Mar 24, 2022

Conan Chop Chop - FawkesAshes

We’ve just put out an update with a number of fixes and improvements. A big
thanks to all of you for the reports and feedback, which continue to be very
valuable.

Skill Points Bug

The team is hard at work on a final fix for an issue relating to their skill tree and
points, which caused some players to receive too many skill points. As a result, they
would not receive any additional points the next time they leveled up. This should
not happen anymore.

However, players who have experienced this may continue to not receive skill
points when leveling up. This will be resolved in our next patch, where we will reset
the skill tree and reallocate all points depending on your level. We thank you for
your patience in the meantime.

Fixed an issue affecting game stability which caused players to become stuck in
an infinite loading state when selecting 'Quick Retry' after defeat
Fixed an issue affecting game stability where segment transitions could cause an
infinite loading state
Fixed an issue affecting multiplayer game stability where players could not be
revived after a segment is cleared
Fixed an issue occurring in multiplayer games where a player could lose gear
and charms after re-joining a disconnected session
Fixed an issue causing the "King Conan" achievement to not trigger after being
earned by the player
Fixed an issue in multiplayer games where if a player had the inventory screen
open and another player left the active segment, the inventory screen could not be
closed
Fixed an issue affecting Ghoul Bombers where they could sometimes not be
killed
Fixed an issue that affected the speed at which players received max health
from Heart Containers
Fixed an issue causing a discrepancy in the number of Skill Points earned vs. the
listed amount when visiting the Trainer
Fixed a visual issue affecting bomb arrow perks
Fixed an issue causing the 'Extreme Focus' bow perk to not work correctly
Fixed an issue causing the tutorial to reset a player's active run
Fixed an issue where the Sand Status effect could inflict damage on familiars
Fixed a visual issue affecting the Sand Status effect
Fixed an issue where rarely, a purchased charm could be deleted while trying to
equip it

Updates to the 'EXP earned' formula
Updates to make the Snake Door cutscene skippable
Updates to on screen messaging regarding the Charm Swap feature
Visual updates to Belit's character
Visual updates to Mystic Pillars in all biomes
Visual updates to Spike Traps in dungeons
Updates to tutorial messaging around breakable items and character ultimates

Mar 24, 2022

Patch 0.8.8.0 Notes ( Damage model update )

Infinity: Battlescape - INovaeFlavien

Patch 0.8.8.0 (Saturday 12th March 2022)

This patch mostly focuses on gameplay balance changes, including a major damage model update. Meanwhile we've started our gameplay redesign/revamp phase to tighten the match loop and improve the battle experience. We're not ready to communicate on these yet (we need to implement the changes internally first and playtest them) but as soon as we do, we'll make a major announcement. This means that the next few months are probably going to slow down in terms of public patches: we'll mostly focus on balance updates (the damage model change in this update will probably mess up with the balance quite a bit, and need further adjustments), bug fixes and UI improvements.

Gameplay

Damage model

The most important gameplay change in this patch is an update to the damage model. All weapons now deal both kinetic (versus hull) and energy (versus shields) damage. Weapons that were previously considered kinetic (ex.: the machine gun) will deal a lot more kinetic than energy damage meaning that kinetics are no longer the most effective way to weaken shields. In the same way, blasters can now damage the target's hull and even finish it off. The weapons stats and DPS were rebalanced so that a mixed composition between kinetics and blasters is viable, versus all-kinetics configurations that
we saw in previous versions of the game (ex.: 4 Halcyons on the interceptor). The most kinetic damage a weapon deals and the less effective it will be against shields, and vice-versa. The extreme example of this is with railguns and plasma cutters, which still have a high DPS assuming you're using them against the right type of target.

Updated damage model for missile/torpedoes/mines explosions and splash damage: distribution of damage is now proportional to shield percentage (Ex.: at 50% shields, 50% of the total damage will be dealt to the shields and the remaining 50% to the hull)
Updated ship loadout/info cards to show both kinetic and energy DPS. Revamped a bit the weapons info panel to be less cluttered and only show the significant stats (note: still a WIP, missing a description for each weapon)
Updated AI to be smarter about weapons selection. They will now properly switch to other weapons when on cooldowns, over-heating, damaged or low on energy; expect the bots to frequently switch between kinetics and energy weapons on offense
Collisions damage is now purely kinetic and will ignore shields
Auto-firing AI turrets on capital ships will no longer ignore low-damagable targets if they have no better targets (previously, a kinetic turret wouldn't fire on a target with high shields and a blaster turret wouldn't fire on a target with low shields)

