As for the state of overall development, I anticipate the next major update will be release. However I got a shitty spring/summer ahead of me as I'm moving across the country, so it might take a while to prepare the last update until 2.0.0 is finished.
In any case, thanks for your support, lets get on with it:
New Weapon: Mortar
The highly awaited Mortar is here. The Mortar is an explosive weapon with very long range. It needs the user to crouch before firing, but certainly strikes fear into your enemies.
The Mortar has an interesting new alt-fire as well, where you can load certain 'Nades into it's tube. This can range from grenades, to the tomahawk.. and the Drone!
The Mortar has been given a small nerf, where left-click must be held down a couple frames before firing. It's another high range + high damage weapon, so this should hopefully help with the saturation of that.
New Weapon: Chain Gun
The Chain Gun has been added. It was quite infamous in the old version as a 'noob' weapon, but hopefully this rework will make it a little more respectable.
It functions as a more traditional minigun now, similar to the Heavy's minigun. It must be wound up before firing, and has a similar aesthetic as the CTF turrets. Holding alt-fire will allow you to keep the barrel spun up.
New Weapon: Goo Gun
Here's the Goo Gun. It's a pretty gross weapon that will fire sticky projectiles which can stick to walls. I gave it's projectiles some nice new effects. I think you'll like the new sounds too. I do anyways.
You can also apply projectile colors to it from Premium. I was apprehensive at first but it just looks too neat to not have. When enemies are damage by the Goo Gun, their horizontal momentum is completely stopped, so it should be a helpful defensive weapons against players with mobility loadouts.
New Weapon: Plasma Rifle
Along with the Goo Gun is the Plasma Rifle, which uses similar projectiles. These two weapons functioned very similarly in the old version so I gave Plasma some new features to make it a more unique weapon. The Plasma Rifle will fire an array of small bombs that can stick to walls.
It has a new alt-fire, which will 'release' active bombs that are stuck to walls. Although it's not just for releasing, pressing alt-fire again will switch released active bombs back to sticking, and vice versa.
You may also notice it has 'more' ammo, but its actually the same amount. Instead, its ammo works similar to the Muleslapper alt-fire where it will use 4 ammo if firing 4 bombs, and reduce the count if there isn't enough in the current 'magazine'. It also has a somewhat unique reload now, where you simply pump the handle and load in 2 bombs each time.
New Weapon: Fusion Cannon
The power of the Fusion Cannon is now available. It is a dangerous weapon for both the enemy and the user, you hold down the trigger and it will begin to charge up and increase in damage. However charge too much and kablooey!!
It has remained mostly the same, however I have shortened it's projectile range to help against the high damage + high range epidemic. It will also flash similar to the Bow when it is an optimal time to release the trigger to shoot, but hopefully if you are practiced from the old version the timing should feel very much the same.
New Weapon: Tranq Rifle
The Tranq Rifle has arrived. It is a dart gun that can poison your enemies and has a scope that you can use with alt-fire
It's darts also have the unique ability to track enemies they hit, similar to Drone spotting. The tracking last muchs longer then a Drone spot, so you and your teammates can stalk tranqed enemies for quite bit.
New Weapon: Lightning Gun
The power of weather in a single weapon, the Lightning Gun! The Lightning Gun is a utility weapon for mobility and disarming enemies. When you hit an enemy, they will get stunned and drop their weapon similar to the EMP, but it doesn't do much damage.
It has a new alt-fire, the Shockwave, which can push players and objects around, and provide an insane amount of pushback for the user, which will help you get around the map. I think it's now one of the most fastest mobility weapons in the game now.
New Weapon: Auto Shotgun
The crazy, estranged uncle of the shotgun family has arrived, the Auto Shotgun. It is a rapid fire shotgun with a bit of painful reload.
It delivers a large burst of damage in short time, and can provide a little mobility for the user. I also added a little overheating effect, but it does not have any effect on the weapon's ability.
New Weapon: Long SMG
Here's the Long SMG. It's an automatic, accurate weapon with a burst fire firing mode you can switch to with alt-fire.
New Map: Dyson Rooftops
Rooftops was the most suggested map to add next, so here it is. In the new maps in this update, I've been implementing platforms and decided to put a couple in the mid-right side, since that part of the map always seemed uninspired to me, or something.
