Slapshot: Rebound News

This is a big one that adds a lot of much needed things and puts down the groundworks for some more awesome things that are to come!

[h2]NEW[/h2]
- Added bots
-- You can now find two new practice modes, one with a goalie bot and a full bot match where you decide the team sizes
-- In the future, you will be able to add bots to your custom matches online too
- Added an animation to the scorebug when a team scores
- Added several extra crowd sounds to improve the ambience relative to the map (you can turn it down in Audio -> Ambience)
-- More crowd cheers during the match
-- Crowd anticipates the end of the match, cheering the players on as the clock ticks down
-- Crowd cheers for goals and the end of the match
-- Added a slight delay to the goal horn to improve realism
- Added an experience tracker at the end of a public match
- Overhauled the game info widget (in queue and in lobby), also made them accessible to controller
- Added a leave penalty of 5 minutes for leaving a public match
-- Some of the matchmaking issues were people's ratings being completely wrong because they left so many matches.
-- Now, it's faster to finish your match rather than to leave. Make the best of it! I've seen some crazy comebacks.
- Added a sound for time warnings
- Added an icon of the item's type to the store items
- Added controller support for the region selector

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
Matchmaking has had a bunch of changes between the last update and now. Thank you to everyone that helped us finetune it so far.
There's still a lot of improvements coming to it, we're monitoring and balancing queue times, match quality and other factors.
- Capped the rating for the matchmaker, improving queue times for people on the extreme ends of the ratings without a large match quality penalty
- Made matchmaking in your own skill range faster by setting a default start offset for the rating range search
- Increased the soft cap of the rating search range to compensate for the wider range of ratings in the new system
- Sped up the search for the matchmaking range between your rating and the soft cap
- Slowed down the search for matchmaking range past the soft cap, increasing match quality
- Backfill is now entered into the matchmaker as its own entity, meaning it'll do a search just like players instead of taking anyone in range
-- This means that players that have been in queue for a hot second won't have a disproportionate amount of backfills
- Fixed an issue where backfills would cause everyone's new calculated ratings to be way too high or low

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed occasional incorrect container panel rendering of dynamic lists in UI
- Periods toggle and match length options are now greyed out for non-owners of the lobby
- Fixed and improved the net physics interactions and added support for multiple pucks
- Fixed the call puck feature making the puck go to bots
- Fixed FPS cap not applying to main menu

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Added hat trick and axe hats from the original Slapshot
- Added shark back item

[h2]Other[/h2]
- Updated our Unity LTS version which may provide some performance enhancements (or break everything, who knows!)
- Updated the graphics texture of the goal nettings to make it look a bit more realistic
- Updated the ice scratches texture that fades in over time while you're on the ice to be more visible


As we're finalising the finetuning of the new matchmaking algorithm, we have determined which ratings will get which ranks for ranked which is now closer than ever. We'll continue improving the bot intelligence, add difficulty settings, continue our work on the ambience of the game and provide more custom lobby options.

GLHF
Oddshot Games

[h2]NEW[/h2]
- New locker room!
- Overhauled the matchmaking rating system. This is phase 1 to prepare for ranked.
-- This now uses a 'certainty' element to the rating, placing you in the appropriate rating more quickly.
-- The new rating is better in creating ratings based on teams
-- Note: all ratings have been reset to switch over to the new system!
- Matchmaking has been sped up to compensate for the better skill distribution curve
- Added the ability to change the match length in custom lobbies

[h2]Public API[/h2]
- Added more depth to the end reason field, including noting an overtime end
- Lobby creation through API can set the new match length setting as well

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Added mullet, duck beak

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed the crashes that have been plaguing some players
- Fixed back numbers not rendering correctly for some cosmetics / scenarios
- Fixed an issue where leaving games still rewarded you with the experience you got after, now you get zero
- Fixed a backfill issue where joining mid-match could sometimes still count as a loss

GLHF

[h2]NEW[/h2]
- Added a Rebound Hoodie exclusive to premium users - free for all current and future premium users.
- Added cosmetic presets. Premium users can create up to 5 presets.
- Added 'recommended' server, auto selected on first boot, which picks the server(s) with the lowest latency.
- Created a Slapshot status page https://status.slapshot.gg/ (the ping checkers are used to find the recommended server for players)
- Added the ability to simulate latency in practice mode which can be toggled on and off based on your latest match latency. (Premium users have a slider)
- Created a public API for bot creators and leagues where you can query matchmaking information, game statistics and create lobbies. (API keys provided on request)

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
- The hard cap of 300 MMR difference in matchmaking has been turned into a soft cap
-- Past the cap, the search range will still increase just at a slower rate so people on extremes can still find matches
-- This is a temporary improvement while we work on the new system

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Removed the restrictions on the fox mask
- Added scythe, earphones, hockey mask variants, pink camo on hunt, camo stick, mushroom, fisher set, monk set, mug hat, pepperoni puck, cheddar puck, chef jersey, trash hat, nana jersey
- Made the fire eyes cosmetic more uniform
- Fixed LED and toothbrush highlights

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Added some more feedback to invalid codes for promotions
- Fixed an issue where your input would be locked if you were rebinding and found a match at the same time
- Fixed a matchmaking bug where you could technically be backfilled and matched in a new match at the same time

[h2]Other[/h2]
- Made the outdoor arena's dark mode darker
- Unlock popups will now be delayed until the end of the match if you are in an active match during them
- Added better error tracking to track down some crashes and issues
- Added support for 2560x1600 resolution
- Added support for FPS cap at 400, 500 and 600 FPS. (Thinking of turning this into a slider)

GLHF

In this patch, we addressed some much needed changes to gameplay and fixed some long standing bugs.

