Jul 2, 2021

Osiris: New Dawn - brian

Hello Explorers! Since last week's Fires of Industry Update we have turned our attention to polishing and fixing existing content and features. To do this we began with an update to the Player Feedback page by adding pagination and more fields to help create a better connection with you as we charge through the issues you find and report (which we appreciate!).

Next we compiled every issue/bug/concern across all our channels into our project management software (we love Zoho!) and organized each issue by priority. Then we got right to work starting with the most severe bugs first. We currently have a list of about 400 bugs and was able to squash about 120 of them this week!

The majority of these issues came from three fronts: multiplayer stability, lost robots, and space ship issues.

Space Ship Movement and Camera

Many of the Spaceship issues ultimately relate to handling and controls. We've always viewed the spaceship control as prototype and were happy to get down to update it. Our goal is to have realistic yet intuitive control for the spaceship during each of the various flight modes. We're hoping with your feedback will get it spot on.

The bulk of the issues and problems occurred in Hover mode so we prioritize this first. We added an orbit cam, mouse controls rotation (yaw), WASD controls 2D movement, and throttle increase lifts and lowers the vehicle's altitude. Lift high enough and the ship switches into Flight mode, which also now includes orbit cam.

Check it out!.....we made GIFS!!!!!

Hover Camera Up and Down

This allows you to get a better view while landing.

Hover Yaw

Move the mouse left and right to turn the craft while in Hover.

Left and Right Movement

Your assigned left and right input will move the vehicle laterally.

Forward and Back Movement

This will help you back away form obstacles, trees, buildings, or anything else in your way.

OK, just two more, showing orbit cam while in flight or in space. This allows you to view much more of the world and plan your approach, landing site, or Space Station.

Flight Mode

Space Mode

Of course, this is all work in progress and snuck into the build just late last night, so please let us know how we're doing on the new Spaceship controls! In the meantime, let's move onto the change list!

Change List

Added - Roar animation to Arachnoid
Added - HarvestableSegment to Arachnoid head
Added - Server completion date to avatar save game
Added - Count down to upper corner of UI in multiplayer modes to show Cycle Time Remaining
Added - Hit reaction animations to Hybrid
Added - Icon for makeshift Screw Driver and Prefab
Added - Support to remove spaceship and asteroid collision during travel transitions
Added - Hover Mode to Spaceship control
Added - Support for mouse rotation to Space Ship while in Hover Mode
Added - WASD to move Space Ship while in Hover Mode
Added - Orbit cam to Space Ship while in Hover Mode
Added - Orbit cam to Space Ship while in Flight
Added - Orbit cam to Space Ship while in Low Orbit
Added - Ramp collision sham to improve fluidly entering and exiting the spaceship via the ramp
Added - Boundary forces on Space Ship to prevent leaving playable area

Changed - FOV on Main Menu camera
Changed - Updated materials for Foliage and Minerals
Changed - Updated Icons for New Planet foliage and some custom pieces
Changed - Updated some map icons to have specialized icons
Changed - Reduced Bloom intensity amount
Changed - tweaked Nickel material to appear more metallic
Changed - moved Asteroids in Proteus 2 low orbit to be out of the way durring travel transitions

