Nov 13, 2023

PlanetSide 2 - Mithril

Hello, fellow Auraxians! We're thrilled to bring you this development update, giving you a sneak peek into some of our upcoming plans for PlanetSide 2 and some clarity on our intentions for future communication and better transparency. To kick things off, let’s talk about what’s coming this week: Outfit Wars!

Outfit Wars – Nexus Season 2

The Enlistment Phase for Nexus Season 2 begins Nov 15th, and the first round of qualifiers for the new season of Outfit Wars begins December 1st! We are excited to host this event this year and are looking forward to watching this year’s matches play out. Feedback around the timing of this year’s event along with the concern over player participation is something we have noted. Although today’s letter will not get into many details about future Outfit Wars plans, we want to share that we will review the event and will consider some future adjustments. We will have more details on what that entails when the time is right. Learn more about this year’s Outfit Wars here.

Game fixes and a new future

Undoubtedly, the departure of one of our key team members has impacted our communication with you all in recent months. However, we want to assure you that the current team is more than capable of carrying on the PlanetSide legacy, and we have some exciting plans ahead. As we regain our footing, consider this the first of monthly dev updates we plan to publish moving forward. Our Community Manager Mithril will continue to gather vital feedback and bug reports via post-patch notes on Reddit, forums and social threads. We will also do our best to address your questions and concerns on those channels as timely as possible.

Moreover, we're delighted to inform you that our dev team has welcomed some new members in recent months and has been actively tuning in to your feedback from various channels such as our forums, community Reddit, Discord, and social media channels.

In the past couple of months, we have released various game fixes and miscellaneous additions to the game which you can check out here. For each subsequent update in the coming months, we will continue to focus on fixing critical bugs and other malfunctioning mechanics wherever possible. Several new game fixes have been prepared, and we can’t wait to have you check them out. As we want you to have a fun gaming experience on Auraxis, we hope these fixes will remedy some of the pain points of the game.

As we need a little more time to announce the entire roadmap for 2024, we're eager to share details on some of our current projects. Here's a sneak peek at one of the many things we are working on! 

Capture the Conduit Update

Current State of Capture the Conduit

In its current state, Capture the Conduit (CTC) suffers from many issues and is recognized as being a hassle to play with. We hear you. Here are some of the issues we are reviewing with the current CTC status.

Long capture times
Repository, flag, and hard spawn placement often makes them too easy to defend
Even when a base is undefended capturing it can take a while
While capturing a base it is too easy for defenders to reset the capture progress
The base status information on the map is difficult to parse
It is difficult to get a sense of urgency based on the UI
It is difficult to ascertain the exact status of the base based by only the conduit count
The faction roles are extremely limited, with 1 faction being the attacker and the other a defender
This leads to more static concentrated battles without good in-base flow

With all of this in mind, we created a set of goals we want to achieve with this update:

Change the Capture the Conduits mechanics to improve capturability of bases
Improve map flow within bases
Make the status and urgency of bases more apparent in the user interface

Before we continue describing the changes, we understand the common question asked by the community is: “Why not get rid of Capture the Conduit entirely?” The current iteration of Capture the Conduit moves the game away from what we are trying to accomplish. One of our big picture goals moving forward is to minimize the repetitive nature of capturing territory and to increase the diversity of tactics, loadouts, and play styles the game supports. Having only one way to capture a base narrows the scope of the game when one of its strengths should be its openness.

How the new Capture the Conduit will work

To solve many of these problems listed above, we will be "hybridizing" Capture the Conduit bases with more traditional Capture Points. This should make many aspects of capturing a base more readable, familiar, and reliable while still maintaining the more interesting aspects of needing to capture conduits.

How the new system will work:

Bases are no longer captured by bringing the number of strikes to zero by delivering Conduits to Repositories.
Instead, bases are captured via the traditional method of holding capture points until the overall base is captured and changes ownership. The new system will use conduits to activate repositories, turning them into capture points.
Once a repository is activated, it behaves like a normal capture point until the base is captured, or the capture point progress is reversed and deactivated.
Activating a repository will grant some amount of immediate capture progress, giving attackers a buffer from recapture.
Currently, more flags can be captured to speed up the capture process. This is one of the mechanics that we are looking for public testing and feedback on.
Overall, conduits themselves will behave the same, and be subject to the same rules and restrictions as they are now.

Soon we will be releasing one or two of the updated bases to the test server for playtesting and feedback. On top of checking that the mechanics are functioning properly, we want to pay particular attention to the timings involved in capturing a base, such as empty vs. defended and how the balance of population affects the capture times.

Additional Updates

As part of the new CTC update, we are also reviewing the 22 Capture the Conduit bases. Here, we will be evaluating and adjusting elements like the placement of conduits, repositories, spawn locations, and sunderer locations. The goal here is to adjust them to accommodate the new mechanics and improve overall flow. As a result of the evaluation, and on rare occasions, some bases may revert from Capture the Conduit back to their previous base type.

Here is Andvari Barracks on Esamir an example of the kinds of changes we are making:

We’ve added more protected Sunderer positions to help sustain attacks.
Line of sight directly to the spawn room now has obstructions to increase protection from sniping.
We’ve placed much more cover between the spawn room and critical areas of the base to reduce the amount of time defenders are completely exposed.

