The War Enders: First Strike News

General:
- Previous parameter settings for Training Menu will now be retained during each game session.
It still saves a lot of troubles now.
- Fixed an error in the initialization of 4Boss.
A visual issue, no impact on gameplay.

Gameplay:
- Reduced the turret aim speed of Boss 2 Phase 2 by 33.3%.
- Reduced the spread of Boss 2 Phase 2 Pattern 2 by 16.7%.
- Reduced the aim speed of Boss 3 Phase 3 by 33.3%.
- Adjusted the aim delay of Boss 3 Phase 3 after Pattern 2 ends.
- Reduced the aim speed of Boss 3 homing mine by 20%.
Fixed some side effects of the previous CPU performance optimizations.


This update may not be big, but it's still quite important as it provides new healthy features and gameplay fixes.
See you next update!
Crystal Heart’s Studio

Long time no see. Life has been a bit turbulent lately, so the update schedule has changed. However, please stay tuned. I can’t guarantee the time, but I will finish making this game.


General Changes: - Reduced the brightness of side UI. - Lowered the brightness and increased the size of player bullets. - Replaced the player's fire effects.
These changes aim to make the game less visually overwhelming.
I’m not good with visual design and color management. There’s still a lot to tweak, and I’ll take it slow.

- Rewrote most timing-related code to reduce performance overhead.
This required resetting parameters, which might lead to gameplay difference compared to before.

- Redesigned aiming mechanics to reduce performance overhead.
The new implementation should be more efficient, but it’s hard to replicate the exact feel of the old system, so the handling might feel different.

This improves 1% low framerate by 5%. This can be an error due to limited test samples.
That said, my abilities are limited. If you encounter any issues, please reply to let me know.


Gameplay Changes: - Minimum rate status in O/U Mode increased from x1 to x4. - Rank reduction from suicide bullets creation in O/U Mode doubled.
This lowers the barrier to entry and addresses energy shortages.

- Phase 2 Overload now only displays percentages in the left UI, rather than specific values.
Since the accumulation varies by mode, I feel it’s better to let players figure it out for themselves.

- Player ship ACX-2 now closes its slaves at low speeds to reduce bullet spread.
Previously this ship was terrible for focusing fire, making it a joke against high-HP units, so I changed it.

- Boss 1 Phase 1 final pattern weakened in AL Mode, AO Mode, and O Mode.
This pattern weren’t meant to be seen, but the patterns for AL Mode and U Mode shouldn’t be the same, so I nerfed it.

- Boss 3 Phase 1 no longer rotates left and right.
The original intention was to add cinematic flair, but given my current limitations, I’ll shelve this for now.

- Constant rings are now displayed in O/U Mode, showing the x16 and x8 distances.
My initial concern was cluttering the screen, but now I think it’s better to add them and tweak things later.


Menus: - Reworked the leaderboard and player manual interfaces.
The previous versions were too half-baked, although these are still somewhat incomplete.
Online leaderboards now support pagination.


Some older changes that weren’t included in previous patch notes:
Little Tweaks 2024.6.21:
- Enhanced player hit effects.
- Adjusted player bullet colors.
- Updated 4th Boss’s mine textures.

- DoT effects now deal damage once every 5 frames, at 5x the original amount.
Applying damage every frame had too much performance impact, but this change might affect the gameplay experience.
This adjustment applies to: bombs, AoE damage, and piercing lasers.

- Enemy bullet hitboxes now take effect after a 2-frame delay.
During testing, we encountered a situation where a player’s bomb covered the enemy’s firing point, but the player’s hitbox was still within the firing point, causing them to get hit. If this 2-frame adjustment causes other issues or doesn’t solve the problem, we might make additional changes.

I truly appreciate all of your support. Whenever I feel like giving up, seeing someone playing the game I’ve made, or someone clearing Unlimited mode, gives me the motivation to keep updating. Thank you.

Enjoy the game!
Crystal Heart's Studio

This is an update that is outside of plan.

- Fixed an error in script that is preventing Pause when Training starts from Stage 5.
This problem has a huge impact on gameplay, and it is even causing crash. We attached importance to this issue and we pushed this update immediately after this fix is tested.


This patch also includes some changes that is planned in the next update.
We will dive into them in the next update, but we will list them here:

- The name Kiruya is changed to Zeyphr.
- Aggressive option is moved to the left side of Default option in Customization menu.
- Replaced player normal fire sound effect.
- Adjust player bullet hit effect.
- Enhanced explosion effect.