Fixed - Issue causing 3rd and subseuqent players from preventing to properly load the world
Fixed - Spaceship bypasses for transitions between low orbit and planet to prevent getting stuck
Fixed - Data issue in multiplayer causing built objects to randomly disappear
Fixed - Clouderous plant should now be properly harvestable
Fixed - Lonsdaleite should now properly read as in the Low density minerals filter on Discovery screen
Fixed - Deep mineral vein of Chromium on Proteus marked as lithium
Fixed - Copper veins from underground should no longer display on the surface radar of Proteus
Fixed - All map icons are now properly interactible
Fixed - Bug fixes for Silver
Fixed - Collider issues on spaceship
Fixed - Collider issues on Large Satellite
Fixed - Crab Monster Mecanim Bridge issue
Fixed - Crab Monster head harvestable segment issue
Fixed - CrabMonster IK issue
Fixed - CrabMonster rotation issue
Fixed - Creature looping movement audio continuing after death issue
Fixed - Display of time remaining in Server Cycle for multiplayer modes
Fixed - Time remaining display to show correct time remaining
Fixed - Droids not re-pathing wander error (stuck in rocks)
Fixed - Droids rotation issues
Fixed - Arachnoid rotation issue
Fixed - Arachnoid ragdoll projection settings
Fixed - Issues with Procedural Leg Hub rotation jitter (to be added back into creatures)
Fixed - clipping issue with Crab Mech
Fixed - animation issues with Crab Mech
Fixed - Colossus loot drop amount
Fixed - Zer will no longer greatly lag when loading in, hopefully fixing a common crash on Zer
Fixed - Various Zer optimization issues
Fixed - Errors reported by automated reporting tool

So, as many of you have probably figured out by now, we're huge sci fi movie buffs. Much of the inspiration from OND came from The Martian (when it was a book), Interstellar, Gravity, and Prometheus. But a lot of our team is older (myself the most ancient) so we constantly reference Alien, Aliens, Total Recall (Schwarzenegger version), Starship Troopers, Enemy Mine, Mission To Mars, Red Planet, Sunshine, and Event Horizon. But no matter what, you just can't beat a great Space Balls quote!

"You're looking at now, now. Everything that's happening now is happening now. What happened to then? You missed it. When? Just now."
- Brian

*This is me, my way of saying "nice to meet you!" ːsteamhappyː
**Would you like to meet the rest of the team? Some can be a little shy, but if we can give them a nice warm welcome I'm sure we can get them to come out and say hi!

Jul 2, 2021

Summer Update #2 is here!

Not Dead Yet - chiefGui

Hey guys! It's Gui here once again to bring you another update - this time it's Summer Update #2, a.k.a. v0.14.0!

The Grenade Launcher has arrived!

We said last week that our weapon rework would allow us to create more unique weapons faster, and this is the first one we bring you! You can blow up groups of zombies with no effort with this bad boy, just may not be that great against Mefisto (at least at the time being.).

'Poisonpace' just joined the family!

You already know Slowpace - that nasty snowball thrower -, but now say hello to Poisonpace! Mechanically speaking, the two are the same thing: they throw a projectile and leave a trail behind them. But Poisonpace, instead of causing slow, its riot spins around Poison! Yeah, Antidotes are about to shine!

Behold the Stun Grenade & the Stun mechanic!

Are zombies threatening you with their super ultra-fast moves? Look no further because the Stun Grenade got you covered!

With the Stun Grenade, all you have to do is to aim at your target and throw it! They'll freeze immediately and for 5 seconds your foes won't know what's going on. And don't panic: you can't stun yourself, hehe.

The next patches will introduce more synergizes to this mechanic, but rest assured it'll help you enough for the time being. ;)

General changes

Added 'Epic' Perks: One of our goals with Not Dead Yet is to support multiple builds with different styles of gameplay, and by introducing Epic Perks we are giving a major step in this direction. These Perks are what we consider 'build definers' - it's easy to notice how lower-tier Perks will synergize with Epic Perks.

