Champions,
Pacific League is sending another Champion to the Circus. Welcome Kenny Zhu on **November 20** at 10:00 AM CEST / 04:00 AM EDT / 01:00 AM PDT. **

Estimated downtime for the update: up to 4 hours

Please see details below for more information

UPDATE 0.8

Features:

• New Champion: Kenny Zhu
  2x T1 skin (plus one color variation)
  1x T2 skin (plus one color variation)
  
• Champion rebalancing to 5-star system (see explanation below)
  
• Tackle & dodge now consume stamina together with sprint (see explanation below)
  
• Dodge redesign to pure movement ability, no longer has tackle immunity frames (see explanation below)
  
• Ball now bounces off stunned champions instead of moving through them (see explanation below)
  
• Introducing Stamina pick-ups
  
• Player Avatars
  
• Player Like feature - vote for your favorite player after each match
  
• Pixel Avatar DLC pack
  
• Ellika Wrestler skin purple & Steampunk skin blue purchasable
  
• Gameplay & general bug fixes

Improvements:

• Added additional visual feedback for ball carrying champions
  
• Added skill VFX for Galena’s vortex
  
• Releasing the emote/spray tag/quickmatch button will now spawn the emote for kbm controls instead of clicking it
  
• Pick-ups and skill cooldowns will be reset at Overtime
  
• New Stamina bar behavior above player. The bar has three color states now: Yellow: Enough stamina, Orange: Sprint only, Red blinking: Out of Stamina

Bug Fixes:

• Galena's Discontinuity now correctly cancels Lochlan's Warsong.
  
• Acrid's "no mask" skin works again.
  
• Ellika’s shield cannot be dodged anymore.
  
• Acrid does now correctly bounce the ball away (to the front/side) when just starting Rampage when he’d otherwise catch the ball.
  
• No champion can sprint anymore with their skill previews on display. It’s the same for all now.
  
• Fixed a specific matchmaking issue keeping some players from queueing up
  
• Fix for matchmaking issues on Asian servers

Please let us know what you think. Feedback is - as usual - highly appreciated and welcome


DETAILS:

New Champion: Kenny Zhu



Kenny is a 21-year-old good looking daredevil who likes nothing more than competition and risk-taking. His skills allow him to perform rapid positional changes making him especially dangerous for counter plays.

Afterburner
Kenny activates his engines to propel himself forward while leaving a fiery trail behind. Opponents touching the flames take damage.

Air Strike
Kenny takes off like a rocket flying up high in the air, to strike down anywhere on the playfield shortly after. Opponents near the impact are pushed back.

Gameplay Changes

We are introducing a few changes to the overall balance of the champions as well as the core gameplay of SC. Before there are any specifics a few words about the reasoning and motivation behind those changes:

We always envisioned SC as a game focused on teamplay positioning and movement, we also wanted it to be a fast-paced game with constant tactical decision making. There are a few features we were never truly happy with for various reasons. Over the last weeks took a few steps back to come up with an improvement to the following features, sprinting, stamina management as well as tackle & dodge. Additionally, we looked at all champions, rebalanced them completely resulting in more noticeable differences in playstyle. Additionally, we fixed a ton of skill bugs and tweaked interactions between skills.

As always the final step after such changes is to release it to you for feedback. Please try to keep an open mind and let us know what you think, like and dislike. Be aware that it will take a few matches until you get used to the changes.

Champion 5 Star Rating
All champion attributes are now balanced around 5 stars instead of 3. This also means that the difference between a 1-star attribute and a 5-star attribute is bigger than it was between 1 and 3-star attributes.
*New attribute Stamina, which is the energy required to sprint as it used to be, but now also required to perform tackles and dodges, more on that later. Stamina pools have gotten bigger and replenishment slower.
*Sprint now means an actual difference in sprint speed
*Acceleration and deceleration for both base movement speed and sprint speed is no longer different per champion
*Overall the speed difference between sprinting and base movement has been brought closer together slightly

