Gone Viral News

Polish patch!
The latest and greatest - more tuning of the Gladiator mobs and boss, tweaks to the tutorial and pre-game, improvements to the encyclopedia, and more!

Enjoy!


NPCs:
-- Fixed an issue with gladiators and the Champ not hiding their rocket launchers after dying
-- Tuned Sword Gladiator attacks
-- Harpoon attack now has a proper animation and telegraph
-- First attack in sword combo now has enough lead time for a quick dodge
-- Last attack in sword combo ends sooner for less random walking away from PC
-- Tuned harpoon projectile speed to be faster, range to be less for Sword Gladiator
-- Tuned Rocket Gladiator animation to have proper telegraph and timing
-- Laserball Grenadiers now properly have their projectiles split when hitting occluders
-- Chopper axes are BIGGER
-- Added two attacks to the Sword Gladiator (Uppercut and Smash)

UI:
-- Improved difficulty selection/tutorial selection screen
-- Tutorial Difficulty is now a selection from "New Game" screen
-- Hard Mode must be unlocked via achievement
-- Encyclopedia now shows "!" icons on mutations/armor/etc. that has been fully unlocked but whose information has not yet been viewed
-- Encyclopedia and front page now reflect when new information is available to the player in the Encyclopedia
-- Progression meter on start screen now properly shows total numbers of items even with a null account file

Combat:
-- Being knocked down/standing back up happens more rapidly, but you can't walk while in the process of standing up
- This avoids the odd sliding that would happen while you were getting back to your feet
- Overall knockdown feels faster/less punitive
-- Made Electric Sword basic combo more responsive

Polish:
-- Fixed poor interaction with Spike Sphere and Backstabber
-- Spike Strike spikes no longer cause damage to the spiky fella if they were applied as a debuff, just people you collide with
-- Shrapnelproof shields now give the proper name on absorbing damage, not "Iron Skin"
-- Optimized floating text system
-- Secret doors are now plain walls, and are a bit easier to spot
-- Probable fix for occasional few frames of incorrect floating text appearing (let me know if you see any issues)
-- Removed tutorial enabling from options menu
-- Harpoon projectiles now attach by default to WeaponSocket on the character mesh rather than center of mass for the instigator. May be odd for non-humanoids (none of which currently fire harpoons)
-- Updated the Champ attacks to match the new gladiator attacks
-- Hooked up the new texture for gladiators and the Champ for in-game testing
-- Adjusted telegraph timing of RocketJump for RocketGladiator
-- Locked rotation/location while rocket jumping
-- Camera position adjusted during Tutorial monologue
-- Crane camera now has several things that can be changed via variable remotely
-- Adjusted Tutorial Start room
-- Tuned timing for creature knockdowns to avoid pause at the end of wallops
-- Shover stun now avoids some rotation/movement visual issues
-- Added new spawn id's for the arena tile visual differences
-- Hooked up the new textures for the gladiator's and the Champ's chest, arm, and shoulder armor
-- Added destructible meshes for all remaining floor tiles
-- The arena tile sand effect now uses a local Z value instead of the world Z, allowing the tiles to be moved up and down without changing their texture
-- Destroyed arena tiles now use a simpler sandy material calculation that works better with the limitations of the material system
-- Spawn cages now properly decorate their spawned replacement tile
-- Unified our rocket vs missile terminology to use rocket
-- Adjusted positioning of rocket launcher for Rocket Gladiator slightly
-- Numerous small tweaks to socket usage/buff attachments
-- ElectricSword can now be used with either (old) sword_hilt/sword_tip trail sockets, or (new) Trail_Start/Trail_End sockets.
-- BUG: Shields had the ability to lose their message and arc info if enabled/disabled repeatedly
-- Added new division between airdrops and Fan Gift airdrops so crates can act differently
-- Spikeballs/etc. now no longer twitch in a funny fashion on taking damage
-- Removed keyboard control overview from Vestibule rooms since it appears on the stage in
-- Fixed an issue where arena corridors were not setting their visibility, allowing certain situations where they would stay invisible while you stood on top of them
-- Unified the naming conventions for the sword gladiator's attacks
-- Fixed an issue where interrupting the sword gladiator's combo attack during the first swing could get him stuck in place forever
-- Tracked down nasty issue that would occur when the default save files were null

Updatey Goodness!