At the time being, the number of Epic Perks is quite limited, thus you may not feel that much difference just yet. The plan is to always add more Perks of all tiers and then creating a build would become funnier and explicit.
Self-damage is no longer fatal: One of the playstyles we want to support is the self-damage route. This way of play is as simple as dealing damage to yourself and get rewarded for staying at low Health. But while it should be risky for you to stay on low Health, it shouldn't impossible to run certain Perks that damage yourself if you don't have any form of sustain, so now any self-damage you take won't bring you below 1 Health. You'll still die if you get hit, but at least you won't soft lose by taking these Perks and running out of Health.
Overhauled the way zombies spawn: Zombies will now spawn within a radius around the players, but always respecting a minimum and maximum distance. Although we are still tweaking the constraints and this new system is not yet perfect, we are going to polish it further in the upcoming patches. For those wondering the motivation behind this change: we are pretty close to release a new map, and we realized the old spawn system wouldn't work with a bigger, more open scenario.
Standarized the description of the Perks and Items: Although still a WIP, we rewrote all the descriptions of our Perks and Items to follow a more human-friendly standard; to you, it means: expect to have more clarity of what things do before committing to them.
Better multiplayer performance: This is and always will be ongoing work from us, but last week with the introduction of Weapons 2.0, we delivered a boost in multiplayer performance when it comes to shooting - the bullets are now more precise than ever. Now, with v0.14.0, we addressed some network issues and we are confident multiplayer matches will be way more pleasant to play!

New Perks

Trench Coat

Spray

Slot Machine

Butcher's Cleaver

------------------------------------

What's next?

Despite the usual balance changes, improvements, bug fixes & etc (tm), we expect that the biggest major change we're going to introduce next is a new map. Of course, depending on how our story unfolds our plans may change but... hey :).

We hope you enjoy this update. And please, don't spare us any feedback, yes? Thanks!

Talk to you next patch! :-)

Jul 2, 2021

THUNDERDOME / MATCHED PLAY Q&A

Natural Selection 2 - WasabiOne

What is it and How does it work?

Thunderdome has been the fun codename for this project that is now being officially labeled as Matched Play in the main menu. We plan on releasing the Beta phase of this feature in the next few weeks.

To put it simply it is a matchmaking system. It matches players together in a lobby of 12. When it performs a search it sorts by the smallest number of available player slots in order to fill up existing lobbies, and then that is sorted by a median skill level that is closest to the searching player, and then it finally refines that based on geodesic distance. Or said another way: The system attempts to find you a match quickly that is as fair as possible both through skill levels and latency.

The system always tries to find both the closest skill value to you personally, as well as the nearest lobby to you. Failing this it gradually searches farther in both distance and skill range until it either finds something or you create your own lobby.

Server selection is based on a computed average position of all the members in the lobby. This means no singular person dictates the latency for everyone, but rather the lowest latency possible is achieved for the whole group of players by creating a singular point. It uses longitude and latitude to find the nearest server location from that chosen point.

You will play two rounds, one on each team. If you leave at any point before both rounds are complete, you will be penalized. The lobby system works in stages; first it waits for the lobby to fill with exactly 12 players, it will not proceed without this number being reached. Then it waits for at least two Commander volunteers, but you can volunteer at any time before this! If at least two Commanders have not volunteered, the system will not proceed. If more than two have volunteered the system will choose the two highest ranked Commanders.

With 12 players and at least two Commander volunteers, all players can now participate in a Map vote where each person can choose up to 3 different maps in order of their preference. After a map is chosen everyone is shuffled to their respective teams in the most balanced configuration, each with their own Commander. At this moment a dedicated server that is not community hosted will be spun up for the games. During this time players have entered the Planning Phase while they wait for the server, where they can strategize in text while using an image of the map on screen.

After you play the first round a brief intermission of 90 seconds takes place. After this completes the map will not change but the system will automatically swap you to the other team with the same players and the same Commander. Once both rounds are completed the server will automatically shut down and you will return to the main menu.

Here is a list of server hosting regions that are covered:

East Coast US
West Coast US
Southern UK
Central Europe
Eastern Norway
Southern Brazil
Hong Kong
Eastern Australia

DISCLAIMER: The purpose and scope of the initial Beta phase of Matched Play/TD is to ensure the core functionality of the system works as expected and to allow us to make adjustments on the fly in the background to certain values. It also serves as an observation period for us on how balance, wait times, or social aspects may be impacted. As such many features we have completed or planned for the system are being held back during this specific phase. Once we exit this phase and release “Version 1” of the system these features will be added back in. We tentatively plan on this phase being just over 6 weeks long. That all being said, try it out and provide feedback and or suggestions to us in our discord!