Tackle & Dodge
*Tackle and dodge have now a very short cooldown, so short you are no longer restricted by it. However, both abilities cost stamina. This change makes stamina management a crucial aspect of the game putting more emphasis on tactical decision making rather than using skills when they are available not being on cooldown.
*Another big issue that I am sure all of you hate is the impact of latency when it comes to resolving tackles and dodges. No matter how much we'd optimize there would always be situations where you feel that you dodged correctly but you still got tackled and lost the ball. In those situations, you feel cheated and frustrated. To solve this issue we decided to make a radical change. Dodge no longer makes you tackle immune for a few frames, you can still move through opponents like you used to. Further, speed and distance of dodge has been increased.

Stamina Pickups
*New type of pickup on a rather short cooldown rate which replenishes only a small amount of stamina.
*Three of the 6 arenas have stamina pickups, we are still debating if all arenas should get stamina pickups or not, as always your feedback is highly appreciated.

Ball Collision
The ball no longer passes through champions who are in a state where they can not pick up the ball, instead is collides and bounces off. States, where champions can not pick up the ball, are: being pushed, stunned and also Cap's turret mode.

Steel Circus team

Champions,

This time we are coming to you with a great portion of Bug Fixes and the Scary Surprise for the spookiest moment of the year.

The server maintenance and the Update release will take place on Friday, October 25 at 10:00 AM CEST / 04:00 AM EDT / 01:00 AM PDT. Estimated Downtime for the update is 2-4 hours.

Features:
• Fright Pack DLC Bundle https://store.steampowered.com/app/1180400/Steel_Circus__Fright_Pack/

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed a bug where player champions got stuck in their animations/skills when used at the start of overtime
• Fixed that Acrid’s Putrid Discharge was not recharged by cooldown pick-ups
• Fixed that Acrid couldn’t be swapped by Schröder while using Rampage
• Fixed that Acrid could get Schröder out of his skills with Rampage. He can now only get him out of the floor with a direct hit of Putrid Discharge.
• Fixed that Acrid’s Rampage influenced the direction of the ball after leaving a teammates’ hands
• Fixed that Schröder could swap places with k.o.ed champions when using Virtual Swap
• Fixed that Shani could get stuck with the preview of Electrobatics, unable to do anything
• Fixed that after successfully stealing the ball from enemy champions, the ball would just go back to the enemy champion under certain circumstances
• Shani’s hair and glasses now stay with her during the teleport of Lightning Strike
• Fixed some UI bugs
• Music for overtime is now playing correctly

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/


Steel Circus Team

Champions,

Once again we are coming to you with new features, some changes and more bug fixes on Thursday, October 10 at 14:00 PM CEST / 08:00 AM EDT / 05:00 AM PDT! Estimated downtime: 2-4 hours

Along with implementing the postponed feature to start the match with B0ts if there are not enough players in the queue, we are also adding a few more things to make sure you are able to enjoy Steel Circus even more!


Features:
• Twitch integration

1. Display twitch username option
   
2. Display number of viewers in-game during a live stream

• Overtime - if the regular match ends in a draw, the match goes into overtime, and a “golden goal” rule will apply here.
• 4-6 player Quickmatch, with up to 2 B0ts
• The floor will display which pickup is about to spawn 5 seconds before it spawns
• Custom match B0ts difficulty settings


Gameplay:
• Camera tweaks
• Ball pick up radius increase at very low ball movement speed


Balancing:
• Cap’s turret movement speed slightly reduced
• Shani’s ‘Lightning Strike’ AOE and pushback slightly increased when teleporting


Bug Fixes:
• Fixed a bug where Schröder couldn’t do anything anymore after being hit by Galena’s ‘Discontinuity’ while using his ‘Virtual Strike’
• Websocket win 7 fix
• Bandwidth reduction
• Reduced a bunch of FPS drops during gameplay
• Fixed Shani’s ‘Lightning Strike’ stun duration and pushback
• Fixed Pickup items spawn time display

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/


Details

Basic Twitch Integration
The first step of Twitch integration allows you to link your game account with your Twitch account, which in turn will let you display your Twitch username during matches, rather than your Steam username. The second feature is still somewhat experimental, but its goal is as follows: if one of the Twitch-integrated players is live streaming, the game will display how many people are watching their stream. Note: should you want to opt into both of these features, they will become available after you’ve linked your account.

