It’s fair to say it’s been a while since our last Update, but rest assured that we’ve been hard at work adding new content, tweaking existing content and fixing a huge amount of bugs that our test team have found. Update 4 is easily our biggest Update so far.
Our main goal during Update 4 has been to create a more varied and enjoyable experience against AI controlled players – we realise that most PC players will struggle to get four controllers and 3 friends around to play every session, and with Online Play being further out on our Updates plan, we wanted to get some more content for solo players as well as pairs playing co-operatively rather than competitively.
So, to make sure we could realise that goal, we’ve spent a lot of time on the AI, in truth we’ve overhauled the entire AI system and we’ve added a brand new AI focused Game Mode called Onslaught for you and your friends to team up against and chase your best completion times.
We’ve also added new Arenas, new Weapons and more polish, control and game information to our Front End.
As I mentioned, we’ve spent a lot of time fixing bugs too – 120+ found and fixed since Update 3 – so the game should look and feel a lot more polished now.
We’ve also done a lot of cosmetic tweaks, general balance tweaks, and tweaks to spawn positions for Weapons, Player spawns and Modifiers in various Arenas. We’ve also improved usability in the Front End and in game Pause Menu, as well as a long list of other things that just make the game play better. There are too many to list though, there have been 800+ Perforce checkins by the Fragmental team during Update 4.
So, rather than share hundreds of pages of our checkin notes, I’ll try to summarise the highlights of Update 4.
NEW ONSLAUGHT GAME MODE
The new Game Mode is called Onslaught.
- The Onslaught Game Mode puts the Player – and up to 3 Player controlled teammates if they wish – up against 10 Waves of Weapon wielding AI controlled Enemies.
- Unlike Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, the Enemy are only interested in Player controlled characters, so all their focus and infinite supply of ammo will be aimed solely at you and your teammates.
- Onslaught is played on 10 different Arenas handpicked from the main game.
- Each Arena has 3 different Challenges for the Player to attempt, labelled as Tiers 1, 2 and 3.
- Each subsequent Tier gets more and more challenging as they add a greater number of Enemies to fight against.
- Rather than the usual 1 shot kill for a Player, each Player will now take 3 hits before they die. Thankfully, the Enemy still go down after 1 hit.
- If the Player takes 3 hits, it’s game over and the Challenge ends in failure.
- If multiple Players are playing, every Player must be killed before the Challenge ends in failure.
- Onslaught is a Time Based Game Mode, so to make things interesting and push for a perfect run, each time a Player is hit, they will receive a 5 second penalty that will be added to their final time if they successfully complete the Challenge.
- To make things even more challenging, Friendly Fire is on, so you’ll need to avoid shooting your teammates or you will incur a lot of 5 second time penalties!
- The goal of this Game Mode is very simple. Take out all of the Enemies in all 10 waves as fast as possible without taking a hit yourself to log your Personal Best times locally.
We’ll be adding another AI Difficulty level in Update 5 too, so if you start to feel like you can dominate the Enemy, we’ll make sure we create an even greater challenge for you, but for now we wanted to gently introduce you to the new Game Mode.
On top of that we’ll also be adding Online Leaderboards in the future too, so people can start posting their Personal Best Times and fight over the top Leaderboard positions.
4 NEW WEAPONS
We’ve added 4 new Weapons to the game, each of them add a new dimension to the game, specifically fire and lobbed projectiles.
INFERNO
- The inferno spews out a long line of flames that will take out anything they hit.
- The flames will remain where they land for up to 5 seconds, allowing them to be used to set traps or block off areas of a map.
- AMMO - 15
BULLETSTORM
- Second only to the shredder in fire rate, but it has a tighter spread of projectiles that also move faster through the air when fired.
- It's high amount of ammo make it a very good weapon for covering a large area with a lot of fast moving projectiles for a decent period of time. Its one downside is your movement speed slows down while it is firing.
- Its a very effective weapon at close to mid range, but slightly less so at long range.
- AMMO - 90
BOOMER
- The boomer fires an arced projectile up into the air, allowing the user to target enemies behind full height walls.
