Alpha Build 14

Released: 21st March 2018

Link: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mordhau/announcements/detail/1666769140374781436

It's been a while! In fact more than two months.

A lot has happened in this draught of updates and there were various reasons why we couldn't release some of the new features right away in smaller patches.
Mordhau is a game that consists of many different small systems and they all need to run in sync like a well oiled machine. If just one of its "gears" changes a little bit, all of the others have to be tweaked as well, resulting in a lot of headaches for us.
Couple that with some deeper refactoring of some old code, this can become a lenghty but very needed process.

That said we're very happy with the current state of the melee combat, and thus will finally shift more of our focus towards content creation. Granted we will still tweak things here and there as needed, especially since there's been a lot of drastic changes in this patch.

We've also heard your pleas for more transparency and will try to adhere to it, thus we're releasing a small roadmap to give you a rough idea on where the game is headed in the next few weeks and months until beta and release. We'll also shift more of our communication back to the forums so all info can be gathered and archived in one place instead of having to catch glimpses and little tidbits on Discord or Reddit.

To sum things up, here's a list of the biggest changes and improvements in Patch #14:

Upgraded the engine, bringing a vast array of improvements in visual quality as well as optimization and significantly improved load times.

Fixed long running and infuriating bugs like getting locked out of spawning, or crashes caused by alt-tabbing during loading screens.

Polished a lot of animations and visual effects.

Tweaked mechanics, balance and timings to create a more unique feel to our arsenal as well as more defined roles.

Reworked lighting and post processing to ensure better readability while retaining a high dynamic range and fidelity.

Netcode improvements to deliver a smoother experience on a wider ping range than before.

A lot of groundwork for the main gamemode Frontline, as well as ranged weaponry, support equipment and vehicles.

Some new weapons and gear, who would've thought?

 **Gameplay & Mechanics**

* Maximum strike release is now 550ms, reducing all 575ms strike releases by 25ms - this will reduce “floaty” look of certain drags
* Reduced clash angle down to 60 which will get rid of the remaining backclashes
* Reduced successful parry horizontal angle down to 60
* All weapons now have slightly more lax turncap
* Flinch duration increased by 50ms
* Increased speed of health regen slightly (after starting to regen)
* Increased speed of stamina regen slightly (after starting to regen)
* Active parry now enabled in full early release
* Active parry now uses the same angles as a regular parry (this mechanic will receive more changes in future patches)
* Morph window increased 25ms
* Strike Chamber window reduced 25ms
* Minimum windup time before morph reduced to 50ms - this means that you can now do fast morphs or late morphs depending when you input
* Feints now have a set lockout of 350ms, removing dynamic feint lockout - this will make punishment more consistent, while still allowing chamber baits in certain cases. Riposte and combo feints have a lockout of 375ms
* Parry recovery reduced 25ms - this means that missing on purpose and into combos is nerfed, while double parry effectiveness is the same against feints due to lockout reduction
* Parry window reduced 25ms
* Parrying leg hits is now very slightly easier
* Parry/block will now trigger if you keep holding down the block button (e.g. hold it until recovery passes and it will automatically block/parry again) - this should fix all of the input bugs such as not being able to parry in flinch in certain cases
* Removed extra turncap on strikes when turning too much - no longer needed due to glancing blow
* Removed Chamber morph speed boost - this will remove the insta hits that came from this move, and allow you to use this to drag
* Removed hit stop from kills
* Increased stamina gain on disarm to 40
* Reduced Bubble size slightly
* Increased global movement speed slightly
* Increased partial sprint and max sprint modifiers
* Ground friction reduced to 6, will make movement slightly more weighty and less jumpy
* Lunge is now a flat value and does not scale with lighter armors anymore. Lunge is drastically reduced overall as a result.
* T0 & T1 armor now has slightly faster sprint acceleration (T0 now 1/1/0.35, T1 0.95/0.95/0.325)
* Jump is now momentum based, which means you can no longer move around in air
* Reduced jump stamina cost to 11
* Knockback ground friction increased to 4, will make everything involving knockback a bit more snappy and less slidy
* Added knockback for kick against teammates
* Increased parry knockback
* Increased clashing knockback slightly
* Reduced global flinch knockback
* Teamdamage is now 50%
* Hit recovery is now always 300ms, making it a lot slower than combo in certain cases
* Miss recovery is now always 800ms, making misses without combo easier to punish
* Kicking during an attack in windup but outside the morph window will now feint the attack and perform a kick (feint-to-kick). This is merely an input convenience since kicks don't have feint attack lockouts.
* Morphing out of kick is no longer possible, because it messes with lockouts too much and is unnecessary anyway
* Disabled feint-to-kick when you're already in a kick
* Shields can no longer attack in recovery unless it's a successful one like parries - this fixes shields being able to hold riposte
* Shields now regularly attack out of block up to 500ms after riposte window, but only if block button is no longer held. If button is held, it will prequeue a riposte for the next incoming blow. - This will allow you to hold block and constantly try to riposte without the shield being lowered due to a regular attack.
* Shield lower delay is now the same as parry recovery
* Shields now have a much stricter block turncap
* Shield turncap is determined by shield size, bigger shields have more strict block turncaps
* Added Estoc
* Added Maul - throw animations are placeholder
* Added Smokepot - can extinguish fire
* Added Firepot
* Added Throwing axes
* Added Throwing knives
* Added Rocks
* Added Wooden Mallet & Blacksmith Repair Hammer - these can be used to repair vehicles, can also be used to fight with, although they are weak in combat

