New patch - 0.955a

[Imagindar]

0.955a

Gameplay
* Added a new game mode: Control Points.
* Added two new maps to the game with new assets: Sky Islands and Dragon Cave.
* Using an ability or attacking with a weapon now briefly reduces movement speed. This change promotes skill-based aiming over ability spamming and helps counter excessive kiting against melee-focused builds.
* Spawn Protection now grants a 30% movement speed boost during its duration to help counter spawn ganking.
* Equipping shields now prompts confirmation if holding a two-handed weapon.

Balance
* Lowered the damage reduction and movement speed decrease of all armors and shields.
* Mine/Trap abilities are now immune to damage when they turn invisible.
* Mine/Trap abilities now have twice the cooldown as before.
* Diminishing Returns is now also affected by abilities that can throw players around, such as the ability Demonic Force.
* Demonic Force now applies less force overall, with additional scaling that further reduces the applied force when the target is closer.
* Slightly adjusted the respawn time based on distance.

Visuals & Graphics
* Changed the lighting model in the game to physically based rendering (PBR).
* Replaced the main character model of the game and the sounds associated with it.
* The start scene has been remade and now includes the last character played.
* The Summon Raptor ability has been reworked into Summon Voidstalker, complete with a new character mesh.
* The summon skeleton abilities have been reworked into summon wyvern abilities, complete with a new character mesh.
* Added a dynamic tail bone system that simulates physics-based tail movement on character models.
* Summon abilities now have an additional visual effect when summoned.
* Added support for Subsurface Refraction, which can be seen on gemstones in the new Dragon Cave map.
* Completely remade the Cloak accessory.
* Replaced the default skybox of the game.
* The Antialiasing option has been reworked to support MSAA (Multi-Sample Antialiasing) and SMAA (Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing).
* Added a new shadow technique in the options menu for excellent shadow quality with soft shadows: PCF Poisson.
* Added a new setting to the options menu: Shadow Softness.
* Added a new setting to the options menu: Resolution Scaling.
* Added a new setting to the options menu: Shadow Texture Size.
* Added support for fake volumetric clouds. This can be seen in the new Dragon Cave map.
* Using an ability on yourself now triggers a different animation.
* Reworked the frozen, scorched, liquid, and stone character effects for improved visuals and smoother fade-in and fade-out transitions.
* All decals now have improved visuals and react to lighting.
* Changed the default grass ground texture of the game.
* Remade the map for the tutorial and changed some aspects of the tutorial.
* Remade the map for the challenges.
* Removed the cursor target indicators beneath characters. Targeting feedback is now shown by highlighting the character model itself. The cursor also now includes a small border to maintain visual clarity, since its color can change when hovering over enemies of similar color.
* Added support to change the team colors in the options menu.
* The directional light in maps will now automatically rotate to ensure identical lighting for both teams.
* Ragdolls no longer use silhouettes.
* Shadows now fade in smoothly near the edges of the shadow texture, providing a more natural transition instead of an abrupt cutoff.
* Re-scaled all objects, abilities, sounds and effects of the game to have a correct scale (1 unit = 1 meter).
* Newly created ragdolls will now always be created with a special impulse, rather than only 50% of the time.
* Remade the visual effects created by the ability Bloodlust.
* Decals using projection no longer affects perpendicular surfaces.
* Added a new Color Grading option: Darker Shadows.
* Altered the explosion in the start menu of the game.
* Lowered the cloud shadow opacity in the library movies.
* Replaced the leaf texture to a better one.
* Altered the brightness of the Bloom option to be more subtle.
* Altered the respawn particle to look better.
* Adjusted the UI lighting to be softer and less attention-grabbing.

Performance & Optimization
* Optimized the saving process of replays, which significantly improves performance when replays are enabled.
* Optimized grass rendering, grass creation and increased the speed of its collision detection.
* Dramatically optimized the rendering of SSAO and Soft Particles.
* Dramatically optimized node trail effects, which are used by the abilities Quickness, Healing Seeds, Powershift, Brace Projectile and Dash.
* Dramatically optimized the rendering of lightning effects, such as from the abilities Death Bolt, Blinding Flash, Infected Bolt, Nuclear Sphere and others.
* Optimized the rendering of growing root effects, such as from the ability Healing Circle.
* Optimized decal tree generation to eliminate performance issues when creating the first decal.
* Optimized the sand footprints of the game and added support for multiple different kind of footprints.
* Particles created from a map are no longer updated when out of view to improve performance.
* Skyboxes now look clearer and take less memory because they no longer use mipmaps.
* The Advanced Mesh Fade option is now more optimized, particularly when using Direct3D11.
* Fixed a performance issue when approaching objects with SSAO enabled.
* Added support for mirrored normalmaps which reduces the texture space needed for certain objects.
* Slightly optimized the rendering on Direct3D11.
* Set the Instancing option to be off by default, since it decreased the performance in a normal game scene.
* Fetching dynamic variables in the game has now been significantly optimized.

