Hi all,
it's time for another beta! A beta (or a preview) version build shows what may come in future updates so if you would like to check the build please take a look in Steam beta branch named "beta".
Main changes from 0.13.0p1:
Fixed bug in the calculation of your cut score. To be more precise, we fixed calculation of "cut angle" when the last segment of the swing arc was skipped so you needed to swing more to achieve full points for the cut. Also faster you swung more you had to compensate for that.
With previous fix in mind we tweaked values for max "before/after cut angles" from 90/60 to 115/70 and disabled score submission to leaderboards.
Updated Unity to the latest version bring its own full bag of fixes and improvements under the hood.
Just a little DISCLAIMER - everything you see in this beta is subject to change and although the build should "work", please understand that some things could be broken, limited, incomplete or experimental so be kind to us and please don't consider this a "real" version. :) Using the beta version can delete your Beat Saber scores, settings, progress and other data so a full backup is recommended. We appreciate any feedback, bug reports or suggestions you may have regarding the build. There is also a new forum dedicated to that named "Beta".
Thanks
Beat Saber v0.13.0p1 Released
Dear players,
see below, what's part of this update:
This small update was released mainly because we needed to fix Unity bug #1112790 which causes bad performance over the time if Beat Saber window does not have focus. Until Unity fixes the bug on their side we came up with a hacky workaround.
We also added Basic Smooth Camera, which provides better experience for people watching the game from outside of VR.
Note jump start positions were tweaked for some levels because notes spawned too close to the player.
Thank you for your patience and for your feedback! Let us know if you experience any other issues.
The latest update – addressing your concerns
Dear Steam players,
some of you shared with us your concerns regarding our latest update and we would like to reply to that in the text below and share with your our point of view. Our goal is to bring you fun and polished game in the best quality. Please, read through our answers: :)
>>Why we released paid content while we are still in EA? New content is crucial for the game and we want to make sure you will get it as often as possible. Also, the mapping team behind the new levels is independent, so the core development is not slowed down in any way. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to wait until we finish new features.
>>Why we didn’t go out of EA? We still have many plans with the base game and we didn't want to go out of EA and switch to full game before we add features we promised to deliver.
>>Why is the Music Pack paid? Creating new levels and bringing new content to the game is an extremely complex process. We have to deal with music labels, license the music so we have rights to use it, map all the levels for all difficulties and later test everything over and over again. This process is made of many steps and takes a lot of time and effort to many people. Licensing music costs money, we are sharing revenue with artists and labels and we are paying our mappers team too. We believe, that quality content deserves recognition. Also, we want our players who prefer to get their content legally, to have a chance to purchase new music content with respect to law. On the other hand, this year, we also plan to continue to add free tracks to Beat Saber regularly so everyone can enjoy free music time to time.
>>Why did the update break all the mods? Mods aren't official part of the game, thus, every time we change the source code, most of the mods has to be updated by their authors too. Our team is not and can’t be responsible for mods and their functioning after the update.
>>What can players do now? If you would like to switch back to older version of Beat Saber, there is an old branch available on Steam.
Beat Saber v0.13.0 Released!
Hi all!
It's finally here - we proudly present you our biggest update ever! What's inside? Let's start with 3 main parts:
Single-player Campaign mode with 51 missions including various objectives for you to clear and progress through!
5 great new songs from our OST Vol. 2 with all difficulties from Easy to Expert+ including No Arrows mode!
"Monstercat Music Pack Vol. 1" – our very first music pack is here! It comes with 10 new songs which are now available for purchase as an additional content to the game.
Additionally, this update comes with:
Ghost Notes modifier.
No Arrows modifier.
New UI style in menus.
Obstacle core is hidden in LIV camera.
Lighting fog is reflected in mirrors now.
Optimized rendering and many small graphic improvements.
Note: Monstercat Music Pack Vol. 1 is currently out on Steam in case you want to buy all songs with a discount! But somehow, button "Buy Music Pack" in the game is not working. We will fix this asap, in the meantime, you can buy it on Steam directly.
Campaign, OST Vol. 2 & the 1st Music Pack release info
Save the date, because on March 14th, we are bringing you the biggest PC update so far. It will contain long awaited Campaign and all 5 tracks from OST Vol. 2! Apart from that, we're also releasing our first Music Pack.
This update will contain major change in UI and many tweaks and improvements. Our devs will explain to you more tech details about the update with their upcoming blogpost.
Now you can check a little sneak peek of our updated UI where you can easily browse OSTs and upcoming Music Packs.
Beat Saber v0.12.2 Released
Big day, players!
K/DA’s hit POP/STARS is officially releasing in Beat Saber with this update! We've partnered with Riot Games to bring you one of the best tracks of this year together with the very first customized level in Beat Saber!
Practice mode settings screen now plays audio preview when you change song start time.
Practice mode starts the level with a brief intro before a specified start time to avoid insta fail.
Happy Holiday from Beat Saber team!
Beat Saber v0.12.1 Released
We have little something for you guys! New track 'One Hope' by KNOWER is exclusively releasing in Beat Saber today!
We are super excited because KNOWER is one of our most favorite bands and this is a chance for us to bring you nice new music and something we really enjoy. Have fun!
Additionally, this update comes with:
Cubes move and jump as in v0.11.2.
Practice mode now supports 200% speed.
Visual tweaks/changes.
...and you know what? More coming shortly.
