This update introduces a massive change to the scoring system. I’ve been observing how you guys have been playing the game non-stop over the last 4 years changing and manipulating what’s there to give you all hopefully the most engaging experience. You may have also noted the bump from 0.9.8 to 0.9.9. Yeah ;)
Balance is not easy. While I want to challenge the fuck outta you, I also don’t want to overwhelm or intimidate new players. I personally think so far that’s worked out. Every time a new player comes up (at events) they always doubt themselves, but once they jump in, if it clicks with them of course, they start to ask how other players get the scores they see, and that is all I’ve ever asked for. Hell I’ve seen people that have been playing it for quite some time and are still finding out they can do certain things they weren’t even aware of. Documenting this all though is going to be a bitch, but I’m hoping through the flow of gameplay it all makes sense. Complicated mechanics for the sake of it isn’t very interesting or fun. Complicated mechanics with a purpose are my goal. It’s ultimately up to you all if I nailed it or not.
So here we go.
For the sake of keeping this nice and tight I’ll only go into what has changed. All the basics remain the same except the calculations for the most part.
- Cost -
Blacking Out will now only require finding 2 Parts, however the actual restore will cost 20% of your Material Stock in addition to the Parts.
Activating Shields will now cost 3% of your Material Stock.
Restoring your link will cost 1% of your Material Stock.
- Changes -
First let’s start with the Material Multiplier. You can now activate a Material Multiplier once you activate your Shield Multiplier. Every third Material chains the multiplier, Shield Bashing a Tracker while using Time Directive counts towards the chain, while Shield Bashing a damaged Tracker will cause an insta-chain. What kills the multiplier? Getting hit by a Tracker while standing still. If you lose your Shield Multiplier and a Material Multiplier is active the MM will continue cooling down allowing you time to reactivate the SM otherwise you will lose the MM if cooldown completes. The reasoning behind this was to motivate you to stay in Chaos Mode. As always though that is your choice to make :)
Second, your Shield Buff (the bubble that forms immediately after activating shields) will now auto pick up Material which counts towards your EVA Control Bonus. In addition it now only damages nearby Trackers instead of also destroying them. This just felt better because it means you can now Shield Bash immediately after and get rewarded for it. Before this change the feeling was comparable to some asshole pulling out of a “trust fall.” You can trust me now ;) Also your BFP Material pick up, or BFPMPU if you will, also counts towards your EVA Control Bonus, or EVACB :D
Third, your Kite Bonus now also affects the amount of Material you pick up. Essentially this now doubles the Material at base value. So you have a choice of either doubling your Material pick up or using the Stackher Bonus (circling a Resource while Kiting stacks the Kite Bonus, you knew this right?) and yes the Material Multiplier applies to the KBMM as well ;)
Fourth, Rushin’ Firewall now applies a Material Bonus as well. Picking up Material while the Rushin’ Firewall caves in multiplies the amount of Material by 5 at each stage of the cave.
The MM works in the same way the SM does in that it’s an overall multiplier while all other Material Bonuses are stacked. The basic math is as follows: (Base Material + Rushin’ FireWall Amount + EVA Material Amount) * Material Multiplier = Good Times.
Other things that I’ve changed are finally adding the water effect/shader to the Assault Side. It’s been missing it for far too long and I finally found one I’m happy with that’s extremely performant. I also gave the Recovery Side a slightly heavier depth of field effect. I still can’t quite get it to where I used to have it, but Unity changed their algorithms for Depth of Field and Bloom in the Post Processing Stack v2 enough so that it’s hard to get it just right. Apparently they are more efficient now so who am I to argue with that.
FIXED:
EVA Callout for 20XX
Material Gathering Display should now properly animate every time Material is recovered
ScreenGlitch during a transfer from Critical Health to Sliver Bullet status
ADDED:
Score Category has been added to Mission Failed / Mission Accomplished because hey why not :)
v0.9.8b1842 - The Pimp Ass Shields Update
ADDED:
- Visual Effects for Shields | Activating Shields also now has a slight buff on activation that will damage/destroy nearby Trackers which can be used to prep them for a Material Shield Bash
- Visual Effects for Tracker Explosions on the AssautSide, basically got rid of that white blinding ass fucking particle effect and replaced it with something simpler yet still hella neat ;)
- Score Category so you can quickly glance and see if you're in the Millions, Billions, Trillions, etc :D
CHANGED:
- UI position of Material Gathering Display | now it's in the top right corner
- UI Layout of Multiplier Display | Top Left corner
- Rearranged the lower Stacked Bonus Layout
FIXED:
- FireTowers not properly destroying/damaging Trackers when they hover over them
v0.9.8b1768 is out now on thequarry, v0.9.8b1759 to public
v0.9.8b1768 - (PC/macOS - thequarry) New UI Layout / Tweaks to visuals - first build using Unity 2018.2.20f1
CHANGED:
- Damage, Link, Shield Multiplier have been anchored to the Main HUD
- Zastrus Core Particle Effect
- MainScore is now centered up top with the Shield Multi off to the left (when active)
v0.9.8b1758 has been pushed to thequarry
v0.9.8b1758 - (PC / macOS - thequarry) Man where do I even begin - LEADERBOARDS ARE STILL BUSTED AS FUCK AND NOT WORKING IN THE BUILD
CHANGED:
- removed Wager System and replaced it with Investment / Capital | if you Extract, your previous score becomes an Investment and if you reach it on your next run it becomes Capital. If you then Extract with it you will earn it on top of what your current run was. Yeah, it can get pretty extreme ;)
- The UI Layout is different on many fronts | TitleScreen layout ( notice the new cam positions based on what option you are on :D | in game UI is new | Pause Menu UI all still WIP ofcourse
ADDED:
- NEW EVAControl Type : 20XX
Known Issues - Leaderboards not working, Activating Sheilds cam is a bit unpredictable, sadly I can't get my Windows 7 ISO to install on my old iMac which is the only method I have of testing a Win7 build, meaning I obviously have not had a chance to test if that's still broken
This build is primarily meant for you guys to try and break and report back while I try to finish up everything else. Merry Fucking Christmas y'all. I FUCKING LOVE YOU ALL TO DEATH!!!!!