New Map: Dyson Sewers
The stinky sewers are here. Has our hero Tony da Toilet returned? I've walled off the mid corridor with some doors as I have been with other maps where I wanted to eliminate sniper corridors. Going top is still sniper friendly however, so choose your routes wisely.
New Map: Varia Desert
The mysterious Varia Desert is now available. I have reworked the inside of the pyramid, using platforms to make it more combat-friendly. I added some ladders as well inside as well, and moved some spike traps around. It's new aesthetic is inspired by the dry and desolate interstates of my home state, Arizona.
New Map: Warehouse
Warehouse is here. Look how tiny it is!! I've made a new set of tiles for Warehouse, and it is quite focused on platform usage. You can also go on the roof of the warehouse, and I added some logic gate features you should go check out.
New Map: Tutorial…?
The new Tutorial was added this update, which in turn let me reuse the assets to make the multiplayer map version of it. It's remained mostly the same, but I made some slight changes to the structure to balance out the symmetry and reduce sniper corridor effectiveness since I didn't want to add doors on this map.
New DLC Skins
There are new DLC skins, along with the new ability to animate them. Animated skins will probably only be available for DLC skins for now, but you can mod the sprites used as their texture maps.
Check out the new skins below, you can take a look at the old skins and see their new effects as well. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520140/Boring_Man_Staticy_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520141/Boring_Man_Mystic_Weapon_Skins/
XP system rework
The XP system has been reworked for the last time hopefully. I feel like weapon skins and XP have been driving focus away from what I want B-Man to be. Too many people would discuss grinding or farming over actually playing, and the mutators system I've been working hard on was going unused since players would want to be sure they were earning the most XP they could, understandably.
Almost all gameplay oriented XP gain has been removed (kills, assists, flag caps, etc), and the time-based XP you get at the end of match has been greatly increased. The cheats system has been completely removed (everything is a mutator again), and custom maps aren't that much different from stock maps now, other then being unusable for Survival Hardcore/Classic (read more about that below).
Additionally, new players no longer need to unlock weapons and start with all of them, they can also start leveling to unlock weapon skins right away. This should help them jump in with everyone else right away.
These changes should hopefully bring in new players and take some focus off farming weapon skins although I don't think that can truly be stopped. You should be earning them at pretty much the same rate no matter what you're doing in-game. I'm also just sick of policing XP gain through design, I found myself becoming too focused on the idling and the farming as well.
New menu music
Legendary cinematic composer wug has graciously donated new menu music for the game. He provided me the separate instrumental tracks, so it will change depending on where you are in the menu. I like it a lot, as it certainly feels like music I would outright steal from somewhere in 2006 and I think thats pretty important for matching the game's atmosphere.
I can understand if you like the old music better, but the composer for the last menu music seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. Meanwhile wug is interested in B-Man, and is active at times in the Discord server. I also think it's important to give your game's composer as much creative freedom as possible.
You can check out more of wugs work here: http://darkashley.bandcamp.com/
Tutorial has been added
The new tutorial has been added. It's got similar colors as the old version, but I tried to update the visuals nicely as I could like I have been with other maps.
Like the old version I kept it as short as possible, and to only explain the bare necessities so new players aren't overwhelmed. I also tried to use symbols as much as possible over text, as many non-English speakers will try this game and I don't think I'll ever really have the capacity to properly localize things.
Now that new players no longer need to unlock weapons, I took advantage of this change by throwing a loadout cabinet into the tutorial. I'm hoping that doing a 180° from keeping weapons locked from the new player to shoving them all in their face in the first 2 minutes will do more in getting them to stick around, but we'll see..
Fiesta mode
This isn't something huge but I think it's neat, which is Fiesta Mode. You can enable Fiesta mode under server settings, which will randomize a couple mutator settings every map change. Players can also utilize map voting to see what mutators will be randomized on what maps.
I will be enabling Fiesta mode on my weapons deal and take over servers, since they're not very populated anyways. I added this just this week, so not all mutators are used and it might be buggy.
Weapon Balance: Ladders
- You can now shoot small weapons from ladders
- You can now throw grenades from ladders
At last, I have finally implemented using weapons from ladders... This has been on my todo list for a very very long time, and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm unsure what it will do to the meta, if anything at all, but I'm all about turning it upside down.
Weapon Balance: All grenades
- Hostile grenades are now more visible
- Equipped ‘nades are now visible on your character
- Players will now drop nade as an item pick up upon death
These changes focus on helping players identify grenades, and to make their ammo more recoverable by having them drop upon killing an enemy (if they have one).
