TO4: Tactical Operations
TO4 Music Composer Livestream + 5 Key Giveaway
Devblog #14
We are close!
TacByte
Hello and welcome to our Devblog #14. As you might know, we expanded our testing to include the First100 Discord group, so let's talk about the impressions the players had and what we have changed as a result of your feedback. Furthermore, we can introduce some new weapons, a new map, some gameplay changes, and a new voice chat. So let's dig in.
The First100 Playtest
TacByte
When we invited "thefirst100" to be testers, we also created a Feedback channel in our Discord, this channel is still open and anyone can read the feedback there. If you are part of the First100 and have not given feedback please think about giving the game another try and giving us your honest review, we really wanted to make the reviews public so the community could discuss what changes might be best for TO4.
So what have we learned from the feedback?
Let's go into some detail, one of the main concerns was the audio, for example, weapons are too loud, it's too hard to track footsteps, etc. The good part of this is that we are totally aware of this issue and it was already on our todo list. Why was it like that? The simple answer is, right before we increased the test group we added Fmod Studio (an audio plugin for the unreal engine) to our game and it still needs a lot of work. For now, we have re-balanced the audio and changed mixing levels so the game should sound a lot better, Feedback from those changes have been very positive.
Player damage feedback was also mentioned, an example of this is, if you get damaged it could be difficult to pinpoint where the shot had come from, are they behind me or left? Our game is all about being able to react quickly when someone is shooting you, but this is difficult when you don´t know where they are shooting you from. However, with the better audio balance and changes to TO4's damage indicator you see now clearly from which direction you got shot. With these changes, we have also added hit sounds that indicate you have hit your target and also visual confirmation of a hit via a hit marker on your target. Both are optional but this will give those that want it even more feedback about what´s happening around them in the game. So the way TO4 gives players feedback has improved a lot but we know the audio is something that will need more work in the future to be at a standard we will all be happy with.
The buy menu, options menu, and the UI design was another issue, they are not exactly what we envisioned either and don't look as good as they should. But we wanted to focus on the functionality of the menus first. We are planning a complete UI overhaul sometime in the future, also, we found out our buy menu is not as self-explanatory as it should be, so maybe that will change sooner, rather than later.
Damage and armor balancing was another topic you raised, we will be working on this continuously during development until every weapon feels correct for its use. We appreciate all the feedback about it, we have already made some adjustments.
Some people disliked the speed of the game, others disliked the visuals, to those people we thank you for your candor. The majority of players enjoyed the game. If you did dislike the game hang around, the game is not finished yet and hopefully, you will like it in the future when it is in a more finished state. Thank you to everyone who has tested the game and left feedback, we really appreciate it.
So what's next?
Big closed Alpha with Discord Members
Tacbyte
We announced in Discord and in our recent live stream, that we will be inviting everyone in our Discord group to play the game and join in testing TO4. We haven't announced a solid date yet but if everything goes to plan we want to do this before July 2019, currently we are still on track to achieve this. As always we will communicate in Discord if we encounter any issues that could change our ETA. We do have one hurdle on the horizon, it is an upcoming Unreal Engine update that is especially important for our project. The reason why this update is important is we had to implement a limit to the client side FPS due to a problem when the client FPS got over 144 FPS there are some strange glitches and stuttery gameplay, the next update should solve this issue, so cross your fingers for us, we hope that the update will work flawlessly but you never know. If everything works as intended we will have potentially about 1000 Players from our Discord group with access to the next round of TO4 testing but, that could be a lot more if some of the 5000~ Steam users that have our game on their Steam Wishlist also join our Discord before the next round of testing starts. You can still join our Discord group to secure a place in the next round of testing. Discord is working really well for us on this project, it gives us that direct and instant communication to the community, enabling us to give you feedback and information about our current progress. This should be the last round of testing before we release TO4 on Steam's Early Access platform fully.
New Map
Ssswing
Ssswing has been working on a new map called Fueled, Inspired by community requests, this map will be bigger than other maps and will be a Bomb Scenario map. It is still only a work in progress but has been added to the game to test layout and gameplay. Check out the recent Screenshots he has supplied us.
Please visit our Website for the pictures.