Just a small update of the last few weeks of work - the TL;DR is that we've been updating the tutorial, tuning The Show, Gladiator enemies, and the Champ, and polishing and bug fixing in general.

Enjoy!


NPCs:
-- Simplified the room boss gladiators' attacks (down to 3 from 4) to both simplify the learning time for their quicker fights, and to allow for greater separation between them and The Champ
-- Updated several gladiator and The Champ attacks to force forward movement while they play out
-- Rebalanced a few on The Champ's base stats to allow more room for his buffs to change what aspect of the fight is difficult
-- Rebalanced The Champ's buffs to push the fight more clearly in a given direction, without pushing it too far
-- The Champ's brain is no longer installed upside down, and thus functions normally again
-- Fixed an issue where certain AI setups would not walk all the way to specifically set priority locations
-- The Champ now delays less time between destroying walls
-- Bomb spiders no longer charge past the position they first spotted you in
-- Bombadier bomb projectile duration slightly extended to allow you to bash his bombs back into him
-- Bombadier bomb range tweaked to keep him from self-immolating
-- Player bombs now have fuse lengths based in part on Far stat
-- Slowed down the homing speed for The Champ's claw carpet and cruise missile attacks
-- Adjusted timing on several of The Champ's attacks to give you a chance to hit back
-- The gladiators and The Champ can now be damaged while they dash
-- Set both spike spiders to lock their spike buffs to their rotation
-- Stompers now sit in a more natural idle animation
-- Enemies that choose to avoid hazards and traps while wandering will now walk into them if their AI asks them to
-- Enemies looking for a spot to flee to will now consider running through hazards and traps if their AI is set to allow it
-- The face hugger's ai tree now properly handles being told to walk to a priority location it can not get to
-- Simplified how the claw spider hooks to its special attacks
-- Added a forced forward move to the mini claw spider's attack
-- The mini claw spider now spawns minion friends, making a pack of spiders
-- Animation cleanups
-- Rocket Gladiator now has animation/telegraph before firing rockets
-- Rocket Gladiator now properly has telegraph point set to end of launcher
-- Reconfigured Mutant Shover animations under Mutant hierarchy
-- Added dust trails to Claw_SlashingPounce for Claw Gladiator
-- Rough anims for Rocket Gladiator barrage and direct fire attacks hooked up and tagged
-- Changed the melee range for the gladiators and The Champ to help fix some issues with the enemies choosing the wrong attacks

Content:
-- Added 2 new medlab rooms
-- Added many more placeholder mutation icons
-- The massive room that makes up The Show level now stays active the entire time

Combat:
-- Laserballs are now a pooled projectile (no lag when spawning lots of them)

