The good times keep rolling with lucky batch number three of the UI Update. Continuing from Part 2, this update brings changes to some of the game’s oldest and most untouched interfaces.
But as usual for these, it’s never just interfaces updates! Melee weapons have gotten faster, fairer and more fun. Selection of gamemakers is improved, too.
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nowThe Goods
- 🟢 New: The Help window is modernized and updated! The content is revised for accuracy and switching tabs is easier.
- Like the News window, you are told how to reopen the window once it is closed for the first time. Just in case you click through it too easily.
- Players who are new to the Hunger Games are shown this window automatically instead of News.
- FYI, this isn’t a replacement for a complete first-time player experience. This is a small improvement before better improvements can be made.
- 🟢 New: The Reaping pop-up is modernized! Re-coded animations run super-smoothly and without acting strangely in some situations.
- 🟢 New: Hide button at the bottom right. Closes the interface immediately, in case you need your screen space back.
- 🟢 New: The Game Menu (bottom left) is redesigned with icons to help you find what you’re looking for faster.
- 🟢 New: The Mouseover text interface (the level/rank text on tributes) is modernized and redesigned with a short animation.
- 🟠Fix: Accessories no longer block mouse-over text.
- 🟢 New: The Spectate feature now displays a tribute’s level, rank and Career status.
- 🟢 New: UI now goes all the way up to the top of the window, beyond where Roblox’s top bar used to be. Players with small screens will have a little more space to work with.
Developer Note: I keep using this word “modernize” in these patch notes, but I’ve yet to explain in detail what it means. When a feature gets modernized like the ones above, it is re-made from scratch to perform more efficiently, be more resilient to bugs, make it more user-friendly, and more compatible with new features. At some point, I’d like to talk more about the nitty-gritty (the finer implementation details) in another post on this blog.
Melee Weapons
These changes are focused on making melee weapons more responsive, fairer and just a little nicer to use for players with not-great latency. It also addresses longstanding issues where latency could give you an advantage in some cases.
- 🟢 New: Melee weapons (swords, clubs, battleaxe, trident) have been re-coded from scratch. They work exactly the same, except for the following changes.
- 🟢 New: Melee weapon attacks (slashing, lunging) are now simulated locally, so they feel much more responsive.
- 🟡 Change: Melee weapons will deal damage at most once per click (although, not necessarily once per swing). Additionally, damage will not be dealt unless the weapon was swung somewhat recently.
- 🟠Fix: Melee weapons now enforce a reasonable maximum distance at which they will deal damage. Hits by high-latency melee weapon wielders may be ignored in certain cases.
- 🟡 Change: The slash sound effect no longer has a short (0.45s) silence at the beginning. This causes it to play quicker, which makes the sword feel more snappy.
miscellaneous
- 🟡 Change: A Gamemaker is selected after the 14th, 21st and 24th tributes are reaped (instead of after the 7th, 14th and 21st). You must now be at least level 5 to be chosen as a gamemaker.
- 🟡 Change: Once a Victor is declared, that tribute is fully healed (health, hunger, thirst) instead of being reset.
- 🔴 Removed: Since the Victor is no longer reset (killed), whoever they may have been fighting will no longer receive kill credit, and therefore will no longer get XP for a kill they did not technically earn.
- 🟡 Change: You now face the center of the Arena when you are spawned in.
- 🟠Fix: The Rich Combat system has been re-coded from scratch. It works exactly the same, minus a memory leak that caused old servers to perform poorly.
- 🔴 Removed: Auto-saving is now disabled. Auto-saving used to occur every minute, but this is no longer necessary and was starting to cause issues. Don’t worry, your game data is still saved when you leave just like normal.
- 🟠Fix: Implemented some temporary workarounds which should fix certain instances of automatically-sized UI elements not resizing properly. These may be disabled in a future hotfix, ideally after Roblox have finished fiddling with its behavior. Pardon the dust!
what’s next
Making good with my promise of the additions in Part 2’s “What’s Next” is still top of the priority list: Settings, post-game Performance stats, improved Shop. Life may have threw a curve ball at me recently, but the hype train’s still chugging along for a more fun Hunger Games. One step at a time is all it takes. Be sure to check out the 2021 Roadmap if you haven’t yet.
To read about more updates than just this one, you can check out the Patch Notes. Alternatively, you can go learn How to Play if you’re new!
— Ozzypig
