A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! The primary purpose of this release is to fix an occasional crash that would occur when closing the game. This was a multithreading issue, the chances of it occurring being higher for higher core/thread count CPUs, and more rare for 1 or 2 core CPUs.
This update also includes an improved startup loader. It now adapts better to system performance, loading faster on higher end CPUs, and better preserving system responsiveness for slower/older CPUs. The bar filling animation is smoother now as well, making it easier to observe progress. Memory usage has been reduced during the loading screen as well.
Several areas of code have been refactored in this update as well, making the game more robust in general and quicker to develop for.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.4.2:
Fixed a crash bug that would occasionally occur when closing the game -This was a multithreading-related bug that would occur more often on higher core count machines
Improved the startup loader -Reduced loading time when starting the game -Reduced memory usage during the loading screen -Smoothed out the loading bar fill animation to make it easier to follow -Improved system responsiveness for slower or low core count CPUs
Refactored several areas of code to prevent bugs and speed up development time in the future
Slightly reduced VRAM usage
*HotFix* Fixed a game startup crash when attempting to use the "VeryHigh" or "Extreme" detail terrain packs without downloading the DLC
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.4.2” or above. Enjoy!
[UPDATE] STEAM/PS4: Maintenance was completed as follows:
North, Central, and South America: 3/31/2019 19:00 - 4/1/2019 05:00 (PST) Europe: 4/1/2019 02:00 – 12:00 (UTC) Japan and Korea: 4/1/2019 11:00 – 21:00 (JST) China: 4/1/2019 10:00 – 20:00 (HKT)
We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for playing LET IT DIE.
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Maintenance will occur at the following time:
North, Central, and South America: 3/31/19 19:00 - 4/1/19 05:00 (PST) Europe: 4/1/19 02:00 – 12:00 (UTC) Japan and Korea: 4/1/19 11:00 – 21:00 (JST) China: 4/1/19 10:00 – 20:00 (HKT)
Details:
-Bug fixes -Event preparation
Thank you for your patience during this extended maintenance period. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we thank you for your understanding.
Please Note: *If you are playing the game when maintenance begins, you will not be able to return to the Waiting Room under any circumstances. Please avoid playing the game near our scheduled maintenance time. *The game cannot be played during maintenance. Please wait until maintenance is over. *Even if you are using a Solo Shelter at the start of maintenance, you will be returned to the Waiting Room when you log back in. *Remaining Express Pass time is still consumed during maintenance.
Last month, we announced we were working on the first of several major updates to Sunless Skies, with a focus on providing more to see and do during voyages.
We're now ready to talk more about that release: it will be called the Wayfarer Update, and it will be available on 9th April. It will contain a major rework of Albion, as well as many narrative additions – see below for more details!
Albion
For this update, we've completely reworked the map of Albion, with three main aims:
1) Improving the general look and atmosphere of the region. A few screenshots...
Near the Mausoleum:
London:
The Avid Horizon:
2) Adding more terrain to make navigation and combat more interesting. Albion will still be much more open than the Reach, except in a small number of locations like the Ormswald. For comparison, here's a diagram of Traitor's Wood from when we were designing it:
And here's one of the new areas in Albion (the coloured patches and letters in these images are related to agent and discovery spawning):
3) Creating more variety in the creatures, locomotives and discoveries players can encounter on any given journey. Right now, many areas of the game can be quite predictable in terms of what you'll find there. We're hoping that introducing more variation will improve the experience when visiting areas you've already explored; if it does, we'll do more of this in the other regions, as well. Please let us know what you think once you've played the update!
High Wilderness stories
We'll also be adding many more narrative encounters that can take place during voyages, including most (and hopefully all, but we can't promise that just yet) of the following:
Many new ways to encounter the gods of the skies, draw their attention or their ire, and benefit or suffer from it.
Suffering the attacks of certain foes may now have a variety of delayed consequences. In particular, caution when engaging Guests is now advised.
It will now be possible to more closely investigate several of the greatest wonders and horrors of the skies when your travels bring you near them.
Sometimes, you will be able to deploy your officers to pursue shore-side opportunities – these will be focused around Albion for now, but we'll add more if you enjoy them!
Yesterday and today we uploaded the following changes:
Aya no longer hogs all the bonus XP after a battle. The bonus XP is shared among all survivors of the battle as intended.
