With the new procedural maps, the old scoring system didn't make as much sense. This patch introduces a new scoring system that is both based on the gate you reach but also your statistics throughout the game. The actual formulas will likely be tweaked over the next few weeks but the general idea will remain unless a serious flaw is found.
This should lead to more score diversity (in addition to the reduced difficulty curve) as well as some more interesting multiplayer cooperative decisions (the best individual stat in each category is taken for the group's score).
Tile Compression
This compresses the gate regions along with reducing the number of enemies on screen at a time. This should hopefully lead to better performance due to fewer enemies being on screen at the same time, but those enemies that do exist are more impactful due to the closer gates.
Teleporter Boosters
Teleporters can now power up, giving faster aimed-shot powerup. This should encourage moving around the map more as well as giving players a decision of weather to leave a well positioned location to go a different, potentially farther boosted teleporter.
Other Changes and Fixes
Elite flying enemy now carried two smaller fireballs instead of one large
Fixed stack overflow issue with orb trails
Fixed quiver trigger area performance
Fixed glove animation performance
Removed extra details on gate towers for rendering performance
Lowered first gate gem count
Added option to disable gate gems
Added Bow pull multiplier slider to Bow options
Gates now immune to damage for 5 seconds after building
Improved enemy health bar performance
Patch 0.40.22 - The Highlands
New Environment - Highlands
Due to the recent release of the procedural, tile bases map system, I gave myself the challenge this week of creating a new environment (having already had the art, but taking less than a week since I traveled for the eclipse!). The result is the new Highlands environment which breaths new life into the canyon with lush green pines and ground cover as well as new rock formations and designs.
I am really excited for the future environments as well, as the process has become more and more streamlined for easy addition of more varied tiles and environments.
You can check out the new environment in this week's map seed!
Interface Options
A new settings panel has been added to the menu, which now includes the first set of "Interface" options: Enemy Health Bars and Floating Combat Text
These are off by default, but if you want to do some theory crafting or compare different strategies or abilities, there is now a good way to do so. There will likely be some more interface options added in the future as well to give you more control over the balance between information and immersion.
Difficulty Adjustemtns
This patch includes large changes to the difficulty system, including a much slower ramp up as you close gates, as well as a more static difficulty tuning system due to score being tied directly.
Over the next few weeks I will be making many adjustments to both the difficulty scaling system and separating it out from the scoring system so that there is more flexibility in those areas and a more granular score system for the leaderboards.
Other Changes and Fixes
Lowered enemy smoke effect height
Final gate health display fixed
Increased collider size of Time Warp ability
Fixes for Keyboard and Mouse gameplay
Disabled Graphics Jobs to fix graphics related crashes
Patch 0.40.0 - Procedural Maps
It's finally here!
After months of work, testing, and community feedback, the procedural map system is now live! Most of the major issues have been smoothed out, and the game's replayability has been massively increased. New systems have been added that improve the new player experience as well as give more depth to the gameplay. And the system has been designed with additional content in mind, creating a streamlined system to add more to the game.
Procedural Maps
The static frozen canyon has been replaced with a procedural map system. It is built using map tiles in a similar way to Diablo's level generation.
There are currently 2 environments (Snow and Desert) that can appear at any point in the map using transition tiles. This system will be significantly expanded in the future and we have tons of environment ideas such as caves, swamps, lava, etc.
Each week there will be a set game seed (this week is "Week-1") that will determine the level layout and in the future be tied to the primary leaderboards. Each time a game ends or you create/leave a multiplayer room, this map will be generated.
However, you can generate a new map by grabbing the die. There is currently no way to save/enter a map seed, but a system to do that will be added soon!
Map Progression
We've taken a hard look at our system of progressing through the map by closing gates, and we realized that standing on towers may not be the most intuitive or fun way to do so.
Therefore, this update brings with it an entirely new system for progressing down the canyon. Instead of standing at gates to close them, you will now kill enemies to do it.
Each time you kill an enemy, it will grant you some energy toward closing the next gate. Difficult shots and maintaining combos will generate more energy. Once the progress orb is filled, you can shoot at it (or let it happen automatically) to immediately close the next gate.
We feel that this system is both more understandable for new players (if you kill enough enemies the gate will close), as well as more interesting for veterans who can now create strategies around how to efficiently generate the maximum amount of energy while still successfully defending the enemy onslaught.
Aimed Shot
For a game that is almost entirely about shooting an arrow, there has previously been few opportunities for decision making about the process. Before now, shooting fast was rewarded more than shooting accurately, which seemed counter-productive to playing the game like a well trained sniper.
