Fortnite’s Season 5 has officially arrived and it’s ready to cause a ton of sleepless nights. Along with the various map changes, new cosmetics, and mechanics, Fortnite’s fifth season comes with a host of weapon balances. While many of the alterations won’t drastically impact the game as a whole, it will give mobile players a more enjoyable experience. Epic Games has also added in a mobile-specific feature for those looking for a more convenient way to shoot as enemies.
The biggest balance came in the form of a damage tweaking to the Silenced SMGs. Both of these weapons never saw a ton of play on consoles, despite their potent ability to quickly kill someone. Given precision aiming on a phone is quite tricky, the SMGs are one of the best weapons you can carry into battle. Here’s a quick look at the patch notes for these guns:
Tac and Silenced SMG environmental damage now correctly matches player damage.
Changed the damage drop-off profile for the Suppressed SMG to be the same as other SMGs.
Fall off starts at 24 meters from 28 meters.
Damage reduced to 80% at 35 meters from 85% at 47.5 meters.
Damage reduced to 65% at 50+ meters from 75% at 70+ meters.
This is going to make the Silenced SMG a bit weaker in most medium range engagements. Ideally, this should be swapped too when someone rushes you or if your shotgun needs to be reloaded. The 80% damage reduction at 35 meters isn’t a steep decline, but it’s enough to make the weapon less viable on mobile. If you do have a choice between a Silenced SMG and Tactical SMG, make sure to pick the latter. It’s much better for quickly taking out opponents with burst damage and can drop at a higher rarity.
Epic games have also added a unique vehicle to the game that will certainly help with traversal. Called the All-Terrain Kart, this golf cart is capable of holding four people and can quickly zip across the map.
All Terrain Kart (ATK)
The new All Terrain Kart (ATK) has room for your entire squad.
Get a speed boost after drifting.
The roof acts as a bounce pad.
Work together as rear passengers to leap over obstacles with the All-Terrain Kart (ATK). Lean back and release at the same time for a higher jump.
While it’s easy to view this item as a novelty, the ATK has a lot of potential – especially for mobile players. One of the biggest issues many new and veteran players face is fluidly moving across the map. This will typically end with players wasting a ton of resources, not having enough time to loot, or getting separated from their squad. Thankfully, the golf kart alleviates many of these problems and can even present some unique opportunities to secure kills.
Unlike its console counterpart, Fortnite mobile players don’t have the fastest reaction time due to the game’s UI. This makes it quite easy to drive towards an enemy, get out, and kill them before they can react or set up a proper defense. It’s also useful since players driving it are way harder to hit since precision aiming on a phone is very tricky. Even though this cart will cause some mischief on the PC, it will absolutely define games on mobile.
Finally, we need to look at the changes directly made to the mobile version of Fortnite. Epic has introduced a new mechanic that allows users to automatically fire at enemies by holding their finger down. Below are all of the patch notes that are specifically for the iOS version:
Autofire has been added as an option on mobile platforms. Enabling this causes the player’s weapon to automatically fire when the reticle is over an enemy that is within range.
Players will be given the option to select their preferred fire mode after launching. All players can change their preferred fire mode by navigating to Options, Custom HUD Layout, then choosing the ‘Select Fire Mode’ option and confirming their selection.
Tap-to-fire.
A dedicated fire button.
Autofire.
Bug Fixes
The Thermal Scoped AR now has the proper visual effects on all devices.
Vehicle passengers can now detonate Remote Explosives.
Entering build mode while holding the “fire” button will no longer adversely affect your ability to build in the future.
Health and Shield numbers will no longer be displayed as your own while spectating.
Having another way to fire your gun is certainly a welcome addition, even if it has limited application. If you are going to use Autofire, make sure it’s with weapons like SMGs, shotguns, Miniguns, and LMGs. Any type of rifle should still be fired by tapping so you can control the bloom and have better accuracy. Overall this is a smart decision that will certainly alleviate some frustration and it can be turned off if you don’t like it. While this update doesn’t fix some of the major problems in the mobile battle royale genre, it’s definitely another step in the right direction.
Let us know in the comments how you’re getting on with the game now that Season 5 has landed.
The upcoming Pokemon RPGs for Nintendo Switch, Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee, are set to launch this November, and The Pokemon Company has shared a few new details about the new games. Along with a new trailer, the company revealed that some monsters will only be available in each version.
