Hey Everyone!

Today we’re launching big updates to the core gameplay modes in NervBox along with improvements to functionality and performance across the board!

First up is the Gamemodes: they’ve been fairly neglected and as result, unexciting, and mostly unplayed. With today’s update we’re leveling up our gamemode offerings with some big upgrades and additions. To support this change, we’ve completely rewritten the tools and frameworks used to build gamemodes so that we can deliver more polished and exciting gameplay. And yes, these are the same tools we’ll be shipping as part of the upcoming modding SDK. Given the new quality bar we’re setting with NervBall, we’ve taken the axe to CtF and Traitor as they do not offer the gameplay experience that they should. Fear not though, they’re being redesigned and rebuilt with the new tools and will be back as soon as they hit the new quality standards set today.

Let’s kick things into high gear with our new gamemode: NervBall!
NervBall is a team based, competitive sports brawl game. Load up with your all-new NervSabers and Jump Guns into a fast-paced arena. There is only one goal: score as many points as possible before the time runs out. Compete with your friends while trying out different tactics, and become the true NervBall champion! Please let us know how you like it, as we’ll be making plenty of gameplay and balance tweaks going forward.

Moving onto Sandbox, one of the requests we’ve been hearing for a while is for the mode to give players an option to play it peacefully and creatively — our answer to this issue comes in 2 parts:
One is to finally give players the option to turn off PvP for themselves in Sandbox (The same way players can already opt-out of being grabbed by others). This will allow players to work undisturbed and unkilled until their creations are ready to rock.
Two is to give players who just want a Sandbox fight a dedicated place to do it: The new Sandbox Clash mode! Today’s release of Clash is fairly barebones; it functions the same way that Sandbox used to: PvP locked ON! Our goal is to observe how you all continue to Clash over the coming weeks and make adjustments to the mode to make it a more exciting and competitive experience. The first few areas we’re looking at are spawn invulnerability and better spawn locations. Let us know what you think in the #feedback channel in our Discord!

Finally I wanted to touch on some big improvements we’ve made to the core systems:
The most noticeable one is going to be the new holstering system. Rebuilt from the ground up to be easier to use and more responsive, it should address many issues previously raised about holsters. We’ve also made a number of changes to player physics to improve punching strength and responsiveness, killed a huge number of bugs, and smoothed out some systems to squeeze out even more performance.

Be sure to check the roadmap to see what’s next: https://trello.com/b/EZ9qQMyu/nervbox-roadmap. If you have any feedback, feature requests, bug reports, or just want to chat with the community, be sure to join our Discord: https://discord.gg/EkRXj9YxXD

Thanks for playing!
- NervBox Team

Patchnotes

Gamemodes

• New gamemode: NervBall
  
• Sandbox has been split into two different modes: Sandbox, and Sandbox Clash
  
• Rewrote all game modes using the new gamemode framework.
  
• Retired old unplayed game modes while they get complete gameplay overhauls. CtF is up next, with a shakeup to what the acronym stands for.
  

Player

• Holsters have been completely rewritten from the ground up. They are now more responsive, consistent and user friendly. An indicator has been added to help visualize what is currently in the holster. This indicator can be turned off in comfort settings.
  
• Reduced hand animation rates on non-local players to improve performance.
  
• Fixed arm joint limits not being applied properly.
  
• Vastly improved arm physics responsiveness.
  
• Fixed an issue where when a player joined a lobby, other players would view one frame of their perspective.
  
• Player spawn points now include a rotation factor, so players can spawn facing the proper direction.
  
• Added slope torque correction to player movement. The player feet will now attempt to counteract the ground’s slope and stay in place.
  
• Improvements to player teleportation and respawning, they should now be less explodey on non-local players.
  
• Moving while crouching no longer forces players to stand back up.
  
• Player nametags now change color based on what team they are on if the gamemode supports it.
  

Audio

• Large improvements to Steam Audio emitter performance.
  

Interaction

• Potential fix for infinite ammo magazines
  
• Repulsor gun now properly tracks ownership of objects and can no longer pickup objects other people are holding.
  
• Reduced the likelihood of multiple players being able to force grab an object simultaneously.
  
• Fixed Sandbox gun rotation mode being inverted.
  
• Fixed Sandbox gun spawn rotation being inverted.
  
• Potential fix for objects occasionally getting stuck in the air due to ownership conflicts.
  
• Fixed an issue where teleporting/respawning while grabbing static objects would result in player explosions.
  
• Despawned holstered objects no longer break holsters.
  
• Fixed force grabs breaking if the object was destroyed mid force grab.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could force grab objects while dead.
  
• Improved grabbing reliability.
  

Combat

• Restructured player damage system to be server side instead of client side.
  
• Re-balanced damage values of all weapons.
  
• Adjusted NPC health values.
  

Networking

• Core backend library, EOS has been upgraded to latest version.
  
• Improved data sending/receiving pacing, which will help improve Quest host smoothness.
  
• Some voice comm related crash fixes.
  
• Improvements to overall network stability.
  
• Optimizations to math used for object sync.
  

Levels

• New NervBall Arena.
  
• Main menu and Empty World now have a new skybox.
  
• Fixed main menu not forcing players to look in the right direction.
  

Misc

• Various optimizations to help reduce garbage creation and improve overall performance.
  
• Updated error logging software to better track issues and gauge player interests.
  
• Preparations for future updates.
  
• New store page content.