BlackWake

[Asid]

Update 3.2
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

We apologize for how long this patch took to release. While finishing up the two ships shown in the last news post we finished modeling our final ship, so we decided to add that too. Three new ships were added with this patch.

Carrack
A ship focusing on being tanky while being less manueverable.


Xebec
Will eventually be the fastest large ship of the seas.



The bomb ketch's big brother.


All ships will continue to be balanced with each patch.

Full notes:

- 3 ships added

- Fixed some ice patches in unfortunate locations

- Many new players mistook the tutorial video on the main menu for being a patch review video. We've added the word tutorial and made it clear until we eventually have a playable tutorial.

- Grape damage has been doubled (was 13 per pellet)

- Moderators on servers can now use /ff to toggle friendly fire. This should help griefing when mod activity starts getting low.

- CONNECTION ISSUES: We have 3 new ideas to try in regards to connection issues that appear for some players when joining a server with more than ~30 players. The first is included in this patch, the other two will appear as hotfixes soon.


We have many more updates headed your way! We are currently also working on adding new map type variations, islands and environments. More will be shown soon!



Dakota & Tyler

[Asid]

Update 3.3
7 August - Mastfire Studios

[Content]
•   Added 7 new female hairstyles (one in the pic missing)



[Balance]
•   Cruizer reduced sink rate by 15%
•   Hoy reduced sink rate by 5% & Increased speed by 5%
•   Xebec increased turn rate by 10% & increased speed by 10%
•   Doubled the segment repairs on destroyed main masts
•   Duckfoot now shoots projectiles like the blunderbuss but 30% shorter in range

[CTB]
•   Players can now drop the chest anywhere on the deck
•   1000 points now awarded to team that captures a booty
•   It now takes 3 seconds to pick up the chest holding the use key
•   Chest UI always on and slightly smaller in size
•   Waterspouts are disabled in this mode

[Quality of Life]
•   Melee blocking now occurs the moment a player right clicks instead of waiting for the whole animation to play
•   Updated numerous outfit textures that may have been confusing between factions
•   Short pistol sound reverted to old one
•   Ship range now updates automatically instead of needing a manual update
•   You no longer are able to spot ships through rock cliffs and icebergs
•   Ship labels will be occluded by rock cliffs, icebergs and your own ship hull even when spyglass is up
•   Ship range now is visible always while aiming a cannon or on captain's wheel
•   Volcano map is now much brighter and more visible
•   Night maps also have had a slight increase in visibility

[Bug fix]
•   Attempted fix for more accurate colliders for Icebergs and Rock cliff maps
•   Attempted fix for the connection issues from character meshbuilding
•   Ship docks now have colliders for ships
•   Timeout for disconnect increased by 50%

[Server]
•   Print ff toggle now shown in game log
•   /ff Should only work if server initially had it on
•   Now can provide reasons for Kick, confirmation and timeout duration
•   Kicks and mutes now provided in log

As a side note we do have an intended hotfix out soon in a day or two:
•   Short Pistol should now do 100dmg when within 5ft of enemy
•   Don't popup notify booty drop unless player is killed holding it
•   Toggle using ALT key for ship range while on wheel/cannons
•   Removing flags from ship info
•   Fixing stuck reset 90 UI on booty reset


More to come!

[Asid]

Update 3.4
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

Almost halfway to our journey to 4.0 (release and beyond), 3.4 brings many quality of life changes with some small adjustments to healing and sailing. Some changes have been moved into the smaller upcoming 3.45 patch so they can be approached more carefully.

-When a hole is below water it should spray white bubbles to make it easier to see
-Melee now waits for you to be in idle position before blocking again, before it could be spammed
-Heated shot easier to grab quickly
-Crouching in low water (enough to trigger overlay) should now put you out if on fire
-Annley/Matchlock should now have a 3rd person reload
-Health icon on players updated
-Health icon should blink if bleeding
-Switching weapons should interrupt your heal
-The mast being destroyed on the cutter shouldn’t kill you if you’re on the wheel
-“R to respawn” should appear if in the water or far from your ship
-Admins should be able to warn players through the scoreboard
-Popup if you haven’t watched tutorial/chosen to skip it (placeholder until single player tutorial is finished)
-When a ship sinks with a booty on deck it should not stick and reset with the ship, should also apply to dropping a booty on deck as a ship is going down
-Notifications for ticket changes
-Winning grapple gives that team 500 score
-Captain wins should no longer increase by 2 in both stats and on the leaderboard
-'Kills' in player options data type changed, should no longer show a negative value if you have too many kills
-Suicide button removed (replaced by R function)
-You should get 200 points for giving another player a beverage, only every 60 seconds
-Lowering sails increases turn handling

[Asid]

Update 3.45
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

3.45 contains a few things that didn't quite make it into 3.4:

