Aug 6, 2018

Robocraft - leftofnever

Hey there Robocrafters,

We’re keen to continue to share with you what it is we’re working on in Robocraft. Recently we released a Dev Jam explaining Tiers, If you didn’t catch that one, you can read about it here.

With the majority of the team focussed on the Tiers update (planned to release with the Infinity changes), we’ve carved out some time to add a few quality of life changes. The most obvious thing was to get the improved fighting experience which is in the PC version of Robocraft Infinity into the Steam version of Robocraft. In this Dev Jam we're going to focus on all the cool stuff the art, audio and indeed code teams are doing to make firing weapons and engaging in Robot fisticuffs feel awesome.

ROBOT RECOIL AND CAMERA FEEDBACK SYSTEMS

We took a hard look at what made an arena shooter feel really immersive and cool. The first and most obvious thing that we have, but could improve substantially, was the visual feedback relayed through the camera. Currently we have some feedback to the player that they are in the midst of a fight, firing weapons and taking hits, but we wanted to really drill home that you’re firing futuristic military-grade weaponry in the midst of interplanetary conflict and do so in a way that quickly read as meaningful feedback without being intrusive to the battle experience.

So, we added a “Robot Recoil” system and a new “Camera Feedback” system to give us loads of control over how you ‘feel’ the weapons when they fire and when you take damage.

Each weapon has been given a unique recoil action to really make it feel satisfying to fire; watch your mech strain against the force of unleashing barrages of plasma, feel the lull after a massive railshot as the weapon works to load another devastating round into the breach or revel in the vibrations generated by the chain shredder pumping out damage at a monumental rate.

BTW, you will have the option to disable camera feedback effects if you don’t like them, but rest assured we’ve kept camera movement to a minimum, focusing on only subtle polished movements with the majority of feedback coming from audio, SFX, Robot movement/recoil and other UI feedback.

Additionally, in the heat of battle, it's important to know who's shooting at you and from where, quickly. Having the robot get visually impacted while being shot helps you work out your bearings faster than ever; being hit will move the robot based on the direction of the incoming shot, letting you know where the damage is coming from. The scale of the visual impact is based partly on damage taken, meaning if you receive a huge hit (perhaps from a top tier rail or plasma) you’ll not only see large chunks of your robot missing, but it will lurch as if it took a huge hit, much more so than if you were being peppered by small laser fire.

It’s worth noting that we apply this force in a purely visual manner, so don't worry about your carefully-tuned drone getting blown off course by a stray laser!

In future we plan to make the red vignette at the edges of the screen be directional to improve the feedback for where damage is coming from.

AUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

With all these visual improvements designed to make battle as immersive as possible we had to have our maestro Simone take some time to improve the audio too. Here are a few audio clips of the new improved sound effects for Laser and Plasma fire.

https://soundcloud.com/robocraftgame/robocraft-enemy-plasma-audio

https://soundcloud.com/robocraftgame/robocraft-player-lasers-audio

https://soundcloud.com/robocraftgame/robocraft-laser-enemy-audio

Not only has he improved on the audio samples for a number of weapons, Simone is currently integrating the Resonance Audio plugin into Robocraft. This incredible spatialization engine from Google simulates how sound waves interact with human ears and their environment. In Robocraft this means that you'll be able to detect where you are being attacked from without even seeing the enemy - it's a real game changer. For example, if an enemy fires a Plasma volley and you're close to it, the audio you hear will be different to an attack from a greater distance or if the enemy is to your left or right. Paired with the audio rework on the samples, everything will sound less noisy and much more detailed.

If you're interested in finding out a bit more about the Resonance Audio plugin, check out this short video presentation; while not related directly to Robocraft, it will give you an idea as to its potential in the game.

https://youtu.be/IYdx9cnHN8I

REGULAR HITS AND CRITICAL HITS

While we were working on making your favourite weapon really feel like it should, we also wanted to make some other visual improvements to reinforce what is going on while you’re playing. While we clearly show health bars and have some visual feedback, we could communicate a lot better what is happening when you attack or or heal someone.

We decided that having the damage inflicted appear in numerical form would really convey that it’s you hitting and damaging your target and our crosshair improvements will further reinforce your shots connecting with an enemy hull.

