NEW Em-8ER Build: "Dev Build UE5.3 New Copa Returns" 04/22/2024

[Faeryl]

Hello and Happy Monday Gatestriders! THE TIME HAS ARRIVED!

A new developer test build is available! This one is a consolidation build, where the Dev Team has combined all active features into one Unreal 5.3 updated build.

All Milestone 3 and Newcomer Backers have download access as of today (April 22nd at 3 pm, PDT).
Em-8ER Patron Program Subscribers will have access 1 week later.

The name of the new demo appears in Milestone 3 and Newcomer Backer's DOWNLOADS as follows:

"[LATEST] UE5.3 New Copa Returns - Consolidated Latest Build - All current features combined on Copa map and updated to Unreal 5.3"

NOTE:
Jump into the build, have fun, find ALL the bugs and please, whatever you discover, be sure to leave us some feedback right here!

Have fun and Good Luck!

 

[PartTimeJedi]

**EDITED: MORE BUGS ADDED**
1st!
Ha!
So here is a quick and dirty after 2 hrs play-

**DEEPSTRIKE seems to be nerfed not causing any damage to Tsi-hu or kneebitters. PLEEZ fix as this is my go2 for congregating kneebiters and groups of Tsi-hu hanging around the coffee machine.. I mean portal tear.

**Going from 1st-3rd-1st player view I got stuck in a quasi-first person view halfway inside the Omniframe. I had to die to get back to default 3rd person view.

**Whenever you log out you lose your inventory of collected minerals AND gameplay settings. When I log in my default gameplay settings are horrible. Turn rate is like a snail etc etc. Please fix!

**There is no way to decrease sound levels of the THUMPR incursion. Rocks landing are waaaay to loud.

** When facing the direction of the sun the "sun bloom" is so intense sometimes I can barely see what's in front of me. Maybe tone that down?

**The Tsi-hu "lasso" warrior is better balanced. The old Copa Demo when this feature was introduced saw me plucked out of the air constantly. In this Demo it seems that we get earlier warning time and less instances of being yanked out of the air then previously. Much better balance IMHO

**Not sure if this is a bug or not- Plazma rifle seems nerfed. AOE seems almost nonexistent, super small plazma power cell and a recharge time that seems a lot longer than I remember. Its almost useless as a preferred weapon. You get 3 shots then have to run away or switch weapons. I do understand that in-game this will be something that through crafting we can boost/upgrade, but the stock plazma rifle still seems weak compared to the stock assault rifle.

**ATM we are only able to sprint going forward. Please enable all 4 directions as it would make the feel of gameplay much more quick when dodging/attacking/retreating.

All in all VERY excited to be playing in this Demo! Onward to bigger and better things Team!

 

[BlackHorde]

2nd!

 

[KavasMasta]

Thumper encounter audio bugs:
Rocks hitting the ground is not affected by volume sliders.
Knee biter spawn in noises are not affected by volume sliders.
Thumper getting hit by ranged damage noise is not affected by volume sliders

 

[cyriann#5305]

Tested briefly to see how it runs on my old rig, runs smooth with no issues, GG team on that.

Now I have one immediate and HUGE thing to report, my controls were completely borked for a very simple, and dumb reason.
I am French, thus my keyboard uses an AZERTY configuration compared to the English QWERTY configuration.
The issue this creates is simple our layout goes as follows for letters :
AZERTYUIOP
QSDFGHJKLM
WXCVBN
Meaning that my A and Q along with Z and W keys are inverted compared to QWERTY and when I tried to rebind the controls in question I ran into the issue of the game adding new keybinds, but not letting me overwrite or delete previously registerd keybinds.
which resulted in multiple activations of skills when I was simply trying to strafe left.
While I fully understand it to be a hussle, the number of games I now have had to entirely rebind simply because there's no handling of different keyboard configurations has grown frustratingly large, not counting the cases of games that don't allow me to rebind.
I hope this issue can be resolved easily.