 **Weapon & Equipment Balance**

* Leg damage adjustment - naked legs now take significantly more damage, plate legs take less in some cases. Taking naked legs is a lot more punishing compared to light armor legs
* Increased overall damage against bare head, more weapons will now oneshot bare heads.
* Global blunt damage has been adjusted to be more flat, this means that blunt weapons keep their great raw damage against armor, but do almost the same damage to lighter armors. For example, if it takes 3 hits to kill plate armor to the torso, it will take 3 hits to kill light armor to the torso with only very slightly more damage, which means that using a cutting weapon against lighter armors is much better now. Some exceptions are in place, for headshots from eveningstar and maul.
* All blunt attacks now have hit stop - this is an experimental change. Hit stop cancels release, so follow up attacks are faster, but you can not hit multiple people with one swing.
* Combos are now faster across the board, swords having the fastest combos & blunts having the slowest combos. Stab combos are generally slightly slower than strike combos.
* Targe shield point cost reduced by 1
* Targe shield stamina negation reduced by 1
* Targe shield now limited to partial sprint while holding block
* Heater shield now limited to walk while holding block
* Heater shield stamina negation reduced by 1
* Kite shield point cost increased by 1
* Kite shield stamina negation reduced by 1
* Shield block angles are nerfed and more in line with their model, which means that targe has the smallest block angles, while kite shield has the biggest block angles.
* Shortspear point cost increased by 1
* Shortspear stab release reduced by 25ms
* Shortspear reduced raw damage vs plate slightly
* Warhammer Point cost reduced by 1
* Warhammer main mode reworked, is now a consistent 3HTK weapon without the extra headshot damage, alt mode the same as before
* Arming sword stab windup reduced 25ms
* Dagger windups reduced 25ms
* Mace strike windup 25ms increased, strike release 50ms reduced
* Mace strike damage against plate armor increased, increased miss cost by 1 (2HTK)
* Fixed greatsword & zweihander stab damage, Zweihander stab now does more damage than greatsword stab
* Greatsword stab damage vs medium torso increased (2HTK)
* Longsword strike damage vs plate armor increased slightly (3HTK)
* Longsword alt mode Mordhau strike damage vs plate armor increased (2HTK with headshot)
* Messer stab damage reduced overall
* Messer strike damage vs medium torso increased (2HTK)
* Rapier raw damage increased slightly
* Battle Axe raw damage decreased slightly
* Quarterstaff windups 25ms faster
* Poleaxe main mode strike damage vs plate armor increased (3HTK), alt mode strike raw damage increased
* Poleaxe stab damage vs medium torso armor increased (2HTK)
* Bardiche point cost increased to 8
* Bardiche strike damage vs medium torso armor increased (2HTK)
* Bardiche alt mode reworked, new “long grip” similar to the halberd alt mode
* Bardiche strike can now one shot naked to the torso
* Eveningstar alt mode stab reworked, now very slow with fast release and great damage, great stamina drain. Strict turncap and high miss cost
* Eveningstar main mode strike can now oneshot light armor to the head
* Spear main mode can no longer combo
* Spear main mode reduced miss cost slightly
* Halberd alt mode can no longer combo
* Halberd alt mode reduced miss cost slightly
* Billhook point cost increased by 1
* Billhook main mode reworked - removed the headshot modifier bonus, now has flat low damage, more lax turncaps, faster windups & combos, 10cm more range. Alt mode is same as before.
* Billhook can now pull people on successful hits with the main mode strikes
* Setup some couching (jousting) damage values for lance, spear and halberd
* Rapier can now two shot medium armor with two stab headshots
* Kick knockback increased slightly
* Bastard sword one handed mode now has the same damage as two handed mode

