Boring Man v2.0.0 beta14 is now available: New weapons, gamemodes, features

Hey. This update was a wild one. I think it contains some of my best programming. Like everyone else, I've been stuck at home avoiding the pandemic, so I decided to take advantage and overhaul a lot of the game's code. From what I saw from testing, this overhaul has improved performance quite a bit, but I'll suppose I'll hear what the jury says.

Last weekend, I posted about the new mutators system being one of the overhauls, becoming very easy to work with when I want to add new mutators and becoming immensely powerful in the console command system.

Before I get started I wanted to announce that this version is now the default launch option, and the old version has been moved to another branch. You can find the instructions to switch in the 1.2.7.7 tech FAQ.

It's a long one, so lets get started.

New Weapon: Nitrogen Mine (Nitrogen Grenade)

The Nitrogen Grenade was probably one of the least used grenades in the old version, so it has been totally reworked. It is now a land mine that freezes enemies on detonation, and frozen enemies will take x2 damage.

Nitrogen Mines can stick to any surface, and can also stick to players and drones. Players can shake off Nitrogen Mines before they explode by rolling or double jumping with no Jetpack. Drones are immune to being frozen, but will still be destroyed if stuck by a Nitrogen Mine and it explodes.

If a frozen enemy manages to kill themselves somehow, you should get the kill for it as long as there wasn't a previous attacker before you. If a teammate kills an enemy you froze, then you should be able to get the assist.

New Weapon: Muleslapper Sentry (Muleslapper Grenade)

The Muleslapper grenade in the old version was also somewhat underpowered by design, so it too has had a total rework. The Muleslapper sentry, when deployed, will menacingly float around the map and shoot down most explosive projectiles that come within its circle.

The sentry will also attack enemies and drones. The sentry can be shot down, but when destroyed it will 'retaliate' against its attacker with an overcharge blast similar to the Muleslapper's alt-fire. This should make avoiding the sentry more appealing then destroying it, and should hopefully be effective against camping. If a sentry's retaliation against you kills the owner, you will get the kill for it.

New Weapon: Light Rockets

The Light Rockets have been added. The Light Rockets function the same as the old version, but have been given a brand new alt-fire, the Flare. When firing a Flare, it will launch a short distance and slowly float down. When any rockets come near the flare, their trajectory will become altered by the Flare's 'orbit'. Flares can also stick to players, making them dangerously attractive to rockets. You can shake off the flares by double jumping or rolling, similar to the Nitrogen Mine.

I'm hoping players will practice with flares and start doing some cool shit with them. I'm not quite sure if its possible, but if you fire a flare and an enemy's rocket orbits around and kills them, you should get the kill for it. The flare should also appear in the kill feed when a rocket you fire was influenced by a flare you launched.

An additional new little buff is The Light Rockets will now continue to reload when you put it away. You can even still see the fancy rocket load animation when put away.

New Weapon: Scoped Rifle

The Scoped Rifle is here, and pretty much functions the same.

It's difference from other sniper weapons is it does not come with a laser sight, and can still only zoom with 1 level. It is not as long range as well, and has gravity drop on its bullets like other non-sniper guns.

New Weapon: Burst Pistol

The Burst Pistol is a pistol that fires 3 bullets at once. It has retained its same stats, but its dual-wieldable like other pistols.

A very simple weapon, not much else was changed about it.

New Weapon: Fire Uzi

The Fire Uzi is back, its a weapon that features ammunition that leaves behind fire where you shoot.

It drops 'mini-fire' which does less damage and has a smaller hitbox. The Fire Uzi can also be dual-wielded.

New Weapon: Dynamite

Here's the Dynamite. The Dynamite is a deadly explosive that does a lot of damage, but does not explode on impact like other grenades, and has a long fuse time. The Dynamite received some neat visual effects, like being able to see the fuse burn down before it explodes.

It can still be detonated early by other explosives, and it can now also detonate from touching fire as well. If you kill an enemy with their own dynamite by using fire or explosives, you should get the kill from it.

New Weapon: Potato Masher

The Potato Masher in the old version was pretty much a long range version of the Frag. It does not emit fragments like the Frag does in this version, but its ammo is 3 instead of 2. The Potato Masher can be thrown farther, but does not bounce when hitting a wall.

