Jul 27, 2022

Kindred Fates: Combat Arena - FlyPurpleSky

Time to dust off that gamepad.

This patch brings some much needed improvements to controller support, the feel of melee combat, and even how smoothly you can string abilities together! We’ve also given the settings page a complete overhaul with new settings, art, and improved key binding. Last but not least, we’d like to introduce you to Lock On 2.0, a new version of the lock on mechanic that aims to improve the feel of combat while correcting the shortcomings of its previous incarnation.

Try out combat on controller, tinker with the settings page, and find the configuration that works best for you. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think of the new changes!

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

IMPROVED CONTROLLER SUPPORT

Camera and character movement speed is now based on how far you push the control sticks in a direction, rather than being a constant speed when a stick is moved at all. This greatly improves the feel of gameplay on a controller.
Button bindings displayed in the combat UI are now updated in real time depending on which controller the player is currently using. Supported controllers include:
- Xbox family of controllers
- Playstation family of controllers
- Nintendo Switch Pro controller
- Most generic gamepads
- Keyboard and mouse
In order for controller support to work properly we strongly recommend you do not use 3rd party programs that enable the use of controllers like DS4 Windows.
Improved default key bindings for controllers.
Input from keyboards and controllers are now allowed at the same time.
Button bindings are now displayed slightly larger in the combat UI.
Party combat UI now displays button bindings.

NEW SETTINGS PAGE

The settings page has received a complete rework with brand new UI!
You may now bind up to 3 different inputs to a key binding.
New setting that when toggled on, allows the user to press the same button to fire an ability that they pressed to activate it (this setting disables canceling an ability while aiming). This setting is very helpful when playing on controller.
New setting that when toggled on, allows the user to press a button to activate an ability, continue holding the button to aim it, and release the button to fire it. This setting is very helpful when playing on controller.
Improved duplicate key binding handling.

LOCK ON 2.0

With this patch we’re introducing a new and completely revamped version of the lock on mechanic. We took your feedback to heart after the initial version of lock on was removed, and have made many improvements to correct the mechanic’s previous issues. We hope you’ll give this new version a chance, and let us know what you think of it!

By default, lock on is bound to middle mouse click, or L1 on controller.
Tapping the button will enable lock on and cause the camera to track the Kinfolk your cursor is nearest to. Tapping it again will unlock the camera from the target.
The camera’s lock on the target will be broken if your view of the target is obscured for more than 3 seconds. Once you can see the target again you may press the lock on button to lock back on.
Some abilities, like Teleport, will automatically break the camera’s lock on the target. This allows you to still sneakily warp behind your opponent and catch them off guard or hide behind an object, even if they were locked on to you.
While the player has no ranged basic attack equipped, lock on will track the target very closely. We found that this significantly improved the feel of melee combat.
If the player has a ranged basic attack equipped, lock on will keep the target in view, but will not track it closely.
While the player is aiming any non-basic attack, lock on will keep the target in view, but will not track it closely.

OTHER

New impact VFX have been added to basic melee attacks.
Impact VFX are now properly rotated to match the direction of the attack.
NPC AI now faces the player more often in combat.
Added Avieon beacon to practice room.
The auto-land when near ground setting has been temporarily disabled due to a bug. Double tapping the Jump button while flying will still cancel flight.

BALANCE CHANGES

GENERAL

Kinfolk can now act before an attack animation has fully completed. The point at which Kinfolk are able to begin a new action during the animation depends on the ability that is being used, and the animation of the Kinfolk using it. Most abilities however, allow the user to act after 80% of the animation has completed. This new action could be using another ability, shielding or dodging.

By giving you better control over your character’s actions like this, we found it significantly improved the fluidity of combat and overall game feel.

KINFOLK

Slyphur: Swipes combo speed increased due to faster animation transitions listed above.

Shovlet: Earth Swipes combo speed increased due to faster animation transitions listed above.

Stamina required to jump has been set to 0 for all Kinfolk. We plan to make further improvements to jumping in the future.

ABILITIES

Crescent Strike: Added more wind up time to the first strike. 2nd and 3rd, strike combo speed increased due to faster animation transitions listed above.

Dive Bomb: Improved collision detection and momentum after collisions.

Shield: The user now only becomes invincible once the shield VFX is displayed.

Hook: Shield Damage increased from 30 to 100.