FOV Slider, Voice Chat, Sniper Overlay and Character Speeches
DarkSoe & TH120
We have implemented an ingame Voice chat currently limited to your own Team, with this feature we also added some dropdown menus to the scoreboard screen to mute players, you can also mute the text chat. Furthermore, you can check their Steam profile. Our first sniper reticle had a crosshair with a red dot in the center, players disliked it so we removed the dot and now you just have the crosshair. We have also started to add voices to the characters, both male and female characters will have their own unique voices.
New Weapons
Slayer5530
Slayer5530 has prepared new animation sets for some of the new weapons in TO4. We have added a FAMAS, MAC10 and a Vector to the arsenal, audio still needs some work but the animations are done and implemented to our game. Whether these weapons will be in the main loadout or if they will be optional for our TO4ST weapons has not been decided yet, but for now, they are included in the main game for testing purposes. You can see them in action in our latest Livestream. Furthermore, he is close to finishing the M40, you will love it!
Grenades
TH120
Our grenades are deadly and can instantly kill you, so we decided to limit each player to one grenade for now. We want to add more explosives types, so you maybe can have a grenade and another explosive Item in the future, this is not a final decision. Furthermore, the grenades should now be flying smoother in the air and look less jittery.
Building Changes
macfrog
Macfrog has once again changed our game file building process, this change allows us to publish updates faster and helps to speed up the bug fixing process, instead of building the Windows client, Windows server, Linux client, and Linux server all at once, we can now exclude components from the build process. For example, we can exclude both the Linux server and client builds, this means we are now just building the Windows versions of the game cutting the build time in half, as most of the work on TO4 is done in windows we can then test the windows versions in-house before pushing the update or fixes to all the branches, then releasing the new files to the test group for further testing, if the build fails for whatever reason we've not wasted too much time. This lowers our iteration time by a good 50% or more, this will be vital once we are live on Steam for fixing bugs and getting Hotfix patches out as soon as we can.
Latest Livestream
TacByte
Here is a link to our last Livestream on Twitch, which features most of the thing we have written about here in this Blog, including the new weapons and their animations and more. So why not click the link and take a look?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QlTLWITqbk&
Final Words
TacByte
So that's it for now, we will keep you updated. If you wish you can join our Discord by clicking this link.
Thank You
TacByte
Developer Livestream Today
we'll be doing a livestream today at 3:00PM EST / 21:00 CEST. We have some new things to show you and answer your questions, see you soon!
Twitchlink
Stress test
Hey everyone, we hoped you all had a great Christmas day and are continuing to enjoy this festive season, we said in our last devblog that we were going to start an internal stress test in December, yesterday that happened and we invited thefirst100 group from our Discord group to test the game. This test should help us to estimate an Early Access release date for everyone.
We keep you updated!
Enjoy the rest of your holidays from the Tacbyte Team.
Devblog #13
Going Forward!
TacByte
Hey everyone, welcome to our devblog #13. Before we delve into the blog we want to say that despite the lack of DevBlogs we are still developing the game, we are investing a lot of our time and effort into this project and we are getting ever closer to an Early Access release date.
If you would like more information then you should consider joining our Discord server, there we will answer your questions and give other updates about our development. Currently, we have 750+ Members, so come and chat with us.
Closed Stresstest
TacByte
Let's start with some good news. In our Discord, we have the "TheFirst100" group (The first 100 Members to join our Discord server) and this group will get access to the game in December 2018. This means we can open the game to a larger testing group and they can finally play the game, we know it took such a long time. If this test goes well and our systems are robust enough we will expand the testing group sometime in the new year. We are sorry that we can´t grant access to everyone right now, Please remember this game is not finished or nearly finished yet, we've invested a lot of time getting TO4 to this point and now its time to allow more players to try/test our game with us, We are looking forward to having more people giving us their views and or criticisms of the game. Primarily opening our game up to a bigger group will enable us to test the performance of our servers/clients under a heavy workload. This test should also show assist us to balance our maps and help us to make adjustments where needed. More details will come when we are close to the test.
