Onward News

Hello Onward Community,

December is bringing 2022 to a close and we are happy to look back and see all the work the team has been able to accomplish this year and how all that hard work will help us make even more improvements and open the door for new additions in 2023.

The game got a lot of much needed improvements and additions to help the longevity of development and set the game up to have new content and fixes come in next year. This month, in the Devs’ Desk, we wanted to showcase all the additions and improvements that went into Onward this year. What isn’t included in the list is the hundreds of bugs that were fixed through the year. If you are curious about all the individual details that went into the game, you can always read the details from the previous patch notes.

The community also had some great additions inside and out of the game this year. From intense competitive matches, fun custom maps, to fun videos and fan art. Check out the Community Center for some of our favorite clips and events that happened this year.

Our office will be closed from December 22nd - January 2nd (including support). The team will be taking this time to recharge so we can return and hit the ground running in 2023. Expect more info about the new 1.10 content once we return.

[h2]From the Devs’ Desks:[/h2]
The major focus for the year was improving our backend systems to give us the ability to continue to expand the game and improve the game’s foundation. Some of the systems had not been worked on since the game first launched in 2016. This investment helps give us the ability to add new features and content and allows current systems to be improved on.

[h3]Onward 2022 Wrap-Up[/h3]
New Features Added

• Gunstock Calibration
  
• Friends joining matches directly via invite
  
• In-Game player reporting
  

Gameplay Improvements

• Loadout Points Rebalance
  
• Updates to Free Roam Gameplay
  
• Improvements to the server browser
  
• Improved player ragdoll when downed or dying
  

System Improvements

• Weapon Refactor
  
• New Voice Chat system including auto reconnect feature
  
• Rebuilt custom maps infrastructure for community map makers
  
• New hosting infrastructure for the game
  

[h2]Community Center:[/h2]
A total of 32 new custom maps were added to the game this year! The community map makers have been hard at work offering a variety of new themes and environments for players to experience. If you are interested in learning how to make maps or connect with the people that do, make sure to check out our custom map creators section in the official Discord.

The competitive Esports organization VRML had a booming season this year. 1,527 players, making up 116 teams, competed this year. That’s 846 intense matches of PVP. Check out some of the highlights from this season on their YouTube channel. Their next season is starting soon, if you are interested in joining, make sure to check out the details here.

The VR Charity group ran two Onward charity tournaments this year raising over $7,500 for some great causes like Breast Cancer research and StackUp for Veterans. If you are interested in joining the community for future charity events check out their Discord

Thank you for all the great matches, feedback, and support you show the game and the team. We are looking forward to everything we are going to bring to you in 2023.

Happy Holidays from everyone at DPI!

Hello Onward Community!

Thank you all for your patience while we worked hard on getting hotfixes out after the release of 1.9. While settling into our new hosting service a number of issues came up that needed to be addressed based on the new backend work that was done. The bugs that emerged related to the amount of traffic and volume of games being made. These types of bugs are something our QA team couldn’t have caught or replicated before the launch. We tackled the bugs as quickly as we could and got fixes out quickly to get you back to fighting the good fight. Bugs that you may have experienced that have been fixed since the release of 1.9 are as follows:

Fixes released a few hours after release:

• Lobbies not populating in server browser
  
• Player names not showing in lobbies
  
• Multiplayer lobbies not being accessible
  

Fixes released in 1.9.1:

• Fixed a bug in the Workshop UI
  
• Private lobbies will now correctly open to public
  
• Corrected issues related to players receiving unexpected error messages
  

Fixes released in 1.9.2:

• Fixed a stability issue where users would be kicked to the main menu when selecting a custom map after another user leaves the lobby during a map vote
  
• Fixed an issue where magazines and other pick-upables were not properly destroyed leading them to accumulate over rounds, leading to client disconnects and preventing players from joining the lobby
  

If you are still experiencing any of the above issues, please make sure you uninstall and reinstall the game and are on the latest version of the game (1.9.2). The new server infrastructure made it much easier for the team to deploy hotfixes. Update 1.9 gave us the ability to address things quickly and this improvement will continue to help improve our development process. We continue to work to resolve issues related to the 1.9 release, such as the “Error 7” error message and players being kicked back to the main menu during gameplay. We are hoping to have these resolved soon.

