Springtime Bonus Update!

✨Major changes and improvements

• Keyboard Shortcuts
  • When playing on PC, you can use use keyboard number keys to quickly select plays. This was a highly-requested feature!
  • Note that we did look into implementing keyboard shortcuts for other selections such as picking attack targets, despite nobody asking for that. We found that there was no good implementation of this due to the various camera angles and arrangements Beasties can be in during matches...

• Different locations for replays and online matches
  • When viewing a replay, or playing a match online, you can appear to be in different locations! This was a highly-requested feature!
  • Online locations are based on where your character is standing when you open SportNet
  • During Bigmoon Bashes, games are always held outside so you can clearly see the Bigmoon.

• Simplified Beastie stat training
  • Previously, each bonus added to a Beastie's stat was split into 4 sub-points which they could gain from allies or from items. For each 4 points, they got 1 "bonus."
  • We've hidden these "sub-points" so that now you only see the current total bonus added to each stat. Ally training is now described as a % chance of adding a bonus to the ally, rather than as a precise sub-point addition.
  • Under the hood, (almost) nothing has changed! There are hidden sub-points accrued from training which add up to visible bonusses over time, and nothing is based on random chance. Mainly this change lets us greatly simplify the UI and explanations of stat training so it doesn't seem any more complex than it really is.
  • The one meaningful under-the-hood change is that when new stat training is added, if the Beastie's sub-points are maxxed out but not evenly distributed into visible "bonus" points, those now-invisible "junk" points will be silently removed to make room. This removes the frustration of Beasties not getting the full value of their training points if they weren't allocated into perfect groups of 4.

• Beastie Metamorph Data in Beastiepedia
  • When viewing a Beastie's entry, if they can Metamorph and their next form has also been fully researched, the Beastiepedia will detail the conditions you need to fulfill to make them Metamorph. This was a highly-requested feature!
  • Note that we don't want this entry to "spoil" some surprises for players, hence why it only reveals the data when the player has already discovered the next form. This feature is meant mostly as a convenience for late/post-game players that want to train additional Beasties
  • Certain hints have not yet been localized and will appear differently if the game is set to a language other than English.

• Beastie Poses in Beastiepedia (In English only)
• Preset Beastie tags (In English only)
  • When assigning tags to your Beasties, any previously used tags can be selected from a dropdown menu, so you don't have to re-type the same tag for each Beastie.

• Better placement of Jack rival encounters (In English only)
  • Because of the game's open-ended structure, it was really common for players to get very far in the story without encountering Jack as often as we intended
  • We've now added more encounter locations and created more variations so that these memorable story encounters aren't missed as often

• Since we only update localization for Milestone updates, please excuse us for holding some features back & for others being available only in English. More developments are on the way!

🌕 Upcoming Bash

BIGMOON BASH: SPRECKOMORPH SHOWDOWN!

A Bigmoon Bash is coming this weekend! This one is a contest between the Spreckomorphs!

🔧 Balance Changes

👹 Beasties

• Diggum, Duggout
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Whistle
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Distraction
    (... this just undoes one of the buffs we gave Diggum in the previous Milestone. We're thrilled to see Diggum doing so well, but all their new tools together made them a little too easy to use into too many different teams.)

🚧Other Fixes and Changes

• Made it possible to highlight icons for clothing shops, gyms and other minor locations when zoomed in on the map screen
• In the match results screen, the opponent's team title is now displayed (if they have one)
• Added 1365x768 resolution option, by request
• Fixed issue with no team appearing when using a "Random" team to test your Rank Defender
• Fixed issues with particle sizes on certain effects (Rowdy Beastie steam, Jack jet smoke)
• Made it so Away Teams appear with greater frequency after defeating all ranked bosses, even if you haven't yet finished the story (as a way to help players grind for the end bosses)
• Fixed a text issue in the Weepy tutorial
• Added a missing symbol used in Spanish translations
• Fix for online games sometimes showing results twice and then locking menu input when players are mashing ESC
• Made it so pressing Control+V in a fullscreen text entry menu should paste in text
• Added missing Log messages for TOUGHness preventing redirection
• Fixed some broken colliders particularly in the Academy tower
• Fixed an issue where Beasties on the player's current Away Team wouldn't be "cleaned up" on file load, preventing adjustments due to balance patches or other fixes being applied
• Adjusted position of interactable objects in Jasper Mines, to avoid characters getting stuck in walls
• More stable and debug-friendly tracking of post-game rematch dates (fixing bugs to do with characters thinking you've already rematched them, or making them easier for us to debug if they do happen)
• Improved optimization on certain props in the city area
• Tweaked the priority of certain settings in the game's automatic quality settings routine on first startup
• Fixed a physics interaction that caused beasties to stick together and slowly float away diagonally
• Adjusted UI layout for the final boss match in Detail View
• Fixed Raymond's body being transparent when appearing in the crowd at Crown Stadium
• Fixed more typos

These fixes + changes were added quietly in updates over the last month, and are not new, but haven't yet been noted:

• Added Spanish Beastie names and nicknames to the internal whitelist
• Certain level geometry that can be visible from the bottom now has visible solid geometry on its underside
• When queuing for matches during Bigmoon Bashes, your time spent waiting in the queue is now displayed
• Fixed issues with AI when using a Moist Beastie
• Minor improvement to accuracy when using an analog stick to select Beasties during matches
• Removed an erroneous pop-up when Sweep is used in Rally