More traditional games with humanoid models have a simple rule that is generally applied: A headshot is a critical hit and deals bonus damage. This allows for a refinement of skill and allows the great players to separate themselves even further from the good players. Considering this we realised that we have the same principle in Robocraft: destroying vulnerable cubes to sever large chunks of robots results in a much larger net DPS than targeting individual cubes.

We quickly established a simple visual language: White is a hit, red is a critical hit.

We then wanted to make it clear when you landed a hit; in the maelstrom of battle it’s not always clear when you’re landing damage on the enemy and when it is your teammates. To this end we added numbers that will come off the enemy robots that indicate damage you are doing. If you score a “crit” (defined as doing more than 2x the damage the weapon is normally capable of) then the text will turn red. For most veteran players this will reinforce old practices but we also hope it will subtly teach new players that aiming for joints to destroy more cubes with less parts is at the core of a good robocrafters strategy.

Nanos have been a firm part of the hybrid or medic build for a long time but we have always had one issue we never properly resolved: Am I wasting nano on healing someone who is fully repaired or do they still need healing in some way? With the new numerical damage system nanos will generate green numbers when you heal an ally telling you how much you are healing them for. Numbers will stop being generated when the affected player has been healed to full health so you can save your energy or turn your attention to another wounded ally much quicker.

Thanks again for taking the time to read through the Dev Jam; we’ll have another for you soon..

Happy Gaming!

Freejam

Jul 26, 2018

Dev Jam - Let's Talk About Tiers

Robocraft - leftofnever

Hey there Robocrafters,

As you'll know, if you read last week's Dev Jam, we're keen to share with you with more frequency what it is we're working on in Robocraft. Last week we released a Dev Jam explaining how we’re planning to upgrade the Steam version to Robocraft Infinity. If you didn’t catch that one, you can read about it here.

With the Tech Tree now live in Robocraft, our focus has now shifted on to the Tiers system. As we’re currently adding Tiers to the PC version of Robocraft Infinity, which will come to the Steam version when we upgrade it to the Infinity version, we wanted to give some more detail on how Tiers will work.

Tiers

If you've been playing Robocraft for a while, you may already be familiar with the concept of Tiers as they were in Robocraft back when the game was still in Early Access. Although we removed them as part of the continual development of the game, many of you in the community felt that was a mistake and so we have decided to bring them back. But rather than just bringing them back as they were, we've woven them into some of the cool features we have added since their original removal; such as additional game modes, League Ranking and things like that.

Here is a breakdown of how Tiers will work:

5 Tiers

There will be 5 standard Tiers plus one for Megabots (T1-5 and TM)
Each Robot part will have a Robot Ranking and this will be displayed as a stat in the Inventory screen
Each Robot part will also be renamed to follow the previous Tier naming convention: eg. a Laser Wasp will become a T1 Laser, and a Laser Leviathan will become a T5 Laser*
All Robots will be placed in a Tier; this will be based on the total sum of the Robot Rankings of all the parts used on that Robot
As you build a Robot, it's Robot Ranking and Tier will be clearly shown, so you’ll be able to easily optimize your Robot for each Tier
Any Robots built above 2,000 CPU will be regarded as Megabots and will be placed in the Megabot Tier
When you enter battle you will be match-made with other Robots of the same Tier
New players will not initially be able to play in any Tier other than Tier 1
By unlocking new parts on the Tech Tree and building Robots with them, players will be able to progress through the Tiers from T1 to T5
Each Tier will have an XP bonus; with the higher Tiers providing more XP than lower Tiers
Players will need to design Robots that are optimal for each Tier by paying careful attention to the Robot Ranking
The Tier of any Robots in your Garage and those on the CRF will be clearly displayed in their thumbnail image
We will also add a Tier filter to the CRF to make it easier to find Robots for a given Tier
All players in a Party will need to ensure their Robots are the same Tier before entering a battle
The Party widget and UI will clearly display what Tier each Party member is in and we will message this so that players understand this is the case
The Battle Loading Screen will be updated to show the Tier of every Robot in battle so that users can see that the game is fairly match-made by Tier

Check out the work-in-progress screenshot below which highlights some of the details mentioned above (and a few other things too).