P.S. - and my cat. She's the best beast in the world!!
The new Leaderboard system and placement of UI
I've been hard at work on getting the new UI layout and Leaderobard system up and running. Transitioned over to Gamesparks since it offers a hella rad feature set. One of those being Daily leaderboards. A score based game isn't complete without a Daily Leaderboard ;) In addition, Gamesparks theoretically makes it "easier" to implement console leaderboards which, in these final moments of production, is going to prove absolutely crucial. Currently they will be setup as one Leaderboard for all platforms. For obvious reasons though I can't show what platform each score was earned on, at least not yet, that may or may not change.
Since leaderboards are a huge part of the game I've made them front and center on the title screen with a spiffy animation that shows all three Tears and simply toggles between them every 10 seconds. The title screen highlights the number one spot in each Tear. To see the full leaderboard go to Epilogue as usual.
In addition to the leaderboard I've also been working on a cleaner UI layout so I moved all your Status elements to the center with another spiffy animation. I wish I could use GIFs but Steam. So in the meantime you get these static jpegs.
As always the branch that will get the update first is thequarry so if you want bleeding edge you get bleeding edge. I want to push it out sooner rather than later so also expect it to be a bit broken at first and thank my buddy Vortex on Discord since he's doing a ton of the heavy lifting ;)
<3 Jaycee
P.S. See you at PAX South 2019!!!
I'll see you all at EVO 2018 via The Media Indie Exchange
Last year was a blast and I can't imagine this year being any different. This latest update has been kicking my ass but I've finally got everything back in working order. Under the hood enhancements to the UI for damn good performance reasons. The console version is holding up hella better but still some work to do on that end.
I've started to incorporate video tutorials and will start minimizing the HUD as I really hate how much room it takes up right now.
Soon folks. Soon. Remember to check out "thequarry" branch for the latest version before anyone else sees it.
In the meantime if you'll be at EVO this year stop by, say hi, and challenge me to a duel?!?!?!...............
<3 Jaycee
v0.9.8b1064 - The Informant is watching
Holy shit this update seems like it's taken me forever to put out, but hey it's on the "thequarry" for peeps to test and break, and believe me things will break. As usual it'll be live for everyone else really soon. If you want to join the edge of bleeding edge the password is : arcadeIsNotDead
Here's the summary
ADDED:
- On Mission Failed you will now get a replay of how you failed. This is still a WIP and is glitchy as all hell, but should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect
#knownIssues - sometimes the previous replay will not be cleared and sometimes causes the game to crash. Dying by Rushin' Firewall is still not working properly
CHANGED:
- to help with replays I had to resort to drastic measures meaning I moved from using object pooling on some objects like Trackers, and Fireballs on the RecoverySide. What this means is you may experience some light to massive hitching, more so when chaos is activated. If you do, and it becomes a problem please let me know in the discord and I'll immediately start working on fixing it or finding a way to resort back to object pooling.
Get ready for shit to break.
Implementing a replay camera on Mission Failed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Zm1j4kzuA
Last night I did a livestream with the lastest update to ADHD. It's been kicking my ass, but I think I'm finally getting a hang of it and if I can get it to work as intended the game should greatly benefit from it.
I picked up Ultimate Replay from the Unity Asset store. It's designed to record gameplay and create replays using only in-game data. It's still a bit buggy, so I'll be posting as soon as I can fix some of these bugs.
First build using Unity 2017, not 2018, because 2018 is whack ;)
https://youtu.be/zDoa1Q4O_fI
The last couple of months have been non-stop folks. Just like I like it. First GDC, then PAX East, and then back home for El Paso Comic Con. Man I love doing this. It’s been the absolute fucking best.
