We did a lot of work on performance this week. Most of the changes were behind the scenes, but here are a few things you may notice in-game: We mentioned last week that the UI was causing some issues. We’ve started implementing a new font system which should make things run better & looks nicer too. So far we’ve only changed the text for the chat & the ‘Press Tab for Scoreboard’ hint, but eventually all in-game text will be replaced. The bullet impacts have also been optimized & reduced for better performance. We'll continue to improve performance as it's needed. We’ve added a few tools that will help with diagnosing performance issues. The first one is that we’ve upgraded our original Framerate Counter to a new one which displays your lowest, highest & average FPS (Basic) with an option to add a graph (Full). There’s also a new option to Show Memory Usage which has the same Basic & Full options as the new FPS counter. We’ve also added an in-game console menu which can be accessed by pressing the ~ key. The console will display any error messages and will allow you to toggle some of the game options (muzzle flash, bullet impacts, etc) on or off. The toggles are only temporary (they're there to assist us in narrowing down where any performance issues may hiding) and will eventually be disabled. Changelog: Decreased SMG accuracy Reduced size of bullet impact effects Limited number of bullet holes Added more accurate frame rate counter Added memory counter Tweaked UI to reduce performance impacts New text UI for Scoreboard hint & chat Reduced lag when switching weapons Added in-game console Various memory & performance tweaks Adjusted map so players can't get into enemy spawn [bug] Chat text wraps correctly [bug] Shooting invisible walls no longer causes error [bug]
Seems like the performance changes are working as expected So next week we want to focus on the class system
I figured out to to get gfycat working on this site We're starting on the soldier class, which we're now calling 'Striker'. His ultimate ability will be calling in an airstrike. This gif shows how you mark the Airstrike target location by pressing E. Towards the end I press Q and the ability timer starts counting down. Soon pressing Q will rain down rockets. Your browser doesn't seem to support the video tag or the webm format. Maybe there's a plugin for that? View Source Video
Looks so cool! Some questions, the enemies see where you mark the target location? The rockets fall instantly or they have a delay? And how many rockets will fall?
We won't fully know until we get them in and start testing, but for now we're thinking there will be 5 rockets which will fall instantly. the plan is to not give much notice before the airstrike happens, maybe a small notification right when you trigger it, not sure yet though.
I know in Dirty Bomb their airstrike requires throwing a grenade as a marker, this takes time to throw, gives it limited range, and gives enemies a chance to avoid it. Perhaps those are valid points, but in Overwatch, my ultimate ability with Reaper gave no warning to the enemy, I just slaughtered 4 in a row and it was sooooo satisfying (play of the game). So the 5 rockets would fall one after another, 5 rockets over 2-3 seconds we think. They will not go through roofs, so if you have sky over your head you are vulnerable. It doesn't hurt friends, don't think it hurts you either, (not sure though) so you could call an airstrike on yourself (could be cool if a melee class is coming after you). If we need to give some warning, then we could show a Red or Blue ping as you press Q, and give a short delay. But we'll figure that out after testing with you guys on Friday
Working on the Artillery Strike: Your browser doesn't seem to support the video tag or the webm format. Maybe there's a plugin for that? View Source Video
Kenz & I were testing it out, still some bugs to work out, but pretty fun! The enemy does see a red ping at the target location when an Artillery Strike is triggered (teammates see a blue ping like in the gif). We also make the rocket trails blue or red depending on if they are friendly/hostile. Your browser doesn't seem to support the video tag or the webm format. Maybe there's a plugin for that? View Source Video
Experimenting with getting the gif quality higher: Your browser doesn't seem to support the video tag or the webm format. Maybe there's a plugin for that? View Source Video
Very cool! Time Gunners will change a lot with classes . Poor Kenzie, she almost flies off the map lol. But then, I think you need to reduce the amount of players in Treehouse when you release the game in Kongregate like 4v4/5v5 (although sure 8v8 battles here will be fun, you will not be able to finish the game if players are all the time dying)
Ya we were thinking of reducing the max players to 10 or 12 per server. During testing we tried seeing if it was possible to fly outside the arena (we weren't able too but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done) Treehouse is going to be crazy (but fun) when it's a full server. I think the character classes & special abilities will also work great on bigger maps like The Wall.
Cant wait to try it on fridays update, a 2sec cooldown is a little short tho. And sadly you cant watch the gifs on your phone (at least not on mine)
The 2 sec re-charge is just for testing, will take much longer to charge (maybe a minute, maybe more).
Pressure is on to actually finish Striker I spent a lot of yesterday working on his player model. Then optimizing & re-organizing so it's possible to switch the player model at runtime (for eventual switching of classes), of course that introduced some bugs...