- The projected arc is displayed by a clear line, and a circle shows where the projectile would strike if fired.
- The projectile will bounce three times, creating a small explosion where it bounces. The projectile will be destroyed on the third and final explosion.
- AMMO – 3
WILDFIRE
- The wildfire behaves the same as the boomer, firing an arced projectile into the air. It also uses the same visual indicators to show the projected arc and the point of contact for the projectile.
- When the wildfire projectile hits the ground it explodes into a wide circle of flames, which will take out anything they hit.
- Similar to the inferno, the flames from the wildfire will remain where they land for around 5 seconds, which can be used to create traps and block off areas of a map.
- AMMO – 3
15 NEW ARENAS
15 fantastic and hugely varied new Arenas for you to play in.
TRANSISTOR
- Surrounded by high walls, this level is perfect for bouncing projectile Weapons. Make sure you keep an eye on those Teleporters though, they can be dangerous.
PAC-ATTACK
- Inspired by the original Pac Man layout. This Arena has a lot of half height walls to shoot over, and the Teleporters at the top and bottom of the Arena can cause real problems too.
LANES
- Looks like a really simple Arena at first glance, but the stepped nature of the Teleporters and the sections of the Arena make this one more complicated that it looks.
CELTIC TIGER
- A perfect Arena for bouncing projectile Weapons. If you can control the centre of the Arena you can dominate, but it’s a tight space to control.
OINK OINK
- Cracking name for this snout shaped Arena. Plenty of places to fall off, and not that many places to hide. If your aim is good, you can really clean up on this Arena.
ROBBOTRON
- One of the largest Arenas in Update 4. Great mix of open space, half height walls, and a straight line constant repeating shot through the two Teleporters dead centre of the Arena.
THE BUNKER
- Similar to ROBBOTRON, this Arena has a constant repeating shot through the two Teleporters at the centre. It’s a tight Arena, but there are plenty of places to find cover too. Always good Rounds in this Arena.
HEXADEATHIMAL
- Apologies for the name of this one, it’s what democracy provides when you let game developers vote on the name. This one has two constant repeating shots running vertically through the two sets of Teleporters. Plenty of half height walls too, making it a tricky Arena to find cover within.
FRAGSVILLE
- An extremely tight Arena with plenty of places to fall off the edge and half height walls to shoot over. This is a really dangerous little Arena.
PARTITIONS
- A labyrinth-like design to this one. It creates a lot of places to hide, but watch out for those half height walls and the Teleporters or you’ll end up getting one in the back.
TURNTABLE
- Spinning concentric circular pathways with Weapons dotted all of them. You’re best not running against the direction of the spin on this, go with it to really fly around this Arena. Perfect flame based and bouncing projectile Weapons.
TICK TOCK
- The first standard Arena to have Jump Pads in it. Use them to get into the walled centre section and back out, watch out for the shots into the centre over the half height walls. Sneaky players stand on top of the walls too.
DUNGEON CRAWLER
- A large and spatially divided Arena that is then linked by lines of sight through the half height walls and Teleporters. A really varied and unbalanced level design makes this a really good Arena to play in.
ARMAGEDDON
- This is a really dangerous Arena, sheer edges into the abstract abyss at every turn, but there are plenty of places to break line of sight. Great use of edges, gaps and varied cover on this Arena.
HONEYCOMB
- A large Arena that has almost no cover in the centre and lots and lots of holes to fall into. This is another dangerous addition to the long list of Fragmental Arenas.
NEW WEAPON DESCRIPTION SCREEN
We’ve added a new UI Screen that lists every Weapon in the game. Each Weapon has a text description that describes the Weapon’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the occasional hint at alternative ways to use them. This text descriptions is also accompanied by a short video showing the Weapon in action.
NEW HINTS AND TIPS INFO
We’ve added a new Hints and Tips feed to the Main Menu and the Lobby to provide little pointers from the team at Ruffian. Hopefully you’ll get some little insider, golden nuggets of info.
