As the title says: There is exactly one month left in the Summer 2019 Arcade Season so get those Highscores in!
There will be a big patch to accompany the Season change which will include new enemies, AI changes and new Arenas to play in. If you want to get a preview of what's to come then keep an eye on the SquidInABox Patreon where I will share everything I'm working on in my Wednesday vlogs.
0.75.1 PATCH NOTES
This patch removed the old camera and replaces it with a fresh new one!
This means new Camera settings are available in the Game Settings menu so you can fiddle and tweak it to your hearts content (you can even choose to turn it off and just lock it to the player if you want).
- Camera ● Camera code completely rewritten to be faster and smoother.
● Camera no longer gets distracted by nearby Triggers.
● Camera no longer lags behind the player.
● Camera handles small spaces better.
● Camera can now be "Locked to Player" in settings.
● Max Offset determines the maximum distance the camera can be from the player (defaults to 350 which is max).
● Wall Strength determines how close the Camera is allowed to get to a wall (defaults to 350 which is max).
● Aim Strength determines how far the Camera can be offset based on players current Aim direction (default is zero or off)
I'd like to thank my Patrons for helping fine tune the new default camera settings. If you are interested in all the behind the scenes work that goes into the development of the game and getting access to highly "experimental" builds then please check out the Patreon at Patreon.com/SquidInABox
Patreon
This is entirely optional!
Some people have been asking me to set up a Patreon so they can further support the development of the game and who am I to tell people they can't do that?
Every Wednesday I will be writing an in-depth post going over what I've been doing the previous week, these posts are going to be fairly programming and process focused so you can peak behind the curtain at what I get up to on a weekly basis.
This weeks post is entitled "How New Levels Required A New Camera" and details how adding new levels to the game had the knock on effect of requiring an entire camera re-write.
There will also be some Patreon only test events going on for features that are VERY Work in progress (IE they are pretty much guaranteed to break and may never make it to the actual game and definitely won't have leaderboard access) so if you want to get even earlier access to changes to the game then you might want to check it out.
At the end of each month Patrons will also be invited to take part in a live Q&A session. Only Patrons can submit questions but the resulting Livestream will be available afterwards to everybody.
As I said before this is entirely optional and if you just want to play the most stable version of the game then you don't have to do anything however if you do choose to join the Patreon then it will really help me out.
Rob
Update 0.75 - The Campaign is back. Kinda.
I've re-enabled the Campaign but added a pop-up explaining that it isn't ready for prime-time and is not being actively developed right now. You can still play it if you wish but most of the fun stuff is going to be prototyped in Dive mode first.
I've also made some small fixes for Dive mode which were actually being caused by changes to the Campaign.
-Dive
Dive mode uses Wanted Levels.
Dive modes timers don't reset when you destroy a control node anymore.
Structures De-Rez at the correct time during level transitions.
Currently I am working on improving the levels used for Dive mode including making them more complex the deeper you go and adding visual aids so you can locate Control Nodes more easily.
GRID/Campaign Temporarily Disabled
After much consideration I have decided to remove the Campaign mode in it's current format from Waves 2.
It will be replaced in time with a much more streamlined and easier to understand version however right now it is currently not available.
This decision was made based on the fact that after several years of development only a handful of players have ever actually played it and enjoyed it. I've decided to focus my attention on the bits of the game that players are actually enjoying right now: The Arcade.
A lot of what was intended for the Campaign will make it's way to the Arcade game modes (uploading viruses and boss fights for example) but un-encumbered by all the problems that have stalled the Campaigns development for months.
Hopefully this will result in more rapid content focused updates in the near future.
Campaign play will eventually return but only when it's ready.
- GRID ● Temporarily Removed From the Game
The Trello is currently being updated to reflect these changes.
Hotfix 0.73.2
Now that the freeze has turned into a crash (crashes are better they at least leave a crash dump file) I was able to hunt down the exact problem that was occurring and fix it.
The crash was happening when there was nowhere left to spawn Triggers or Structures because there were too many Cell type enemies around. This happened mostly in smaller levels and more on the hardest difficulty.
Now when spawning Triggers and Structures the AI will merely prefer spawning where there are no Cell type enemies and if it has to spawn over them they get destroyed so you can at least see where the Trigger is.
