March. 7, 2024 - St. Patrick's Day Update (PC Update)

Game servers will go down for our scheduled pc update tomorrow @ 6am pt / 3pm ct. for a 3hr downtime window.

This month's patch is loaded with bug fixes, especially to animations and audio. We are also bringing back previous St. Patrick's Day Bundles from March 17th until March 26th


St. Patrick's Day Bundles Return
The returning items arrive (March 17th - March 26th):

• 2023 Saint Patrick's Day Bundle
• 2022 Saint Patrick's Day Bundle
• Gold Lover's Bundle
• Green Fortune Bundle
• Jackpot Bundle
• Leprechaun's Bundle
• Wyrdwood Bundle
• Classic Clover Decal
• Leprechaun Decal
• Pot O Auraxium Decal
• Shamrock Decal
• Clover Camo
• Weapon Camo: Green-gold Flecked
• Jackpot Hood Ornament
• ANT / Sunderer Clover Trails
• and more!

Double Experience for All Event

• Enjoy a Double Experience For All Weekend from March 15th until March 18th

In Progress Updates
Normally we would save these types of announcements for the monthly Dev Letter, but since the patch is a little light this week, we've decided to include some more insight into the progress of various updates and fixes in this weeks patch notes.

Sunderer
The Sunderer rework is coming along nicely. We are looking into having it arrive onto the Public Test Server to work out the kinks and adjust some balancing. For the moment we'd like to share some what we have completed.
Here is the look at the reactive armor. The armor is designed to clearly visually indicate, through shape and color, when a piece of reactive armor is active and when it is not.



Some certifications that are not getting a major gameplay overhaul are still receiving visual updates. Below are the new Stealth Module and Enhanced Plating, artwork which replaces Blockade Armor and Mine Guard.




Friends List
The friend's list issue is one area we are focusing on fixing. The tracking server architecture that handles friends lists was breaking down and had to be be almost completely rewritten. Some of the things the rewrite will achieve are:

• Improved database transaction efficiency; i.e. ensuring that everything is immediately saved to database on changes. Previously this happened only a few minutes after the fact and could be lost in cases of reboot/crash/power outage on the server.
• Added automatic consistency fixes; e.g. fixing situations when X is marked as a friend of Y but Y is not marked as friend of X.
• More reliable friends invitation processing; e.g. removing cases when someone sends an invite to be friends and invitee doesn't receive it.

These are just a few of the things we are doing with the rewrite, which should eliminate the vast majority of the bugs the system currently suffers. This is a major overhaul, thus it will be released to the Public Test Server first before being deployed on live. We don't have a firm date on when this will happen but the changes are actively being worked on.

Oshur
There has been much well earned consternation over Oshur. The issues it causes among the game and community are undeniable, but the potential solution for each issue has pros and cons we have to consider carefully.
Generally speaking, our first thoughts are towards building and improving the game. To that end we conducted a systematic review of the continent, which included collating the vast amount of community feedback from many sources. The list of issues was sorted, examined, and we had many discussions around how to solve them. In the end we concluded that although there was promise in the concept, the issues were extremely core to all aspects of Oshur's design from individual bases to the general layout of the continent and lattice. Small changes would do little to solve the issue, and an entire rework was needed.


Unfortunately, we also decided that an entire rework would be a monumental effort the likes of which would detract from other smaller and more pressing issues. Following our philosophy of taking on the most impactful projects first, we saw that Oshur did not make the cut when it came to the effort / impact calculation.


The next logical and simple step would be to simply remove Oshur from the rotation. This presents its own issues though. Oshur has attached to it a large amount of unique content that players have spend their hard earned currency on, as well as unique and interesting directives, missions, and so on. Simply removing it would also create a clump of additional work where we would have to spend a good amount of effort making recompense to players as well as making changes that were deemed "fair" to new and returning players. This is a non-trivial task that would also eat up a surprising amount of resources that are also better spent on more impactful changes.


To that end we decided to take a middle approach. Oshur will be put on an infrequent rotation schedule and a special alert will be created that will more tightly control how long the continent remains active when it does come up. The ability to do this does not currently exist in the rotation scheduling system, and thus we have to design and add it before this change can be made. This is actively being worked on. We will build into the new system the ability to adjust the frequency and up-times of Oshur quickly via data so that adjustments to these parameters can be made relatively quickly and easily. We feel this is a fair compromise to players that never want to deal with Oshur again and those that may want to finish their Dog Tag collection, or take an occasional boat joy ride.


As a bonus side affect we will be adjusting general Warzone rotation such that the same ones don't always follow the same pattern and there will be slight changes in the rotation over time.

Bug Fixes

• The beacons are not lit; beam visual effect should now de-spawn properly after the beacon's destruction
• Outfit Wars decals now have the proper file format and should no longer crash the client
• Players can no longer spawn in destroyed aircraft, preventing them from acquiring vertigo and the ability to shoot through walls
• Reworked the suppressor attachment audio on the following weapons; NS30 Vandal, Warden, Carnage AR, GR-22, NC9 A-Tross, NS-11, Reaper DMR, EM1, EM6, NC6S Gauss SAW S
• The NSX: Yumi's bolt can now be worked. Fixed a visual bug with the reload animation
• Fixed weapon reload sounds for many weapons, including; AF57 Piston, NS AM7 Archer, EM1, EM6, NC05 Jackhammer, T16 Rhino, T32 Bull, T7 Minichain, T9 CARV, T9 CARV-S, TMG50, VE-C Horizon, VE LR Obelisk, VE-A Lacerta
• Obelisk and other VS weapon's hand IK will properly un-attach during 3rd person reload animation sequences
• Ammunition Belt certification selection tooltip now includes information about the reload speed increase
• Gate Shield Diffuser certification selection tooltip now contains information about its interaction with water on Oshur
• Fixed MAX jumping and landing audio
• Fixed localization error in vehicle and aircraft key-bindings
• The Natural Camouflage cosmetic for the Chimera should no longer be visible in the first person view

Known Issues

• NS-11A's audio with the suppressor is incorrect