MEANWHILE, IN BALL OF DUTY...
Today drops a major game update that completely overhauls the Bot systems in the game, adds many quality-of-life improvements, and sprinkles some bug fixes ontop too! How delightful!
The main talking point this update is about how we've changed those baby-bot-balls you could beat with one hand into big-balled-bastards that deliver you pain! (But only if you ask them to by cranking the difficulty up ;) ).
Read all about that, and more, below...
BOT IMPROVEMENTS
- A massive overhaul of the PvP Bot system. The logic for how they target, how they move around the levels, and how they engage enemies in battle have all been completely rewritten.
- Bot IQ (difficulties) have been reworked and rebalanced to cater for a much wider range of skill levels of players and provide an intense (read: unfair) challenge on the higher difficulties. ;)
- All maps have been optimised greatly for Bot navigation; dramatically improving how the Bots precieve and traverse the level.
- Bots now use skills and equipment! - This makes them waaay more dynamic (and difficult) to fight against.
- Bots can now make use of all customisation items from the hat, eyes, and melee weapon categories.
- Bots can now use all projectile weapon times! (Like the Grenade Launcher, Ray Gun, and more!)
- Bots now use Countyball names in non-team Game Modes.
- Ranged Bots now use logic bespoke that dictates their engagement rules for each weapon.
- Melee Bots have their own logic rules so they behave differently to the Ranged Bots.
- Melee Bots can now swing at enemies whilst they approach instead of just after they make physical contact. (Nathon_VI :) )
- Bots no longer instantly snap to look at their targets, they now instead refocus their view more naturally.
- Bots now prioritize their targets based on distance and who is attacking them.
- Bots no longer have perfect 360 degree vision (meaning you can now sneak up on them from behind).
- Many issues around Bots stalling or getting stuck have been cleaned up.
- The Bot IQ "Hacker" now uses ranged weapons on Bats n Balls (for the people that really like pain).
NEW BALLSKINS
Picked from community requests!
- Habsburg Spain (Jalapeño)
- Earthball (Mr.Abdelrahman)
- Korean Empire (Mr. Korea)
- First French Empire (Klein KaiZer)
- EU (Many many people)
NEW ACHIEVEMENTS
All artwork is hand drawn by our lovely community!
- Like, Rate, and Subscribe (By: Dootzy)
- Dirty Protest (By: Mr.Abdlerahman)
- WHY would you? (By: Mr.Abdlerahman)
- Niceee (By: Srebrny)
- Take 'em Down To Brown Town (By: PieSamuray)
- Welcome To Hell (By: Srebrny)
- World Class Privates (By: Dootzy)
- Left 4 Balls (By: KingDarBoja)
- Look At My Junk! (By: Srebrny)
- Rooftops Paradise (By: Srebrny)
- Unball-ievable! (By: Srebrny)
NEW LEADERBOARDS
Be the best of the best, or worst of the worst!
Highest Zombie Wave Survived: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1147130/leaderboards/7853666
Highest XP Rank: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1147130/leaderboards/8125195
TWEAKS
Re-worked, improved, or reinvented game features!
- When you get murdered in PvP, your death camera now looks at and watches the player that killed you. (Now you can creep on your murderer, neat!)
- The Landmine skill has been re-invented to have 'dummy' properties and act like a trap. Meaning at a distance it now looks like a pickup. Have fun baiting your enemies!
- Winter Valley has now been reinstated as it's own hostable map.
- Using a spring now resets your double jump. Enabling you to double jump after using a spring after already double jumping!
- Host screen map tile images updated to be prettier and prepped from some upcoming maps. (More on this soon ;) )
- Added a Bot difficulty readout to the Scoreboard.
- Added an icon to indicate Shuffle Mode on the Scoreboard.
- Added the current map name to the Scoreboard.
- Added an icon to indicate Shuffle Mode on the Lobby.
- Scoreboard now stays populated until Pinata Mode starts so you have more time to check it when the match ends.
- Added sound effects to HUD Level Up overlay.
- Improved the Pinata stomp animation so it feels stompier.
- Added a particle shockwave to Pinata stomp so it looks stompier too.
- Oh, and added a few extra sounds to the Pinata stomp so it sounds stompier!
- Christmas Golden Pinatas are now a permanent addition to the game - has a 1 in 10 chance to spawn instead of a regular Pinata at the end of a match.