Looking forward to your feedback on these updates in our forums. Don’t forget to follow the latest PS2 discussions our X, and Facebook.

We want to thank you all for your continued support and passion for this game that we all love. We’re looking forward to celebrating our 11th anniversary with everyone this Nov 20th and can’t wait for another amazing year on Auraxis with you all. We’ll see you planetside!

- PlanetSide 2 Team

Nov 13, 2023

Major Update 4: Prime

Trinity Fusion - >:3 Robo_Leader

Hello, Hitchhiker.

Welcome to Major Update #4! This will be the last of the Major Updates before the 1.0 release of the game. Speaking of, we have a new trailer for that...

That's right, Trinity Fusion leaves Early Access on December 15th! Before that though, we have some new stuff that's ready to go for all our current Early Access players.

This update comes with some huge shakeups to player progression, unlocking all three playable characters from the start, and it includes changes that open up new routes through each run, allowing players to jump between universes by traveling though the In-Between.

It also includes several new weapons for Altara, giving her some much cooler weapons to play with compared to what she had before. Let's get to the patch notes:

Localization updates

By very popular demand, we've added a Brazilian Portuguese localization!

Optimization and graphics tweaks

In anticipation for the upcoming console release, we've made sweeping optimizations as well as changes to the graphics in The Wastes, Underground Lab, Forge and Subterraria. Everything should look and run even better than before. Take a look at Underground Labs:

Progression Tweaks

All characters are now unlocked upon the player's first visit to the Citadel.
When leaving the In-Between, you can now select which universe to continue your run in.
Players no longer have to fuse characters to travel from one universe to another mid-run.
Hardcore Mode is now locked until the player defeats the Extant Decay, Steward One and the Ewer Eminence.

New Weapons

Blaze Bombs - A new weapon for Altara. Throws a spread of fire projectiles that will immediately set enemies and the ground around them ablaze. Offers great damage over time and does bonus damage on direct hit.

Defense Grid - A new weapon for Altara. Electric orbs that stick onto surfaces and enemies that create a point-to-point beam of energy between them. Defense Grid orbs stuck to enemies deal additional damage, at the cost of a reduced lifetime.

Resonance Star - A new weapon for Altara. A chargeable projectile that ricochets off of walls and between enemies, with a chance to inflict Weak on anything it damages.

Heavy Repeater - A new weapon for Naira. A variant of the Repeater that deals significantly more damage per shot at the cost of a significantly reduced ammo capacity. Firing the weapon in the air also provides Naira with a small boost.

Hyper Mode

Available when playing on Survivor difficulty, Hyper Mode increases your base damage resistance increases each time you die, making subsequent runs slightly easier. Hyper Mode can be enabled or disabled at any time from the Gameplay tab in the Settings menu.

Other updates:

Fixes for the softlocks that have been reported here on the Steam Forums and on our Discord server.
Altara’s Arc Pulse weapon now leaves electrical traps on the ground wherever they bounce.
Damage over time effects can no longer kill the player, stopping at 1 HP.
Explosion sounds from multiple sticky bombs should no longer be deafeningly loud when something causes them all to go off at once.
Weapons now fade out nicely when not in use.

Wrapping up

That's it for Major Update #4. This is our last Major Update before we leave Early Access and launch into 1.0 We want to thank everyone who's supported us so far, and we hope you enjoy the update. Fow now, it's time for us to get back to work and wrap this thing up. We still have to put the finishing touches on the rest of the story and the fused worlds.

As always, you can keep up with the latest news about the game on https://twitter.com/TrinityTheGame and on our Discord!

Nov 13, 2023

Patch Notes November 13, 2023

Tower Song Playtest - Ishin - OI

The Kido Desert, Patch #2 v0.16.2.0-beta

Steam Cloud Saves

Steam Cloud saves are now being tested for this game. This does require save files to be associated with individual users, which means that your previous save files will not be found by the system.
Chapter Select may be used to recover lost progression, or you may follow the instructions below to recover your old save files.

Save File Recovery Instructions

If your save files are missing after this patch, this is due to the Steam Cloud now associating save files with individual Steam accounts. To recover your save files, follow the following steps:

1. Open your local Tower Song files

Right click on Tower Song in your Steam Library or click on the cog icon in the Tower Song library menu to display the menu. Highlight "Manage", then click on "Browse local files."

For Steam Deck users: You will need to do the above step in the Desktop mode for your Steam Deck. With the Steam Deck powered on, hold the Power Button until the option appears to enable Desktop mode.

2. Find the save folder

Windows and Steam Deck: For Windows and Steam Deck users, Step 1 should open the file explorer window to the Tower Song installation location. Find the folder named "save".

Mac: For MacOS users, Step 1 should open the Finder window to the Tower Song installation location. Right click on TowerSong.app and click on "Show Package Contents". Go into the "Contents" folder, followed by the "Resources" folder. In the Resources folder, find the folder called "app.nw", then find the folder named "save".