Polish:
-- Removed the flickering of the main menu Gone Viral logo
-- Tuned room BarrelPlethora_std -
-- Droppers for the barrels work even outside of lockdown
-- Shifted barrel position so nuke rocks are less likely to have the barrels fall to the bottom of a pit
-- Possible fix for splines issue in construction script (rare crasher in cooked build)
-- Lowered cost of Genetic Tinkering to 4 coins (was 10)
-- When you destroy a wall on a delay, the room it reveals is also after the delay
-- Fixed an issue where The Champ was destroying walls from the side instead of from the center
-- Destroying a wall now spawns a non-damaging explosion to add some visual and auditory impact and to throw you around a bit
-- Fixed an issue where changing a normal corridor to an arena corridor was spawning a bunch of unnecessary floor tiles
-- Bomb/projectile lifespan refactor (keep an eye out if you see unusual projectile durations)
-- Updated the spike sphere buff to allow it to lock its rotation to the creature it is attached to
-- Cleaned up Run End Summary widget/modernized
-- First pass moving tutorial over to new style fan goal in Carnage room (polish incoming)
-- Fixed an issue with duplicate of the same buffs being removed at the same time
-- Fixed an error that would happen when the last buff applied to you had a child actor, and then that buff was removed
-- Claw gladiator now has properly animated Slashing Pounce attack
-- Tweaks to bouncing in and out of pits
-- Tutorial now uses new fan goal style widget in Carnage room
-- Carnage manager was giving double carnage for combos in Carnage Tutorial mode (fixed)
-- Tuned layout of Carnage Tutorial room
-- Unified how all enemies use their contact damage in melee
-- Tutorial cleanup
-- ExplainerBots now act as hazards to AI so they are not walked through (but can be walloped thru)
-- ExplainerBots now cheer you on when you complete the Carnage Room of the tutorial
-- Tweaked the attacking portion of the claw gladiator's claw combo to fix an issue where it felt like you were being missed by the first swing when you shouldn't be
-- Added logos and cameras to Tutorial Start room
-- Fixed an issue where cleaning up a room with spawn cages in it would not clean up the cages as well
-- Updated all wander ai behaviors to support a post-wander delay behavior
-- Fixed an issue where the drone factory's spawned mini-drones would die with an ugly visible corpse if you kill them fast enough

MOAR CONTENT! MOAR POLISH! MORE CLEANUP!
We’ve been focusing on adding more stuff! New mutations, new rooms, new gadgets, armor, and even a new level with a unique boss! He’s still in a prototype phase (and probably a bit too fast with his temp animations) - so feedback is very welcome!

On top of that we’ve done a bunch of polish work, including working on the timings and audio of combat in particular, and tons of behind-the-scenes cleanup in preparation for yet another big content round.

Enjoy!


NPCs:
-- First pass implementation for the Champ's weapon racks
-- Built functional weapon holders for The Champ
-- Added weapon rack spawning for The Champ
-- Implemented a prototype version of The Champ's weapon swapping behavior
-- The Champ now decides to swap his weapon when his health drops past certain points
-- Updated where our enemies decide to wander when they are really far away from the player
-- The Champ will now leap to the weapon racks if they are too far away or if he gets stuck
-- Added some logic to NPC dashing to help it dash directly to you if it has not yet finished a turn towards you
-- Did some light clean-up in the normal gladiator enemies
-- Mortar tanks fire further
-- All bosses and mini-bosses have reduced chance to use the same attack twice in a row
-- Tweaked the AI service that follows things so that it more quickly changes directions when its target changes location

Content:
-- Levels 2 and 3 have more rooms
-- Enabled The Big Show (level 4) in build with new boss - The Champ
-- Added “Dropper” spawners that can respawn in and out of lockdown
-- PC now starts with Flak Jacket equipped
-- Vestibule room now gets a beneficial mutation dropped in it by default
-- Created Fan Gift Boxes - gold chests which drops a larger number of useful consumables
-- Fan Gift Boxes are now dropped on the first fan goal and for several other fan goals
-- Adjusted the fan goal targets to be a bit more frequent
Note: The overall goal of this is twofold:
a) to make each run feel like there is a cool/unique aspect to it early on (by giving an early mutation) and
b) to unlock the consumable meta earlier - I'm finding that without an initial bomb or key the fact that many other consumables are locked behind rocks or chests makes too many runs consumable-starved.
Feedback very welcome.
-- Set up pool for valid starting mutations
-- Implemented switches that must be pressed to lift Lockdown of some puzzle rooms
-- Achievement system generally improved
-- Added new Achievement Mad Bomber for exploding 50 bombs over the course of all characters' careers
-- Mad Bomber unlocks Missile Bombs
-- Added Achievement: Bighearted for gaining 6+ heart containers in a single run. Unlocks the Full Heal/Large heart health refill
-- Added Achievement: Mutatilation for getting 15+ mutations in a single run (unlocks mutation: Adaptive)
-- Added Achievement: Bosskiller: Da Champ (unlocks mutation: Emperor's Boon)
-- Added Buddies - NPCs that follow/help you (often from mutations)
-- Added mutation Terminal Velocity - adds to Zip, Fury, Pow, Movement X, and ShotZip - but permanently removes the ability to pick up hearts
-- Achievement Bosskiller: Juggernaut now properly displays in Encyclopedia
-- Added mutation Bloodrush
-- Gain healing and a combat ZIP boost by performing the stylish move "Overkill"
-- Added mutation Reflexive Shield
-- After performing a "Nice Dodge' stylish move, gain 1s of invulnerability, +.5 zip, +1 IT
-- Added gadget Mapper - fully marks the current level into your minimap
-- Precognition mutation now provides magic mapping for every level
-- Added secret rooms (they are itty-bitty for now!)
-- Added level achievement and viewer bonus for finding secret room on a level
-- Standard shops now have one non-conumable for sale and 2 consumables by default
-- Added rare Mutation shop with 4 mutations for sale

