Howdy partners, as you may guessed by now, FoF is like Covid19: seems like it may be gone forever one day... and the next is surprising you with a new feature ːsteamhappyː I'll talk today about some recent updates that bring an almost-new playarea and some fancy respawn system for Shootout modes.
FOF_NEST
https://youtu.be/OQepn2iMmR4
We had a small version of this map, recreated as a nocturnal, 12 slots level from a former version originally made by Resi. There was some community interest in having some more night maps, so I decided to create a full version that adds undergrounds, a large elevator and a better crafted flow among other things. Hope you enjoy it.
Other maps also received small updates to improve navigation, respawn room, aesthetics or layout tweaks. The list may include: revenge, overtop, depot and impact. Be sure to check them out!
ONCE UPON A TIME, RESPAWNING IN THE WEST
Respawns in FoF never resulted easy for anyone, except for the cheeky bastards that may have exploited the system to farm frags. I know who you are ːsteamfacepalmː This ain't a goddam joke, people should not only die in peace but respawn in peace too!
In my defence, FoF maps are too intricate and tight packed to just slap a "normal" respawn system and call it a day, so the old system tried really hard but it never came to the state that something so important should get. It also was performance hungry, as it involved many calculations to figure out walking distances. With all those issues in mind a better replacement wasn't that easy, so things kept going... until now.
The new system pre-generates such walk-based calculations so they aren't executed realtime, it's much lighter for servers out there. It controls all respawn points in real-time though, so this way it knows how dangerous is each respawn area and how much benefit could a player obtain from starting there (for instance: a near crate or being into a highly travelled area). There are several key gameplay related advantages from this approach:
almost instant
since the game already knows which spots are free at any time
more fair
as the system has memory it tries to even out advantages or disadvantages between each players' respawns. Check end game console stats to know such details.
less repetitive
saves you from visiting the same locations because it tracks all pasts respawns for each player and weights them along other variables.
However, the new system requires some fine-tuning to correct certain issues that may arise after the automatic pre-generation phase, so if you notice enemies too close from your respawn point make a capture and post it on our boards. Also check this respawn bug catching contest out!