UI / UX
* The UI has been completely reworked.
* Starter Builds are now displayed as buttons in a list view instead of a dropdown menu.
* In the options screen, you can now restore default values. Additionally, options that are not using the default values will now have a different color.
* You can now change the AI difficulty in-game while in singleplayer mode.
* Abilities shown in the library now appear dimmer when they require more experience than you currently have available.
* The map lists in the practice screen and in the game server are now sorted first by whether maps are custom made and then by name.
* UI on the minimap and map screens now use a different filtering method to make them look better.
* Certain UI screens now use a fade border to reduce visual strain and improve clarity when above other UI screens.
* Diminishing Returns is now shown as a beneficial effect in the UI.
* Added a strength slider to the color grading option.
* Message screens will now dynamically resize their screen depending on how much text is shown.
* A loading image now appears in the Join Game menu while refreshing the server list.
* Servers listed in the Join Game screen will now also show their server type (Steam or non-Steam). Non-Steam users will not see Steam games but Steam users will see both.
* The game server IP is no longer displayed in the player list (TAB) screen. Instead, the favorite button now shows only the country of the game server.
* In the join game screen, there is now a tooltip on the favorite button showing which country the game server is hosted in.
* The descriptions of passive abilities are now even clearer that they are passive abilities.
* You can now search dropdown menus by typing while they are open.
* Selecting "You" in the practice match screen now removes the old instances of it from other slots.
* Tooltips in the library screen now have a slight delay before appearing when hovering over them with the cursor.
* Added support for gradient text coloring in the UI.
* The Show only bought/used checkbox in the library now also highlight all currently used categories.
* Added a new setting in the options menu to hide the library movies.
* The challenge screen now also shows a progress of how many challenges have been completed.
* Equipping a weapon or a shield will no longer automatically take the player to the next category.
* Cursor error messages can no longer go outside screen boundaries.
* Right clicking on a textbox that supports numbers will now remove all decimals from it.
* You can now scroll in a textbox that supports numbers in order to change its value.
* Tips are now shown in the UI of the start menu of the game.
* Friend names in the profile screen now have a tooltip of their full name if they are cut off.
* Your external IP is no longer shown when pressing Host Game. You must now first click a button to view it instead.
* Fixed a minor typo in the Advanced Mesh Fade option tooltip.
* Altered the minimum ground clutter option to be able to be 0% instead of the previous 20%.
* The buttons to mute, unmute, spectate and report a player are now only shown as icons instead of a full button with a background and borders.
* Added a new option that hides most of the UI to make video montage recordings cleaner.

Audio
* The music in the game has been completely reworked and entering combat now plays a battle music.
* Added sounds for different armors when walking and when getting hit.
* Random character sounds will no longer repeat the last sound in a row. This affects the sounds when a player uses an ability, walks, attacks, swings a weapon or takes damage.
* The loading screen music now fades in instead of starting at full volume.
* Added an option to control the ambient sound volume.

Network & Multiplayer
* The network system has been completely remade to be able to use relay servers, which hide IPs and prevent DDoS attacks. With relay servers, port forwarding is no longer necessary, allowing any player to host a game without issues. However, this change also means that, for now, the game will only be available on Steam, but a hybrid solution has already been implemented for later.
* In-App Purchases now works with the Steam Wallet.

