Aug 11, 2016

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Player Abilities:

Have been removed and will be rethought.

Balance:

Replenish is now applied over a short duration instead of instantly.
Sacrifice damage taken penalty reduced 40% -> 30%.

General:

Classic order mode is back, plays nicely with the role system.
Increased build and repair score.
Rupture has a new impact that is optimized.
Improved some weapon effects.
Morning: Added environment SFX. Decals won't render on top of trees anymore. Updated grass texture and materials, should render properly with ambient occlusion and generally look better.
Minor player AI improvements.
Dial up damage taken self sfx volume.

Standard Mode Commander:

Fixed sometimes not rebuilding workers.
Will now research tier 2 units/weapon before trying to replace a lost early expansion.
Now enabled on LostHills.

Fixes:

Handle spec condition at end match.
Hide prompt to play if waiting post match.
Fix "Minor UI/Hud bug: Spectator can click on "loadout"".
Fixed out of combat duration not working once server has been up for an hour.
Commander view preview only if commander is human (doesn't work otherwise).
Fixed gadget playerstate info, fixing some death event info bugs.
Prioritise role orders over spots.
Add missing commander ability 4 keybind.
Bots will now attack workers and npcs more effectively.
Fix first strat vote on a server not working.

What are we doing next?:

Network profiling and improvements.
Performance profiling and improvements.
Balance tweaks.
As always, fixing bugs.

Aug 10, 2016

0.1.41

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Balance:

Buffed Chaplain Shield from 20% to 30% damage reduction.
Bathe in Blood: Nerfed lifesteal 50% -> 25%, nerfed damage reduction 40% -> 20%, added 'ammo steal', restoring ammo or mana based on damage dealt.

General:

Spectators now get minimap info.
New spawn invulnerability effect.
Reduced spawn speed boost max duration 20s -> 15s.
AI Commander improvements.

Fixes:

Fixed already owned stackable items being cleared from your inventory when entering loadout after their required building was destroyed.
Reset loadout on warmup to countdown transition.
Fix so inventory slots in fps aren't clickable, lag was letting you cast your recall if you spammed the spawn button.
Fixed clash with drag rotate, drag selection, and issuing orders as commander.
Tidied up joining a match during a transition between maps.
Fix next mode announcement name.
Hide incomplete role tab.
Fixed spots breaking beams.
Orders are reiterated occasionally if they don't change.
Attack move orders use red beams.

What are we doing next?:

Network profiling and improvements.
Performance profiling and improvements.
Balance tweaks, the new changes will likely need adjustment.
Finishing up some more strategies for the AI Commander.
As always, fixing bugs.

Aug 9, 2016

0.1.40: AI, Abilities + More

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Update: Hotfixed a few bugs with orders.

Balance:

Decreased gold bounties by 500. We’re keeping an eye on the in-game economy, and determined that gold was a bit too plentiful.
You can no longer recharge stored health while using a siege unit. i.e. you must leave the spawn as a non-siege unit to recharge your loadout health pool. This is to counter defensive siege camping.
Entering a spawn point more than twice in a short period of time will invoke a cooldown. This is to counter cheesing the spawn invulnerability and defensive siege camping.
Spawn invulnerability will now be removed as soon as you start moving or take an offensive action.
Siege weapons do not get spawn invulnerability.
Increased tower/spire projectile speed by 20%. We think they were a little too easy to dodge.
Increased spawn times slightly (~1s on average). We may need to adjust this further, as it is can be a little difficult to end games at the moment.
While sacrifice is active, you take 40% increased damage. Sacrifice is still very effective but is now a little easier to counter.
Spawn flag capture mechanic changed to be ‘king of the hill’ style. Standing in the capture area will push the flag capture bar towards your team.
Bunker now has a spawn flag on each hill.

Network:

Tightened maximum lag compensation.
Disabled simulated proxy interpolation (will instead forward simulate on client instead of interpolating to last known location).
Added a warning on the FPS interface when your ping exceeds the melee compensated threshold (orange) or ranged compensated threshold (red).

