This patch starts fixing issues found in the latest release. Including performance optimizations, grappling hook fixes and Howling Valley map fixes. An important change was also made on player character to improve inverse kinematic. More patches will be done to continue improvements on this topic.
The player log is also generated again, if you experience issues, this file really help us finding what was going on. So please share is with us!
Fixed issues :
- Player log is back. If you experience issues, we’d love to get that log file – it is located here :
C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\Farworld Studio\Ascent Quest\player.log - Since changes on our vegetation rendering system, changing “Vegetation Quality” option doesn’t reduce vegetation density – so it doesn’t improve performance to change this option.
- Player character bounce a bit on the ground when going down slopes, which is bad for comfort.
- Grappling hook may require a too precise aiming when the player is close (less than 10m)
- Grappling hook can shake the camera when used
- Visual dot on grappling hook when you are close is hidden, giving the impression that it is deactivated while it is not
- Sometimes the equipped weapon don’t come back into the belt slot after a while or switching equipment. It usually happens after dying with the weapon in hand.
- Spirit Echoes dialog bubble when touching them is displayed too far from view
- After a change in the way character moves, trying to move while looking up or down reduce movement speed and can feel weird.
- Non-combat NPCs animations (hands movements while talking, expressions, etc) are stuck to idle
- On rare occasion, gathering tools don’t get out of the quick grab menu
- Few trees bark are too dark
- Few items like ingots, are too dark when not directly lit
- Non-player human characters can’t hold items in hands
- During the character creation, highlighted/selected colors on the UI are sometimes incorrect
- Improved performance in the Outpost, but there’s still a big issue creating a -25% framerate, we are still working on it.
- World item are not affected by gravity for a second when spawning, making them float a bit away from their intended position before getting freezed in the air.
- Help popups are displayed several times when you click the help icon several times
- Gatherable trees are visible again from a short distance even after being chopped down
- Some trees in the Howling Valley have no colliders
Improvements :
- Reduced CPU usage on NPCs. This should result in better performance on lower end computers. The change may be barely noticable if you are used to play at very high resolution (super-sampling) since in that case, it’s the GPU that is capping your framerate not the CPU.
- Improved shadow calculation based on their distance. This should improves performance a bit for everyone.
- Reworked the Howling Valley a bit
- Smoothed the terrain around rivers to make them more comfortable to navigate
- Greatly reduced the amount of small rocks inside rivers, again to make them more comfortable to navigate
- Added few decorative elements
- Changed model of the Titan’s remains to a more unique shape, to make it a bit more different from the rest of the map and reduce the amount of shadow it creates.
- Added watersplash and mist around waterfalls
- Fixed several decorative elements that where floating above ground
- Optimized local fog effects for better performance
- Several other minors performance improvements around UI and physics calculation
- Adjusted distance at which dialogues can be heard to make it less annoying when there’s a lot of talks around you
- Changed the way your view point is calculated to avoid putting you near ground when you play seated. This is a preparative work to allow height calibration and character height customization. If you start playing seated and then stand up, your character may rise in the air. You just have to use your headset recenter option to adjust this.
- Eyebrows of newly created characters are now a bit darker than hairs
- Speech bubbles are now displayed a bit higher to make them easier to read when close to the speaking character
- Improved loading time for large maps
- Help popups are now closed when you click a second time on the help icon while this specific help is currently displayed
- Grappling Hooks – Changed how the movement is calculated to avoid the shacking issue on arrival and make the movement much smoother.
- Increased a bit the size of the loot area on the back, to make item looting a bit easier