 **Netcode**

* Lockout states now more fairly account for ping, reducing lockout in cases where it would make sense
* Attack ping compensation raised from 50ms to 80ms, this makes attacks less disadvantaged at higher pings
* Comboing is now compensated for ping correctly (before it was somewhat slowed down by ping)
* Local player's attack slowdown for matching the server is now limited to a ping of 150ms, beyond which visuals will start to degrade (hits will arrive late) instead of attempting further slowdown, but there will be less rubberbanding making it feel better to play.
* Movement slowdown occurs throughout early release as well now, distributing the rubberbanding effect when attacking with high ping better.
* Better supersprint/lunge on higher ping, it starts earlier on higher ping but that makes the server receive the boost properly so it should help with hitting
* Parry compensates for ping with the animation, so high ping parry anim is slower to reach the peak
* Fixed a netcode bug that screwed up local simulation of actions in some cases when server responses came late. However, it always corrected itself, usually resulting in an ugly visual jerk of some sort.

 **Animations**

* Added new flat attack blendings & adjusted attack animations for it - affected are regular attacks, combos, morphs, ripostes, kick in first and third person - this will make attacks more readable and easier/earlier to see coming, as well as making them more responsive, especially in first person
* Speed up parry & shield block animation blending which will make these a lot more responsive in feel and easier/faster to see
* Added animations for firepot/smokepot
* First person parry bounce animations are now stronger
* Failed parry/heldblock animations now fade out, making the transitions much more seamless
* 1H 1p offhand animation improvements
* Lowerbody start/stop bounces improved
* Added procedural jiggle physics system, currently used for shoulder plates bouncing around and belly physics, especially on naked with the fat body pose :)
* Lowerbody now stays in place when doing slight turns, allowing players to look around without turning the lowerbody
* Character breathing is now procedural and gets faster the lower health is
* Rewrote how animations sync with movement speed, providing a much closer and stable fit that works across any movespeeds and prevents sliding
* Lowerbody movement is now omnidirectional and has its own "mind". It’s a procedural dynamic system to match the upper spine and provides natural looking oriented movement. This means that there is now matching lowerbody animations for attacks, parries, flinches etc. It is always active.
* Messer now uses bastard sword animations
* Added turning animations to stand and crouch
* Crouch animations improved
* Improved 1p throw animations
* Speed up jump animation for lowerbody
* Improved feint animation to be slightly more aggressive and alt strike feint animation is now on par with the right strike feint animation
* Stab animations are now less floaty
* Fixed polearm right stab breaking on world bounces in certain cases
* Fixed polearm lower stab going through the torso
* Added high block shield animation
* Reduced back flinch bending
* Moved legs further forward in 1p during movement / idle to make them more visible
* Added some more subtle movement to the face idle
* Reduced flinch camera shake slightly