Roles and Abilities:

Players are now able to choose between 3 roles to help bring their team to victory: Attackers, Defenders, and Special Ops.
The Commander can specify how many players they would like in each role, but ultimately the decision rests with each player, and the player can change their role at any time.
Team wide orders (alt-click) are now issued to a particular role and are permanent until cancelled. They also support more detailed commands (up to 3 per role) e.g. your Defenders might be assigned to mine redstone at your expansion, your Attackers to bring siege to their expansion, and your Special Ops to target their workers in their main base.
Individual direct orders work as previously, with the addition of a new ant trail to make these more noticeable to the player.
Each role comes with an Ability which is charged by carrying out actions that award Score. These are designed to help you carry out your chosen assignment and their charge persists through death.
Special Ops Ability "Leaf on the wind": Become one with your surroundings, gaining movement speed, stealth, health regen and protection from splash damage for 10 seconds. Attacking will cancel this effect.
Defender Ability "Repair Rampage": Damaged structures make you furious! For the next 6 seconds your melee strikes restore enormous amounts of health to buildings.
Attacker Ability "Bathe in Blood": Fueled by the blood of your enemies, you become enraged for 6 seconds. All damage you deal restores massive amounts of your health and you ignore a large amount of incoming damage.
We'll be looking closely at feedback on this system and will make changes as needed.

AI Commander:

Completely reworked version 2.0 of the AI Commander is now active in Standard mode games.
Players can now vote on the strategy their commander should follow before the match begins.
The following maps currently have 2 strategies per team: Bunker, Eden, Morning, Snowblind. We plan to add more strategy variety over time to keep things interesting in Standard mode.

AI Players:

Player bots now interact with the role system.
Improved defend behaviour so bots will, in order of priority, from most to least: attack, repair, mine in a radius around the target they are defending.
Bots ignore gadgets for now to fix an exploit.

General:

Recall: has improved sounds and effects, is now an ability and uses ability activation behaviour, and has an updated icon.
Abilities are no longer part of the mouse wheel scroll selection (includes Recall).
Quick Play: now searches in ping brackets (low to high) for the game with the highest player count that your party will fit in.
New commander order beams.
New commander order ant trails.
Increased attenuation for melee impact sfx
Reduced attenuation for Tempest sfx
Updated election vote sound
Updated Rocket Launcher assets.
Updated Fireball assets.

Fixes:

Fixed commander sometimes being unable to destroy a building.
Commander ping wheel is now more reliable.
Fixed bugs with practice mode settings.
Fixed sound spam from error overlay.
Fixed unreliable OOC buff duration.
Improved reliability of state visual effects.
Fixed music stopping and restarting.
Fixed bots sometimes not facing a building when attacking it.
Ancient arch prop fixed.
Fixed sensitivity checkbox not saving if you didn't change anything else.
Dead men don't spot.
Made kill/death events details more reliable.
Fixed item limits not being enforced sometimes.
Fix officer aura decals showing up to enemies.

What are we doing next?:

Network profiling and improvements.
Performance profiling and improvements.
Balance tweaks, the new changes will likely need adjustment.
Finishing up some more strategies for the AI Commander.
As always, fixing bugs.

Jul 28, 2016

0.1.39: Respawn, Recall, Regen

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Balance:

Players have a new ability “Recall” which can be used to return you to your main base at any time. Recall must be channeled for 6s without taking damage, and without being able to move. Recall is not available to siege.
Respawn times are now individual and overall shorter in duration. The duration increases as you die repeatedly within a short period of time (allowing games to end), but is never as long as the previous maximum.
The out of combat speed boost now also has a maximum duration of 20s.
Land mines and fire wards are now vulnerable to conventional weapon damage.
There is no longer a low stamina regeneration penalty.
Shield tower radius increased, but damage reduction decreased.
K.O.N.G. and Behemoth purchase costs increased to 9500 instead of 7500.
Ranged kill bounty value decreased to 35% instead of 45%, but the remaining gold now drops as pickups as before.
Nomad + Scavenger kill bounties are now 2000 instead of 3000.
All other units kill bounty adjusted to be purchase cost + 2000.

