New Patch Info

Hunter px1

Today Dynamix released some news about the upcoming patch scheduled to be out this Thursday. Here's what they had to say about it:

It looks as though the new patch will be available on Thursday of this week. Just so you folks know what we're fixing, here is the list of the items that *should* be in that patch...unless we have to re-do it for some reason...

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- Fixed buddy filter. You can now use the Filter option on the JOIN screen to find games that have players in them that are listed on your buddy list. (Use the Email or Warrior Browser functions to add/remove people from your buddy list.)

- You can now add a player to your server admin lists (so that server admins can auto-admin players when they join a server, if desired)

- (minor gameplay change) Medium now has a standard loadout of 12 grenades instead of 10. Light: 10; Medium: 12; Heavy: 15.

- "Vote Spamming" has been prevented in-game.

- Added "quickbuy" keyboard shortcuts to use at vehicle station. (Default keys are the 1-6 number keys. 1 is Wildcat, 6 is Havoc). (NOTE: These key bindings are not currently editable. However, since you are on the vehicle purchase pad when they are in effect, they cannot interfere with any custom keys you've created, so you should have no problems.)

- Moved some of the CD check from script into code, where it should be.

- Missile reticle is improved aesthetically. This is part 1 of 2 of the missile reticle changes. The second part will be in the next patch.

- (CTF GAMEPLAY CHANGE) Flag captures are now worth 25 points, instead of 1 point. Additionally, each time someone grabs the flag *from the enemy flag stand* they will gain 1 point, regardless of whether they actually capture it or not. You will ONLY get this single point if the flag was actually on the flagstand. You will NOT get the point by touching the flag anywhere else on the field. This change will help prevent tie situations and will reward aggressive offensive play.

- Relative axis flag has been added to joystick controls.

- (gameplay change) Deployable inventory stations can no longer be deployed directly next to each other. They must be at least 20 meters apart in order to be deployed properly.

- (Team Damage Gameplay change) Many team damage fixes occurred. When Team Damage is OFF the following are now true: Friendly teammates are no longer prevented from destroying deployables. The ELF will no longer drain energy from friendly players. If a friendly player blinds another friendly player with Whiteout grenades, then a message is displayed in the Chat HUD so that the blinded person knows who did it. (There are more Team Damage changes coming in the next patch.)

- Team Damage ON/OFF is now a server pref so that admins can change the state.

- Default server prefs have been changed so that the default time limit is now 30 minutes (instead of 20) and Team Damage is OFF. These can be easily changed by admins, but these are the defaults.
We asked Dave Georgeson, Sr. Producer/Director for Dynamix on Tribes2, to clarify the CTF Scoring change for us. Here's what he had to say:

The news article has *nothing* to do with individual scoring. It is about team scoring.

Thus:

1 cap = 25 points

1 grab (from the flag stand ONLY) = 1 point

The net effect will be that almost nothing is different except that there will be fewer ties because a more aggressive team will score a couple quick points here and there during the course of the game when they penetrate enemy defenses.

A game that is currently 4 to 2 will now probably be something like 107 to 56, but a 0 to 0 game is more likely to be a 4 to 1 game.

-- Dave.