Game Version 0.2X

0.29

New Game Features

• Prussian Grenadiers. Clad in red, white and blue, this one is certainly quite the sight to look at. The Grenadier class available to play as part of the Army based selection of units for the Kingdom of Prussia.
• Canyon makes its way back into the game.

Quality of Life

• Player based map rotations. Smaller maps like Canyon, for instance, will only come into play when the player count is not at its peak. While the largest of maps like the Grassy, Snowy or Desert Open Plains variants only rotate when the player count is sufficiently high.

» Input the below commands as global configuration settings to define the minimum number of required players for the low, medium or high population settings.

- population_low_min_players 30

- population_medium_min_players 50

- population_high_min_players 100

» Input the below command per map rotation to define on which population setting a particular map should be played on. Setting all of the below values to false will prevent the map from rotating automatically but administrators can still access and rotate to that map using the mapRotation command.

- population_verylow_playable true or false

- population_low_playable true or false

- population_medium_playable true or false

- population_high_playable true or false

• Players that have most recently spoken through VoIP will now appear at the top of the list in the Round Players ‘P’ panel so you can more easily find the person you’re looking for.
• You now have the option to mute specific individuals from chat through the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• When in spectate mode, you are now able to directly spectate a specific player of your own choosing as long as they are affiliated with your own faction. You can do this by clicking on the eye icon in the Round Players ‘P’ panel.

Bug Fixes

• Solved various issues with Canyon when played on Conquest.

0.28

New Linebattle Maps

• Ancient Plains
• Snowy Plains 4
• Snowy Plains 5

» Input the following parameters to play these map on your community server: map_name ancientplains, map_name snowyplainsiv or map_name snowyplainsv

Combat Changes

• Solved an issue with changing attack directions while using a musket, pike or a flag. Right or left mouse movements are no longer taken into consideration when changing between up and down stabs.

0.27

A New Map

• Camp Salamanca.

» Input the following parameter to play this map on your community server: map_name campsalamanca

• Revisited the rotation present on the Army Front official servers based on community feedback.
• Players are now able to switch classes as well as the faction they initially joined on the Melee Arena game mode without disconnecting from the server.

Combat Changes

• The mechanic which dictates the damage received by a player when struck by a melee weapon has been redesigned to favour consistency. Strikes will now deal a set amount of damage pending on if they land on the upper or lower body.
• Player to player collisions have been improved to reduce instances of players clipping inside one another while staying up close and personal.
• Introduced a preventive measure to reduce instances where players clip inside one another while aiming downwards with a strike.
• Blocking mechanics have undergone a few adjustments to improve their responsiveness.
• Slightly reduced the pace at which players can feint a strike to further aid with blocking responsiveness.
• Right and left swings from sword strikes no longer collide with the terrain.
• Increased the stun timer that disallows a player to commit to another strike after they get hit to favour blocking.

Game Balance

• Reduced the rate of fire of rocket artillery by increasing the time it takes to load a rocket by 2 seconds.
• Reduced the blast radius of the rocket.
• Solved an issue which caused the cannon ball’s hitbox to be larger than that of the model itself.
• Reduced the damage done in an area when a round shot hits the terrain or an object on the world map.

Game Core

• Performed a minor game engine upgrade.

Optimisations

• Client-side optimisations to improve framerate when a lot of players are on screen.
• Server-side optimisations to reduce data throughput.
• Lobby optimisations to reduce data throughput.

Bug Fixes

• Solved an instance which caused the map to randomly switch to the first one in rotation in the middle of the match.
• Solved an issue which caused the player’s ragdoll when killed by a grape shot to animate incorrectly.
• Solved an error that was sometimes being outputted when playing on Tahir Desert.
• Solved an error that was sometimes being outputted when shooting at a rocket launcher with a firearm.
• Solved an issue on the Melee Arena game mode which caused a team to win rounds repeatedly if no players remain in the opposing team.
• Solved an issue which caused a player to always strike upwards if they rotate to the left and strike.
• Solved a server-side issue related to player movement. (Hotfix)

Quality Of Life

• Player name plates when having the ‘Show Player Names’ options enabled, will now continue to rotate with the player even if the player dies.
• The ‘Show Player Names’ option no longer switches back to its default value after closing the game.
• The ‘Escape’ menu no longer appears if you minimise the game while in freeflight or spectate mode.
• Flattened out the terrain on Palisade Arena and removed the poles present on the map.
• Removed the trees present on Watchtower Arena to improve visibility when playing.

0.26

Rocket Artillery

• Intended for long range bombardments, rockets can be relatively inaccurate. Fear not, however, you’ll be able to send rockets flying at a relatively fast pace and one of them is bound to hit your intended target.

