Slapshot: Rebound News

[h2]Goal horns![/h2]
- Added a new cosmetic type: Goal horns.
- Added a new bundle in the shop with a few boat horns
- Added a 'thunder' horn to the Norse God bundle. Everyone that bought the bundle before has received it for free.

[h2]Arenas[/h2]
- Added the Island arena. It is accessible from bot matches and custom games
- Removed Slapstation from the public game rotation due to performance complaints

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
- Created better balancing for the teams within a match
- Made matchmaker a bit stricter, avoids instant matches with suboptimal balancing

[h2]Quality of life[/h2]
- Added native support for PS5 controllers, you no longer need to use Steam Input for it
- Added controller icons for DualShock and DualSense controllers (PS4 & PS5 controllers)
- Latency simulator has been made more accurate (take round trip time into account)
- Latency simulator is now on by default so new player experience in tutorial and practice is closer the online experience
-- It'll estimate the latency, then after having played a match uses the latency found in that match
- Region selector now shows the estimated latency to a region and color codes if it's good or not
- Added advertisements for premium and the leagues for your respective region
- Made some huge infrastructure improvements, making a bunch of operations significantly faster
- Added more server-side metrics and monitoring to find out about bad performing servers quicker
- When changing or adjusting camera settings, 'reset zoom' is used so settings are more accurate and less weird angle issues
- Added support for 800x600 resolution for the people with potato PCs
- Added the ability to view variants of items in bundles by clicking on the item, this'll bring up the item details UI

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Added a camera helmet cosmetic for the creator program
- Added selfie stick, makeshift stick, skull cleaver stick, reinforced stick
- Added more variants to the premium hoodie, all existing and future premium users get these for free

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Better stability for game server startup
- Fixed an issue where if the server fails to start, you have to reboot to queue again
- Fixed the variants for the bird wing cosmetic
- Fixed playstation controller icons for quick chat not showing correctly
- Fixed an issue where sometimes the purchase confirmation UI would incorrectly assume you own a cosmetic already

[h2]Creator program[/h2]
We have launched a creator program to work with those that are creating content for Slapshot.
Oddshot Games is determined to help you create great content and want to support you in the process!
For more information check out the info page here: https://oddshot.notion.site/Public-Slapshot-Creator-Program-e869eda1d76e48bf91a13d40aff2703b

GLHF,
Oddshot Games

There was a performance issue related to previewing sticks in the shop with a preset that was made before stick colors were released, causing lasting frame drops for the rest of the session. This is now fixed. Thank you to those helping us figure this annoying bug out!

We've also enabled an extra variant for the Futuristic helmet :)

Small patch, big impact.

[h2]Gameplay - Removed the catch-up mechanic[/h2]
After weeks of testing with various levels of players, we've decided to remove this mechanic to better reward more skilled and coordinated gameplay. This mechanic used to let you go over the max speed if you have been skating in a straight line. This was originally intended to give defenders a chance to catch up again if they had been outplayed, but as the game and meta evolved, it was no longer beneficial and hindered good gameplay. The change will allow people that have outplayed an opponent more room to make a pass or shot. It will encourage better team positioning both for offense and defence.

[h2]Matchmaking - Special case for parties[/h2]
We have optimized the in-match balancing for games where 1 party of two players is present. Before, it would put the party on a team and then alternate adding players to a team sorted by their skill rating as normal. This broke in this scenario and caused many suboptimal matches. This case is now handled separately and will go through every possible team option and pick the one with the lowest difference in rating between the teams.

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
Added May's Patreon cosmetics: Ladybug wings, bee outfit, bird wings.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Optimized some legacy player input code on the server for faster/better input handling (read: less lag, better accuracy)
- Party indicators will now show up at the end game scoreboard too
- Fixed hairstyle sometimes not showing up in cosmetic previews
- Made several performance improvements to the UI

GLHF
The Oddshot Games team

Hey Slappers,

Another small patch, this time to improve performance in the bundles UI.
Because it was previewing so many cosmetics at once, some PCs couldn't keep up.

The UI now only shows the full bundle itself.
You can still see the individual cosmetics when clicking on the bundle to go to its details.

I've also found a free performance improvement for all UI with a scrollbar which is in this patch too.

GLHF
Oddshot Games

[h2]Performance[/h2]
- Fixed a memory leak caused by cosmetic preview textures not properly being released
- Improved memory usage for cosmetic loading and unloading

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed team indicator not showing on slapstation / colosseum for some people
- Fixed bundles not correctly previewing hairstyles
- Fixed the iron helmet clipping with hair

GLHF
Oddshot Games