[h2]Gameplay changes[/h2]
- Controller nerf: Brought stick rotation speed to be the same as mouse input
-- This makes bumping and shot speeds equal for all input types, as well as making stick rotation on controller more consistent
- Buffed controller dizziness to compensate for the change above; also brought on par with mouse input
- Balanced the catch-up speedup mechanic where preserving momentum allows you to go over max speed; this now enters a 1 second cooldown when dashing in a different direction
-- You preserve your current momentum even over max speed when dashing, it only prevents further speedup for the cooldown time.
- Nerfed the catch-up mechanic by 40% to encourage better positioning and discourage dumping
- Fixed an issue with max speed consistency when slowing down
- Fixed an issue where holding the dash button after the dash has concluded allowed you to still dash chip the puck, now only triggers when the dash is in progress
-- There is a 1 second margin after the dash completes to perform your chip shot to allow for multiple playstyles (carrying or boosting into the puck or dekeing right before)

[h2]New promo / code redeem feature[/h2]
- The shop page now has a 'redeem code' button
-- We'll be running promotions giving away free stuff through this feature
-- Want to test it out? Use the code FIRST to get 1000 pux. The first 500 people to use it get it!



[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Fixed cat ears topology causing weird shadows on it
- Added the OG hockey mask, grim reaper hoodie, cucumber, lime, orange, grapefruit and lemon puck, mono-eyes and tri-eyes, dog ears, baby hair

[h2]Other[/h2]
- Added a popup for pux earned (promo, level up, manual by devs,..) for when you're online
- Added a popup for cosmetic unlock including when you make a shop purchase
- Spectator camera now defaults to the caster cam
- Added a new console command spectate that you can use in practice mode to go into freecam for content creators
- Added a setting in custom game lobbies to change the current active period when periods are enabled

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed pressing the reset button online causing a desync (for real this time)
- Fixed the hide spectator camera buttons setting
- Fixed an issue where people that left before the end game screen would show just 'username' on the scoreboard
- Fixed an issue where pop-ups mid-game would cause the game to unfocus completely and require opening the menu
- Fixed a memory leak that would cause crashes for some players
- Fixed an issue where some popups would display under other UI
- Fixed custom lobby period setting not toggling correctly the first time you load the UI in your session
- Fixed an issue with arena selection in custom lobbies glitching / resetting


- We're making really promising progress on bots!
- The gameplay changes made this patch will be monitored and tweaked if necessary
- I'll be working on a 'recommended' regions selection that's used by default to avoid people queueing into a really high ping region by just selecting all regions.
- Another feature I've wanted to implement for a long time is the option to simulate network latency in practice mode for muscle memory, I'll be starting this too
- We are investigating a way for you to add people as friends in-game so you don't need to have them added on your current platform and allow cross-platform parties
- A rework for matchmaking ratings is in the works for ranked

GLHF

This is mostly a quality of life update including some foundations for updates to come.

[h2]Lefties rejoice![/h2]
- Your handedness preference is now synced across devices (as well as your jersey number)
- Left handed players will now see their character hold the stick left handed in the main menu
- Left handedness is now synced in parties in the main menu display as well

[h2]Titles[/h2]
- Premium players now unlock the blue glowing 'Premium' title automatically. You can set it in Player -> Titles.
- Created a popup for when you unlock titles (only premium atm, more planned for other things).
- Added titles to the end-game scoreboard
- Titles now have more appropriate sizing and spacing on the scoreboards and in the title selection interface

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Created a system for the artists to hide ears on jersey cosmetics (to support hooded capes like 'hooded').
- Added three capes: clawed, hooded and royal cloak (one of which will be exclusive on our Patreon, voting happening now)
- Added alien hands and antennas, superstar cosmetic
- Added two variants for mittens, 9 for fishbowl

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Re-added proper sanitizing of usernames (bug where you could make your username a different color).
- Fixed an issue where if you're banned the ban message would disappear after the loading screen
- Fixed an issue with our chat filter that would fail to catch vAriATioNs iN CapITaliSaTioN

[h2]Other[/h2]
- Took down the holiday decorations in the locker room
- Created a bunch more internal tooling to help us resolve support issues, organize things and moderate the game


- There's more experimentation with taking down the bumping meta and some rotational speed unfairness between input devices (this is progress towards ranked)
- I'm working on a code redemption system in the shop which will help with giveaways and marketing to increase the player base (e.g. we can give influencers and organizations a code in the shop to get a jersey with their logo)
- We have a developer working on a first draft of bots for the game. Still early stages but it's looking promising.
- The artists are working on several simpler cosmetics that we'll be giving away for free later as rewards for logging in and other things

GLHF
Oddshot Games