This patch took a while longer than expected to be completed due to the sheer complexity of the issues involved, as explained below. Now that it's out, we can finally get to releasing new content again - the next steps are the consumables patch and an overview of our work on dungeons.
In the meantime, let's see what's new here!
Performance & QOL
It's been really hard to get to the bottom of the performance issues on older machines introduced by the update to Unity 2022. Shoutout to the community members who decided to devote their time to helping us by testing a million different game client builds!
Stuttering
After the update to Unity 2022, some operations performed when the character is moving had become sensibly slower for players with older CPUs. This had caused visible "stuttering" for these players - stuttering that became worse the older the CPU and the faster the player movement.
After working closely with a group of affected players, we've managed to make these operations as fast as they were before the update, without having to come to any graphic or gameplay compromise.
While working on this, we've also added multiple performance improvements that could impact stuttering when moving, including improvements to Garbage Collection (for the same as a whole) and Texture Splatting (for terrains).
Last but not least, we've improved the performance of some parts of our UI.
Movement
In Fractured Online, your character can move following two different logics: "pathfinding" and "directional movement (with obstacle avoidance)". Historically, a single click would use pathfinding, while holding down the mouse button or activating AutoRun would use directional movement.
In the Unity 2022 / big QOL update, this system was accidentally broken, so that holding down the mouse button would also do pathfinding. We've restored this as before the update, which is what most of you wanted, but we've also added an option in the Settings menu to still use pathfinding, for the few of you who prefer so.
Loot All
The feature you all wanted is finally live! There isn't much else to say - this button a massive time-saver, particularly for players with higher latency.
Note: the functionality is for looting monsters only, not other players in PvP. Also, we are already working on automatic loot splitting when multiple players have loot rights over the same monster.
Bug Fixes
There's always some, let's have a look!
Serious
- Projectiles no longer go through doors and some of the walls of fortresses.
- Fortress doors can now be attacked while in Combat Mode.
- Fixed a bug that would allow a player to trigger the Active Racial Ability of a Demon twice in a row.
- Some players who bought the game on Steam after playing during the Steam Free Weekend didn't receive their Access pack. They are now assigned the pack automatically the first time they log in.
- Wild land parcels far away from the city that controls the region now correctly send gold to the city on claim / maintenance. While we fixed this, we also fixed other potential similar issues.
Minor
- The upcoming Adventurer's Task (if any) is no longer assigned immediately on rank up (unless a new task slot is unlocked).
- Acid Sphere now correclty inflicts Acid damage instead of Ice.
- The Adventurer's Task menu is now tall enough to properly contain all texts.
- It's no longer possible to use emotes while on horse.
- The Shock Staff now properly applies Shock stacks.
- Fixed some dirt roads that ended up inside of land claims.
Ew, brother ew
- Fixed a bug that would make bouncing ranged attacks (e.g. from the Mage Weapon Mastery talent) behave incorrectly. They would do all sorts of weird stuff, such as: if you hit a spider with a bouncing attack from a Shock Staff, you would apply the Poison of the bite of the spider instead of Shock to the secondary targets.
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This was all for today, enjoy Fractured Online!