Quality of Life
•   Both teams are now checked for balance, should the difference be > 3 then ungrouped solo players will be alerted and then moved back to the teamselect menu where the usual sorting limitations will balance things back out. This can be disabled with "allowSoloAutobalance" for server admins.
•   Map rotation is no longer random to make it feel more random with less consecutive storms and nights.
•   /suicide can be used like the old button should you become stuck
•   Grapples now glow yellow due to a point made by the community, that a captain may not want them released and a new player may immediately assume red means bad.
•   Admins can now do /alert msg to send a red notification to all players
•   When your faction is holding the booty in CTB your base location marker should force itself to display
•   Adjusted some of the fall sensitivity variables around the shores of islands to not be so deadly. Further adjustments will be made.
•   Fixed an issue caused by holding the booty during a round reset

More bug fixing and quality of life updates to come!

Dakota & Tyler

[Asid]

Update 3.5
24 September - yeah nah

Another update! We are still chipping away at getting bugs sorted and more to come soon.
Bug Fixes

•   Ram, rapier, and hand mortar medals should all track. Mortar only counts on impact kills
•   "The booty has been reset" should no longer display for no reason at the start of TDM
•   Fixed file formatting issue that may have caused various uncommon bugs
•   End screen visuals shouldn't be layered with ram shakes, sounds, heartbeats, or bleeding
•   Pumping, Ship speeds, Swivel shot type etc UI should go away if you are on them at the time the ship is destroyed
•   Fixed issue where disconnecting players would bug objects
•   Adjustments made to the third person reload system to make the progress sync more reliable
•   Swivel projectiles travel twice as fast so they are more reliable
•   Fixed handful of icebergs missing colliders
•   Players no longer die if they shoot a cannon at extremely close range to another ship
•   Should no longer be possible for a hole to become green and unfixable
•   Players at random locations of a ship won't be killed during a ram
•   Tomahawk should be more lethal and bounce off players less due to ping

[Asid]

3.6 Halloween Update
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios



Ahoy everyone!
You'll find that the game right now is a lot more sp00ky due to the annual halloween update this patch also has another round of fixes/improvements. Remember, we put off most minor bugs as we approached the later stage of development. We are getting closer to the BETA stage, where we will focus on polishing and improving the landlubber experience!

Content
•   Added annual Halloween theme to game

Quality of life
•   Holding R will now respawn you anywhere (tickets excl. on land/dock)
•   Players now get kicked being afk in team select (excl. mods/admins)
•   CTB alerts now only appear when booty changes faction
•   Music slider should affect win music

Balance
•   CTB captures changed to 2 from 3

Bug Fixes
•   Swivels should properly kill people in boarding range
•   Rapier stat has been tricky, but should work now
•   Fixed team select exploit of bypassing team balance
•   Ram kills now show a ship wheel icon
•   Ram kills should track more accurately
•   Attempted fix of booty breaking on round end
•   Should no longer say booty up for grabs on TDM
•   Placing cball into furnace should now consume ammo
•   Suicide no longer abusable for medals
•   Fixed second cause of bleeding UI persisting into win screen
•   Select on controller should now show correct info
•   Giving tea/rum with controller should work with LT
•   Booty/UI beverage should now work on controllers
•   Leaderboard now steamID based
•   K/D/A now preserved switching crews

Our next few updates will also focus on long-standing bugs.

See you on the seas!

[Asid]

Double XP week begins now!
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

Get into the sp00ky spirit and get double the points for killing those zombie pirates!



Work has also begun on 3.7, which will some of the grapple issues present in the game.

[Asid]

Patch 3.7
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

As we move forward with bug fixes and quality of life changes on our path out of Early Access, 3.7 focuses largely on infrequent issues surrounding grapples.

Remember there will be little to no content additions until after 4.0 (release). With the imminent addition of a single player tutorial we look forward to new routes of promotion later in 2019 such as free weekends.


- Icey zones should no longer damage ships mid grapple
- After voting takes place tickets are scaled based on server population and the value set in the configuration
- Tomahawk false positive on anti-cheat has been tested to be fixed, meaning previous efforts to make the tomahawk more reliable should be noticed
- Fixed a bug where a specific grapple order would allow a 3rd ship to attach, possibly causing various issues for the rest of the match
- Ramming a ship should no longer kill your own crew or damage your own cannons
- ALT toggle has been moved to tilde (`) to avoid confusion during alt tab for new players
- Volcano eruption should now properly result in a red sky with ash rain
- Fixed ui-only issue of showing a ticket increase when a ship lost a grapple.
- Fixed issue where on first join holes both existing and new were not visible for 60 seconds
- Fixed issue where releasing a single grapple when grappled multiple times may spawn your crew
- Fixed an exploit that allowed instant grapple releasing
- Fixed two bugs that could cause the winning ship to accidentally go down as a loss after grappling.