So this update also brings a new archery system, the 'Aimed Shot', which will make your arrow stronger the longer you hold it back, up to a maximum of 5 seconds.
Not only does this increase the damage it does, but it will also compound your energy generation. Hitting a fully charged headshot at 100m will give you a massive boost.
We think that this new system should give an additional level of depth to the archery gameplay without forcing players to learn a new button or skill.
Additional Notes
While we've spent months working on this new system, it's still a massive overhaul and not every combination of map tiles and multiplayer interaction can be tested, so I expect this week to have plenty of issues for me to fix.
Please continue submitting issues in the discussion forums, or better yet on the QuiVr Discord where I can reply and get extra information immediately.
Finally, I want to give a huge thank you to all the people who helped me test the new map systems in the beta branches both this past week and over the past few months during development. It is incredibly helpful and I honestly could not do all of this without your help, suggestions, and support :)
Procedural Maps - Beta Testing Initiative!
The procedural map system is now entering it's final testing phase before moving into the default branch!
Therefore this week will be entirely dedicated to testing to find and fix bugs. To that end, for this week only there will be a unique reward for playing a game in the beta branch.
Those of you who play a game of QuiVr in the Beta branch (Singleplayer or Multiplayer and until the game ends) before next Tuesday will receive a new set of wings to show of your dedication to improving the game!
Please also consider joining the QuiVr Discord so that you can post bugs easily and get immediate responses from myself and others in the community.
Procedural Map Info
The current Procedural map system is different from the existing game. In addition to a brand new environment type (Desert) that can exist in any randomly generated canyon ...
... the new Procedural Maps are infinite in length. As you progress through the gates, the game will become increasingly difficult, however you will never be required to fall back all the way to the beginning. Instead you will always be given a single gate to lose/restore, if you lose two gates in a row the game will end.
We have an interesting plan for merging this new infinite system with 'event tiles', which will bring the much anticipated "Giant Climbing" gameplay into the world of QuiVr.
In the mean time however, we think that the current procedural map system is enough of an improvement on the existing, single map that it should be brought into the main branch to give the game some much needed replayability.
Please remember to report any bugs or issues you find in the beta branch, duplicate issues are helpful for cross referencing and finding the underlying causes!
Patch 0.39.0
Overview
0.39.0 has some great new additions thanks to feedback from the community and some additional engineering help provided during my recent trip out to Microsoft.
There is a ton more coming down the line soon as things are starting to come together in the Procedural Maps, Art dept, and PvP system. If you want to stay up to date with the latest info and updates, make sure to join the QuiVr Discord as I post updates and talk with everyone daily!
Performance Improvements
Thanks to the help of some fantastic Microsoft engineers, I learned a bit more about shader performance, and more importantly how to measure it. Due to this new knowledge I was able to review some of the existing game shaders and adjust them to strike a better balance between visual quality and performance.
Rocks in QuiVr use a custom shader to apply a high quality 'cover' texture (usually snow, but sand, moss, etc are all possible) over a high quality rock texture in a way that doesn't require massive individual textures to get good quality up close.
Previously this custom shader was based on the Unity Standard Shader, which is a 'realistic' shader that can be used as a base for almost any material (stone, plastic, metal, etc). However, by switching to a Lambert base (which uses diffuse reflection instead of a more realistic approach) we can get similar results with less than half of the math operations per frame, per rock, which is a massive performance improvement.
Similarly, the ground shader previously used was also based on the Standard shader and had a detailed normal map. However, you're very rarely up close to the ground, so I've switched it to a diffuse only map which changed it from 192 math instructions to only 43.
I'll be continuing to look through the existing shaders to see if I can squeeze out some more performance while retaining the visual fidelity of the game.
PvP Testing
The PvP Testing section of the game has now been merged into the main branch thanks to some suggestions by the community. Due to the fact that it is a completely optional experience to the core gameplay loop, I've enabled the button in the default branch since that's pretty much what Early Access is for.
Please Note: The PvP Matchmaking and game system is very much still in development and may not work correctly, much less be a balanced experience. I'm currently looking for feedback on bugs/crashes related to the PvP experience (though I'm always happy to take suggestions on improvements), so keep that in mind if you decide to try it out!
The Queue is passive, so just hit the button and when a match is found you'll be notified and (if you don't cancel the request) removed from whatever you're currently doing to join the 1v1 PvP game (additional player modes will be added later).
Other Changes
Fixed Multiplayer enemies running backwards
Attempted fix for teleporter enemy attacking before reaching gate
Duplicate resource name fixed
Fixed smoker not working on lowest quality setting
Heal achievements reduced [250, 500, 1000]
Rapid Fire requirement reduced to 8 (down from 12)
Improved hitbox for armored enemy (normal and elite)
Thanks as always for your continued feedback and support!