As part of this Hotfix when the Cubes trample a mutated Cell (the orange ones that explode) it won't cause it to explode preventing it from causing a chain reaction.
Hotfix 0.73.1
This is a small patch to address a rare freeze that sometimes occurred when File Lockers were being spawned in Arcade.
It's very hard to reproduce so this isn't guaranteed to have fixed it so if you are getting the game freezing (not crashing!) during arcade then please report it on the forums.
Thankyou!
Update 0.73 Patch Notes - Added Linux Support
That's right! If you want to play Waves 2 on Linux then now you can!
This is not emulation but a custom build. I've tested it on Ubuntu 18.04 and so long as you have the most recent proprietary graphics drivers for your hardware it should work fine.
There are however some known issues on Linux:
Known Issues (Linux)
Circular Progress Bars are too thin.
Supported resolutions aren't always accurate if you have multiple monitors.
As near as I can tell both of these are related to Linux drivers rather than the game itself.
That's not all!
This patch includes some fixes for Campaign mode plus a few additions to the Loadout Editor and a balance change to the Rush arcade mode.
Loadouts
Added Random button to the Loadout Editor. This will create a Random Loadout and Build Order based on your current unlocked Items.
Added Export button. Pressing this will copy a text code for the current loadout to the clipboard that you can share.
Added Import button. Opens a screen where you can enter Loadout codes generated from the Export feature. You can only import loadouts you have the items unlocked for.
Unlocking an Item in the Loadout Editor now immediately equips it.
Arcade
Rush: AI now has one less Boss card to play preventing players racking up time forever.
Bug Fixes
Fixed: Chassis Items weren't being unlocked correctly in Campaign.
If you have an AMD Graphics card AND you are experiencing a crash on startup then you should try the new OpenGL option in the launch menu.
This crash is caused by buggy AMD drivers for older cards and as AMD doesn't support these cards anymore getting a fix for them is unfortunately impossible.
Using the OpenGL launch option may fix the issue however it will likely result in the game looking a bit odd (in my tests the bloom post processing was far too intense) but it should at least work.
Hopefully this solves the majority of the problems this was causing. If the game was working fine for you on the default options then you don't need to do anything and should continue as you were.
0.72 Patch Notes
Just a small one this time.
Difficulty modes in Arcade are now a thing! That's right if you want to just chill and do some PewPew or if you want a nightmare challenge you have the option.
Leaderboards don't care what difficulty you used to get your score but the more bad guys that spawn the more points you can score so the higher difficulty modes have theoretically higher score caps.
I also adjusted the spawn rate of the Red Bouncers because they were more of a challenge than expected.
Changes
Administrator now doesn't care if there are only a few enemies of a type in play when working out it's weightings.
Red Bouncers now spawn half as many but are worth twice as much.
Added Easy and Hard difficulties to Arcade modes.
Chase mode now grants 3 seconds for touching a checkpoint rather than 2.
0.71 Patch Notes
As is normal immediately after a big update there are smaller patches to address issue that the community has found. I'm very grateful to everybody who submitted bug reports and gave feedback on the forums and in the Discord.
There were some bugs that were causing the game to be much harder than intended plus a few minor balance changes.
EDIT: I've also switched from Unreals default Deferred Renderer to their Forward Renderer because in my tests it gives a massive performance increase.
BugFixes
Bugfix: Administrator AI was getting 1 mana a turn too much (Rounding error).
Bugfix: Red Slimes killed by a Cubes death explosion were harming the player with their resulting explosion and not awarding credit for any kills to the player.
Bugfix: Followers were starting off at maximum speed when they first spawned (this has actually been around for 3 years)
Bugfix: Datavaults should no longer spawn outside the arena.
It's amazing the havoc a simple rounding error can cause and how much difference 1 extra mana a turn can make to the Administrator. Small changes over time add up to huge imbalances.
Changes
Changed: Some Ambush Tactics have been re-costed to better reflect how difficult they are.
Changed: Shard speeds reduced slightly.
Changed: Boids are now brighter.
Changed: Losing your last shield no longer kills you. The next hit from any enemy while your shields are down will.
Changed: Added "Shields Lost" voice line to announcers.
Changed: Reduced intensity of near-death glitch effect.
Changed: Moved and re-coloured the Energy and Adrenaline bars on the HUD to be more obvious.
Changed: Made the Burst Ready effect to be easier to see.
