Hello Wreckers,
Hot on the heels of last week's update we're back with a new one, focusing on gameplay and damage.
The thing is that Wreckfest was always envisioned as a game where racing is as important as wrecking, and so far, we've been doing pretty great on the racing department but not so much in wrecking – the crashes themselves are great and unlike in any other game but while racing, it's simply too risky to try to wreck others because more often than not any plan to race recklessly will backfire and just mean a premature end to your race.
As you know, last week's update already brought some changes to the damage mechanism by increasing gameplay damage in a bid to make crashes more rewarding. Obviously that alone didn't do the trick since while it did make crashes more meaningful it also made them more punishing, and as a result, something that you as a player want to avoid. So, early this week we took a long and hard look at the feedback we received and how we could make crashing more rewarding, and this update is a result of our efforts.
To get to the point: the main change in this update is that by hitting another car you will cause significantly more damage while suffering less yourself. It doesn't mean that you'd be invincible as long as you crash into others, though, since you will always receive some damage yourself too. In effect, this means that during a race, you might actually wreck someone in a few laps time and still make it to the finish, given that you avoid getting hit yourself. In our opinion this alone does make racing more exhilarating and inject some more WRECKFEST into the game but of course you, the players, are the ones to make the final judgment so please do continue to give us your feedback.
We've also used the opportunity to improve the damage otherwise, so now for example the armor sector representation in the HUD matches visual damage better, and a car about to get wrecked can no longer be wrecked by a light nudge (that was frustrating as hell). Also, to keep it within the theme of crash physics we've adjusted the collision matrix to prevent the cars from rolling over at too slow impact speeds, something that's been bothering us (and apparently you) for some time now.
The update also contains a healthy dose of other goodies and bug fixes, with the full list below:
FIXED
- Fixed missing Gatecrasher LOD2 model.
- Fixed player unable to reset in Deatchmatch after respawning.
- Fixed a case in which cars could occasionally receive visual damage on the starting grid after restarting.
- Bogus "You have already completed this series and you have another series in progress." message is no longer displayed when attempting to continue a series in progress.
- Disabled mouse axis input as a controller to prevent users with specific hardware from being unable to remap keyboard controls.
- In pre-race, pressing ESC while being on any of the other tabs than the first now takes back to the first tab.
- BullDog upgrade parts received as rewards now use the correct car name instead of European 11.
- Lawnmower is now correctly received after beating the lawnmower challenge.
- MudDigger and Rocket no longer have duplicate "None" customization parts.
NEW AND ADJUSTED
- Added more banger racing and demolition derby liveries for select vehicles.
- Added a new giant can prop to various tracks.
- Improved environment art for various tracks.
- Improved various effects.
- Novice AI now makes more mistakes and is slightly slower.
- Amateur AI now makes slightly more mistakes and is slightly slower.
- In derby game modes, the AI now favors the player slightly more.
- Adjusted collision matrix to prevent the cars from rolling over at too slow impact speeds.
- Gameplay damage: car vs. car crashes now cause more gameplay damage.
- Hitting other cars now causes significantly more damage to the victim, less to the attacker.
- Armor sector representation in the HUD matches visual damage better.
- A car about to get wrecked can no longer be wrecked by a light nudge.
- Environment now causes even less gameplay damage.
- Mechanical damage occurs more logically when compared to the car health.
- Engine and transmission mechanical damage is reduced to make sure the player can still keep going.
- Improved lawnmower gameplay.
- MP: Added chat back to respawn state and spectate view.
- Improved player stats visuals at the top right corner of the screen.
Thanks for all your support and keep wrecking!