As in previous Pokemon RPGs, Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee will each feature a handful of exclusive Pokemon that cannot normally be obtained in the other game. Oddish, Sandshrew, and Growlithe have been confirmed to only appear in Let's Go, Pikachu, while Bellsprout, Vulpix, and Meowth will only be available in Let's Go, Eevee.
It remains to be seen if there will be any other version-exclusive monsters in each game beyond the aforementioned Pokemon; the original Red and Blue versions, for instance, each had six exclusive species (excluding evolutions), so it seems likely that there will be a few other Pokemon that can only be captured in each game. However, even if you only pick up one version, you will still be able to obtain the missing Pokemon by trading with a player who has the opposite version--although you'll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to trade with others online.
The Pokemon Company also showcased some of the new customization options available in Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee. In addition to being able to dress Pikachu and Eevee up in accessories and outfits, players will be able give their partner different hairstyles, as well as feed and pet them. The new trailer also showed off more of the world and the characters you will encounter on your adventure, including the games' new rival and the popular Gym leader Misty.
Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee launch for Switch on November 16. The games are based on the classic Pokemon Yellow version and take place in the Kanto region. They also feature integration with Pokemon Go; players can catch wild Pokemon in the Switch games by simulating throwing a Poke Ball, as well as transfer monsters they've captured in the mobile game over to the Let's Go titles. You can read more about the upcoming RPGs in our roundup of everything we know about Pokemon Let's Go.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-14-2018, 08:36 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Pre-Amazon Prime Day 2018 Deals Available Now
Amazon's Prime Day doesn't start until July 16, but the online retailer is already offering a number of deals to spark interest and get people talking about the retail holiday. The only hitch is that, like the deals on Prime Day, you need to be an Amazon Prime member to get the sale prices. You can sign up for Prime here, with a free one-month trial for first-time subscribers. With that out of the way, let's look at what pre-Prime Day deals are available to Amazon Prime members right now.
Free PC Games
Amazon owns the streaming platform Twitch, and each month Amazon/Twitch Prime members get free PC games. The difference this month is that Prime Day is coming up. To celebrate, Twitch Prime members will get 21 free games in July, including Brutal Legend and Tacoma. You can find the full details here.
Amazon Echo owners know how convenient it is to ask Alexa to play a song or inquire what the weather will be like on a given day. The Echo Show is an Alexa-enabled device with one big difference--it has a screen. It can do everything a standard Echo can do (including playing Skyrim), while also allowing you to view Amazon Video content, see music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, and make video calls to others with an Echo Show.
Kindle Unlimited is Amazon's subscription service that offers unlimited access to over a million books. It also comes with a rotating selection of magazines and thousands of books with Audible narration. You can access all the Kindle Unlimited content on any device with the Kindle app. The service normally costs $30 for three months, but Prime members can get it now for just $1.
You can also enter to win a number of prizes without spending any money at all. The prizes include $50,000 in cash, a 2019 Lexus ES with Alexa, a trip for two to Seattle, and more. To enter, you can visit this page and click links to find out more about Amazon's offerings. Alternatively, if you have an Alexa-enabled device, you can ask the AI assistant a number of questions that count as entries as well. Questions like, "Alexa, what is the news?" and "Alexa, what is Prime Day?" qualify.
More deals are coming for Prime members in the lead-up to Prime Day. We'll continue covering the best deals, so be sure to check back later.
Experience the job of a bus driver in a vast and freely drivable urban area. Drive original licensed city buses from the great brands: Mercedes-Benz, Setra, MAN, and IVECO BUS. Transport your passengers safely and punctually, either solo in single player mode, or in multiplayer mode.
Become an Icon! Icons: Combat Arena is a fast-paced platform fighting game offering players tight controls, powerful special attacks, online multiplayer, and the chance to become an iconic hero. All for free! Frequent game updates, customization, tournaments, and new characters keep the fight fresh.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-14-2018, 02:35 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Don’t Miss: What went right (and wrong) during the development of Persona 4
[In this Gamasutra-exclusive postmortem, the Atlus team behind Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 — most of which continued on from Persona 3 — discusses its experience creating the acclaimed RPG, including a development overview as well as specific “What Went Right” and “What Went Wrong” highlights.]
Our goal with Persona 4 was to create a title for young adults in a modern day school setting, but with appeal for a wide audience. For players who became fans of the series with the previous game, Persona 3, we retained gameplay basics that had proved successful, while adding an element of suspense. We hoped that a murder mystery plot in which a group of high school students pursued the culprit would connect with the players.
