Greetings, warriors!
We've been collecting your feedback closely, trying to address the most persisting issues in the game. Let's see what this update has in store for everyone. We will preface it with a couple short announcements though:
Journey: Critical bug in Grayback's Journeys related to Diggers is fixed:
We are sorry about that, the bug was introduced with the battle gear targeting change and only affected this particular Digger battle gear, it's fixed now and you can continue leading Grayback's clansmen to freedom!
Multiplayer: Another bunch of de-synchronization triggers has been eliminated:
As improving multiplayer experience be that PvAI or PvP is our main priority, we're bringing more exciting news.
Countless hours of patience and persistence have paid off - we've been hunting down the triggers for sync errors crawling inside the game, and we did eliminate several of them, which, according to our statistics, were at fault for most part of the desyncs.
Not all of them have been found yet, so we're still working on that, however you should be able to have smooth games in MP with your friends. We've tested all of that a lot under different circumstances and scenarios, and it's looking pretty good! Now... let's talk about how you can help us help you:
Introducing NETLOGGING - our sure-shot method to effectively fight synchronization errors.
Having realized that the wretched desyncs are not as easy to fix as we had thought them to be, we had to bring countermeasures, and our go-to was NETLOGGING.
Netlogging is a feature in Battle Realms: Zen Edition that will log any multiplayer sessions in detail into a file. These files (logs) are stored in a dedicated folder called NetLogs.
When a synchronization error happens and players drop each other, the logs will vary and that will allow us to spot the differences between P1, P2, P3 etc. that triggered a desync. That's where we need your help!
If you experience a sync error with a player you know, you (and that player) need to grab the latest log file and send it to us so we could compare them. Let's go through the reporting process step by step:
Reporting Sync Errors as of Update 1.57.2:
You and your friends ran into a sync error, what to do?
- Step 1 - Try to remember what led to the sync error. Bonus points if you got a video prior to the desync ("Instant Replay" from NVIDIA GEFORCE EXPERIENCE or AMD ADRENALINE). We will need that information along with your netlog file.
- Step 2 - Navigate to your BR folder and find another folder called NetLogs
- Step 3 - Grab the Netlog that matches the date and time of your last game. Make sure the person you desynced with does the same.
- Step 4 - Send the Netlogs from players who dropped each other along with the description of the events that led to the drop to:
- [PREFERRED]To the dedicated Discord channel on our server.
- Our official support mail - [email protected]
- Step 5 - Receive our heartfelt thanks and feel proud because you've just provided some essential help to the developers.
This is not necessary, but if you want to help speed up the process of fixing the sync errors, please, do follow the guide above. Also remember- the Netlogs don't get deleted so you will have to do that manually if you need to preserve disk space.
With all that out of the way, let's go through the actual changelog!
1.57.2 Changelog:
Technical:
- Version updated to 1.57.2.
- Fixed a number of bad sync values that triggered desyncs in Multiplayer.
- Fixed all FOV bugs (a.k.a black squares) in all game types.
Gameplay:
- Fixed a bug that prevented Diggers from using their Digging Battle Gear in Grayback's Journey.
- Fixed a bug that made some units untargettable in Journeys.
- Restored rice/water shifting fix (had been previously removed for stability).
- Restored unengageable duration on units (it had previously made horses nearly unmountable when in combat).
- Wolf Ballistaman & Serpent Cannoneer won't lose their main behavior orders when reloading (such as Stand Ground or Passiveness).
- Improved the fix that prevents missile units from shooting while being engaged in melee (sometimes it didn't work).
- Fixed an issue with units not retaliating when engaged in melee while doing something else (building, constructing, attacking).
- Fixed an issue with peasants when their forced commands not being able to be cancelled (construct on fire, repair while being attacked melee, etc..).
- Units won't reset their attack animations when they stun the target (spearman, sledgers, etc.).
- Fixed an issue with stun not working properly on bots.
- [UnitAI] Run order will no longer make pack wolves retreat.
- [UnitAI] Instead, if any wolf unit with pack wolves issues the Guard order, their wolves will retreat to them.
Journey:
- Granted Nightvol a new innate ability:
Lord of the Horde: if Nightvol is under attack, hordelings will arise to aid him.
- Nightvol is now immune to Glass Sword of Serpent Swordsman.
AI Improvements:
- AI will no longer send Ronin to Necromancer's Throne if Necromancer is already summoned.
- AI will now reassign units when its warparty is severely reduced (no more war parties of 2/3 units or geishas only). AI will also retreat if it senses danger.
- AI will now water rice in a wiser way.
- AI will now consider non-AI allies' rice fields when relocating/expanding.
- AI will now try to build wells near rice fields whenever possible.
- AI will now order Necromancer and healers to utilize 'Passiveness' when engaging in fights.
That's it for now! We had to delay the fixes for the high-poly Wolf Brawler/Berserker/Packmaster until the next big update, however some progress has certainly been made!
We will also leave some room for speculation regarding this particular screenshot... Any ideas what we're planning deep in our development cave? :)
Community & Discord:
Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!
Miscellaneous info:
- Report any issues you experience in this topic.
- Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
- Battle Realms on Facebook.
- Battle Realms on Reddit.
- Battle Realms Wiki
Stay tuned for more updates!
- The Battle Realms Team