Devlog KAG KAG Build 1830 - A Few Weeks' Tweaks and TR Offer

Hey guys! With the Trench Run release out of the way, we’ve been able to spend a little bit of time rounding out a KAG release. It should be out in the next hour or so on all platforms.

This release features a round of bugfixes and “finally” some balance measures on the ballista!

Still deadly, but less spammable!​

• Ballista and bolts now cost quite a lot more. The upgrade is also more expensive.
  This is intended to allow them to keep their role of dominating the battlefield in short bursts, without being prone to bolt-spam and spawn spam.

• Several bugs fixed with overlapping multiple Ballistae.

• Chat “…” bubble is now back – except for team-chat, which can be used for stealth tunnel planning

• BunnieTDM lighting has been modified by 8x after community complaints

• The “Surrender” vote is no longer bugged – please check this is indeed fixed but all investigations we’ve done show it working as expected. It seemed to be relying on a bad seclev. Hopefully this means less end-of-game griefing and gives players a better “gg” out than nextmapping – a team can decide to throw it in together rather than relying on the enemy accepting.

• TDM no longer “soft locks” when everybody dies at the same time

• v_camera_ints setting saves now for those who prefer the camera working that way

Officially extending the hand to KAG players everywhere to try Trench Run!​

There is also a one-time popup window which we will use for giving important information as required – we’re currently using it to plug an offer extended to KAG players for 30% off Trench Run! Use the code KAGLOVE30 when buying Trench Run here to claim your discount. As always, you can retrieve a steam key from the panel should you prefer to play your games through steam.

Have Fun!

Max & Michal

 

Yess At this point I'll probably keep accidentally turning on camera ints, it's become muscle memory to check the box instantly whenever I start kag haha!

Also, cool, didn't know about the steam key. That's convenient :]

 

Sorry for the delay on getting the build out! There's been (typical) issues with the windows build node. Should be out soon but I'll keep you posted.

Edit: build's out everywhere now! Enjoy!

 

The Ballista changes, oh yeah.
Just saw a bug with menus: ingame, press ESC > then click on Settings > you can't click on any other menu button unless you close the settings window. This doesn't happen on main menu.

 

Interesting. Those menus do work completely differently though, so I'm not exactly surprised.. I'll put it on the list but I cant promise anything will be done about it.

Indeed, but it does prevent whoever gets them first from getting three of the damn things with an endless supply of bolts that pay for themselves tenfold. The "defenders" get at least some chance now to fight back and there's more of an impetus for use of a ballista to end the game, as they're pretty costly.

You can leave your salt at the door though. The "nag" is a one time thing and the content present has all been a fair time coming.

 

...It does only pop up once?

As long as you safely quit the game, it saves your "viewed state" for the popup when it saves all your other settings. If you're using multiple computers or installs, it'll pop up one time each, but we're not going to store that kind of thing in your account.

KAG's been "out" and "done" for multiple years now. Criticism of not continuously/full time supporting a five year old game from two person dev team years after release is, frankly, not something I consider very reasonable. That the game continues to receive updates is indeed good for us and for you, but there's nothing "big" left to do in KAG, in our eyes.

Also, a small correction: we are advertising our game in our game.

Valve has been unresponsive about steam coupon options; we considered this to be the simplest option in the short term. As Mazey points out, it'd also put even more of a dent in earnings.

 

25 25 no, it doesn't; that should be fixed next build but the fix needs proper testing. If it turns out to work with no other issues I might push it through as a hotfix to cull the abuse of it and stop it getting "blocked" by other changes.

I've long since given up on the idea of KAG working like everything in it was "designed". It is what it is, a cobbled together collection of fun things that the lot of you have enjoyed enough to keep playing, develop strong feelings about, and come here to tell us how it could be better :) that's great and all, but it doesn't mean we're going to endlessly develop this thing, and that's something the community definitely needs to become accustomed to.

I dont want to make big additions to a game that's finished. I want to make new games. I've talked about this elsewhere, not going to rehash things again.

If we ever do a "big redesign" of KAG, it'll be a completely separate game. That'd avoid erasing what we have with KAG currently (a problem that I'm sure all the classic players have really strong feelings about), and allow us to build something new without the current context and expectations of KAG. However, that's not currently our plan, it's just a possibility for the future.

Indeed, but you are still completely able to play the game you paid for, as you have in many cases for years. The ad comes up once, gives you a tangible benefit, and then lets you get on with the game.

They are, but you'll have to hold them accountable for that too. Motivation only goes so far, but in all cases the intern's contributions have improved the game.
My point about expectations is that in many larger, more expensive game's cases, in 2 years (or less) you'd have a sequel released and slim-to-none chance of getting updates for the original game. Expecting a complete reversal of that from a smaller, poorer team on a game you paid less for, a longer time ago - that's blind.

Not going to argue there, but you guys are accountable for that outcome. I'll see if I get time for a maps pass this week, some of them really are bad :)

That is indeed the question of the hour. At the moment we're focussing on giving it the best chance it can have after an honestly botched release - if it doesn't pick up, we'll be ceasing throwing money after bad.

We uh, literally have done that with the emails sharing the KAGLOVE30 coupon code going out to everyone who ever bought or played kag, which is significantly wider reach than simply the steam players. Good point, but perhaps a step behind.

They've been unresponsive about a lot of things, it's nothing new. Just standard industry treatment for smaller indies, we're low priority :)