Map Editor
* All grass straw textures can now be used in the map editor at the same time, where you could only use one before. This also means that some of the maps in the game are now using multiple grass straw textures for a better visual look.
* The map editor now supports rotating and colouring its skybox. The skybox is no longer affected by the ambient colour.
* Added a new object to the map editor: Environment Changer. It controls the environment over an area.
* Lights in the map editor can now follow the player over an area.
* Added several new floor materials.
* Holding Shift while moving an object in the map editor now enables snapping to whole positions.
* Added a radius to the grid floor painting in the map editor, which allows to paint more than one quad at once.
* Map objects in the map editor can now be converted into mesh objects with a new button.
* Dragging to select objects in the map editor is now more accurate.
* Added an invisible floor material to the map editor, enabling the painting of transitions and other elements.
* The map editor now supports a higher maximum number of splatting textures.
* Added categories to the object selection in the map editor.
* Added categories to the particle material selection in the map editor.
* Added categories to the sound selection in the map editor.
* The sound object in the map editor now has full control over which ambient sound to play.
* When first opening a map in the map editor, the Save Map step is no longer required if no changes were made.
* Particles and traps can now be scaled in the map editor.
* The navmesh generation in the map editor can now be cancelled by pressing Escape.
* The map editor now only saves unique particle templates, eliminating redundant copies.
* Changing the particle material in the map editor now automatically sets the atlas affector without the user having to set it manually.
* In the map editor, finishing to move a particle now causes it to be reloaded for instant feedback in case the particle has a long time to live.
* Selecting a trap in the map editor now shows its triggering collision mesh.
* An "Optimize Culling" checkbox has been added to the map editor to fix shadow clipping issues at the cost of a slight performance decrease when unchecked.
* The environment cubemap will now automatically update in the map editor when changing the environment variables.
* There is now a checkbox in the map editor to turn off the grid.
* You can now more easily translate and scale objects in the map editor with a new adjuster element.
* You can now more easily scale objects in the map editor by holding Alt (default key).
* In the map editor, the Find Error button in the Navmesh section now also shows how many errors are remaining.
* Altered the navmesh generation in the map editor to have less errors.

Bugs
* Resolved an issue where AI would lag behind during chases.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Summon Dune Buggy ability to not trigger a stun on death.
* Fixed visual artifacts that were caused by the SSAO option.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to look strange when moving it to another monitor.
* The game window now correctly saves and loads its position and size when used on computers with multiple monitors.
* Fixed a bug that caused grass straws to not be visible when created on some objects.
* Fixed edge halo artifacts created by SSAO.
* Fixed a bug on some computers that caused slow loading times of the game when using a high FPS Limit in the options menu.
* Fixed a shader bug that calculated lighting incorrectly for some scaled objects.
* Fixed a bug that caused some effects to unintentionally affect the distortion shader and the god ray shader.
* Fixed a bug that caused the upper and lower body of the character to be out of sync after attacking.
* Fixed a bug that caused the GUI cursor to be shown in ability/equipment movies.
* Fixed a bug in the start screen of the game that caused cubes to sometimes have white reflections.
* Fixed a bug that caused reflective objects to sometimes also reflect cloud shadows, which was not intended.
* Fixed a rare crash bug regarding the ability Inferno.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when attempting to change the Record Voice Chat option.
* Fixed a bug that caused certain sounds to instantly be deleted instead of fading out.
* Fixed a bug that caused Shadow Technique of None to still render shadows behind the scenes, taking unnecessary performance.
* Fixed a bug that caused Minimap Opacity of Hidden to still render the minimap behind the scenes, taking unnecessary performance.
* Fixed an exploit where players could spoof packets by supplying the ID of another player.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when entering a game where a player was previously transformed using the ability Transform.
* Once the warm-up round ends, all artillery projectiles are now destroyed, preventing any abilities used before the end of the warm-up from having effects afterward.
* Fixed a bug that caused explosion debris from abilities to not fade out correctly.
* Moved the default save directory to appdata instead of documents to solve OneDrive issues on some computers.
* Fixed a bug that caused the GPU Animation option to be disabled when changing the Shader Quality.
* Fixed a bug that caused particles affected by physical impulses to be affected by impulses over an infinite distance.
* Fixed a bug where enchant weapon abilities would sometimes lose their particle effect even though their effect duration had not yet ended.
* Fixed a bug that caused weapon attacks in dynamic movies to sometimes miss the enemy for certain abilities.
* Fixed a bug that caused some buffs or debuffs from abilities to not have any tooltip description.
* Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused scaled objects to not correctly affect the generated navmesh and decal mesh.
* Fixed a bug that caused wreckable objects to not fade away correctly.
* Fixed a bug that caused the ability Transform to be able to transform to some objects that was not intended.
* Fixed a bug with camera shake that in some situations caused objects to render incorrectly.
* Fixed a bug that caused messages and other windows from the Windows OS to show up beneath the game window when using windowed fullscreen mode.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash on startup when setting a fullscreen resolution that was invalid.
* Fixed a bug in the start of the game that caused the physical impulse of the explosion to not correctly affect other objects.
* Fixed a bug that caused UI elements that use tiling to sometimes have a pixel in distance between tiles.
* Ragdolls no longer glitch through floors or objects during collisions.
* Fixed a bug that caused game servers with custom maps to not send over particle and material files.
* Fixed a bug that caused parent abilities, like Shock Trap (Triggered), to appear in searches for ability costs (like "<50").
* Fixed a bug that caused UI lighting to not affect the UI of an opened combobox.
* Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused the reflection cube map to be completely black when creating a new map.
* Fixed a UI bug in the map editor that caused the material of a selected mesh to not be selected.
* Fixed a bug that caused dynamic movies to render invalid reflections on its objects in some situations.
* Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused the game to crash when attempting to use Ctrl+S to save a map while it is not in a savable state.
* Fixed a bug that caused the cubes in the start screen to not use normal maps.
* Fixed a bug that caused the Shader Quality option to be set to a lower value when switching from Direct3D11 to another render system.
* Fixed a bug that caused the team respawn point in the map editor to affect the distortion effect after changing its team.
* Fixed a bug in replays that incorrectly triggered to view the next character when clicking on the time section.
* Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused a checkbox in light properties to always be visible even when it was not supposed to be.
* Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused the grass material to not be correctly selected until another one was chosen.
* Fixed a bug that caused wrecked objects to not keep their scale.
* Fixed a bug that caused the wrong map to load in practice matches when a downloaded map had the same name.
* Fixed a bug that caused some shaders to be incorrectly affected by fog.
* Fixed a bug that caused meshes with vertex animation to not load correctly.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when resizing the game window while in the map editor in specific situations.
* Fixed a bug with the map editor that caused imported meshes to not keep their original normals and tangents.
* Fixed a rare map editor crash bug regarding splatting materials.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when clicking on a specific time in a replay while the map had a custom sound.
* Fixed a bug that caused game servers with custom maps to not send over particle and material files.
* Fixed a bug that caused the game to sometimes crash when rewinding in a replay while a character wears a wing accessory.
* Fixed a bug that caused spotlights to turn into point lights if they had a very small inner angle value.
* Fixed the Smart GUI Cursor option to handle comboboxes and color selectors correctly.
* Fixed flickering of widgets in the host game server window.
* Fixed a bug that caused capture flags to be affected by the Silhouettes setting.
* Fixed a bug that caused text input in the host game server window to not apply in some situations.