Many of the core members of the Persona 4 project were from the internal development team led by the director, Katsura Hashino. Their previous titles included Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, the Digital Devil Saga series, and Persona 3. The art director, Shigenori Soejima, joined the team during Persona 3. However, the rest of the staff, including composer Shoji Meguro, had been working together for about ten years.
Except for the animation, the game was done entirely in-house by the team. Our primary asset creation tools included 3ds Max 8, Adobe Photoshop, PaintTool SAI, and Adobe After Effects 6.5J, while design and effects were handled with our own internal tools.
(As a side note, the surgical action game Trauma Center: Under the Knife was also designed and produced by Katsura Hashino. A few members of that game’s staff were assigned to form a new team, and since then, they have been handling the development of the Trauma Center titles.)
What Went Right
1. Critical acclaim:Persona 4 received high praise from both the media and the consumers. Our primary consideration when deciding what to change and what aspects of development to examine was the commitment to making this game better than the last. The players were generally satisfied with the game, and we feel confident as we move on to our next project.
2. Budget: The development cost was set at about the same level as that of Persona 3. To satisfy the consumers, we spent the majority of our resources on increasing the volume of features that the players liked, improving the game systems, and working on the story and characters (the two key components of an RPG). In the end, we were able to keep the number of omitted features to a minimum, while incorporating many changes and additions to reflect the opinions gathered toward the end of development.
3. Player feedback: We were able to carefully select many of the new features by internally evaluating the previous title and examining player feedback. By doing so, we could concentrate on making adjustments to the areas that were most crucial to the game’s quality.
4. Team stability: We didn’t make many changes to the roles of the development team members who continued on from the previous title. This gave each person a clear understanding of what issues needed to be addressed, allowing us to operate smoothly during development. It also allowed the various staff members to communicate effectively with the director.
5. New hires: Some of the new staff members who joined the Persona 4 development team were fans of Persona 3. They did a great job gathering feedback on the previous title and evaluating the content of the new game.
What Went Wrong
1. Storytelling challenges: It took a tremendous amount of time and effort to finish the intense, suspenseful story with as many twists as it has, as well as integrating the game’s theme of “how one accepts information from the media.” While it was fun creating the mystery novel-like scenario, we had no previous experience in working on such a plot, so we were making adjustments to the storyline until the very end.
Also, one of the villain characters changed in the middle of development; since the character design was done before the story change, the design did not reflect the fact that he was a villain.
2. Real-time weather design: Unlike in the previous title, Persona 4‘s time limit for each dungeon was affected by the in-game weather. We did this with the belief that such a system would create the feeling of urgency, since the player didn’t know when damage-causing fog would appear.
However, when we implemented it in the game, players were inclined to make dungeon investigation their first priority. Their mentality was, “If I don’t know when the fog appears, I should finish the dungeon as soon as possible.” As a result, dungeon crawling and working on the inter-character Social Links, which are equally important, became completely separate and imbalanced.
We tried to compensate by adjusting the weather, in-game messages and story progression, but that created an unexpected workload. A huge amount of data could not be finalized until the weather was set, but the weather kept changing due to our design adjustments.
3. Urban misconceptions: When we decided that the story took place in a rural town, we found out that each staff member had their own image of a rural town that was completely different from the others’. So we immediately held a meeting to discuss what the most typical rural town was like, and the entire team went out to various places for location hunting. This was the first time the development team conducted such a large-scale location hunt.
4. The QA time sink: We end up having this issue every development cycle, but doing QA for an RPG takes a significant amount of time. For example, it takes more than a month for the director to go through the entire game once, checking the content and giving feedback to the team.
We kept playing the game over and over again, as many times as possible, until the game went gold. The more time we spent on debugging, the harder it became for us to put ourselves in the mindset of how gamers would feel when playing the game for the first time. In the end, we all wish for our next project to be an action game.
5. Horizontal feedback process: About two months before finalizing the code, we had the entire team post comments and criticisms about the game on our internal development website. For Persona 4, the new staff members (most of whom were Persona 3 fans) made the biggest contributions to this process, and we ended up with close to 2,000 posts — anything from fundamental problems to personal tastes.