This can be seen mostly as a down-side, but there are situations where you don't want a grenade to bounce to kill an enemy, and the extra ammo along with long range will hopefully make it more appealing to use.

New Weapon: Tomahawk

The Tomahawk is back, and deadlier then ever. You can now headshot enemies with the Tomahawk, making them quite deadly even for overhealed players.

Tomahawks can be picked up when thrown. Not much else different about it.

New Weapon: Kunai

It's the cold steel Kunai! The Kunai's total ammo has been increased, and while you still throw 3 knives at once, if you have only 1 or 2 kunai ammo left then its smart enough to throw only 1 or 2. Kunai does not headshot like a lot of the other throwable weapons, and can't be recovered for ammo.

Similar to a bug that existed in the old version, Kunai will bounce off of a surface when struck at an angle. This bug is now a feature that you can predictable perform every time.

Note: The Tomahawk and the Kunai do not have skin support at this time since they use ammo similarly to grenades, keeping track of the skin for each and every Kunai/Tomahawk is a lot of effort, but maybe I'll think of a way to make it work down the line.

New Gamemodes: Weapons Deal and Take Over

The last two original game modes have been remade, and haven't really received much new content like some of the other game modes, but I will try to think of more things to do with them. These two game modes were probably the least popular in the old version, but I still like them and want to see what I can do to make them more fun.

Weapons Deal is a game mode similar to gun-game in Counter Strike, and there are some new settings you can use that let you customize the order of weapons players must work through to win. You can also pick different silly weapons to use as the final weapon needed to win the match, and even enable team functionality even though there can still only be 1 winner. There are other settings too, so go check it out.

In Take Over, teams will need to capture and defend a number of control points to earn points. The more players near a flag, the faster it will be capped. Some of the rules have been slightly changed to make things more exciting.

For example if your team has all flags captured on the map, the speed your team's score earns point is greatly increased which can make comebacks possible. There are also a couple new settings, such as setting the amount of flags to spawn on the map and whether the flags can randomly cycle their positions periodically.

I haven't had time this week to set up my Take Over and Weapons Deal servers, but hopefully they will be up later tonight.

New Survival objective: Bomb

I think the flag you need to defend in Survival has helped a lot making things a little more challenging, but being anchored to the flag evrery wave can get repetitive. So I'm going to try to introduce more 'objectives', some sort of major task needing to be completed to beat the wave.

The Survival bomb is a big scary bomb with a 3:00 timer. Your team will need to disarm it before time runs out or else... you know. Enemies will spawn infinitely while there is an armed bomb, so it should be defused as fast as possible.

Defusing a bomb the first time will also give XP, and the faster its defused the more XP you get. Flags will also grant more XP with the less cap progress they have. You can defuse bombs by touching it and pressing E (Action). As a note, the enemy amount still counts down during an active bomb, and stops granting money and XP once it goes under a certain number. So it's not viable to try to use the bomb to grind.

The bomb was fairly easy to make so I think its mostly done already besides testing. I think it would also be cool to try to recycle it as a PvP game mode, maybe some time in the future.

New Survival feature: Rare Vices

I would like to at least introduce a new rare type of vice, these 'super' vices are hard to find but very powerful. To give an idea of how rare, each vice will appear once, and only once, every 100 waves.

When I mean only once, I mean they are assigned to a specific chest on a specific wave, making it possible to miss it. Barkeep will never sell these vices, so you must find it in a chest. I can agree that this can make them depend on RNG too much.. I'm trying to think of a way to have players be able to know which wave or chest or both. If you have any ideas then feel free to post them.

Reworked Survival vices

A lot of vices have been reworked, some into completely new vices. Explaining what each one does would make this change log too big, so you should just check them out yourself! The focus of these reworks were to make vices more useful and fun. An issue with a lot of vices was relying on random chance to be effective, but I have merged a lot of the 'bad' vices into other vices and made up something new to replace them.

If it does have random chance then there is a new mechanic with some vices where it will 'upgrade' when you collect enough of them. The amount can depend on if its random chance reaches 100% but thats not always the case.

