Testing 183: Creatures and Combat!

[Oggieogham]

I finally saw a meteorite falling.
Very nice, it needs a big BOOM though!
Killed the mobs from it solo, lvl 14, 1vitality, iron slingbow, had to retreat and heal a couple times. Got 9 oortstones that time.

[james]

Updated OP with details of Testing 183.1 release.

@james

Important 1:

This release contains a significant networking optimisation for sending player input to the game server. This optimisation was only released in Testing 183.1 and wasn’t enabled in Testing 183. The aim of these networking changes is to make the game more robust against variable and poor quality local network connections.

Please report how these networking changes perform for you in comparison to the Live version. Hopefully there should be reduced latency and rubber banding. We’re particularly interested to hear how the game performs for players who have experience consistently bad connections in the past.

and

@james

Testing 183.1:

• Creatures + Combat + Characters:
  • Wildstock charge at their target multiple times. Added a short pause between charges.
• SFX + Music:
  • New meteor sounds.
• Engine:
  • Client now sends all game inputs to the server over UDP instead of WebSocket. This should hopefully mean that people suffering from packet loss can play the game much more smoothly. The “Disable unstable network” option is now defaulted to “on”. Data about this traffic has been added to the debug screens and to the latency screen.
  • New version check code to spot client running on the wrong version.
  • Fixed drop shadows sometimes looking incorrect.

[willcrutchley]

Ooh, sounds!! I need to hear them!

[nevir]

@james

Client now sends all game inputs to the server over UDP instead of WebSocket.

curious - does this imply that other client & server messages are still WebSocket/TCP? That has to be fun to reason about

[james]

@nevir

curious - does this imply that other client & server messages are still WebSocket/TCP? That has to be fun to reason about

Different message have a different performance profile:

• Input via UDP - urgent!
• Entity commands (roughly speaking) via WebSockets - quick!
• Chunks, Maps, and other stuff via HTTP requests - parallel!

[Oggieogham]

I liked Rumply’s video so I made one too.
Got the sound of the meteor landing.

[Lawrey]

Dude, that meteor mechanic is so cool! I initially thought they just fall down fast vertically but that implementation was more beautiful! I also like the fact that the mobs are so accurate but only do little damage. Makes you appreciate them more rather than before when you just round around them in circles and do a flawless victory. You even used that portal conduit as a shield so +1 for tactic

[Kirinvar]

@james

• SFX + Music:
  • New meteor sounds.

The meteor sound is great. I instantly looked at the sky and saw the animation.
Would have missed it otherwise.

[Oggieogham]

I thought only 1 oortstone was kind of a low reward though. Not that I can even use them yet at level 14, I can’t build portals or much of anything yet.
Once I received 9, and was hoping, if they scaled by level, that at level 50 we might get 45!

[luke-turbulenz]

@Oggieogham

Once I received 9, and was hoping, if they scaled by level, that at level 50 we might get 45!

In the next update Meteorites will not only drop Oort Stones and should drop more than 1 item if you’ve completed it and not just mined a dormant one. They’ll also scale by the size of the meteorite and the world you completed it on.

This means you’ll have multiple options:

1. Solo it and get the basic reward.
2. Get as many people as you can to take on the harder ones.
3. Travel to harder worlds to take on harder ones for better rewards yourself or in groups.
4. Mine the dormant ones with no creatures and get the minimum rewards.

[Oggieogham]

One Oort from dormant ones is a nice free bonus, but only one for clearing all the mobs seemed low.
I wondered if I had moved too far away fighting while falling back and had lost credit for most of the mobs.

[Aqu]

it would be nice if the creatures of the defenders of the meteorite had a special color

[luke-turbulenz]

@Oggieogham

One Oort from dormant ones is a nice free bonus, but only one for clearing all the mobs seemed low.

We’ve upped the rewards in the next update. So let us know how they feel.

@Aqu

it would be nice if the creatures of the defenders of the meteorite had a special color

Totally agree! We’ve talked about it but not agreed on anything internally.

[Jiivita]

@luke-turbulenz

They’ll also scale by the size of the meteorite

by “size” are you talking about how many players are participating? or are there going to be different qualities of meteors? (small / medium / large for example?)

[luke-turbulenz]

@Jiivita

by “size” are you talking about how many players are participating? or are there going to be different qualities of meteors? (small / medium / large for example?)

The more people in the area, the larger the meteorite.

[Jiivita]

@luke-turbulenz

The more people in the area, the larger the meteorite.

at the risk of being annoying O.o i have another question / clarification XD

so say 20 ppl in the area and a meteor falls but only one person engages… is it sill larger due to the number of players in the area?

say only one person is around and one falls BUT he/she calls in another 19 friends to join in? is that meteor still inferior since only one player triggered it to spawn?

the notes states

@james

The more players in an area at the start of the event the harder the meteorite will be to beat.

so i guess im asking if it’s based on when it falls?.. Or when combat starts?

[Aqu]

and, I hope there will be an Oort block, and then the box looks a little unbelievable)

[luke-turbulenz]

@Jiivita

so say 20 ppl in the area and a meteor falls but only one person engages… is it sill larger due to the number of players in the area?

say only one person is around and one falls BUT he/she calls in another 19 friends to join in? is that meteor still inferior since only one player triggered it to spawn?

At the moment yes. We might look into dynamically scaling these but for now we’re seeing how they function without scaling.

[Jiivita]

@luke-turbulenz

At the moment yes. We might look into dynamically scaling these but for now we’re seeing how they function without scaling.

Awesome! Your responses are very much appreciated!