I've made a start on a new model for the railgun (which was ridiculously long now that the weapons are used one-handed). I'm pretty pleased with it so far, but plan to do some more work on it anyway.
Also, perhaps more noticeably I've made some pretty significant changes to the weapon set this week, having consulted with players about the default weapon. The charge laser is now gone (at least temporarily), having been replaced by the SMG as the default weapon. The charge laser wasn't really competitive with the other weapons, so there was no point having it a pickup in the maps. Something I may do in future is repurpose parts of it's assets as a laser weapon in a different role though. Anyway, as well as now being the default weapon, I've changed the SMG to use projectiles instead of hitscan as before. This is just an experiment, so you're welcome to let me know what you think of this and I can easily change it back, but I personally find it more satisfying to use like this. Possibly performance will be an issue, so let me know if you get framerate drops while the SMG is being used. I imagine it will be fine though.
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
New map "Cave" from Ex3mx (Max Graw). I think most will agree with me that this is a particularly remarkable map. Not only is it a kind of open map that we haven't really seen like this in ZGA before, but it's also incredibly stylish. I strongly suggest everyone takes a look at it.
ADDITIONS:
New railgun model. It's styled more as a pistol now (I wanted to give it a similar outline to a revolver, although it's still supposed to be a railgun), and I think is looking better overall. I'll probably be doing some more work on, but I think it looks alright currently, for the kind of distances you'd typically see it from.
CHANGES:
Railgun now has increased knockback force. This is now enough to knock the target of their feet. This level of knock-back has been quite a big deal in the past (particularly for the weaponized grapple beam), so this may make the Railgun OP. Do let me know your observations on this. I think the railgun possibly could have stood to be a bit more competitive anyway though.
SMG now default weapon.
SMG now uses projectiles instead of hitscan. The projectiles currently move much faster than any other projectile weapon in the game, but still slow enough that there's significant travel time at longer ranges.
The charge laser is at least temporarily removed, having been replaced by the SMG as the default weapon.
I've updated the manual. It listed the number keys as corresponding to out of date weapons. It now just says the number keys correspond to weapon slots without mentioning specific weapons.
Minor changes to shotgun appearance. Still planning to go back and do more work on this.
Redesigning/replacing default weapon, any input?
Like I say, I'm thinking about redesigning or replacing the default weapon (currently the charge laser). If no one's particularly attached to it, I'm considering either removing it completely and making the SMG the default weapon again, or replacing it with a completely new weapon/redesigning it beyond recognition.
I personally find the charge laser not very fun to use. If you like the default weapon as it is though, let me know.
I'd also be interested to hear any thoughts on what qualities the default weapon should have, such as:
<*>Infinite ammo or not? The charge laser currently has infinite ammo, but is limited by recharge time. I'm currently feeling inclined to impose ammo limitations on the default weapon again, in order to promote more movement and also force use of different weapons.
<*>It makes sense to me that the default weapon should be easy to use, in order to make the game more beginner friendly. It'd be interesting to hear what people think makes a weapon easy to use. I'm guessing high rate of fire full auto weapons.
Update 32 (Character model improvements)
Fairly slow progress lately, but I think I'm getting back on track now. Since it's been a while since the last update, there's still a fair amount of stuff here though, including visual improvements, bugfixes, balance changes and stability improvements.
2017 is going alarmingly quickly, so shortly I'll have to be thinking seriously about release dates and what features are most important for the final game. For now though, my immediate priority is still to finish the art overhaul, make some updated promotional material and start promoting the game more, which should hopefully help maintain a more active playerbase until launch. I could continue to work on the art indefinitely, but I'm currently working to a soft deadline of 2 weeks from now.
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
Ex3mx (Max Graw) has made some pretty substantial changes to his latest map, Space_Station. In particular, it's now looking much more visually complete.
ADDITIONS:
Changes to the character model:
Helmet is now more detailed, and, in my opinion looking much better. I may do some more work on it or I may decide it's more or less finished. Let me know what you think on this.
There's a new model for the grapple "gun", which is much more prominent than the old one. I'm not too sure about the design yet, but it's fairly rough still, so do let me know what you think of the general shape.
Belt magnets. A few updates back, I made the magnetic force affect the avatar's centre of mass as well as the feet, so it makes sense to add magnet models to the belt. These are pretty rough still, but you can see the general effect I'm going for. I wanted to create a kind of "gunslinger" silhouette, which I think has worked, but do let me know what you think.
