Hello, hello! This update addresses bugs, optimizes, and improves on many aspects of the game. Ain't that neat. Since achievements/milestones are just around the corner, we thought you'd like some quality of life updates. Let's get right into it.
Virus: New Gameplay
First up on the major changes, Virus got a massive gameplay change that addresses ping related problems.
Slash To Spread The Infection
Instead of touching players to spread the infected, the infected must slash players. The slash will instantly infect other players and you can slash automatically by holding down left mouse. Also, you can roar at the survivors just for added fun.
This change was made to eliminate ping related issues in Virus. The slash attack is predicted, making for a much better Virus experience while still maintaining the fast paced action.
Improved Weapons
We've also tuned most of the weapons, including adding more feedback for charging weapons such as the Sonic Shotgun and Plasma Autorifle.
Improved First Infected Selection
The first infected selection system now picks players who have no yet had the chance to be the first infected - instead of picking the same person over and over.
Little Crusaders: Gameplay Improvements!
Several changes to Little Crusaders have been made in this update, including overall balancing in the game.
Instant Bite
The Dragon's bite no longer freezes players for 0.4 seconds and now is instant. The animations for the bite have also been made quicker. Gameplay wise, this change is cosmetic only (as in those .4 seconds the knight would have been killed anyways), but it does really help eliminate that feeling of lag from a bite. The Dragon's bite recovery is also now faster.
Birb Less Scared
The Birb is now working again, but also no longer gets scared away if it's being held by a Knight when a dragon roars. This change was made to put more emphasis on getting to the birb faster and also giving the Knights a better chance to use the Birb against the Dragon. Be careful, the Dragon can still scare about the Birb once it's flying through the air!
Movement Changes
Movement was tweaked to be more similar to Source movement, which means Little Crusaders now feels just as it did in GMod Tower.
Improved Dragon Selection
We've also reworked the random Dragon selection system to pick players who have not yet had the chance to be a Dragon - instead of picking the same person over and over.
Ball Race Networking Clean Up: No More Ping Lag!
Goodbye Slow Starts
We've completely eliminated the host advantage bug when you first spawn in a level. What that means entirely is that everyone will be able to move at the same time as everyone else, regardless of who is the host.
Instant Pickups
We also fixed the lag in picking up melons, so those who have high pings will notice that picking up melons are now instant, instead of delayed. This fix was also applied to finishing, so you'll finish the moment you hit the finish line instead of falling through it.
New Typing Derby
Typing Derby received a massive update, which brings it to near completion. We now use paragraphs sourced from Project Gutenberg instead of just random words for Typing Derby. This allows for a more natural typing experience. However, keep in mind that punctuation and capitalization matter this time around!
New UI and Feedback
We also polished up the UI for it and added text effects above horses so other players can spectate and see how quickly people finish their words as they move in the race. There's also player animations and additional feedback.
This will be the last major update for Typing Derby.
Drunk Vomiting
In this update we've updated the drunk system to include vomiting once you have gotten too drunk. We also updated the drunk effects to be more realistic than in previous versions of the game.
You can disable the vomit effect if you do not like seeing it in the gameplay settings.
We'll soon be rolling out the popular drunk text from GMod Tower in the near fuTUre.
Note: We do not promote drinking outside of Tower Unite. Don't try this at home. It's not good for your kidneys or your l i v e r.
Bowling Improved
There is a new HUD element that shows which pins are still standing.
There's also new rainbow light effects on lanes for when a player gets a strike or a spare.
On top of that, the bowling pin physics had a bit of improvement.
Laser Tag Patched Up!
Small, but largely needed changes were made to Laser Tag that bring back hit indicators, fix recharging stations not always highlighting, improve team indicators, and move the gun down when you are sprinting or tagged out.
End of Holiday Events
Winter is still in the Plaza, until the achievement update is out. However, we'll be ending the holiday events (presents and character visits) next Monday. So grab those exclusive items while you can!