 **Maps**

* All maps now utilize Volumetric Fog
* Heavy lighting and post processing tweaks on all maps
* Small polish and collision tweaks on some maps
* Huge HLOD optimization on all maps (generally 50% lower drawcalls across the board)
* Foliage overhaul for better performance
* Added out of bounds functionality for maps
* Added spawn protection zones
* Enabled Ammo boxes

 **Visuals & Misc**

* Added Landsknecht Hat
* Added Burgonets, one with a buffet and one without
* Added Checkered Gambeson & short sleeve variant
* Added Battle Axe skin: Gallowglass
* Added tightened Long Sleeve Gambeson Arms
* Added new male head for customization, faces can now be changed in the UI
* Added a mesh beard and 3 eyebrow variants
* Added a bunch of facial hair textures
* Face sculpting limits are now slightly less restricted
* Reworked default head
* Added new emblem
* Wearable materials are now merged in pairs, halfing draw calls.
* Added subtle rim lighting on characters and equipment to aid readability in low light situations
* Characters other than yourself now use simpler shadows which are much cheaper
* Characters and vehicles now utilize volumetric lightmaps for more accurate indirect lighting
* Slimmed the Maximilian armor a bit around the waist
* Improved Halberd textures and added alt mode bloodmask
* Updated Viking Arming Swords and Viking cleaver proportions
* Reworked Viking cleaver textures and bloodmask
* Tweaked Gambeson Arms to fit more chest types
* Removed Chain Coif neck option from Feathered Archer Cap since it had an armor value & point cost
* Templar helmets now ignore team color
* First person arms now show age, correct skin tone and get bloodied
* Added alt mode bloodmask to the kickstarter longsword skin
* Made low stamina effects more obvious
* Added and improved various footstep and impact effects for different physical surfaces.
* Increased amount of blood on characters & improved randomized blood amount on death
* Added a blood gush effect on neck dismemberment
* Hit particles now spawn closer to characters, making them look much better
* Gameplay critical effects will no longer be disabled via low video settings
* Reduced head hitbox in length slightly which will help with attacks hitting early
* Improved Facesculpting camera
* Improved facesculpt selection method to be less jittery when trying to find the bone under cursor
* Armory camera FOV and position improved
* Tweaked third person camera slightly
* Third person view now has some rudimentary collision detection to prevent clipping world geometry
* Switching camera now has a smooth transition
* Deathcam now also exists for third person deaths
* Projectiles from throwables now cosmetically blend from the mesh in the hand as they should, rather than starting at center of screen
* Projectile spinning is now handled by the spin component, which allows meshes to spin in place rather than rotate around.
* Projectile blending is now more accurate and looks better
* Projectile sticky handling is now done differently and looks much better as a result
* Projectile kills now obtains the flinch direction correctly, making them look much better
* Projectiles can now be picked up by walking near them
* Added ability for equipment to restock other equipment. This is used to restock ammo from e.g. a dropped throwing axe (not thrown), or firepot, or restocking arrows directly from a dropped bow etc. It will restock as much ammo as it can grab from the equipment.
* Dropping equipment can now initiate an interact motion (e.g. pickup) during its lockout so it's less clunky to drop & pickup other stuff
* Removed SMAA and T-FXAA antialiasing modes from video settings and added Temporal AA in their stead
* m.AngleAttackAfterPress can now be toggled in the controls settings
* Motion blur is now capped at 0.3 (was 1.0) and bloom is now capped at 1.0 (was 8.0)
* Fixed online sessions sometimes not shutting down cleanly when leaving a server resulting in rejoining the server on map change
* Reworked the loading screen to be its own module so it can run before the engine is fully initialized
* Changed the way config files are handled to fix map rotation, this means server configuration must no longer happen in Config/Default<config>.ini but in Saved/Config/<platform>/<config>.ini instead; those files will be generated on first run if not present
* Fixed game banned players being able to join VAC secure servers
* Online sessions will now be disconnected when Steam is offline for longer than 2 minutes
* Turned all blocking Steam inventory operations into async tasks; this should fix the lag on player join
* Changed server joining procedure to wait for slots to become available in case the server is full
* Added support for parties of up to 4 players; party members automatically join the server chosen by the party leader
* Quick join now takes party size into account when looking for servers
* Enabled speedhack detection
* Narrowed bot FOV to 130 (was 180) and enabled line of sight hearing
* Changed server game session to only perform one action per tick
* Improved performance with high bot counts by updating perception only once per second instead of every tick
* Fixed blurry textures in armory
* Fixed various LODs
* Fixed feint->kick->morph being abusable
* Fixed a bug where spectators would have their input frozen due to roundstart and never unfreeze it
* Fixed health/stamina being awarded on teamkills
* Fixed bug that made the game not use combo anims for combos and instead fallback to regular anims causing a jerk on late release combos
* Fixed bug with spectated players vanishing
* Fixed bug with spectated players not getting updated frequently enough and appearing choppy
* Fixed bug with deathcam sometimes not triggering
* Fixed some issues with particle effects not appearing
* Fixed dismemberment bugs, also fixes partial dismemberment
* Fixed seeing yourself in armory as floating arms
* Fixed bots being afraid of heights