Changes and Additions:

Increased bot accuracy and decreased reaction time in bot vs bot combat to improve human vs beast bot team combat (human bots don't get stomped by beast bots anymore).
Morning south area visually reworked.
Practice with Bots now supports multiplayer and disables team balance.
AI Commander Casual has been renamed to Standard.
Casual has been renamed to Advanced, and the AI commander takeover time has been increased from 25s to 60s.
Updated the Play interface in the main menu.
Added out of combat visual effect to healers.
Made minor replication optimisations.

Fixes:

Fixed crash on level transition caused by attached particle systems set to auto destroy.
Team select now obeys custom team balance settings.
Fixed some weapon idle sounds playing inappropriately.

What are we even doing?

Our next big patch will focus on giving players a bit more specialized purpose within the game and will vastly improve the AI Commander.

Jul 22, 2016

Patch 0.1.37

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Happy Friday, Savages!
We're currently working on some more larger scale gameplay improvements, focusing on the commander, the economy, game pacing, and stalemates. Our artists are also hard at work improving our existing weapon assets.

We're occasionally handing out new waves of beta keys that will last through the end of Early Access, send your friends to http://savrez.com/beta/

General:

Tweaked out of combat move speed bonus: now applied once when spawning (does not re-apply). Now breaks when within 5m (down from 10m) of enemy unit, or 30m of enemy building. Changed default speed multiplier to 1.4 (down from 1.5)
Added out of combat speed visual effect.
Added new beam effects to team pings.
Updated rupture animations.
Made some performance optimizations to character movement.
Made some minor performance optimizations to the UI.
Updated Shaman item animations.
Updated Bunker foliage, and fixed more stuck spots.

Fixes:

Fixed several crashes.
Fixed beast tower upgrades so they now require lair 2 instead of nexus.
Spawn invulnerability buff clears early if attempting to deal damage.
Fixed bunker lighting after leaving com.
Corpses shouldn't affect out of combat state.

Jul 18, 2016

Patch 0.1.36

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

Balance:

Added an out of combat speed buff. This is essentially an automatic sprint which does not drain stamina. Nearing an enemy unit, using any offensive action, or taking damage will disable the effect. Siege units receive a much weaker version of this buff.
K.O.N.G attack splash radius reduced from 625 to 400.
Lightning attack splash radius increased from 250 to 350.
Reduced allowed number of Land Mines and Fire Wards from 25 to 20.
Reduced Shield Tower energy regeneration from 800dps to 600dps.
K.O.N.G., Boom Buggy, and Summoner player kill gold reward reduced from 50% to 15%. (Siege units should primarily be getting gold from building damage, not player kills).
Behemoth player kill gold reward reduced from 100% to 15%.
Ranged kill gold reward decreased for other weapons by ~10%.

Changes and Additions:

After a map travel, the Request Commander option is disabled for 15s to allow time for people to take a team and participate in the Election Vote - preventing 1 person from ninjaing command before anyone arrives to vote.
Kill assist gold reward is split among assisters if there are multiple.
New sound effects for Frostbolt, Lightning, and Tempest.
Updated Shaman animations.
Updated Blaze animations and effects.
RTS auto reselects main base when selecting nothing.
Added officer icon on fps scoreboard.
Building research queue has a header.

Fixes:

Fixed several client and server crashes.
Fixed knockback on bots.
Fixed being able to get on top of blocking volumes on the west side of Snowblind
Fixed Officer assignments breaking after map travel sometimes.
Fixed some bugs with queuing research.

Jul 14, 2016

0.1.34 - Game On

Savage Resurrection - Bangerz

It’s game time, Savages.
In this patch, and over the next few weeks, we will be trying out significant changes to the flow and progression of our core gameplay, with the goal of improving the overall fun factor for veterans and new players alike. Nothing we do now will be set in stone, and we expect to be iterating heavily based on your feedback - now is the time to make your voice heard! We do ask that you give any changes a fair chance and keep your feedback constructive - let’s make Savage great together!

