Loot Burn Kill Repeat v2.28 is estimated to be released during week 7 of 2018 (ie. A week from when this post was made.)
To start fading in the new build I’ve posted the new Update Log that can be read here. The list of known issues has been updated with accurate issues for the current build and don’t forget to check out the new post made to the LBKR feed-reel here.
Hello everyone! Happy new year, even though I’m almost an entire month late- it’s been a busy month though!
I can’t quite recall what I wrote in the previous dev log of LBKR so if in case I repeat myself, I do apologise. As for the 2.28 release of LBKR, I believe it’s close- could be that I need another 3 or 4 weeks to find bugs and test new content- and do some final adjustments to the release. Looking at my project overview though I’m glad to see that only 15 tasks and 12 bugs are left to fix until my goals for the next version release are fulfilled. (Bugs usually come crawling in groups of billions for each release though so that’ll probably change real quick…)
So what’s new since the last time I posted something?
6 new exquisite item modifiers, each belonging to unique items.
– Explopoly
> Monsters die in an explosion of Shards
– Hat-Fuu
> Damage is increased by X% when using melee weapons
– Meat-Cluster
>Projectiles shatter on impact and fire multiple bonus projectiles from it’s point of impact
– Slippery
> A trail of grease & fish oil is left by the player, the trail is highly flammable, but the weapon is also really slippery and wet and might be dropped
– Rainbows
>Monsters that are hit by the weapon might be transformed into unicorns
8 new items have been implemented (where-as three of ’em are keycards that grant access to (new)specific areas in the game.)
-Lolipop //Formerly attained by purchase from the Bounty Keeper, has been recreated as a unique weapon with the exquisite modifier “Rainbows”
-Old-school Wizard hat //New unique hat that is pretty much exactly what it sound like
-Oriental Hat //Formerly attained by purchase from the Bounty Keeper, has been recreated as unique armor with exq. modifier “Hat-Fuu”
-Patriarch’s Ribcage //New unique chest armor piece
-Slippery Fish //New unique weapon with modifier “Slippery”
Alot of optimizations has been done in order to sort out some performance issues I noticed in the latter half of the game, this has included improvements and optimizations to code, particle systems, UI and logics, and a vast amount of physics optimizations. ( Physics have been optimized, max time spent on physics calculations / frame has been reduced, all in-game ragdolls have been optimized (although this has caused some of them to jitter, trying to adjust this as we speak.), items no longer use physics when dropped )
-2 new secret areas
-Mission “Hunter’s Heritage” has been modified
-Re-created the ES2 and Introduction maps from scratch along with the Research Facility chapter
-2 new achievments
New model and texture for the boss “Lurker”. Also the entire boss encounter has been re-written as the Research Facility map was recreated
New unique monster/miniboss “Joker”, encountered in the final chapter
Lots of new AI conversations, some are only active during certain missions (or mission objectives) while some a persistent throughout the game.
New credits screen background
GameJolt client support has been removed as it was not used frequently by the players of LBKR.
Fixes-
Fixed issue with some windows not beeing closed when pressing their hotkey
Minion Multiplier statistic is now shown in percentage in the character profile window
Doc no longer appear in the Safe zones after his death
Fixed a memory leak in the Frame-capture system (Hotkey: Home)
Fixed issue with the Fanatic miniboss sometimes fall off his tower just after he has spawned
Fixed issue with Buff/DPS states sometimes not beeing disabled when their lifespan has reached it’s end
Fixed issue with some traps in chapters 1 through 5 inflicting incorrect damage types
Fixed broken tooltip for the Tech’s ability “Stinger”
Holstered weapons can now be repaired properly
Fixed issue with monsters making use of the player’s crit-chance instead of their own in combat
Since last time I wrote an article here, I’ve been quite occupied with moving. Me and my spouse built a house that was finished in the end of November so we’ve had our hands full so to speak.
Never the less, I’ve still managed to do some progress on LBKR’s development- although, I’ve not quite managed to document the progress very well so this article might end up a little unspecific compared to the usual updates.
Game Introduction
I’ve come to realise that LBKR didn’t really provide the user with a very involving introduction scene, the player was basicly lead in a straight line toward the first chapter, with very little interactions (and introduction for that matter…) so the intro-map has received a complete overhaul.
I’ve ensured that a minimum of 1 armor piece and 1 weapon are dropped before the first monster(s) appear so that the player won’t stand helpless at that moment, more tutorials/hints have been implemented, and all hints have been given more detailed info.
Also average play-time has been extended, mainly due to the map beeing more spread out and the first mission has been changed slightly to make sure the player have to walk around the first map and try out different controls and game mechanics before progressing to the first chapter of the main story.
-UI improvements
As mentioned in the previous article I wrote, the game’s UI was updated, all in-game hint pop ups have changed slightly, covering everything from mission updates to data device collections and contract completions.
The message board now render every second message with a darker background to allow the player to more easily separate them from each other, also some bugs related to ‘message stay time’, and content-pooling have been resolved.
-New Post Processing Framework
A new post processing framework came available in the latter batches of the Unity Engine 5.x series, I’ve been meaning to upgrade to the new framework for a while now but it’s been delayed alot as I’ve prioritized other things instead. I finally got to it though and apart from improving already in-use post processing effects in LBKR it also added a few new ones, and also have less impact on the frame-rate.