 

[Pandagnome]

Some things i have noticed

- Moon walking tsihu
- Sometimes they do not shoot
- Can block tsihu from walking towards their route and they turn the other way
- 1st person in Mek is very shaky in my opinion could dial it down
- 1st person in pilot form is not as smooth as mek
- Gliding feels smooth and good
- Unable to slide down hill and knock down tsihu
- fps is much better hitting 120fps generally
- Reloading in 1st person makes your turn right to see weapon and reload which can be annoying
- Cannot change my mek colour
- Cannot see what i have collected or others online when pressing tab
- Cannot see what i am typing or anyone else if they are typing
- Hiding in the shells is very good for sneaky get away or cover
- Male pilots chin slightly deformed from the side not for the female.



Some things that could be good to have:

- Melee for pilots / meks
- motorbike to ride around
- If tsihu grapplers get you, could they steal your weapon forcing you to go melee until you get it back?
- Change of time such as night time
- Light on weapon or use of night-vision to activate
- Crystite block could have tsihu inside that break out for some surprises
- Some Em8er music to bring the mood
- Easier way to clear key binding to add a new key

Great to see a demo return and can't wait to see more improvements as the development continues!

 

[idprism]

audio is painful to listen to right now.
reloads in first person really mess with the camera since it seems to be attached to the gun instead of the frame
i am hoping there's a better third person view ... it seems too tight/crowded unless i muss with the FOV
radial menu would be nice to have dual function... standard (toggle on and press or timeout), or quick (hold on, select or release to off)
i don't see all the keybinds for all the included features... maybe i'm missing something but would be nice to know that, for example, i is inventory.

gathering resources was a little weird with the floaty resources doing happy rainbow trails, but overall was not painful or difficult to understand. would be vastly improved with an inset map to show you when you missed a resource, or, alternatively, some kind of HUD element.

I couldn't get the keybinds for certain things working.. .also was not sure how to change weaps beyond missile swarms.

movement of the MEK feels smooth, and has appropriate inertia, even though I cannot really figure out exactly how or when is optimal to activate certain movement features like the slide, dash, glide, overdrive, etc.

keep up the good work.

 

[Quadrana]

So messed around in the new build a bit the plasma cannon did get buffed for aoe and damage but would much rather have it nerfed back to lower damage and less aoe and just have a regular ammo stock and shoot the plasma semi auto the reload wait time is way to clunky for the gun unless you afterburn into the sky let it cool down try to hit something with the now ineffective Deepstryke which got heavily nerfed and definitely isn't based off of height and gravity although did find out if you Deepstryke from high enough you can glitch into the Deepstryke pose by Deepstryking during a Deepstryke. The pose stays on your frame until you figure out how to get high enough to Deepstryke again. You can afterburner in the pose and glide and run. I forgot to attempt sliding in it. You can continuosly climb with afterburner because although the glide function seems to use energy its not limited to energy so you just glide jumpjet out of glide afterburner straight up repeat as you notice your frame starting to slow down in its vertical accent.

It is nice to see that there is now a solid ceiling to the map that you can't get stuck in but you can fly into it and it moves your camera so that your just staring down through your frame while your there until your afterburner ability stops or you glide down just a little bit then you can glide around the top of the box. I did not glitch through the map after Deepstryking from the top but that is how I got stuck in the Deepstryke pose. Gliding down from the top of the map doesn't make you vibrate like crazy anymore but you do still feel like going fast however you still get some weird gliding shudders when turning and banking from any height. The glide down from the top of the map did not send me through the bottom of the map either so far really solid. Also happy to see that water isn't deadly poison like ff still lol.

I do really like the physics of the game now the suit shows exactly when you start accelerating up by relaxing the joints right before they all slowly swing up making gliding seem very realistic when going up and down however the body doesn't move much in response to angles and curves while gliding. Speaking of curves and angles I really like the new character model or what I can see of one outside of the omni frame as there's no solo free look (and nobody else was on) and when you get close to seeing her face she shifts with the camera perspective to try and make herself look forward which is great for immersiveness but not as great for checking out the new looks.

Luckily all the menu options are locked out while your gliding even though it shows that you can use them. Attempted changing colors while gliding, calling a thumper, scanning, and exiting the frame as both male and female to no effect.