Tier Rank Progression

Unlike the previous Tier system, the new Tiers will also have a Rank progression system similar to current League but there will be one for each Tier
In each Tier you will be able to progress from Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond to Protonium by winning more battles than losing via the MMR system that is in League (aka like an ELO system)
Unlike the current League, in the new Tier system, once you acquire a whole Rank (eg. Tier 4 Gold) you will ‘lock it in’, so if you decide you want to mess around in T4 for a bit you won’t ever lose that Gold rank
In between each Rank you will still gain and lose MMR as you win and lose battles so you will need to win more than you lose to lock in that next rank
The MMR system will be different at each Rank and each Tier so that it is easier to get from Bronze to Silver than it is to get from Diamond to Protonium, and easier to get to Protonium in T1 than it is in T5
A new Tier Rankings screen will be added so you can see your progress in each Tier at any time
A new Tier progression screen will be shown at the end of each battle to show your progress in the ranking of each Tier

Multiple Game Modes, One Button

In order to allow for Tiers to come back we are moving Battle Arena and Team Deathmatch to a single ‘Battle’ button
We will also be bringing back Elimination permanently (this will be 8 vs. 8)
When players queue for battle, a game mode will be chosen at random, so you will get a different mode and/or map each time you enter battle
This system has been designed for a number of benefits:
More players in the same queue that will allow us to matchmake fairly by Tier
Keep the queue times down
It allows us to add more game mode variants in future
There will be a settings option for game modes that allow you to ‘opt out’ of game modes you do not like. Please note that opting out of some game modes may result in longer queue times; so it will be down to player preference

We hope to have all of this done in the Infinity version of Robocraft within the next 3 weeks; after which we will plan to bring this all over to Steam as the next step.

Thanks again for taking the time to read through the Dev Jam; we'll have another for you next week.

Happy Gaming!

Freejam

*Since some weapons like Lasers have more than 5 sizes, we will be making some of the less distinct sizes obsolete to keep things clean and have just 1 per Tier max. For example the Laser Hornet will be deprecated and any Hornets on Robots will be replaced with Wasps so they remain semi-intact

Jul 25, 2018

ROBOCRAFT XP UPDATE - 1.7.2549

Robocraft - leftofnever

In this small update, we've made a few improvements to how XP is earned in Robocraft.

Earn XP in build mode - In order to reward those players who prefer to spend time building robots rather than battling, players will now earn XP when they build their own robots. The Building XP system simply allows players to level up while they are in build mode, generating an amount of level experience as if they were in Battle. As long as you’re actively building, and not just sitting in the edit mode, you’ll earn XP.

Removal of Mastery System - With the addition of XP for building, the old Mastery System has been removed from the game. Players whose Robots are downloaded from the CRF and used in battles by other players will still be rewarded with Robits - this functionality has not been removed. When a Robot is downloaded from the CRF and used in battle, the creator will receive 1,500 Robits per battle for up to ten battles. This means that for every download the creator can receive up to 15,000 Robits (1,500 x 10).

Changes to XP earned in battle - We've been listening to your community feedback and many of you have let it be known that you're leveling up too quickly. Prior to the update, XP earned was directly proportional to score. This meant veteran or more experienced players with low-level secondary accounts were leveling up too quickly at the start. With this update we have introduced a non-linear relationship between score and XP to ensure that levels are gained at a more even pace for all players.*

*Please note that as XP has a direct relationship to Robits earned after battle, the XP changes will affect Robits earned too. This does NOT mean that better players will earn less Robits than others - all players will continue to be rewarded for their performance.

As usual, we will listen to your feedback for this update and may make changes to improve the gameplay experience.

Jul 19, 2018

Dev Jam - The Big Free Infinity Upgrade

Robocraft - leftofnever

Hey there Robocrafters,

It's been a while since we've done a Dev Jam and a few of you out there in our community have asked us to do more of them so you've a greater insight into what's going on here in terms of Robocraft's on-going development. We really want you to join us on the development journey and so we're going to try to do Dev Jam blogs more frequently.

This Dev Jam will focus on our plans to upgrade the Steam/Launcher version of Robocraft to Robocraft Infinity. We will have another Dev Jam for you next week that will give more details on Tiers (No More Crates Phase 3) and other new features coming soon™.

Robocraft Infinity coming to Robocraft with Tiers

Many of you in the community have been frustrated with the speed at which we’ve been releasing new features, content, and community-suggested improvements to Robocraft. There are some big differences between the newer Infinity version of Robocraft and the older Robocraft that makes bringing the new features and improvements we make to Infinity to Robocraft incredibly difficult and time-consuming.

