Island 359
Patch: Swappable Upgrades!, Minor Perf Improvements, and Bug Fixes
The backpack has been completely redone under the hood. It's up-to-date with the new interact system and should be a lot more reliable. I've only seen a couple rare and minor issues with it that I'm working to identify and fix, so if you encounter any weirdness at all please be sure to let us know. It should be a lot more reliable now though.
Your med kits should no longer disappear in the loot drops mission! Thanks to some awesome bug reporting by one of our community members, we were able to easily track down this mystery bug in minutes. YOUR REPORTS HELP US A TON!!!
Added dynamic time of day to the loot drops mission as well. If you're in there long enough, it'll turn to nighttime. We haven't added a flashlight yet so it might be challenging.
I finally put my 970 back in and realized our performance left a lot to be desired. I did a bit of optimizing and made the low settings a little more aggressive. These include:
-"Low Foliage" - reduced the LOD distance scale, so you may notice lower-res trees and such closer to the camera.
-"Low Shadows" - if you select this, we are swapping our fancy sky sphere for the basic (less complex material) Unreal sky sphere. This alone was saving about 1ms.
We also found some "easy win" perf savings from features we weren't using. Generally, we still need to do some optimization on all the foliage to get less overdraw in the level - this is the biggest performance killer.
Those of you with lower-end graphics cards should have an easier time staying out of reprojection using the low settings, though you might also want to drop your resolution to around 110-120 just for a little extra buffer room.
Fixed a trackpad bug where when the movement system enabled, gravity would take over and slide you around - was happening on level loads, getting out of towers, and chopper landings.
Oh also fixed the "Quit" button from the pause menu not actually quitting the game.
As always, if you have any requests or any bugs you'd like us to look at, please be sure to let us know!
Patch: Trackpad/Towers, Loading Levels, Arcade Bugs, etc.
We hit a couple bugs from some of our community members, as well as a few others we found during some playtests. Please report any bugs or concerns in the REPORT BUGS forum - it seriously helps us out a ton and makes the game better!
BE ADVISED: That pesky "no-quiver" aka "you can't grab an arrow" bug is still there. If you encounter it - DONT PANIC! Hit the menu button on either controller to swap your weapons between hands. This fixes the issue for now. We're looking into it and sorry for the inconvenience.
- Made it easier to enter towers with trackpad locomotion
- Fixed a menu issue where merc modes would show your arcade save for that level if you had one and present the option to load that game (it still worked, but that shouldn't have been displayed)
- Fixed a bug with bows not knowing their item type, which was making them attach gun upgrades to themselves
- Found a couple Beach Arcade areas that had broken spawners (making for very boring rounds). Beach Arcade also had a messed up ending, that should also be fixed
Polishing all the things! Keep the bug reports coming - you all rock!
Patch: Bug Fixes - Trackpad, Chopper, Leaderboard
- The Valley Ranger Arcade leaderboard was busted, it works now, sorry!
- Fixed a bug where if you are in trackpad mode and use your right hand to sprint into the chopper, you would fall out and get dragged (not fun!)
- Fixed a trackpad issue where you would push yourself away from loot drops and things that were waist high. You will now only push yourself away from walls and such if your head is hitting an object. This seems to be working much better but let me know if you find any issues with it.
- Red dot attachment was not storing in your inventory bag, fixed that
- I tried to clean up the tutorial a little bit but its still not 100% yet
There's still a number of bugs I'm seeing that I want to try to address in the next couple days. Backpack is still too unpredictable so that's getting a makeover tomorrow.
We're focusing primarily on polishing this week before starting back on content/feature work, so if you see bugs PLEASE report them so we can try to fix them. It really helps us out a ton and makes the game better!
Thanks!
GLOBAL LEADERBOARDS ARE GO!
LEADERBOARDS
We hope you all love Global Leaderboards because we just published an update that has a Global Leaderboard for every single mode/map we have for Island 359!
Even better, you won't lose your old scores. Everyone's old high scores for both Mercenary Modes should ([B]SHOULD[/B]) update the first time they access the new mode, and show you where you rank WORLDWIDE even before you play your first new game in this update! And now all three Arcade Modes have their own leaderboards (based on the weapon type you played them as).
We're excited to see the community put us to shame and blow these scores out of the water! More update info below!