I averaged around 60-180 (60 to 90 ground and 100 to 180 frames air) depending on if I was on the ground with more things to load or high in the sky with almost no aspects to load except the distant cloud screen and the stars in space. Mid flight frame rate was closer to 110 because of the gliding effects and added strain of moving the camera around more.

(Ark generated enemies)
The tether enemies are definitely slower and have a very limited range and ability which is a little nicer since they used to be able to snipe you from hundreds of yards away to slam you into the ground. The Tsi hu are definitely stronger and more aggressive the initial ones must have been rookies cause these guys will kill your frame quickly unless you fly away and come back to attack in bursts due to their sheer numbers.

(Thumper encounter)
So I successfully soloed a thumper encounter the bugs are manageable with the slow plasma rifle but you have to switch to the assault rifle to deal with the tsi hu cause it doesn't have enough ammo reserves to be affective. I realized though during the encounter that with instant gratification picking up the mats that are mined by the thumper like it is there's almost no incentive in protecting the thumper your goal is to barely keep it alive through the encounter to mine your mats and send it back before its destroyed or let it be destroyed and craft a new thumper. I do like the resources build though still with the different types and variety and there individual rating and the fact that mining in one spot isn't just going to get you dirt and one material like in real life or any simulator that tries to be realistic you get a lot of different things when you mine but some others that aren't the peak item in the scan will appear as lesser values so your scanning for a max concentration value and everything else is luck and chance. Didn't really glide around too much stayed close to the payload the whole time like standard firefall encounter style. The terrain made enough obstacles compared to the last map that it was much more manageable and almost in waves instead of the huge summoning circle of tsi hu then the mas entourage from all sides done out in the open spaces. Also had a thought that maybe the ammo for plasma guns can come directly from the tsi hu so its not infinite like the assault and other earth like weapons but you have to harvest the tsi hu for your plasma ammo...just a thought not sure how annoying or easy or hard that might be made though. It does have a nice ring to it though cause then your processing alien matter to make a special type of plasma that's stable enough to shoot in orbs. The rocks are super loud when they drop in and I didn't play long enough to see if I still die getting hit by one or by the thumper but I shall test that all another day!

Summary of first play through:

Overall really good progress since the earlier versions of the demo a lot less buggier but not quite as powerful combat wise the rockets feel too slow to be effective from close range and Deepstryke does absolutely nothing anymore for what I noticed. The physics and gliding are great, afterburner is still busted (sorry if that's the wrong name but that's what I remember it as). The demo is still really well optimized and feels alright overall.

(Images hosted on discord due to size links below)

 

[Pandagnome]

the plasma cannon did get buffed for aoe and damage but would much rather have it nerfed back to lower damage and less aoe and just have a regular ammo stock and shoot the plasma semi auto the reload wait time is way to clunky for the gun

I do like different firing modes because could make it more interesting as an example:
- Semi fire potential for largest damage concentrating all energy into one mega plasma sphere
would have a long reload probably good as a charged shoot if held down!

- Burst fire smaller than your standard fire and somewhat quicker reload since it is one standard shot split into 3.

- Auto fire this would be continuous but you may have to keep an eye out for over heating as the duration and amount of plasma fired would increase the pressure to the point of a safety mechanism activiating to prevent firing until it is cooled enough.

had a thought that maybe the ammo for plasma guns can come directly from the tsi hu so its not infinite like the assault and other earth like weapons but you have to harvest the tsi hu for your plasma ammo...just a thought not sure how annoying or easy or hard that might be made though. It does have a nice ring to it though cause then your processing alien matter to make a special type of plasma that's stable enough to shoot in orbs.

That's an interesting thought do you mean they will be specialized ammo to switch from the normal plasma?

So you have such as:

1) Standard regen plasma fire that is what we currently have.

2) When Tsihu are eliminated the energized orbs are collected to create a reserve of Hyper plasma
these could be used right away at the expense of the weapon malfunctioning or blowing up.