Beat Saber Beta v0.12.1b1 Released
Hi all,
we decided to release a beta (or a preview) version build showing what may come in future updates. If you would like to check the build please take a look in Steam beta branch named "beta".
Main changes from 0.12.0p1:
Cubes move and jump as in v0.11.2.
Practice mode now supports 200% speed.
Visual tweaks/changes.
Just a little DISCLAIMER - everything you see in this beta is subject to change and although the build should "work", please understand that some things could be broken, limited, incomplete or experimental so be kind to us and please don't consider this a "real" version. :) Using the beta version can delete your Beat Saber scores, settings, progress and other data so a full backup is recommended. We appreciate any feedback, bug reports or suggestions you may have regarding the build. There is also a new forum dedicated to that named "Beta".
Thanks
Beat Saber v0.12.0p1 Released
Just a small hotfix to address some issues reported in last update.
Fixed delayed cut effect sounds.
Reverted scoring algorithm, saber length, cube colliders and audio settings as they were in v0.11.2.
A Few Words About Beat Saber v0.12.0 Update
Our lead developer Jan 'Split' Ilavsky put together a blog post about Beat Saber v0.12.0 update. We know few issues occurred with the update so here you have it all explained. Hotfix is coming later today!
👇 👇 👇 👇 👇
Dear Beat Saber players,
we released version 0.12.0 and some of you were not very satisfied with some of the changes we made. This blog post should explain our reasons for some of them.
This situation happened mainly because we were under big time pressure and didn’t have enough time to test everything as much as we would love to. We believe that new great things can happen only if we keep trying, so it is possible that this will happen again while we are still in early access. But don’t worry. We listen to the community carefully and evaluate every single change.
PS VR vs PC
Some players think that some changes were made because of performance or other reasons related to PS VR. That’s not true. All the decisions are made just because we are trying to make the game as good as possible. None of the platforms is our priority. The game is our priority. We don’t do any compromises in the PC version because of PS VR or other way around.
Note Cut Sounds
Several things happened to the sound effects. First of all we are still trying to make them sound as good as possible and we will probably break this few more times in the future.
Timing Bug — When making audio for VR there are nice ways how to process it in a way that it sounds more 3D. On PC we use MS HRTF Spatializer to do this. Unfortunately, it is not available on PS VR so we had to come up with different audio settings in order to port the game to PlayStation. When we got back to PC version we just turned the spatializer back on, but we didn’t realize that it actually adds a small delay (or at least we think it does and we will investigate this more).
Muting sounds before they finish — Our goal is to make music and sound FX sound as clear as possible. In order to do so we use some techniques from audio mixing. One of them is to get rid of sounds which are not needed any more, because they are too quiet or another similar sound started playing. Our algorithm for detecting when to fade out a sound was built on next note position. Unfortunately, it looks like many more things need to be taken into account. For now, we are just reverting everything back to how it was and will work on this a little bit more.
Slightly different sounds — This is also connected to PS VR version. We had to EQ the sound FX a little bit differently when not using a spatializer and we forgot to change that back.
Sabers’ Length
This wasn’t changed. We just moved the relative position of the handle in order to match controllers more precisely. This will be tweaked even more to match the original feel as much as possible.
Different Scoring Algorithm
There was a small scoring algorithm bug in previous versions. When you cut the note we compute the trajectory of your saber and use that to give you some points. Unfortunately by mistake the algorithm doesn’t use the last position before the cut into account. The result of this is that faster you are cutting, bigger the angles needs to be to get the same score. We have fixed this, but it looks like now the game is too easy for most of the pros. We will probably roll back this “fix” or will try to find a way how to implement the “bug” in more predictable way.
Different Colliders
Beat Saber detects collision by overlapping box created from saber positions and two box colliders which are connected to cube note. The first collider is much bigger than the actual note and detects only the good cuts. Second one is a little bit smaller than note and can detect both bad and good cuts. This combination allows us to compensate any tracking problems and make the game feel more awesome. :) When the note approaches the the player it rotates a little bit towards the players head. In the previous version both of the colliders rotated with the note, but we realized this is not a very good approach and we removed the rotation from the bigger collider. The result is that the game became a little bit harder (especially in expert+ levels) and it’s easier to get a better cut score (by approximately 2%). In the end we will roll back this change and will use the old system which everyone loved and new system with different collider sizes will be used for pro mode which should come out very soon.
New Lighting System
This will be a little bit technical. Lights in Beat Saber are made using very uncommon technique. They are actually not lights, they just generate something we call bloom pre pass fog texture. This fog is then applied on all the geometry in forward rendering. Originally we used additive blending for rendering light lines. This caused a problem where many lights behind each other combined their strength. New system uses max blending operation which makes solo lights to shine more and multiple lights are not blown as much as before. We truly think that this new system is much better, but we are thinking about supporting both new and old system so each level can use a different one.
Cubes Shading
We have changed the shader on the cubes for two reasons.
We wanted to make the game more enjoyable by color blind people and old dark cubes were quite hard to distinguish. Jan, our lead designer, is color blind too by the way.
New colors match the environment a little bit better.
We haven’t decided yet if this is the final look and we will experiment a little bit more in the future. We might even try to use the old look but with small enhancements.
Obstacle Walls
We think that there’s some space for improvements here and the walls shader parameters will be tweaked more in the future.
TLDR
We know about all the issues and they will be fixed as soon as possible! ;)