Weapons balance

Increased precision of all auto-aiming weapons (note: this will make capital ships more dangerous, be careful)
Updated hardpoint class of some weapons (flaks are now MK4 and can no longer be mounted on MK5s; same for railgun turrets)
Capital ships can no longer mount normal missile/torpedo launchers (only the array variants)
Railguns have been rebalanced with a higher firing rate and the ability to hit targets from a higher distance (up to 8 Km) which could give it an edge over standard weapons (which typically have a max range of 4 Km)
Capital ships MK4 repeater guns/blasters have been improved and should now feel more useful against small targets
Capital ships MK5 turret guns/blasters were also previously in a bad spot. They now deal significant and almost continuous damage against capital ships
Fixed gimbal turn speed and radius for Halcyons and Plasma cutters which was set far too high. They are now similar to other gimbaled guns

Ships balance

These changes were done to further refine these ships into their respective roles:

Removed all MK7 turrets from carrier (carriers are supposed to stay on the defensive side, therefore MK7s are not fitting their role)
Significantly increased carrier's maneuverability (linear and rotational thrust) and small increase of speed cap (we felt the carrier was dragging the whole fleet behind in terms of movement)
Removed 8 MK4 turrets from cruiser (we felt it had too good defensive small ships capabilities, which is supposed to be done by destroyers)
Small updates to default loadouts for capital ships (due to refitting the hardpoint classes of some weapons)

Upgrades

New available upgrades for ship loadouts:

Shield regen II: Boosts the shield regen rate by +50% at the expense of reducing the shield capacity by -30%. While the shield capacity reduction seems a huge downside, the faster regen might be very interesting especially in combination of the damage model update that will make kinetic weapons far less effective against a quickly recharging shield
Piercing ammo: Reinforced ammunition for kinetic weapons, negating a certain amount of armor plating points. Has no effect on targets without armor plating (like the interceptor) or shields
Gyro boost: Boosts gyro thrusters rotational acceleration by +50%. Does not affect maximum turn speed, making turning your ship more reactive, not faster

Flight Model

Fixed flight model for roll in most control schemes: when going back to idle (you stop rolling the ship), the torque force did not go down to zero as fast as it could, taking slightly too long
Removed ramp up propulsion factor in the flight model that often acted quirky. Replaced it by a speed cap when flying inside hangars (60 m/s) and garages (20 m/s)

We adjusted rotational thrust on small ships to better match the max rotational speed and feel a bit more responsive. This will mostly affect the roll axis:

Slight increase (+27%) to Interceptor's roll acceleration and slight decrease (-15%) in max roll speed
Large increase (+60%) to Bomber's roll acceleration
Large increase (+50%) to Corvette's roll acceleration

Flight plan

Flight plans are now functional when you're in a squad. The squad leader's flight plan is automatically shared in real-time amongst the squad members. The squad members can still show or edit their local flight plan, by toggling a mode in the right-click context menu on the starmap.

They can toggle back any time this mode to display again the squad leader's flight plan.

HUD / UI / Menus

Fixed starmap's filter options window which duplicated after toggling an option on/off
Updated ship info panel (on the left side) in the ship tab menu. We cleaned the panel, split it into two tabs (one for general info, one for detailed stats) and revamped the way the stats show up as a bar (they will now all default to the middle, and show relative increases/decreases bonuses based on ship upgrades). We think this will make it easier to see at a glance what stats are affected by an upgrade
Chat box now shows up in ship info panel in the bottom-left corner. The chatbox utilized a lot of layout space in all the menu tabs. We're considering removing the chat box from all these menu tabs, and instead replacing it with an icon that can be explicitely opened when you want to chat. This might get implemented in a future patch unless we see feedback that having the chat box opened at all time in all menus is requested from players
Added options to show FPS, Tricount, Ping, Network stats and Input thrust in general settings

Input / Controls

Updates to input mapper and key detection: added new options for key combos in key bindings menu
Fix for square vs circular-shaped joysticks axes
Fix for paired axes when applying power curve
Fix for deadzone in square axes corners
Added a new Legacy control scheme specifically for mouse (was old Direct control scheme for mouse)
Introduced a new control scheme specifically for Joysticks/Gamepads/HOTAS (was old Direct control scheme for joysticks). The game should automatically upgrade the old "Direct control" into this one when you launch the game with this patch the first time

General / Misc

Fix for Chinese IMEs (mouse clicks no longer work, Win32 message loop does not receive mouse events anymore)
Tweaks to default input configuration for XBox controller

Mar 24, 2022

March Quality of Life Update Now Live!