Balance:

Commanders now have access to a Scout ability, powered by your main base. This ability reveals an area of the map for 10s and highlights any enemies for your team. Upgrading your main base upgrades this ability automatically.

Healers can now carry 1 item.
Healers now gain 500 gold for reviving and a small amount for effective healing.
Healers revive is now much faster to cast, but has slightly shorter range and a 10s cooldown.
Chaplains shield has been buffed, increasing it’s size.

Spawn points now store ‘recharge’ health per player, which regenerates slowly while the player is not inside a spawn point. Players can use this to occasionally heal to full health by entering a spawn point, but will not be able to do this more than roughly once per minute.

Neutral NPCs aggro radius has been seriously nerfed, as has the Monkit’s damage.

Kills now deposit gold directly into the killing players storage (no picking up gold coins). We now balance the gold value of a kill based on the weapon used, e.g. Melee kills are 100% value, medium ranged weapons are 50% value, long range weapons are 33% value.
Kill assists award gold at a rate of 35% of a kill.

Added a base gold drip: all players receive a small amount of gold every 15s. This gold is not taxed.

Defensive towers (Shield, Wind, Shock) now have a pool of energy used to defend against attacks that regenerates over time. This allows towers to be overwhelmed by sustained coordinated fire.
Each team now has a cap of 10 total towers. This cap starts at 6 and increases by 2 for the first two expansions.

Sniper weapons (Lightning and Marksman’s Bow) now require more skill to use effectively, while their movement inaccuracy penalty was decreased; the Marksman’s Bow is now affected by gravity and requires you to account for bullet drop, and Lightning now marks a spot on the ground that will be struck by lightning half a second later, giving your target a brief opportunity to dodge.

Mining gold is now 5x more effective. This was previously a terrible trap for new commanders, and should now instead be a situationally viable option.

Splash damage is now occluded in a sensible manner.

Holding down shift to sprint while out of stamina will now provide the movement speed increase equivalent of rapidly switching between allowing it to regen and sprinting. Previously this would result in no regen and no movement speed increase.

Behemoth building damage rescaled to be slightly more effective before level 8, but not receive as big a buff upon reaching level 8.

Increased the speed of human siege vehicles slightly.

Art:

Created shiny new effects for Tempest, Frostbolts, and Lightning.
Updated animations for the Savage and Nomad.
Updated visuals for Chaos Bolt model.
Updated animations for Ember and Tempest.
Morning rock texture changed so they aren't blurry up close. Visual touch ups in a few areas.
LostHills rock textures updated.

General:

Bots now simulate reaction time and make decisions based on the previous state of their target (like a human would), resulting in them being vulnerable to juking but slightly more accurate if the target is running in a straight line (don’t do that).
Added an alert if your display drivers are very old.
The scoreboard now displays assists.
Created tools for handling toxic behaviour. Don’t expect a warning if you’re being a dick.
Razing structures will now subtract the experience and score awarded for creating them.
Updated Bunker minimap.
Removed the Officer aura glow (still has the decals on the ground).
Added an interface option to disable receiving custom player chat (preset messages still work).
You can now enter control sensitivity values up to 10.
Updated translation credits.

Fixes:

Fixed many client and server crashes.
Fixed many stat submission bugs relating to disconnecting and reconnecting.
Fixed some occurrences of stats being slightly out of sync.
Fixed healing stat.
Fixed killing blow on buildings not awarding gold and experience.
Fixed player kill assist stat.
Fixed commanders being able to destroy spawn flags.
Fixed many minor warnings.
Fixed some issues with a player not being able to take Command sometimes.
Fix derpy doubleclick on active spawn.
Don’t try to equip denied requests.
Fix missing projectile names.

Hotfix:

Sacrifice wasn't dealing damage.
Bot officer auras weren't working.