Our gift to you all this month is performance improvements. This was really a team effort to vastly improve how well the game runs on any given computer. We expect a ridiculous 60% increase or more in fps for most players. We have also translated the game into 5 new languages, fixed several bugs, and did a few balance updates.
PERFORMANCE
--Dozens of improvement to performance. This includes making low level code more efficient, changing the way several visual effects work (they'll look the same though), changing the effects used on several stages (they'll look slightly different), and optimizing character models and textures.
--10% reduction in CPU usage, at least, from just low level code changes.
--We predict at least a 60% increase in fps on most hardware during offline play. (This is crazy.) The improvement during online play is likely to be even greater than this.
--Each of the four graphics quality settings (high / medium / low / lowest) has been revised. These revisions remove various performance hogs, usually in cases where there wasn't even a tradeoff. The "low" and "lowest" settings, on the other hand, previously used some bad tradeoffs. By choosing more carefully which things get disabled on low and lowest, we've made the game look a lot better on those settings. The character shadows on "low" look far better now than before, and the shadows in the background of stages, especially the tavern and dojo, look dramatically better on "lowest" now than before.
--Valerie and DeGrey's models and textures have been adjusted. There is no visual difference at all, but they should run more smoothly. For Valerie in particular, this also fixes the issue where moving to her character select box used to cause a long loading delay.
--Fixed an insane bug that periodically caused the number of function calls during input detection during online play to be 10,000 times higher than the usual number of function calls. This fix will significantly improve performance during rollbacks.
Note: Only a fraction of the above performance improvements apply to our game's menus. While the menus will run slightly better than before, if you still get bad performance in menus, bear with us as we continue the optimization process and please make sure to check your framerate in actual gameplay.
Note2: when checking framerate, please be aware of a bug in the Unity game engine that we're still waiting on Unity to fix. If you set the fullscreen resolution in-game, say to 1080p, then you alt tab to another program, then alt-tab back to our game, the resolution will silently and secretly be set to the native resolution of your monitor, which might be massively too high for running a game. If you alt tab back to Fantasy Strike, make sure to set the resolution back to 1080p or whatever you really want, in the game's video options. This is already in Unity's pipeline to fix, we just want you to know about the bug so it doesn't ruin any framerate tests you do.
LANGUAGES
--There are now FIVE new languages supported, other than English: French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, and Japanese. The game will automatically default to the language set in your Steam client, if it’s one of our supported languages (English if it’s not). You can also manually set the language in Options -> Game -> Language.
STAGES
--Added a new stage! Valerie's stage: Wall of Truth. A mural that Valerie painted magically appears in the first few seconds of the round.
SETSUKI
--Teleport kick (B button) can no longer cancel to super.
--The version of Flying Fox that comes from pressing C -> C has a new trajectory that is better able to hit jumpers and now knocks down if it hits a jumping opponent.
--Hold-C throw has 3 fewer active frames toward the end.
LUM
--Mini-Lum now doesn’t hit on way up (only falling and when on ground)
--Lum Dice now have 2HP vs strikes/projectiles (still only do 1HP damage each to opponent)
--In practice mode, when Lum is set to do “reversal” on wakeup or after blockstun, he will now do his super instead of doing nothing.
--Fixed a bug that made Lum’s roll too high priority as anti-air. (Note: no balance testing of Lum involved us using this move as anti-air, so his balance is fine without using this move in that way.)
--Lum's yomi counter now correctly disallows the victim from gaining super meter during its animation.
ARCADE MODE
--Before each match, there's now a fun screen that shows how many opponents are left and what stage you'll fight on next.
--When you lose in arcade mode, you now get a real menu instead of a weird looking black screen placeholder thing. The menu allows you to try again, skip to the next CPU opponent, or give up.
--If you're playing arcade mode, then enter an online match, you'll be returned to where you were in arcade mode after the online match ends.
PRACTICE MODE
--If you're in practice mode, then enter an online match, you'll be returned to practice mode with the same characters you were practicing with, after the online match ends.
BUG FIXES
--Fixed a bug introduced a month or two ago with all crossup attacks in the corner. Against a cornered opponent, jumping attacks that crossed up were never landing on the crossup side. An accidental force pushed the attacker away from the corner while in the air, making all such attacks say “crossup” (and blockable as crossups), but with the attacker then landing outside of the corner, rather than in the corner as they should.
--Fixed a bug that sometimes caused there to be too much glow / bloom on the versus screen before the fight starts.
--Fixed a bug in the options menus that caused sliders to sometimes not increase / decrease if you press and hold “left” or “right” on them.
--Fixed a bug in all music tracks that causes a hiccup a few seconds in, where each song’s intro transitions to the looping portion.
--On the button config screen, when you assign a key to one of the 4 movement directions, it now correctly unassigns that key from the other player.
--Fixed an issue that caused the video options, when in fullscreen mode, to show multiple copies of each possible screen resolution for no reason.