- Added a few extra teams to the pool of teams that appear in Team PvP modes.
- Add a sound for when you use the Landmine skill.
- Moved the Discord Community button around in the menus so it appears where players search for matches.
- Added better ambient map audio for Winter Valley
- To stop block spamming there is now a short delay after blocking before you are able to block again.
- Updated the props around the army tower in the Grotto map to stop the cheese camping.
- Increased the radius damage of the Grenade Launcher and made it so a direct hit is an instant kill on default Bot difficulty.
- The plane from the Meme Airlines skill now spawns and travels from the direction the player is facing when it is activated.
- Added a sound to the Ready Up button inside the Balls From Hell lobby as it was missing previously. Whoops.
- Increased the amount of screen smearing caused when a player is hit with Poop skill. Now more a bit more like a Flushbang! thinking about it now, maybe we should increase it further and actually call it that...
- Added extra text to the Bats n Balls match intro animation to remind players that they can block and use alternate swings if they attack whilst holding the alt key!
- Updated the way melee hit detection was calculated so you can no longer block a player stabbing you in the back.
FIXES
Fixed embarassing parts of the game that crashed, broke, or otherwise looked balls!
- Fixed an issue that could stop Spectator Mode being activated in PvP game modes.
- Fixed an issue where you could see other player's snow particles around them in snow maps. You now correctly only see your own, furthering the illusion that it is snowing and that snow is real.
- Fixed an issue where Bot flags sometimes weren't correct for client players.
- Fixed an issue where Bots could sometimes display with incorrect names.
- Fixed an issue where Team Poland could display with the wrong flag in Team Game Modes.
- Fixed an issue where illegal Bots could spawn if non host players left a match when Bots were turned off.
- Fixed an issue where Teams could sometimes have unbalanced member numbers when players joined/left the match.
- Fixed an issue where the loadout prompt was missing from HUD death overlay.
- Fixed an issue where the upcoming XP level names could be out of sync with the rank names that were actually awarded when levelling.
- Fixed an issue where other player nametags wouldn't appear for non-host players.
- Fixed an issue where you could open up the Tree Gate inside Grotto map from the hillside - meaning previously it was incorrectly only one way.
- Fixed an issue where the castle overhang area on Grotto wasn't counted in the Nav mesh so the Zombies couldn't gobble you if you stood there.
- Fixed an issue where the Lava Upgrade decal on Grotto wasn't displaying as intended.
- Fixed an issue with the tinting of certain rocks in Grotto.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes hosting a Balls From Hell game without clicking the map could fail the hosting process.
- Fixed an issue where the player names in the Balls From Hell post game leaderboard were darker than intended.
- Fixed an issue where non-host players wouldn't always deform the snow on other player's screens.
- Fixed an issue where you could get your melee weapons stuck in 'instant kill mode' by spamming input a certain way...
- Fixed an issue where standing in the sniper tower in BunkerTown meant that Bots couldn't find you.
- Fixed an issue where Bot nametag colour could sometimes display incorrectly.
- Fixed an issue where the Host was hearing the 'out of ammo' sound from other players and Bots.
- Fixed an issue where the Host was hearing the 'skill on cooldown' sound from other players and Bots.
- Fixed a bunch of collision holes in Winter Valley so you can't (read: is harder to) get out of the level bounds. (Thanks Nathon VI)
- Fixed an issue where the game could sometimes crash then Winter Valley won the post-game vote.
- Fixed an issue where the snow trail wasn't correctly sized to the player mesh.
- Fixed an issue with player names wrapping incorrectly in the chat feed in sent messages.
- Fixed an issue where the player corpse could snap to a random location on death in Balls From Hell.
- Fixed a bunch of issues around Achievements unlocking, e.g. World Class Privates.
- Fixed an issue where melee swings were not registering correctly on other characters if the swing collided with certain props before striking the target player. Meaning previously it wouldn't register as you hitting them when you did! This should make fights on stairs waaay better!
aaaaaaaaand probably loads of other things that we forgot to track and add here too :)
If you made it this far, congratulations, we love you.
❤️ The Modern Ballfare Team
But as always, if you have any suggestions, questions, or find any juicy juicy bugs that need a good ol' squish then please get in touch at [email protected] or by joining the Discord server: https://discord.gg/xbseaXmM65