Overtime
If the clock runs out on a match that’s final score is a Draw, the game will go into overtime instead. Overtime starts with a regular kick-off - akin to the initial match start - and lasts for 2 minutes. The first goal shot during overtime decides who won (the “golden goal” rule). If no goal is scored during overtime, then the match ends in a draw.

Additionally, players can not surrender during Overtime.

4-6 Player Quickmatch
Quickmatch is now supporting 4 to 6 players instead of just 6 players. If there are not enough players for a 3 versus 3 match in the queue, the matchmaking will automatically start the match with 4 or 5 players, and the remaining slots will be filled by B0ts.

New Pickup Spawn Display
5 seconds before a Pickup spawns, the color of the floor display will change to indicate which exact Pickup will spawn.

Custom Match Bot Difficulty Settings
Currently, there are three bot difficulty levels available: Easy, Medium and Hard. Moreover, we also plan to improve the AI in the future.

Camera Improvements
Defenders who stay way back during the Match now have their overview greatly improved! What this means, is that the camera will now zoom-out all the way to help you see the whole playfield.

Ball Pickup Assist
At very low ball movement speed, as well when the ball is static, its pickup range has been slightly increased.


Steel Circus Team

Good news everyone! We are pleased to invite you to our Double Experience Event that will last from September 28th to September 30th!

Once the Double XP Event starts, you will earn double the amount of experience for completing your matches.

We hope that you will enjoy your additional exp and level up your accounts to the top! Check out the timesheet below for more details.

• AEST (Sydney) Sat, 5:00 pm - Mon,5:00 pm
  
• JST (TOKYO) Sat, 4:00 pm - Mon, 4:00 pm
  
• CST (Beijing) Sat, 3:00 pm - Mon, 3:00 pm
  
• UTC Sat, 7:00 am - Mon, 7:00 am
  
• BST (London) Sat, 8:00 am - Mon, 8:00 am
  
• CEST (Berlin) Sat, 9:00 am - Mon, 9:00 am
  
• PDT (L.A) Sat, 0:00 am - Mon, 0:00 am
  
• EDT (New York) Sat, 3:00 am - Mon, 3:00 am

Champions,

More features and bug fixes are coming in on Friday, September 27 at 2:00 PM CEST / 08:00 AM EDT / 05:00 AM PDT. Estimated downtime is: 2-4 hours

In this week after listening to your feedback we have focused on balancing characters. Also, following your request, we have added an option to add AI Bots to your custom matches! But wait, there's more!

This weekend Sat, September 28 to Mon, September 30 we will be DOUBLING all experience you gain by playing your matches (Double Exp Weekend)! We hope to meet you at our arenas!


Features:
• Tutorial Re-work
• New onboarding flow for new players
• Surrender option
• Custom matches now support AI Bots
• New community Tutorial


Balancing:
• Lochlan - Slam AOE range and push pushback reduced, Warsong slow increase
• Shani - Lightning strike no longer deals damage, AOE reduced
• Acrid - Rampage slight movement speed increase and slight collider decrease, Putrid Discharge pushback increase for direct hits
• Cap-x02 - Barrier duration and length of the barrier increase, Artillery strike aiming speed increase, AOE slight decrease, time to transition in an out of turret mode reduced
• Schröder - Virtual Strike initial movement speed increased
• General: 2 and 3-star ball throw champs had their max throw distance reduced
• Decision: ball throw charge reset after dodge stays for the foreseeable future


Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/


Details

New Onboarding
The tutorial has been reworked completely and happens in two major steps called Basic Tutorial and Advanced Tutorial. The Basic Tutorial now focuses on teaching new players the basics like it used to and additionally explains and teaches special skills and pickups.
The second step, Advanced Tutorial is a 2 versus 2 match against a rather weak tutorial AI.
The player needs to complete both steps in order to unlock Quick Match, Custom Match, and Free Training.

