Posted on Behalf of SOF Studios President, Tom
Hello H-Hour Community!
The development team rolled out another large patch Wednesday last week for everyone. There was a lot of new content in the patch including a complete rebuild of the framework for inputs to allow better customization for players, the addition of Sony DS4 support for Windows 10, Steam controller support, new intro screens, security enhancements, HUD changes, screen shake, the addition of a Suppression game mode and more. Additional details on the patch can be found here.
With the amount of new content and the way some of this content changed how the game felt for players, there was quite a bit of initial feedback and a hotfix to adjust the most critical of the concerns raised. It is important now to remind everyone that the game is in development so any new content is always considered first pass. That means we want and need the community to test and provide feedback. It is impossible for our dev testers to have every device or setup for testing to emulate what the greater public might use which is why we follow and note all feedback from the community.
No new feature in H-Hour will be considered final until the team has time to gauge the community’s feedback and adjust or tweak to meet the needs of the majority. Our primary goal is to follow the original design for H-Hour in building a spiritual successor to the early SOCOMs so we do need to carefully weigh changes to ensure they do not distract from the original design path but we are also always open to constructive discussions on a feature. I ask everyone to please be as specific as possible when providing feedback or suggested changes. The sooner the dev team understands your concerns, the sooner fixes can be made. The team has already identified some work for the next patch based on some excellent content, videos and suggestions received.
What’s Ahead?
- The dev team will be looking at improvements for some of the first pass features released along with adding some other fixes the community has been asking them to focus on. Also, Map 5 is moving from the design stage to the block in stage where pathing, game mode and content needs are being fleshed out by the artists.
- We had an update from the animation studio this morning that their proposal is not quite ready yet but they do hope to submit it to the studio in the next week.
- The investor front activity has been flat these past few weeks. Most seem to be focusing on portfolio reviews and have little open time for discussions at this stage. Selling a niche game that is this far along in development to perspective investors has been challenging to say the least and as a result we are shifting our focus to other options. More on this next news release.
- Future News Releases will be more aligned to development timelines and subjects and include messages the team would like to share with the community. Topics may vary, but will relate to any patches that may have come out the week before.
- Our first in this series follows.
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Developers Topic: DS4 Controller options/functionality
Community, the integration of Sony’s DS4 driver with the game has brought us a step closer to our PS4 platform goal. However, this new integration has presented challenges that the community has been discussing. So I’d like to provide some details that may help players adjust to this new option.
Controller Button Mappings:
The largest topic around the support of the DS4 controller, has been the “Fire” button assignment. Many of us Socom diehards, are used to the R1 (right bumper) button being the fire button from the DS3 days. The thing to note here, is that the bumpers on the DS3 were Analog. For firing a gun, that doesn’t matter, but for something more varying, like throwing a grenade, this is important. For example, the harder you pressed, the further your character would throw his grenade. You want a shorter toss? Don’t press as hard.
The DS4 controller no longer does this. The bumper and face (circle, triangle, etc) buttons are Digital; which means “All or Nothing”. The only Analog buttons Sony has on the DS4 are the triggers and the joysticks.
When you go into the controller bindings, you will see that there is a “Fire” action for both the Actions groups and the Axis group. That is because one is used for your guns, and the other for your grenades. We “Bound” various actions together, so that if you changed the key for one action, any associated actions would be updated for you. In the case where bound actions include an Axis action (something that can range from anything between 0 and 1), we put in logic to ensure you could only assign an accepted controller button. You certainly wouldn’t want to be allowed to assign your Triangle button to looking left and right now would you?
We can certainly separate the “Fire” actions and allow you to assign them separately of each other, but you must accept the caveat that comes with the DS4 controller.
- If you are allowed to assign both Fire actions to a digital button like your R1 bumper (aka shoulder) button; you will have no control over your grenade throw strength. This means that using R1 to throw a grenade will always throw it at full force (like when using your mouse).
- If you want to still have control over your grenade throw strength, but still want to fire with your R1 button, you will have to become accustomed with firing your weapons with R1 (or any digital button of your liking); and use a separate Analog button (like R2 or L2 triggers) to throw grenades. This issue with the Fire buttons is not a limitation of the UE engine, the H-Hour Game, or Sony’s driver. It is simply a hardware change that Sony did to the controllers, and beyond the control of any software or code.
Thanks everyone and we will see you after the next patch!