KineticPoet
Veteran X
Thanks to everyone for your ongoing feedback and bug reports. Here's a list of tuning changes that will be in version 05, which will also be the open beta. While it can be fun to think about these changes and comment on them before trying them, I encourage you to keep an open mind and give them a try for yourselves when the time comes, then post your well-informed thoughts.
This list does not include bug fixes. The team has been working extremely hard to fix all the bugs you've reported, far too many to include here.
Among the changes is a grappler change that is controversial. The grappler can no longer grab flags from the field. The reasoning is that this ability, as it's currently implemented, is instant, seemingly magical, and therefore confusing and frustrating for a large number of players. The only really good defense against it is to also carry a grappler. Personally I could've lived with this until we found a way to make it more obvious and easier to cope with, but we're running short on time and Ed made the final call to remove it. I support this decision. We reserve the right to add a proper flag-grappling implementation in a future patch, but until then, if you loved this aspect of the game, I encourage you to try Ball where it's still possible and where you spawn with a grappler by default.
I suspect people will dwell on the grappler issue regardless of what I say, but anyway...here's a bunch of good news. Open beta has support for traditional V-key quick chats and local animated quickchats. Final ski code is complete, which is icing on the cake for player physics. There's improved spectator support. There's more audio feedback in the game. And there are hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations.
As for the rest of the changes, the general reasoning for them is the following: Vehicles become a more valuable resource, packs are more useful, and weapons are slightly tweaked based on your feedback.
I look forward to one last round of tuning based on your open beta feedback. Give the game a try when it's out, introduce some friends to it, and let us know what you think after you've had a chance to play,
KP
- doubled repair pack stacking to improve cooperative repairing (25%->50%)
- increased flag throw strength (850->900)
- slightly improved ability to grapple other players (0.17->0.2)
- slightly increased epack passive recharge bonus (1.15->1.17)
- increased repair pack passive health per second (1.5->1.75)
- increased speed pack running speed bonus (both passive and active, all armours)
- reduced mortar damage (130->120 max)
- slightly increased mortar range
- slightly increased grenade launcher range
- reduced hand grenade refire rate (4/s->3/s)
- reduced buckler checking momentum (220->200)
- reduced blaster energy usage (12->9)
- reduced velocity-based damage on buckler bodychecks
- introduced T1-style disc acceleration to make long-range discing easier (disc now accelerates from 4700 to 5500 at 360/s)
- increased bullet damage scaling versus vehicles (40%->50%)
- reduced assault ship health (600->550)
- reduced tank health (900->800)
- increased sentry turret (base and deployed) damage versus vehicles (40%->100%)
- increased assault ship respawn time (180->210)
- increased tank respawn time (150->180)
- increased rover respawn time (60->90)
- increased fighter respawn time (70->90)
- reduced grappler ammo, all armors (20->15)
- added V-key quickchat (enabled by default; submenus still use WASD letters by default but you can change it in your .ini file)
- greatly simplified quickchat layout (you can still use the old one by renaming QuickChatMenuAdvanced.ini to QuickChatMenu.ini)
- added local animated quickchats
- added proper vehicle-to-character collisions, allowing squishing (this needs tuning so please provide feedback; we know it's currently frustrating to accidentally kill yourself or teammates)
- removed ability to grapple flags (Ed's decision, we just don't have time to do this feature in such a way that it's not frustrating for a large percentage of players. We reserve the right to patch it back in later. If you like grappling objects try Ball where you spawn with Grappler/Buckler/Disc by default)
- increased access radius for inventory stations
- increased post-game delay (8s->14s)
- improved spectator support
- hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations
PHYSICS
- ski code now finished
- added "ski aids" which make skiing more forgiving at lower speeds and when colliding with angled terrain
- run smoothing added so you don't launch upward when running over small features (improves inventory station access among other things)
This list does not include bug fixes. The team has been working extremely hard to fix all the bugs you've reported, far too many to include here.
Among the changes is a grappler change that is controversial. The grappler can no longer grab flags from the field. The reasoning is that this ability, as it's currently implemented, is instant, seemingly magical, and therefore confusing and frustrating for a large number of players. The only really good defense against it is to also carry a grappler. Personally I could've lived with this until we found a way to make it more obvious and easier to cope with, but we're running short on time and Ed made the final call to remove it. I support this decision. We reserve the right to add a proper flag-grappling implementation in a future patch, but until then, if you loved this aspect of the game, I encourage you to try Ball where it's still possible and where you spawn with a grappler by default.
I suspect people will dwell on the grappler issue regardless of what I say, but anyway...here's a bunch of good news. Open beta has support for traditional V-key quick chats and local animated quickchats. Final ski code is complete, which is icing on the cake for player physics. There's improved spectator support. There's more audio feedback in the game. And there are hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations.
As for the rest of the changes, the general reasoning for them is the following: Vehicles become a more valuable resource, packs are more useful, and weapons are slightly tweaked based on your feedback.
I look forward to one last round of tuning based on your open beta feedback. Give the game a try when it's out, introduce some friends to it, and let us know what you think after you've had a chance to play,
KP
- doubled repair pack stacking to improve cooperative repairing (25%->50%)
- increased flag throw strength (850->900)
- slightly improved ability to grapple other players (0.17->0.2)
- slightly increased epack passive recharge bonus (1.15->1.17)
- increased repair pack passive health per second (1.5->1.75)
- increased speed pack running speed bonus (both passive and active, all armours)
- reduced mortar damage (130->120 max)
- slightly increased mortar range
- slightly increased grenade launcher range
- reduced hand grenade refire rate (4/s->3/s)
- reduced buckler checking momentum (220->200)
- reduced blaster energy usage (12->9)
- reduced velocity-based damage on buckler bodychecks
- introduced T1-style disc acceleration to make long-range discing easier (disc now accelerates from 4700 to 5500 at 360/s)
- increased bullet damage scaling versus vehicles (40%->50%)
- reduced assault ship health (600->550)
- reduced tank health (900->800)
- increased sentry turret (base and deployed) damage versus vehicles (40%->100%)
- increased assault ship respawn time (180->210)
- increased tank respawn time (150->180)
- increased rover respawn time (60->90)
- increased fighter respawn time (70->90)
- reduced grappler ammo, all armors (20->15)
- added V-key quickchat (enabled by default; submenus still use WASD letters by default but you can change it in your .ini file)
- greatly simplified quickchat layout (you can still use the old one by renaming QuickChatMenuAdvanced.ini to QuickChatMenu.ini)
- added local animated quickchats
- added proper vehicle-to-character collisions, allowing squishing (this needs tuning so please provide feedback; we know it's currently frustrating to accidentally kill yourself or teammates)
- removed ability to grapple flags (Ed's decision, we just don't have time to do this feature in such a way that it's not frustrating for a large percentage of players. We reserve the right to patch it back in later. If you like grappling objects try Ball where you spawn with Grappler/Buckler/Disc by default)
- increased access radius for inventory stations
- increased post-game delay (8s->14s)
- improved spectator support
- hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations
PHYSICS
- ski code now finished
- added "ski aids" which make skiing more forgiving at lower speeds and when colliding with angled terrain
- run smoothing added so you don't launch upward when running over small features (improves inventory station access among other things)
