Runtime update + optimizations

I made a Steam announcement + testing branch a few days ago to test this version, as it has been upgraded to Game Maker's spicy new runtime that broke a lot of things and allowed me to get things up to speed so servers could be hosted more easily over the cloud + on linux. You can check it out here. Thanks for testing if you did, I think it's much more stable now, but be patient as there might be still some problems to uncover. I am also updating the code for the login server which will cause some downtime, so if you're here due to not being able to login yet, then yes I know. Once all the pain is done away with though, I think we're gonna be smooth sailing.

New map: Flak Freightliner

This is a brand new map I made to work out any problems in the map editor, a moving freightliner train. While it's a flashy map, it's fairly simple since its just a train, so it made it pretty challenging to be creative.
I tried to put some thought into its balance/design so it wasn't too much of a gimmick map, but I'm not entirely against those anyhow if it shows off the features of the map editor. I also cheated and made some new features for the map editor to accomplish making this map.

New Survival feature: Stock Market

The bar in Survival now has a stock market. You can buy and sell shares from one of the 3 major corporations in Somewhere Land. The stock market opens at the bar every 3 waves and prices will follow trends similar to the real life stock market.
Prices aren't totally random but not quite in your control either, there are a few influences on a certain company's stock value such as shares being bought, weapons bought from the bar or chests, and from open bars/economy crashes.

Grapplehook rework

The Grapplehook and it's alt-fire has been reworked, the alt-fire can now pull on certain objects or retract to you without needing to reload. Players and drones can be disarmed when you yank on them with the alt-fire.
The primary fire has changed where you have to release left-click to reel yourself in the old fashioned way. This is a change that you might need time to get use to, but I did after a while and it has made the Grapple much more versatile. I also increased the pull and reload speed stats, so hopefully this should make it a desirable choice for mobility.

Zpitter rework

The Zpitter in Zombrains no longer spits poison or has a poison theme, instead he now spits Goo Gun projectiles. This should give the Zpitter more flat damage, and an option for zombies if they're looking to put a stop to fast players.

Light AR Alt-Fire: Active Reload

The Light AR now has a new alt-fire that allows you to reload faster. By tapping the Alt-Fire button at the right time, your reload speed increases or if timed perfectly, instantly finished.
If you mess up the timing however, the reload starts over slower and you lose all held rounds in the current magazine.

New server features: Customizable Fiesta + Votekicking

You can now pick and choose what mutators and settings to pool when Fiesta mode is activated. I plan on using this for my servers, but on a mild setting where Fiesta doesn't appear as often. This list supports mutators, game mode specific settings and even experimental settings.
Votekicking is now available to enable on your servers, however it's gonna work differently this time. Similar to doing dailies, you can only call 2 votekicks per day, on any server (unless you're the server host). By default, votekicking is turned off, but I'll have it enabled in my servers. My beef with votekicking in the old version is quite often it was rarely used to self-moderate for cheaters/toxic players. Instead, it would be used to kick XYZ player using overpowered XYZ weapon (playing the damn game), trying to votekick your friends, or just being a general annoyance. It'd derail the game as players would get distracted calling funny votekicks or talking about it like something interesting was happening. I dunno, I guess I should've made a more fun game.

New map editor features

Like mentioned above, I gave the map editor some new background and tiling features to make the train map. Backgrounds can have an offset set, disabled tiling, and more 'parallax' features (now known as Styles).
You can also set the color, opacity and size of tiles as seen above, which let me recycle big sprites on the train map. An example is the giant shipping containers, those are all 1 sprite loaded into memory but with the colors changed for each instance.

Survival changes

• Reduced damage requirement for damage dealing jobs
• Increased reward for find the intel jobs -- These changes are an attempt to make these jobs more enticing to take
• Reduced revival costs for teammates -- Players being unable to revive themselves with money made their respawn cost a little too high for their teammates, and has been adjusted for the not so recent Antacids change
• Weapons dropped by players will no longer disappear until end of the wave (or if there are too many)
• Weapons sold at the bar no longer scale with match progress
• Easy bots no longer buy chests -- Players would exploit the Easy bots generous behavior in hardcore survival to farm vices, but now they are not so generous.
• Opting to sit out the wave no longer destroys your revival ankh, you can still join spectator to destroy it

Weapon balance changes

• Plinger now has Eject Clip alt-fire -- This is just an alt-fire to give the Plinger a little QoL, no more shooting at nothing to reload.
• Mortar will now bounce an extra time -- Players have complained about the Mortar projectile not bouncing enough, this is due to the old version's Mortar experiencing the 'knife bounce' bug where it would bounce an additional time instead of exploding. I have officially gave it an additional bounce, so let me know if thats an improvement.
• Chain Gun can now spin up during TDM round start -- Chain Gun players would often be helpless at the start of the round since they'd have to rev up the barrel, doing so beforehand should now get others to back off
• Decreased pushback for Lightning Gun + Light Rockets (evenly)
• Light Rockets can now be disabled by EMP grenades -- The boost on these weapons has been reduced to make the Grapplehook a little more enticing to use, the LRockets being EMPed now brings it along the same line as Lightning.

General changes

• Added new mutator Windy
• Added floating platforms to Oil Rig
• Added Laser Sights and Player Arrows HUD settings
• Merged *_maplist.txt, *_wdlist.txt, *_admin.txt, and *_banned.txt into the bm_server.ini file as new INI sections, the game will try to import the old server files automatically if you have them
• Interacting with items is now much smarter. For example, using medikits always has priority over weapon drops now, however you will pick up the weapon drop instead if you have full health or not poisoned
• You can now ban the Hadoken instead of Fists in Captain's Mode
• Fixed a bunch of bugs

Map editor changes

• Added new background + tile features
• You can now mark conveyors as invisible/quiet in the map editor
• You can now use mouse wheel to select weapon flags in the map editor
• Added Tab+Q/W/E hotkeys that quickly resize the object placement grid
• Copying objects to the clipboard in the map editor will now use a JSON string, which you can share with other players

--

Follow development on Twitter Join the community Discord server Subscribe to Spasman Games on YouTube

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/ Download Dedicated Server build (beta16, Windows, 37.7MB)

[ 2021-06-06 23:24:18 CET ] [ Original post ]