Hello Raiders! 🧙♂️
We are happy to announce the release of our Optimization Update!
We wanted to take this opportunity to let you all know what fixes we have included, and what has been the goal with the update.
While we have been very grateful for how well our Demo is being received, there have been several pain points voiced by the community. One of the absolute biggest issues that has been raised is the lag (fps drops) that occur at certain stages of the game, usually late game and during boss fights. The main focus for this update has been to resolve performance issues, and other issues that have been highlighted by our community in Discord.
We are happy to announce that this update brings about a massive improvement to the performance of the game, addressing the issues mentioned above directly, as well as quite a lot of other fixes ranging from Gameplay, Visuals Effects, UI / UX, Networking and more! :)
Video of before Optimization
Video of after Optimization
Facepalming at the office.. 🤦♂️
Before we head into the actual patch notes, we wanted to share one of the worst performance issues that we found in the game. As it turns out, it was a design issue - and the amount of facepalming at the office when we discovered it can hardly be described..
Here’s the breakdown of that particular (design)problem. We will start with 3 facts that help explain the issue.
Fact 1: All damage can be critical damage
Fact 2: Healing triggers will trigger even if the player is at full health
Fact 3: Punches can trigger “ON ATTACK” perks. Essentially a Punch counts as an extra ATTACK.
So.. The perk “Lifesteal” heals you for 5% of all Critical Damage done, and you crit a lot in late game. This means that you heal (almost) every time you deal damage, and you deal a lot of damage to a lot of units late game (poison, burn, shock, explosions, root, punches, abilities etc.). The perk “Conviction” throws a punch every time you crit (so you can imagine how many times that happens lategame). Punches can trigger “ON ATTACK” perks that spawn additional damage dealing effects that crit (poison daggers, shocks, chain lightings etc.), and all these effects can crit, which in turn will heal, which will throw more punches, which will crit and also trigger “ON ATTACK” effects, which will crit, which will heal, which will throw more punches etc.
Essentially you deal a lot of instances of damage per second in late game (when loads of enemies are present), and with the punches & “ON ATTACK” effects this cascades into an almost infinite loop, causing the FPS to drop significantly. Combine this with the point lights on all VFX (now fixed), and no limit to how many perks and vfx could trigger per frame (also fixed) - and there you have the core of the issue.
There were more performance issues ofc, but this one was big!
For more details on what was fixed, please check out the full list of fixes below :)
📝 Patch Notes
🎨 UI / UX
Updated tutorial UI elements (Perk & Healthglobe).
Scrap amount is now visible in the merchant shop.
Wall of Minions health bar now updates correctly.
Fixed missing icon for Jamera on Level Select.
Fixed repeated text in tutorial level.
Corrected weapon naming (“Swords” were incorrectly called “Axes”).
💥 Visual Effects
Fixed missing spawn effects for clients.
Fixed various effects and sounds not stopping correctly when stunned.
Fixed lingering status effects after death or revival of characters and enemies.
Fixed Jamera’s defense/push visuals not showing for other players.
Fixed Draskyl’s Ultimate and Mark of Death visuals sometimes missing.
Updated Jamera’s ability visuals with new colors.
Fixed missing UV's in the Shop Room causing unwanted visual artifacts.
🎮 Gameplay
Fixed issues preventing hosts from reviving other players.
Fixed Deadly Venom perk not triggering correctly.
Fixed Ironhorn’s Charge/Special and 3rd hit attack reliability.
Fixed Sow Boss Fire Wave and “Dinner is Ready” animation bugs.
Fixed perks and abilities not behaving as intended (Wave Colliders, Area Abilities)
Fixed equipment being lost from other champions’ inventories after forced exit.
Improved Level Selection: you can now leave “the hole” after choosing a level by deselecting your choice.
Invulnerable Enemy Bug is now fixed
Fixed “Loot Luck” stat not doing anything.
Fixed “Bonus Gold” stat not doing anything
Reduced Kitchen Sow “Wall Minions” health.
Perk changes:
Lifesteal: Benched for now until we find a good solution/rework.
Conviction: Chance to punch reduced from 100% to 25%
Dirty Trick: Trigger cooldown set to 1 time per 0.125 second (performance improvement)
Toxic Remedy: Trigger cooldown set to 1 time per 0.125 second (performance improvement)
Rupture: Trigger cooldown set to 1 time per 0.125 second (performance improvement)
Devastation: Trigger cooldown set to 1 time per 0.125 second (performance improvement)
Combustion: Chance to trigger reduced from 50% to 25%
Frost Bomb: Chance to trigger reduced from 100% to 25%
Hellstorm: Chance to trigger reduced from 100% to 25%
Quick Fists: Chance to trigger reduced from 25% to 15%
Auto Fists: Changed description typo from “0.2 seconds” to “0.4 seconds”
Martial Arts: Chance to trigger reduced from 50% to 25%
Sturdy: Fixed the “%” typo on the card description
Yin Yang: Fixed perk description to match actual effect (3 poison daggers instead of 1)
🌐 Networking
Fixed clients not seeing stats after defeating the Sow Boss.
Fixed infinite black screen when connecting to dead servers.
Fixed clients being unable to host solo sessions after a server shutdown.
🌍 Text & Localization
Fixed multiplayer language resetting to English.
Fixed missing translations for character stats.
Corrected typo in “Most Damage Dealt” on the end screen.
Fixed wrong lobby text for Mystic on the client side.
🎧 Audio
Fixed sound persisting in the lobby after Kitchen Sow’s spin attack.
🖥️ Platform
Fixed SteamDeck touchpad causing issues.
Fixed SteamDeck incorrectly emulating Mouse + Keyboard.
📝 Performance & Stability
Fixed lag spikes caused by per-frame errors.
Fixed exception logged for Sow Boss 1 FPS issue. (Need more investigation over why there are massive frame drops)
Improved stability when returning to lobby after death.
Fixed situations where too many instances of the same perk would trigger.
Removed point lights from vfx (will be re-introduced as an option in video settings later on)
Removed the “Lifesteal” perk. This perk (together with Conviction) was responsible for the 1FPS gameplay lategame.
Thank you so much!! 🤗
To round things off, we would like to thank you all BIG TIME for the bug reports and feedback that you’ve been providing through the Discord server. We cannot understate how much we appreciate this, and how important it is for the development of the game!
We are truly grateful for the support you’re showing, and we are doing our absolute best to deliver a world class experience for all of you :)
We're looking forward to continuing the journey together, and again, thank you so much for all your support - it means the world to us! ❤️
Kind Regards,
Wombo Games