So the Reaper lab techs highly suggest to process this, this would improve stability unless ofc you want to risk it and go for crazy damage to keep going back and repair your weapon each time!

really like the new character model or what I can see of one outside of the omni frame as there's no solo free look (and nobody else was on) and when you get close to seeing her face she shifts with the camera perspective to try and make herself look forward which is great for immersiveness but not as great for checking out the new looks.

I think the addition for a free look would be very good especially like to see my mek / pilot or even others from various angles. Also you can take good pictures to put into the forums / social media and even videos such as show casing your look to others of your new team outfit etc etc

 

[Pandagnome]

In first person mode when you jump up and look up a triangle appears!



Suggestion when jumping up on a ledge perhaps arms can appear to pull self up than just for jumping.


Sliding in first person doesn't appear easily unless you switch from 3rd person to 1st sometimes.

When looking up you can see your weapon for both plasma cannon and rifle. However when you look to the sides and in front you do not see them in first person.


If you look down you cannot see your feet who ate them?.... i can see the ammo counter of my rifle perhaps this counter can appear as a little hud on my screen?


Really like seeing my mek arms moving as i am running although sometimes i do not see them hmm

When gliding or using overthrust or deepstrike i do not see myself in 1st person entirely switching to 3rd person. I feel that if you set yourself to 1st person that is how it should be experienced unless you switch to 3rd.

When dash back double tap S and looking down my screen went blank had to restart demo!

When dashing forward double tap w i want to be able to see my arms / weapon rather than my head.


When using jetpack in 1st person i can see my weapon from the sides, and infront needs to show more and below but when looking up it is gone hmm


Suggestion if you can have the option to lock camera view to a preferred position when playing some prefer more of a over the shoulder 3rd person while others may prefer being more centered and slightly back etc

Zoom works for 3rd person what about a zoom for first person!

Another thing if you are running, walking, jetpacking, gliding etc and in 1st person perhaps there could be a little hud symbol that appears to indicate this such as if you are running a little running pose icon appears and if you are walking nothing appears.

When thrusting have some subtle blurry affect to show the effect of speed wooosh.

Sometimes sounds lone may not be easy to know with the chaos so some visual indicators and cues are nice.

 

[xXChloe08]

We dub this
"Headless chicken"

If someone gets into first person outside the omniframe their head disappears.

Thanks to Chaz7 for posing as model

 

[Vel]

Found a movemnt option I'm calling 'sledding' - climb up to the top of a hill, the steeper the better, jump, then hold left shift to open your gliding - you'll 'sled' down the hill, and keep going, so long as you hold down left shift and can maintain enough speed on a steep enough slope.
It's not any faster than gliding down, but you can go over smaller hills like ramps depending on the terrain, so it's kinda fun

 

[Faeryl]

TEAM NOTE:
Posts following this message should be from the "Bug Fix" demo released April 24, 2024 at 8 pm PDT.

"EM8ER-NewCopa-2024-1.1"

 

[Rawgi]

I am getting server error and have not been able to see the demo

 

[Quadrana]

I do like different firing modes because could make it more interesting as an example:
- Semi fire potential for largest damage concentrating all energy into one mega plasma sphere
would have a long reload probably good as a charged shoot if held down!

- Burst fire smaller than your standard fire and somewhat quicker reload since it is one standard shot split into 3.

- Auto fire this would be continuous but you may have to keep an eye out for over heating as the duration and amount of plasma fired would increase the pressure to the point of a safety mechanism activiating to prevent firing until it is cooled enough.





That's an interesting thought do you mean they will be specialized ammo to switch from the normal plasma?

So you have such as:

1) Standard regen plasma fire that is what we currently have.

2) When Tsihu are eliminated the energized orbs are collected to create a reserve of Hyper plasma
these could be used right away at the expense of the weapon malfunctioning or blowing up.

So the Reaper lab techs highly suggest to process this, this would improve stability unless ofc you want to risk it and go for crazy damage to keep going back and repair your weapon each time!