» Input the following command in your server configuration file to adjust the rocket launcher’s respawn time: artillery_rocketlauncher_respawn_timer 130

» Launchers can be found on most of the current maps including plains maps intended for organised play.

• A New Class. Rocketeer! Staying true to their history, this class is exclusively reserved to the British Empire. They come equipped with a spyglass, a sword and a pistol. Rocketeers also have priority over the use of rocket launchers followed by cannoneers.
• Cannonball Bounce! Round shot fired from field guns will now bounce off the terrain decimating through enemy lines.
• Carriable Ladders! Carry ladders close to a fort’s wall then raise them up to create additional entry points for the assaulting allied infantryman. Carpenters have priority over the use of ladders.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which caused players aiming a mortar to retain some of their player’s visuals obstructing the camera.
• Fixed an instance were players would join their previously selected server is they pressed the ‘Enter’ key while searching for a server or changing their name.
• Attempted fix towards an issue which resulted in the rain sounds cutting off.

Quality Of Life

• You are now able to auto move rocket launchers, ladders and cannons by pressing the ‘NumLock’ key.
• You are now able to separately control artillery related audio sounds through the ‘Artillery’ audio slider.

0.25

Game Core

• Performed a minor game engine upgrade.

Quality of Life

• You can now connect to a server by pressing the ‘Enter’ key.
• Players can now display voice phrases in chat. It will come in especially handy for all those fellows leading regiments during events.

» Enable ‘Shouts In Chat’ from the ‘Game’ settings to display phrases in chat.

Bug Fixes

• Solved an issue with a memory leak occurring on the game server after map load.
• Solved an issue with the Naval Battlefield server crashing after long periods of run time.
• Attempted fix towards an issue with weather sounds cutting off.
• Attempted fix towards an issue that caused the musician tunes to cut off during volley fire.
• Solved an issue with the game hanging on exit.
• Solved an issue with the attacking and defending factions being inverted in the scoreboard.
• Solved an issue with loading the moveable field gun while standing in front of its barrel.
• Solved an issue with the private admin chat introduced during the previous update being restricted to the team the player joins.
• Solved an issue with field guns randomly killing friendly players when friendly_fire is enabled.
• Solved an issue with cannonball kills displaying an incorrect kill distance in the kill feed.
• Solved an issue with spacing in the kill feed user interface.
• Solved various exceptions that occurred on the client during map load.
• Solved various exceptions that occurred on the server.
• Attempted fix towards a recurring error that sometimes occurs on the client when a player carries an item.
• Solved an error that was being outputted on the client related to audio.
• Solved an issue with incorrect audio files being assigned to the weather system. Static sounds no more.

» If the weather sounds are slightly too high in volume, you can adjust them through the game’s 'Audio/Weather' settings.

0.24

Game Core

• Project Cleanup. Optimised our development workflow as this contributes towards producing content at a faster pace.

» Removed all unused meshes, textures and terrains to lessen the load on our project and reduce wait times.

» Refactored multiple scripts to make them more accessible to the developers.

» Restructured the entire project for the developers to more easily locate particular items.

• Game Engine Upgrade. A necessary step forward before we could deliver on our promise to further optimise the game as this exposes the team to newer technologies that can be utilised towards this effect.

Optimisations

• Character Optimisations. One of the major bottlenecks in performance when a lot of players are on screen have received direct optimisations. Players will experience a better framerate on those massive 150 * Player servers pending that they weren’t already previously limited by an older GPU.

Graphical Additions

• Time of Day & Weather System. Players can now enjoy a much better-looking dynamic skybox and weather system due to changes we had to undergo while performing the game engine upgrade.

» The volumetric clouds introduced with this new time of day and weather system utilise more GPU resources than the one present in the version before this update.

» If you’d like to trade off looks for performance, simply go to your ‘Video’ settings and lower down the ‘Skybox Quality’ to ‘Medium’ or ‘Low’.

• Additional commands to better control the time of day and weather system have been included. You can find all the commands detailed below.

» rc nature weather preset <Weather Preset> <Transition Time>

- Weather Preset: Calm, Calm2, Calm3, Calm4, Fog, Fog2, Fog3, Snowy or Storm

- Transition Time: 5 - 60

» rc nature time timeOfDay

- Time: 0 - 24, 13.5 = 1.30 PM

» rc nature time dynamicTime <Input>

- Input: true or false

» rc nature time dynamicTimeSpeed <Speed Multiplier>

- Speed Multiplier: 0.01 - 1

Quality Of Life

• Admin Chat Channel. We’ve introduced an admin chat channel that is specifically reserved for discussion amongst those with administrative privileges on a particular server.
• Admin Shortcut Commands. You’re now also able to more easily access some of the most common administrative tools by typing shortcut commands in the admin chat.
• Administrators can broadcast a message by typing ‘/bc’ in the admin chat channel followed by their desired message: /bc <message>
• Administrators can switch to a map by typing ‘/mr’ in the admin chat channel followed by a value according to the rotation set in the server configuration file: /mr <map rotation id>
• Made muting functionality more easily accessible through the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• Players are no longer able to hide private messages sent by server administrators by toggling the ‘Broadcasted Messages’ user interface settings.
• You can now separately control weather sounds through the ‘Weather’ slider under ‘Master Volumes’ in the Audio settings.