BUG FIXES

Fixed a bug with Shield that caused the Kinfolk’s animator to become stuck sometimes.
Fixed a bug with Reflect that allowed the reflected projectile to still damage the user.
Fixed a bug that caused the user to move during dash attacks before the animation had started.
Fixed a bug that caused Poison and Burn status effects to continue triggering while the Kinfolk was not swapped in.
Fixed a bug that allowed the user to swap Kinfolk while Snared.
Fixed a bug with Scorch that caused the Scorch projectiles to rotate in strange ways.
Fixed a bug with Iron Fist that caused the projectile to rotate in strange ways.
Fixed a bug that prevented minion projectiles from expiring properly.
Fixed a bug that caused Escape Draft to expire before the character swap had occurred.
Fixed a bug that caused Thunder Clap’s animation to not complete properly.
Fixed a bug that required Kinfolk to be damaged twice before waking up from sleep.
Fixed a bug that caused Embear’s “out of sleep” animation to take an abnormally long time to transition back to idle.
Fixed a bug that caused Lumala’s rare idle animation to play while moving.
Fixed a bug with Avieon that caused them to slowly drift upwards while hovering in place.
Fixed a bug with Salamurder that caused them to become stuck in their animation for a short time after using Howl.
Fixed a bug that caused the frame rate to fall through the floor when the settings menu was displayed.
Fixed a bug that caused Fear to not affect terrestrial Kinfolk.
Fixed a bug that prevented ranged attacks from being animation canceled within their intended cancel windows.
Fixed a bug that allowed players to move before a round had officially started.
Fixed a bug that allowed players to easily leave the bounds of the arena.
Fixed a bug that caused lock on to behave differently when used on a gamepad.

KNOWN ISSUES

The new animation transition changes have introduced instances where it is possible to dodge at times that are not intended. We will continue to improve this in future patches.
Lock on incorrectly uses the “keep in view” mode when it should use the “track closely“ mode with certain character set ups. We have not observed the reverse situation to occur.
It is currently possible to become stuck in certain difficult to reach places in the Cavern Arena.
Certain areas of the Cavern arena are currently accessible that are not intended to be.
While a visualization is displayed when a Kinfolk has its stats raised or lowered, there is currently no visualization to display how much a Kinfolk’s stats have been raised or lowered. We plan to add visualizations to address this in a future patch.
When your party is revived after they all die in the Practice Room, the Kinfolk in your first slot is not revived.
Some of the visual effects for Crush are not properly displayed in the Practice Room.
The damage descriptions for several abilities that do not have Tick Damage, show a total Tick Damage amount.
Occasionally, players with low ping do not return to the current starting position between rounds.
Occasionally, attempting to cancel searching for a game results in the matchmaker locking up.
Often times teams can not be edited while searching for a game.
Several abilities currently use placeholder VFX and sound effects, or do not yet have sound effects at all.

Jul 27, 2022

July 2022 Update (27th)

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising - MrGameTheory505

Hey there heroes,

First let’s get to a very important topic - Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising.

We have finished our Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising post-mortem and wanted to be transparent about how we plan to address the many issues that occurred during the Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising code distribution process.

It’s clear we need to lock down backer platform selection sooner. The goal is to send out final backer platform selections within the next few months. This will allow us to send an extra month or two to fill in any gaps for backers who haven’t responded/have used different Emails/haven’t filled out their surveys.

There was some confusion where Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising was believed to be free or that it was actually the main game Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. But now that Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising has been released, we won’t have that confusion moving forward.

The customer service team has been increased to handle the larger than expected number of customer service tickets.

We plan to order more codes as a buffer. This should guarantee we do not run out of codes which would cause a delay in fulfillment timing.

These resource changes should help us navigate the massive undertaking of fulfilling Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. We plan to move faster to have enough buffer to avoid these issues in the future and hopefully earn back your trust.

If you have any ongoing issues with Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising feel free to contact us at pr@rabbitandbearstudios.com

Premium Backer Rewards

We are very close to finalizing the specific criteria of each premium backer reward and process for confirming identities for each backer. All premium backers will be contacted over the next 2-3 months. We will mention that contact Emails have been sent out via updates so that you’ll know they have and can ping us if you haven’t received an Email.

Thank you very much for your understanding and patience.

**Two Year Kickstarter Anniversary**

Murayama: It’s already been two years since the madness of the Kickstarter campaign. We’re still moving forward now, thanks to the power and courage that everyone’s support gives us.
Kawano: We’re in our second summer of this project now thanks to everyone. We just released Eiyuden Rising, so I tried drawing the characters of Rising this time around.
Komuda: Over these two years, we’ve been using your support as our fuel as we work together and move full steam ahead. I hope we’ll be able to show you what we’re working on little by little as time goes on.
Murakami: We're in our second summer of working on Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, but it's still at the front of our minds and we're working hard to deliver a game that everyone will love.
We might even be able to show you some of it soon!

