Mar 9, 2019

Ylands - Mailuki

Hey there fellow ylanders,

Just like the last time, today we pick a specific topic that we'll cover in-depth. This time we'll talk about all the improvements related to ships and sea in general, that you will notice in update 0.12.

Pretty much ever since we added ships in the game there have been some related, annoying issues present.

Firstly, let's talk about multiplayer issues. Let me quote Filip "Buckey" Krijt, our programmer who worked on the fixes and improvements:

"Ships are a major part of Ylands, and sailing from yland to yland has always felt pretty cool in SP, but was tainted with the unpredictable danger of becoming shark food in MP. Basically, character movement on ships was not properly synchronized, so over time, the client would see their character in a totally different position than where he actually was on the server, and would eventually fall overboard. This was done because ships can only be correctly simulated and moved on the server, so the client’s character movement calculation would and the clialways be wrong,ent character would constantly be moved to new positions by the server – the lack of complete synchronization here, while annoying, was perceived as the lesser of two evils.

To solve this, we have integrated the notion of being attached to a ship into our network synchronization system, with an attached object now using position relative to that of the ship – effectively enabling the server to accurately tell the client where on the ship (instead of in the world) it currently is, and the client being able to simulate reasonably from there. Overall, we think this is a solid improvement and hope that, together with the ship physics and wave simulation movement improvements, it will make sailing in MP much, much more enjoyable for you!"

Yland Belle ship by Weezle (workshop)

Another problem was that ships were getting capsized by small objects, things were getting teleported away, and a lot of other interesting situations. With the upcoming update the ships have been re-calibrated, and so these situations should not happen anymore. The improvements we made have brought some other positive aspects as well, which never hurts, does it :D. You should be able to unstuck your ship by moving backwards with more ease. And while moving cars on ships still remains to be implemented, you can now transport horses.

Having ships consisting of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of custom blocks had a massive impact on game performance, regardless of whether the ships were moving or not, whether it was in a single or multiplayer. In 0.12 this problem has been resolved. The way ships (and cars, for that matter) are constructed has slightly changed. When you drop a ship hull in the scene, the ship is, by default, in what we call a "construction mode". It is absolutely static, can't be moved around, and so on. You can't leave the construction mode unless you have at least the bare minimum of what your ship needs in order to start moving around. Once you leave the construction mode, all the blocks you put on your ship get optimized so that they don't affect the game performance. This optimization process can take up to several seconds if your ship consists of a large number of blocks. If you'll want to edit your ship later, you can always enter the construction mode again, perform all your changes, and exit it again.

Ship of the Line by Georgecrushington (workshop)

But wait, there's more!

* There are larger waves at the sea now, so sailing is much more fun - we're sure you're going to like it.

* We have fixed the very ugly glitch where it was possible to look below the water surface without seeing the underwater visual effect.

* We have eliminated the effect the wind direction had on ships' speed, because the wind direction wasn't indicated clear enough, and until we found a way to do so, it was confusing for many players. The ships now feel much more responsive than before.

Also let's take a bit of tie to answer some of your questions:

The UI looks nice. But taking up the whole screen can be problematic, especially the inventory, if you are currently being attacked by something while you are in there. It has been requested in the past to make the outside bits less opaque so you can still see a bit. Is this in the plans?

We understand that this is an issue. Ylands is a complex game that requires quite a complex UI - but we agree that it's important that you shouldn't completely lose awareness of what's going on around you, so we want to make the UI transparent enough so that you still have some idea of what's going on around your character.

Will the new UI finally stop disabling me from seeing advanced items when I join a multiplayer map?

We are not entirely sure what you mean by this - Is this related to crafting in some way? Are you able to see things you believe you shouldn't have access to?

I'd love to see a detailed list of what is coming out for the 0.12 update -- I find all the little sneak peaks a bit hard to tie together. (maybe next week DD, could be a collected list of 0.12 "resources"?)

That is a good point. We'll discuss how to handle this in the best way. Maybe we could have a sticky forum post where all the features would appear as they are announced.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend, ylanders, and stay classy!

Mar 9, 2019

Fantasy Strike Update: March 2019 -- 250% Frame Rate and Prettier Graphics

Fantasy Strike - Sirlin

This update to Fantasy Strike is live right now.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

We’ve done massive performance improvements. In order to make the game run faster, we had to make the tradeoff of...also making the graphics look better. The game runs about 250% the fps it used to--yes really. About 2.5x as fast. This is totally insane and we hope you tell someone about it.

There are now only two graphics quality settings (standard and high) rather than four settings, and the new lowest setting looks better than the old highest setting...while running faster than the old lowest setting.

Here are some graphics comparisons, showing the old lowest setting compared to the new one:

In order to achieve this, we replaced the game’s lighting system with a new one that runs much faster and looks much better. We hand-tuned every stage to look as good as possible with this new system. In addition, we use a new method to draw character shadows on the ground. These shadows are now more accurate and run 600% faster than before.

In addition we further optimized CPU usage to reduce occasional frame rate spikes where the CPU suddenly has to do a large task on certain frames. Last patch we reduced this as well and we did even more optimization on that in this patch.

NEW MODE

There’s now a new 1p mode called “Single Match.” You pick your character, the CPU character, then play one game against their AI, then automatically return to character select afterwards.

SEASON RESET

The second pre-launch season has ended. It lasted about 3 months. Your rank is now reset to the lowest possible (bronze E), but you get bonus stars based on your best rank last season. You get one bonus star for each RANK up you achieved. For example, if your best rank last season was Silver C, then you’ll get 7 bonus stars immediately at the start of this new season (the 7 rank ups you achieved were to Bronze D, then C, then B, then A, then Silver E, then Silver D, then Silver C). Also, the crown markers showing which survival modes you beat are reset for this new season.