Survival Classic

Some players have mentioned they miss the mind numbing experience of Survival in 1.2.7.7, or simply don't like the flag/objectives, you can give the Survival Classic setting a whirl. It's focus is to change the rules so Survival no longer needs an objective, and the old version's rules align quite well with this.

• Like 1.2.7.7, you must survive until wave 350.
• Money can only be used to revive teammates, you can still revive yourself with antacids but its used automatically as a throwback to the old lives system.
• The economy is harsher

Other Survival changes

• Removed Sobering Up setting, instead you can now optionally Sober Up at the bar
• Survival can now be beaten by players, ending the current. There is now an "Endless" setting if you want to keep going.
• You now get a lot of XP for completing the last wave
• Enemies no longer drop weapons with max ammo everytime
• Players that just joined the server or joined from spectators must now wait for the current wave to be completed
• You can now set the difficulty of your bot teammates when cheats are enabled (Zombrains as well)
• Players can no longer heal enemies, as there was no purpose to do this except to grief

Dailies and triple XP events

Dailies have been added, they are a way to earn a big chunk of XP every day you log in. Each day a weapon is randomly selected and you are tasked with killing a number of enemies with that weapon. When completed, you will earn a boat-load of XP, and also contribute to the next triple XP event. Wait, what?

When players complete dailies, there is a global counter that goes up and when it reaches its goal then a triple XP event is activated which lasts about 3 days. The more dailies that are completed by the community, the more often triple XP events will happen.

The purpose of this is to get you to log in at least once a day, and get players to get others to log in to complete their dailies so everyone gets triple XP. You do not need to have cheats disable or be on a stock map to earn kills for your daily, you can earn them in any way you see fit.

Additional to dailies, when you log in once a day the game will also look in the Workshop and check your Workshop items for new votes. The more votes you get on your items, good or bad, then more XP you get. When you first launch beta14, you should get a chunk of XP as the game needs to catch up on the votes you've earned.

XP system rebalance

The XP system itself has been rebalanced to allow you to level up faster, especially if you don't have all the weapons unlocked. Hopefully new players should unlock weapons just as fast as the old version, even faster maybe. The max XP value required has been reduced, but that doesn't really allow you to level up faster because most XP gain is based on how much you need to level up. Really, I only reduced this number to show players that it was changed to be faster. Instead, the calculated proportion of your max XP that determines your XP gain has been increased, which is what will make you level up faster.

The 'time-based' XP (ex. 'You died!') has been reworked and now uses the time from my server to prevent exploitation. It's also a little tougher on idling, I won't reveal much but basically the best way to earn the most XP from time passing is to just play the game normally. Really, you should be leveling up fast enough now (1-3 times a day) so idling should no longer be needed.

New Team Deathmatch setting: Captain's Mode

Captain's Mode is a new experimental game setting for Team Deathmatch. In Captain's Mode, players are able to ban weapons before the match starts, for the entirety of that match. Each team is given an equal amount of weapons they are allowed to ban, defined by a server setting. Servers can enable Captain's Mode in Team Deathmatch's game settings.

It only works for TDM at the moment, but I would like to have it support at least the other competitive team game modes in the future. Captain's Mode is not very well tested because I just finished it yesterday, but I don't think there should be any big problems.

The goal of Captain's Mode is to take a little pressure off of the game for weapon balance and hopefully introduce a little more strategy depth. I'll explain some of its rules and features. When Captain's Mode starts, teams take turns selecting a weapon to ban. By default, a random teammate is selected for each turn, they have 30 seconds to ban a weapon, if you run out of time or disconnect, your team will 'abstain' and throw away their weapon ban turn.

I am aware of some possible issues but they only exist because I just made this setting just yesterday. I would like to give additional settings, such as only having 1 captain who is random or assigned manually, being able to make a list of weapons unbannable, etc. Just be aware its not finished yet.

New alt-fire for Bow: Fire Arrows

In the old version, fire arrows actually existed but I don't think they worked or maybe nobody noticed them. When you fire an arrow through fire made by the Molotov or something, the arrow would catch fire and spawn another fire where it was destroyed.