ARCADE LOCATIONS
In addition to all of this cool Leaderboard action, we also went in and MORE THAN DOUBLED the number of locations to play from in Arcade Mode for both Jungle and Beach maps! You shouldn't ever play for more than two "Hours" at a time in any one location now in those two maps, so go check out the new and fun locations we popped in! Some of them we tried to make their own unique fun based on where you're standing. We'll do a similar pass on Valley, soon!
UPDATES:
- Save your progress and pick up where you left off in arcade mode
- Graphics saving per level should also be fixed now finally
- Killed that lousy "no quiver" bug in bow mode. We think. Almost positive this time.
- Leaderboards! Global ones!
- Way more Arcade Locations!
- Tons of general stability and polish bugs that are too boring to enumerate here
ZERO DARK patch is Live!
We worked fingers to the bone this week to make sure that a ton of the issues folks were reporting with Zero Dark in the community hub were addressed, and wanted to make sure everyone had a hopefully bug-free build this holiday weekend!
Fixes include:
- All New Interact System (new to you, anyway). You shouldn't really notice anything different other than interacts should be way more solid now than ever before. Works the same as before, just more reliable now.
- Arrow Grab Backpack Issue: now you can only grab your backpack with your bow hand, for folks who were accidentally using trigger to get an arrow when they dipped their hand over their shoulder for an arrow. Please make a note of it!
- Jungle's second Arcade Location no longer under the ground. Whoops. Sometimes our automated stuff breaks in new and unexpected ways!
- Improved backpack interaction. This relates to the New Interact System. You shouldn't see any difference other than it being more reliable!
- Removed Trike from Arcade Mode temporarily. He's just a pita right now and we need to tweak his behavior in general but especially for Arcade Mode.
- A ton of other stuff that if one of us remembers we'll fill out here when we're less drunk on New Year's! ;)
Have a great weekend everyone!!!
ZERO DARK Update is now LIVE
Island 359- Update 2: ZERO DARK featuring Trackpad Locomotion, Arcade Mode, (and a T-REX!)
Hey folks, we've updated Island 359 with some awesome new content and features! Hold onto your butts, as this is a huge update for us!
If you’ve been waiting for any of these features below, now's a great time to buy as Island 359 is discounted by 25% during the Steam Holiday Sale!
TRACKPAD LOCOMOTION
By popular demand, we've implemented TRACKPAD LOCOMOTION! We received a ton requests for this feature. It was clearly important to a lot of players, so we added it (in the settings menu!). We hope that fans of this locomotion style can give us some feedback on how we can tweak and tune it to be the most comfortable and balanced experience it can be. It ain’t perfect yet, but it works real good right now. You might push yourself out of the way when you lean over a crate, so be warned (be nice, it’s new!).
ARCADE MODE
We've also added a WAVE SHOOTER MODE (don't grab your pitchforks just yet; we don’t make average wave shooters). Why did we do this??? Well, a few reasons. Yes "Arcade Mode" is a great version for VR arcades to play, but it's also a great way to let your friends play at VR parties. I experienced this first hand a couple weeks ago when my wife threw holiday party for her co-workers at the house and I set up my the Vive. I showed our game like once, and it just didn't lend itself to quick "jump-in, jump-out" play sessions, and it bummed me out that there wasn't an easy to digest, quick-to-learn-and-get-going way to play our game, so that (along with what we see selling in the VR market, and responses to our smaller Show Demo builds), drove home the need for this mode for us.
It’s 24 waves per map (Jungle, Beach, new Valley Map!), and each wave is an Hour that advances the clock. There’s at least 5 different locations within each main map, so really it’s like having…(doing math, hang on) 15 different maps to play on! And then there’s more options on top of that:
MISSION MODIFIERS
Right now there’s two mission modifiers for Arcade Mode: Full Auto and Ranger (machine guns and bow/knife, respectively). We’ve got even more options in the pipe for this coming soon (pistols only, revolvers only, melee only? idk idk)
NOTE: you can’t run around in Arcade Mode just yet. Shhhhh it’s okay we promise you’re going to have a gas playing this.
LEVEL UP!