New grapple gun model. The one on the old character model was almost unnoticeable, so I've made this one larger and more eye-catching. The actual design is a little bit random, so I'll be interested to hear what people make of it. In any case, I'd probably do at least a little more work on this model if I stick with this design.
The character model is approaching completion now, but I still intend to do more work on it. I'm also intending to work more on customisation options once it's otherwise finished.
The shotgun has a new model, which isn't finished yet, but I'm fairly happy with the overall silhouette. It also now has projectile trails, which I think will make it more satisfying to use, by illustrating how much you missed by better.
These are the things I've added to or changed in Factory this week:
The floor panels now have bevelled edges. This is not something I've bothered with much before, but having done so on the character model in some places, I've decided it's worth it. This doesn't really affect the profile of the object in any noticeable way, but what it does do is produce the lighting highlights on the edges of objects which you'll be able to see in real life on any smooth object with a fairly sharp edge. This just makes the floor panels look that bit more 3D. This may come at a performance cost, so let me know if you get an fps drop and I can probably fix that for the next update. I suspect it won't be noticeable though.
I've also changed the blue LEDS on the floors, so that they make more of a crosshair pattern in the corners, rather than the rows of lights as it was before. I'm not decided on whether this is an improvement or not, so opinions are welcome. I think possibly the sea of blue lights before was a bit much though.
You may also notice some strange reflections in factory. I'm experimenting with UE4's "reflection capture actors".
CHANGES:
After quite a lot of testing, I've nerfed the grapple weaponizer in a different way. Basically, I found that the most effective use for it previously was by shooting right next to your opponent, where it would quite likely hit them almost instantly, if the beam was close enough. In this respect it was acting basically as an extra gun, that didn't interrupt your firing in any way, or require any different behaviour other than just spamming both mouse buttons rather than one. The kind of behaviour it was supposed to encourage was large swinging motions on the part of the user, and big expansive dodging on the part of the target. To shift the effective use towards this, and make it less OP, I've made the following change:
There is now a delay of 0.6 seconds after shooting the weaponized grapple before it becomes damaging. This is reflected by the aesthetics. The user should now have to activate the grapple in advance of trying to hit the target, which should necessitate a swinging motion in order to make contact with the target, who would otherwise probably have moved out of the way. No doubt this will need more balancing after it's tested at more length. Let me know if you have any observations on this front.
If you remember, I changed the run acceleration a while back from 4000 to 3000 cms^-2. I've actually just gone and changed it back.
Changed ERC 479 max rate of fire from 7 to 5 rounds per second. I've been testing this weapon for balance at some length with Ex3mx, since we both got the impression it was a bit OP under some circumstances. I'm still not completely sure on this, since it's high damage is balanced in most cases by the difficulty of hitting a moving target, but it seemed like the issue arises from the fact that it can kill jarringly fast against an easy target (for example, someone coming though a narrow door, or hanging in the air for a second) compared to it's normal effectiveness, since you can just launch 3 shots off before the target has a chance to react. I'm hoping this slight rate of fire reduction will make these easy kills less easy without making the weapon much less effective under normal circumstances. As usual, it'll no doubt need more playtesting. Do let me know any observations you have on the ERC with regards to balance.
Also reduced ERC 479 recoil to 2/3 of the original value, since it was a bit much for it's rate of fire.
The grapple beam should behave more consistently in the force it applies now, particularly when swinging. This is because the grapple beam tension is now calculated based on the distance between the grapple point and the character's centre of mass, rather than the visual origin of the grapple beam on the character's arm, as it was before. This produced some slightly random behaviour previously, but much more now that the avatar's left arm is animated when using the grapple, which is what prompted me to make this change.
Changed grapple colour to green-blue for now, although I'm considering making it customisable in future. Weaponized grapple now adds red beam to this.
The single player menu message has changed to a less optimistic one on the subject of AI, due to an increasing time shortage, although the original message didn't make any promises.
AI is still something I'd very much like to add to ZGA (perhaps more than any other feature), but it's likely to be very time consuming, so depending on the launch date, I may have to choose between features, or it might take a prohibitive amount of time. I may start a discussion shortly on how important the playerbase feels this is.
BUGFIXES:
Body of new character model excluding secondary colour sections did not cast shadow. Does now.
Shotgun had a bug where ammo was not deducted on the server for a shot by a client. This sounds like it ought to grant infinite ammo, but in practice it just meant the client could not pickup shotgun ammo more than once, since after the first time, the shotgun ammo is maxed out on the server, so the server won't let the client pick up more ammo, but the client's local ammo stat still depletes and the game won't let the client shoot when their local ammo stat runs out. Funnily enough, there was an identical bug for the railgun that was found by some testers before the early access launch, so I don't know if this has been present for the shotgun since then or not. Perhaps no one's used the shotgun enough to notice. In any case, it's fixed now.
