Hi everybody,

We’ve just finished work on another significant patch for Dino D-Day.  Outside of the updates that added new dinosaurs to the game this is probably the most significant patch as far as gameplay goes that we’ve ever put together.  We took a lot of time listening to feedback on the forums and in-game to create a list of fixes that we hope reflects where the players of Dino D-Day want to see it go.  Thanks to all of you for playing and giving us such great feedback!

Here’s what we worked on:

Medic Overhaul

Pre-patch playing as a medic was a slow affair. Attempting to heal others was difficult at best. They slowed down the action, as players were (while not intended) required to stand still in order to be healed. With the steady refinement towards a smoother paced experience the Medic had been left behind. By expanding the medic character’s abilities, and improving their usability we have created a more active support class and valuable squad asset.

• The rate of healing is much higher than before. Thrown medkits, which heal all teammates within its area of effect, are largely unchanged aside from the increased healing speed.
• The personal right-click heal has been vastly improved. Before it was required to activate this healing while looking directly at a player. This resulted in rapid fire clicking to even have a chance to activate. Now the player simply has to hold down the right mouse button and when a friendly player enters her range, the heal is applied automatically.
• A “Heal Special” has been added. Activated by pressing the USE key (default ‘e’), lasting 15 seconds, and limited by a 30 second cooldown, this will heal all teammates within a radius of the medic’s position. This ability can be utilized at any time and allows the medic to continue using their weapon while healing the team.

In order to reflect the Medic’s new and improved toolset, they now receive points based on their healing. For every 100 points of healing applied to the team they receive a point, and a notification is given in the kill feed. Additionally when they personal right-click heal on a player, they will be credited an assist to any kill done by the healee.

These changes have made playing as a medic far more viable and enjoyable during our tests. Properly embedded into a small squad of cooperating teammates, the medic changes how the game plays and we feel for the better. We hope that the strengthened ability to work together will rear its ugly head as we are torn limb from limb by hoards of healed players working together.

Compy Overhaul

The Compy has been both a blessing and a curse since its release last summer. Incredibly fun to play; very frustrating to combat. Taking suggestions from the community and through testing we have tried to even out this disparity. Receiving perhaps the biggest overhaul of any class to date, the Compy will change how he is approached drastically. The biggest complaint about the Compy was that he had the ability to quickly approach enemies and detonate, taking the enemy down, with no warning or possibility of defense. It was intended that the time removed from battle waiting to respawn would be a deterrent to this suicidal habit and encourage attempts to first attack players with their claws, but anyone playing the game can attest this was not the case.

The mechanics of play have been nearly completely rewritten. The Compy still has two attacks, his claws and by detonating the grenade attached to his back, but that is where the similarities end. To properly explain we’ll need to start at basics. To accommodate changes listed below, the Compy is slightly larger (12%), and slightly stronger (kill Hardgrave in 4 hits instead of 5 and with more forgiving melee hit detection).

• The Compy’s blast strength and radius corresponds to the number of claw kills they have made in their current life. No kills is a damaging but often non-lethal blast.
• With one kill, your explosion is slightly weaker than the pre-patch blast. Capable of killing a fully healthy enemy if positions are ideal, but not reliable.
• At two kills the blast is more powerful than at pre-patch levels. It will also “send you to Valhalla” and as a result a failed suicide blast will not penalize you with a death.
• Amassing three kills is devastating, with a large blast radius strength and will ignite nearby players who are damaged but not killed.

These damage levels are indicated with a HUD element indicating the number of claw kills you have made during the current life. The changes will make playing the Compy less simple, but very rewarding to players who make an attempt to rack up claw kills instead of finding the nearest target, exploding right away, and spending more time dead than alive. This is a major change and one largely inspired by forum feedback so we hope to hear from players on the new mechanics once it has been released and you’ve had time to play it for a while.

Fortress

The map Fortress has had a long development. Being one of the first maps made, it has had its ultimate purpose shift more than once. As the game progressed it was found that the current layout was simply too prone to camping the Allied spawn building. Covered by not one, but 2 machine gun nests, only containing a few routes of escape, and open to enemy fire it was often very one sided. When you load up Fortress, gone will be the single Allied refuge, and in its place half a block of redesigned Allied controlled spawn. More exits have been added, the MG nest closest to the buildings has had its coverage diminished, an underground passage has been created, and very few axis locations can observe all exits simultaneously. This should allow and encourage Allied players to enter battle more deeply and directly, diminishing the spawn deadlock problems.

Styracosaur

During the map obj_fortress the end game results in an Axis player controlling the mighty Styracosaur. Tied into Fortresses development, the Styracosaur suffered some similar development issues. While invulnerable to bullets and even stated in HUD hints, many players would still attempt to unload their clips into him with no effect. To properly assault the Styracosaur players were forced to change class to receive the needed explosive weapons to then damage the enemy. Additionally controlling the gun required players to stop moving and largely left them helpless and ineffective. We’ve made some changes to improve the experience of both playing and battling this dino.

