[2020] August 15, 2020 (Stress Test 4)

On Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diabotical/comments/iabcv0/the_stress_test_4_is_starting_patch_notes/

Interface

• The Select Datacenters button on the bottom bar has been moved to the Quick Play, Ranked and Custom Games menus, to the left of Join Game, Find Match and Refresh buttons
• The Select Datacenters button now displays the option to Expand search to nearby locations, instead of this option only being available in Settings-More Settings
• In Play-Quick Play, FFA has been moved to the Arcade Modes Play Card
• In Play-Quick Play, Brawl 3v3v3 has been removed
• In Play-Quick Play, the Wipeout Play Card has been renamed to Team
• In Play-Quick Play, 4v4 MacGuffin has been added to the Team card in addition to 5v5 Wipeout
• In Play-Quick Play, the FFA Play Card has been replaced with the Warmup Play Card featuring the Warmup mode which is FFA with a full loadout and higher health. This Play Card differs from the others in that it’s not a queue, simply clicking it will join you into a Warmup match which you can be in while queued for other modes. Warmup also remains accessible through the Ranked menu - note that Warmup matches will not show up in your match history or count towards your stats, it is simply as the name implies meant to be warmup
• In the Play menu, Competitive has been renamed to Ranked
• In Play-Ranked, Rocket Arena 1v1 has been replaced with Rocket Arena 2v2
• In Play-Ranked, the Solo Queue Play Card has been renamed to Team, it is now possible to queue for this mode if you are by yourself, or in a party of 2, or in a party of 3. In the case of parties at high skill levels, the matchmaking system increases the skill ratings of party members in a way to generate even matches if a party of 3 faces up against 3 players queueing solo. Note that because of this balancing mechanic if the players on your party each achieve very high skill ratings it may be harder to find a match as a party than as a solo player
• In Play-Ranked, the 3v3 Pickup option has been renamed to 3v3 Circuit
• In Play-Ranked, the 3v3 Circuit’s Team Deathmatch mode has been replaced with Wipeout
• In Custom Games-More settings the netcode option Server-side with max reconciliation of 80ms has changed from 80ms to 120ms and is now the default option in Custom Games
• The Game Report/Final Scoreboard at the end of a match has been updated into a different structure: in Continuous matches (from Quick Play queues and Custom Games set to continuous) it now displays the Map Vote screen in a separate tab, allowing for more maps to be voted on, with the Scoreboard and Stats being on separate tabs; in Ranked there is now a requeue button
• Fixed the lack of Map Vote in FFA matches
• In Customize-Stickers, changing to another stickers tab will deselect the currently selected sticker
• Customize-Profile, Weapons and Music have a new background
• The Learn menu has been updated with information about the various Weeballs
• In Settings-More Settings the color override color pickers now list the default team colors 1 through 8
• The Leaderboards selection list is now split into the categories Esports and Aim Arena
• In Stats-Matches, when a player leaves a Match before it ends it will now always show up as a Forfeit instead of giving the player a win if their former team eventually wins
• In Stats-Matches-Rounds the victory indicator now shows up on the team that won the match
• In Player Profiles there is now a back button to retrace the path that was taken to get there instead of having to start from the beginning
• Fixed screen stretching in Flip Fullscreen if text scaling was enabled in Windows
• Various composition adjustments to multiple menu backgrounds

HUD

• The Minimap HUD element in addition to the Pivot, Position and Size options now has the following options: Low Color, Mid Color, High Color, Outline Color, Outline Thickness, Topology Lines Opacity, Use item class colors (toggle), Item color override, Item Opacity, Sub-level topology opacity, Sub-level icon opacity, Minimap opacity, Self-player opacity, Allies opacity, Item scale, Self player scale, Allies scale
• The Hint HUD element can now be centered correctly
• In Shaft Arena and Rocket Arena the lives are now represented by 2 individual hearts again instead of the number being written like 2xHeart (2x<3)
• The Chat is now faster to recognize character input
• The Chat after being activated, now remains active and retains the characters typed when transitioning from gameplay to Victory/Defeat screen to Game Report
• The Chat after being activated during the Victory/Defeat screen will be deactivated when the next map loads
• The opacity slider of color pickers (the one on the right) now has a checkered background to indicate that it controls opacity levels

Masterserver and matches

• Fixed an issue where queueing penalties were being given incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where players would be forced into the next match when they pressed the leave match button as the countdown reached 0
• The netcode for the Quick Play and Ranked modes has changed from Client side to Server side with max reconciliation of 120ms, this netcode is still work in progress but we will be testing it this weekend in the queues. An issue you might encounter is seeing the particle effects of shots from dead players that never did damage, since the server with the information it had, determined that that shot had been fired after the player had died, this is likely to receive adjustments in the future. Client side netcode remains available as an option in Custom Games but with Server side with max reconciliation of 120ms as the default

Performance

• Fixed a multihreaded mouse input issue that could be perceived as a refresh rate drop - see: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diabotical/comments/i7w64y/issue_followup_game_started_feeling_floaty/
• Fixed an issue where certain textures weren’t being unloaded appropriately
• Optimized the icons used in the menus and HUD to load more quickly

Gameplay

• Fixed being able to grab items and/or stop them from spawning when transitioning from warmup to round 1 or between rounds
• In Extinction there is now a 10 second round countdown between rounds
• In Extinction only the ghosts of the team that is currently winning the round will drop orbs/souls that can be used to ping the life leader when grabbed by an enemy
• In Rocket Arena the lifesteal mechanic has been removed
• In Shaft Arena there are no longer Weeballs after your first death
• The Siphonator powerup when picked up now has a self healing cap and teammate healing cap of 150hp instead of 200hp

Maps

• Test_Map is now called Toya Fortress
• Barrows Gate’s arenas have been modified to be smaller and fit 1v1 and 2v2 matches better
• Bazaar’s 2nd arena has been changed and no longer contains a jumppad that leads to high ground
• Heikam’s 1st, 2nd and 5th arena have been modified with some better accessibility between the sides of the arenas
• Perilous’ ceilings have been raised to create a roomier feeling, there have been some texture changes and various collision fixes
• Refinery’s minimap was regenerated to not include the lava at the bottom of the slide
• Wellspring’s lighting has been redone, together with some art changes
• In Marina some saturated colors have been toned down, the arches between Red Armor and the teleporter have been aligned, raised the arch from the lower Red path to the Well (water) base
• In Skybreak some collision issues near Shaft have been fixed

Editor

• Some medieval props have been added