Hopefully reduced the frequency of crashes significantly. Certainly removed a few possible causes of crashing anyway, I don't know how commonly they would have occurred though.
Development files update 3 (ERC 479)
I just realised I need to release a devfiles update before map makers can access the new ERC 479 pickup, sorry for the delay there. You'll now be able to place that in any of your levels that you want it to be available.
That's the main change for map making that I can think of. As usual, this development files update will also encompass all the changes to the main game since the last, so you'll now have the new character model among other things.
Update 31 (New animations, rough first pass of new character model)
Update 31 (New animations, rough first pass of new character model)
The old character model has now been replaced, although the new one is far from finished. This is so that I can start iterating on the character model in context. I've redone all of the animations however, and I'd say these are pretty close to completion now, so do let me know what you think.
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
New map "Space_Station" by Ex3mx (Max Graw). This is much larger than Max's recent maps, and probably one of the largest maps in the game now, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays. I anticipate lots of fast-paced grapple use. Also, it should obviously support matches with more players well.
ADDITIONS:
Completely overhaul of the animations. Unlike the new character model, these are pretty close to completion.
Some points of interest on the new animations:
I've switched to one handed weapon use, leaving the other hand free for grappling animations. Some of the weapon models look a bit ungainly used with one hand and some are ok. I'll be redoing the weapon models at some point anyway.
The character now slides when a certain speed is reached. This makes more sense to me than the run animations trying to keep up.
Rough first pass for the new character model. You might notice gaps where the helmet meets the neck and the shoes meet the legs, and I'll definitely be adding more detail and general design changes in future (probably for the next update).
CHANGES:
Save and revert changes buttons are now at the top of the menus. This is so that the resolution can be more easily reverted if it's increased such that the bottom of the menu is hidden off screen.
Slight bandwidth optimization.
BUGFIXES:
Fixed bug where ERC projectiles would freeze in mid air if colliding with the weapon's owner before the first bounce. Here's a screenshot of the issue taken by RakuraiSenshi, if you're wondering what on earth that means: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=924595106
Also thanks to Rakurai for reporting this issue in the first place.
Should have reduced the chances of getting your foot stuck in the floor when jumping. This was unfortunately increased by some of the animation changes however, so it may still need some work.
Update 30 (Hopefully fixed the map change crash)
For those unaware, there seemed to have been quite a serious crash introduced to ZGA in one of the last few updates, where there was a high chance of players crashing every time the host changed maps. This should be fixed now, but as usual I'll wait until it's tested more before celebrating, since it was intermittent.
Anyway, in the course of tracking this down, I've learned a key lesson in programming with UE4, so I'm hoping I should be able to solve whatever more infrequent crashes are still hanging around, not to mention avoid causing more crashes in future.
CHANGES:
Made parts of the ERC metallic as Deika initially intended. This is just something I had to do on my end when plugging it into UE4.
Turned down the volume a bit on the ERC's fire sound, since I think it was somewhat louder than all the other weapons.
Started logging chat messages, just to help establish a chronology when I'm debugging. This won't really affect anyone except me.
BUGFIXES:
90% Sure the crash that often occurred for clients on a map changes is fixed now. It was intermittent, so it's hard to tell, but I repeatedly changed map at some length without seeing it. At any length I should have eliminated one possible cause. Thanks to everyone who helped me test this.
Stopped the ERC fire sound playing when it spawns in.
Update 29 (New weapon: "ERC 479" [with bouncing projectiles])
There's a new weapon this update, and extra special thanks to Deika who did the model, animations and sound for it. No doubt it'll undergo some iteration before it reaches it's final form, particularly stat-wise, but I'm extremely pleased with how it feels to use so far (due largely to Deika's sounds). More on this new weapon under "additions".
ADDITIONS:
New Weapon: "ERC(Electric Ricochet Cannon) 479"
Again, full credit to Deika for the model, animations and sound for this weapon.
Functionally, this weapon shoots projectiles that bounce off of walls. I suspect it's going to be very difficult to actually land bouncing trick shots around corners, so I've tried to make it competitive as a general projectile weapon, although I'm sure there will be tactical uses for the ricochet functionality (with a certain amount of spamming probably).
This weapon is pickup-able in all of the core maps now, and I've made a new slot in the inventory for it, accessible with the "6" key.
