BIOASSHARD ARENA Version 0.5.328

 Hello everyone!

So, finally this time has come.

There’re some things I want to talk about but I’ll let the main ones for a post after the release. This one is to make some things as clear as possible.

So, please, make sure you read them before proceeding to download it.

As you can see below the Changelog it’s a bit smaller than usual and more considering the long time it took (this log is a reduced version, there’s more on the one included within the RAR file, but still smaller) and that’s because apart from the Boss, the very first +New+ tasks are the ones that took the majority of time. And they’re the ones I want to mention.

Let’s get to it:

1) Do the Fantasy Cards work?

Yes! they all work. They’ve all been tested and proved working, so if you have any problem, make sure you’re writing them correctly and also take a look at the FAQ to know more about them and the possible ‘errors’ you may encounter. Because they’re working and we’re mentioning it here, even before you download it, we won’t answer any question regarding “the codes aren’t working”. Thanks for your understanding.

2) +New+ Total rework of Enemy Entity (+more than 170 subtasks on this)

This hell of a task, took me more than half a year to complete. It’s better in terms of optimization and internally for development since BTs are better structured than regular code, but for the player? Well, all you gotta notice is that they’re now more retarded than before. Why is this? Well, I wanted to make them more zombie like smart, meaning being sillier, but not to this extent. But it happened that I really don’t know why yet, they’re acting a lot sillier in the build but not in the editor. So, for now, just try to enjoy their retardness until I make them smarter. Good thing though is that the Boss is not that retarded.

3) +New+ Total rework of Sexttack System (lots of subtasks goes on here as well)

Because of how the Boss is and thinking on the future and the possibility of having more than one enemy making a Sexttack, I have to rethink how to make this system work for those matters. The way it was working before was a bit cheaty and the reason why sometimes you got Julia carrying a T-Pose or Idle pose enemy along with her, because I was making a copy of the enemy trying to grab and making it appear as part of Julia “Actor” but that method was useless for the Boss for example. This new one required a lot of work and redesign. But in the end, the player won’t notice a difference, or shouldn’t, because in visual/gameplay terms they’re working practically the same (while internally they’re totally different and now it’s a lot better to work with and a very good template for future expansions)

4) +New+ Total rework of Camera System (same)

Exactly as before. They’re internal changes that reflect for the player in almost no visible changes. This one may have noticeable small differences like when using the lever in Mission 5. where the previous close-up camera showing the lever moving it’s not present and it’s added as *known bug* in the “CONTROLS & CHANGELOG.txt” file. But overall should be working pretty similar externally (and again totally different and smother internally)

5) +New+ 22 Sexttack animations

Nothing important to mention here, just to confirm that yeah, there are 22 new Sexttack animations, not grabbing, attacking, idling, etc. animations counted in this 22 number. For those other tasks for the Boss, a lot more animations were made (not including the new “state” for dismembered average Infected that also required a few more animations). Just to clarify, 6 of those 22 new Sexttack animations are for the average Infected while the other 16 are for the Boss.

6) +New+ Very WIP IK system for Enemies -very glitchy causing some weird behaviors in build- (to be replaced with Ctrl RIG if possible)

This one drove me mad, but I couldn’t help but leave it in. This is one and the main reason you’ll find the enemies are more retarded now than before. But I couldn’t get rid of it now, because that’s how the Animation Layer work and it’s only happening on the Build version of the Arena, NOT in the editor and that’s why I didn’t noticed about this problem until it was too late to go back and remake it. The main silly behavior that this will cause and you’ll notice is that the enemy will often try to grab the air even if they’ve been attacking you already. I don’t really get why in the build they decide that Julia is in a random position other than the one she’s in and try to grab in there.

7)  +New+ WIP Drop Needed Item System (Don't know how to call it, but it's basically the system that control if you need a kind of item when killing an enemy to 'help' drop it) (only on the new mission for now)

Yeah, similar to what happens on RE5, where enemies drop items with more chances depending on your current status like, healing items when you’re on low health and have no healing items in the inventory and the same for the ammo. But is still a WIP, and there’s an important thing I want to mention, for now you can’t do that trick used in RE5 where if you didn’t want ammo for a specific weapon, you would just discard it forcing the game to only give you drops of ammo for the weapon you wanna use. I’ll add that mechanic later. To put it simple, if you want to get no ammo for the Assault Rifle -for example- you discard it and get at least one slot of ammo for it on the inventory, otherwise you’ll be getting drops of that ammo. Sorry about that, but that’s how it’s working right now (I have to admit that I just forgot about that check on my testings because I didn’t have more weapons unlocked in my editor savegame version xD).