• The Styracosaur takes damage from all weapons similar to the T-Rex. To counter the new vulnerabilities the player is given significant amounts of health. His health is also dependant on the number of players he will face. So he should remain balanced no matter how many active opponents he has.
• The Styracosaur’s weapon can now be aimed while moving and its firing rate has been halved to 2.5 seconds.
• Previously his only weakness were the four corners of his platform. While no longer the only method of damaging him they are still weak to explosives and will reward good rocket aim with extra damage.

Initial testing of these changes have been positive, but we will be keeping an eye on him as the patch is played for any important tweaks that may need to be applied.

Kill Assists

The kill assist system has been cleaned up significantly. A number of unique situations could arise where assists were not properly credited. Most, if not all, of these events should now work properly. Be the first to light a Compy on fire right before it explodes and while being healed directly by a medic!

Another repeated concern was that attacking the T-Rex or Styracosaur did not always properly give credit to players who did the most damage. Players still receive points for supplying the finishing blow to these enemies, but for every 1500 damage done a notification is displayed in the kill feed and you are awarded an assist point.

Class Images

All classes have been given a trio of pictures to display in the lower left hand of the HUD. They display the character you are currently playing as before, but they will now reflect the physical status of your health. Makes getting torn up by the Dilophosaur slightly less tragic.

Bots

Before we begin: The bot system is not yet finished and you will likely encounter significant gameplay bugs if you skirmish against them.

Shipped in this patch are our work-in-progress bots. Currently only the Raptor, Compy, and Stygimoloch have been implemented, and there is much tweaking to be done. This is all a work in progress. You will find bugs, the bots will do silly things from time to time, and you will crash. This is our initial test bed for a later patch, and there is still much to be done. As mentioned several weeks ago, these bots will lay the groundwork for an upcoming update and new game mode.

We are shipping the incomplete bots because some of you may enjoy giving them a test drive before we officially release them to the game. Right now they have pathfinding and different behaviors for the 3 bot types. Raptors pounce, Compys blow up if close by and injured, Stygis shoot at you in bursts, they have basic behaviors, but nothing complex. At the moment the only maps they work on are the below listed deathmatch maps. They will not attempt to capture points if on a cp_ or koth_ map. In fact on those maps they will not even attempt to leave spawn on their own. On the supported maps they will exit spawn and explore the map. While simple it can be an engaging experience even in their current state, particularly with the right backup from friends.

The method of adding bots is described below. Currently it is done entirely with server variables and is a little clunky. For instance bots can be easily added, but not easily removed. So use this with your caution and we commend your bravery!

How to start a bot server

1. Create a server using one of the supported maps: dm_canyon, dm_depot, dm_fortress_trex, dm_gela_trex, dm_market, or dm_snowypark. Bots WILL NOT WORK on other maps at this time.
2. Join the Allied team.
3. Open the console. Set “sv_autobalance 0”, and “sv_auto_team_switch 0”. This will prevent the bots from being auto-balanced to the Allies or team switched at the end of the round. If bots get switched they will currently break.
4. “raptor_add”, “compy_add”, and“stygi_add” will add a Raptor, Compy, or Stygimoloch bot respectively.
5. Add as many bots as you like. I’ve found a nice mix of bots, perhaps 4 Raptors, 3 Compys, and 3 Stygis makes for a fun game if I have a couple friends with me.
6. You can get as crazy as you like but if you add a ton of bots your machine will probably slow to a crawl and no guarantees the game will be stable.
7. We repeat, this is all a work in progress. You will find bugs, the bots will do silly things from time to time, and you will crash. This is our initial test bed for a later update, and there is still much to be done. It is however, still a bit of fun.

I hope those of you out there brave enough to mess with some console commands will enjoy some offline skirmishing! Full bot support is coming soon.

Summary of Fixes

• Fixed exploits related to grenades/sticky bombs and team switching or going to spectator mode.

• You can now join spectators only when you are alive and within a spawn area. This prevents exploits that can be used to harm your teammates or to circumvent the respawn timer.

• You can no longer suicide when pounced, knocked down, thrown, bitten, being eaten, eating rabbit, etc.

• The “no suicide on class change” menu option now works correctly.

• Removed a Styracosaur exploit that allowed for rapid firing of its turret.
• Several issues with the kill assist system have been addressed. Kill assist credit should occur more frequently now.

• Players receive points for doing large amounts of damage to either the T-Rex or the Styracosaur in addition points they may get for killing them.
• Medics accrue healing points for patching up teammates.  For every 100 healing points Medics get a point on the scoreboard.

