November 23' Update
Howdy Pardners!
It's been about a month since the last update, as I took some time off after the Halloworm Update - but now we're back in the full swing of things here in Wormtown!
This update brings a whole slew of new additions, reworks, changes, overhauls, and bugfixes.
[h3]Netcode Overhaul:[/h3]
We've completely reworked a lot of how the game handles various network interactions - from Worm grabbing Pardners, inventories and more. But what does this mean for you? It means:
- A noticeable difference in Worms "lag grabbing" Pardners from far away. (Unfortunately, we can't fix latency completely, but this really helps!)
- Object interactions are *much* more responsive. Everything from picking up objects, throwing objects, adding and removing things from your inventory, equipping Kit, etc. should now feel as quick and snappy when playing as a client as they do on host.
- Fixes bugs related to network timings, such as the Worm occasionally pulling Pardners underground, items disappearing from inventories etc.
While these changes might not sound super "exciting" - it improves the "feel" of the game tremendously!
[h3]Worm Changes:[/h3]
One of the main focuses of this patch was to help with some "friction points" while playing Worm. I want the Worm to feel fun, powerful, and have a decent win rate - but that was rarely the case when playing against experienced Pardners. (and gets more pronounced the more Pardners there are in a match.)
[h3]New Worm Movement Mechanics:[/h3]
Sneaking:
- The Worm can now move slowly and "sneak". (Default Right Mouse Button) While sneaking, the Worm doesn't make ground rumbles or noise while moving.
- Holding down the "sneak" button mid-air will act as brakes, and slow your momentum down.
Air Control:
- The Worm now has slight "air control" when pouncing, airborne, or on top of a non-sandy surface (i.e. the train/rocks/houses/etc.) The Worm will redirect it's momentum slightly in the direction the camera is facing, allowing you to do curved pounces and adjust your angle mid air.
- It's also useful for when you're "stuck" on the train, simply aiming towards the side of the train will move you in that direction.
Design insight: A big frustration point when playing Worm is feeling a lack of precision and control. Missing a pounce and flying off in a random direction you didn't intend can get annoying quickly. Both the sneaking and air control mechanics should help with this, as you feel much more in control of the Worm and can readjust much faster when you do get an unlucky bounce or missed pounce. Not to mention, sneaking underground when Pardners think you left is always fun!
(Note: Abilities are now categorized by "Innate" and "Choosable". Innate being abilities, like the Sonar Scream, that all Worms have be default. Choosable being the ones you pick between at the start of a match).
New Innate Ability: Sinkhole
- Sinkhole creates a vortex underground the slowly pulls the surface rocks downward into the sand.
- Primarily used to clear out troublesome rocks, it also slows Pardners by 80% if they walk inside of it.
- Cooldown: 2 1/2 minutes
Design Insight: After listening to a lot of feedback from the Discord community, it seemed that rocks were very frustrating for the Worm. Pardners could stay on rocks safely for long periods of time, and it was common for the map generation to create some "god-tier" formations that were nearly impossible for Worms to play effectively around. This innate ability for all Worms should help alleviate the frustrations with rocks, as well as give them some additional utility. (It's also terrifying being a Pardner standing on a sinking rock!)
Scorching Sands Removed, Replaced with a new Ability: Magma Trail
- Only usable underground, Magma Trail creates a trail of... well, Magma, on the surface above the Worm.
- The magma burns Pardners who walk through it.
- Places patches of Magma for 10 seconds after using the ability, with each patch lasting 12 seconds.
- Cooldown: 2 minutes
Design Insight: Removing Scorching Sands may be a controversial choice, but it easily has the most negative feedback of any ability in the game. I tried many times to balance it, with it receiving near constant nerfs, but it was still despised by the majority of the community. Ultimately, the root issue seemed to be that it stalled the game and was boring to play against (players even said they would sit on a rock and then hang out on their phones for the 30 seconds until it was over... yeah, not ideal.)
Magma Trail, while not a direct replacement, still has a lot of functions and utility that I liked about Scorching Sands. It can be used underground while healing, it can be used to stall Pardner movement, and can be very decent damage when cleverly combo'd with other abilities. Magma Trail is much more interesting to both use as Worm and play against as Pardners - and I hope you agree too!
Tar Wall Rework:
- The spikes of the Tar Wall now spawn further out and then pull inward to create the ring.
- Tar spikes no longer ignore rocks and buildings when spawning (and thus will always spawn. No more gaps between the spikes!)
- Tar spikes last for 15 seconds.
- Cooldown increased to 65 seconds.
Design insight: Tar Wall was already a fairly effective ability - but it was also somewhat boring and not used much. My intent was to make the ability more exciting to both use and play against as Pardner. The moving spikes now force Pardners to move and interact more than the previously static wall, while also creating some fun chaos as the wall pushes and pulls objects and Pardners. As a Pardner, do you try and run through the gaps in the wall as it's closing in on you? Or find a safe rock near the center to wait it out? Forcing these quick decisions from Pardners makes it a much more interesting ability.
Note: With the additional of the new movement mechanics and innate ability, the default gamepad controls have changed for the Worm. If you play on Gameplay/Controller, make sure to check the options menu to get acclimated with the changes!
[h3]Pardner Changes:[/h3]
Pardner movement has been reworked internally to be more consistent and smooth.
- Pardners can now run on sloped surfaces without speed loss. This makes running up stairs, sloped rocks, roofs etc. feel much better.
- Improved landing "sticky-ness", so landing on top of cactuses and other small platforms should feel less slippery and frustrating.
- Improved standing on props of all sizes.
[h3]New Mechanic: Train Horn[/h3]
The Train Horn is a usable pull-chain next to the Train furnace. Activating the Horn will disorient all Worms in a wide area around the train for 10 seconds.
