[2022] Icarus Week Thirty Update | Horde Mode #2

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

This week, we’re taking on all the great feedback we received over the last 8 days about Horde Mode, and making a batch of improvements and changes to improve the experience for our players. We’re spending a lot of time working on our upcoming Dedicated Servers release alongside this, which we’re excited to bring to you in the near future. Hop in and have a look at what to expect in our Pearl Anniversary, the big 30.



Horde Mode Updates
The reception to Horde Mode has been awesome, and we’ve been actively listening to all your feedback and thoughts, which we’ve organized into a slew of changes to improve the player experience when engaging with this new dynamic features.

New Creature Variations

We’ve added a range of new creature options to add variety to the experience, meaning you will now be able to also encounter Alpha Wolves, Alpha Cats, some cute Bear Cubs and more when using your Vapor Condenser on the Enzyme Geysers. More variation will mean different tactics will be needed, and therefore more planning into your approach.

Difficulty and Reward Scaling

We’ve also heard great feedback on the cost/reward payoff with engaging with these Geysers, and as a result, are scaling up the rewards based on the Prospect Difficulty (up to 2x Experience Points, and up to 4x Item Rewards size for higher difficulties), to make it more worth your while, and a valuable resource. We will continue to monitor feedback on the difficulty of this new mechanic and aim to offer many options for you to customize your experience and get great rewards for more challenging events.



UPCOMING: Dedicated Servers and Data Decentralization
We mentioned in a previous announcement that ICARUS is shifting towards a decentralized storage of save data. To achieve this goal, we are planning on removing the reliance of storing save data on our servers. We have been planning this change for some time - but due to recent issues with server outages, we have decided to turn our focus towards getting the new system into player hands sooner.
Our Servers currently store account, character and prospect data. As a result of this change, this data will be stored on disk rather than hosted on servers - and ideally, synced with the Steam Cloud.

This will allow players to play Icarus without:

1. needing an active server connection
   
2. needing an internet connection

This is similar to how things already work in the Offline Play mode. So, as a result, we are looking at combining the two game modes. This would mean that offline and online accounts would be merged and stored locally to your machine.

The vanguard programming team's usual focus is to implement new content and features, and improve the performance of the game. In preparation for the decentralized server changes, the vanguard team have been given a crash course on the new system - and many have been reassigned to work on these tasks specifically.

Important Things to Note

• Multiplayer will stay the same
  The multiplayer game loop will feel the same as it always did - we are only changing where the data is stored.
  
• Only one person can host a prospect
  Due to the nature of prospect save data being stored locally to one machine, only the host will be able to resume the prospect.
  
• Dedicated servers are now an option
  Once we are done, players will be able to host prospects on dedicated servers that players will be able to connect to as clients.

Explaining the new change log
We implemented our new change to providing our change log last week, and wanted to follow up this week with a bit more detail on what is now included, and how to understand the change in language and format.

1. The change log during larger updates, will now be split into sections, the first being details about this weeks update, and the following including overarching bug fixes and improvements, and then specific sections such as Art and Audio.
   
2. You’ll notice that included in the change log, will be patch notes that refer to ‘Work in Progress’ or ‘Future updates’, planning as far ahead as future DLC's. This is to give the players more insight into what our team is working on, and to simplify the process internally so the team can focus more on the work they’re doing, than the details of what is being made public facing.
   
3. Perhaps the most important part - Not everything in the change log will be guaranteed to make it into the game, as we are now including patch notes of work in progress and prototypes that are still subject to change and adjustment. Feel free to discuss these or ask questions about them, but we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to divulge further details or time frames relating to said features or content

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Changelog v1.2.5.98121

• Add Alpha Snow and Desert Wolf creatures to Horde mode
  
• Sanity and consistency pass on creature character BPs, box sizes, capsule accuracy, component positioning, etc
  
• Fixed Geysers in Styx G2, J11, I3, and O8 with wrong Horde spawner row assigned, spawning incorrect creatures
  
• Fixed description of Enzyme Geyser.
  
• Optimized GFur on Creatures by implementing component LODs which lowers the layer count based on screensize
  
• Added Snow Wolf base material so it looks different from Conifer Wolf when no fur is visible
  
• Fix Polar Bear MRO textures not using Masks setting
  
• Fixed an issue causing hedgehogs to damage dead or ragdolling enemies.
  
• Improved collision setups on Desert Wolf BP
  
• Added missing engine texture to fix editor startup warnings
  
• Fix music cue not playing when player discovers exotics deposit - this was broken by refactor of AudioListenerCollider in 97584. Remove deprecated GetAudioCollider function from player character.
  
• Enabled flushing asset streaming on exit to fix crash when exiting the game
  
• Fixed floating voxels near D9, swapped materials on desert underwater rocks, Yellow, Red, Blue Quad, Styx
  
• Add DT validation to check AIGrowth for cases where stats and curves are used simulatenously, doubling up on values
  
• Corrected BearCub and Komodo creatures setups, retaining health values where they currently are
  
• Update Voyager prospect flavor text. - Minor tweaks to many other prospects flavor text to match formatting style.
  
• Stone Frame Buildable - reverted previous change that added a floor piece
  
• Fixed an issue causing stone frames to weigh 0.1kg instead of 5kg.
  
• Added right side of the half ramp pieces.
  
• Added collision to the top and beams of concrete half frames.
  
• Added logic to allow frames to be placed adjacent to existing floor.
  
• Swamp Water added Normal distortion to Mud/ Swamp Landscape added test MI and fix texture sampling
  
• Added 3 variations of the flax plant asset to project
  
• Added three variations of blackberry bush to the project.
  
• Added first pass test for SW_Mangrove_Var1 for testing
  
• Submitting Swamp Quadruped and its textures
  
• Submitting Swamp Quad and Swamp Quad carcass and their textures
  
• Updated the textures for the asset SM_DEP_Analyzer_Transmission Device
  
• Bullet is now visible in chamber of loaded pistol. Fixed issue where pistol reload would lerp bullet from chamber to hand
  
• DEV - update pass on prototype reflection audio system:
  
• Add reflection angle based multiplier
  
• Add surface-based high and low frequency response values to audio surface data, and use these to set new FMOD parameters when processing reflection record results
  
• Various tweaks and improvements, and some new debug features
  
• Updating bear cub audio to feel slightly smaller to match the size of the creature
  
• Decreased BearCub health from 600-1300 to 200-650 to better suit their size (smaller than a Wolf). Decreased BearCub melee damage max from 80 to 60
  
• Added a minimum delay between Accolade file saving to reduce lag during certain actions
  
• Reverting FLOD FISM optimizations for 1.1.3 so that we have rock collisions
  
• Added Dropships, Respawn Ships, Deep Ore Deposits And Polish, Outpost 008
  
• Polish Pass, Fixed Cliff Actors Sticking Through Caves and Fixing Cliffs With Visiable Seams, Outpost 008
  
• Placed the Deep Ore Depo Cleanup on Outpost 006, Forest Outpost 3
  
• Updated Mat and textures for Bullet on Single Shot Pistol SK