Big improvements include friends being able to join matches directly via invite, gunstock calibration, and rebalancing equipment point costs. These changes should help improve your experience throughout the game. From the moment you start a lobby, get your friends in, calibrate your weapons, make your loadouts, and get on the battlefield, you will feel the difference.
Let’s start by going over the details of the new features and changes. For a detailed list of additional adjustments and bug fixes make sure to read through the change log.
New Features
Gunstock Calibration
Using a gunstock adds to the immersive feeling while in game. The snap you experience when drawing your weapon to fire, the feel of the stock pressed into your shoulder, and the balance of both controllers in the gunstock makes the experience all the more engaging. Many of you hardcore players use a physical gunstock to help provide more control and accuracy in game. In this update we've added "Gunstock Calibration" for players with these accessories. Accessible in the Loadout screen, Gunstock Calibration lets you tweak the positioning of every Primary weapon to match your gunstock shape. This means you'll have a much easier time lining up your eyes with optics at any height, as well as experience better weapon feel in general.Instructions for how to set up and use gunstock calibration can be found on our FAQ page.
Friends can now join matches directly via invite
Playing with your friends, competitive teammates, or a really cool person you met in a lobby is a great experience in Onward. To help connect more easily with the people you want to play with, we have added a way to help you send direct invites to your friends, who play on the same platform, when in a lobby. Steam and Meta Quest users can open up the platform UI from inside the game and send an invite directly to a person on your friends list and your friend will be able to accept and directly join into your lobby. Players can accept invites both while playing in Onward and outside of it before they’ve started the game.Detailed instructions for how to invite friends per platform can be found on our FAQ page.
Major Updates
Loadout Points Rebalance
After several years of gameplay, it was clear that one thing that needed to be updated was the equipment points. With the increased growth in players and evolution of the game this felt like a much needed update to the game.In the updated system there are now more points overall and the system is more granular, allowing us to better balance and distinguish item costs. The goal is to bring new options for players to explore, while addressing existing issues in the balance that have led to the “meta” loadouts that have developed over the years.
When we started the process to redesign the equipment points, we looked at it from a lot of different angles. For example, just in the weapons category we took a detailed look at the following when determining the cost per weapon:
Feeding
Caliber
Fire Rate
Mag Capacity
Damage Points
Charging Mode
Mag Location
Mag Release
Fire Modes
We hope to promote more strategic choices when you compose your loadouts, as well as encourage team tactics when you jump on the battlefield. Since they are so numerous and affect almost every single item in the game, we will not be listing the exact point by point value changes in the patch notes. We encourage you to check out the changes in the tent.
Weapon Refactor
To make it easier to create new weapons, fix pre-existing issues, and make changes with weapons we have rebuilt the system on which the weapons run. Currently you should not notice a difference, but will start to see the benefits of this work in future patches.Voice Chat
One of the features that took a bit of the team's time during this update was changing our voice chat system. It felt like having a bunch of audio wires all knotted up together and having to pull each one apart one by one to detangle it all and then reconnect all the devices together with new wires. It was a lot of work! You shouldn’t hear too much difference from the previous version, however it did bring some improvements to select players during game launch and this change will also give us a long term solution with improved support.Change Log:
System
- Quest App version numbers will now match the patch release number
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause a menu option to become unresponsive when rapidly changing between menus in the Main Menu
- Fixed issue where a server can become unjoinable if the host disconnects during the map loading process after a map vote
- Fixed Workshop failing to reconnect to the server when launching the app if the internet disconnected and then reconnected
- Fixed issue where passing host to a player on a sleeping Quest can cause the objective location to cycle and differ between the whiteboard, in-game, and change with new players joining
- Fixed bug where if Quest 1 host idles their headset while loading into a new map from a map selection then some players will be rendered stuck in an unready state once the host puts their headset back on
- Fixed instances of seemingly duplicate players if a player repeatedly takes off their helmet while there’s multiple people in the tent
- Fixed issue where the loading screen would freeze when launching Operations or Shooting Range while disconnected from the internet.
- The Dominant Eye setting's description now correctly states that it affects the First Person Spectator
Gameplay
- Fixed issue where sending the code on Uplink while a PCVR host loses internet and disconnects from the lobby would cause the round to not end
- Changed loadout point limits for all game modes
- Increased loadout point limit in Free Roam to 99 to allow more flexibility in loadout building
- Fixed issue where kicking the last living MARSOC reinforcement in Assault via Vote Kick or punishing friendly fire would not end the round
- Scoreboard kills and deaths columns in Gun Game no longer increment twice when reducing another player to critical health
- You are no longer able to briefly see your killer's position when respawning in Gun Game
- Fixed issue that would cause the spectator goggles to disappear from the controller or table at round end upon returning to the tent
- Quest players will no longer be able to hear MARSOC team chat upon joining the lobby
- Fixed the red 'Out of Bounds' lines to flash briefly in-game for players currently playing in the match
- Players who spawn in with night vision goggles will now have night vision in the spectator goggles
- Fixed issue where some players respawning would hear persistent radio static after being downed before they are killed
- Users will no longer stay ignited when refreshing their loadout after catching fire in Free Roam and Shooting Range modes
Maps
Cargo
- Fixed an issue where AI could walk through container doors
- Fixed some rooftop edges where players could use an air drone to see through them
Tanker
- Fixed an issue that would cause the map Tanker to appear very bright and washed out for Quest players when map changing from Arctic (Custom Map)
Turbine
- Fixed a bug on Turbine that would cause players to teleport under the map
Weapons and Utilities
- Night vision goggles can no longer be used to see through red or green smoke surrounding them
- Fixed issue where grenades did not explode after pressing thumbstick (releasing the spoon) if dropped while the player’s hand was inside a wall
- Fixed issue that was causing all scopes on both factions to be black at certain angles with night vision on
- Players can now see the Molotov rag flame while holding it inside of a popped smoke
Known Issues:
- AKM sometimes will not accept a magazine after having a player grab it repeatedly as it was being put into the weapon
- Invisible ammo belt appears when reattaching an empty box to the M249
- Stepping out of the Quest Guardian Boundary while another player is speaking will cause the audio to pause and then replay to catch up after re-entering the guardian boundary
- Any loadouts created in Free Roam mode are carried over to the all core game modes.
- If you let go and regrip your weapon during recoil it can cause your hands to be offset from the weapon. Refreshing your loadout or starting a new round will reset this issue.
- AI enemies on Tanker can sometimes walk through container doors
Changed files in this update