- The disorienting effect is the same as the cymbal monkey, in which the Worm won't see any props, Pardners, or ground pings, and will have their camera controls inverted for the duration.
- The Horn has a 3 minute cooldown.
- For balancing reasons, the Train Lever cannot be pulled for 12 seconds after the Horn has been activated, and you cannot use the Train Horn after the Train Lever has been pulled.
Design Insight: While stalemate situations are less common with the introduction of the Worm abilities a few updates ago, there are still times when Pardners are too afraid to leave the Train and the Worm, knowing the Pardners are on the Train, will sit nearby and wait. The Train Horn should help with these stalemates and give the Pardners 10 seconds of safety to run and get away from the Train.
[h3]Zipline Changes:[/h3]
- The endpoint of a zipline (the arrow part) will now fall if it's not supported. (for example, if you shot it at a building and that building has been destroyed.)
- You no longer fall off a zipline if it's end points are currently moving.
- Riding a zipline now makes an audible noise. Worms can hear this too!
Design Insight: Ziplines were a little too powerful when it came to escaping a nearby Worm, and many times the Worm was unaware you were even gone. With the new zipline sfx, the Worm can now try and blindly guess where the sound is coming from with a pounce, or at worst, know you've ziplined away.
[h3]Snake Oil Rework:[/h3]
- The Snake Oil buff now gives you a random 1-10 health back whenever escaping a Worms mouth.
- The amount is rolled at the time of your escape (the amount you heal will be different each time).
- No longer heals you for 20 health, and no longer gives you the max health increase.
Design Insight: I always wanted the Snake Oil to be some kind of healing related item, but the original implementation didn't fit the game. On paper, having increased max health sounds great! But in reality, when does that come into play? The only real benefit of the old Snake Oil was gaining 20 health, which made it essentially a slightly better cactus fruit. This new buff gives usable and relevant health gains throughout the game, that over the course of a match may save you from an additional Worm grab. The random health gain is mostly just exciting when you get lucky and funny when you don't. I like random. :D
[h3]Luigi Board Changes:[/h3]
- Luigi Board now grants a move speed bonus based on how many ghosts there are.
- Max move speed bonus is 30%.
- Bonus move speed is only for the Pardner that has the Luigi Board equipped.
- The bonus is calculated by the percentage of Pardners who are ghosts (not including yourself). Which means: If you're the last Pardner alive, you'll always have the full 30% movement speed. This percentage keeps the item balanced, even with 7 Pardner games.
- Note: These changes are in addition to the old effects of the Luigi Board - it still buffs ghost cooldowns and makes ghost visible to you.
Design Insight: I wanted the Luigi Board to feel like you're helping your ghostly teammates, and by adding additional move speed, it may motivate a Pardner to go for revives if available, or give them a slight advantage to clutch out a game.
[h3]Fuel Objective Balancing:[/h3]
- Reworked the algorithm for how much fuel is needed per Pardner player, for all difficulties. This should make lower Pardner games a bit easier and more Pardner games scale harder.
[h3]Misc Changes:[/h3]
- Added a texture to the rocks
- Mouse cursor can now leave the game window when in menus
- Added a small UI to the Train Lever when it's usable or not
- Any speed bonus or speed reduction is now visible below your Pardners stamina bar
- Ghosts are much speedier now
- Worm ability cooldown timers are displayed on the Hud icons
- Additional forces for Pardners, such as Sandstorm wind and rifle recoil knockback are more consistent
- Added an "are you sure you want to quit?" prompt when exiting the game
- Worm can no longer use Sonar Scream underground
- Attempting to equip a Kit item while already having one equipped will now swap the Kit (before you had to unequip and drop the previous one)
- Pressing drop with an equipped Kit will now place the Kit in your hands instead of immediately dropping it on the ground.
- Normalized object throw distances per item size class (all small objects should throw similar distances, and all large objects should throw similar distances)
- Added new match settings to disable each Worm ability slot. (Disabling certain abilities can make multi-Worm games much more balanced)
[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]
- Kit usage has been moved serverside to fix multiple exploits (like infinite use, etc.)
- Fixed being able to pick up backpacks from far away
- Fixed dynamite explosions resetting the fuse timer of already lit dynamite
- Fixed jittery ladders constantly pinging Worms
- Fixed the Worm head/teeth models being hidden when underground
- Fixed saving/loading issues when using "none" Worm cosmetics and the Friend's Pass
[h3]Known Bugs:[/h3]
- Rocks that have been moved via the Sinkhole ability don't sync in spectator mode
- There's a rare bug where the train leaving doesn't end the game, and the train timer loops. If this happens, restart your game. We're hoping to have a fix soon!
And finally, this update marks the official end of the Halloworm Event. Thanks so much for the kind feedback and I'm glad everyone enjoyed the new map theme and Worm cosmetics! For the event, I unlocked all of the hats for the Friend's Pass players so everyone could dress up and enjoy the holiday. I realize now that by removing those hats I may frustrate some players who spent time customizing their Pardners and Worms. I've decided to stick with my initial plan and remove the hats from the friends pass, but I'm going to keep the current set of Worm cosmetics available for Friend's Pass users. I'll consider handling the cosmetics differently for future events, as I may not have fully thought it through this time around!
OOF, well if you've read this far, thank you! I hope you enjoy the update! It's definitely got a lot in it, and I strongly believe there's some really healthy changes for the game implemented in this update.
Today also marks the 1-year anniversary of when I started working on Wormtown, so thank you to everyone who's made this last year such a wild ride!
As always, you can leave any comments or feedback under this post or over at the official Wormtown discord: Discord.gg/Wormtown
Stay safe out there, Pardners!
- Vyv