V0.1.203 is here!

This is a pretty small patch, but comes with a major change for people that just wanna hold C like a maniac. This has been a bit of a "design-thorn" in my eye for a while now, and I believe this patch will finally deal with it for good. What was the problem? Simple; some folks just really wanna go fast at all times, and push the risk as far as humanly possible. Previously, the game anticlimactically forced you to end your rush due to the direct penalty being the immediate end of the run. You were forced to enter a decently long period of not boosting, long enough to kinda kill the vibe and general pacing. Which sucked! But was also part of the design; a period of power was meant to be followed by a period of vulnerability. The feeling of power feels particularly shallow if it's 100% free - when it's all push, but no pull. Not to get into balancing issues either - boosting indefinitely without a drawback would enable players to, for example, just camp inside walls and still rack in fairly good scores/never fear a time-out. Players which more tactically build their run around this playstyle should also have a direct edge over those who just bluntly boost, too. The change is made in 3 parts: [olist]

You may now boost beyond 1/1.

Overboost Failure will now only occur when at 1/1 and max. Boost Heat.

When boosting at 1/1, Boost Heat build-up will gradually increase. This buildup is circumvented by spending health boosting. (In practice means; destroying vehicles, healing). [/olist] This now means that you can boost indefinitely in a state of extreme vulnerability, as long as you continue to interact (Read: Taunt to reduce your Boost Heat and destroy vehicles for healing) with enemies. And even if you do mess up, the downtime before you can boost again at 1/1 is much, much shorter compared to the previous downtime in which you had to wait to get back your max HP. Change 3) is an interesting one, as it's basically just cheese protection. How do you prevent someone from just digging through walls and spamming taunt? Or making use of a high-speed build to just consistently out speed enemies, never interacting? You force them to heal, since otherwise Boost Heat build-up will out scale any Boost Heat reduced by Taunting. In normative play however, this should only play a minor role. As a result, you may now stay in your state of power for much longer, and even indefinitely if you are good on your Boost Heat management, with the push and pull being retained by being restricted to 1/1 - a single mistake, and you are out!

Full Changelog:

General/System Changes:

• Overboost Failure will no longer occur when boosting beyond 1/1, now instead occurring when boosting beyond 1/1 and being at max. Boost Heat
• When boosting beyond 1/1, Boost Heat buildup will now gradually increase. This buildup is prevented by health being consumed by boosting. (E.g., healing while boosting at 1/1). This debuff, and its intensity, is displayed in the HUD.
• Self-caused damage (such as SUPER HONK usage or damage from your own explosions) can no longer lead to self-destruction, instead reducing your max. HP by twice as much as the health it would've used. Self-destruction still occurs if max. Health reaches 0 this way.
• Brightened "Max. Boost Jump Energy reached" SFX to be more audible in gameplay.
• Boosting in the first 0.25s of a level will no longer cause a Boost Jump, provided enough energy was buildup for one.
• Added additional tips for the new mechanics introduced.

As always, if you have any feedback about the introduced changes, please let me know! Thanks! Join the Discord! Follow on Twitter! - Alexander

[ 2023-08-04 17:19:26 CET ] [ Original post ]