Hello folks, The Baron here with the good news you have all been waiting for - KospY and the Warpfrog team have gotten U11 into a playable state that we now feel a U11 beta is possible! ːpraisesunː
Please note, the beta is a WIP and we are introducing many new system mechanics that are likely to have bugs and lacking polish around the edges; this will be the whole point of the beta.
As such, It is only recommended to opt into the beta if you are okay with having a buggy experience, or even better if you are interested in actively helping us find these bugs and contribute feedback on your experience that will help us polish.
BETA WARNING
The beta will also break all your mods, and we wholly encourage you to not try to mod the beta to avoid frustrations. There is a good chance that every time the beta is updated (which would be likely often) all mods would break again. Avoid the heartache; if you prefer to play mods, you should stick with U10, and if you prefer to test out potentially broken new stuff you should play the beta.
If you do insist on modding despite the warnings, then please don't give feedback on the beta as this will give us a lot of false data and may needlessly extend the beta duration! For example, we could end up chasing bugs or performance reports that were actually the result of someone's mod. Thank you in advance for cooperation on this!
But if you are still interested in all this, read on!
ACCESS THE BETA ON STEAM
- Right click the game in your library, choose properties.
- Navigate to the 'BETAS' tab
- The beta will now be available from the dropdown - Choose BETA.
- The game will now download the beta. If no update appears, try restart Steam.
ACCESS THE BETA ON OCULUS
Remember, this beta is for B&S PCVR and not Nomad. Nomad players can find info on Reddit.
- Navigate to the B&S PCVR Store Page on Oculus - https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/2472374902778951/
- Scroll down the page until you get to "Additional Details" section and find "Version + Release Notes"
- At this section you will see the current game version (should say 10.2.48 for you) - there is a little dropdown arrow that you can click and from there you can select BETA.
- The game will now download the beta. If no update appears, try restart your Oculus App.
LEAVE YOUR FEEDBACK HERE
EDIT: Thank you guys, the feedback forms are now closed. We gathered almost 1500 responses so we have a ton of data to work with. Cheers!
Here is a link to the beta feedback form: https://forms.gle/bhNQZCoAXSeoNQPm8
If you only want to report bugs and not feedback, you can also use this for here: https://forms.gle/PQd5iZCXYW4kZTqG8
From the hundreds of bug reports we received, newer bug reports that come in are all reporting the same things so no need to report any bugs on Reddit, Steam or Discord as they will very likely already be logged. Thanks!
WHAT TO EXPECT AND TEST IN THE U11 BETA
Spoilers of course, but here are the new features to be tested in the beta:
TUTORIAL
ATTENTION: If you choose to play the tutorial but then go off track don't follow the tutorial steps you will break things and get stuck with no powers, no inventory, etc. A fix to this would be you'd have to delete your character to restart fresh. We will fix this in U11.X, but for now if you opt to play the tutorial, please play it through start to finish.
U11 introduces a tutorial for new players to get used to locomotion, game concepts as well as B&S gameplay design. It is played by choosing 'yes' when asked if you want to play the tutorial on first load. The tutorial ends when the player reaches the Home.
Even if you are a veteran B&S player, please test out the tutorial so we can get feedback. But remember, once you start the tutorial you must finish it or it will break your game.
CLOTHING SYSTEM
Players can now equip clothing. It can be done two ways - in front of the mirror or via the book spawner.
For the mirror, the player must stand in front of the mirror and pull the little lever to raise the shoe bench - this "activates" clothing to equip. Then the player must hove a hand over clothing to remove it with the grab button (a white outline is visible). Place new clothing on by holding it in your hand and hovering it over the body part you want to place it (white outline appears) and release grab.
You can also simply place new clothing over old clothing and the old clothing will be auto-removed.
For the book equip it is super simple; simply select the item of clothing and pick "equip".
If you find bugs, please take note which item of clothing is bugging out and leave the information in the feedback form.
NEW SPELLS
There have been new spells and staff effects added. Specifically they are:
- Fire and Lightning Merge
- Fire and Lightning Staff Slam
- Fire, Lightning and Gravity Staff Use
- Lightning Rework (Conductivity, Disarm)
- Gravity Slow Fall (Charge spell while falling)
- Gravity Jump (Gravity push downwards or while in air)
Mess around and see if they are intuitive enough to use and figure out on your own. If not, check the beta feedback form for controller help and let us know it wasn't intuitive.
INVENTORY SYSTEM
U11 introduces an inventory system which is mainly going to be of relevance in 'Progression mode'. However the player can still use it to store useful health potions right now.
Currently the inventory is opened by holding a hand to your body/waist/back and pressing the spell button to open. Interaction is done by rotating the controller and clicking trigger/grabbing items. Storing items is done by placing them over your shoulder.
ANIMATION OVERHAUL
U11 is the first iteration of AO; a rework of B&S combat to be more fluid and dynamic, and feeling like less like stilted and predictable animations. This is only a first pass and much tweaking will surely be required, so please don't consider this finished.
NEW HOME EXTERIOR
Find anything strange in the home exterior? Please screenshot if possible, and report it in the feedback form
PERFORMANCE
PCVR graphics received a big boost in U11, but there were also a ton of optimization and performance improvements added.
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE PLAYTESTING WITHOUT ANY MODS!
If you are playing modded or with a bogged down save, it will give us false performance data.
BUGS
Prepare for bugs galore! While we tried to squash as many as possible before the beta, it is inevitable that players will find a dozen more as this is just the nature of things. Hopefully none are game-breaking, but if you find anything please report it with as much precise and descriptive detail as possible in the bug form.