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Changes
- Improved player animations a bit, players no longer just rotate in place when they rotate their character. Now it smoothly rotates only when absolutely needed to
- Added Square Teleporter and Canvas Dome items
- New footstep sounds
- Added quick hotbar UI element. Now when you switch weapons in Lobby, it'll briefly show the weapon hot bar so you know which weapon you just switched to
- Workshop browser now remembers where you last left off (saves your tabs, filters, search text) per item type (saves different search states for player model and item states)
- You now throw up when you drink too much (you can disable the effect in settings)
- Updated drunk visuals, also made it a little harder to get extra drunk
- Added sound effects to potatoes and pumpkins for the potato gun and pumpkin weapons
- First person camera in RC sleigh is now smoothed
- Viewself now disables if you are holding a weapon that has a secondary fire
Optimizations
- Optimized media player rendering. The media player will only render the browser frames when in view and only when a video is playing. The idle screen was also turned into a pre-rendered texture to help ease FPS when the media player is completely idle (no video playing)
- Optimized and decreased the amount of time it takes to open the pause menu by a TON
- Optimized and decreased the amount of time it takes to open the settings menu
Minigolf Changes/Bug Fixes
- Fixed spectator camera clipping through the world
- Waterhole: Fixed some grass materials clipping with the course
Ball Race Changes/Bug Fixes
- Fixed host advantage when starting levels (host would always be able to move faster than everyone else)
- Fixed finish effects always being delayed if you had bad ping
- Fixed melon pickups having a delay when you picked them up due to ping
Little Crusaders Changes/Bug Fixes
- Movement is now more like Source movement, allowing for bhopping and better air control
- When a Knight is scared they no longer drop Birb
- Updated the random dragon selection system to pick a random player who has yet to become the dragon (until everyone has had a go at being the dragon)
- It's now easier to hop over the dragon
- Removed 0.4 delay once a knight is bitten
- Sped up dragon bite anims and bite delays a bit
- Adjusted button radius a bit
- Your rank name now is displayed on the HUD
- Added message when you rank up or lost rank
- You can now third person as a ghost
- Fixed bite, tail swipe, and roar animations sometimes being off sync
- Fixed spawn music not playing
- Fixed Birb physics not working properly
Virus Changes/Bug Fixes
- Completely reworked the infection gameplay to help with ping issues. Infected no longer infect other players by touch. Infected now have to slash at players to infect them (you can also hold the button down and it'll keep slashing). The slash is network predicted, unlike the touch method, which will ensure there is no ping related issues. The infected have new animations and a crosshair
- Reduced time it takes to engage Adrenaline (1.25 seconds to 0.5 seconds)
- Improved effects for Sonic Shotgun, Flak Hand Cannon, and Adrenaline
- Reduced view punch on Sonic Shotgun and Tommy Gun and Sci-fi Handgun
- Improved the charging visuals for Plasma Autorifle and added sound feedback when the weapon is fully charged
- Plasma Autorifle alt fire is more powerful
- Added an announcement HUD message that tells you who is the first infected
- Round HUD now shows up during intermission
- Added total infected number on HUD near the timer
- Updated the random first infected selection system to pick a random player who has yet to become first infected (until everyone has had a go at being the first infected)
- Added spawn in animations that also telegraph when the infected can attack
- You can now roar at other players with right click
- Fixed glow effect becoming blue when someone else becomes infected
- Fixed a bug where TNT would linger from players who disconnected
- Fixed Plasma Autorifle muzzle flash bug
- Fixed Plasma Autorifle secondary fire not playing its sound
Laser Tag Changes/Bug Fixes
- Gun now moves downwards if you are out of power to make it more obvious you can't shoot in this state
- Improved the team mate indicator so its more clear
- Fixed laser tag gun not moving downwards when sprinting
- Fixed third person aim offsets for laser tag when moving (players were rotated wrongly to the right)
- Fixed recharge station not always highlighting properly
- Fixed damage indicators not working
Bowling Changes/Bug Fixes
- Media player in the party room now works
- Added bowling pin display that shows which pins are still standing
- Pin physics have been improved
- Fixed location volume not being large enough
- Fixed scores not showing up instantly (used to take a bit to display on the screen)
- Fixed workshop player models being larger than they should be
Typing Derby Changes/Bug Fixes
- Text is now actual sentences instead of random words
- Added a new UI
- Text submitted now displays above player horses so people can spectate
- Your position now shows on the HUD
- Added HUD messages when a player finishes
- Added position you got on the HUD for the finish element
- Added some lights for more feedback
- If you are finished, the camera will show the entire track so you can watch other players
- Added player typing animations
Bug Fixes
- Reworked player model system to ensure player models will no longer reset back to female (non workshop mode)
- Fixed equippable items not applying when you first load into a server
- Fixed workshop character models not scaling properly in seats
- Fixed workshop player models flickering sometimes
- Fixed tool weapon shadows drawing while holstered
- Fixed bug where players in sleighs would cause issues with the teleporters
- Fixed bug with RC cars not reversing properly
- Fixed duplicate backpack model when using the catpack
- Fixed footstep sound effects not playing on landscapes (such as sand in Plaza/Condo)
- Fixed melon rendering individual slices
- Ferris Wheel: Fixed a bug where sometimes you just can't get off the Ferris Wheel
- Fixed spectating resetting the camera when trying to switch to another spectator if there is only one spectator
- Fixed media player dynamic lights being the wrong direction
- Fixed Project 12 bar media players
UPCOMING UPDATES
You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap
You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs
You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report
Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.