I think the addition for a free look would be very good especially like to see my mek / pilot or even others from various angles. Also you can take good pictures to put into the forums / social media and even videos such as show casing your look to others of your new team outfit etc etc

I was thinking overall more like in firefall were the plasma gun was a normal gun that shot with a slower fire rate than an assault rifle but it didn't have such an elaborately weird ammo reload and charge feature and that the ammo could be a limited source only gathered from the tsi hu no special plasma type unless you modded your rifle through crafting but that tsi hu are the source of all plasma so you have to kill a tsi hu with something else to get plasma for ammo to use plasma gun to kill other tsi hu. My issue with the current plasma rifle is that it feels way to slow and clunky wear in the firecat and tigerclaw frames it was super fast and versatile and usable as a primary weapon not forced to be used as a secondary weapon due to slow reacharge rate and a very slow fire rate its almsot been changed into a gernade launcher for how its used.

I do like alt fires for the plasma rifle and would like to see the return of the 3 shot burst that was smaller and didn't ark, then there was the charge that let you charge the beam to lob one huge plasma blast, and lastly my favorite was the kind of split smaller shot that bounced off of surfaces but was 2 smaller orbs up to 8 so it looked more like a flack shot at higher crafted tiers from tiny under barrels i think if I remember right.

 

[Pandagnome]

I am getting server error and have not been able to see the demo

I have experienced this too and this is what i see

 

[Dam13n]

Meh, It feels small but it's good that under the hood things are probably easier to work with.

• Rifts are a fun addition, some extra stuff to do.
• As others have pointed out plasma still sucks (either up the recharge and fire rate or just old school Firefall version).
• Recharge rate on jumpjets is still unfun, old Firefall ones were better. (the beating will continue till moral improves).
• Personally i preferred the snow map, i know i'm the odd one out here. Larger, more fun to glide around in, with a little lava and maybe a day night cycle, i could have seen this one be quite fun for a demo map. (Probably easier for you guys to work in as well).
• now it will depend on how constant new updates are imo. If this change helps, cool.

 

[Magus]

I reassert my opinion that having recoil that moves your camera and requires my carpal tunnel to crop up is quite dissatisfying. I prefer it when the I/O layer is undisturbed and unobfuscated, both for accessibility and enjoyment as opposed to literal physical pain and frustration

Other than that, good to see progress being made, even if it's little by little

https://forums.em8er.com/threads/thumping-returns-first-iteration-feedback.2054/page-2#post-64179
https://forums.em8er.com/threads/thumping-returns-first-iteration-feedback.2054/page-2#post-64209

EDIT:
I felt the need to add something new, since the last time I brought this up, it didn't seem to amount to much if any change, so I will this time point to another more recent example of recoil done well with yet another random youtube video

Helldivers 2 is an all around amazingly designed game, and no doubt the gunplay excels as well. It even follows a little bit of my previous suggestion, but I'll highlight that my favorite components of it is how it maintains the center of your screen and the ideal crosshair at all times, BUT it still shows a secondary 'actual' crosshair of where the barrel of the gun is pointing and where rounds will actually go. User I/O is undisrupted while maintaining a sense of recoil and immersion. Also notice how the HMG emplacement requires little to no struggle from the user physically to use, and how the first person mode actually REDUCES weapon recoil for the sake of usability and balancing out third person mode's increased awareness

The only fault I can give its gunplay's accessibility and usability is how the primary weapon shown around the given timestamp requires repeated mouse clicks. Button mashing is unnecessary in my opinion in that if I hold down my fire button, it should continue firing as I'm giving the input to fire. There's even a fire select mode, so there seems to be little excuse. I will give credit where it's due however, as full automatic fire modes have been added to weapons that were previously semi or burst only

Preventing accessible full auto only gives advantage to those with macros and well feature endowed mice. I will add that adding perfect repeating full auto may be revealing a downside to people who prefer and master semi auto, as timing shots and recoil perfectly to squeeze out ideal DPS can be a missed out technique that can be developed, so I would recommend, if that's something worth preserving, making the automatically repeating semi auto at least slightly more delayed than purely user driven semi auto, but I digress

 

[ChAzZ_NuT]

I have attached a PDF, my feedback is included.

 

[Pandagnome]

I have attached a PDF, my feedback is included.

Knee biters = Tofu cubes yes!