Time for the Frequently Asked Questions!

How many friends can you queue into matched play with?
For the initial Beta test, zero. But after it is fully released we tentatively plan on allowing users to invite friends. Obviously this is a highly requested feature and we very much have it as a top priority beyond testing the initial core functionality of the system during the Beta period. But we must also consider the implications of allowing an entire team comprised of friends against 6 other random individuals when it comes to matchmaking times. Because of this we also have the functionality for “Private” lobbies already hooked up but not enabled and once we exit the Beta period we will be testing its viability for scenarios where you want to play 6v6 or 2v2 etc exclusively with friends.

Will public servers still be ranked after the introduction of TD?
Yes! However there will be two different ranking systems in place. The existing one will continue to apply to public servers only and exist as it does now, while TD will use that value as a starting place to begin recording your “Matched Play Skill” level. We fully recognize that our community run servers are the only reason this game has existed for this long. We appreciate them and do not wish to destroy their communities by preventing balanced matches or removing any incentive to play in the environments they have fostered for so many years.

How does the penalty system work?
Part of the Beta phase is to determine the efficacy and fairness of the starting values and behaviors we have in place. What we have is essentially a Work In Progress when it comes to this experimental system. As such we are not prepared to share the details of this just yet. However we can say that penalties will constitute temporary banning from Matched Play. We can also say that we do not intend for you to be punished if you are able to return to the match. We’ll have more on this at a later date and will publish it very clearly and publicly.

Will I be allowed to play on NA servers even though I’m in the EU?
Yes. The current value in place (that can be changed by us on the fly if needed) is a 9500 km maximum range. This is enough for most West Coast US individuals to play with individuals from Berlin, Germany.

Will there be region/ping locks?
Somewhat, yes. As mentioned previously the maximum range allowed is 9500 km, if you fail to find anything closer. Although this might seem like a lot, the servers being utilized to run Matched Play provide better latencies compared to typical community servers. For an anecdotal example: as a West Coast US player I experience on average 150 ms of latency to the East Coast US in community owned servers. For comparison: Our servers are allowing me to connect to the East Coast with 70-90 ms. And I can connect to EU within 130-150 ms - which is pretty much the maximum range allowed and therefore hopefully the most amount of latency one should expect.

What about stats? Will they be available to see?
At the end of each round played, yes. The post game stat screen will come up as normal. Outside of that, we have no plans to officially display the data publicly elsewhere. Any websites containing such detailed stats would have to come from 3rd party developers if desired.
Will we be notified if the NS2 window is minimized once the queue completes?
Yes! This was considered and designed from the start. We realize queues can often be a bit boring and therefore you may want to alt-tab to open your aim trainer or listen to music and read your 9,000 unread emails in the interim. As such, there are 3 distinct phases where your minimized window will flash yellow on the windows taskbar: Waiting for commanders to volunteer (once you have 12 players), the Map vote, and joining the server successfully.

Will 6v6 have balance changes or will it have the same balance changes as 10v10 ?
Yes there will be balance changes to accommodate the different type of experience, but it will not be done until after it has gone through its Beta stage. This is for two reasons : the Beta period is primarily for testing the core functionality of the system and to ensure it operates as expected, and during that time any balance issues we might not have predicted will show themselves in order for us to remedy. So while we have a long list of balance changes that have been in the pipe for months, we need to wait and observe to be sure. Additionally, this does not however imply that we will be maintaining two different games, our goal is to have the same experience. However if need be, we may make selective subtle adjustments and will clearly announce when this occurs. (There may be exceptions made to any of the above)

