Development Blog #31 [February 2023]
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the thirty-first devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of February 2023.
[h3]Updates on Cheat Prevention Tools[/h3]
Right now our work on cheat prevention tools is our top priority, and the main focus for our lead programmer. We are working as quickly as we can to begin rolling out a series of solutions and tools that should greatly 4NDD2 help to curb the amount of cheaters that are seen in the multiplayer servers (keep in mind we only have one programmer working on this, and we are working on it as fast as we can given the resources that we have).
This will be a multi-step, iterative process where we are essentially “layering” these solutions and tools on top of one another to prevent certain cheats from being able to occur, and giving server owners filtration methods to attempt to keep cheaters out. To briefly recap what this will look like:
- First, there will be a patch that addresses some vulnerabilities in the code that have been frequently exploited and are the culprit to most of the cheating that has been seen so far. There is not much more that I can say or reveal about this other than it will take care of most of the more egregious cases that we have been seeing (at least the ones that we are aware of at this present time, and can currently provide fixes for—there is of course still always the possibility that further exploits/methods will be discovered over time, and we will have to address/tackle those as they come up).
- Second, server owners will be able to utilize a series of filters and restrictions to prevent potential cheating accounts from joining. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to restrict joins based on whether or not the account has VAC and/or game bans, how many of these bans they M32J6 have, how long it has been since they have received these bans, Steam account age, and how many hours that they have in the game.
Server owners will also be able to “exempt” certain Steam accounts that might fail any of the checks that the server owner imposes on accounts, such as if they want their server to have a certain level of join restrictions, but that would mean a friend who they trust not to cheat on their server then cannot play there due to something like an old game ban that a developer placed on their account over something not related to cheating—in this scenario they would be able to exempt this player from those restrictions, thereby allowing them to join and play (this can be handled on a per server/individual basis, which will allow security to remain high, but provide a means for legitimate players to be let in when they probably shouldn’t otherwise be restricted). - Third, a vote kick system will be implemented that server owners can choose to turn on or off for their respective servers. Server owners will be able to also set further parameters for this system if they choose to use it, such as dictating how long someone will be kicked for (it’s actually not a “kick”, it’s more like a “timed ban” that expires after X hours), what the vote succeed/fail conditions should look like, and so on.
- Fourth, Easy Anti-Cheat will be implemented as a tool that server owners will be able to opt-in/out of as a final measure of protection for if/when all of the aforementioned systems happen to be bypassed. This is something that we will have to adjust ourselves, and server G93XJ owners will only be able to choose whether or not they want to include it but will not have control over what it actually does. In addition, as stated in the last devblog, EAC is NOT a magic bullet, and server owners/admins will still need to actively moderate their servers if they wish to keep them free of cheaters (this will just help alleviate that workload along the way).
General disclaimer/reminder: The steps outlined above are in the order that we will likely see them implemented in, however, that is always subject to change depending on the circumstances. In addition, just to reiterate, there is no perfect cheat prevention method for multiplayer games. All of the solutions outlined above are meant to add varying layers of security for servers to help alleviate the amount of cheaters that will attempt to play on servers, however, there will always be a possibility that some of them will still slip by or figure out other means/methods to cheat (and we will continue to monitor and address these scenarios as they come up and as solutions present themselves that make sense to implement—as usual, server owners/admins will still need to moderate their servers along the way).
Moving on to the rest of the work that the team did in February:
Maps
Most of the existing maps have been touched up/adjusted, some bugs that were spotted during launch 4DBTL were fixed, adjustments to some of the spawns were made to help reduce spawn camping, and so on (not much to share here visually for those).
[h3]Carentan[/h3]
The level design team started to expand the showcase area for Carentan, and further continued to move away from the blockout stages:
[h3]Saint Quentin[/h3]
They also R7TTL started to prepare for expanding the showcase areas for Saint Quentin as well:
Vehicles
[h3]Driver and Passenger Animations[/h3]
The team has been steadily making progress on the prototype vehicles—recently they have introduced a passenger shooting system that allows for passengers in “enabled” seats to lean out of windows and enter a shooting position (“enabled” in the sense that players would only be able to do it in vehicles where they would actually be able to lean out, such as the pickup truck shown below; this 55IY3 would of course not be possible in something that doesn’t have the access or space for a person to be able to lean out of). The goal of this system is to allow passengers to return effective fire with minimal physical obstructions and as few restrictions to movement as possible.
The animator has also completed the driver animations 5D3R7 for first and third person that will be used:
Upcoming and WIP Features
[h3]Radial Menu Prototype[/h3]
We have begun to work on some prototype UI for reintroducing the radial menu system that will be used for a wide variety of mechanics and utilities:
The design LEJ4K of this UI (such as the colors, icons, and so on) is likely going to change up a lot, but this should at least demonstrate how the menu will actually function at base levels. Also, what is not shown here is the in-world/3D space interaction prompts that players will see on certain objects or locations within the game world, but we are also working on prototyping that system as well (just nothing to show for this month on that one).
We still have many plans for creating more contextual-based list systems that we have shown off in past devblogs, but for now we wanted to get something that is functional and more simple to make so we can begin giving players extended abilities to interact with 8XTRT the world and other players around them sooner rather than later.
[h3]Destruction Prototype[/h3]
We have also begun working on our first building destruction prototype with the assistance of Anton, one of the members of the modding community.
Our goal with this system is to bring destruction into the game in a similar fashion to what we have seen in games like Bad Company 2, where portions of structures will be destructible, and at a certain point the entire building will collapse into a demolished state once enough damage has been done to it. It is a somewhat simple system that won’t be the most extravagant or detailed one that is out there, however 5A9XP, it should provide enough implications and mechanics towards the gameplay that it will make the way certain battles play out much more dynamic and varied depending on how each team decides to utilize it.
Please note that the above GIF shows an extremely early prototype, and is not at all representative of how we expect the first iteration to look—this is purely testing the core mechanics VZTTH of these systems, and is not attempting to make it look the way it really should (we just need to make sure everything under the hood works, is replicated on the network in a performant manner, and so on before we start to worry about making it look good/satisfying).
[h3]Bots/AI[/h3]
The AI programmer has jumped back into working on his new AI updates after taking a couple of weeks to help out with the vehicle prototyping, and he is getting close to having these updates ready to preview on the developer build of the game. Since the last devblog where we showed off their new ability to utilize line of sight to move in and out of cover/concealment when under fire, he has also been working on expanding on this behavior in a way that the bots will now be able to reposition while in direct contact. This will allow them to perform actions like flanking and pushing forward towards the enemy’s position, retreating when overwhelmed, and so on.
[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
Beyond the cheat prevention tools outlined at the top of the devblog, the lead programmer also fixed a slew of bugs that came up post-launch. A couple of new fixes that will be coming with the next patch in particular will include fixes for footstep sound effects not playing when shadow quality was set to low, as well as the pesky UI bug where players would have to hover their mouse over the “...” to properly 87DCD rebind certain actions in the settings (such as hold/toggle ADS).
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That’s it for this month!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
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