Combat:
-- Large creatures are no longer blocked from firing while walloped (Effectively, the Executioner, etc. can't be interrupted from firing during their bullethell animations by harpoons/etc anymore - let us know if you see other issues!)
-- Fixed an issue where walloping an enemy while it was not walking to you could get it stuck in place
-- Tweaked default Electric Sword timings to feel a bit more responsive at level 1 Fury
-- Electric Sword regains ammo more slowly while in combat
-- Projectiles travel shorter distances for players and NPCs at base Far (increasing utlity of +Far buffs)
-- Note: a full rebalancing of stats across all levels will be coming now that we have enough content that your stats may actually max out.

Polish:
-- Updated Copyright notices to 2019
-- Cleaned fonts up on pregame UI
-- Game camera can now adjust distance on a per-room basis. Camera can be set with a distance for non-combat and combat modes, and has different defaults for different types of room. If you see a room with an odd camera distance, take a pic and post to discord please!
-- All encyclopedia entries now automatically show if they unlock any content (new rooms, mutations, or viewer events)
-- Fully overhauled minimap system
-- Fixed some issues with gladiators, the Champ, and death
-- Some minor weapon drop and pickup fixes for the gladiators
-- Updated arena rooms
-- Cleaned up / unified Gameplay Tags - keep an eye out for occasional red “Warning” text (you shouldn’t see any, just an FYI if one slipped through).
-- Variety of FiringMaster cleanups around interruption
-- Fixed typo in mutation description
-- Sped up in-world text somewhat
-- Shrank/sped up/condensed stylish move widgets
-- Moved level summary widget to new fonts/style
-- Tweaked warbot room boss
-- The executioner room boss now picks his axe back up if he is resurrected
-- General cleanup in the executioner room boss
-- Changed the concurrency settings for the miniboss music to only ever allow one to play at a time
-- [BUG] Fixed an empty mutation in the spawn pools that would sometimes cause a vault or arena to have no reward
-- [BUG] Fixed an issue where Orbital Shield was granting deflection stylish moves on your own projectiles
-- [BUG] Encyclopedia entries no longer sometimes prematurely reveal the stats of undiscovered items
-- [BUG] Fixed some collision warnings with the oompa grenadiers
-- [BUG] Your Cambuddy and other Buddies can no longer be used to pay Genetic Surgery/Health Gambler prices for you, cool as that was.
-- Gladiator sheet no longer says "0/0" at top
-- Gladiator sheet now shows equipped gadgets
-- [BUG] Fixed issue with disappearing icons on character sheet slots that started empty but were filled afterwards (Flak Jacket for instance)
-- [BUG] Removed errant LOD occasionally making picking-up-mutation FX look odd
-- Start room MC platform bobs up and down
-- Cleaned up room Multi_Tank_Std
-- [BUG] Fixed issue with buffs and stat changes to Life stat incorrectly affecting current HP for NPCs. Keep an eye out for oddnesses please!
-- Item pickup UI now properly speeds up if you pick up multiple ones in a row/enter combat
-- Revamped room broadcast and sync systems and moved to C++. Fixes issue where some spikes might rarely be out of sync with the rest in the room.
-- Fixed some missing wallbouncers in room SpikyBounceFest
-- [BUG] Fixed issue where NPCs could be occasionally killed by damage taken while they were spawning
-- [BUG] Fixed bug where buffing an enemy on spawn could cause them to explode like a popped bloodbag