Free training is essentially the “old” playground without any tutorial. Here players can test out each champion, even the ones which are not unlocked.

After a new player has completed their first Quick Match they will be rewarded with 3000 Steel and the unlocking of Daily Challenges. The 3k Steel reward replaces the initial Steel amount each new player account starts with.

These changes will only affect new players who log into the first time after the release of update 0.7.2

Surrender
Players can start a surrender vote for their team to end the match early. The surrender option becomes available after half of the regular match time has passed, currently at 2:30. For the surrender vote to pass the whole team needs to vote in favor of surrender. A match that ends via surrender is counted as “lost” for the team that surrendered no matter the score. Both teams receive their XP aliquot to the passed match time.
Surrender does not trigger the leaver penalty.

Custom Match Bots
Players can now play with bots both as team members and opponents in custom matches. Like real players bots can be assigned to each team. This new feature also makes it possible to play with uneven player groups.

Champion Balance Changes
- Lochlan

• Slam had it’s AOE range reduced by roughly 20% and it’s pushback reduced from 8 to 5.5 meters. Additionally, the pushback direction has been adjusted slightly so that opponents get pushed back away from Lochlan rather than to the side.
  
• Warsong had its slow to opponents increased from previously 30% to now 45%.

- Shani

• Lightning strike no longer deals damage and it’s AOE range was reduced by 50%. FYI expect more Lightning Strike changes in the future.

- Acrid

• Rampage movement speed increased from 10 m/s up to 11m/s. For comparison sprinting speed is 12 m/s. Additionally, Rampage had it’s collider radius slightly reduced from 2 meters to 1.8 meters.
  
• Putrid discharge had its pushback increased from 1.5 meters to 3.5 meters. FYI there is a high chance that we make some changes to this skill in the near future as we are not happy with the fact that a direct hit rarely results in a successful ball steal which feels kinda “meh”.

- Cap-x02

• Barrier duration increased from 2 seconds up to 2.5 seconds and the length of the barrier was increased from 4 to 4.5 meters
  
• Artillery strike aiming speed increased by roughly 15% additionally it’s radius was decreased from 5 meters to 4.75 meters. The time to transition in an out of turret mode reduced by roughly 15%

- Schröder

• Virtual Strike initial movement speed increased to roughly 90% of virtual strike top speed which should fix the initial drop off in speed when transitioning into the virtual state.

- General

• Ball throw power decrease by 2.3% for 2-star ball throw champs and a 6.3% power decrease for 3-star ball throw champions

Steel Circus Team

Champions,

After weeks of balancing, fixing core issues and releasing most of the highly requested features from our amazing community we are excited to announce our first update with a new champion!

Previously Added
• New Matchmaking system
• Custom lobbies
• Re-balance of in-game monetization
• Team Voice Communication
• Loot system re-work
• Performance optimization and more graphic setting options
• South America and Oceania servers
• Fixes for "Login Failed" issues
• Player stats - 1st iteration
• Auto punish for mid-game quitters

NEWEST UPDATE 0.7.1
• New champion: Galena
• AI bot replacement for disconnected players during the match
• Playing a match with and against AI (3vs3)
• Emote prompt during goal cutscene
• New skins
• Razer chroma effects for Galena’s skills
• Overview page of the player profile

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed Lochlan’s skill cooldowns
• Fixed a bug where the skill on R2 stops working on controller
• Fixed a bug where champions can be picked after being backfilled even though they are not owned
• Fixed broken floor lines after player disconnect
• Several matchmaking UI fixes
• Lobby music looped

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/

Feedback is - as usual - highly appreciated.

Details

New Champion: Galena
Galena is a descendant of the first Mars born human and heir to the most powerful and famous family on Mars. She grew up being in the spotlight and part of the Martian high society. Aside from representing Mars in the arena, she is acting vice president of the Mars terraforming program which gives her direct access to cutting edge technology to constantly improve her arena suit.