8) +Change+ Tweaked Julia Physics a bit

Yeah, I did some changes, because in the past release I noticed that her meat wasn’t acting too realistic. So, I decided to add some checks here and there and tweaked some values to get her move more happily (especially naked).

9) +Change+ Randomly decide the Sexttack speed (so that never two Sexttack are the same anymore)

This adds a lot of variety to the Sexttacks, but -yeah, there’s always a “but” xD- since it’s random, I couldn’t test all the possible speeds and some animations may be too fast or too slow, so I rely on your reports on how you find them. In the case you find one that it’s playing too fast or too slow, please take a screenshot of it and report it back to us so we know exactly what animation it is and thus we can change the min/max values for such animations.

10) The Boss

Well, I mentioned this in a post not too long ago. It’s the first Boss ever in the Arena, but it’s not acting as if it were the first Boss in the game, so don’t expect it to be an easy fight (or so I think, maybe it’s too easy for you xD). The thing is, that I tested it multiple times until I was able to beat it using just the pistol and the knife, so it’s more than beatable XD. But as you can see there’s no video-walkthrough of it. The reason is pretty simple, you all have been waiting for too long to just fight this Boss, that I find it would ruin the experience of fighting against him and using your brain to find the best tactic to face him if I just go and post a video fighting it. That’s why we won’t be helping on how to fight him at first for at least some time (please don’t hate us for that XD), to give everyone time to fight their way up to the result screen. This said, my only advice will be, pay attention to everything and keep your ears open.

And I think that’s all I wanted to mention for now, so without anything else to add, here’s your download link. Also, you can check below for the Changelog or just read the TXT file included with the download (which is a better option since you can find the controls in there as well xD)

DOWNLOAD

CHECK HERE FOR REVISION 1

- Changelog v0.5.328 -

 +New+ Total rework of Enemy Entity (+more than 170 subtasks on this)

 +New+ Total rework of Sexttack System (lots of subtasks goes on here as well)

 +New+ Total rework of Camera System (same)

 +New+ 22 Sexttack animations

 +New+ Very WIP IK system for Enemies -very glitchy causing some weird behaviors in build- (to be replaced with Ctrl RIG if possible)

 +New+ Enemies now get tired of chasing a target

 +New+ Type of Sexttack (for the Boss)

 +New+ WIP Julia's skin shader (hopefully this one is the definitive)

 +New+ You can now dismember enemy's legs too

 +New+ Enemy Types (Mission 6)

 +New+ WIP Drop Needed Item System (Don't know how to call it, but it's basically the system that control if you need a kind of item when killing an enemy to 'help' drop it) (only on the new mission for now)

 +New+ Saccade Movement for Julia's eyes

 +New+ A LOT of new animations for the new enemy states and for the new enemy (Boss)

 +New+ More LODs added for the enemies

 +New+ Art Picture for the result screen background for the new Mission

 +New+ Fantasy Cards and codes

 +New+ Engine version used

 +Change+ Tweaked Julia Physics a bit

 +Change+ Redesign of Interactable Entities to make them children of a Parent one to reunite common code

 +Change+ Pivot for the Viewpoint of the Cerberus to make it easier for him to detect targets

 +Change+ Julia's longer damage animations (belly hurting, etc.) will now happen less times and is linked to the damage received, the bigger the damage received the more probability to play those animations

 +Change+ Randomly decide the Sexttack speed (so that never two Sexttack are the same anymore)

 +Change+ Highest LOD for enemies now only shows during grapples and Sexttacks to free a lot of GPU load

 +Fix+ All the UI animations were broken, after upgrading the Engine

 +Fix+ Unused Tags are causing a Fatal Error

 +Fix+ "Scripted" animations for some enemies are allowing them to get back to normal before dying (Mission 4)

 +Fix+ After jumping over, if the enemy is pushed over, it may cause him to remain uncollisonable, therefore causing him to stay on place and being unkillable

 +Fix+ Prevent Julia from going to Idle poses during a sequence

 +Fix+ Got rid of enemies outside level boundaries

 +Fix+ Camera gets reset after "Giving Up" to Game Over Sexttacks (Big Guy)

 +Fix+ Grappling input value never resets making only the first one enemy hard to get free from

 +Fix+ Prevent Julia from crossing a door before it's opened

 +Fix+ Door Cameras aren't working

 +Fix+ Julia rotations when getting an item will cause camera pops

 +Fix+ Audio Configuration aren't working at all, only "Master Volume" and it's only affecting one type of audio

... and a lot, a LOT more.

-Meguido