There was a bug where the game would not always load properly and battles would not start after completing a battle in Main_Battlefield_Cave02 because that battle map was not unloading when the battle finished. That map now unloads and the game proceeds as normal. If you have a saved game that is broken because of this bug, enter a city and exit to the world map again. That will unload all unnecessary levels.
Added a new battle song from Kevin Won. The song will be played at random from a list in most battle maps.
Starting changes to the character sheet as part of a larger reorganization of the menu system.
Subtle improvement of character control when using a fixed camera. Camera controls used to have W and S move a character parallel to the camera's view. Now W and S move your character directly away from and toward the camera, resulting in more natural control especially toward the edge of the screen.
It's been awfully long since the last patch; GDC does that, I suppose. Anyway, here we are!
Bugfixes etc: - Fixed a lua error in A Way Out? - There's a new zoom mode - stretch! - Fixed the ABABA bug - Fixed a bug where the sound crackles when fading - Fixed the general sound snap bug - Fixed the bug where alt-tabbing reduces performance greatly - Fixed an infinite loop related to "Word" - Alleviated the issue with multiple Push objects in a row. Still ways to go with that, though - Swapped two secret levels to make certain secret stuff flow better
Level adjustments: - Two new levels! One is in the Lake area, one is hidden EDIT: I immediately realized that the former doesn't work like it should, d'oh - Coronation promoted to an extra level - Levels shuffled around in Cavern a bit - Eye of a Needle removed (sorry about that)
At least these levels have been tweaked: - Endless Corridor - Meta - Tunnel - Overgrowth - A Way Out? - Elusive Condition - Condition - The End - Passing Through - Coronation - Metacognition - Adventure
For the next update, there are still some level tweaks to do, and at least 3 larger bugs to squash. Thank you for your patience!
- Possible fix for some players spawning with a 20 second desertion timer when Last Stand has triggered.
- If Last Stand has triggered and there are less than 20 seconds left of a match. Players deserting will no longer have a desertion timer of 20 seconds if they desert. Their desertion timer in that case will instead always be lower than the time left of the match, making defenders in Last Stand unable to desert and win for their team as the timer runs out.
- In order to prevent afk defenders from winning a game in Last Stand, the victory will be given to the attacker when the timer runs out if there are 3 or less defenders alive.
- Added ear wind noise that is increased the faster the player is moving and if the player is facing the wind direction.
- The flag of the flag bearer will now produce cloth sounds. The intensity of those cloth sounds will increase as the player moves around.
- Changed the way footsteps are queued to reduce clipping when moving with a lot of players.
- Added new and improved player movement and equipment sounds. Enter Ready, Exit Ready, Enter Aim, Exit Aim, Enter Kneel, Exit Kneel, Fix Bayonet standing, Unfix Bayonet standing, Fix Bayonet kneeling, Unfix Bayonet kneeling.
- Increased the volume of vaulting and lightning sounds.
- Possible fix for particle effects sometimes spawning in the wrong place.
- The nametags and chat messages of developers will now appear Blue.
- The name of the server that is currently being played on is now listed in the bottom of the tab screen.
- Fixed the text chat no longer appearing by itself when the Auto Show HUD setting is disabled in the graphics options.
- Fixed teamkills and ban messages being posted twice in the chat.
- The text chat will now post whenever a developer or an admin force ends the round.
- Prevented various hacks and cheats.
- Several updates to the Burnside Bridge area in order to match its period surroundings. Moved the stonewall closer to the bridge, added missing fencing and made the Sycamore witness tree 150 years younger.
- Updated the small sheds at Harpers Ferry.
- Added new uphill and downhill movement animations.
- Added new turn animations for various poses.
- Added a new revolver aimpose and a sword melee mode aimpose.
- Updated the model and textures of some of the wooden fences on all maps.
Welcome to Developer Briefing #17. This week we’re glancing forward as we look at some of the upcoming content coming to Hell Let Loose!
Please keep in mind that the following is just a portion of what we’re working on, with the rest currently being held in a crate marked ‘Classified’ at headquarters.
We’re not attaching dates for when the different pieces of content will arrive just yet, but as we head towards Early Access launch you can expect further clarity and information as we lock in the content from our side.
Vehicles
As the team become happier with the state of play with the Panther and Sherman tanks that are already in the game, we can take the crucial steps to implement the next set of vehicles into Hell Let Loose.
Currently, it looks like trucks will be the next addition, giving players extra mobility options for both themselves, and supplies. Support, Anti-tank, Engineer and Officer roles rejoice!