TacByte team changes
Jack M & Skyline
Our Discord members have already noticed that we have two new members "Skyline" and "Jack M" in our Tacbyte Crew. Some people maybe recognize "Skyline" due to the fact he was part of the project in its early stages, "So welcome Back Skyline". Now we have 3 coders, that's awesome news for us at TacByte, furthermore, he is familiar with the project and he has already started working on the game. Jack M is our Sound designer, he prepares and edits the projects Sound files so they can be implemented into the game, up to yet we didn´t have a Sound designer and we are glad that "Jack M" has joined our crew "Welcome Jack M". The full potential of his sound design will come out when we have added FMod to the game. We are still working on that.
The unraveling of a planetary sized constricted ball of hair aka our Code
TacByte
That's how Skyline described our code, of course, it isn´t as bad as it sounds, but it is kinda funny and worth repeating in the blog. This is just a part of our development when we started this project our knowledge of Unreal Engine 4 wasn´t as good as it is now. We grew with every problem we solved. So some parts of the code that are working need to be rewritten, in the end, it's better for all of us, a clean code will help us when problems arise, then we can find and fix them easier and quicker. There was also a tremendously work at the code that was put in by TH120 & DarkSoe, it's not possible to show that, but you will feel it when the game will run buttersmooth in the end. The Viewers of the last Livestream saw that we suffered a lot of server crashes, that has now been fixed, small error big impact, however, there are plenty of bugs left to fix/find, so let's leave that to our Dev team and Alpha-Testers, On a side note we would like to thank the active Alpha Testers for their work on TO4, Thank You. Now let's move on to some new Features that have been added to the game.Main Menu, Crosshair Editor, Shell-Out, Gameplay
Main Menu, Crosshair Editor, Shell-Out, Gameplay
DarkSoe & TH120
The Visual of the Main Menu remains the same but the plugin that we used has been replaced with our own code, now it's our own Menu, we wanted to hold off replacing it but we had a lot of complications working with the old menu plugin so we thought no time like the present. We have also added a Basic Crosshair Editor, nothing super fancy but it does the job for now. We have also added an alternative Weapon Hud, some of our Alpha Testers liked it some didn't. Take a look at the picture. We added a Shell-Out animation to all our Weapons, so when you're firing a gun you see the empty shell ejected from the chamber and the shell falls to the ground and remains, it also makes a sound when it collides with the terrain. Fine tuning is still needed but it works and gives the weapons a better feeling. We made some gameplay changes to the hacking and bomb scenarios. Now you can defuse or hack (same panel) with a maximum of 2 players at the same time to speed up the hacking or defusal. This is only something we are testing and we are not sure if it's a good idea or not. What do you think?
Please Visit our Website for the Screenshots
Map work
Ssswing
The maps Scope and Blister suffered from some scaling issues and didn't match the performance we needed for the game. Our new versions have Tacbyte's own style, they are a lot bigger and the performance of the maps has been greatly improved. All of our Alpha testers are really happy with these changes, since the gameplay on it improved drasticly. It is difficult to do comparison screenshots because both the maps are really different now, but take a look at the pictures from November 2017 and November 2018.
Check out our Media Section (High Resolution), we have recently updated it with new Screenshots, or just check it here below (Low Resolution).
The Map-Prelude had some minor visual changes. It's now a more damp forest, with reflective pools, muddy tracks and a more tense feeling to it.
We are also happy to mention a new map (WIP name: FollowTheMoney), its a smaller map focused on 2vs2 and 3vs3 gameplay. The mapshots are from a very early moment. In the mean time we are working on RapidWaters and Converge to increase performance and gameplay on these maps.
Please Visit our Website for the Screenshots
New Weapon Animations
slayer5530
Slayer made you some new Eyecandy to look at and the Special Force finally gains its correct MP5, our Silenced MP5A2 is out and the original MP5SD is in, we know you wanted it, obviously the Terrorist still have the MP5A2.
Please Visit our Website for the Videos
Introducing TO4ST
DarkSoe & TH120
TO4ST is our "Tactical Operations 4 Server Tool" this addon to the admin panel will enable the server owner to configure the server in many ways, for now, DarkSoe has been working on TO4ST Weapons. So you can create Servers that allow or disallow certain weapons on the server, as an example, you could set up a server which ONLY allows Sniper rifles and Pistols, TO4ST will also Auto Buy set items at the beginning of each Round. Currently, you can only make these changes in the Servers Config file, but this will change in the future and this function and any future admin functions/options will be added to the Admin Tab. We can´t wait to see Desert Eagle only servers again.