How will you manage disruptive and/or toxic players? There are a lot of players that are banned by all community servers but there's no centralized UWE ban list?
Great question! This is something that even the largest gaming studios struggle with when they do not have community run servers exclusively. We plan on leaning on a decaying player reporting system that automatically triggers temporary Matched Play bans that can add up to longer ones if they occur within certain timeframes. For an example only (these are not the actual values!) : if 8 unique players - more than just your own teammates to prevent griefing - report you for toxic behavior in a 24 hour period, the system can temporarily ban you from using Matched Play for 24 hours. If you are reported to the same degree again in the next 7 days, perhaps the system bans you for a week this time. After that time passes and you are playing again, if X amount of days pass with no incident, your status is reset. Essentially a built in decay time to your karma. If we see in our system a particularly bad actor who clearly has no intention of changing, we reserve the right to permanently ban them from the feature manually. We’ll have more info on this as we exit the Beta period.

How will you find matches for high leveled sanjis?
This is a very delicate matter for us. Due to the small number of players who obtain such a skill level, we realize that it can be difficult to pair up with others of similar skill. As explained already, the system tries its best to find the closest skill level and closest distance, but barring this we have ensured that there is a value we are testing (meaning it can be changed!) of a maximum 2,000 hive skill difference allowed. This means that a 5k skill player can match with a 3k skill player. And then due to how the lobby systems work by averaging out skill values based on the players who have joined, the lobby average changes to 4k, and now a 2k player can join. Rinse and repeat. This means that while the system will find you the best match in both ping and fairness, it will still allow a wider degree of skill ranges to play together if there is no other option available at the time. Expect the possibility of these values being changed as needed during the Beta period, as it's one of the major purposes behind this period.

Is Competitive mod enabled or is it standard vanilla? Configurable lobby options?
The servers will be running vanilla NS2 only during the Beta phase, and will not contain any configurable options. After this phase we may consider certain configurations to be voted on while players sit in a lobby. This was a large reason for us fully integrating NS2+ into the vanilla experience of the game. Additionally, the same default server consistency configuration will be in place, so if you wish to run your own crosshair or alien vision mods, you still can.

How are you planning to promote the gamemode for the current or returning playerbase? Rewards etc.?
We have lots of exciting plans for this that are being held back for after the Beta phase… we really want to encourage people to not just try the system but also be rewarded for putting in serious time and or effort with it. We’re looking primarily at cosmetic and vanity routes for rewards, but we’ll announce and show off more about this once we get closer to exiting the Beta phase.

Will you be able to reconnect after you have lost internet or crashed?
Yes, absolutely. It would be pretty hard to justify having “leaver penalties” if we prevented you from rejoining the match.

Will I be able to select lifeforms when queuing?
You will be able to select lifeforms once you have entered the “Planning Phase” in the lobby! Keep in mind this is only to communicate your intentions to your teammates and will not automatically save a lifeform for you or perform any other function. Your commander will have already been selected and displayed, but everyone else will be able to plan out what lifeforms they will play - even if the first round played will be Marines. This should help prevent those “Why do we have 5 Gorges?” scenarios.

What are the expected wait times to get into a match?
This is a really tough thing to predict, as it changes throughout the seasons of the year, sales, and patch updates etc. It is highly variable and ambiguous, largely depending on how many users are actively online and searching at that exact time. So we cannot give you a concrete number as a result. Our hope is that this feature might be preferred over waiting 45 minutes as a spectator in a server just to play - a regular occurrence right now. The primary goal of this system was to reduce the time between starting the game and actually getting in and playing.

What about streaming and spectating? Will they be available?
No, we have no plans for either of these things being available. That can still occur in community ran servers that will continue to have spectator slots. Matched Play is more about those who just want to get in and play.

Can you kick people from the lobby?
No, but you can mute their text or leave the lobby if you find them bothersome. Additionally you can initiate a server wide vote to kick a player once in the server,

How can I ensure if I play two or three games in a row they won't be full of the same exact crew?
One long term planned feature (that will not be in the Beta Phase) is to recall a lobby preference of yours. So if you exit a lobby that is not yet full because you don’t want to play with those same players, there will be a pop up prompt and on it there will be a checkbox for you to click on to prevent rejoining that lobby. Then the system will ignore that lobby on your next search. Keep in mind however that if this feature makes it in, that those players are free to move around to other lobbies just like you. In short, there is no foolproof method here, even if the player base was 20 times its current size.