Anyway for the last week or so I’ve been upgrading from Unity 5.6.4p2 directly over to 2017.2.1p3 and last night I did a livestream showing the latest changes. It hasn’t been all dandy lions and daffodills, but hey learn by dying or die trying.
I started by fixing what was broken at a base level. Fortunately it wasn’t took bad. Couple of small things here and there. Then I transitioned over from the Post Processing Stack v1 to v2. That made a world of difference, but it’s also not used the same way. I still don’t understand how “volumes” work, but hey it’s looks great. I’m still tweaking some stuff so you may still see some differences between now and the final release.
The current verison available is v0.9.7b217 which should now be available to the main branch. Remember, if you’d like to stay on the bleeding edge check out thequarry branch. You can ask for the password over on the Discord
The last couple of months have been non-stop folks. Just like I like it. First GDC, then PAX East, and then back home for El Paso Comic Con. Man I love doing this. It’s been the absolute fucking best.
Anyway for the last week or so I’ve been upgrading from Unity 5.6.4p2 directly over to 2017.2.1p3. It hasn’t been all dandy lions and daffodills, but hey when is anything that. I started by fixing what was broken at a base level. Fortunately it wasn’t took bad. Couple of small things here and there. Then I transitioned over from the Post Processing Stack v1 to v2. That made a world of difference, but it’s also not used the same way. I still don’t understand how “volumes” work, but hey it’s looks great. I’m still tweaking some stuff so you may still see some differences between now and the final release.
The current verison available is v0.9.7b217 (PC/macOS) which should now be available to the main branch. Remember, if you’d like to stay on the bleeding edge check out thequarry branch. You can ask for the password over on the Discord
The next “big” thing on the agenda is adding in the Collusion Narrative Bonus/Insurance Policy ;) hoping to get to feature complete on Nintendo Switch ASAP!!!!
<3 Jaycee
Update v0.9.7
Non-stop folks. Non-stop. The latest version is now available on thequarry branch and once it gets some good testing it’ll be available to main branch folks.
Here are the latest patch notes:
v0.9.7b100 (thequarry - PC/macOS)
ADDED:
- sound cue differentiation between Protecther during Resource Retrieval and Protecther while Shield Boosting Trackers
FIXED:
- calculation of PowerCell points when nuking the screen
—
v0.9.7b99 (thequarry - PC/macOS) - changes to Antifact/TimeCrisis | Parts/Material retrieval
CHANGED:
- Standard Rate at which Material and Parts are retrieved has been lowered to allow for more time to adjust new players and help with protection
- #esports retrieval speed still available ;)
- TimeCrisis is now based on movement instead of shooting (use the ScatterShot till your little heart is content)
ADDED:
- Antifact now rewards the player and stacks on each successful fact based debate ;)
FIXED:
- Aborting Antifact on Blackout should no longer lock up control (fingers crossed)
*updated* - RocketMan now calculates correctly: Satan 2 Online Indeed
—
v0.9.7b96 (thequarry | PC/macOS) - small fixes and additions, reverse Tetrisk
FIXED:
- Options on MissionEnded should now properly show Restart/Continue/SkipTo by default instead of Abandon, Abandon
ADDED:
- new Material Focus animation for them noobs
CHANGED:
- some more Text to TextMeshPro
KNOWN ISSUES:
- Link drops if shooting before ZastrusCore is activated
- Options on WagerScreen default to Gambler
- Link Lost sometimes causes a 1 -2 second hangup
- Boosting into PhantomPain sometimes keeps boost engaged
——
v0.9.7b90 (thequarry | PC / macOS) - QOL improvements and Awareness
ADDED:
- Awareness [holding Right Trigger] now shows all Material on RecoverySide
- Animation to the Weak Link status message for new players / context
CHANGED:
- (macOS) changed from Metal to OpenGL (thanks to DarqueFlux on Discord for reporting this issue on macOS)
- sizes of ZastrusCore and PowerCell colliders to help with pushing Firewalls back slightly ;) and capturing powercells with the Tetrisk mechanic :D
___
v0.9.7b89 (thequarry - PC/macOS) - You can Max that Multi, but you can't Tuna Fish
ADDED:
- AudioCallouts for EVAControlTypes on Tear 3 | still need some cleaning up / sound engineering
- AudioCallouts for Weapons/Defenses | still need some cleaning up / sound engineering
- Discord logo to TitleScreen because PIMP
- TEMP Text to TitleScreen : Welcome to PAX East 2018 Mothafuckas!!
CHANGED:
- Multiplier is no longer capped at 10 #rock #esports
- All Weapons are now available from the outset of Tear 3 | Weapons, not Defenses :D
- Missile name because why not
FIXED:
- Damage Screen now uses a new full screen Image so damage flash looks radder, espeically while in PIP
- Blurryness for you 1440p and above folk, although temporary while I transition over to the Post-Processing Stack v2
- too many small miscellaneous things under the hood, for example started the transition over to TextMesh Pro :D