The creation of Arcade Mode has also laid the groundwork for our Player Profiles and Progression System! As you progress through Arcade Mode, you'll earn credits and level up to allowing you to spend your earned credits on player or weapon upgrades. We will be making these carry over to Mercenary Modes in the near future, but we need to blow out the profile system a bit more before we can do that. The plan is that playing Arcade Mode will allow you to spend your XP on some actual inventory items that you can take with you to improve the Mercenary Mode missions, allowing you to achieve higher scores. You can level up your gun damage, reload speeds, bow distance, health (there’s even a small health regen), etc. There’s more in store for the progression menu options coming soon, but please don’t be upset with us if you lose your progression next update!. Half the fun is in the journey, anyway!
SOMETHING SOMETHING THE KING OF DINOS
Oh did we mention we have a Trex?? B/C WE HAVE A TREX. He's not 100% done, but he's still pretty cool. We need to do a sound effects and animation pass on him, and improve a few behaviors, but he's getting there. Currently he is featured as a boss at the end of the Valley Arcade mode (and we’re not gonna lie, it’s not exactly a cakewalk getting there), but we have a Mercenary Mission that is about 80% done (where a lot of time went during this update) but it's not quite ready for primetime - that will be your premium Rex experience, and we'll try to get that finished up in the next couple weeks. We may also make him an occasional spawn for the Big Hunt and Loot Drop missions, but we need to experiment with that first to see if it’ll work.
MAIN MENU INTERFACE
We've updated the Main Menu to be a bit cleaner and less confusing, we won't force you to play the tutorial, and you can jump right into whatever kind of game you want to play in a few seconds. We really liked the "get on the chopper and fly out" thing to start missions but it was a bit too clunky, so we simplified it a lot for now, and we can look at maybe doing that again in the future.
TIME OF DAY
We’re experimenting currently with Time of Day in this update. Besides wanting to completely break your circadian rhythm, we overhauled the entire game last update, and didn’t tell anyone, to use Dynamic Lights in UE4 for a lot of reasons, but this opened up the door to play with ToD. It’s used in two places:
- In the Arcade Mode, for dramatic effect (24 waves, 24 hours)
- In the Main Menu, if you look up at the sky when you load in you can watch the stars moving and the moon will be trucking across the night sky.
We fully expect Neil Degrasse Tyson to lecture us about how incorrect our night sky is for our fictional location (“That sky is what you’d see if you were in New York in January!!!”). If you stand there for 24 minutes you should see a full day/night cycle. We don’t expect you to stand at the main menu for 24 minutes.
If people like this and we don’t see significant perf reports from folks we’ll probably add it to the Mercenary Mode maps, so that people who are able to play for long periods in one run will get a thrilling day/night experience.
INTERACT SYSTEM OVERHAUL
Interacts have been significantly cleaned up, and you should have an easier time picking up and using things in a natural way. Keep in mind when you have a weapon in your hand that you still need to touch the object with where your hand is, not the gun. We’re planning on tweaking that later, even we sometimes expect the weapon to do the interact.
OKAY FINE YOU CAN SAVE YOUR GRAPHICS
Graphics options ACTUALLY save now - this was announced a month or so back, and we managed to break it in the last build weI made before we uploaded (sorrryyyyyy), and it SEEMED to be working, but obviously we didn't test it thoroughly enough, and we apologize for that. After some rework, it appears to be working as expected. Please let us know if you are having issues with it.
WAKE UP, NEO
We added a "Quit" button to the pause menu by request, as the only way to quit the app previously was to hit the escape key on the keyboard, but why leave VR? So we added that as well.
HANDS
You also have HANDS now. Unfortunately it's more difficult than it should be to tell exactly which controller is left/right in Unreal. We're doing a check at the beginning of the game, but if your hands are crossed it messes it up. I've added a "reset hands" button to the settings menu, which you can use to reset your hands to their proper settings. This is temporary until we can find a more seamless solution.
FEEDBACK
We added a lot of new features to this update, and had to rebuild a lot of systems from the ground up.
We're looking for your feedback on the new trackpad movement - how's the speed? Should we reduce the acceleration? Are you able to do most of the things you want to do with it? Does Arcade Mode feel balanced? What can we do to improve the experience (don’t say multiplayer as we’ve heard that takes at least a week)? Swing by the Community Forum and leave notes in a ZERO DARK feedback thread!