Murayama's Monthly Development Report
This season, every new day in Japan is a hot one, but we’re still working and managing all the twists and turns that come our way.

One of my hobbies is playing board games – games that use wooden pieces and paper boards, versus the ones you can play on a computer. My personal favorite game is Carcassonne, a game where you build towns and roads.

My policy toward game systems is that they should be as simple as possible while also allowing for as many variables as possible. This may be due to the experiences I’ve had playing board games.

When you add complicated elements and systems to computer games, the computer can easily do the calculations and operations needed to support them. With board games, however, humans are the ones who need to do the calculations and manage the rules, so the more complicated the calculations needed to prep a strategy, the greater the stress it puts on the players. Therefore, board games require the creator to cut away needless elements and refine the system as much as possible.

In the end, you’re left with an extremely refined board game with what I would call a beautiful game system. This is very obvious in the games designed by Alex Randolph, a very famous board game designer, which include games such as Ghosts!, DOMEMO, and especially Venice Connection.

I wanted to make sure the mini-games in Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes inherit that flavor, so I’ve been discussing this sort of thing with the team daily. As we continue talking to each other and doing trial and error with various things, the final version of Eiyuden is slowly coming together. We can’t show you all of it just yet, but we’ll be sure to show you what we can first as thanks for all your support.

＜動画＞

A Word from the Team
J-Diary Vol. 6

Unrelated to anything, but recently I finished watching Season 4 of Stranger Things on Netflix.

Hi, I'm Murakami J. It's been a while. That scene with Eddie was so crazy, I've been listening to Metallica every day as I work.

Sorry for starting off with a very niche topic. Has anyone else watched that show? It's a story about kids that takes place in a rural American town, and was very appealing to me as someone who loves Goonies and Stand By Me. It's also set in the 80s, which was perfect for me, so it pulls at my heartstrings every time I watch it. The level of detail they put into the fashion, music, and culture from the time period is really amazing.

Recently, a lot of monumental works across various genres of the 80s have been getting revivals, such as the movies Top Gun: Maverick and Ghostbusters, the Cobra Kai TV, etc. Work has been so busy that there's a lot I haven't been able to see yet.

But it's really fun to watch these things, as you can tell that the creators have deep passion for the works that influenced them. And love creates new masterpieces.

I believe that masterpieces can be enjoyed forever. We learn from them and yearn to revive the happy parts of our memories in fun new forms.

It's been a while since I reported on what's going on in the studio, so here goes. Currently we've reached the peak of our mass graphic production phase, so every day we're super busy and always wishing we had more people on our team.

The field is almost completely full of areas. We aren't reusing a lot of assets for Eiyuden, so every time we finish creating something, we find ourselves with yet another challenge to overcome.

As for the pixel art, our main members just keep getting older and older. (LOL) It was really hard for us to find people who were young, good at drawing pixel art, and who actually WANTED to draw pixel art, so this is just what we ended up with when we searched for the best of the best.

Veterans are truly reliable, though. We just need to make sure our pixel art staffers take proper care of their health. (LOL) As of now, people who can draw pixel art are valuable treasures of the game industry. Let's take good care of them!! Thanks to all their passion, the game is slowly coming together.

I think we'll be able to show you some progress or an event scene or two in a little bit, so I hope you're excited.

Oh, there's one thing I wanted to mention. We've also reached the point where we need to start working on the in-game backer assets for those backers who helped us achieve victory in our Kickstarter campaign. We deeply value all the support you gave us, so we're going to work hard on this. Soon, we'll need to get some info from you all in order to start working on this (we're preparing for it now), so please help us out when the time arrives.

That's it, really. As usual, I have a ton of things to do, and I'm just trying my best to scratch them off one as one while putting up with the heat. That reminds me... It seems like this year's summer is going to be filled with extreme heat and irregular temperatures all around the world. (And we still have covid to worry about... But I'm more worried about that for the time being)

Please make sure to stay safe and healthy, everyone!

Sorry the message isn't longer this time around, but I've got a lot of work to get back to. See you next time!