Weapon Balance: Drone
- You can now use the Keymaster on the Drone
- You can now use the Bow on the Drone
- You can now use the Grapplehook on the Drone
- You can now throw the Knife from the Drone
- Drones using the Acid Gun can only aim left or right
These changes are mostly work for increasing weapon compatibility. The only existing weapons left that don't work on the Drone is Magic, Wrench, Sword and 'Nades/Equipment. I'm afraid I'll have to take back what I said about making 'nades usable on the drone, but I won't completely shut the door on that. But this is the part of development where I need to start cutting down the todo list in order to call 2.0.0 complete faster.
As for the Acid Gun Drone change, this gives a weakness while still letting the pilot pour acid on enemies from up above like they have been. I'd say this change makes doing this easier in some situations, but now the drone can't spin around and melt you if you try to attack it from mid-range.
Weapon Balance: Dynamite
- You can now ‘cook’ the dynamite by holding down F
- Dynamite projectiles can now be damaged to detonate
Lots of players have complained about the Dynamite not being very useful, so I have introduced more ways to detonate it. It's detonation from attacks follows the same rules as destroying a Muleslapper Sentry. Holding the dynamite will also light the fuse and you can burn it down before throwing and time your explosions.
Weapon Balance: Skateboard
- You can now crouch while skateboarding to slow down to a steady pace
This was mostly added so you could use the Mortar on the Skateboard, but braking might also assist those who think the skateboard moves too fast to use or want to slow down to aim.
Weapon Balance: Handcannon
- The Handcannon’s kick back will now get worse when dual-wielding or firing from a ladder
As it should be pretty difficult to maintain your grip on a big pistol with only one hand, the kickback for the Handcannon has been increased while dual-wielding it or shooting from a ladder. I did not want to nerf the Handcannon as an individual weapon, as the community seemed more focused on its dual wield ability.
Weapon Balance: Kunai
- You must now hold down F to throw 3 Kunai instead of 1
Players have complained Kunai would be too 'panic buttony' at times, so you now must hold down F for a lil bit to throw all 3 blades, otherwise you will only throw 1.
Weapon Balance: Misc
- Increased the time fire lasts, except from the Fire Uzi
- The Railgun will now reload while holstered
- Removed cooldown on the Muleslapper’s alt fire, similar to v1
Weapon Balance: Experimental
- Added Clumsy ‘Nades [Nerf]
- Added Clumsy Handcannons [Nerf]
This is a new approach I'm trying for weapon balance. There is now an 'Experimental' menu in the Server Settings menu, that have proposed balance changes you can apply optionally on your server. Every update will either implement or completely remove settings in this menu, depending on feedback.
The Clumsy Handcannon change would force players to drop handcannons that are fired too frequently with one hand (dualwield, ladder). This change can be implemented if the recent Handcannon nerf was not enough. Clumsy Nades will force players to drop live grenades if they are damaged, frozen, or stunned while holding them. This would further reduce 'panic button' grenades, but I also don't want to neuter them again so it's just a setting for now.
Survival: Barkeep
- Added artwork of barkeep and dialogue in the bar menu
- Added a new ‘Talk’ option in the bar menu where barkeep will give you hints, lore, and clues on the location of rare vices if he likes you enough
- Barkeep can now challenge you to wagers with the 'Talk' option
- Rebalanced cash rewards for jobs
- Vices can now be rewards for some jobs
- Barkeep will do something before the final wave
I cleaned up the bar menu and gave Barkeep dialogue. I also rebalanced some of his rewards, and he can now challenge you to wagers, where you bet on something happening or not that isn't entirely in your control. If you win, you get twice the money back you paid, but Barkeep keeps your money if you lose.
Survival: Antacids
- You can no longer revive yourself with money, and antacid vices are used automatically
- You will now get 2 Antacids when picking them up (stacks with hot wings)
- Newly joined players will now start with 2 antacids
- You can now choose to revive teammates with cash or antacids (Hold E to revive with antacids on their grave)
- You can now hold E to sit out for the rest of the current wave while dead, if you want to save your antacids.
This is a mechanic from Classic Survival that I thought should be applied all around, and the changes hark back to the lives system in the old version. Yes, this will make death far more punishing and revival is more dependent on the generosity of your teammates. But its mostly because I found it awkward if all players were dead, and no one can revive except for one guy who went AFK and the match wouldn't auto-end until the objective failed.
