob blocks where appropriate (thanks Skinney)
[modified] builder cant put wood backwall on stone backwall
[modified] updates to newtortuga - mid more resilient, less redundant base stuff, more room for tunneling under mid
[modified] addressed a few concerns with EjMap (stalling, horizontal movement)
[modified] feedback on JTG Aqueduct and BoulderLake taken into account (less gimmicks, more terrain polish, etc)
[modified] moved flags out of terrain on fellere map
[modified] dinghy and longboat faster
[modified] can't get into carried dinghy
[modified] longboat better at ramming tiles
[modified] mine doesn't take fall dmg
[modified] mine has knockback on hit
[modified] mine has double hp for slightly longer "defuse"
[fixed] sound scrollbars up button not working
[added] new mod example M16 as extra class action for archer
[modified] steps on the sound sliders
[fixed] crash when trying to perform "reload" command on local server
[added] new seclev "vote_cancel"

Have Fun!

Geti/Max