CHARACTERS

GRAVE

--New sound effects when the air parry super successfully parries, so that’s sounds more exciting. Also, the sounds at the end of this move when the lightning dragon is shown now work better in the case where the move causes a KO.

--Grave’s projectile clouds no longer get too dark on some stages.

JAINA

--Jaina’s back+A kick has 4f less recovery. (Still slightly minus on hit or block.)

--The sounds at the end of a successful ground super now work better in the case where the move causes a KO.

ROOK

--Rook’s C throw armor highlight now correctly turns off when he gets hit during the attempt.

--Added armor to rook’s combo C throw (back+A -> C) to match his regular C throw.

SETSUKI

--Slightly improved shading on several alt colors. The shadows are less dark on bright costumes.

LUM

--Changed the shading on Lum’s fur to remove (possibly weird) shadows on his face. This also much improves the shading on his belly during gameplay, which used to have a large horizontal shading artifact.

--Lum’s walk-in intro no longer has an animation pop at the end where his feet are suddenly in a different place.

--Improved graphics on Lum’s cloud, more cartoony and matches Grave’s clouds.

--When Lum’s coin hits an opponent or the ground, it now blinks as it disappears. (No gameplay change.)

--Fixed a visual bug where Lum’s slot machine would wrongly appear at the top of the screen during the startup cinematic for his ground super.

--Replaced the slot 2 costume with a more interesting looking color set.

MIDORI

--While in dragon form on the 2p side, we think(?) we fixed the issue where sometimes his wings vibrate rapidly for no reason. (This is just a graphic fix, does not affect gameplay.)

ARGAGARG

The following are bug fixes for bugs accidentally introduced in the last update:

--Argagarg's fA can once again punch under an Argagarg blue fish, rather than always lose to it at any range.

--Argagarg's fA can once again punch under a Geiger gear, rather than always lose to it at any range.

--Argagarg's water wave will once again NOT negate Geiger's gear.

MISC

--Fixed the profile screen not showing the "time played" section correctly for a master-ranked player.

--Fixed master rank computation and display, to fix the bug that sometimes multiple master rank players could appear to have exactly the same rank (e.g. two different players each displaying as the 2nd best player overall).

--Player levels over 100 now display a star for each 100 levels, plus a number. For example, 234 now shows two stars + 34.

--Better handling of networking checks when players try to get into the online matchmaking queue. In cases where the server is missing some information from the player, rather than silently fail, as if your button press to get in the queue did nothing, it now tries to get the necessary information to put you in the queue. If it can’t, it now shows a popup error message about what happened.

--Fixed "ghost spectators" that could stick around in your spectator list even after they stopped spectating.

--Raised volume of "Shadow Boss" and "Metal Boss" voice lines in Survival Mode. Also raised the volume of the announcer saying "Draw" a little bit.

--Armor moves (the ones with a blue highlight) now have a special sound effect for the armor.

--Menu sounds now have subtle “whooshes” on the main menu, mode select screen, character select screen, and ladder screen. These are especially for players who have the music off, so that the sound effects are a bit “fuller”.

--Fixed the friends screen showing incorrect dropdown options for a friend that you just added through a friend invite during this session (screen was accessing the "sent request" for the friend request by accident, thinking it was a challenge or watch request).

--Fixed a crash that could happen when very rapidly going back and forth between the main menu and practice mode character select. (Why are you very rapidly doing that over and over?)

--Fixed a crash that triggered when you voluntarily disconnected from an online ranked match.

--There’s now a fade from black when gameplay starts as you enter practice mode and at the beginning of round 1 in all modes. (There already was a fade from black for rounds after round 1.)

--When quitting gameplay and returning to the main menu, the main menu background stage is now the same one as the gameplay stage you were just on, rather than a random one. This allows menu graphics to load faster any time you quit from gameplay to main menu.

--When choosing “change character” and returning to the character select screen, the characters load even faster than before.

--Reduced loading time of the tutorial.

--The story sequences in arcade mode load 10x faster than before.

--In all stages with grass, leaves, plants, etc, those things now slightly sway over time, rather than always being frozen in place.

--New spiffy images for all stages during stage select. (The previous ones were looking pretty old!)

Mar 9, 2019

Signifcant Update announcement March 9 2019

Community Announcements - zcr

Dear players:
We had a significant update on March 9, 2019. In regard to this update, please feel free to leave us any comments or suggestions in either Community Hub or our social media channels. Our Dev team is greateful for all your helps and supports with all our heart.

Updates of ingame contents
Ⅰ. We kept the skill system: players can choose an active skill and a passive skill at the beginning of a game.

In our game’s previous version Horizon Source first released in March 2018, we initially added the conception of skills in Battle Royale game, and got many positive comments for that. But our initial trial of combining fixed weapons with heroes restricts players from shooting pleasure. Thus, in the Ark of Horizon, we abandoned the conception of hero and make characters match with skills and weapons freely.
1.Added shooting sense and recoil on all weapons
2.Added Training Ground
3.Released Duo Mode
4.Adjusted flying speed and endurance
5.Replace exclusive double jump with other passive skills
6.Added press Shift to lock speed up
7.Added contour of friendly units
8.Added underwater respiratory system
9.Added 7 days login task, first fight and first win task
10.Adjusted certain achievements

Ⅱ. Currently closed the tidal wave mode
The Tidal wave mode is currently under optimization and will reopen as an alternative mode co-existing with ring shrinking mode. Please be patient with us. Thank you!