This is a hotfix/amendment to our previous game update! We occasionally push small game updates without noting changes each time. This patch has a few changes we thought players might want to know about.
✨Changes and improvements
- Updated our game engine, primarily to address extreme "laggy/delayed" screens for users on Windows 11 with AMD Radeon graphics cards.
- Fixed textures on certain Domain Park playground assets + added more interactions
- Beasties are now cured of WEEPY after being overcome with WEEPINESS and losing 100 STAMINA. This is completely irrelevant in 99% of matches but does make WEEPY less effective on Rowdy bosses or in Expeditions.
- Pickup Court opponents now use steadily more tactical AI after getting 5+ wins
- Added the new Pickup Court as a possible location for online/recorded matches
- Made changes to internal IDs for modded plays so that there aren't conflicts with plays from different mods sharing the same name, particularly for PVP matches. This does mean that save data from the previous version might scramble learned modded plays, since the old IDs won't be recognized. However...
- Changed modded plays to cost 0 SP for tutoring in the Academy, so they're much easier to acquire/test now.
- Data-altering mods are now identified on the title screen with a gear icon
We'd really like to add tags to uploaded Workshop items too, by the way. This feature is coming... we are waiting on a critical fix from the GameMaker engine team before we can enable this for players.
🚧Other Fixes
- Fixed some errors on the file select menu + replay menu (we saw some new issues emerge as a result of data handling which had to be altered to accommodate mods...)
- Significantly refactored opponent AI to fix some issues and improve speed, at the cost of some intelligence for certain teams
- AI opponents could sometimes get "stuck" and never resolve their turn. We found a major cause for this and fixed it, so players should not see these "softlocks" anymore.
- The AI will start to randomly ignore certain options if there are too many possible actions available to them in a given turn. This should not impact any of the designed campaign encounters; however, for player-made teams which have extremely high variance in turns (ways to get extra actions, 2+ Quick Tag users, etc) you'll see teams process their turns much faster at the cost of some intelligence. In the most extreme cases we tested, we reduced time spent on turns by 85% (and they still play well!).
- We'll continue to make more passes at improving the AI
- Fixed issues with private lobbies getting stuck on "getting data..." before a match
- Fixed display issues with player emotes at some camera angles
- Made it so opponent Emote faces appear if popped during a match, as intended
- Texture memory usage is now reduced/cleared regularly during Pickup games, reducing the chance of out of memory/crashing issues from long sessions
- Improved audio transitions when entering a screen with a monorail
- Made it so you can't get a "balance patch" phonecall/warning in a new game file
- Fixed many crashes and load errors to do with mods
- Made the "charge meter" mechanic more robust to interact better with modded plays. You can now have meters of any size.
- Added a visible "mod" tag to tracks addd via mods to the Music Setup menu
- Fixed an issue with buggy/duplicate Valeries appearing during a certain story scene
- Fixed an issue where Riley could spawn in crowds at a point in the story where she shouldn't
- Adjusted a couple map screens to match up better with the game
- Tweaked an inconsistency in Bongus' colors
- Fixed an issue with an extra quest marker appearing on the map at a certain point on the way to discovering the Academy
- Fixed an out-of-bounds clip on a particular trashcan in Domain Park
- Fixed an issue with certain story scenes triggering during Pickup games
- Added a couple more icons on the title screen menu
- Fixed/adjusted a couple sets for Tower/Random Team Beasties
- Fixed an issue wherein a nervous Beastie could still use Teleport
These are all the most urgent issues we've been aware of. Always lots more to do...
Thanks for supporting Beastieball!