This was implemented into v2.0.0 a while ago, but now you can press alt-fire to light your arrows before firing them. Fire Arrows do more damage, but have much shorter range as they 'burn up'. They still drop fire when destroyed, and normal arrows can still light when passing through fire. You can still use alt-fire to cancel your shot, you only switch to fire arrows when you don't have an arrow drawn back.

New alt-fire for Sawn-off: Both barrels

Similar to the Double Barrel, its little brother can now fire both barrels. It still has low push back and doesn't do as much damage. Similar to the Revolver, the alt-fire cannot be used while dual-wielding.

New alt-fire for Grapplehook: Cancel shot

You can now cancel a grapplehook shot and make it reel back in early. Cancelled Grapplehook reels will also make them reload slightly faster

Weapon changes: Grenade Launcher

• The Grenade Launcher's projectile now needs about 200 milliseconds to arm before exploding on impact. It will arm immediately after bouncing off of any surface or enemy.
• When hitting an enemy before arming, it will smack them for a considerable amount of damage and fall to the ground. Enemies will still take splash damage if it falls to the ground and explodes in front of them.
• The Grenade Launcher's projectile speed is now a static, predictable amount. All projectiles in the game are given a random amount of speed, but this has been removed from the GL's projectile so it's easier to learn the new arm time requirement.
• The Grenade Launcher's projectile speed has been slightly increased, to make up for any speed it lost from losing the random amount. It should still be somewhat the same.

The GL is still a hot weapon, ironically enough the M79 in Soldat is pretty controversial as well. I do not want to take away the bite GL offers, so instead of nerfing any damage I'm trying to introduce new mechanics that make the 1-shot kill requiring more effort. I want to think of more solutions for other 1-shot kill weapons as well.

The Grenade Launcher projectile will arm right away after bouncing off of a surface in addition to enemies, so you can do stuff like 'dribble' the projectile off the ground and into your enemy. This should make the GL's ground game still deadly, while it's air game not so much.

Weapon changes: Grapplehook

• The Grapplehook can now attach to more objects, which includes players, drones, power ups, and more. It does not follow friendly fire or have an effect on others, so you can hook to anyone at any time.
• The Grapplehook continues to reload when put away, similar to Light Rockets
• Increased the Grapplehook’s projectile speed and range
• Increased the player pull speed for the Grapplehook
• Improved being able to perform 'grapple rolls' a little

Players have told me the Grapplehook isn't as useful in the new version which is odd because it follows the same stats and physics. I couldn't find the reason why in the old code, but in any case I have given it some new buffs and mechanics to make it more appealing to use and perhaps give competition to the new mobility monster that is the Skateboard.

Being able to hook to players and drones might make it too hard to make challenging Grapplehook climb maps (or break ones that already exist), so I also added a new console command called 'grappleplayers' which maps or server admins can use to disable being able to grapple to players.

Weapon changes: Flashbang

• Flashbanging skateboarding players will make them 'fall off', where they dismount and drop the Skateboard.
• Flashbanged players can no longer pick up items while flashbanged, and picking up medikits/ammoboxes is interrupted
• You can no longer catch your Boomerang while flashbanged
• Players controlling their Drone or defusing the bomb will be interrupted by Flashbangs

These new features for the Flashbang should make it a little more useful, and perhaps counter certain play styles. I would still like to have it 'interrupt' more actions and will add more if I think of anything or see any suggestions I like.

Weapon changes: EMP

• The Jetpack, Heal Rifle, Muleslapper and Railgun are 'broken' when struck by an EMP grenade like the Suicide Vest, they can be repaired by ammo boxes or resupply stations.
• EMP grenade blasts will now 'tamper' with CTF base equipment temporarily when near by, but not fully disable
• EMP grenade blasts will disable drones from a certain distance, similar to the base equipment.
• EMP grenade blasts will destroy Muleslapper Sentries and Nitrogen Mines from a certain distance without detonating them.
• EMP grenades will detonate when attacked by a Muleslapper Sentry

These changes should make the EMP more useful in neutralizing certain threats. Right now the EMP only breaks weapons that are 'electronic' and not really 100% for balance, but in the future this might allow me to buff some of the weapons it breaks. Base equipment and others can be tampered by EMP blasts through walls.