Since we are now in a better place with our backend and the game stability, our focus for the next update is new content. We have some exciting new features that we are working on. Check out the Devs’ Desks for the latest on the new stuff coming to Onward.

[h2]From the Devs’ Desks:[/h2]
[h3]New Map[/h3]
Work continues on the Iraqi map we teased in our May sitrep, which given its unique layout has necessitated some extra time in development and will not be coming in update 1.10. Instead, expect to see a totally new and yet to be revealed map in our next update. This unannounced map has come together very nicely in recent playtesting, and we're excited to reveal more about it soon. As for the details, we don't have anything to share yet other than the fact that Volk is up to no good and you should keep your eyes peeled on our social media for more info.

Twitter: @OnwardTheGame
Instagram: @onwardthegame
Facebook: /OnwardTheGame

[h3]New Weapons[/h3]
We are working on not just one, but TWO more weapons. More information on the weapons will be released as information becomes available.

[h3]Updated Animations[/h3]
This is the first major animation update which will be rolled out since the game launched. We’ve long wanted to address the animations and have certainly heard your wishes regarding updating our character animations for Onward. Starting off you will see big improvements visually to all the AI animations. We’ve even added new crouching and death animations, as well as smoothed out the directional movement of the NPCs .

[h3]Adding Regional Support[/h3]
Many people believe that Onward uses “peer to peer” networking, but this is not the case: it is server / client with one user being designated the “master client”. That is the person with the star by their name, and they get more authority in the lobby, but they are not actually hosting the lobby. Until now, all Onward lobbies have been hosted in the US East region, even if the “master client” was in another region. This means that if a player was not in the eastern United States, they would experience laggier gameplay or latency. With our new backend we now have the ability to offer regional support. You will now get to pick from a list of available lobby regions to create your lobbies in, and gameplay will feel more consistent for people in those regions. Lobbies from every region will be shown in the lobby browser together, but you can filter for specific regions. Lobbies you create or quick join into will use your “preferred region” which is set from the settings screen. On launch of the update, we will have the following regions: US East, US West, Europe, and Asia.

[h2]Community Center:[/h2]
We have resolved the issue of the map creator's name not showing on the customs map menu. New instructions for custom map makers have been posted in our discord so the map creator can link their names to the maps in game. You should start to see the names of the map creator appear in the workshop soon.

In addition, we have a new map in the workshop for you to check out.

Chinatown Day submitted by Bluega (For PC)
“Volk have placed a bomb in central Chinatown. Civilians have been evacuated. The terrorists must be eliminated or the bomb defused.”

When 1.9 launched the rating for the custom maps were reset. If you enjoy a custom map, don’t forget to go back to the workshop and rate it. It helps the custom map creators understand what maps players enjoy and provide valuable information when new maps are being created. It also helps players see what maps other players have and when those maps are downloaded by other players, those maps are more likely to show up during map voting in matches.

We hope you are looking forward to all the new content being developed for Onward! Don’t forget to follow our social media to keep up to date on news and information between Sitreps.

Keep your head on a swivel.

Hello Onward Players!

Last week we released patch 1.9.1 to address a number of high priority issues. At the time we were aware that some issues remained, particularly related to lobby stability, which caused players to be kicked back to the main menu. Today we release hotfix 1.9.2 to address these issues. The patch is available now and should download for you automatically.

Change Log

• Fixed a stability issue where users would be kicked to the main menu when selecting a custom map after another user leaves the lobby during a map vote
  
• Fixed an issue where magazines and other pick-upables were not properly destroyed leading them to accumulate over rounds, leading to client disconnects and preventing players from joining the lobby
  

Known Issues

• Weapon recoil may cause the player character to let go of their weapon with their offhand if the player’s hands are already at the edge of the maximum grab distance
  
• In the Workshop, some subscribed maps always require an update to the map after refreshing the Workshop page
  

Hello Onward Players,

We hope you are continuing to enjoy the features like the improved audio and reporting system that came with 1.9. Given the amount of work and changes that were done to the back end of the game, we were happy with the overall stability of the update. Once players did start to report problems related to things like lobby visibility and access or player names not being visible, the change to our new host gave us the ability to quickly identify the causes and jump into action to resolve some of the issues within a matter of hours.

