Devlog Trench Run TR Build 8 - Medic and Commando, New Maps, First Costume, and More!

Hey guys and girls,

I’ve decided to keep the build info separate today as the KAG one isn’t through testing yet. TR has a few issues still, but has been moved across accounts on the USA server, and the improvements are still playable. Bear with us on the known issues.



Changes:

• Medic now starts a heal timer on anyone touched, which can be reset by any damage. This improves your chances of getting revived even with poor communication (eg: bots/new players) but reduces the medics ability to heal while under fire.
• Commando Flash Bangs are now a grenade that can be thrown at the enemy or dropped at your feet. There are some issues with these that need tweaking but they’re much better than the self-flash.
• Engineer crates actually do damage (engineer is still a contended design though – I’ll talk more about that on the forums)
• New maps for all biomes in Run, which should give it a little more variety.
• Coin GUI for win/loss in Run mode.
• Costumes in Lobby, available for purchase from the VIP bar. There’s only one for now (a simple super hero suit) but now that the code for it is working we can add more and more. We’re aiming for at least 16 different costumes as a base. They are not visible in-game for gameplay clarity and ease-of-development reasons. Costumes are persistent within a region (like coins).
• Default Gender is generated randomly at first launch. This determines your un-costumed appearance in the lobby, and can be changed with /cl_sex in the console or autoconfig.cfg.
• Fixed a bunch of exploits and small bugs that don’t really need repeating.

Known Issues:

• All coin amounts have been reset on USA. Sorry, this is as a result of the account switch over and we’ll try to avoid this in future.
• Leaderboards should be persistent and properly sorted, but dont seem to be rendering properly. We’ll fix this as soon as we can next week.

As always, you can get access to the online part of the game right now by purchasing at https://trenchrun.thd.vg/ for just $8, or get a 4 pack to share for $16 (half price). You can ensure the game runs on your machine by downloading the client and playing offline.

Have Fun!

Max and Michał

Original: http://thd.vg/tr-build-8-medic-and-commando-new-maps-first-costume-and-more

Forum Addendum: it's building now, will be going out in the next half hour or so. Expect a little bit of downtime in both regions.

 

Oh?

 

I'll be a super basketballer!

 

i will rek everyone with new OP crates

 

MM. please petition him about it, i completely agree the old scores is much more catchy and fun. Scores long is better cause its got the synthy second part too ;)

Is this in Run or Skirmish or what?

We're currently discussing 3 possible changes for Engineer:

• "drawn path" rockets - you'd draw the intended path ahead of time and then be free to move after firing. This would make lag much less of a factor and potentially allow more trick shots, though would make timing trickier.
• Cursor based building - in a 5x5 space around the engineer, able to build bridges, 1 second cooldown. No crates/attacking with this method, but would enforce the support role and allow more interesting bunkers and more precise quick cover.
  
• Zipline (southpark gif here) - point to point zipline that'd kill enemies on impaling them. Refiring would be based on fetching the line from the other end most likely. Only one zipline active at a time. Would replace crates -> no building.

Keen to hear your ideas on these, everyone. MM is getting cold feet on the rocket stuff which I think could be quite unique and would really help the lag situation. We could always try something else though, like a worms-style "bazooka".

Be sure to keep your feedback and suggestions coming - in 2 weeks we'll have a big free weekend and hopefully get press involved so that's our next big milestone - we'd like to be "feature complete" by then tbh.

 

>"drawn path" rockets
>>Sounds pretty cool, have to say. I mean, would definitely need to see/feel it in action to know whether it's actually workable; but imo it's definitely worth trying out. Actually, tbh, unless it requires an absurd number of work to put it together, I'd almost suggest that the idea's a mandatory "we've gotta see if this works" dealio.

>Cursor based building
>>Would definitely lend a more creative flair to the engineer, but I wonder if it might wind up being too fiddly and/or feel a bit like you're re-creating the builder from KAG, rather than engineer being a new kinda fish. Otoh, ofc, having both this and the drawn path rockets might make for a satisfying continuity between the engineers' powers--both being heavily reliant on precise cursor movement--that reinforces, as you say, it as a support class.

>Zipline
>>Would be p cool, have to say; but if this were implemented then the engineer can't really "build" anything at all, which would be sad. ;_;

>worms-style "bazooka"
>>Eh. Feels a bit overdone. Or maybe it's just me feeling like I've seen it in a lot of other game recently.

 

I'm really hoping to see the medic fraction increase with the improvements this build :) was tragic over the whole last "season" (this is the average proportion in EU)


I might do more analysis of this stuff later but the data from last season was quite crappy as there was a lot of 0 player moments due to 2 regions for a small player base, and its a real pain to pull manually out of log files and into excel (especially cutting out all the other noise) - i might need to make an automated scraper if we want to do the stats thing regularly.

Re: "recreating kag builder" - there wouldn't be nearly that level of fidelity. I imagine it'd be mostly used to block off back paths and build little bits of cover. Agree that its fairly different from the rest of the game though.
Crates just feel very spammy and "un-fun" to me currently. A few cheap laughs from a BS kill but overall not good for the game or the class.

Re: worms bazooka overdone - maybe, but its definitely lag friendly and fairly simple (and the charge mechanic would be a bit different to other classes)

Re: zipline isn't building - anyone (potentially even the enemy) would be able to use the zipline and it'd be persistent until you re-cast it. It'd allow the engineer to make a novel way forward for the team, though we already have that to some extent with rocket riding...

 

I think from these engineer options the one that appeals to me the most is Worms-like bazooka. It would be kind of similar to the assaults grenade throw but would just explode on impact and be slower. I see the appeal of that.
Drawing path wouldn't have that "skill required". Once you master it, there's no much room for actual fun with it.

 

Keep paying them ;) but yeah maybe some sort of "and dont stop! (5c)" would be good. That or just queueing up multiple tracks..

Re: engineer - we've actually changed it to be a demo-man only role, with infinite remote planted explosives (1s delay on exploding them, and they disguise as crates) and five bazooka-style rockets. It's much simpler to play but still quite a high skill cieling, and the bots can contribute/aim the rocket a little better (though they sometimes scare themselves with their own planted explosives).

We'll be testing it as much as possible but it seems like the right direction going simpler rather than more complicated. Neither of the weapons have significant ping issues.

So uh I guess fuzzle called it? Other than the vague racist undertone?