 **Audio**

* Enabled Sound Occlusion (very experimental at this stage, even smaller obstacles like pillars can occlude sound right now).
* Rapier now has estoc sounds
* Tier 3 helmets now muffle voice
* Tweaked ambient sounds on maps
* Added new vehicle hit sound
* Fixed some broken attenuation settings for ambient sounds

 **Vehicles**

* Can be tested on the testlevel (open LiteMordhauTestlevel)
* Added new wood & stone damage system, which currently affects vehicles (wood). This makes some weapons better for chopping down the catapult/ballista. Currently axes have the best damage against wooden vehicles
* Fixed vehicle desync bug
* Hitting the ballista & catapult now has hitstop
* Ballista now has a new model with an improved pivot, allowing players to aim much further down
* Ballista camera improved, now aims the bolt properly
* Ballista Bolt improved flying speed, thicker bolt
* Improved ballista & catapult sounds, effects
* Improved catapult grounding
* Catapult rock now has more speed and a better arc
* Ballista & Catapult now have more health
* Vehicles now show how damaged they are via a grunge texture overlay
* There are now 3 horse types - unarmored (fastest), medium armored, plate armored horse (slowest)
* Horses now have a get on/off animation
* Improved horse handling and tweaked gear speeds
* Improved horse animations, sync with feet and rider, horse will no longer slide around etc.
* Horse leaning and turn animations are now based on real equations of motion
* Tweaked horse bump to let players line up hits easier
* Increased horse bump damage
* Improved horse reins and tail
* New third person camera for horse
* New overhead third person camera for catapult, which lets you aim easier
* Ballista now lowers itself when nobody is on it, and springs back up once someone starts using it
* Added spawners for vehicles; respawn is enabled and set to 30 seconds by default
* Added camera blend to vehicle entering on top of cinematic blendin, it should now be perfectly smooth and seamless
* Vehicles now have a dissolve fade-out and fade-in effect

 **User Interface**

* Added advanced stats panel to the armory equipment tab
* Restyled death tips panel
* Fixed armory controls panel not clipping properly
* Added ammo counter, only appears when relevant equipment is held that has non-infinite ammo
* Restyled emote menu
* Added quick entry/exit animation to scoreboard
* Made emote menu and ammo display hide when hidehud is enabled
* Added some preliminary descriptions to Video and Game settings
* Added missing hover event bindings for settings descriptions
* Performance impact is now hidden by default on all settings descriptions
* Improved scoreboard performance

 **Engine**

We also jumped two engine versions with this update, changelogs can be found here:

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-4-17-released

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-4-18-released