There are still a couple of lingering bugs that were discovered and quickly fixed, however these require a game update in order to resolve them. We are releasing hotfix 1.9.1 to address those issues reported. Below in the change log is the details of what issues were fixed.

Independent of this hotfix we are looking into lobby stability issues you’ve reported to us over the past week, some of which seem to affect the co-op lobbies in particular. Until we are able to address these issues a workaround for some of the issues is to start new lobbies regularly, and for co-op lobbies in particular, playing with a lower number of bots.

[h2]Change Log:[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that would cause the Workshop UI to disappear unless the player scrolled the page
  
• Private lobbies will now correctly open to public using the “Set to public” button in the back of the tent
  
• Corrected issues related to players receiving unexpected error messages when creating or joining games
  

[h2]Known Issues:[/h2]

• Weapon recoil may cause the player character to let go of their weapon with their offhand if the player’s hands are already at the edge of the maximum grab distance
  
• Players are kicked to the main menu when selecting a custom map after another player leaves the lobby during a map vote
  
• Lobby crashes happen after a large number of magazines are discarded. To avoid this, while this is being worked on, it is advised that you regularly start fresh lobbies when playing co-op especially with high bot counts
  
• In the Workshop, some subscribed maps always require an update to the map after refreshing the Workshop page
  
• Error code 7 notifications being given as a result of the game taking too long to respond to the server
  

Hello Onward Community,

In our sitrep last month we stated 1.9 would come before the end of the year and today is the day! If you have kept up with our dev blog, you know that most of the work that went into 1.9 was back-end work. However, there were also a lot of bug fixes and a couple new improvements that are included as well. For the full list of the bug fixes, make sure to check out the details in the Change Log.

This latest back-end update was a big one. We moved the entirety of the game from where it was hosted to a completely rebuilt infrastructure. It doesn’t sound like a big process, but in fact it is a massive undertaking. It may feel like we should be able to just drag and drop the files over to a new location, like one does when moving an image file from one location to the other. We wish it was that simple. The best way to describe what had to be done is to imagine you are moving a house, you have to pack everything up, tear the whole house down, move it, rebuild the house, and then set everything back up exactly the way it was previously. It’s a lot of much needed work. This change has given us more stability, and will provide more opportunity to grow and continue to develop the game with new features and content.

When this update was tested by Unit 51, they asked us why this update is labeled a major update when it seems to have fewer changes than some of the previous maps we released, specifically those in the 1.8.x family. While it's true that 1.9 does not include a new map or new weapons, there is an astonishing amount of work in the changes on the backend and servers that power Onward. In effect, we have rewritten the entire multiplayer system which comprises most of the code that runs the game. If we've done our work right, you will notice very little from these changes now, and as we mentioned in the last couple of Sitreps, this is laying the foundation for more major changes down the road including new weapons and maps.

Now let's get into the details of what is included for update 1.9 that you can see.


[h2]Reporting System[/h2]
You will now have the ability to report other players directly in the tent. Players can be reported for using hateful language, inappropriate drawing, hacking/exploiting, harassment, and team killing. You can report a player once per game session.

We heard the concerns some of you had when we first announced the feature. We want to note that there are systems in place to prevent spam reporting or abuse of the system.


Additionally, you are still able to report players, with video evidence, who do not follow the community guidelines. Videos should be sent to [email protected].

Banned players will now receive a notification of being banned when they launch the game.



[h2]Steam Launching[/h2]
Updates have been made to the Steam client side that have changed the launching parameters. Previously the game would launch from OnwardLauncher.exe, the game now launches from Onward.exe. The best method to ensure you have the correct version of the game and no lingering legacy files is to uninstall all previous versions of the game and reinstall then restart the Steam client before launching the game.