Final Words
TacByte
We hope you enjoyed our Devblog and we hope we took away some of your concerns or doubts about out develoment, we are steady working at the game. Some more news about this very soon. Again we mention: feel free to join our Discord channel and join our growing community!
Thank you
TacByte
Livestream today!
we'll be doing a livestream today at 2:30PM EST / 20:30 CEST. We have some new things to show you, see you later!
Twitchlink
The It's "NOT" a Devblog Devblog
Not a Devblog
TacByte
Hi everyone, I just want to say that this is not a devblog it's an update on what we are up to and what is happening with the development of TO4. We are still having problems with the latest UE4 update. As usual UE4 updates can be good, bad or both, this one has been a really bad one for our project. We have sorted out most of the problems on our side, but there are still some issues remaining we are having difficulty fixing, fortunately, we are not the only development team with these problems and it is looking like it could be a bug in the Unreal Engine. Hopefully, these problems will be fixed soon.
Because we don´t know when these issues will be fixed and the problems have slowed our development, we have to consider a workaround and try to find different solutions to avoid issues like this in the future. Sadly this means that we will have to invest our time into something that we won´t need later on, right now we feel like we are moving two step forward and then we are forced to take one step back.
We said this should be the last Engine update before we enter Early Access. We would like to stick to that but with these current problems and some sound issues within the current 4.20 build. We will most likely be upgrading again when UE 4.21 is released, we hope that by upgrading to 4.21 it will fix several of issues and give us a more stable engine for TO4.
Even with these problems, we have been working on other areas of development, we have reworked a lot of essential coding paths in our game code, we spent a tremendous amount of time analyzing and fixing build issues and bugs. We fitted a new graphics card in our build server without it game builds were impossible. A massive change we have made is now our devs can create Local builds, that means our team members can do test builds without uploading them to the Steam dev branch. Somethings just don't work within the editor and need to be tested once fully compiled (not using the unreal frontend), as you can imagine this is going to help us a lot with both development and workflow.We are continuing to climb this Mountain with your support! This is just another small Hickup on our journey. Hopefully, we won't have too many more.
From all of us on the TacByte Team, we thank every one of you for your continued support and patience.
ALPHA-TESTER RECRUITMENT DRIVE!
Recruitment
TacByte
Hey, everyone, we have some news that I'm sure some of you will be excited about.
We are having another Alpha-tester recruitment drive! We want to recruit between 20 to 30 new Alpha-testers, this will be the biggest recruitment we have done so far and most likely the last one before we open testing to thefirst100 group. (planned for this year)
Please don´t apply just for the chance of getting a sneak peek at the game, that will only slow our development, we need enthusiastic active people that really want to bug test and to do stress testing with us. So please, if you don`t have the spare time or you are not committed to submitting bug reports don't apply, also consider that you could be taking the place of someone who really wants to help out and has spare time.
If you would like to be an Alpha-tester for our game you will have to join our Discord server and fill out the form in #apply_for_alpha_2 channel, you will also need an activated account on our Website
Thank you!
Devblog #12
Number #12!
chr & kulan
Welcome to our new Devblog, in this blog we will talk about our release plans, introduce a new member to our team "ojl10", we have an update on TO4's weapon list and some screenshots of some Models and Weapons. So let's get directly to most frequently asked question first and then on with the rest of the blog.
Early Access 2018?
TacByte
Everyone wants to know when the game will be available at steam, so here is a summary. We can´t announce a definite release date, however, we do set our own targets within the development team and our current plan is to start some kind Early Access or a larger Closed Alpha at the end of 2018. We are on track to achieve this target date, on the downside there are still some aspects of the development that we can´t predict a timescale for, as an example of this Anti-Cheat, how long will it take to discuss (with the provider) and implement the Anti-Cheat and to be honest, we've never done it so we are not sure, we can only speculate. So this is not a confirmed date, problems could arise that we didn´t account for. We will keep you informed as best we can to any changes that might alter the target date, in a future Devblog closer to the end of 2018 we will inform you of our release strategy in more detail. We believe we can attain this target and we thank you for your continued support!.