WHAT IS MISSING RIGHT NOW
- The work on character customization (more faces, hairs, skin tones) has not yet been implemented into the U11 build. We will try get that done as soon as is possible.
- U11 has a door framework implemented and you will be able to mess with doors in the home. "DOORS!" has become a bit of a community joke over the past months so I just wanna make sure you guys know there are no doors in U11 Dungeons!
Many thanks, guys! We are hoping this can be a short beta. ːotrfingerscrossedː
FULL CHANGELOG
Features
- Added outside environment for home
- Added tutorial
- Added player inventory, (run tutorial for explanation to how to use it)
- Added clothes changing (using home mirror)
- Added eatable food (apple)
- Added doors to the new home
- Added some new weapons
- Some armor increases the rate at which your mana recharges, and how fast you can charge spells
- Added rock throwing to NPC when the player is not reachable
- Added levers
- Added muffling NPC with your hand to avoid doing noise
- NPC now react to touch, light, bodies, items being held with telekinesis, and other NPCs being held with telekinesis.
- Updated NPC combat animation and behavior for one-handed and two-weapon AI to be more dynamic, including parrying and riposting
- Added water interaction with creature, player hand and items
- Added underwater effects and drowning when player (or NPC) stay too long underwater
- Added new spell merge for fire (meteor) and lightning (ion beam)
- Added new magic abilities to fire, lightning and gravity imbued staff (press spell menu when handled to activate)
- Added new staff slam effect for Fire and lightning
- Lightning now chains between metallic objects, imbuing other weapons nearby
- Lightning can now have a chance to disarm NPC when their weapon is fully imbued
- Grabbing an NPC and casting the lightning spell will instantly shock them
- Added gravity hover, charging the Gravity spell while falling slows your fall
- When gravity push is aimed downwards or when you are airborne, it will push you in the opposite direction
- Added real-time lighting to spell charges
- Added effect and mana cost to telekinesis spin
- Allowed player to tele-grab NPC-thrown fireballs
- Staffs will now steal energy from NPCs when you hit them, recharging their current imbue
- Gravity bubble now have an effect on player
Enhancements
- Wave and item selector UI overhaul
- Improved gravity spell audio effects
- Reworked Citadel vicinity
- NPCs make less noise when killed in stealthy ways
- Grabbed NPCs now behave differently when grappled so they don't try to move and such like before
- Archers stow their bows when their targets are too close
- NPCs can now damage each other when they're far away from the player
- Warzone is added back on the wave selection menu
- Improved stealth mechanics: AI detection has been fine tuned for a better experience
- Dual-wielding NPCs swap their left hand weapon to their right hand if they drop their right hand weapon
- NPC are able to blink
- Spells and imbues now stop when in water
- Moved further invisible walls near ocean in some dungeon rooms
- Removed ocean kill zones in some dungeon room
- Improved and changed some dungeon room layout and spawns
- Chickens’ wings are now physical parts of their body
- Added handles to most props
- Reworked torch model
- Weapons now lose imbue slower
- Lightning stuns metal-armored enemies for much longer
- Increased arm stretch length to avoid hand disconnecting from handles when too far
- Improved spell haptics
- Improved collision performance
- Improved effect spawning performance
- Clarified the “Max arm length reached behavior” option description, and set the default to “Hold”.
- Removed bloom threshold and tonemap options. Added post process profiles options instead.
- Boosted the damage and force behind the player kick.
- Added audio slider in menu option to increase or reduce the slow motion sound effect
- New “Clean visible dropped items” option. Which will periodically clean up dropped items even when you can see them.
- When cleaning dropped items, only duplicate ones of the same item will be despawned first, then any will be despawned until the number of items is under the max dropped items limit
- Added kick audio
- Added new jump audio
- Added a compensation force to the player’s hands to stop them from dragging behind when you walk
- Oar can be put in back holster
- Minor balance changes
Fixes
- Fixed NPCs ganging up to attack corpses
- Fixed NPCs alerting themselves by knocking over items, and also fixed NPCs getting alerted by sounds from friendly NPCs they can see
- Fixed NPCs not hearing player weapons hitting certain surfaces
- Fixed chicken duplication glitch which would spawn broken chickens in the home
- Fixed a bug where the player could take damage from NPC weapons well after their attack is finished
- Fixed telekinesis-grabbing an item on two handles, then releasing with both would cause it to float
- Fixed friendly NPCs treating the player as an enemy if the player makes sound which sets their alertness too high
- Fixed a couple bugs with spectator mode which would cause NPCs to spam the log with errors
- Fixed NPCs being unable to move if trying to test the game without a headset on
- Fixed player hand phasing through NPC when grabbing/ungrabbing their parts
- Fixed static items with penetration capabilities having a small chance to move when NPCs are impaled
- Fixed Jar2H json causing hand to break
- Fixed navigation issues in maps
- Fixed broken handles making your hand become unresponsive (detailed log now displayed with how to fix)
- Fixed loading a level before Warpfrog logo ends doesn’t allow user to use any UI (Books and Menu)
- Fixed some NPC parts not changing colour with SetColor (sclera/iris/etc)
- Fixed an issue disabling kick foot collision when grabbing an item
- Fixed Gravity merge bubble not picking up NPCs unless the player was close
- Fixed the game attempting to break spacetime when you try to drop an item that has a holder - such as a quiver - inside itself.
- Fixed missing physics material on Canyon bridge causing no sounds when hit and causing fireballs to glide across the surface.
- Fixed imbue effects generating a VFX mesh every time a weapon was imbued
- Fixed lag spike when imbuing weapons
- Fixed thrown items not been cleaned up when they go outside the map / far away from the player. Like fireballs being shot out the map.
- Fixed a variety of visual and render order bugs
- Misc fixes and improvements