Operation: Harsh Doorstop News

A few weeks ago we published a roadmap for our planned anti-cheat updates. This includes things such as vote-kicking, VAC banned player filters, EAC integration, and most importantly... our own in-game anti-cheat updates.

As of this past weekend, we've implemented our first pass of in-game anti-cheat updates to fight cheating in Operation: Harsh Doorstop. This won't solve all cheating, but it will absolutely stop some of the more severe exploits cheaters have been using when playing the game.

These updates will strengthen server authority on several systems that have recently been most exploited by cheaters. Primarily systems that allow cheaters to spoof player teleportation and weapon settings (such as the "air strike" cheat) have been updated with additional checks to prevent explotation.



Our mission with Operation: Harsh Doorstop is to constantly listen to our players, and allow them to guide our focus. The community has made it absolutely clear since launch that anti-cheat measures are the most important thing for us to focus on, so that is exactly what we have been doing.

Now that our initial anti-cheat update is launched that addresses the most severe exploits... our next immediate task will be implementing the VAC ban player filter. This will allow servers to (optionally) set their filters to automatically block VAC banned players from playing on servers. This will likely take around two weeks to complete.

Once the VAC ban filter is launched, our next focus will be on implementing the vote kick system. This system will allow players to kick members of their team they are suspicious of cheating. For anyone that is concerned about cheaters or griefers from exploiting this system, we'll also be implementing server-side options that block VAC banned players from voting. We'll also implement an option to automatically disable vote-kicking if an admin is actively on the server.



Please continue reporting cheaters. Report when they cheat, how they cheat, and in as much detail as possible. If a cheater uploads a video of them cheating, send it to us. If you find a cheat forum post detailing how their cheats work, send it to us. If you know where the cheats are being distributed (some cheaters even upload their cheats to GitHub) send it to us.

As always our community feedback tracker is open and we are constantly monitoring it.

https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://operationharshdoorstop.nolt.io/

Each and every one of you (even the cheaters) have been instrumental in our process of improving the game. From feedback on our SDK to prototypes of new features or simply feedback on which features you like the most... your voice has shaped our game, and your voice will continue to shape everything we do.

More updates to come. Can't stop, won't stop.

Looking forward to sharing our upcoming progress with you soon.

Cheers.

- Bluedrake42

For anyone interested in the progress we've been making on our destruction prototype, check out the following video!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Supporters will have early access to this test map! If you want access to the upcoming multiplayer playtests for our destruction system, consider becoming a supporter of the project!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29860/Supporter_Bundle/

Throughout the years I have been creating content featuring some of my favorite tactical games in the genre. The developers behind many of these games I consider to be my good friends... and they have supported me and our studio throughout our game development journey. As a way to give something back... I would like to announce our new series of partnerships with some of my favorite studios in the indie genre. Any studio we are partnered with will be featured in discount bundles on our Steam store page. This means that anyone who is a paid supporter of our game on Steam, will be able to get any of our partnered games for a discount... sometimes up to 50% off!

Thank you so much (to all of you) for supporting both myself and our entire team on our journey. I'm so incredibly excited to give something back to all of you. I also hope that our supporting members will appreciate the discounts they receive for some of these incredible games.

You can find our first series of partnership bundles below!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31004/Zero_Hour__Operation_Harsh_Doorstop/

Zero Hour is developed by my good friend, Meheraj7. I remember when I first met him, and learned that he was starting a game development studio in his home city in Bangladesh. Watching Meheraj create a successful tactical shooter, on the opposite side of the world, with a fraction of the resources most studios have... has been nothing short of inspiring. I hope you all decide to check out his game Zero Hour.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31763/Black_One_Blood_Brothers__Operation_Harsh_Doorstop/

Black One: Blood Brothers is developed by my friend, Helios. Watching his project start from humble beginnings and transform into the incredible project it is today, has helped me understand that games that start small... can become something greater. Thank you so much Helios for showing me what hard work, and tenacity can achieve.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31914/World_of_Guns__Operation_Harsh_Doorstop/

The developers behind World of Guns might be the core reason my Youtube channel is as successful as it is. I first started working with the team behind World of Guns (Noble Empire) in 2014, when they first reached out to tell me about their project. Since then, I have gone on to create videos that have accumulated a cumulative hundreds of millions of views using their software. Thank you so much for everything you've done for your community Noble Empire, we wouldn't be here without you.

I hope you all choose to check out each of these projects, and I can assure you that more partnerships with some of my favorite studios are still coming. I'm so happy to finally have a game on Steam where I can start working directly with some of my favorite game development teams in this way, and I can't wait to give something back to all the developers who have helped me so much throughout the years.

Besides that, keep an eye out for our next development blog... and more incredible things coming to Operation: Harsh Doorstop soon.

- Bluedrake42, founder of the Operation: Harsh Doorstop project.