Linux Client? wait I mean Server don't I?... Both!
macfrog & th120
Yes, you have read correctly, we really have been working on a Linux version of both the Server and Client for TO4, The first iteration is now complete and both server and client are running. We will ship the Linux Client as an unsupported version of the game (for now), this means if there are problems or bugs we will be prioritizing the Windows version above Linux (sorry Linux people). A lot of people prefer to run a Linux based OS on servers to save the cost of a Windows license. So we are really happy that we can supply Linux Server files, this should make the cost of running or renting a server cheaper once the game is released. There are still a few small issues to sort out, but overall both are working better than expected for a first iteration. The Linux client will be available from the Linux Version of Steam. Here are some pictures so you don´t think we are fool around.
Weapons Line-Up
TacByte
It really took us some time to decide what weapons we will have in TO4, but finally, we can present an almost complete list, there still might be a couple of changes but we don't think anything major will change. Take a look, we have replaced some of the weapons.
Pistols
SMG & Shotgun
AR & Sniper
As you see we are still missing a scoped Assault Rifle and we haven't decided which Light Machine Gun we should use. The M60 could have its comeback or maybe it will be the M249. We have also talked about whether we should use the SKS instead of the SCAR SSR, in the end, the team decided to pick the SCAR. One weapon we definitively didn't want to use was the AWP/AWM, that's not a weapon we think you want to see in TO4, we think the M40 is a good choice. Are we making the right choices?
Weapon Animations
slayer5530
The whole team loves slayer5530's weapon animations and we always look forward to him presenting us with new ones. We are really glad to have him on our team. There are a lot of new Animations he has made, but sadly due to holidays, they didn´t make it into this blog but we should be showing you some new animations within the next few weeks. As a taster here is our new M9 Model, take a look.
New M9
Robin replaced the Pizza box!
robin
Our Modeler robin finished the bomb model and slayer5530 rigged it for our game. It's now ingame and only missing the planting animation, which is WIP.
So if you had hopes that the Terror team would keep delivering pizza at a Bomb spot or you loved the idea of RP'ing a Pizza delivery person, robin is the one you want to complain to. If you wondering why we keep referring to it as a Pizza Box, here is a delivery in progress which will explain.
Pizza box
TO4 Bomb Model
robin has also been modeling an M40 Sniper Rifle for us. This means we will have our own unique Model. As you know we do currently use a lot of Marketplace assets/content within TO4. However, we are actually proud to have this one made from scratch using a high poly model for reference we bought. Creating good models can take a lot of time so it's currently impossible for us to create bespoke models for all our weapons. Maybe in the future. Here are some screenshots of his work in progress. What do you think about it? let us know in the comments section.
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Discord Notifications
chr
I don´t want to ping everyone with everything we publish, so in the future, you only be notified with the @everyone function when it's a big announcement that is really important for us to let you know about. Now I have created a new role called "@subscribed", this role will be used on all our discord category "News" from now on. This means if you wish to be notified when we update/upload something to our Social Media Accounts or that News has posted on our Website, you have to give yourself the role "subscribed". If you don't the channel will still be highlighted when something is posted, you just won't get a mention notification.
How to get the role "@subscribed"?
I created a channel called #botspam, just type in that channel "?rank subscribed" that's it. I have also added the rank NA, SA and EU. This will come in handy when we release our game and you look for matches, feel free to join one of them if you wish. So to join either group type "?rank EU", "?rank NA" or "?rank SA".
If you have a request for a different region you can contact me in Discord, to see all available ranks just type in "?ranks"
Last but not least a big Welcome to, ojl10
TacByte
Some of you may already be aware of our new member ojl10, he is joining TacByte as a Modeler- So Welcome aboard ojl10!
Like most of us on this project he has limitations on time he can invest into the project, however, he already created, fixed and changed some in-game models, not everything is visible in pictures, but it really helps us out. In the next Blog we will show some more.
Upcoming Devblog
TacByte
So that is it for now, but expect more news sometime in July. We hope you enjoy your sunny summer holidays with your family and friends, I know that some of Tacbyte team have vacations planned, so bye for now and above all else HAVE FUN!
Stream recording available!
It is now available on Youtube, enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyxKfryMJ0c