We addressed more than 1,500 of those concerns in some way or another, but the staff kept making comments like “This should be changed like this,” or “This part is no good.” The design director who decided how to fix the issues and the staff members who implemented the fixes were on the verge of a nervous breakdown, begging, “Please… No more…”
Nevertheless, the game’s quality increased and the consumer satisfaction was high, partially as a result of that internal feedback process, so we’re glad that we did it — but the thought of having to do it again for another project gives us chills.
Darwin Project is Free to Play on Xbox One Starting July 4
Hey, Xbox players! Scavengers Studio here to tell you about some big news. Starting tomorrow, anyone can play Darwin Project, our highly interactive and survival-injected battle royale, for free! No time limit or excluded modes. Just hit the download button and you’re all set to explore everything that Darwin Project has to offer — which, we like to add, will only keep getting better and better.
If you’ve already purchased Darwin Project, don’t worry. Check your in-game inventory and you’ll see a lovely Founder’s Pack chock-full of cosmetic items: two legendary sets each containing shirt, pants, armor, helmet, and boots, three legendary axes, three legendary bows, a full jumpsuit collection, and 10 fan gifts to further stock up your dressing room with a variety of styles for your clothes and weapons.
Can’t get enough of Darwin Project fashion? You can earn more fan gifts by leveling up! And for a limited time, you can collect soccer-themed sportswear by opening fan gifts or purchasing these new styles with ramen (our in-game currency) in the item shop. Show your support for your favorite team or mix and match the new items with your go-to pieces for fresh, workout-ready styles. The items will only be available until July 12. Learn more about the customization system in Darwin Project here.
With our switch to free-to-play, we want to take care to specify that cosmetics in the item shop grant no competitive advantage, and Darwin Project will never become pay-to-win. These items are for looking good; only skill helps you win!
Dropping the price tag is a big change, but we remain committed to the same vision that has guided the development for over three years, and that means providing the best experience we can for all Darwin Project inmates. We hope that by switching to a free-to-play model, both early adopters and newcomers will be able to get the most out of Darwin Project.
If you played Darwin Project at the Xbox Game Preview launch but haven’t stepped into the arena recently, there’s lots you might have missed. We’ve added Duo mode (as well as the invite friend option), private matches, the Glider tool, skill-based matchmaking, five new Show Director powers, and more! You can now also play Darwin Project in eight new languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Japanese, and Korean with three additional languages Brazilian Portuguese, Thai, and Turkish coming soon (note that this localization is a work-in-progress).
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates, and join our Discord to find new friends to lure into your bear traps and pummel with your axe. See you in the arena!
Review: Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! (Switch eShop)
Published by Rising Star Games and developed by Daylight Studios, Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! is the first entry in the trilogy series to come to the Nintendo Switch. Originally released in 2015 on PC and later on mobile, the title has been inspired by games such as Weapon Shop De Omasse and Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. Basically, it’s a wacky-themed simulation game, where you manage your very own weapon shop whilst expanding the business across a potato universe.
If you’ve ever played this type of game before, the concept of it shouldn’t be too difficult to comprehend. You start out as an inexperienced potato who has inherited less than one percent of a weapon shop. Despite the odds, your shady business partner is more than willing to let you run day-to-day operations. This is where you – as the player – come in. It’s your job to build the business from ground-up to make it the most famous potato weapon shop of all-time.
With the help of a couple of ‘potato smiths’ who are ready to forge weapons and sell them to heroes, your responsibility is to micro-manage the business by dishing out a bunch of commands. Embracing the daily grind is the first step to success. With more than 70 potato heroes to sell to and around 200 weapons to forge, most of your time will be spent gathering supplies, crafting and then selling to your clientele for fame and cash (known as $tarch). Your business can be expanded across 20 different areas over time and there are 30 different blacksmiths that can be managed. There are even 20 legendary pop culture heroes to discover and a potato dog to adopt – which fits nicely with the overall humour of the game, as excessive as the puns may be at times.
The more time you invest in the business, the more opportunities pop-up. The game expands upon its foundations implementing more complicated management tasks that will put your business at risk if you don’t balance your finances correctly. Like the majority of other weapon shop games, whatever you do comes at a price. This could be in the form of a monetary transaction, or even at the expense of your business reputation. If you do fail to keep an eye on your funds, expect a visit from the weapon shop guild who are happy reimburse you a few times over before eventually shutting the shop.
