Due Process News

[h3]Another round of maps, this time featuring Vault! Additionally, some fixes have been applied to restore some of the optimizations from previous weeks.[/h3]




[h2]Vault[/h2]

Like previous variations, the vault is an impenetrable fortress housing the bomb, however this time it's gotten an upgrade. The artwork has been upgraded, now featuring a large vault door, new Vault specific button, and the interior walls are lined with safety deposit boxes!

The vault itself. Thick, unchargeable and slow, this door will open over a period of about seven seconds and come to rest to block the area behind it. Be careful, as this may cut off your rotation!



The Vault Button. While our current rotation of Vault maps may not have them, thanks to some upgrades the vault maps can have multiple buttons for complex variations and more strategy or defensive planning.



Take a peek inside the vault! Lined with impenetrable objects, the vault is all bullet proof cover but the thick walls don't leave much room to work with.





[h2]Teller Booth[/h2]

We've given the map generator an upgrade to allow rooms to spawn inside other rooms, and applied it to the Teller booth. This feature will let us make more interesting and varied map configurations in the future as we bring it to the other levels.

[h3]Optimizations for combat, new animations, barbwire sounds, mic calibration, squad names, QoL fixes, and more![/h3]

[h2]Gameplay Changes[/h2]

• Optimizations for performance during combat, mostly for shooting, that should help relieve frame dips.
  
• New animations for all gear (think held equipment, not guns): Hold, activate, walk, sprint, holster, draw
  
• New kicking animations: New kick animations in third and first person for all different types of holdable objects.
  
• Barbed wire will now make sounds when players are moving inside the wire for all clients in a limited range
  
• Fixed incorrect initial health when joining a match already in progress
  
• Fixed issue with teamkill reprimands not taking action in some cases
  
• Fixed long standing issue where push to talk is stuck on when window loses focus or pressing during loading screen
  
• Fixed "VCR bug" caused by server closing due to one team being empty while clients are loading, server now shuts down immediately.
  
• Shutter button networking was updated to allow for more than one button to control the same shutters and stay in sync.
  

[h2]UI Updates[/h2]

• Mic Calibration Window: This will appear the first time you load into the multiplayer menu to prompt you to calibrate your mic settings.
  
• Added Master volume slider, this affects all sounds (even the broken ones), will allow players to change overall volume without having to modify the game volume in windows itself.
  
• Added the ability to name your squad. All squads have a randomly generated name upon formation. Naming your squad will show up for other players in game.
  
• Add UI option to disable custom squad names, should you not want to see them.
  
• Add player profile window to view a player's stats or open their steam profile
  
• Replace "View Steam Profile" with "View Player Profile" in user actions dropdown
  
• Added UI feature to show info about your profile and rank in the top right corner of the menu
  
• Moved some overlapping UI elements around on the menu and in-game.
  
• Added labels for Relevancy/Ranked/Matches Played on player's icons in the menu
  

[h2]Extra note:[/h2]
One of our recent updates have introduced a number of issues with players and items disappearing or being invisible. This makes the whole game feel unreliable at times and we are investigating the situation. We are planning to issue hotfixes as we investigate to improve the situation.

This patch is mostly new maps, but also we're adding in a couple hotfixes for issues that have shown up in the past week. There are no gameplay related changes except for some fixes for errors involving players not getting cleaned up properly, hopefully this should alleviate issues where players cannot load into the next round.

[h2]Killhouse[/h2]

In the Killhouse you'll see a new "room" type named Vents. These connect two rooms and require people to crouch through the vents in order to pass between the rooms.



Some changes to the Lumberyard tile, you'll see some Lumberyards now having fences to help corral the entrances the attackers can take. This should make it more predictable and easier for defenders to use the room itself to help hold against the attackers.



[h2]Factory[/h2]

Factory has had some experimental variations that allow attackers to see through some of the higher windows, you'll see these windows marked with blue strips to help identify them. These won't be present on every factory but just a few.

[h3]This update is mostly QoL changes and fixes, such as improving input reliability or saving voice input settings, along with an optimization pass for animations.[/h3]

[h2]Gameplay Changes[/h2]

• Bug fixes for the team kill reprimand system (kicking wrong player, requiring reprimands across multiple rounds, bug that broke killfeed)
  
• Ignore teamkills during extraction phase at end of half or when match is over for the reprimand system
  
• Another update to input reliability; this is to attempt to reduce the desync experienced by sometimes having your inputs ignored, such as swapping weapons or deploying equipment.
  
• Optimizations for animations, to reduce the cost of animating all players in a match
  
• Partial fix for some death animation issues
  
• Texture fix for character eyes being very dark
  
• More detailed analytics were added to the clients and servers to help us diagnose gameplay issues
  

[h2]UI Changes[/h2]

• Changed friends list to auto-refresh upon receiving an invite
  
• View steam profile option was added to the drop down that is activated when clicking on a player
  
• Profanity filter for text chat - this does not activate for normal curse words
  
• Save microphone input device settings to the config so it doesn't have to be reset after the game closes
  
• Added notification above chatbox for receiving invite or request to join. This is meant mostly to help show you invites when you are not on the Multiplayer screen (such as in settings or training)
  
• Being disconnected from GECNet now gives some kind of error message instead of just dumping you back onto the menu
  
• Moved some menu GUI elements to avoid overlap of error messages
  
• Ignore "Lag Detected" when loading
  

Last week we made enough maps to completely replace all of maps we had deployed and still keep about the same number of maps. This week we've done the same, except we're keeping the maps from last week and combining the two sets into a mega bundle. While only two weeks worth of maps, this will be the largest map pool we've shipped since the start of the beta.

We're also going to start including some of the notable changes to the maps in our updates, hopefully this will help keep players in the loop and help get an idea of what we're working on. We'd love for you guys to give us feedback after you play on some of these maps. If you haven't already, follow the discord link on the game's home page and come join the discussion in our level feedback channel.




[h2]Lumberyard[/h2]

A new room being tested in the Killhouse tileset: Lumberyard. With a rooftop protecting the defenders, as long as they stay away from the edges, they have free reign in this open space. The Attackers will have to watch the control of their sight lines as they move into this space if they want to enter without using a charge, but they'll also gain access to two separate entrances should they manage to take control without many casualties.







[h2]Silos[/h2]

Silos with open catwalks have been put in some of the Factory maps. These feature see through catwalks and no armor, making the position dangerous to hold but also providing a lot of angles to cover different areas of the map.





[h2]Shelving[/h2]

This was initially introduced last week, but it still deserves a mention: Shelving. The attackers can usually find shelving hanging around underneath the Fan entrance, but watch out some defenders may find their way up onto shelving as well through the office windows.





[h2]Office Windows[/h2]

A few of the Factory office windows have been changed to be more open and give bigger sight lines, but they also have less concealment. Not all maps will feature these new windows, this is more like an initial test. The attackers will have to do more than just hide from a tiny window, they'll have to actually take control of the sight line or even the whole office if they want to prevent counter attacks from here.