Devlog KAG Build 2019 - Getting the Ball Rolling Again

Hello knights, builders, and scumbag archers!

Here's your pre-halloween build for KAG. It's been a long time! We're into the Build 2000s now, which means it was over 5 and a half years ago that MM opened up visual studio and started the project. How time flies!

I'm hoping to avoid the usual "event day" fiasco by nipping it in the bud early. I'll be around to make sure nothing too drastic has happened tonight, and have a day to fix any tricky issues before the weekend.

This is the first release build to come out of the build server since the migration. While I'm hoping everything just "goes smoothly", things are rarely that simple. Please give us your patience should anything go awry.

This build contains a huge pile of quality-of-life changes, as well as some nice new content!

• New maps from the community in both CTF and TDM
  These have been a long time coming! Please give us your feedback on the maps, any ones that don't work in practice, and any that you love. We'd like this to be an iterative process and for the maps to be refined over time, rather than you guys getting "stuck" with something that doesn't work. Congrats to the authors for being chosen!
• Killstreak Display
  +6 is back, baby. If you get consecutive kills in a 2 second window you'll get an increasing counter along with the hover text. This is likely to "act funny" in some circumstances but if you let us know how to reproduce them, we'll be happy to iron out the kinks!
• Clantag Distinction
  Players who commonly use a clantag have expressed frustration that it isn't clear in-game that their clantag isn't part of their name. They are commonly greeted as their clantag rather than their username. This build makes some attempt to amend that, and shows clantags in grey everywhere except in the chat field, where multi-colour lines are not supported.
• APIClient Fixes and IPv6 removed.
  Only minor ones since we have a whole new implementation almost ready for release! However, this may help with putstatus issues and servers locking up, and removes all the IPv6 complications. IPv6 is not supported in any way by our underlying game networking library so having it supported for the APIClient honestly didn't make sense.
• Tunnel Ganking
  Tunnels have long been a doubled-edged-sword for a team. They let you get forward, quickly but form a potential route right to your base for the enemy. This is still the case, but there's a few changes in place to make it a little harder to abuse them.
  You can no longer hit tunnels (or any shops) "through corners" - this prevents builders from abusing corners to destroy tunnels unfairly.
  You are stunned when travelling through a tunnel and cannot use tunnels while stunned - this prevents rapid-fire teleporting and makes saw traps on home-base tunnels more effective, but also makes "claiming" a tunnel easier (anyone coming through it is at your mercy).
• Fixes galore
  A lot of crashes and other bugs have been fixed in this build - hopefully there's not too many new bugs to offset them!

Changes not in this build:

• Boulder changes
  People on the forums are after changes to boulders increasing their effectiveness in the downwards direction - we couldn't get these into a playable state so that'll have to come later
• Inventory amount handling changes
  Some work went towards simplifying the engine-side inventory behaviour but it caused desync issues and was reverted for the time being. The messages have been separated more nicely though and it should be more reliable due to some game-side changes, but for those overjoyed to hear the +Amount messages were fixed 100%, sorry!
• New APIClient
  This is coming soon, but since it's such a big change we want to do a new build focussed on it (soon!)

Code:

    Changelog: (game side only; some engine fixes undocumented here)

    [added] new maps in oct16 folder(s)
    [fixed] tree z level bugs
    [added] classic-like killstreak combo counter in kill hover messages
    [updated] engine with fix for wood backwall underground
    [fixed] tutorial sign/dummy/fireplace invisible
    [fixed] hover messages covering one another
    [fixed] null pointer on trader killed
    [fixed] selected builder blob block gets deselected when out of mats
    [fixed] capturing neutral floodedhalls with a single sponge
    [fixed] hall flooding state desync
    [fixed] Can't move down through doors while holding a dinghy
    [modified] longer postgame in CTF and TTH (25s), shorter in RTDM (5s)
    [fixed] hearts don't collide with doors and platforms
    [added] match time on scoreboard
    [fixed] instant slash when exiting siege
    [added] new scoreboardrender.as script for easily-added nice scripted scoreboard (more modding friendly too)
    [modified] grey clantags in many contexts to make it clearer they aren't part of name
    [fixed] mining stuff out of friendly builder's hands
    [added] dummy configs to see if it helps with modding the female sprites without the pixel offsets going screwy
    [fixed] Trading posts in STP
    [added] cannot vote for the same person twice in a row (minmise "troll kicks")
    [added] vote next map and surrender are cancelled on nextmap
    [fixed] vote not visible to cancel/force pass if you couldn't see that vote normally
    [modified] vote requires overall majority to pass - not just majority of who voted.
    [added] builder does double damage to corpses (makes clearing them simpler)
    [modified] afk timer reduced from 5 to 3 minutes - increased warning to 30s
    [fixed] builder attacking shops "through" corners
    [added] tunnel stuns you for 1s upon travelling (prevents enemies evading traps/teleport spamming)
    [modified] trap blocks half as much hp
    [fixed] slash cancel with 1 frame timing window
    [fixed] super admin seclev didn't get orange name
    [fixed] cant pick anything up from inside platform (must be overlapping it now)
    [fixed] catapult shooting through walls without damaging them ("cata abuse")
    [modified] sponge costs 30 coins in CTF (unchanged in TTH)
    [fixed] sponge, drill, bucket, chicken "blocking" animation too
    [modified] can't grapple "on-map" lanterns
    [modified] arrows don't collide with "on-map" lanterns
    [fixed] builder leg
    [fixed] crash in spectator cam when someone left unexpectedly

 

Build should be out within half an hour - as expected there have been some issues with the build server (at this time it looks like it's not quite getting the builds to steam). We'll have servers up for B2019 as soon as linux dedi finishes compiling and sort out the steam stuff ASAP.

 

(the "blue" or "green" or whatever lovely colour you get is based on your previous kag.exe version and will go away when you restart the game)

Shows how long the match has been running, that's all. Lets you know if it's been ten hours and maybe its time to call it a day.

I agree, a lot of that needs refining but it's hit the point in the day where it had to get out there. Thanks to makmoud we at least moved them away from the edge of the screen but the scoreboard stuff probably needs love and the hover stuff is a different grey or something similarly weird. Suggestions on specifics are welcome. Main thing it to cut down on HI POWER/FIST/TOXIC/MOLE ( ;) )

If there's stuff going to the console, that's not great - this prevents that bug where a vote would "last" into the next game, then pass and skip the next map.

 

Alright build issues are finally sorted and steam build is out - please post here with any lasting issues you have! I'll be spending tomorrow going over any fixes I can before the weekend.

 

Yay, I was on the server for a while as well! Rejoice!

 

Issues:
Unable to dig up flowers as builder (only tested on multiplayer)
Still able to slash while holding trampoline and animation doesn't play (only works on multiplayer)
@Geti

 

Seeds can't be laid with LMB click, and eu CTF servers aren't updated. Also, grey colour for tags could be a bit reddish or blueish depending on teams.

 

As for the clantags, maybe it would look better if the tags were right-justified rather than left-justified, so they're right next to the name. That's all they need imo.

¿Qué?

 

I think is always been like that in previous builds, even as knight. It shouldn't be fixed as it allows you to precisely place the seeds as any class.

Yes I agree. At the moment there is way too much space between clan tags and names.

I think it may look better if the clan tags were darker shades of red or blue depending on the team you're on. The gray colour stands out too much rather than being less noticeable.

The speed of the float text for kills and the kill combo needs to be slower. It is too difficult to see the message that pops up.