So to balance out the difficulty increase, Antacids are more plentiful when found, and newly joined players should start out with 2 so early deaths are forgiven more. With more players ending up unable to revive, wealthier teammates will be hurting for help more, so hopefully this will encourage players to revive each other more and keep late joiners in the game since any bodies are a big help for blocking the objective from enemies.
Survival: Hardcore + Classic
You can now select Survival classic or hardcore as a 'game type'. This will remove custom maps from your map list, and force settings on your server, so you can be rewarded a buttload of XP if you are victorious. The XP reward is increased during triple XP events, and you still get time-based XP as well, so a hardcore survival win can net you several new weapon skins.
Survival: General changes
- Chests will now always drop weapons, medikits or ammo boxes
- Most prices are now rounded to a nice, easy to say number
- Updated Demolitions Guy enemy
- Added Economy, Objectives, Loadouts (again), and Wave Limit settings for custom Survival (as mutators now)
- Survival settings have been reorganized
- Removed Sober Up from the bar
- Removed Chest Limit setting
General changes
- Updated some pixel art and made balance changes for stock maps
- Loadout menu will now say if banned weapon was banned by captain’s mode or not
- Reload ammo pool is now infinite in the stock Shooting Range, similar to 1.2.7.7
- Improved weapon visuals when climbing ladders
- Removed the Lock Mouse setting, as its always on now. Its a little smarter now with releasing the mouse.
- Made looking around with the controller better
- Your reticle will now return to your character automatically on controllers
- Added dead zone settings for control sticks
- Servers will now force change maps when the server is empty for 30 minutes
- Move hidden weapon bans setting to the HUD menu
- Improved navigation for player AI
- Grenades will now disappear if dropped with 0 ammo, can no longer drop empty grenades
- Captain’s Mode: Added reverse Captain’s Mode
- Captain’s Mode: Added setting for allowing previous weapons to banned
- Captain’s Mode: Added setting single or multiple randomized captains
- Captain’s Mode: Added ‘abstain’ button to skip your weapon ban immediately instead of running down the clock
- Added new video setting: Backgrounds
- Added new video setting: Sleep Margin
- Added new advanced server setting: Kill Command
- Reworked mutator/game setting menus
- Changed the Alcoholics Anonymous mutator
- Added new mutator: Grace Period
- Added new mutator: Perma-Jetpack
- Added new mutator: Perma-Scuba Gear
- Added new mutator: Perma-Skateboard
- Added new console commands:
setbotaidivert
moveall
moveenemies
moveteam
copylog
netcodetimerange
netcodemargin
netcodedamageallow
netcodedistance
netcodedeathpredictping
netcodedeathpredictavg
netcodedeathpredicttime
netcodereckon
listreckon
netcodereset
Bug fixes
- Fixed not being able to pump the Acid Gun underwater
- Fixed weapon cabinets not working in Climb
- Fixed weapon banning not working in Weapons Deal
- Fixed the Grapplehook misplacing climbing players off of ladders
- Fixed the last weapon being able to be banned in Weapons Deal
- Fixed boss missions from the bar not appearing after a while
- Fixed some global mutators not overriding team-specific mutators
- Fixed weapon printers not applying skins to client players
- Fixed Magic’s alt-fire not placing correctly with a controller
- Fixed a good amount of objects spawning inside walls
- Fixed map voting saying it counted your vote if it sent too late
- Fixed being able to interrupt the Long Rifle with the Drone
- Fixed the server host being affected by chat flood when chatting in their own server
- Fixed shark health not resetting properly when using a RESET gate
- Fixed moving platforms not powering on when connected to a RESET gate in some instances
- Fixed being able swap weapons while Drop Weapons setting is disabled
- Fixed players being able to pick up weapons off the ground when dropping weapons is disabled
- Fixed Force Loadout settings not loading from server config
- Fixed the hitbox on ‘big’ explosions.. for good this time, I hope.
- Fixed a crash with saved loadouts
- Fixed a crash when loading out of date JSON strings into the skin creator
- Fixed server settings being used when in the shooting range or testing maps
- Fixed more stuff, probably
Pump the brakes, netcode console commands?
Yes. I normally keep my mouth shut about netcode changes but I suppose I should explain this one time. You can use the 'help' command in the console to see what each command does, although I can't guarantee they're easy to understand.
