Howdy Wreckers,
We hope everyone is doing great this fine evening! Even if your evening happens to be all doom and gloom, fret not – it's just about to take a turn for better because we're happy to let you know that the latest update for Wreckfest is now out!
This time we have quite a lot of nice surprises in store for you. First of all, there's the new weather system! Thanks to it, not only each track now has Sunrise, Noon, Afternoon and Sunset weathers but also that they are unique to each track – in other words, a sunset at, say, Mixed 5 will look different to a sunset at Speedway 2. The weathers are still being tweaked but we feel like they already yield a very welcome variation to our environments.
Secondly, and this is something that many have been looking forward, some of the cars now have more customization parts with more coming soon! These mostly include hoods, grilles, spoilers, fender flares and similar parts that you can use to make your car unique. Other than that, we have some new demolition derby and banger racing inspired paintjobs for the cars, and the AI controlled cars now know to dress appropriately for the occasion, meaning that in for example a demolition derby they will use the derby paintjob. Oh, and textured rims are also finally in.
Moving over to the gameplay side of things, as you know we've been tweaking the gameplay damage in the last couple of updates. The response so far has been a mixed bag, with some of you enjoying the thrill of wrecking other cars and possibly getting wrecked yourself, while many have voiced a concern that the relatively high punishment from light nudges ("love taps", as the community affectionately calls them) takes away the fun especially in multiplayer environment. So, in a bid to preserve what was good in the new damage system we went in and did some tweaking: now minor scuffing no longer causes any gameplay damage (the body panels will still visually get damaged, though) while major hits still cause significant one-time damage. Inconsistent damage was also a major frustration to many (the damage received from visually similar looking crashes was all over the place) so we rewrote parts of the damage tracker to make it robust.
Additionally, this update contains a healthy dose of other improvements like Realistic Damage in Career, new Post-Race, Loading and Server Browser screens, improved lawnmower gameplay, more spectacular crashes, custom Demolition Derby and Banger Racing AI Sets and of course a host of bug fixes to a number of minor and major issues. You can read all about those below while the update is downloading, but once it's done, launch the game and take a look at yourself!
Enjoy the update, and don't forget to let us know your thoughts about it!
CONTENT
- New weather system with environment specific weathers and expanded variation: unique Sunrise, Noon, Afternoon and Sunset TODs for each event.
- Increased skybox quality.
- Added a set of new visual customization parts like spoilers, hoods, grilles and fenders for a number of cars.
- Added textured wheel upgrades for all cars.
- Added new banger/derby style liveries for both player and AI controlled cars.
- Added Demolition Derby and Banger Racing AI Sets for Custom Events.
- Fixed RoadSlayer missing audio in cockpit, bumper and hood cameras.
- Fixed Rocket AI car assembly so that it now appears correctly in events.
- Roadcutter window bar upgrades are now named correctly.
- Killerbee roll cages are now named correctly.
- Improved environment art and fixed bugs on various tracks.
GAMEPLAY
- AI cars now automatically use a matching banger/derby or racing style livery in appropriate game modes and career events.
- AI cars now slide around somewhat more.
- AI cars are now more aggressive towards each other and the player (work-in-progress).
- Derby AI now favors the center more to prevent them from packing to the sides.
- Tweaked collision matrix lightly to make crashes feel more rewarding.
- Demolition Derby events now yield more credits as a reward.
- In Last Man Standing, the contact timer is now 30 seconds (shown when 15 seconds left) to prevent sandbagging.
- Improved lawnmower physics to improve the gameplay.
- Ragdoll is now ejected correctly when crashing to the static environment hard enough.
- It's now easier to roll over an opponent by hitting the AI piloted lawnmower to the side.
- Wrecking an AI lawnmower and ejecting the pilot now works as designed when hitting the AI with higher momentum.
- Takedowns now register correctly even if the victim hits a static object right after being wrecked, or in the case of lawnmowers, the ground.
- Improved damage tracker for more consistent gameplay damage and prevent from being penalized from the same hit many times depending on the duration of the collision; in practice this means that for example being pushed sideways by other cars no longer results in massive damage and death. With Normal Damage, minor scuffing no longer causes any gameplay damage (the body panels will still visually get light damage though), while major hits cause significant one-time damage with hitter receiving less damage (but still some); with Realistic Damage, both visual and gameplay damage is increased, mechanical damage kicks in earlier and hitter has no artificial advantage whatsoever (note that hitter will still have a natural advantage in case of a higher mass and speed).
- Tweaked front-wheel-drive cars to be less overpowering, now more or less match the lap times of RWD cars with similar performance points.
CAREER
- The career starting car is now Rocket.
- Embarking on a new series while another one is in progress (not completed) now resets the progress of the in-progress series instead of marking it as completed.
- Rival challenge is now kept active through the whole event instead of ending with the first successful bump.
- Realistic Damage is now available in the career in the new Options tab in the Next Race screen, yielding an experience bonus.
- Rammer RS can now be only obtained as a reward from the career event "Ramming it Down".
- In multi-heat demolition derby events, player is now disqualified properly according to the series rules.
USER INTERFACE
- Implemented new Post-Race, Loading and Server Browser screens.
- Quitting an event now takes the player to the results screen so that replay is available even when quitting.
- In Settings/Advanced menu, Sensitivity and Speed Sensitivity help texts are no longer reversed.
TECHNICAL
- MP: Fixed a fatal crash related to the effect system.
- In Custom Event, AI Set now gets correctly reset after clearing user data.
- A prospective fix for the car getting rocketed to sky after crossing the finish line.
- A prospective fix for the car glitching when changing parts or adjusting tuning setup.
- Various other bug fixes.
LOCALIZATION
- Updated new and changed strings.
KNOWN ISSUES
- New weather system is not yet supported by the career.
NOTES FOR CONTENT CREATORS
- The weather system now uses an event specific weather list configured in the event's evse bag data file so you have can different weathers available for each event.
- Any custom content modifying gameplay damage is thrown out of whack due to the new damage tracker.