These new tamper effects can only be emitted from EMP blasts made by the grenade, so getting shocked from the Jagerbomb vice or Leapers will not tamper with your weapons and equipment. EMP blasts from grenades have a slightly different color.

Weapon changes: Boomerang

• The Boomerang can now pick up and carry items and weapons without the mutator, it has been polished up and works a lot better. The mutator for this has been removed.
• You can now get power ups from a distance when you throw the Boomerang at them, if its not currently carrying something.

This is a feature I always wanted with the Boomerang but didn't know how to go about it correctly. Thanks to the Drone, I was able to use its item carrying system in the Boomerang as well.

Weapon changes: Pump Action

• Increased the Pump Action's firing speed
• Reduced the Pump Action's weight

The Pump Action doesn't seem to be favorable right now, so I made some changes to make it a less 'heavy' weapon. This should hopefully make the Pump Action more satisfying to use.

Weapon changes: Sawn-off

• The Sawn-off will now reload both shells at once, unless you are dual-wielding
• Increased the Sawn-off's reload speed when not dual-wielding, but its the same when you are

The Sawn-off is kind of an awkward weapon to dual-wield, and I wanted to reflect that in its mechanics. Both shells being reloaded should also keep it as the rightful king as the fastest reloaded shotgun in the game.

Weapon changes: Grenades

• Heal grenades and Gas grenades are now effected by Triple Damage
• The projectiles from the Frag are now effected by Triple Damage
• Gas grenades will now bounce off of enemies instead of passing through them
• Heal grenades will now bounce off of anyone instead of passing through them (except Survival enemies)
• Increased Molotov's ammo by 1
• Grenades can now be thrown underwater, but not very far
• Players can now cancel throws by pressing Change Weapon
• Some grenades will now flash when they are about to explode. The effect will change depending on if the grenade will hurt you or not.

Misc weapon changes

• The Light SMG can now swap weapons faster then any other weapon
• You can now dual-wield the Handcannon without cheats enabled.
• The Heal Rifle is now effected by Triple Damage
• The Crossbow's poison is now effected by Triple Damage
• Fixed the Crossbow not being able to shoot it underwater like the old version
• Fire emitted from any weapon is now effected by Triple Damage
• All melee weapons are now usable underwater
• Any dual-wielded weapons when paired with the Compact Pistol or Uzi will no longer have accuracy or reloading penalties
• Magic's alt-fire shield has been increased in max size and lasts longer
• Magic will now explode when you have Triple Damage
• Drone's throw strength can now be controlled like when throwing other weapons

Player tech

• When mounting a ladder while rolling, half of the horizontal speed you had before mounting the ladder will be added to your momentum when leaping left or right off of the ladder. This will allow you to combine ladder rolling with other mobility options.
• Fixed slow rolls limiting your speed every frame instead of just once
• Fixed not doing a fat roll when crouch landing in the water, similar to the old version
• Fixed the rolling animation not pausing properly when mounting a ladder, similar to the old version
• Fixed grappling not being cancelled by double jumping, similar to the old version
• Fixed grappling not being cancelled by mounting a ladder, similar to the old version
• Fixed being able to move while grappling, similar to the old version

Weapon skin updates

• Added Blessed quality weapon skin set "Gameboy"
• Added Blessed quality weapon skin set "Hardened"
• Added Blessed quality weapon skin set "Lemonade"
• Added Boring quality weapon skin set "Subspace"
• You can now use Golden skins in the Workbench. Combining 2 of them will give you a gold ticket.
• You can now equip a second weapon skin on the Compact Pistol and Uzi. Might apply this to all dual-wield weapons in the future.
• When you unlock something new, a little icon will display in the weapons menu if you haven’t looked at it yet
• A little gold ticket icon will be on the menu instead of an annoying flash.
• You can now see the amount of usable weapon skins for each weapon while the workbench is open.