So, in order to speed up the process of giving you lots of awesome new stuff for Robocraft, we've made the decision to upgrade the original Robocraft to Robocraft Infinity as a totally free update which will allow us to bring 100% of all the exciting things we are doing in Infinity to all of the community on Robocraft.

Our goal is to get you the upgrade sometime in the next 6-8 weeks and we'll let you know when a more concrete date is set.

So, what are we going to bring to Robocraft? Here's a break down of the awesome features and content you'll be getting for free in Robocraft:

Infinity Inventory system - unlock a part on the Tech Tree and then use it an Infinite number of times, no need to Forge parts anymore
Infinity CRF - download as many Robots as you like as long as you have the parts unlocked, with rewards going to the builder based on when users play with those downloaded Robots (even if they edit/tweak them after download)
Infinity Duplication system - duplicate and tweak your Robots an infinite number of times, create 10 of the same Robot with different paint jobs and loadouts if you wish, tweak designs to your heart's content without sinking parts from your Inventory
A new Item Shop - spend your hard-earned Robits to unlock Cosmetics for free, i.e. those cosmetics that would otherwise be ‘CC only’ will be available for Robits also, so nothing in the game will be behind a paywall, everything will be available for free
Tiers - this is being implemented in Infinity now so will come straight to Steam with this upgrade
More paint colours - 8 for free, 32 for Premium
Cosmetic Garage and Building bays - configurable for each Robot allowing you to have Earth, Mars or Ice planet as backdrops whilst building and when viewing your Robots in the Garage (available via Item shop for both CC and Robits)
New Main Menu and UI - an overhauled Main Menu and UI with an improved flow, look, and better handling of different resolutions including those higher than 1920x1080 up to 5k
Improved CRF sorting algorithm - focusing on bringing Robots from active players that are ‘new’ and ‘trending’ and ‘most popular’ to the top of the searches
New improved weapons crosshairs
Massive improvements to Weapon Feedback and Fighting - improved Special Effects, improved Audio Technology, Improved Audio Effects, many changes to the HUD to give you much better feedback for how much damage you’re doing, how much you’re taking, and where the damage is coming from
Improved graphics, better lighting
Controls can be edited via the Settings screen even when in battle
Battle-ready Robot Check - Robocraft checks the user has functional cubes on the Robot and warns before they enter battle
Building hints, help users learn the advanced controls and can be hidden in Settings menu
Kill feed is colored when in battle mode so it’s easier to read
End of battle Robot voting screen
Popup tooltips on many of the buttons and options in the Main Menu
Improved network technology for improved reliability and connection to the Robocraft servers and backend
New Unity version for improved performance and stability

It’s worth noting that there are some data differences between Infinity and original Robocraft which we will not bring across as we want to avoid breaking everyone's Robots:

CPU values will remain the same as current Steam version
Max CPU will remain the same as current Steam version

Community Concerns

Some veteran players in the community have some concerns regarding the Infinity system; these are:

“I had to grind for my parts but new users would get an Infinite number of them, this isn’t fair”
“I like grinding for parts, it gives me motivation to play battles”

Having listened to these concerns, we will be doing a few things focusing on the veteran players in the game:

We will release exclusive golden variants of all Legendary functional base parts (excluding C6 and cosmetic variants). Every player who owns more than X number of a Legendary part (either loose in their Inventory or on current Robots) will receive an exclusive Golden version of that same part
We haven’t decided how many of X part you will need to get the golden variant but we will reveal the number and give you plenty of time prior to releasing the Infinity upgrade so you can make sure you don’t miss out
The golden variants will be exclusive to those who played before the Infinity upgrade and will come with golden special effects
We will be releasing a new Item Shop where users can buy Cosmetic parts that are normally real money only with Robits also
We will be adding a number of new goals for players to chase. These have been specifically designed to challenge our veteran players with long term goals.
We’ve expanded on the old Tiers system to add depth to it
We’re adding a new Career system that gives prestige and rewards to those who have invested a lot of time into Robocraft

Thanks for taking the time to read the Dev Jam and for your continued support for Robocraft. We will have another Dev Jam for you next week that will delve a bit deeper into some of the things outlined above.

Happy gaming!

Freejam