Enjoy！
Crystal Heart's Studio

After we fixed bugs, and relieved performance issues, we can finally turn around to solve other problems.

Fighter's revision, but we only buffed those ships which we think they are weak. We will also rationalize some customization. We won't expect all ships to be powerful in every game modes, but we want to give a place to shine even for the weakest one.

We will follow the order from in-game Fighters' Selection Menu. From up to down, from left to right. We will also explain why there are some ships we didn't buff.


Let us first talk about the ships we didn't buff:

YF-84
Decent and useful. This fighter has a narrow and weak overall fire power, but as our first fighter, we use this ship to design, test, and build the Unlimited Mode. Later we got other game modes from simplifying the Unlimited Mode. This fighter is the foundation for this game, if we need to change this, we will have to change everything.

J-60C
Best efficiency on small enemies' destruction. In hi-speed it has great fire width and homing weapon, and in low-speed it has the highest possible fire power. It requires point-blanking but it is still powerful.

ATD-X4
Well balanced in point-killing and firing width. In the beginning versions it is the weakest compare to the previous two, but later we changed its logic in low-speed fire: It does maximum damage output even without lock-on. That change made it a decent ship for choice now.

R-04/22
We think there should be no doubt about this fighter. When we are designing our last fighter, we decided to give a ship that players can know it is strong even by having a look.


Then we have those which are buffed here or there:
GIFs show fighters after this patch.

Su-97A

• Re-designed fire power proportion, lower requirements for controlling.
  
• Increase firing angle adjustment speed by 20%.
  
• Low-speed firing angle adjustment now uses the same function as that of hi-speed.
  

ACX-2

• Re-designed fire power proportion, lower requirements for controlling.
  
• Increase hi-speed move speed by 3.7%, low-speed move speed by 3.2%.
  
• Hi-speed secondary weapon cannot be changed by customize anymore.
  
• Customization 1: Now won't manage low-speed primary weapon.
  
• Customization 2: Now manages low-speed primary weapon.
  

NGSD
We think this fighter is not flexible enough. It is hard to place the slaves to where we want in time. The fire power of this ship is enough though.

• Increase hi-speed move speed by 7.1%, low-speed move speed by 6.3%.
  
• Hi-speed move speed also affects slaves' retrieve speed.
  
• Increase slaves' retrieve speed by additional 25%.
  

Su-27SMA
We can only call the side light blades on this fighter the "Art Creation". We cannot tell if we fully understand this ship. But still, we give a little buff to this fighter.

• Increased hi-speed primary weapon firing angle.
  
• Now the hi-speed fire power parameter won't count the fire power of side light blade.
  
• Customization 1: Now won't manage low-speed primary weapon.
  
• Customization 3: Now manages low-speed primary weapon.
  

YA-100
We shouldn't limit its fire width because of having AOE weapon.

• Increased hi-speed primary weapon firing angle.
  
• Customization 2: Now manages both hi-speed and low-speed secondary weapon.
  
• Customization 3: Now manages low-speed primary weapon.
  

Kiruya
We changed the swing fire to add-on rather design foundation for this fighter.

• Increase hi-speed primary weapon firing angle.
  
• Fixed a error in scripts causing higher low-speed fire power.
  
• Customization 2: Now gives a selection for no swing.
  

Other stuff in this patch:
- Fixed some display error in Fighters' Selection Menu and Customization Menu.


Enjoy！
Crystal Heart's Studio

- Remake hit effect.
- Adjust player fire effect, lower particles' count.
We are sorry about changing hit effects back and forth, but this time we get a not bad optimization.

- Fixed an error in script about J-60C low-speed shot.
This error makes the point-blanking of this fighter maximize at a shorter distance but with a higher fire power. Nearly no effect on normal play.

- Makes stage music fade out quicker.
- Adding blank time for original stage music, preventing a loop play by the end of stage caused by game stuck. (If you also have this problem with replaced music, you may have to add blank time at the end of replaced music on your own. )
- Stage 4 music will not play during stage 4 boss fight now.
We are focusing on the performance about hit effects after Version Update 0.9.5. Therefore, we didn't find those bugs caused by the stage music loop play in time. But this time we should get those fixed.


Enjoy,
Crystal Heart's Studio