Discontinuity
Galena shoots a shockwave in a straight line to disrupt her opponents' skills. Players hit by Discontinuity cannot use any of their skills for a short amount of time.

Vortex
Galena throws an imploding charge creating a vortex which sucks opponents towards its center. Champions in range of the vortex are held in place for a few seconds.



AI bot replacement for disconnected players during a match
When a player disconnects during a match he/she will be replaced by an AI bot to help the affected team, mainly focusing on defense.

Playing a match with and against AI is now part of the tutorial
We’ve extended the mandatory tutorial. After a new player learned the basics, a 2vs2 match will start to introduce the player to a first match.


New skins available in Shop:
Shani new T3 skin Streetwear plus color variation
Cap T3 Steampunk red
Cap T2 Chef plus color variation

Overview page of the player profile
Over the next updates, we are introducing more and more features for the player profile. The first iteration is a summary of your play experience, showing your level progress and some of your high-level stats.

Steel Circus team

Champions,

Good news! The new matchmaking system is ready. We are introducing a faster and more reliable version on Friday, September 13 at 10:00 AMCEST / 04:00 AM EDT / 01:00 AM PDT.

Estimated downtime: 2-4 hours

UPDATE 0.7


Features:
• New matchmaking system
• Punishment system for mid-game quitters

Bug Fixes:
• Out of this world achievement reduced from 10 goals to 8

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/

Feedback is - as usual - highly appreciated.

Details

New matchmaking system
We fixed most of the fundamental issues of the previous matchmaking system. The brand new matchmaking system offers less waiting times, combined with a more stable structure.

Punishment system for mid-game quitters
When a player leaves a match he/she will not gain any XP for the next three matches. The player will start to receive XP again only if their following three matches end properly.

Champions,

Yes, there’s another drop coming in on Friday, September 6 at 12:00 noon CEST / 06:00 AM EDT / 03:00 AM PDT.

Estimated downtime: 3 hours

UPDATE 0.6.5

Features:
• Custom lobbies (1st iteration)
• Player backfill in the matchmaking lobby
• Performance improvements
• GFX quality settings in the options
• Shani tweaks
• Player and ball spawn point tweaks
• Two new playfields (one per arena)
• A match will now end when one team scores 8 goals (instead of 10 - test phase)
• Added push-to-talk UI button to matchmaking lobby (for voice chat)
• Lobby UI polish
• Removed player level from matchmaking connection screen
• Reworked timing of emote animations

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed various audio bugs
• Ball pick sound more prominent
• Fixed: Cap wall stayed forever when leaving the match

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/

Please let us know if one of the bug fixes help fixing your problems. Feedback is - as usual - highly appreciated.

Details

Custom Match (1st iteration):

• Entering the custom match menu makes you the group leader
  
• A group leader can invite Steam friends
  
• If a group leader invites you (via Steam friends) you will be prompted an invitation
  
• By accepting the invitation you will automatically join the custom match
  
• Only the group leader can administer the custom match settings: Custom match region, Arena, Invite friends, Assign players to teams
  
• The group leader can only start the custom match when every player confirmed to participate by clicking the ready button
  
• At this time, it’s only possible to play matches with even player numbers: 1vs1, 2vs2, and 3vs3, we have plans to add matches with uneven player numbers soon
  
• At the moment, match stats are not shown after a match. This will follow in future updates
• After a custom match, players automatically return to the custom match lobby
  
• There’s only one custom lobby voice chat for everyone in the match (no team voice chat at the moment)
  
• We have plans to add more custom match option in future updates

Player backfill for the lobby:
Whenever a player drops out during matchmaking or during the picking phase in the lobby the remaining players no longer get kicked from the lobby. The new backfill feature looks for another player while the remaining players wait in the lobby.

