Slapshot: Rebound News

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
- Improved solo queue experience. Parties are now less likely to get in unbalanced matches.
-- Added a hard cap to the search band for parties, searches will be closer to the group's skill rating
-- Higher rated parties are way less likely to be matched vs lower rated solo queue players
- Stricter matchmaking at the start of game search. You're less likely to instantly have a match but have better overall match balance

This is part of a series of matchmaking changes that we have been making and will continue making.
Please provide us with feedback on your matches and their balance!

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]
- Added a toggle for the ice skate lines that fade in over time during a match.
- Custom game player limits are now based on people playing and not on spectating.
- Small geometry changes to the locker room. The hallway entrance is now an arch rather than a rectangle.
- Custom games now give experience towards cosmetics to unlock variants

[h2]Performance[/h2]
- Optimized the player join process on the server side, fixing the bad spikes that happen when someone joins
- Optimized general game server performance to provide more stability (more coming in this category)

[h2]In-game ads[/h2]
- Moved the ad placements that were on the floor behind the rinks to a display to fit the arenas better
- Removed the ad placements that looked out of place
- Made ad placements more uniform across arenas (e.g. colosseum has the same placements as slap stadium now)
-- We've paid a lot of attention to make sure they fit the theme of the arena. We're happy to hear your feedback!

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Completed the Wireframe set (body, head, gloves)
- Added Heat LED, Heart Arrow, Heart Wings
- Added locker room decorations for valentines (will be activated closer to valentines)
- Added a valentine themed trophy back item for valentine tournament winners (more info in your region's league Discord soon)

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed the tutorial goalie not having a face. (Sorry for any emotional scars incurred)
- Fixed the arena name in the match results on the website and the JSONs
- Fixed the measured goal line being too far into the goal, goals should be pixel accurate now
- Fixed the sand on the colosseum map not transitioning correctly
- Fixed an issue that rarely caused server crashes and made everyone disconnect (there's a different issue still out there, we’re working on this)
- Removed fall damage

GLHF,
Oddshot Games

Hey Slappers!

We launched a quick ghost patch (no version change) to fix the jersey numbers. We accidentally messed them up during the patch earlier this week but this fixes it! Thanks for pointing this out and for not yelling too much :-))

GLHF
The Oddshot Team

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
- Backfill will no longer trigger during or after a successful forfeit vote
- New player ratings now work differently and will be matched at a lower rank (more info below)

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]
- Added an audio slider specifically for the goal horns
- In offline bot matches, the mercy rule will no longer be triggered
- Added a reset button for the custom quick chat

[h2]Performance[/h2]
- Optimized the player character models for better performance

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Added cosmetics: Icy stick, icy jersey, tail, butter knife stick, Mjolnir stick
- Reworked the iron hat cosmetic

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed an issue where the camera smoothing kept resetting

[h2]More info on the matchmaking changes[/h2]
The starting rating of players will be lower compared to the average rating to increase the average first-match win rate. This should do a few things:
- It will make it less likely that people at higher ranks queue into new players
- New players should be matched up with people more equal in skill to them from the active player pool
- New players will start out at the equivalent of a low Silver 2 rather than mid Silver 3

This doesn't address all of the issues people are having with the matchmaking and more changes are planned but we hope this is a good start. We'll be monitoring the impact of the change.

Good luck, have fun.
- The Oddshot Team

[h2]Slapshot: Rebound - Your Year in Review![/h2]
It's been a year full of slapping and shotting. How much exactly? See for yourself!
Go to https://slapshot.gg/review to find out how to generate your year in review. The feature is available until January 7th, 2023.

We made a video showcasing them too!

[h2]Winter sale![/h2]
Premium is 30% off for the Steam winter sale! Now's a great time to pick it up if you haven't already.
We've also recently added camera presets and custom quick chat to premium on top of the existing benefits. 👀

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1485570/Slapshot_Rebound_Premium_Lifetime/

[h2]Happy holidays![/h2]
We're taking a small break until the new year so support may be slower but I'm always here for emergencies.
Wishing everyone very happy holidays and a cozy conclusion to 2022.

Here's my year in review. Feel free to post yours too :)

Update v0.68.0 is now live! 🏒


[h2]- Ranks have been rebalanced[/h2]
[h2]- Share camera settings[/h2]
[h2]- Better dodgepuck bots[/h2]
[h2]- Premium: Customize quick chat[/h2]
[h2]- Premium: Camera presets[/h2]
[h2]- Premium: Extra 12500 Pux[/h2]


- Ranks have been rebalanced to follow a proper gaussian curve. They'll be more consistent and better reflect how you compare to others.
-- Most people will have a lower rank than before. This doesn't change how your skill is relative to other people, just makes it easier to compare.
- Camera settings and chat settings have been moved to their own settings tabs (camera and social).
- Premium users can now completely customize their quick chat messages
-- This is moderated the same way as normal chat. Toxic behavior will result in loss of chatting privileges.
- Added camera presets for premium users. You can make new presets, rename them and remove them.
-- Two new keybinds have been added to cycle through your presets in an active match. Default is keypad 1 and 2. (Bottom of controls settings)
- Premium users will now get $5 of pux (12500) for being a premium user. This applies to all people that were premium already and future premium players.
- Birthday event: Log in between December 7 and 14 to receive something to celebrate 2 years of Slapshot: Rebound!
- Added a really cool neon stick. Keep an eye on the shop 👀
- Added gloves: Frostbite, Deathgrip, Claws. These will be feature in the Patreon vote (one of them will become exclusive to Patreon).
- Improved performance related to puck positions and lifting
- Fixed a bug where the tilt animation for the stick lift would be incorrect sometimes.
- Fixed a bug that would rarely crash the entire Slapshot Services server caused by a third party library
- Fixed a bug where the face-off puck drop would be inconsistent. Now a puck drop always happens except for in Dodgepuck.


The ranks were drifting because the ratings were settling over time after implementing ranked. This caused the distribution to have unwanted local maxima and minima. The "curve" looked like this:



Because we now have better insight into how the ratings have been settling, we were able to adjust the system to form a more proper gaussian curve. Coincidentally this also makes the rating differences per rank more uniform - meaning the gaps between ranks in similar scenarios are way closer than before, making climbing the ranks a lot more satisfying and make more sense.



The stats above are made based on active players that have completed their placement matches.

You may ask: Why is Legend 1%? We opted to make the Legend rank unique in a way where if you come across a Legend player - you know they're the top 1% of the game. We weren't sure if we'd keep it this way with the rebalance so we polled the community and you all voted to keep it at 1%. If you want to participate in votes that have an impact on the game, feel free to join our Discord and click the bell in #get-roles to be notified of future polls.

GLHF
Oddshot Games