-- Please keep an eye out for issues with health overall!
-- Added signs inside Medlab and on Medlab doors
-- Created GV_AdjustHeightComponent to normalize swung weapons for NPCs even if they are giant scale (fixes issue where Bosses/etc could swing over the PC’s head if they happened to be scaled up by an event/mutation)
-- Cleaned up the melee damage setup for several melee enemies and gladiators
-- Fixed up the telegraph and firing positions for the turret gadget
-- Cleaned up voting widget
-- Fixed a subtle issue causing enemies with large action tables to usually pick the actions listed at the top
-- Fixed an issue with AI not properly respecting certain untargetable teams
-- Tweaked many item descriptions
-- Switched many combat sounds over to their new and updated effects
-- Fixed issues with walls and pits trying to interact with walls and pits in other rooms if they got too close
-- Added functionality to revealing rooms along with additional general room clean-up
-- Destroying walls now properly cleans up decor on those walls
-- Fixed some potential crashes in the tile wall spawner
-- Telekinetically controlled weapons now wallop consumables properly (previously they were always walloped away from the character, not the weapon)
-- Telekinetic Weapon's default trails are longer for added visibility
-- Laser Sight mutation now stops damaging on applicant death
-- The Gatekeeper boss is now officially known as "Bombadier" (was different in different places previously)
-- "The Juggernaut" is now just "Juggernaut"
-- Spacing of boss names in the boss announce UI is tweaked
-- Shrank and sped up blood effects on hit to add a bit of clarity to crowded combats
-- Tightened up camera shake effects for wallops
-- Prevented camera shakes from adding to each other within a single frame
-- Fixed several issues with the level elevators that would cause a bunch of glitchy movement if they spawned on top of the player
-- The bomb spider once again plays a fuse sound when they light their fuse
-- [BUG] The ambient audience no longer cheers in start rooms where we have yet to place an in-world audience representation
-- Fixed an issue where occasionally charging enemies would stand still instead of running at you
-- Added Level Achievement for buying all items from a shop
-- Shopkeepers now thank you for item purchases
-- Encyclopedia pages for non-Achievements no longer throw warnings occasionally
-- Assigned a number of temporary mutation icons before we contract out real ones
-- Changed Start room MC's dialogue to be clearer
-- Added hit sfx to the tutorial bouncy ball
-- Added a woosh sfx to the powered attack upswing
-- Spike walls and bouncy walls no longer spawn decor
-- Fixed a sound concurrency issue with breaking crates
-- Added ability to have fire tiles that only ignite when combat is ongoing in that room
-- Added combat-only fire traps to CompactArena to make the reward less annoying to grab
-- Retribution armor now causes acid damage and acid FX when causing damage to attackers
-- Arena completion and fan gifts should more nicely time themselves via the announcer

Content and Polish Patch!
This week, we’re doing a relatively light patch as we’ve been doing holiday and New Years stuff with families. Even with that caveat, you should see some of the fruits of us entering a new content phase! Besides some polish and bugfixes, you’ll find a number of new rooms that showcase the enemies and traps on which we’ve been working. Enjoy!