Shani tweaks
Lightning strike spear throw distance reduced by 1 meter, spear travel speed slightly reduced as well as Shani’s teleport speed
Electrobatics jump distance reduced by 0.5 meters and AOE radius reduced by 0.25 meters

Loser ball spawn point
After a team received a goal the ball spawn point (loser ball) is now a few meters closer to the team's goal. This should give the team which is in ball possession more time before the opponent's attack at kick-off

Player spawn points
All player spawn points received minor tweaks to work better with the loser ball changes.

Removed player level from matchmaking connection screen
To avoid rage quitters during matchmaking when they see a low-level player. A player level doesn’t translate to the player-skill level and it causes apprehension to even start a match when there is no evidence of the real skill of a player. We might change this back in the future.

Steel Circus team

Champions,
We are thrilled to release a bigger update tomorrow on Friday, August 30 at 12:00 noon CEST / 06:00 AM EDT / 03:00 AM PDT. Estimated downtime will be approximately 2 hours.

UPDATE 0.6

Features:
• Team voice chats for matches (no written chat)
• Weekly champion rotation. Increased the number of champions of the minimum base roster from 3 to 4.
• New Level Up rewards (every player will now receive 100 Creds every 10 levels (10, 20, 30,...)
• All champions playable in the training ground
• Customizable quick chat messages (25 different ones, all available and customizable immediately)
• Minimap of the arena now displayed during match lobby
• Trainings ground timer extended to 60min
• Relaxed the AFK kick timer from 30s to 45s
• Following skins are now available for purchase in the shop: 1) Ellika Camo skin 2) Schröder Lavender Skin 3) Cap-x02 Sporty Skin
• New community tutorial video, featuring our valued community member Shhteve
• Lobby UI polish

Re-balance of in-game monetization
• Daily Challenges
Rebalanced some of the daily challenges to decrease completion time. At the same time, the Steel rewards for some of the "harder" challenges have been increased slightly.
• Level-up progression
In order to speed up the level progression, we increased the amount of XP for playing matches: Winning a match increased from 3000 XP to 3500 XP, Losing or draw from 1800 XP to 2000 XP. Match award XP and MVP XP increased by 100 each.
The first match of the day XP bonus has been decreased by 500 down to 2500 XP
• Shop Price Changes
We decided to reduce the prices for Creds across the board for all customizable content between 15% and 25%.

Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug where bumpers become invisible after a goal
• Fixed HUD and UI issues during the match related to third party software

Roadmap
See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/

Feedback is -as usual- highly appreciated

Steel Circus team

Champions,

We're releasing a small client and server update on Saturday, August 17 at 12:00 noon CEST / 06:00 AM EDT / 03:00 AM PDT. Est. downtime will be approx. 2 hours.

UPDATE 0.4

Features:
• New players start with 3000 Steel. Existing players will receive a 3000 Steel gift to their accounts as a thank you for being part of our early access (#GetThatSteel).
• With the release of Update 0.4 we will perform a test of our events system by hosting a Double Match XP Event lasting 48 hours from servers going live.
• Added additional challenges for scoring, touchdowns, geometry goals, and passing.
• Added additional quick messages.
• AFK players will now be automatically kicked from matches, with no rewards.
• Reported habitual AFK players will receive temporary bans to their accounts.

Bug Fixes:
• Fixed a bug that allowed picking the same Champion twice
• Fixed a crash bug that occurs when a goal is scored in the last second of a match
• Fixed a Unity crash bug when launching game
• Reverted change to FPS cap unlock. VERY sorry for this reversion, there will be additional optimization before removing it again
• It’s no longer possible to join a group while already in a solo queue
• "Move up" & "Move down" label corrected in control remapping
• “Ping” added to the remapping menu
• When receiving Steel rewards from daily challenges you can now ESC or mouse click out of the window.
• In stats screen, you can now ESC or mouse click out of the window.

Matchmaking:
• Separated South America (Sao Paulo) and Oceania (Sydney) regions. Our SA and OCE community is small, but growing, expect increased matchmaking times during off-peak hours.
• Additional tweaks to matchmaking (ongoing)

Roadmap:
• See our high-level roadmap here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteelCircus/comments/cpdvl5/early_access_roadmap/

Steel Circus team