Each potato smith has a salary and for items to be made you must assign one of them to travel to other areas within the potato world and purchase specific crafting supplies. The weapons range from anything you would want to equip a hero within a traditional role-playing game. These can be swords, bows and even axes. Every time a weapon is forged you must name it. This gives you a personal connection and a sense of control over the business, which you must also name at the start of the game. As you go, you’ll be required to expand your shop in order to craft bigger and better weapons, and so you can house more blacksmith.
The depth lies within the forging, selling, buying, and research system. How you build your fame and fortunes of your business from here is up to you. Every hero and potato smith has levels attached to them, which in return benefit your business and reputation. Every time you send out a blacksmith to sell weapons, there’ll be a range of heroes who will offer a certain amount of coin. For the sake of your shop’s fame, it’s important to assign the right weapon to the right hero so they can reach their maximum level. If you’re out for a quick cash grab, though, you can always take a risk and sell a particular weapon to a potato that doesn’t necessarily specialise in a certain area – for example, giving a fighter a bow instead of an axe. Each customer has specific needs, with each weapon catering to different primary skills. Different types of blacksmiths can also boost weapons in certain areas including attack, speed, and accuracy. Sales may also impact how your employees operate, with effects that change their performance for brief periods of time.
Beyond the daily routines are a bunch of objectives you can fulfil like buying a number of materials and crafting supplies or selling a particular weapon to a specific customer. There are also timed tasks where you must craft weapons with unique stats and the ability to search the world for relics and enchantments. All of this adds some excitement to the job. In addition to this are randomised encounters with customers who will enter your shop and request certain items for a large amount of cash. It’s in your best interest to sort these individuals out as soon as possible. Regardless of how exactly you do decide to grow the business, there’s definitely a noticeable rhythm to the daily happenings, with plenty of unexpected challenges to overcome along the way.
What undoes Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! is how poorly it’s been adapted to the Switch. While it performs reasonably well, it feels slightly inferior to existing iterations due to the clunky and confusing user interface. It doesn’t feel compatible with the Joy-Cons and even with the touchscreen, it can be difficult to move about menus. Speaking of which, the menus take up too much space on the screen, and if you’re playing in handheld mode the text and stats can look incredibly small at times. The tutorial isn’t exactly user-friendly, either. It sort of bombards you with a stack of text and information about how to run the shop all in one go, and continues to do so for a prolonged period of time. Despite how simple the day-to-day operations actually are, this alone may deter newcomers.
In saying this, there is some welcomed quality of life features such as the ability to fast forward and pause time – making the title great for quick sessions when you’re out and about or only have so much time to spare. A bonus themed adventure titled ‘Spud Tales: Journey To Olympus’ has also been thrown in. One other aspect that can be commended is the music composed by the legendary Kimura Masahiko, who worked on the original score for the Castlevania series. The music throughout the game provides a relaxing vibe and goes well with the cartoon graphics.
Conclusion
Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! isn’t anything we haven’t already seen before. Forging and selling weapons is fun once you get into the rhythm of it, and there’s plenty within the potato world to work towards. This is a game that can be played for a few minutes or hours per day, depending on how much you enjoy the genre. What’s frustrating is how this title has been adapted to the Switch. It’s got a clunky user interface that doesn’t really feel compatible with the Joy-Cons and even if you opt with the system by itself as a touchpad it still feels difficult to complete the most basic of tasks. All up, this makes it the hardest version of the game to play. Overlooking these problems, it’s still worth checking out if you’re looking for a game of this type and one with plenty of humour – it’s just far from spud-tacular.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-14-2018, 02:35 AM - Forum: Minecraft
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Minecraft 1.13 Pre-Release 8
We’re now on pre-release 8 and we expect there to be a couple of more pre-releases before the full release. That said, unless any major show stopper pops up after the upcoming pre-releases, we aim to release Update Aquatic for Minecraft: Java Edition on Wednesday, July 18th.
A full changelog for this Pre-Release can be found on Minecraft.net.
Added dead coral fans
Changed which blocks show dripping liquids
Team names & objective names are now text components, not raw strings
More bugfixes!
FIXED BUGS IN 1.13-PRE8
MC-133325 – Double chests becoming invisible or separating with redstone
MC-133277 – Texts sometimes error if the language is Chinese
MC-133233 – Sticky pistons do not update blocks they cannot pull
MC-133216 – Water dripping from transparent blocks
To get pre-releases, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).
Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.
Pre-releases can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.
Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!
