Slapshot: Rebound News

[h2]Matchmaking[/h2]
- Improved the in-match balancing. Teams should now be more evenly balanced rating wise.
- Fixed a bug that caused backfill to fill in high rated players causing a big skill gap in the match.
- You will no longer be backfilled into a match you have left (But we still highly discourage leaving. Forfeit is an option).

[h2]Game servers[/h2]
- Worked with individual data centres to improve latency for a lot of players (this is a continuous process and will keep happening)
- Continued out work on various performance improvements for game servers
- Improved our game server logging to catch issues much quicker

[h2]Arenas[/h2]
- Added a new arena: Slapstation
- Improved the look of goals including the netting and net physics
- Improved the arena colors for the top of the boards (they will now reflect the team colors more accurately)
- Improved the look of the plexi glass

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]
- New settings have been added to resize and move the stamina & dizziness bars

[h2]Match stats[/h2]
- Turnovers and takeaways are now calculated more accurately (this was already live with a hotfix earlier this month)

[h2]Cosmetics[/h2]
- Added old school gloves, stick and jersey

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed a rare issue where the goal netting would clip (visual only)
- Fixed an issue where some spectators were spawning in each other (gross)
- Fixed the backfill bug mentioned in the matchmaking section

Happy slapping,
The Oddshot Games team

[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 :)