Some KNOWN ISSUES that we are working to remedy:
<*>We probably need a jump feature for Trackpad movement to let you get on rocks and logs, but we weren't sure how this would feel for people. We could try some kind of a climb mechanic with this possibly
<*>The blocking volume for the player in trackpad mode will prevent you from putting your head too far over the loot crates, and will push you back. I'm still working on a workaround for this, for now just bear with us as we try to find the best solution.
<*>The dinos will disappear at the end of an arcade wave. We'll change this soon to either have dinos run away, or base the round end on killing the last spawned dino. But vanishing dinos works for now
<*>Triceratops needs some work in Arcade Mode, he's kind of OP right now. <*>We want to add some swerving to his motion to hopefully allow more body shots. Might
The Hand swapping issue as mentioned above
<*>Hands need to point for all menus, only doing it for some currently
<*>If it looks blurry than usual, I switched over to Temporal Anti Aliasing for now. Going to make FXAA and TXAA toggleable in the graphics menu
<*>Performance may not be awesome on low end cards, we still need to optimize a lot of things.
<*>We're going to look into updating the project to Unreal Engine 4.14 soon to take advantage of some new rendering features that should help the look and performance.
Dev Stream Tonight @9:30pm CST - Arcade Mode Tuning
Steve and I are going to be doing some streaming tonight while we work on Arcade mode for the next update. Join us and chat!
https://www.twitch.tv/cloudgatestudio
Dev Streaming Now!
https://www.twitch.tv/cloudgatestudio
PATCH - 11/7/16 - Graphics Settings Saving! Bug Fixes
(11/7/16)
New Features:
- GRAPHICS SAVING: You can now SAVE your graphics settings! Sorry this took so long. You can edit settings by pressing the MENU button for 2 seconds, go to SETTINGS, and select either some basic settings, or change ADVANCED settings by clicking that button. Settings you edit in the opening level (main menu level) will carry over to each level that doesn't already have saved settings. However, you can also change settings in either Mercenary or Big Hunt, and those will save for each level as well.
The reason for this is that each level has different graphical demands and what works best on one may not work best on the other, so to avoid excessive tweaking of graphics, it will save settings for each level.
Another note: I've removed the correlation between the "basic" graphics settings and screen resolution. The "Basic Settings" are simply there as a means to quickly get your "advanced" settings to an optimal configuration. However, I was setting screen resoution/SS in that as well (from 100 on low to 190 on Epic, I believe). I've removed this as I think it was causing some confusion. The "Resoultion" settings now starts at 130 and is set the same way as other graphics settings - per level.
As always, let us know what you think of these changes, and if there's a way we can improve.
Bugs Fixed:
- Loot Drop Crate now blocks dino navigation (that was really annoying)
- Tracers are no longer influenced by recoil (good catch, Captain Jeffy)
- Fixed several weapon crates in Loot Drop containing unmatched decals/weapons inside (thanks Delivus)
- Fixed "Mercenary" leaderboard text in Big Hunt to say "Big Hunt", durr
- Changed how Big Hunt is locked out for new players (must try Mercenary Mode once or have a leaderboard score in mercenary)
- Minor LOD and performance tweaks
- Some set dressing to Beach LZ and Mercenary chopper fly-in
- Some dino sound attenuation tweaks
Additional notes: Sorry this is a little late. Steamworks has been spotty the last couple days so we couldn't upload the patch, but we tried to pack in more fixes in the down time.
Moar Bugs: Hunted Update 11/2/16
PATCH 0.0.0.2c
(11/2/16)
Bugs Fixed:
- Fixed Main Menu selection from Pause menu - now actually takes you to main menu instead of restarting
- Removed "phantom LZ location" from beach map's final objective
- Fixed bow draw distance - values got reset somehow and made controller have to travel about 2x as far to draw the bow
- Adjusted Stamnia levels to be more forgiving in Beach Map, increased speed a bit
- Stamina sound and particle fx fixes
- Fixed small health packs SETTING player health at the health pack amount, they now ADD the amount to you health... dumb mistake
- Made it harder to accidentally switch hands with the bow (moved detector volume for bow handle further from string)
- Updated fatal damage blood spray fx
Additional notes:
We're chugging along on the next big content update already, while we check back in to tweak fixes and squash bugs as we see them, so as usual if you find something is off let us know in the community forum!