Beyond that you can expect to see the addition of further armoured options, both on the heavier and lighter sides of our current offering…
Advanced Movement
Vaulting waist-high walls is coming! That’s right, you’ll soon be able to haul yourself out of trenches, over fences and even over conveniently short walls.
This should address those awkward situations when you’re pretty sure you should be able to make the jump, whilst also giving you a more authentic, tactical approach to engaging with battlefield terrain.
Improved Animations
Continued refining of all animations, including TPP and FPP to give players a more engaging, responsive experience. This ranges from running animations to how soldier models respond to certain actions, such as bullet hit flinching and new context-sensitive death animations.
Audio Improvements
We’ve been working extensively across the entire soundscape of the game according to the feedback given to us in the last playtest. Every single weapon sound has been revamped as we move closer to a quality we’re happy with. The distance fall-off on all weapons has been drastically increased to give better directionality and to make the battlefield more alive.
As we continue to work on audio, we’ll be paying special attention to the handling of external and interior vehicle noises, environmental interaction audio with gunshots, as well refining existing sounds.
This kind of content will be done in stages as the team works on implementation and player feedback.
New Game Modes
Currently Hell Let Loose offers one game mode - Warfare - an intense tug-of-war down a single sector capture line. While we’re confident in the experience it offers players, we know there’s further work to do in better integrating the way resources, strategic freedom and Commander abilities work within this system. We’ve been pouring over the feedback channel in Discord, reading all the brilliant forum posts and have been having ongoing internal discussions as we brainstorm ways to add further complexity to this gamemode.
Having said that, we’re not stopping there. The team are also working on two other game modes that will give players and the wider community more variation and options in the style of gameplay they experience in Hell Let Loose.
The two modes currently being worked on are under the working titles of “Invasion” and “Campaign”. Whilst maintaining the core gameplay of Hell Let Loose, these modes will offer different experiences to what’s available right now - with a particular focus on returning the greater strategic decision-making abilities to the players while maintaining the important player-density. Much of the challenge behind Hell Let Loose metagame design is balancing the resources, map layout, player density and strategic freedom players have.
We’re keeping tight-lipped while we work on the more detailed aspects of these modes, but we hope the names we’ve provided will give you something to work with!
Commander Orders
The Commander isn’t finished just yet! He’s still got some more Orders to come his way. From abilities that have a physical (and painful) presence on the battlefield, to more supporting Orders, the Commander still has some additional functionality to give players the ability to carve out their own playstyle, rather than adhering to one template.
Maps
You know of Hurtgen Forest and Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, but did you know the team are already actively working on the next two maps?
We’re pleased to share with you that both Foy and Utah Beach are currently in active development and will be the next battlefields that you’ll be clashing on in the future. Now this Developer Briefing has been pretty wordy compared to our usual set-up, so lets get some eye candy in here!
Below is an in-game image taken from Foy, a snow covered map that will give players whole new challenges to face, or turn to their advantage, in the heat of battle. Set in the Belgian village of the same name and made famous by Band of Brothers, Foy combines a dense destroyed urban environment with rolling fields and pine forest - giving one of the most diverse player experiences so far. Foy is largely finalised and is about to enter an optimisation pass. Don’t worry - we’ve got a whole folder of reference photos for winter uniforms.
You’ve got to admit, Foy will certainly be a ‘cool’ map!
HUD/UI
We’ve been working hard to make sure the technical aspects of the HUD and UI are functioning correctly as we move towards Early Access. As a result of that, the look of them could really do with some love. We’re going to be working across all UX, UI and 2D graphic elements within the game to give the game the same front-end visual polish that you find in the maps themselves.
Cosmetic System
When you’re on the frontline, your soldier should be able to help reflect the individuality of the player controlling them. We also appreciate that not everyone looks the same!
To address this, we’re currently working on the implantation of a cosmetic system for Hell Let Loose. This will start with the ability to pick a helmet for your soldier, before being expanded to include head and uniform options for each role.
All customisations will be authentic, with nothing untoward or fantasy for that time period being included. Our design intentions here are twofold:
To enable players to roleplay as an historical unit
To allow players to show their experience in their appearance
We WILL NOT be using loot boxes in this system.
The Battle Draws Near
That wraps up this week’s Developer Briefing! We hope you liked what you read. Of course, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below!
Just remember, this is a portion of what we’re working on and we’ll be sharing more with you all both on the lead up to and beyond Early Access launch.