General
* Set Direct3D11 as the default option for the Graphics API.
* Players are no longer respawned directly on top of each other.
* Equipped accessories are now persistent through game sessions.
* Altered the physics system to be able to update at any rate. This makes player movement smoother at frame rates above 60. Movement in dynamic movies also looks a lot better with this change.
* All shaders, materials and screen files are now encrypted to make it harder for players to alter the appearance of the game to get an advantage. This does not affect performance or loading times.
* The Dash ability will no longer lock the character's look direction, making it feel more fluid.
* The minimap of all maps are now only showing the walkable areas and no longer all collision objects.
* The camera rotation speed at the match ended event has now been slowed down.
* The casual camera movement is no longer used by default. Instead, it is now an option that can be enabled in the options menu.
* Traps are no longer frozen while in the warm-up round.
* Walking animation speed now scales correctly with character size for more natural movement.
* The microphone will now only be active when the player uses it for the first time, instead of being active from startup.
* Ragdolls and other temporary physical objects are now less affected by physical impulses.
* When using the free camera, it can no longer be rotated to be upside down.
* When using the free camera, it now has a smooth rotation when using the mouse. This can be disabled by having capslock toggled.
* The score to win can now also be altered per map in the variables file.
* Setting the Cloud Shadows option in the options menu no longer recompile any shaders.
* The game now shows an error message on startup if the game was launched through Steam but failed to connect to the Steam network.
* The server is now using Direct3D11 behind the scenes instead of Direct3D9 for better future support.
* Fixed an oversight that made it possible with the ability Transform to manipulate its packet to get any scale of the object without it being validated.
* Deleted the obsolete Projection option, as it no longer served any functional purpose.
* The map screen no longer tries to fit all objects of a map into the UI, now it only tries to fit the navmesh of the map instead.