In addition to the executable name change, the launch options have also changed. The “(Legacy)” options of the game have been removed. There are now only two options, “Launch Onward in Steam VR Mode” or “Launch Onward in Oculus VR Mode”.


[h2]Auto Reconnect for Lost Audio Connection [/h2]
If voice chat connection is lost, the server will automatically try to reconnect. There is an icon indicator on scoreboards indicating when a reconnection is being attempted.


[h2]Ammo Crate Graphics[/h2]
The graphics for the ammo crate have been improved.


[h2]Server Browser [/h2]
The “Friends Only” filter (for friends who are on the same platform as you) now takes your platform privacy settings into account. This means if in Oculus or Steam if you are not set to show your game activity online, you will no longer show in-game for your friends using this server browser filter.

In addition there has been a fix implemented so you will now again see an icon to indicate that you have a friend (friend on the same platform as you) in a lobby in the server browser.

Descriptions have been added to filters to give information for what each filter means and describes the game mode choices. This should help new players understand more about what game is being played when looking for lobbies to join.

[h2]Custom Maps[/h2]
With moving to a rebuilt infrastructure, this means all currently downloaded custom maps have been deleted. You will need to go to the Workshop and subscribe/download the maps again.

Currently, all rating and author names have been removed. We will be working with the Custom map creators over the next couple weeks to relink the maps to their authors. Ratings for maps will begin to acquire as people start voting for them starting from today.

We have also introduced additional Workshop filters. The workshop can now be sorted by additional criteria:

• If you are subscribed to a map
  
• What your own rating of each map is (In addition to average rating)
  
• Sort by Popularity is now more accurate
  

[h2]System[/h2]

• Hand locomotion speed is now in line with head movement locomotion
  
• Fixed an issue where disabling "Hold to grip" will cause your primary weapons to misalign upon re-gripping with the off-hand
  
• Player can rotate weapons with Virtual Gunstock enabled
  
• Players will no longer revive as "invisible" after being downed while another players syringe is simultaneously being pushed into their body
  
• Stepping out of the Meta Quest guardian boundary while another player is speaking will no longer cause the audio to pause and then catch up after re-entering the guardian boundary
  
• Fixed an issue where you would lose some or all grab functionality after opening the Oculus menu while holding a used syringe
  
• Fixed bug where user names do not appear in the tent under either team UI when joining a Spec Ops game mode using custom maps on PC
  
• Fixed an issue where some players would fall out of bounds when the headset enters sleep mode on Quest 2
  
• Users are now able to join the same lobby on the two different platforms while using the same account
  
• Fixed an issue where sometimes, in the tent, you can hear the radio sounds from players alive in game
  
• Fixed an issue where voice chat would not function when joining a multiplayer match after the headset was in sleep mode for 5 minutes or more
  
• For PC Users, the 'Bindings' page will load as intended, allowing users to modify their controls
  
• For PC Players, clicking the "Open" button next to "Logs" now successfully opens the correct folder on the desktop
  
• For PC Players, clicking the storage button on the Workshop page will now show the correct size storage and file location
  
• Corrected a spot on the player model that could not be shot around the belt
  
• Fixed an issue with first person perspective players camera in Caster mode
  

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

• Fixed Round resets happening when only 1 player gives up during the spawn jail timer in non-competitive lobbies. Round resets will still occur in Competitive Escort, Competitive Uplink, and Competitive Assault lobbies
  
• Fixed a bug where the AK-12 would not upgrade to the M16 in Gun Game if you kill an opponent as the match starts
  
• Fixed an issue related to incorrect player model and other behaviors when changing host before a round starts and then joining the following round
  
• Fixed players receiving damage or being killed while respawning when their body is damaged
  
• Single player modes now pause when the user is in the Oculus menu
  
• On Assault, fixed an issue where typed codes on the Send & Disable screen would not remain typed in after the Uplink state changes
  
• Players can no longer click "Give Up" after death, causing double k/d/a stat changes
  
• Your health is now restored after getting a kill in Gun Game if you are injured
  
