A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.2) The main focus of this update is on rebalancing Training Mission mode to make it more fun to play. This is the first impression many players have of the game, so it is a very important element to improve. Damage output for all ships have been greatly increased to make enemies easier to destroy, addressing an issue many new players have. This also makes each section of a level quicker to take down, putting a greater emphasis on “popcorn” enemies generated between each section as the player gains experience. To counterbalance this and keep overall difficulty the same, this mode starts with fewer lives and fewer bonus lives are awarded during play. This also helps serve as a better training environment to help new players transition to higher difficulties.
General improvements to the Mission Area 1 design have been made for all difficulty levels, as well as many other fixes and improvements. Here are the full release notes:
- Rebalanced Training Mission mode to be more fun to play -Greatly increased weapon damage for all ships in this mode to make enemies easier to destroy -Also makes boss battles complete faster -Many level sections can be completed faster now, putting a greater emphasis on generated "popcorn" enemies -Reduced the number of starting lives and bonus lives to counter balance to the easier to kill enemies
- Increased the Z range when enemies can be hit by player bullets -Makes enemies moving quickly in Z space easier to hit
- Added hand placed Health and Points item drops for fast moving Z space enemies in Mission Area 2 and 3 -Converts these enemies to "bonus enemies" with rewards for destroying them
- Adjusted several enemy spawn positions for Mission Area 1 to prevent them from moving outside the gameplay space
- Updated emissive lighting for bosses and enemies to be completely uniform, regardless of external lighting
- Added a "Try another game mode" gameover screen option when using Kiosk mode
- Removed the "Quit Game" menu options from the Pause and GameOver screens -The only "Quit Game" menu option left is in the main menu
- Added a new "Ship Selection" menu option to the GameOver screen
- Removed the "Disconnect" menu option from the Online Multiplayer pause screen -This makes it more difficult to quit/disconnect from an online game accidentally
- Added a hidden "useParticleHelperThreads" option to the config file -This is enabled by default -Disabling this still uses multithreading for the particle system, but limits particle updates to a single thread -Enabling this uses existing functionality from previous versions, allowing dynamic particle thread scaling up to 16 CPU cores -This option was created for debugging purposes; it fixes a rare crash issue when multiple instances of the game are running on the same system -It is still recommended to keep this option enabled, as the crash issue doesn't affect running a single instance of the game
As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.2” or higher. Enjoy!