Bug Fixes

• We’ve pushed forward a tentative fix for the sudden latency spikes that players sometimes experience on the Naval Battlefield game mode.
• Fixed a bug where the confirmation text was being incorrectly displayed after a particular administrative action was clicked on in the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• Fixed a spelling mistake on one of the spawn points present on Fort Imperial.
• Fixed various issues related to naval vessel destruction.
• Fixed an issue where players could go inside one of the props present on Dutch Canals.
• Fixed an issue with one of the bridges on Dutch Canals not being correctly placed.
• Fixed a bug were one of the mortars on Fort Imperial could sometimes incorrectly collide with an invisible object causing it to explode prematurely.
• Fixed a bug that was causing one of the ammo boxes on Fort Winston to become invisible.
• Fixed a bug were players couldn’t spawn as a Cannoneer on the Highlands map.
• Fixed various floating props on Ernest Ridge.
• Fixed an issue with players getting stuck underneath the watchtowers on King George.
• Fixed an issue on the Sacred Arena map which sometimes caused players to spawn behind the map’s border inside the church.
• Players are no longer able to walk on the metal flag poles present on Fort Arena.
• Fixed an issue with incorrect textures being assigned to the Prussian fife.
• Fixed an issue with players floating when interacting with cannons aboard ships or near the coast.
• Fixed an issue with players floating when interacting with the captain’s wheel on the 2-Gun Schooner.

0.23

Bug Fixes

• Multiple attempted fixes towards spawning related issues on the Naval Battlefield and Coastal Siege game modes.
• Fixed an issue which caused blood effects not to appear when a player was killed by grapeshot.
• Fixed an instance which caused the player to get stuck with a ramrod in hand if they got hit while ramming a cannon.
• Fixed an instance which caused the player to get stuck with a ramrod in hand if a ship sunk while they’re ramming a cannon.
• Fixed an issue which caused the swivel guns on the 8-Gun Schooner to retain the cooldown timer that was present pre the introduction of the time-based loading and ramming for artillery pieces.
• Fixed an issue which caused the player’s user interface to disappear after the match ended on the Melee Arena game mode.
• Fixed an issue which caused the gaussian blur present behind the end of match and spawn menu interfaces not to be visible.
• Attempted fix towards an issue which sometimes causes the player to get stuck in an animation if they’re killed while moving a field gun.
• Fixed an issue which prevented other players from seeing cannons animating while you’re using them.

Game Balance

• Increased the damage of the larger variation of the grapeshot.
• Reduced the drop of the larger variation of the grapeshot.
• Prevented the mortar’s barrel from recoiling after firing as it is already increasingly difficult to line up a shot with this particular artillery piece.
• Slightly increased the speed at which a cannon moves and rotates.
• Reduced the health points of wooden palisades found on various maps so they can be destroyed more quickly.
• Reduced the health points of the chevaux-de-frise props found on various maps so they can be destroyed more quickly.

0.22

New Game Features

• New Artillery Mechanics! Well trained crews will triumph over others as the new artillery mechanics have been designed from the ground up with team-play at the forefront.

» Move field guns on the field of battle. Assist another player to move the gun at a faster pace.

» Cannoneers are able to carry ammo boxes. It’s extremely convenient to have this present nearby a field gun to use at a moment’s notice.

» You are now required to hold down your ‘E’ key to load a shot.

» Guns must now be rammed after a shot is loaded.

» Moveable field guns will recoil back once they are fired. You can no longer automatically push the cannon forward on the field guns to encourage team play.

» You are now required to go through the same process of loading and ramming while operating a stationary artillery piece.

• Artillery Respawn. Moveable field guns will respawn back to their initial spawn location after two minutes. They will also be repairable in a future update.

» Server administrators can configure the time it takes for an artillery to respawn after it gets destroyed by inputting the following command in the server configuration file: ::artillery_fieldgun_respawn_timer 130

• Grapeshot! A new artillery shot that is especially effective against infantry.
• A New Class! Cannoneer. The go-to class for dedicated artillerymen. They have a priority over the operation of field guns and indeed all of the other artillery pieces present in the game.

» Cannoneers also have their own chat channel to communicate in.

