I just put up a hotfix to clear up some issues

• Fixed AI using melee abilities from far away
• Fixed Charging and Tackle attacks hitting monsters that are in the way but are not in the battle
• Fixed Server Name not showing up when looking for games

M.EXE Patch Notes v0.0.8

NameUrBuddy Patch

Online Improvements

A terrible bug that was causing lag for clients in multiplayer seems to be gone. Online battles should now be smooth and not cause any lag as long as both players don’t live too far away. Overall, you should see a huge improvement to online play.

• Fixed an issue where a bug was causing lots of players to lag in online matches.
• Added the ability to name your game when you host an Arena. Players will see the name you gave your game when the look through the list of games available.

Name Your Monster

You now have the chance to name your monster. When you start your game up, you will be asked for your gender and then will be asked what you feel your monster’s name would be. Remember that in M.EXE, a player only has 1 monster that changes through different bodies/shells. So calling your monster FireDino might not be the most appropriate name. It’s of course all up to you guys, but know that there isn’t any way to change your monster’s name once you’ve chosen one. There might be a way to do so in the future, but for now if you are truly unhappy with your monster’s name, then contact me directly through Steam and I can attempt to change it for you.

Gameplay

Melee abilities have still been a bit risky when going up against projectile abilities. In this patch, melee abilities have received a change to help balance the scales.

Melee Abilities

• Melee Abilities have had a significant buff. While a melee ability is activating(wind-up time) monsters will move at a faster speed(*1.5), allowing them to reach their target faster. This speed increase is taken into account when a monster calculates when to start winding up a melee attack, which means that melee attacks now begin activating from further away.

Projectile Abilities

• With the buff to melee abilities, I have decided to alter the penalty for using projectile abilities up close. The range from an opponent at which projectile abilities are made to cast slower has been reduced from 800 units back to 500 units. This range matches the range at which the battle camera zooms in closer, so the zoom in will serve as a visual queue to let players know that projectile abilities in this range will receive the cast time penalty.

Optimizations

Monster LODs

• Monster models now have LODs which use less than 20% of the monster’s original polygon count. These LODs have little visual impact and are what all players will see almost the entire time they are playing. The only time when the high poly model is used is when the camera gets very close(which is rare) or when you go into your monster menu. The entire time you battle, even when the camera closes in, you will only be seeing the LODs. This should be huge for anyone who was having trouble running the game at an optimal level.

 

Balance

Stamina

Stamina was a bit too easily available in the game after EX Abilities were introduced. To make Stamina and Stamina Regen more valuable, the total amount of Stamina available to monsters has been reduced across the board. Stamina also regenerates at a slightly slower rate.

I will have to look closely at monster types that use stamina regularly, such as Earth and Psychic monsters, as they might need some help in cost reduction for their abilities.

• Total Stamina reduced by 20 for all monsters.
• Stamina now regenerates every 1.5 seconds instead of every second
• The Stamina bar now becomes darker when a monster doesn’t have enough stamina to dash

 

Abilities

I wanted to make charging attacks more useful and making tackle attacks a bit harder to dodge. With the buff to Melee Abilities both charging and tackle attacks now much much faster.

Tackle Attacks(ex. Tackle)

• Tackle attacks still go past their targets and can hit walls. However, these attacks will not lose track of their targets until they are within activation range. So if you are very far from your opponent and use the Tackle ability, your opponent can no longer dodge the ability while you are still far away. They will have to time their dashes like they do vs other melee abilities.

Charging Attacks(ex. Charge)

• Standard charging abilities now move the user at an increased speed(*1.5) for the whole duration, matching their EX counterparts in speed but still with no armor.

Now that they match the speed of their EX counterparts, I will likely give them the same penalty of being able to go past their target and hit walls. For now, they remain only buffed.

Ice Drill

• Upped the mana requirement from 25 to 30

Rock Punch

• Cast time has been reduced allowing it to hit more reliably

Spit Abilities(ex. Acid Spit)

• Cast time reduced. These projectiles should come out much faster now.

Acid Bubble

• Damage increased from 20 to 25

 

New Abilities

Lava Rock

• Just like Rock Shot, but throws a rock of full of lava, doing increased damage and applying a burn at the cost of mana.
• Damage: 25
• Cost: 15 Stamina, 25 Mana
• EX Lava Boulder Damage: 45

 

Miscellaneous

AI Improvements

Many improvements have been made to the AI. Monsters now check which direction is best for them to dash to depending on obstacles in the way like the arena walls. They check to see whether a projectile is heading towards them or not so they can ignore those that aren’t. They no longer play cautiously when their opponent is low or when they are low themselves.

They still make mistakes and I have more work to do, but they have definitely become more challenging, especially at Hard difficulty.

There is currently a bug that makes AI monsters perform melee abilities from far away. This will be fixed very soon since this dramatically brings down the difficulty.

Arenas

Arenas have all been changed to have a circle battleground to match the newer arenas. I would like to make the shape of the arena something that players can customize, but for now all arenas are circular. Check all the arenas out for other visual changes.

Monster Skins

The Monster Skins store has been delayed and will likely be there in a patch coming soon. Monster Skins are still in the game though. You will see NPCs in the PlayerHub and ArenaHub with different skins equipped. You will also see different monster skins when you spawn AI opponents in arenas. In an upcoming patch, you will be able to unlock and select these skins to customize your monster, as well as earn in-game currency. Monster Skins will replace the Hue-Slider.

Matchmaking

Lots of progress has been made on getting some sort of matchmaking going. Matchmaking would pair 2 players up and instantly start a battle with whichever monster and abilities you currently have equipped. After the battle is over, both players would be sent back to the PlayerHub. Here the winner would receive a reward and the opponent would receive a lesser reward for completing the match(not surrendering).

MChanger

The MChanger now uses the same visual display as when you press TAB. You will see 3D models of your monsters rather than images of them as well as some additional info.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that made monsters twitch when reaching their battle location.
• Fixed a bug that made monsters twitch while laying on the ground after a knock down, making it seem like they were getting back up only to lay back down instantly