Jul 27, 2022

Outfit Wars - Nexus Season 01

PlanetSide 2 - dsosa

Welcome to Outfit Wars
Outfit Wars is a tournament-based event where outfits (organized groups of players) compete against one another to show who is the most prepared, coordinated, and fearsome on the field of battle. Outfits will fight for leaderboard placement match after match in hopes of achieving rewards, recognition, and maybe some bragging rights. Below we'll walk through how Outfit Wars has changed in 2022, so that you can prepare to claim victory in the upcoming season.

Phases of War
There are four main phases in Outfit Wars (Enlistment, Qualifiers, Playoffs, and Championships) that take place over the course of seven weeks.

Enlistment - When the Enlistment phase begins (Aug. 03,) any outfit with at least 48 players can sign up to participate after paying the resource entry fee. At that point, at least 48 players from that outfit must confirm their participation to verify the Enlistment.
This is slightly different from last year, and is intended to reduce the amount of "ghost outfits" capable of signing up. While 48 members are required to validate the signup, they are not the only outfit members allowed to play. Any outfit member can jump into a match that has begun, provided their outfit rank has the "Outfit War" assigned. These privileges are determined by your outfit's leadership.
Qualifiers - When the first week of Qualifiers begins, Enlisted outfits will immediately be assigned their upcoming match day and times. Matches take place once per week on a Friday or Saturday at 8pm or 8:30pm server time. When that week's matches are over, placements for the next week will be determined, and new match times will be assigned. This gives outfits an entire week to get organized and stock War Asset supplies as necessary.
Playoffs - After four rounds of Qualifiers, the top eight outfits will make their way into the Playoffs. The first-round Playoff winners will then move into the final Playoffs matchup to determine who will match up against one another in the Championships.
Championships - When the final Playoffs match is complete, their scores will determine the Gold/Silver and Bronze/Fourth place matchups. Placement in this last match determines the final winners in the Outfit Wars season. Championship games will take place exclusively on Saturday, with the Bronze/Fourth place battle starting at 12pm server time and the Silver/Gold matchup at 12:30pm server time.

The 1v1 Format
For the new season, outfits will be pitted against one another in one-versus-one combat on the battle island of Nexus.

When a match begins two teams of up to 48 players can travel to their match on Nexus.
Each match has a 20 minute preparation phase, during which players can enter the zone and start getting organized. Players are confined to the Warpgate during this time.
When the preparation phase ends, a 45 minute match timer begins, and no other players will be allowed into the match.
The Colossus and Bastion Fleet Carrier are unavailable on Nexus, though other War Assets are fair game.
Construction is unavailable on Nexus as well, though ANTs are still available without terminal access.
Continent lock benefits, and boosts to Nanite gains are not in effect on Nexus.
The snowy battleground of Nexus is divided into two Warpgates and nine bases. The three center bases begin neutral, and the three bases nearest each Warpgate begin owned by their respective faction.
When the alert begins, players will be released from their Warpgates, and be able to begin capturing and defending these bases.
The team with the most controlled territory at the end of the alert, or the team who can connect their Warpgate to the opposing faction's Warpgate, will win the match.

Win/Loss and Bracket Points
At the end of each match cycle, outfits will be sorted into their next matchups based on who has the strongest win/loss record. When ties in win/loss record exist, Bracket Points determine who has the better overall standing.

Each match on Nexus has a pool of 500 points that outfits are capable of earning. Once per minute, two points from this pool are given to an outfit for each base they currently own. In the case of a dominating victory, and remaining points in the pool are given to the victorious outfit.

This mechanic is meant to incentivize aggressive play where scoring a decisive victory is going to be more beneficial than a long, drawn out encounter. It also helps more quickly segment outfits of varying skill levels throughout the Qualifiers.

Same Faction Fighting
For the first time, we will be allowing outfits from the same faction to fight one another whenever the matches line up that way. Each team will be assigned to either the Red or Blue team while on Nexus, and your tracer fire, abilities, and HUD indicators will be updated to follow suit. We've also made accommodations for setting your own HUD indicator colors while specifically on Nexus. Nanite Systems Operatives players who have chosen a home faction will now also be able to compete alongside their outfit.

Rewards
Outfit Wars rewards come in a few varieties, though the awards listed are subject to change:

Each match on Nexus awards ISO-4 when the alert ends, for all participants.
Any character that has ended at least one match on Nexus will be eligible for placement rewards.
Placement rewards are made available for outfits who make it into the Playoffs and beyond.
A special Outfit Wars profile banner is available for outfits in the top eight and higher, while unique Bronze, Silver, and Gold banner frames will be available for the top three outfits.
When Outfit Wars ends, statues for the victorious outfits will remain visible in Sanctuary until the next season begins.