KovaaK's News

1.0.6.2 Changes:

• Added options to change Sky Color under Game Options -> Visuals
  
• Added option to set custom resolution under Game options -> Video
  
• Added Fortnite sensitivity dropdown options.
  
• Added Weapon Profile option to block ADS/zoom while in air.
  
• Added Weapon Profile options to shift 3rd person camera when you ADS.
  
• Forced the player's visible weapon model to be hidden when in 3rd person.
  
• Made clicking on "Cancel challenge" unconditionally show the scenario browser and session manager.
  
• Fixed bug/exploit that allowed users to have extra time on certain challenges.
  

1.0.6 Changes:

• Added scenario scoring option for "Score per distance traveled". Scenario authors can now provide incentive for players to move around while aiming!
  
• Added options for third person camera under Character->Main for scenario authors.
  
• Added Weapon option for "Force First Person In ADS" to make otherwise third-person characters go to first person when zooming in. This defaults to on.
  
• Exposed a third friction-related variable for character physics (linear decrease in velocity over time on the ground). Also renamed the other two to hopefully be more descriptive.
  
• Updated default list of Favorite Scenarios for new users (Added Tile Frenzy & Mini, Ascended Tracking v2, 1wall5targets pasu, Cata Plasma Long Strafes, and Thin Aiming Long - check these out if you haven't yet!).
  
• Fixed Zoom FOV and Sensitivity Scaling inconsistencies (Weapons with 0.0 time to zoom in were not reading the right variables).
  
• Re-did code around spawning bots for challenges so that it shouldn't be possible to end up with more bots in the challenge than intended. They also no longer reset their velocity and health a split second after spawning.
  
• Re-did code for challenge timer so that it uses some different methods. There was something weird going on for people who played the game for a _very_ long time that resulted in the challenge countdown going slower than it should.
  
• Respawning clears stun.
  
• Respawning blocks "bogo jump" until you let go of jump and press again.
  
• Made Challenge Timer more precise when it is down to the last 10 seconds.
  
• Removed "ADS/Zoom" text from hotbar when the character you are playing doesn't have any weapons capable of zooming.
  
• Added option to hide UI element for remaining time on challenge.
  
• Added vertical spawn offset for character profiles.
  

Note:
The Paladins and UE4 sensitivity scales are inaccurate. When I first implemented Paladins sens, I was unaware that the game's yaw/sensitivity was dependent on FOV. I plan on eventually changing the sensitivity options in this game to allow for custom yaws, and I encourage people to use https://github.com/KovaaK/SensitivityMatcher/releases/latest to figure out how to convert sensitivity between games!

I've been digging into this hitching issue that some users are experiencing in the game. I now know for a fact that the old version of UE4 (4.18) works perfectly fine, and the instant I upgrade to the current version (4.19), hitching starts to happen. So something changed in the engine, and I have no idea what. Using the profiling/statistics features of the engine shows me that there is a specific function of the engine that is causing the problems, but it's nothing I have control over. And using Process Hacker shows that every hitch is caused by hundreds of thousands of page faults (where the game tries to access memory that it hasn't mapped yet). So it's something to do with memory management, but I'm re-using actors/assets everywhere I can be, and it wasn't a problem in 4.18...

So why don't I just downgrade from 4.19 to 4.18? Unfortunately, UE4 does not allow developers to downgrade engine versions. I do have an old copy of the project from just before I upgraded from 4.18 to 4.19, which is the game version 1.0.3. So for those of you who are having hitching issues, I've uploaded that old build on Steam under the "1.0.3 - Old version" build. If you go to the Betas tab of the game, you can opt into that. Notably, leaderboards will be missing from that version, but there shouldn't be any hitching problems. See the previous patch notes listing for what changed in 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 - those features will be missing from this build. That said, the 1.0.3 build is in shipping configuration for improved performance.

Going forward, I will resolve this issue with the latest build of the game one way or another. Of course I'm hoping a UE4 patch to 4.19 comes out that just resolves it (would be really nice since I'm still working 60hrs/week at my day job), but I'll continue to investigate every option available to me. Sorry for the inconvenience to those affected!

1.0.5:
The biggest change this patch is improved performance. Previously some systems had hitching that was occurring at various frequencies, and this should fix the majority of it.

• Officially moved from "Development" build configuration to "Shipping" build config. There are some trade-offs, and I've been debating on doing this for a while. At this point, I've decided it is worth the jump.
  
• This comes with much improved performance across the board. FPS averages will be higher, and the engine's garbage collection should be less intrusive in causing frame drops/hitching.
  
• The folder that the engine uses for configuration files and save has been relocated. I have a script that will run once to relocate your config files from the old folder (\SteamApps\common\FPSAimTrainer\) to the new folder (%localappdata%\FPSAimTrainer\). Hopefully this will be transparent to you.
  