3. Move save files to appropriate places

Once inside the "save" folder, you should see several .rmmzsave files. Those are all of your old save files.

You should also see a folder named with several numbers, such as 18552391 or 23585823. Each folder corresponds to a different Steam account that has played Tower Song on that device. If you do not see a folder with a name like that, that means that Steam Cloud has not created a folder for your save yet. Close your file explorer window, play Tower Song through Steam, start a new game and make any save at any given opportunity, then repeat Steps 1 and 2 above.

To recover your old saves, copy and paste all of the .rmmzsave files from the "save" folder into the numbered folder with your account number. The first time synchronizing with the cloud can be unpredictable, so we recommend copy-pasting instead of moving so that the old file can be accessed again. Be sure not to delete the steam_autocloud.vdf file in that directory.

After doing this step once, your files should now be automatically synchronized with the cloud.

Patch Notes Continued

Art

New Bandit art!

Combat

Wild Infection's Burst has a new, quicker animation (thanks to fairburrito254!), and also does more damage to its allies
Wild Infection's Violent Dispersal also has a new animation
Fungus HP => +200%; this better aligns the fight to incentivize the Wild Infection combat puzzle

Levels

Layouts revised for Wolf Den & Wet Cavern

Bug Fixes

Players can once again access the west side of Fort Elledis
Players can no longer climb onto the ceiling in the mines
Playtest no longer inadvertently ends when accessing Vistham from the Northgate side on the overworld
Code no longer appears in Solace's camp dialogue options
Fixed typos and dialogue misorderings throughout dialogue
Switchable track in the second mine cart puzzle now makes more visual sense
Solace now appears when speaking in the Bridge Fight scene
Fixed a bug where spell help descriptions were being cut off incorrectly
Jiji now Sulks Home when taking Wound damage
Jiji applyies Manaward to himself when summoned in combat

Nov 13, 2023

Damned 2 Demo - Update 0.01.1477

Damned 2 - 9heads

Hello everyone,

Patch 0.01.1477 is now live. Today's update includes a new playable survivor, Hudson.
We've also made several AI fixes, balance improvements, and general bug fixes.

We will soon announce the Playtest version of Damned 2 here on Steam, this will make it easier to focus our community on just one build of the game, and will also make it easier to collect feedback from all players.

Survivors

Added new Survivor, Hudson.
Updated all survivors' textures and materials.
Tweaked some animations.
Survivors now have a more relaxed animation during the pre-match lobby.

Interface

Items picked by survivors show for other survivors and ghosts in the tab interface. It scrolls to the side if too many items are in the inventory. With shared inventory, items shared only show in the inventory.
Added a new button to add/remove monster AI.
Added AI card when monster AI is enabled.
Added new icon to all survivors.
Monster AI now gets disabled when the lobby is full.
The player card now updates the voice chat button when changed in the settings.
The player card now shows the button icon to use the voice chat.
Removed the duplicated Monster AI option from the Game Options window.
Improved inventory items size and position.
The chat anti-flood system now reset after some time.
Added game version number for feedback control.
Password interface now auto-focus.
Added feedback for joining a game with a password.

Balance

Increased Ghost's walk speed from 250 to 302.
Increased Ghost's sprint time from 3 to 7.
Decreased Ghost's sprint speed from 250 to 200.

Gameplay

Increased the number of guarantee valves in the last opened room from 1 to 2.
Fool's Trap destroys sound effects now play when it is destroyed, not at the end of the final effect.
Fool's Trap end effect now changes the destroy effect to orange.
Added visual effect for the monster to see the Fool's Trap area.

Visuals

Decreased the size of the particle effect for random preview in the lobby.
Improved the visibility of the monster preview particle in the lobby.
Improved the visibility of the Pressure Puzzle's symbols

Map

Decreased number of spawn in the Pantry and Dining Room.
Changed various shelves to make it clear that they should not be searched.
Small changes at the Game Room.
Added more details in the Closet, Stockroom and Corridors.
Removed drawers spawn points from the wooden cabinet when it have no drawers.

Fixes

Partial fix for the mute button in the Lobby.
Fixed end game screen button visual problem.
Fixed monster AI not hunting after the first hunting.
Fixed camera shake option not turning off monster movement camera shake.
Fixed monster able to see puzzle door's light.
Possible fix for items not spawning.
Fixed End game interface button cutting at the bottom.
Possible fix for characters bumping into invisible collisions.
Fixed AI preview not showing in the lobby when already selected.
Optimized objects executing an extra heavy code at the start of the game.
Possible fix for items not spawning.
Fixed Pressure decoder collision.
Fixed metal cabinet collision.
Fixed path being created on top of tables in the Party Hall for the AI.
Fixed multiple path issues for the AI in the Waiting Room and Party Hall.
Fixed AI getting stuck in small doors.
Fixed monster AI showing hit effect for the server.
Fixed shared inventory interaction with puzzles.
Fixed delay after inserting a Valve to the Pressure Puzzle.
Fixed the possibility of items spawning behind some drawers. 💀
Fixed some objects draw distance.
Fixed the same unlock message appearing multiple times in the chat.

Meet Hudson