Devlog KAG Build 2048 - Hotfix before The Weekend

Hey Everyone,

This is a minor build with a small pass of fixes for issues that came up with the last build.

The terrain resolution stuff has been replaced (again!) as the previous approach was causing lots of troubles. This one basically tries a widening search for a "safe" location, but because an exhaustive search would be incredibly CPU-intensive, it tries a stochastic (partly random) search. This means it will not always find optimal solutions and there's still "jumping"/"teleporting" - but hopefully it's "good enough" for the rare cases you get stuck in terrain anyway.

Let us know if you have new troubles with this new approach! If there's still major trouble, we'll go back to the original solution. Finding a good, reliable solution for this that works with the existing physics implementation and over the network is a nightmare. If it turns out to be a beehive, we'd rather go back to a known-tolerable solution than keep kicking it.

Other Fixes and changes in this build:

• Vote pass/fail rules changed
  there's been a lot of complaints about this one, so we've tried another system suggested by the community. To pass, the yes votes must at least outnumber the no votes by 2. This still works with low participation (2 votes vs 0, or 3 votes vs 1) but requires a firm majority. We'll open discussion on a better solution for this long term as soon as we can.
• Boulders not attributing kills has been fixed.
• Arrows no longer collide with hearts
  There's some disagreement within the team about exactly how these should behave, but for this build at least, arrows do not collide with hearts, and have a smaller collision shape as well.
• A few GUI tweaks to fix things that were out of alignment and hard to read.
• Fixed crates falling through platforms.

Let us know what you think, and Have Fun!

Max

Code:

Full Changelog:

Game Changes:

[fixed] crate falls through platform
[fixed?] potential fix for "stun stuck" bug - not certain!
[modified] vote pass rules - now requires yes > no + 1
[removed] arrows colliding with hearts
[reduced] size of heart collisions
[fixed] boulder doesn't attribute kills
[modified] ctf respawn time drawn in bigger font
[modified] centred inventory amounts printout

Engine Changes:

[added] different (stochastic) stuck-in-map resolution

 

I should note that this is a particularly auspicious build, as it marks 2^11 days since we started working on KAG. These kinds of numbers jump out to programmers, and the next one of these is in another 5.6 years (!), so we're going to live this one up :)

 

I'm so glad that arrows don't collide with hearts anymore. It's very annoying when your arrow gets blocked by the heart and the heart is shot towards the enemy, possibly healing them.
As an item which is always dropped by players it got in the way of archer combat when it had collision with arrows.

 

https://forum.thd.vg/threads/bad-delta-msg_inventory_putin-network-id-for-blobs.26326/

fix delta plox

 

First idea is stupid and way too complex/confusing.
Second idea has been somewhat discussed here: https://forum.thd.vg/threads/heart-arrows.16531/. I think it would be good if it could only be bought at the archer shop. From looking at the date of the latest post on that thread you can see that the idea seems to have been rejected.
The love particle idea in your third point is also too complex and unnecessary imo.
If anything just keep no collisions between arrows and hearts and add a heart arrow which can only be bought from the shop.

 

Mmm with this heart-arrow bug when shooting I thought of the archer having a Heart/Burger icon, in case he is carrying any of these both, at the arrow selection menu, for throwing them as a special arrow (yeah, just throwing a normal small blob as another projectile). This could be accesible only by selectiong the icon, not by tapping F to change arrow type.
Healing mates from the distance could be actually a role to play, as archer carrying burgers.

 

So you're saying that only you can shoot hearts which you throw and when they stop moving you can't shoot them? If so I completely agree!
This will stop people from using hearts as a shield to block enemy arrows as archer but still allow you to shoot arrows towards teammates.

 

Re: Heart shooting - I'm considering if we could have a tag on some items that lets you shoot them (instead of an arrow) from your hands. Things like burgers, fish, hearts, materials, anything non-harmful that could provide utility to someone you shot it at, to play a more support/medic role.. Note: there'd be no "menu" for it, it'd just shoot it out of your hands if you were holding something that could be shot, and otherwise behave as normal.

Would probably prevent using your hands as extra arrow storage, but I feel like that'd only affect particularly cheesy archers bringing 5 bomb arrows or 10 water arrows to the frontline to spam; the menu doesn't properly support holding bonus arrows in your hands anyway.

Feel free to give some thoughts, it wont be going in-game for a little while either way.

@Blue_Tiger if you have any info that could help figure out a cause behind this I'm all ears :/ As I said if it keeps being particularly obnoxious/buggy I'll probably just revert/be depressed at the wasted hours. I officially hate the way physics is implemented in KAG.

 

The only thing I would add to this is that the food item shouldn't be used if you're not full health. The main issue atm when trying to play medic role is when you eat the burger instead of passing it to a teammate.
Also possibly add a throwing animation when the item is shot out.

 

That's the idea.
I'm one of those 5 pack archers, but I understand it's quite like an abuse.Throwing things held at hand could use a new animation too:
http://imgur.com/a/TBOR8

 

That's the one I was thinking of but fix the position of the item on the last frame. I know you can't do it only by fixing the sprites but using code should work, shouldn't it?