• Several crashes related to the Velociraptor’s pounce have been fixed. Unfortunately, the pounce attack was the source of most of the server crashes that were occurring in Dino D-Day. We’ve put in some safeguards, but this is a difficult crash to isolate. If the set of safeguards we just put in fail to do the job, you can expect a significant overhaul of the Velociraptor pounce in the coming weeks.

• Added a T-Rex spawn preference to the Multiplayer Options menu. If you don’t want to be selected as the T-Rex, just indicate this in the Multiplayer section within Options.

• Adjust footstep attenuation for dinosaurs. You should be able to hear dinosaurs coming a lot easier now.

• Medics now have a new ability in the form of a special that is activated by the Use key (‘E’ by default). When the special is used, it creates a temporary area of effect heal around the medic which follows the medic’s movement around the battlefield. This gives medics the ability to keep themselves and their teammates healed up without having to put their weapons down.

• Thrown medkits now heal significantly faster.

• The right-click heal function of the medkits now works from a farther distance and is more likely to connect with nearby teammates.

• The Compy now “charges up” his suicide blast by making melee kills. For each melee kill the Compy receives (to a maximum of three), his suicide explosion grows stronger.

• The Compy is now slightly more durable, has improved melee attack damage, and is 12% larger.

• Took out the Velociraptor’s pounce recharge. This was an artifact from when you couldn’t shoot them off teammates.

• Improved hit detection on Velociraptors when they are attached to their victim during a pounce.

• Improved Stygimoloch and Trigger melee function. It should be much easier to hit people.

• T-Rex guns balanced. The overheat on its machine guns is now slower and they are slightly more accurate.

• Microraptors can now cling to ceilings in addition to walls.

• Improved hit detection on Microraptors when they are clinging to walls and ceilings.

• The overall damage on the Microraptor spit is slightly buffed.
• The Microraptor is a bit more durable now and should be a little tougher to take down.

• The Desmatosuchus melee attack now knocks down their victim rather than simply pushing them back.

• Ilona’s rabbits now regenerate from the resupply crates.

• Fixed some bugs related to the target reticle for Joe’s artillery strike and Hissmann’s pterosaur.

• Buffed the damage and increased the radius for Hissmann’s pterosaur.

• Certain weapons received small damage buffs. The M1 Garand, K98, M1 Carbine, and BAR should all be more effective when shooting at a target from a distance.

• Headshot notifications now work for all guns. Damage was always calculated properly for a headshot, but you didn’t receive a notification that you made a “headshot” kill unless you were using a rifle (or Ilona’s revolver) before.

• Frag grenades for Hardgrave and Jakob now start the fuse timer when you first press and hold your primary attack key, which means you no longer must use “secondary fire” to cook this type of grenade.

• Each of the selectable classes now have varying portraits that reflect how injured they are.

• Re-added deaths to the scoreboard.

• Fixed bugs in the top scorers (on the newspaper) for the round.

• Condensed the end-of-the-round newspaper to allow for more battlefield awareness.

• Fixed bug in the Revenge/Nemesis system where it would incorrectly label a teammate.

• Fixed bug in the Revenge/Nemesis system where you would get a revenge kill on a player that just joined the server.

• Put hints back in for satchel charge bomb points (they went missing in a previous update).

• Satchel charges are now added to your inventory automatically. You no longer need to press ‘E’ to pick them up.

• New HUD element for bomb defusal. Displays a timer that turns red when the fuse is getting short. Defuse at your own risk!

• Fixed exploit whereby you could get access to the Allied spawn in Gela as the Microraptor or Velociraptor.

• Added medkits to all maps. Reworked medkit placement in Troina.

• Desmatosuchus now spawn in the same area as the rest of the Axis team on all maps. Previously, the outdoor Desmatosuchus spawns were easily camped on certain maps.

• The maps obj_fortess and dm_fortress have been revised. The Allied spawn area and certain aspects around it have been redesigned to inhibit spawn camping.

• The Styracosaur now takes damage from all weapon types, not just explosives such as the PIAT.
• The Styracosaur now has a scaling maximum health value that corresponds to how many players are in the server when it spawns.

• Redid the capture point icons on Fortress so they use the same style as the capture point game mode.

• Fixed bug where models could sometimes render at odd angles.

• Fixed the voice chat icon sometimes drawing in odd places on certain models.

• Fixed bug when running out of ammo while ironsighted.
• Fixed bug where you could scope in and out while knocked down.
• Fixed bug where using the resupply while in Hardgrave’s Berserk mode would cause his fists to be disabled.

• Bots for the Velociraptor, Compsognathus, and Stygimoloch classes have been added. Check out the link below for a more detailed explanation for using them in your servers!