[h2]General[/h2]

• Client/Server security fixes and improvements
  

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

• Fixed some situations of consumable items (grenades, bandages) requiring a reload of the item if the player unequips it immediately after use or receives an ammo resupply
  
• Fixed footstep sounds not playing if Shadow Quality is set to Low
  
• Fixed 'Accessed None' log warning on dedicated servers when characters are cleaned up
  
• Fixed player name/score stats (displayed from the steam client server browser and other external server browsers) only getting updated after a map change
  
• Fixed cases of duplicate bullet impact fx under poor network conditions
  
• Fixed missing blood impact fx when a corpse is shot
  
• Fixes and optimizations to animated magazine system
  
• Fixed Ghost/Fly/Walk cheat cmds not working in offline play or for server admins when cheats were enabled
  

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

• Resolved various UX and inconsistency issues when remapping keybindings from the options menu
  
• Fixed pause menu being inaccessible if the game state was paused
  

[h2]Core Art[/h2]

• Props, Buildings, Characters, and Weapon materials had their parented materials adjusted to be more consistent
  
• Turned off tiling and albedo switch on several material instances to reduce shader complexity
  
• Turned off Dithering on foliage materials
  
• Increased resolution on several texture sets from 2k to 4k
  
• Rebuilt HLODs for all levels
  

[h2]Lighting[/h2]

• New Lighting System
  
• New lighting Blueprint, separate from Ultra Dynamic Sky. UDS is still available for modders
  

[h2]Physics[/h2]

• Optimized Ragdoll Capsules for more realistic physics ragdoll
  
• Reduced the number of capsules the physics asset uses
  
• Ragdoll physics bodies transition into sleep state much faster, improving performance
  

[h2]Characters[/h2]

• Fixed Dark eyes on LOD 1-4 on all characters
  
• Fixed LODs having the wrong material assigned to LODs 1-4 on multiple character sets
  

[h2]Audio[/h2]

• Set Preselected sounds for Equip sounds, reduces the number of sounds loaded, reducing memory usage
  
• Increased Footstep sounds by 50%
  

[h2]Foliage[/h2]

• Created Distance Field Meshes for Palm Trees
  
• Imported new European Alder foliage set
  

[h2]Credits[/h2]

• Added several contributor names
  

[h2]Loading Screen[/h2]

• Edited several loading screen images
  

[h2]Maps[/h2]

• Risala - Foliage and road spline fixes
  
• Khafji - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues
  
• Montecassino - Foliage and road spline fixes, spawn points moved
  
• Argonne - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues
  
• Lam Dong - Optimized Jungle Hut collision primitives
  
• Carentan - Added more buildings and layout, added sidewalks and walls
  
• Omaha - Added more buildings and foliage
  
• Saint Quentin - Added more buildings, trenches, and fields, added 3 AAS routes, landscape sculpting
  
• Tan Binh - Added 3 AAS routes
  

[h2]SDK[/h2]

• Reverted default Navigation Geometry Gathering Mode from "Lazy" back to "Instant" as a workaround for an engine bug that may cause the navmesh to not generate on some sections of a landscape, depending on how the landscape itself was sculpted. Map authors must now explicitly opt into "Lazy" navmesh generation for their landscapes if they wish to continue using it as a performance optimization on large maps using a dynamic navmesh w/invokers.
  
• The fire animation behavior for newly created weapons has changed to allow weapon fire anims to finish playing after weapon fire has ended. Previously, weapon fire animations would be synced up with the configured fire rate and would end prematurely after the weapon had stopped firing (if the fire rate was shorter than the length of the animation itself). This behavior can be controlled via the "Stop All Fire Anims After Fire Rate Delay" setting of the weapon blueprint.
  
• Enabled editor setting by default that allows for impure nodes to be explicitly disabled or toggle Development-only attribute on/off via the context menu by right-clicking them (CAUTION: EXPERIMENTAL)
  
• Improved weapon API documentation
  
• API: Add ReloadStarted and ReloadFinished weapon BP events
  
• API: Add ForceStopFiring function for weapons
  

Welcome to the fourth development vlog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop! For anyone that would like to get straight into the action, watch the full video below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

For everyone else, here is a summary of what is discussed in the video.

[h3]New destruction systems are being worked on.[/h3]



In the coming weeks, supporters will be able to experiment with new prototype destruction systems that are being added to the game. Keep in mind these systems are very early in development, and potentially unstable. However, testing and working on these systems early will give us invaluable insights when we finally move to fully incorporate them into the base game. For anyone who wants to get access to these systems before they're released to the public, consider becoming a donator on Steam. Donators will get early access to these systems before the rest of the community.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29860/Supporter_Bundle/

[h3]New interface system is being worked on.[/h3]



This system will be familiar to players from games like Hell Let Loose, Squad, Project Reality, and other games that are based on radial menu systems. The radial menu was by far the most voted option when we polled the community on what interface foundation we should base our system on, and we hope you like the system we've been prototyping so far. You can see a live demonstration of this system in the video above.

[h3]New anti-cheat, player filter settings, and vote kick options coming for servers.[/h3]



Cheating has undeniably been an issue for Operation: Harsh Doorstop since launch, and we're rolling out a number of powerful systems to help combat this problem in upcoming updates. This will include systems that will allow servers to filter unwanted players by checking for previous VAC bans, game bans, and community bans. Additionally vote kicking will allow players to remove any users that are disrupting multiplayer games, and additional settings that forbid known cheaters from participating in or initiating kick votes will further protect legitimate players from being abused.

[h3]Server integration with Steam workshop is coming.[/h3]



A system that has been highly requested is automatic downloading of any required modifications when joining custom servers. Because of this, we've moved up this feature to our second highest priority following the implementation anti-cheat systems. This will allow you to automatically subscribe and download required modifications prior to joining any server, and we will be further expanding on these systems when we further iterate on our in-game modification management menus.

[h3]The community is still outputting incredible creations on the Steam workshop.[/h3]



You can find some of the coolest modifications available (for free) on the Steam workshop linked below. Many of these modifications are shown in the video above, so make sure you check it out!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945105457
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946689482
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934061853
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946661551
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934043433
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2951492347

That's everything for today, hopefully I'll see you on the battlefield soon!