New effects that are available to toggle on (by checking the Options menu) include
-Vignette Mask
-Color Correction
-Depth of Field
-Ambient Occlusion
-Gameplay – Portal Device
As some maps in the game do not allow the player to use his/hers portal device I’ve now added a UI message that appear in the message board, explaining that the device is offline or malfunctioning. Also, to give some visual feedback to when the player character is using the portal device a particle system now emit particles from the player’s hands and the character has received an animation in which he/she fiddles with the particles emitted.
–AI & Traps
Alot of monsters have been balanced, more info regarding this will be available in the release log by the release of v2.28
In game versions prior to 2.28 alot of traps in the earlier chapters of the game appear to have been set to either none or an invalid damage type. This issue has been fixed so all traps now inflict the correct damage type of their specific trap type.
Furthermore a new trap has been added: Gas Leak, it’s a red fog that flow out from pipes, if the trap receive fire damage the gas ignites, creating a flamethrower out of the pipe.
I’ve also optimized world colliders in all instances of chapter 6(Wildlands) and chapter 7(Caverns) as I still experienced some performance-related issues when playing those maps.
The more I get done on v2.28 the more I realise that it’ll be a really large update, and more things that require my attention keep poping up! The development of v2.28 has now entered it’s third month and since a few weeks’ve passed since my last update on the progress, I’ll try to fill you in!
A new skill has been introduced to all AI character’s called “Pain Threshold”, the pain threshold is sort of their physical damage resistance, also greater pain threshold will make monsters less likely to enter “execution”-mode, this has now enabled me to manage which monsters that should be easier to execute and which ones that are supposed to be more toughened as the “Execute”-mode implementation in v2.27 and earlier was set up sort of like “if the monster’s health is less than 25%, chance of execution = x%”. Needless to say it was kind of random.
Before v2.28 is released I’ll have implemented a new item stats aswell called “Impact”, that will help the player to bypass the monsters pain threshold.
I’m also done replacing the old ‘Forsaken’-monster models with new ones, seen in the attached pictures are the new Conjurer and Guardian models. There’s also a new unique monster that will be possible to encounter in chapter 5 (The Bridge), he seem to be stuck in some weird space-roots at this time though.
I’m also introducing AI weak-spots. I added some weak points for the final boss, primarily as an experiment, and I felt that it turned out quite good- so I’ve already gone ahead and added weak points for a few common monsters aswell.
To dig deeper on the subject of weak-spots in LBKR: monsters that have weak spots will from time to time reveal them for various reasons, and attacking them with a weapon that the monster have poor resistance to will result in massive damage bonuses when the weak-spot is destroyed. So to give an example lets take the ‘Hypoxia’ monster, they’ve received a pair of cannisters that are attached to their backs and are filled with plasma. The cannisters will start venting if they get too hot, which can be identified by the cannister’s shell slightly opening and letting out blue steam.
If the player destroy the cannister with plasma-projectiles it will explode and not only inflict bonus damage on the carrier of the cannister, but to any unlucky monsters that are nearby aswell.
The panel that display current buff/debuff-effects have been improved with a new style/layout in order to give the player a better overview of any relevant stuff, and also the inventory has been updated again, while the layout remains pretty much the same as introduced in v2.27, the left-most scroll-window has been sorted into a more grid-like layout, as I found it irritating to have to scroll up and down all the time to find items while testing some new features in the game.
There are currently 41 new world chunks waiting to be explored as soon as v2.28 is released (and with that there’s now a total of 571 unique world chunks.), most of them belonging to the new and final chapter of the game- and all story-missions have been created aswell, although not yet game-tested so we’ll have to wait a while and see if they work as they’re supposed to… it’s not too uncommon that these things need some fine adjustments, or so I’ve come to notice.
Just last week I began updating the introduction-map aswell, it’ll get a major face-lifting procedure and will offer much more inviting gameplay than the current intro-map that pretty much just have you move from point A to point B (and sometimes don’t spawn any items for you to equip your character with… which makes your character quite useless as you enter the first chapter of the game…)
As I mentioned earlier, weapons will now have different Impact-ratings that affect how well your attack may stagger an enemy and make it possible to quickly execute it, to add to this there will also be some changes on how plasma fuel is managed for ranged weapons. Currently the plasma fuel required to fire any ranged weapon is predetermined and depends on which (ranged)weapon type the item is ranked as. (Eg. Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Handgun. etc.)
I’ll have the plasma fuel implemented in the procedural item generation now though, while the base stats are still determined by weapon type the plasma fuel requirement will now atleast vary between each weapon that is dropped even if they are of the same type. And I’ll make sure to add the plasma fuel-useage to the item tooltip so you can see at once how much plasma is required per shot fired!
I’ve also spent some time setting up a visual studio project page to help maintain bug issues, tasks I need to do and a wiki of the game in it’s whole, so I’ve obviously wasted some valuable development time but it was starting to become quite necessary as I had a hard time keeping up with all papers I had scribbled things on and to-do-lists scattered everywhere.
Just out of curiosity I had a quick look at the file count in my project directories, so to share some information of completely no use whatsoever- the project now consist of
-1437 textures/2D art files
-387 3d models
-1392 code files
-2859 audio files (Although, rough estimate of mine is that atleast 800 of those files will be removed within soon, alot of sfx has lingered since very early versions of the game and are no longer used in-game).
– 198 misc. files (Related to the game, but used to manage things outside the game engine, eg. the LBKR website, build releases, documentation, the LBKR in-game news feed etc.)