Over the past two weeks, there have been some experimental and incremental PTR updates. Playable in today's patch, these are the recent highlights:
Performance/FPS has been improved by about 30%.
We've optimized some expensive systems that were scaling poorly with large unit counts, and are better limiting updates from off-screen components and calculations. So FPS better reflects what's actively on screen and is improved overall into the late game.
Co-op has been un-frozen and now inherits the latest game updates and improvements.
There are still some mode-specific overrides for us to correct, so it needs your battle testing to help us iron things out.
Co-op maps are now available in the map editor to modify and create your own scenarios.
Really nice QOL improvements to ability casting responsiveness and reliability.
On the left, Hexens get pushed around by the army, delay their casts, and one input gets canceled. On the right, Hexens take pathing priority momentarily in order to cast, so their abilities fire immediately and reliably.
After issuing a command, many abilities on approach now won't be interrupted by move/attack inputs unless all units in selection match, aka homogenous interruption. So controlling casters within a large army is easier.
Prepare, Cast and channel stages of all abiltiies have been set to uninterruptible to avoid accidental cancels. Pressing stop in a homogenous selection will still force a cancel if desired.
Atlas & Hedgehog Targeted Deployment and Reposition are now uninterruptible by normal move/attack commands while they're en-route, making it easier to set 'em and forget 'em. They also now display their hologram on the target location.
Archangel is now un-pushable by Magmadon Trample while Resilient in Avatar form.
Shift-queueing Meteor Slam no longer accidentally clears the ability splat indicator from under your mouse.
ECONOMY
Celestial luminite harvest rates have been adjusted to match the 10/10 saturation of Vanguard and Infernal.
Collection Array harvest period changed reduced from 1.7 seconds to 1.515 seconds
Recharge time for Prisms increased from 20 seconds to 21 seconds
PRODUCTION
All HQ's and structures that use charges to produce units have had their queue slots reduced from 5 slots, to 1 slot
All units produced by charges have had their build time reduced from 0.2 seconds to 0.0 seconds
STORMGATE REWARDS
Darkthrone reward has received a QoL improvement.
The 3 free workers provided from Darkthrone will now rally to whatever the placed HQ has decided to set its rally to. This will prefer Luminite over Therium for resources within nearby proximity of the newly spawned HQ.
INFERNAL Fiends
Health increased from 60 to 75
Damage reduced from 10 to 8
CELESTIAL Collection Array
Celestial luminite harvest rates have been adjusted to match the 10/10 saturation of Vanguard and Infernal.
Collection Array harvest period changed reduced from 1.7 seconds to 1.515 seconds
Prism
Recharge time has been increased from 20 seconds to 21 seconds
Argents
Cost increased from 100 luminite to 125 luminite
Build time increased from 24 seconds to 28 seconds
Heavenstep upgrade increases the max health from 145 to 165
Heavenstep upgrade increases the energy restored from Harmonic Exchange from 1.0 to 1.5
Longshot Module upgrade further increases the energy restored from Harmonic Exchange from 1.5 to 2.0
Carnivex
Base movement speed increased from 5.5 to 6.0
Weapon attacks and Swipe apply a 30% movement speed slow for 3 seconds
Energizer Node
Energy restoration increased from 2/sec to 3/sec
Soon, the PTR branch will be used to test our standalone offline migration, and this means matchmaking won't be available on PTR.
Our game server orchestration partner, Hathora, has been purchased by an AI company, and they are winding down their service at the end of April. This will create a planned outage for Stormgate's multiplayer modes.
Stormgate will be patched so that it can be played offline, but online modes will not be available at that point.
We hope to restore online play in a future patch, but this work will be dependent on Frost Giant finding a partner to support ongoing operations.
We're very grateful to our community of players, and we will post another update as more information is available, including more info about how offline mode works, and whether we get any patches out before the server wind down.