• Spyglass Overhaul! You are now able to view players at a much greater distance while looking through the spyglass. This will come in especially useful for ranging targets.
• A New Map! Fort Pierre. Make good use of moveable field guns to open multiple entry points for the assaulting infantrymen by pouring led into the wooden palisades.

» Input the following parameter to play this map on your community server: map_name fortpierre.

• Interaction Indicators. Once a player gets close to an interactable object, they will be presented with an icon marking down its location.

» You can disable these indicators from the game options under all the other user interface settings. Look for Interaction Indicators.

• Dutch Canals. This map has received quite the overhaul with bridges being added to create pathways over canals and additional houses and trees to serve as cover. We’ll be re-visiting other maps to improve their playability in future updates.
• Most of the maps present in the game received various iterations to support moveable artillery. A hefty bunch of work!
• We’ve made sure to include two moveable artillery pieces on every map specifically designed for organised play.

» You’ll also find additional stationary artillery pieces present on some of the maps.

Quality of Life

• We implemented a system that ensures the order of classes in the spawn menu remains consistent with the exception of the Training Grounds map were classes from both the Navy, Army and Coastal branches are present.
• Changed the font used for all interaction labels in the game so it becomes more readable and added a slight fade to all of the interaction labels.
• Included additional sounds to all artillery pieces.
• The list of official servers available to join in the ‘Join Other Server’ panel has been updated.
• Changed the colour of the recruitment channel to make it more distinguishable from the rest.

Game Balance

• Implemented a system that restricts players from loading specific shots in certain artillery pieces. You are no longer able to load round shot in swivel guns. Instead, they can now be loaded with a smaller iteration of the grapeshot.
• Upon firing an artillery piece, the gun’s barrel will slightly recoil. This is being done to further increase the skill gap.
• You’ll now find more ammo boxes on the 8-Gun Schooner. These contain the smaller version of the grapeshot to load swivel guns with.

Other Additions

• Included additional spawns near the barn on Highlands when played on the Army Conquest game mode.
• Change the spawn limits for the Garrison Arena map when played on the Army Conquest game mode.

Optimisations

• Solved an instance which was causing a dip in framerate when an explosion was caused.
• Optimised various particle effects in the game.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which caused the sound when pushing a cannon forward not to play.
• Fixed a bug which prevented firearm trajectories from showing when a server administrator set the drawFirearmTrajectories to true.
• Fixed a bug which caused players to get stuck in an animation after using a spyglass.
• Fixed a bug which caused players to get stuck looking through a spyglass forcing them to respawn.
• Fixed a bug with the wheels not animating correctly when a cannon is being pushed forward.
• Fixed a bug which caused the particles produced when a shot from a firearm hits a snowy terrain to be not very visible.
• Fixed a bug which caused players to get stuck behind the rowboat passage on King George.
• Fixed a bug which prevented players from using any weapons while walking on one of the rowboats present on King George.
• Fixed a bug on Fort Sallettes which prevented players from going in certain rooms.

0.21

Game Features

• A New Map. King George.

Quality Of Life

• The official server list found in the ‘Join Other Server’ panel has been updated. If you are unable to see servers in the lobby, you can use this to connect to any of the official servers.
• You will now find a link to the official Holdfast Discord in the game’s ‘Escape’ menu. We wanted to make sure that joining the community on there is more easily accessible.
• Re-designed a section to the top right of the main menu that re-directs players to various places were our community resides.

Game Balance

• Capturing all flags in the Army Conquest game mode will no longer end the match.
• Re-positioned the spawn points on Snowy Plains 2 for the Army Battlefield game mode.
• Reduced the time it takes before the Army Battlefield and Army Conquest game modes end in the official Army Front rotation from 25 to 20 minutes.
• Reduced the number of reinforcements on the Army Battlefield game mode to balance everything in accordance with the above-mentioned change.
• Re-visited the rotation of the Plains maps in the Army Front rotation so the maps that can more easily encourage line battle engagements to occur are rotated more frequently.

Bug Fixes

• Confirmed fix for a bug which reduced firearm accuracy over long periods of server runtime.

0.20

Core Development

• Holdfast: NaW's underlying game engine has been updated to the latest stable release. We’ve done this in an effort to improve both server and client-side stability.

Features

• A dedicated ‘Recruitment’ chat channel that regiments (game clans) can use to advertise their own group has been added into the game.

» Player’s advertising their regiment in the chat channel will be displayed in a different colour to help distinguish them from the rest gathering greater visibility.

» If you aren’t too keen on seeing recruitment messages, we’ve also included an option that allows you to disable the channel through the ‘Game’ options.

Quality of Life Additions

• The ‘Round’ chat has been renamed to ‘All’ chat.
• You will now always find chat channels in the same order irrespective of the class you are playing.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which caused all players to become invisible forcing everyone in the match to re-join the server.