New mutators & cheats

Zombies
Corrupted weapons
Weapon Behavior (Rocket Madness moved here)
Infinite Money (Survival, Zombrains)
BORVID-19
Floor = Lava
Alcoholics Anonymous
Random Deaths

General changes

• Added really cool new decals system that creates blood splatter, scorch marks, etc. You can turn this off in the Video menu by setting ‘Decals’ to 0 to increase performance.
• The menu now uses backgrounds from random maps found on your device, which maps to use can be changed in General settings
• Added a zoom feature and free camera mode while spectating
• You can no longer dupe pistols in Zombrains by dying or rejoining before the match starts
• Capping the TDM flag now takes 15 seconds with 1 player instead 20. The old version was 10 seconds.
• Mutators system has been improved
• Added the ability to reset your Shooting Range time in the pause menu
• Added a HUD settings menu with a bunch of new HUD features
• Added Video setting that disables the Drone's film grain
• The killfeed should now display drone kills
• Made improvements to the command console window
• Improved visual effects for projectiles sticking to players like arrows, getting ammo + health, and more
• Improved Triple Damage visual effects, weapons that are not affected by triple damage no longer have an effect
• Weapons on the ground with little to no ammo will have a grayed out red arrow and say (Empty) when picking up
• Added new key bind: Show HUD
• Added new key bind: Camera Mode
• “Climb Up/Down” will now move the Drone up and down. Helps with controller support.
• Added options letting you clear muted or banned players
• Weapon ban menu is now similar to the map list, you can select/deselect multiple items by holding Shift. You can deselect all items by right-clicking and a Clear button has been added
• Pressing ESC key in the menu will go back to a previous menu, and if the Back option is off-screen then a little Back button appears in its place

15 new console commands

 setmutatorplayer
mutatorsetting
reloadmutators
resetmutatorsplayer
listmutators
freeze
thaw
setbotaimode
grappleplayers
playersound
spawnvice
givevice
allvice
detonatebomb
showhud
showplayerinfo (replaced 'playerinfo')

Map editor changes

• Added “Decal Depth” setting to the Map tab in the map editor, which sets the depth where decals will appear on your map
• Added “Show Collision” and "Grappling Players" flag settings to map editor, which run those commands when your map loads.
• Added “Take Over Flag Spawns” to the map editor
• Renamed “Survival Flag” to “Survival Objective” in map editor

Bug fixes

• Fixed the missing ladder in Oil Rig
• Fixed spike traps not disabling when Hazards is turned off
• Fixed Climb Game Settings menu being incomplete
• Fixed being able to dodge healing from the Heal Rifle
• Fixed weapon skin authors unlocking their own weapon skin, which essentially wastes the unlock
• Fixed Keymaster’s alt-fire ammunition not working with the Stout vice in some instances
• Fixed the Stout vice not applying to weapons retrieved from weapon printers
• Fixed weapon skin settings not applying when in between respawns
• Fixed some team-specific mutators/cheats not being overidden by the global setting
• Fixed reload sounds being played twice for client players in some cases
• Fixed taking control of your drone not interrupting some actions
• Fixed some collision issues when using the polygon snapping feature in the map editor
• Fixed being able to use Force Loadout in Survival when Hardcore is enabled
• Fixed the Heal Rifle weapon printer being deactivated on Oil Rig
• Fixed “You killed” messages not appearing sometimes
• Fixed the missing ammo box on the shooting range
• Explosions from explosive barrels now apply triple damage and vice damage if applicable
• Fixed grapplehooks disconnecting from walls when they reach their max distance on the same frame
• Fixed the Survival economy not crashing when the Bar is disabled or not available on the map
• Fixed the loadout menu being opened twice at the same time in some cases
• Fixed vices bought from the bar spawning inside walls
• Fixed sharks being deleted on TDM round restarts
• Fixed the Keymaster’s alt-fire ammo showing incorrectly when Infinite Ammo is enabled
• Fixed the Musket damage fall off not stopping at 50
• Fixed roll cancels negating ladder rolling in some cases
• Fixed the lever action damage falloff when hitting non-player objects

https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/?snr=1_16_16_creator_1059&curator_clanid=7938408
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_16_16_creator_1059&curator_clanid=7938408
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_16_16_creator_1059&curator_clanid=7938408

Download beta14 dedicated server (17.4MB)