Don't Starve Together - Klei-JoeW

Hey everybody!

The March Quality of Life update is now live for all players! Once again, a huge thanks to everybody that joined us on the beta branch and sent in feedback and suggestions. That feedback directly helped influence and improve the final design of the new crafting menu.

There are still a few things that will be added throughout the next week(s). These include: Adding pages for the pinned recipe bar and changing them to be stored on the profile instead of per world, a system to support crafting refined ingredients directly from the currently selected recipe, optimizations, and mod support for adding new filters.

Crafting Menu Features

Redesigned the Crafting UI
Moved from items being in a specific tab to a filter approach, which allows players to easily find the items they are looking for.
Recipes can be added to a favorites
Recipes can be pinned to the side of the screen for quick crafting
Use the text search to find items by their localized name.
The size of the crafting menu can be scaled separately from the rest of the HUD.
Players who use controllers can:
Move and rotate the camera while the crafting menu is open
Use the right analog stick to navigate through the pinned recipes and craft them without opening the crafting menu

Wolfgang Changes

Wolfgang now gains a small amount of mightiness while performing physical activity, such as chopping and mining.
Improved the efficiency, durability and ingredient cost for all dumbbells.
Running with dumbbells equipped pauses the mightiness drain.
Increased the top rowing speed when Wolfgang is Mighty

Other Changes

The Ancient Guardian fight has been redesigned.
Items within a treasure chest can now be used when crafting.
Hound wave frequency has been reduced and Varglets will appear after the first year.
Fire and Ice hounds can now be adjusted in the world settings
Adjusted the crafting recipes for a number of items
Terra Firma Tamper and Tackle Receptacle now allow you to prototype the recipe, so you will not have to stand beside one every time you wish to craft their items.
And more!

Note about the crafting menu changes.

We are very aware that this is a drastic change however, moving away from the old menu allows us more freedom when adding craftable items. For example, the Tackle Receptacle and Terra Firma Tamper were only added because we did not want to add a dozen recipes into the survival and structures tab. With the new approach, this is no longer an issue. The Tackle Receptacle and Terra Firma Tamper have been changed to research stations, like the Science Machine, where you will be able to prototype the recipes, learning them forever.

We know that change can be difficult for some players. Please give the new menu a chance, consider the above information, and let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions over on the official forums.

The full patch notes are a bit... much. But if you wanna check them out, head over to the official forums.

New Item Skin Collection!

This new collection of 12 new skins can be purchased in The Gothic Belongings Chest for $11.99usd. As always, these items are also available as drops in-game and are weaveable using spool.

New Streaming Drops!

The Serpentine Storm Eater skin for the Lightning Conductor has been added to the streaming drops Nautical Collection. For a list of participating streamers, please see the official post here.

That's it for now!

I know we mentioned big news last week, but it needs a little more time before we can announce. Hopefully we'll be able to get it out in the next couple weeks.

While part of the team has been working on putting in the final touches on the crafting menu changes, the rest of the team has been hard at work on the next two updates.

One of those updates is the next character refresh. I wonder who it might be?

And with that, we are done. I think. Oh, yeah. You probably want one of these. Have fun out there everybody!

Mar 24, 2022

FM22 Final Winter Update Now Live

Football Manager 2022 - Jimmy Wong

The Final Winter Update for Football Manager 2022 is now available for PC/Mac, Xbox and Switch. This update includes activity from those transfer windows which closed during February, along with database updates and a few further gameplay fixes. There are also a number of gameplay adjustments designed specifically to address the upheaval caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.

Studio Director Miles Jacobson delivered a detailed explanation of the changes we’ve made and the rationale behind them in a recent blog.

The update will follow at a later date for FM22 Mobile (iOS/Android).

The update also contains fixes and improvements across multiple game areas. All gameplay adjustments will take effect in ongoing careers, while data and rule changes will not be implemented until a new career is started.

Changes in the 22.4 update include (but are not limited to):
- Competition updates, including 2022 promotion/relegation updates for numerous leagues outside of the standard European calendar
- Stability and crash fixes
- Network connectivity improvements for online modes
- A fix which allows users to change their manager profile picture
- Tweaks for AI loan offers, reducing the likelihood of offers with no financial contributions
- Multiple gameplay changes to reflect the current geopolitical situation.

A more detailed changelist is available on our community forums.

These updates should download automatically. If yours does not, quit and relaunch Steam or the Epic Games Store to prompt it to do so. If you’re playing via the Windows Store or Game Pass, you may need to manually search for the update – more information is available here.