• All of your old profiles/scenarios, .ini files (including weapon settings), sounds, maps, and crosshairs will work fine and won't require any changes.
  
• On the negative side, the console is gone (not that it did too much for most people, but I did add some menu options below that some were using the console for).
  

Other changes:

• Scenario tooltips will now show the Steam username of who uploaded something to the workshop.
  
• Added Steam Rich presence when you are playing or editing a scenario. (friends can check what you are playing/editing)
  
• Set max resolution scale to 200 under Video Options.
  
• Added options for AntiAliasing under Game Options -> Video
  
• Added option to show/hide/move FPS counter under Game Options -> UI
  
• Made the "You killed ..." text smaller and transparent.
  
• Removed some defunct variables from Weapon Profiles when exporting to .wep and .sce files.
  

I'm very happy to announce that leaderboards are officially live! There are a few other QOL changes worked in there, but the majority of the new stuff is leaderboards-related.

• Leaderboards for workshop scenarios! Clicking the podium button will now bring up the leaderboards for a scenario on the workshop (not for local files). The scoreboard also shows up when you complete a challenge.
  
• When updating a scenario on the workshop, authors are given the option to "Invalidate Old Scores". When this is checked, old scores will still be on the leaderboard server, but they are either hidden or show up with an asterisk (*) depending on your preference under Game Options -> LBs. When someone plays the challenge and has a previously invalidated score, his first new score will overwrite the old one, even if the score wasn't higher (just to get a valid score on the scoreboard).
  
• Clicking a user's name on the leaderboard takes you to their Steam profile.
  
• Added option to show only friends on leaderboard (Game Options -> LBs tab)
  
• Added choice to opt out of individual leaderboards when you go to play a scenario as a challenge.
  
• Added choice to opt out of all leaderboards on Game Options -> LBs.
  
• Updated UE from 4.18 to 4.19. Supposedly this comes with reduced input lag.
  
• Made Sprint Ability's speed multiplier minimum 0 (was 1).
  
• Modified upload/download buttons - Icon for Upload new or Download new is the old icon of a circle with a hollowed out arrow. Icon for Update or Download new version is a smaller arrow, no circle.
  
• Added note on Bot Weapons tab that the weapons are pulled from the chosen Character profile.
  
• Changed "ADS" hotbar text to "ADS/Zoom"
  
• Forced UE4 to do Garbage Collection when you pause and just before a challenge starts. Hopefully this helps get rid of mid-challenge stutters. The previous engine timer for automatic Garbage Collection was 60 seconds, it is now 600 seconds.
  
• Reworked some logic for selecting spawn spots to cause less framerate drops.
  
• Fixed bug of Escape->Spacebar causing the Scenario Editor to Scenario Browser transition to occur repeatedly.
  
• Changed default key bindings for weapons, abilities, and zoom to make a little more sense. (1-8 for weapons, Shift, E, Q, V for abilities, and Mouse2 for zoom).
  
• Added "Reset Session" bind, default set to F3. If you are in a challenge, it restarts the challenge. If you aren't, it just resets stats/accuracy. The key shows up in the Game Options -> Key Binds menu as well. (Removed "Reset Stats" key and replaced it with this)
  

As I've said on the Discord Server a few times, I'm about to go into a period of overtime at my day job. I'll be working 60 hours a week for a month, followed by a week of training out of state. My development time for the game is coming to a temporary halt, but my support for it is far from over. I'll still be in the Discord server answering questions on how to make profiles/edit things and hopefully help you guys make awesome scenarios that are fun to play and great practice.

Shortly before the game launched on Steam, I sent out Steam keys to all of the pre-purchasers in emails (by the way - to newcomers wondering why so many reviews were from gifted Steam keys, this is why. There were about 380 pre-purchases from people who followed the paypal link that was on my Youtube channel). Included in the email was a survey asking what people wanted to see sooner rather than later. The top six requests were:

1. Advanced FPS Movement Options (strafe jumping/bunnyhopping)
   
2. Graph/histograph to look at your scores on challenges for trending
   
3. New bot-type of recorded path (player runs along route, saves input to file, bot plays it back. Can loop or shuffle)
   
4. Leaderboards for all scenarios
   
5. Fake network lag
   
6. FOV Scaling options
   

So, I've got 2/6 of those top requests implemented (FOV scaling was done in the whirlwind of programming before release, and leaderboards are live today), and the remaining 4 would also be great to have in. I'm really looking forward to having time to add those improvements!

Outside of those, I intend on continuing to add more profile customization options to make it possible to emulate more and more games. And hopefully the existing options will continue to be flexible enough to let you guys make the training scenarios that you want.

As always, thank you for your support of this project. I'm very glad it came this far, and it has been great fun making it and playing it :).