[h2]Greetings fellow buckyballers![/h2]
Hope you’re having a great day!
[h3]We've just released the long waited July Beta Top 10 Plays last week, check it out if you haven't already![/h3]
[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/XTQ1OLpGbCU[/previewyoutube]
So it’s been about a month since we last update you with the news of Super Buckyball Tournament, for the past month, the team has been testing out some new stuff, as well as optimizing the gameplay experiences. We'd like to go through some of the changes that are coming to SBT, feel free to let us know what you feel about it in the comment section!
[h2]
Enlarged Stadiums[/h2]
Probably the biggest change to the gameplay in August is the increase in the size of the stadium.
We've decided to increase the size of all existing stadiums proportionally, making it
30% larger than the previous ones. To compare, the previous 4v4 stadium is 20% larger than the regular one.
We've made this change based on several reasons. - Highlights the importance of players positions
- Allows for more time & space to organize teamplay
- Need bigger field to implement mechanics such as grant ball possessions to the side who’ve conceded the goal
- Reduce the amount of combat & passes that will get deflected around the wall
We tried all kinds of sizes and felt like 30% is a perfect balance. The overall game pace will be slightly slower, but not significant enough to spoil the gameplay.
Players will have a bit more time to hold on to the ball, allowing for more teamplay opportunities.
Positions have never been so important in this new version, since running through the whole map chasing the ball back and forth will be much harder following this adjustment.
[h2]
Optimized Aiming System[/h2]
Another part of our work mainly focusing on optimizing the aiming system.
There have been loads of feedbacks (mostly from new players) ever since the Preseason, suggesting to improve the aiming system while adding a crosshair.
As a result, Dot Crosshair has been added to the game, as well as a mechanic called Shooting Corrections.
Dot CrosshairWhile the crosshair has been finally made into the game, be aware that it functioned a bit differently compared to traditional FPS games.
Of course, you can still use it to help aim the top or bottom corners of the goal, however, since characters in SBT all have it’s own shot accuracy stats, the final shot will likely end up being off-target.
Unless you mastered the perfect punch mechanic, which at the moment is only available for R47. The plan is to expand the perfect punch to other characters as well in the later updates.
Demonstration from R47 using controller, with the perfect punch
Shooting CorrectionsThe purpose of add in Shooting Corrections is more for new players and players with controllers, who find it difficult to aim precisely while controlling character & camera at the same time.
When having the ball, players shoot will be corrected only if the direction where the character is facing is within a reasonable angle with the camera.
This change will significantly reduce the learning curve for beginners. while for seasoned players, it’s expected that this change should not effect them at all.
[h2]
Optimized Camera[/h2]
The last tweak we've made to SBT this time around is the camera optimizations.
If you rotate the camera in different angles, you'll find that in many times, the camera will move further away from players, offering a wider view angle to observe opponents from behind, as well as providing a better vision for long-range passing in enlarged stadiums.
Additionally, we've also adjusted the Ball Cam to make the overall transitions smoother, more details on that later.
[h2]
What’s Next?[/h2]
While the release date and business model still need to be discussed internally, it’s almost certain that there’ll not be a public open Beta event prior to the Early Access release.
You can still enjoy the Singleplayer version of the game by downloading the Demo on our Steam page, we’re also planning on hosting small-sized closed Beta testing occasionally through our official
Discord server, join now if you haven’t already so you can participate when it’s live!
We plan to release regular dev update every month, as a result of this, the bi-weekly AMA on Discord will be temporarily paused. You can reach out to us through Steam Community,
Twitter and
Discord. Stay tuned for our next dev log at the end of next month for more exciting updates!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1059110/
SBT Development Team