If you are an avid hitregposter, then these commands may be of interest:
netcodetimerangeThese commands pertain to the server authority for hitreg. They cannot convert the netcode into server-side, instead their values are used by the server to 'disagree' with hitreg and not apply damage if a desync made the hit too sketchy. These values have already existed since beta14, the defaults make the server authority go mostly unused. I've been unsure what the least frustrating values would be, hence why I made them into console commands that you can help test with.
netcodemargin
netcodedamageallow
netcodedistance
Keep in mind these commands are meant strictly for testing and experimenting, so their values are reset to their defaults when the map changes. They are not available as server settings, and are unusable with RCON and cmd lists. This is because I don't want joe schmoe running dedicated servers with poorly tweaked netcode values. Players will also get a warning when joining your tweaked netcode server.
For experimenting, you may need to find help from other players in order to test the values, as there is no way to simulate latency at the moment. If you want to do the 2 game windows open thing, then I recommend trying out clumsy which will shit up your device's internet connection on purpose, for the IP addresses or rule you define in the 'Filtering' text field. Clumsy has been a powerful too for me for testing the netcode. Everyone is welcome to tweak these values and share what they find.
Boring Editor
- Added new map object Waypoint Divert
- Added new map object Waypoint Crouch
- Added new map object Survival Enemy Spawnpoints
- Added new map object Zombie Spawnpoints
- Added new map object Weapon Spawn
- Added new map object Enemy
- Added new map object PLAYER logic gate
- Added new map object ENEMY logic gate
- Added new map object CALCULATE logic gate
- Added new map object RANDOM logic gate
- Added “Collision Only” option for “Show Assets” setting
- Added new collision types: Burn, Poison
- Added trigger check feature to trigger areas to include more objects, Barrel Check type has been removed but should still work on old maps
- Added some support for non-player objects with trigger area and collision types
- Added new depth filter settings which will only show objects and logic at the current depth
- Added Ctrl+D hotkey for deselecting all objects
- Added new feature for the F3 key: Depth seeking, which will list all unique depth values for all your map objects (to help optimize)
- The map editor will now save certain CONFIG tab settings to a file
- Added depth to logic connections. No effect on actual maps, but can help you make logic mode look less messy
- Player spawns, medikits and ammo boxes can now use the logic system
- Logic objects should now be turned on by default, if no logic is attached to them
- Added “Respawning” timer setting to medikits, ammo boxes and power ups, the default value remaining as 45 seconds. Set to 0 to only spawn once per map/TDM round
- Showlogic and showpath can now be flagged for your maps in the map editor
- You can now enter a custom passing value into ON Logic Gates which will work with other math-based gates and objects
- You can now use “^” in a command when using a COMMAND gate to use the real value passed along from logic gates, such as COUNT and ON and CALCULATE
- You can now use “#” in a command when using a COMMAND gate when you want to use the passing player’s team color or character color in color parameters for commands
- Heal and hurt trigger areas and collision can now have a custom healing or damage value
- Cleaned up select priority when clicking objects
- You can now use Spacebar + mouse-wheel to cycle through several objects your mouse is hovering over
- Copy pasted objects will now copy paste logic configs correctly
- You can now use the page up/down, home and end keys to navigate through tiles
- You can now use more right-click settings for multiple objects of the same type
- Removed Delete All right-click function, Select All no longer need to hold shift
- If the game crashes or something during a test, the game will now back up the test map files when starting back up
- Fixed rawsay not working in the map editor
- Fixed ladders made by the ladder tool not copy pasting correctly in some cases
- Fixed objects storing individual undo actions when moving multiple of them with the arrow keys
- Fixed trigger areas and polygons not being hidden properly via settings
- Fixed certain trigger area types not working for client players
- Fixed platforms always drawing on top
- Fixed logic gates not passing count values properly
- Fixed not being able to drag objects after selecting all
- Fixed objects not being in the correct mouse position when using right-click -> “Move”
- Fixed objects not being in the correct mouse position when pasted from the clipboard
- Fixed tiles not reloading missing sprites when pasted from the clipboard in some cases
- Fixed a memory leak with polygons that would eventually crash the editor
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Buy B-man DLC if you'd like to support me: https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1194781/Boring_Man_Rainbow_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1194780/Boring_Man_Splintered_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520140/Boring_Man_Staticy_Weapon_Skins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520141/Boring_Man_Mystic_Weapon_Skins/
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