As usual, the balance is a complete stab in the dark. I've made it kill in 3 hits as an initial guess, which might seem OP for the potential rate of fire, but I'm expecting it to be quite difficult to land shots with, since it's the first real projectile weapon aside from the rocket launcher (which is indeed virtually impossible to land a direct hit with against an airborne target). You can probably expect an update with changes to the balance in the next few days.
Here are the stats for now:
Fire mode: Semi auto
Max fire rate: 7 shots per second
Projectile muzzle speed: 6500 cm/s
Damage per projectile: 50
Credits screen, available from the main menu. It's just inanimate text now, and I was planning to wait and do a proper one, but I thought it was important to credit the ever increasing number of community contributions.
CHANGES:
Weapon switching buttons are now listed in the edit controls menu as "Weapon slot (1-6)", rather than by name. This makes more sense given that sometimes there are different weapons in a slot per map.
BUGFIXES:
Fixed (or otherwise worked around) a bug where the FOV would not apply for a client until they opened the graphics menu in-game.
Update 28 (Hotfix for sphere movement)
Just realised with the last update that movement on spheres was completely broken. Not sure how that one slipped the net, but it should be fixed with this update.
ADDITIONS:
Added a warning next to the plain "fullscreen" option, since it has been known to cause various issues for some people. For others it works fine and even performs better than "fullscreen borderless" though. If you have issues with "fullscreen", just use "fullscreen borderless" instead.
BUGFIXES:
Fixed bug where movement on spheres was completely broken. Character would not change orientation with the sphere but instead walk down it like a slope from where they landed.
Fixed bug where FOV settings would revert to default on respawning
Update 27 (New user made map "Fan" by Ex3mx)
Very little progress on my part this update, I'm afraid, partially because I'm currently reworking the character model, which will be quite a lot of work before I can replace the old one.
I was meaning to get some more stuff added before the next update but I've decided to release an update anyway, primarily to release Ex3mx's new map, since it's been about a week now since he finished it.
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
New map "Fan" from Ex3mx (Max Graw). This is a really small map, but with really strong visual themes and some neat design elements. In particular, you'll notice an inventive reuse of the soon to be outdated character model as a kind of statue.
ADDITIONS:
Art overhaul progress:
These are the things I've added to or changed in Factory this week:
Changed the wall panels to have fewer lines. Positive response so far, but let me know what you think.
Wires no longer glow, since I think general consensus was that that was a bit much.
CHANGES:
Changed the button colors in the main menu again, to reflect the new color scheme.
BUGFIXES:
Prevented players from picking up pickups that they float over when dead.
Stopped you from returning to walking mode mid way through a kick. I think I introduced this accidentally with the movement system changes.
De-shineyfied the character model, which was an accident in the first place. Hardly matters now that it should be replaced any week now, but it looked very strange to me.
Development files update 2
The main purpose in this update is to release the improved KOTH goal, which I know at least a couple of people are waiting for. The new art assets will be in your content browser now, which you're welcome to have a look at but I strongly suggest you don't use them in a level you plan to release yet, since they could change completely in appearance, shape, or be removed/change name.
CHANGES:
The Koth goal now uses the mesh for collision detection and no longer has a separate collision component. This means you can now swap the default box for any shape you have a mesh for (there are various basic shapes included with UE4 by default, such as a cylinder or sphere). To do this, drag a koth goal into the level before changing the mesh in the details panel, or else the new mesh will be lost when you send your map over to me. You can also rearrange the corner models to fit the new shape by selecting them in the details panel. If there are too many corner models for your shape, there is a KothGoal_NoCorners_BP class that I've added this update. If you need fewer corner models, just use this class instead of the normal Koth goal, and once you've dragged it into the level, add as many corners as required in the details panel (Add Component, static mesh and select KothCorner). Let me know if you need any help using the improved koth goal.
I've altered each of the weapon pickups so that the weapon will spawn such that the model's center of mass appears closer to the center of the pickup. Since the actual origin of all the weapon models is on the grip, where it's attached to the avatar's hand, it could be quite difficult to get the weapon to appear where you wanted it to for visual reasons. This will make it easier to place weapon pickups in visually pleasing locations, such as the exact center of a hallway. Note that the weapon pickups may appear to have shifted, but it's just the weapon model.
Turns out I can set the default game mode to whatever I want for a newly created map, so I've set it to StaGameModeFreeForAll. This means you won't have to set a game mode override to test your map for free-for-all anymore, which will remove one possible area of confusion for beginners. That said, I realise current map makers will be used to this now anyway, as it was in my map making basics video.
