Monday Night Combat Updates

Update 5 3/10/11

Summary
This update focuses on the new player experience. With the influx of players coming from PAX East we wanted to make sure that the new Monday Night Combat fans get to play with other new fans without getting rolled over by veterans. With the new All-Star Rating system players will be able to get an idea of their skill level vs the others on their server. The balance adjustments to armor endorsements and the default class changes were aimed at continuing this goal by making the newer players live longer but the veteran players, who are usually armed with custom classes, be more in balance when they use these endorsements.

New Features
• All-Star Rating System - The All Star system is a system to rate players so that they have more visibility into the overall skill level on each server. The All Star Rating is a continuously adjusting five star rating. Play well, it’ll go up. Play poorly and it’ll go down. We will improve the system in future updates as we get feedback and data.
• New Outlander Gear!
• New Penny Arcade’s Cardboard Tube Samurai Uniform for Assassin!
• New Taunts while wearing Outlander Gear!
• : New votekick functionality. A player initiates a vote by typing in the console. PLAYER can be the player's name or their player number from the . Once a vote is in progress, other players type or in the console. If ⅔ of players vote to kick, the player will be removed and not allowed to return for some period of time. The exclusion period increases greatly with each subsequent votekick.


Fixes
• Fixed issue with grapples after getting knocked into the air
• Fixed rare case of Assassin getting a back grapple when she is actually in front of her target.
• Fixed Ping display in scoreboard
• Dedicated blitz servers immediately end rounds and return to lobby when all players have left the game.


Balance
• Reduced the benefits of armor endorsements for Assault, Support, Sniper and Assassin.


Adjustments
• New Game Summary display before the end game scoreboard
• Altered the default Assassin and Sniper builds to include armor endorsements
• Increased the chance of JuiceBot spawning during a game in honor of PAX East


Dedicated Server
• Dedicated Servers can set the Max Star Rating for the server by adding ?MaxStarRating=[0-4] to the commandline options. This is a zero based index so the actual value is +1 the entry (ie 0 = 1 star)
• Updated commandline and UI support, updated batch files to support AllStar Rating