NEW LOBBY AND GAME FLOW
We’ve replaced our old Lobby and added a new one that looks better, and allows Players more control over the setup of the characters in each of the 4 slots.
GAME FLOW
- The Lobby and the Game Mode setup for the chosen Game Mode are now separated, so that the Lobby focuses on Player setup and the following screen focuses on the chosen Game Mode setup.
SWITCH TEAMS
- In a Team Deathmatch game, Players can now switch teams to decide which one they want to be on, rather than automatically being forced on to one or the other.
This also allows Players to play 1 v 3 if they’re feeling confident.
SETUP AI ENEMIES
- The Player can now setup the difficulty level of each AI Enemy on an individual basis. So, if they want to play against an Easy, Medium and Hard trio of AI Enemies, they can.
3D CHARACTER MODELS
- Each character is now represented as an animating 3D model, rather than the old 2D static image.
UPDATED STREAMING MODE
It was unclear previously what the “Streaming Mode” option within the Video Options section of our Options screen did previously, and that’s mainly because it wasn’t working properly.
So, we’ve made sure that this now works as planned.
What it actually does is turn off some post effects that create compression artefacts if you are streaming at a lower res, or if you capture a video at a lower res. It also turns off the Player Info HUD in the corners of the screen.
The intention for this is to allow Twitch Streamers and YouTubers to stream or record footage without any issues and provide the space for them to add their own content to the corners of the screen – like video of their faces as they play, or images to represent them personally.
UPDATED AI
We have been constantly updating the AI to make them more intelligent, give them better reactions, and make them more challenging and aggressive at the highest difficulty level.
We’ve also brought them back a little for the lowest difficulty to make sure that new players, specifically young kids have a nice and easy entry to the game. We’ve been really surprised at how many young kids have been turning up in large numbers at the events we’ve shown the game over the past 6 months, so we wanted to make sure they had a gentle introduction to Fragmental.
Here are some more high level points on what we’ve done with the AI since Update 3.
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
- AI move more evasively when they’re in close quarters. This means they’re less likely to punch too often.
- AI take cover more consistently.
- AI are less likely to walk into death beams.
- AI spread out when moving as a team.
- AI have more accurate target assessment.
- AI use modifiers more consistently.
- AI are more likely to use in game buttons and switches.
- AI will mess about post match.
WEAPON USE
- AI steer redeemers.
- AI can correctly use lobbed weapons.
- AI will try to hit you around corners with weapons like crossbeams.
- AI use drillers very aggressively.
DIFFICULTY TWEAKS
- Easy is easier.
- Normal is normaler – that’s totally a word, RIGHT!
- Hard is harder.
Other than all that a lot of work has been done to make the AI more stable. They’re less likely to give up on fights they might have done previously and they’re also less likely to repeat actions without any obvious purpose.
That’s everything we can think of to tell you about Update 4. Overall we’re really pleased with the current state of the AI, the new Onslaught Game Mode, the new Weapons and Arenas, and how the Front End flow feels much tighter now too.
We’ll be sharing some videos over the coming weeks to show how those single player Tier 1 Ruffian Best times were achieved for Onslaught. They’ll show what we believe to be the perfect routes you need to take, but you’ll still need to pretty much make every shot count to get near those times. Failing that, you can always team up with a friend or two and see if you can beat the times that way. Single Player Times on Tier 1 is where the glory is in the Ruffian office though!
We’re hoping to get Update 5 out at some point during January. Update 5 will contain a new Survival Game Mode and 25 new Survival Arenas to support it, as well as a few new music tracks. We’ll also have the usual list of tweaks and bug fixes too. We hope you enjoy the new Game Mode, the updated AI, the new Weapons and Arenas and all the tweaks and fixes we’ve added, and that our future plans are in line with what you believe should be added to the game.
As always, we would love for anyone out there to give us their feedback on any part of the game, it’s still very much in development, so changes can be made if we know what the problems are. The more comments we get, the more chance we have of finding the issues and finding good solutions.
So please give us your thoughts on the current status and future plans, add them to the Steam Discussions board and we’ll do everything we can to respond to your comments as fast as possible.
The Ruffians