• When a player dies their corpse should no longer fly into the air
  
• The description on the button for opting in as a Fireteam Leader has changed from "Squad Leader" to "Fireteam Leader"
  
• Kill count is not correctly counted when killing multiple players with an explosive
  
• You are no longer able to hack another players tablet in 'Shooting Range' and 'Free Roam' before downing the player
  

[h2]Maps[/h2]

• Fixed objects throughout multiple maps that did not protect players from C4 or frag grenade blasts
  

[h3]Workshop & Custom Maps[/h3]

• The assault boundaries on custom maps now appear correctly
  

[h2]Weapons and Utilities[/h2]

• Laser sight dot visibility had been improved for both PC and Quest players
  
• Ammo Crate graphics have been improved
  
• Opening the Oculus Menu while holding a Weapon/Equipment while holster/pouch is full, will no longer result in the held Weapon/Equipment falling through the ground
  
• Charging Handle on G3/G3A3 now functions properly
  
• Weapon position no longer permanently shifts after firing the weapon
  
• Rapidly gripping and releasing your off-hand while firing any weapon will no longer cause you to experience an increasingly worsening offset from your real hand position when holding the weapon
  
• Virtual Gunstock now works on the M249 in Gun Game
  
• Fixed Bolt of MK 18 and MCX Virtus not sliding forward after reloading an empty mag and pulling back the charging handle
  
• Reserve ammo is now labeled 'Reserve' when observed inside the loadout menu for the M1014
  
• Fixed an issue where when the MK18s M203 grenade launcher, when grabbed, would appear to point almost directly downwards
  
• The carry handle on the M16A4 no longer has a one-way visual mount, no longer allowing the player to see through the inner side of the mounts
  
• Fixed the pistol's magazines falling from belt 3 times without being touched after each new section of the tutorial
  
• Fixed an issue where you would need to select Ballistic Shield twice in order to become the chosen primary weapon in the Tent
  
• Fixed a bug where if multiple people loaded into a lobby with shotguns, at least two players would get kicked to main menu
  
• If a player wins a round of One in the Chamber, and then does not ready up for the following round, they will no longer be counted as a player for that round
  
• You can no longer put STANAG magazines in the FAMAS
  
• A bullet no longer appears when grabbing near the top opening of an empty mag box after opening the receiver on the PKM and M249
  
• The sights for the M203 Frag now plays correct clicking sound when toggled
  
• The very last bullet in a box-mag's belt is now visible once it is the last bullet remaining
  
• C4 now clackers now only work with their original bricks
  
• Fixed an issue where if a player joins an Assault lobby mid-round that player cannot disarm any C-4 that was placed by any player that has already been in the round
  
• MP5 bolt lock audio now correctly follows your position as you move around and initiate the bolt lock
  
• Fixed issue on G3A3 Bolt Lock when performed too fast would messes up the charging handle
  
• Bullet jingling audio is no longer audible after grabbing where the ammo belt was on an empty MG ammo box
  
• Evac extraction flare now displays correctly on Quest 1 and 2
  
• Molotov fire is now viewed correctly when viewed from within (or partially within) a smoke grenade
  
• RPG ammos no longer jitters when in the ammo box
  
• Shaking the MP5/G3A3 can no longer accidently trigger the the HK Slap
  
• Empty magazines for the M249 no longer appear to have bullets
  
• Fixed a bug where players could become invincible in Assault lobbies
  
• Fixed an issue where weapons could be be yeeted into the stratosphere
  
• Fixed an issue where your hand could get stuck to your tablet
  
• Your in-application hands and real-world counterparts now line up when still gripping onto another players tablet as they are holding it
  

[h2]Known Issues:[/h2]

• Voice chat will look like it is attempting to reconnect when you are quiet for too long in the tent
  
• Players are not able to see the Vote kick menu if you join a lobby that has an active round going on. Once round ends, they can see vote/kick menu as normal
  
• If a host players headset goes idle before other players join, players will not be able to equip a helmet
  
• When in the workshop menu, map selection may not be present or will disappear when you refresh the list. Map options will reappear once you scroll up or down