Jul 2, 2021

[0701&0703] Bug fixes and adjustments for Forge&Artifact Version

鬼谷八荒 Tale of Immortal - AlphaHydra

[0701]

1. Optimized the problem of possible lag when opening the backpack.

2. Optimized the problem of possible lag within the battle.

3. Fixed the problem that in some cases, all the clothes refreshed from the Clothes Pavilion were the same.

[0703]

1. Added premium Interspatial Ring for sale in the main city market of regions 2 and all regions later.

2. Fixed an issue that could cause the game to get stuck when opening the stone in Fallen Valley under certain circumstances.

3. Fixed the problem that the yellowed map could not be obtained when receiving the clan task of killing the Qi Deviated Cultivator who had gone mad

4. Fixed an issue that caused the character to be uncontrollable when being taunted (the word effect of the Artifact Cerulean Bell) (now you can use Martial/Spiritual Skills and Special Skill after being taunted, but only in the direction of the taunter).

5. Fixed an issue where using the fire Motion Skill could cause the character to run out of the battle map.

6. Fixed the problem that the elixir could not be equipped across the echelon even if the elixir's nimbleness requirement was reached.

7. Added the function of opening more than one stone at a time in the Fallen Valley.

8. Added the function of skipping the animation when getting the Artifact Spirit.

9. Added the function of displaying the props that can be produced in the preparation interface of Fallen Valley and Soul Soulfeed Tower.

10. Optimized the drop rate in The Stone of Fallen Valley.

11. Optimized the condition that the Artifact Spirit needs to trigger an encounter to unlock the talent, which can be unlocked in another way.

12. Fixed the problem that using the Wraith Breath in the Fallen Valley will not consume the item.

13. Fixed the problem that the quality color of the artifact was not displayed correctly.

14. Fixed the problem that the skill damage of the artifact Emperor's Heavenly Sword was abnormal.

15. Fixed the problem that the Artifact Spirit may obtain locked talents effect after entering the battle.

16. Fixed the problem that the talent effect (increase the charge speed of martial Skill/Spiritual Skill effect) of the Artifact Spirit Yun Meng Yi did not take effect.

17. Fixed the problem that the talent effect (increase the damage of the summoner's charge skill) of the Artifact Spirit Wine Dust did not take effect.

18. Fixed the problem that the talent effect of the Artifact Spirit Dongfang Mu Qing (the summoner can restore health while restoring energy) did not take effect.

19. Fixed the problem that the effect of the technique (Seraphic) of the Artifact Spirit Yun Meng Yi was incorrect after use.

20. Fixed the problem that the technique (Diligent Cultivation) of the Artifact Spirit Jiang Lingge might be invalid after use.

21. Fixed the problem that the plot of the Artifact Spirit Wine Dust would be triggered in battle.

22. Fixed the problem that the effect duration of Tao Amethyst is infinite.

23. Fixed the problem that when using non-elixir props, it may also trigger the dialogue of the weapon spirit Dongfang Muqing (reply status).

24. Fixed the problem of incorrect output area in the description of the upgrade material of Artifact forging dust pellet.

25. Fixed the problem that some materials dropped by ordinary monsters were incorrectly dropped in the description of props.

26. Fixed the problem that NPCs do not find players when performing revenge acts.

27. Fixed the problem that the MingQi pool in the Fallen Valley might consume all the soul-attracting pearls.

28. Fixed the problem that the talent effect prompt of the Artifact Spirit would flicker.

29. Optimized the text description that shows the access to other materials according to the core materials put in when upgrading Artifact.

30. Optimized that when selecting materials for refining Artifact, auxiliary materials will be sorted from lowest to highest according to their impurities.

31. Fixed the selling price of Artifact.