Dev Update - Week of 7/26/2017
As is sometimes the case, it is difficulty to keep up with weekly updates while away from my main development computer.
This week I'm in Seattle, working with Microsoft on some really cool stuff that I'll be able to share more about very soon (part of which is major optimizations to the game systems since they have some experts on hand!), as well as visiting with Valve for a bit which I'm super excited for!
So, while I'm still very hard at work on improving the game, there won't be a patch this week.
However, if you missed it (maybe because you're not part of the Official QuiVr Discord where I post many more updates about the other branches in progress), there is a new branch where you can try out the PvP system I'm working on ;)
Patch 0.38.985
Unity Upgrade to 2017.1
This update brings QuiVr to the latest public release of Unity (2017.1) and with it come a huge amount of performance improvements, VR bug and crash fixes, and access to some of the latest features to be implemented in the future (VR Works, Foveated Rendering Pipeline, additional VR SDKs, etc).
Gameplay with the new version should feel smoother than ever and will hopefully lead to a more consistent experience.
UI Overhaul
Thanks to the fantastic work of @TheStoneFox and the rest of the VRTK Community, the previous UI interaction system has been replaced with the continually improved, open source system found in the latest version of the VRToolKit.
Not only should UI interactions now be more consistent, but this update also fixes one of the most common problems of requiring QuiVr to be in the foreground to allow the UI to work (now you can alt tab away and UI interactions will work as intended!).
Additional Changes
Enemies now correctly kill player on collision
Miss ability effects no longer clear combo
Arrow size adjusted for 2017.1 PhysX modifications
Removed unnecessary logging
NaN Error fixes
As with any major engine upgrade, the upgrade to Unity 2017.1 has too many features and changes to test myself. Please let me know in the discussion forums or in the Official Discord if there are any undocumented issues!
Patch 0.38.984
Knuckles Controller Support
This update adds initial Knuckles support for hand animations, bow/arrow interactions, and interactive objects in the watchtower.
I won't be putting too much more energy into knuckles-based improvements for now as very few people have them at the moment and there are plenty of other features that I'd like to continue working on.
Unity 5.6.2p2 Upgrade
In preparation for Unity 2017.1 (released out of beta today), I've upgraded the engine to Unity 5.6.2p2 for large number of general and VR specific improvements, bug/crash fixes, and optimizations.
As always, please let me know if anything is not working as intended as it's impossible to test all the features myself after an engine upgrade.
Gate Gem Performance
This patch dramatically increased the performance of the gate health display gems by allowing them to batch into a single draw call for all gems instead of one draw call per gem.
The side effect is that they will now pop in/out of existence instead of dissolving away, but I think that is a worthwhile sacrifice for the massive performance improvement.
Other
Now that I'm back from Korea after a very insightful trip testing out Keyboard+Mouse functionality in PC Cafes, it's time to buckle down and get some more serious progress done on the bigger feature additions that are under construction.
Keep a lookout in the QuiVr Discord for announcements of beta features for testing, as there should be quite a few coming soon!
Patch 0.38.983
Gate Health Display
One of the pieces of feedback that I often get is one about displaying information. Particularly information about Gate Health, which is an important part of the game. In VR however, 'Health Bars' feel like a shortcut and take away from the sense of immersion that I am conscientious about maintaining. So a lot of though was put into a way to show Gate Health at a glance, but also keeping it grounded in the physical world and enhance (or at least maintain) the level of presence.
This was the solution we came up with. Gates are now adorned with a symmetrical pattern of crystals. Each representing a small percentage of the gate's total health. As the gate takes damage the crystals will pop off, and if the gate is healed the crystals will regenerate.
This servers a few purposes and (in my opinion) also increases the feeling of presence within the game. Not only is it now possible to take a quick look at the gate to see roughly how many gems are remaining (since the pattern is uniform and symmetrical it is easy to quickly judge what percentage is missing), but you can now get a much better sense of how much damage each enemy does in an intuitive and interesting way. When a small enemy attacks the gate one or two crystals might pop off per hit, but when a charging or flying enemy hits, a bunch of crystals explode off the wall.
Due to the relatively complex nature of the crystals (100-200 individual gems that all have physics when they fall off the gate), they are only active when EffectQuality is set to 1 or above.
SteamVR Home Item
QuiVr now also has a collectible item in SteamVR Home! You can read a bit more about that here!
In Korea
I'm in Korea until the 8th (hence the delayed update) doing beta testing of the Keyboard/Mouse version of QuiVr in PC Cafes. I'll likely post a more in-depth review of the experience and what we got done once I return :)