NPCs:
-- The Champ now switches between weapon art and stances easily
-- The Champ handles his weapons properly during death and resurrection
-- Cleaned up some oddness in the rocket gladiator
-- Fixed several small issues and inconsistencies in the various gladiators
-- Fixed a few trails issues with the claw gladiator and the Champ
-- Fixed an issue where the claw gladiator would knock you around while you were invulnerable
-- Claw spiders are now stunned and drop their shields for 1 second on taking damage
-- Tweaked Claw Spider health down slightly
-- Adjusted npc data for all the gladiators and the champ

Content:
-- Added ~20 new rooms
-- Added mutation Pay2Win - Every attack attempt has a small chance to attempt to spend one coin. If the coin attempt succeeds, the PC gains Pride And Accomplishment (temporary boost to POW and reduction of "IT"). If it fails, gains L2P (reduces POW and raises "IT")
-- Added mutation Ossification - Lose a heart container for two innate armor (thanks for the suggestion @loginerror)
-- Added mutation Backstabber - Your attacks deal double damage when striking the rear of an enemy
-- Added mutation Headhunter - Bosses and minibosses lose 25% of health at the beginning of combat
-- Added mutation FTL - Dashes are now teleportation based!
-- Added gadget Portable Nuke - Just guess
-- Added gadget Lockpicks - Unlocks all unlockables in range (range extends with Gadgeteer)
-- Added gadget Magnetic Lure - Pull consumables from pits (or alternatively pull an entire combat room in towards you at once if you'd rather)
-- Rejiggered gadget spawn pools overall

Polish:
-- Encyclopedia now shows stats for unlocked items
-- Moving pickup announcement to new style (not polished yet)
-- Fixed an issue with extra and unnecessary columns in the start room
-- Cauterized multiple areas where the old nameplate was in use for items (keep an eye out for oddness)
-- Set the proper class and attenuation settings in a sound that was missing them
-- Restructured attacks slightly across various characters - keep an eye out for possible minor issues
-- Fixed issue where keyboard focus could be stolen by various buttons in the character sheet/encyclopedia
-- Upgraded the ai tree that follows players to have a ton more functionality we can use for future mutations
-- Progress bar on main menu now brings up encyclopedia when clicked
-- Added map icons and display info for multi-bomb consumables
-- Made helper functions to set stencil depth values at appropriate colors
-- Made new version of WallShooter that always fires regardless of lockdown
-- Sawblade projectiles properly have their stencil buffer depth set
-- Split AI LoS into two different concepts for moving and shooting
-- Separated setting combat in AI into its own sub function that can be called independently
-- Fixed some bugs with enemies no longer turning to face you if you were already in movement range
-- Genetic Surgeries can now be used in combat by walloping/luring creatures onto them
-- Fixed a few bugs in CA_DripStuff that popped up when testing the new ftl mutation
-- Health Gamblers can now be used by NPCs in combat rooms
-- Removed the unused powerup tree from everything it had touched
-- Start screen progress bar now properly gives the content that you've interacted with as a percentage of total content rather than just sticking at 60% forever
-- Encyclopedia pages show how many entries have been unlocked fully/total entries per section
-- Fixed an issue where broken spike ball occluders were being saved as unbroken
-- Added error logging to failed ai movement
-- Fixed wrong font on Reset Save File button on main menu options
-- Polished reward pickup widget

Hotfix!

We had a few irritating bugs in yesterday’s patch and experimenting with our hotfix process is important as we move towards closed beta and eventually Early Access.

Bug Fixes
-- Made Projectile_Detector physics presets to attempt to fix a build collision issue with OrbitalShield
-- Character sheet mutations now bring up descriptions properly
-- Fixed a bug where the room detector for the shopkeeper outfit would block bullets in certain builds
-- Fixed an issue where applying a buff twice that had an ignore stack group would break certain builds

Other Changes
-- Slightly lowered the oompa grenadier's health to account for their innate point of armor
-- Slightly shortened the sword gladiator's sword as it was a bit too dangerous, especially during the whirlwind charge