[Asid]

Road to Release: 3.75
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

As we continue to move forward on our path out of early access (4.0), we have a new batch of both bug fixes and quality of life changes.


- Fixed issue that caused some dead players to not respawn during initial grapple
- Repairing mast segments now loop holding down LMB
- Pressing/holding LMB before reaching a hole repair radius will now let you repair
- Holding down LMB will now let you loop repairing multiple holes if they are within radius
- Ship range toggle is now on by default and rebindable. FOR EXISTING PLAYERS you may need to rebind this key manually.
- Players no longer collide with buckets
- Ropes of your own ship now glow when not on board
- Fixed UI issue not properly guiding you to your teams ship
- Schooner nose should be smoother to walk across
- Crews are now included in construction spawn protection
- Captain loss and w:l removed from stat card to reduce toxic interactions, especially towards crews containing new players
- Fixed pump/bucket placement on Xebec to not accidentally use the wrong item
- Third person reload animations synced to be more reliable, fixed issue where they would loop continuously until a weapon change occurred
- Ticket loss for non-grappled ships sinking is back after being unintentionally disabled due to the last patch
- Ticket scaling by server has been adjusted to be less severe, and is also a server option 'useTicketScaling'


In the next patch (3.77) we hope to introduce the early iteration of our single player tutorial so the community can begin to get a feel and provide feedback as it is completed in the coming months.

[Asid]

3.77
Blackwake - Mastfire Studios

3.77 is a small patch, introducing the first iteration of our single player tutorial introduction. Seeing ships with new players struggle to function was an issue we've always wanted to address. Players were often too overwhelmed by combat to get a chance to understand the basic aspects of maintaining their ship.

We want to do our best to show new players the ropes before they join their first match. Keep in mind the tutorial is still a work in progress, but some education is better than none.

- Tutorial added
- Tutorial quality scaling when low fps is detected
- Bleeding black/white/blood should start stronger and more noticeable, so you heal sooner
- If you have not made it to the end of the tutorial a popup will ask you if you'd like to play it when clicking "servers" for the first time
- Tutorial can be accessed again through the main menu
- Fixed issue that could have been causing the recent invincible player bug
- Bleed rate slowed by 2x
- FF toggling itself is now it's own server option 'friendlyFireCanToggle', so the server can start with it off and it still be toggled on when a mod/admin decides to



Tyler & Dakota


In other news Lunaoreitic and Webbies have created a guide for running Blackwake on Linux:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1572108095

[Asid]

3.8


- Cannon loading/firing section added to tutorial
- Tutorial has ultrawide 21:9 support
- Fixed issue where mods would experience stuck kick menu in some cases
- Fixed issue where ship labels may blink the old ship name when building a new ship
- Made adjustment to chat box that may have caused text to cut off
- Supply crates have had their LOD extended so players hiding behind them aren't visible
- Captain can no longer slide off the wheel
- Enemy nose can no longer push captains off the wheel
- Fixed inverted glare in spyglass
- CTB map adjusted to allow more competitive interceptions
- CTB chest can now be captured from sea (not final)
- Ticket scaling for the NEXT round can be toggled by an admin/mod using /ticketscale
- Time limit reached win screen text changed to the leading team
- Blocked weapon switch effect while spectating
- Fixed interact zone of resupply area interrupting gunshots
- If another ship is too close to a docked ship spawn point it will sink on construct
- Clunky foot movement in tutorial has been fixed

[Asid]

3.81


Quality of life
•   Tooltips now flash yellow (they can be disabled completely in options)
•   Shot type descriptions added

Balance
•   Galleon sink rate decreased 15%, speed increased by 10%
•   Dagger swing speed +3x
•   Bottle swing speed +1.5x
•   Bottle bleeds 3x more severely than default rate
•   Axe swings 2x slower
•   Axe is now a one hit kill
•   Rapier has a 50% chance to bleed each swing
•   Rapier swing speed +2x
•   Cutlass swing speed +2x
•   Ramming now bleeds players within a radius of the impact
•   Ship spawn protection down to 35 from 60
•   Crew spawn protection (on a new ship) down to 10 from 60
•   Respawn protection distance from ship reduced to 40m from 100m

Bug Fixes
•   Adjusted cannon aiming code to lessen collision launching player
•   Island radius capture zone for CTB reverted
•   Fixed invisible colliders getting in the way of bullets on every ship, causing missed shots
•   Addressed collision issues that would allow ships to sail on top of other ships if they were low in the water

[Asid]

3.82
21 FEB - ONEEYETYLER

Quality of life
•   Galleon prop collisions completely redone
•   Galleon hole position adjusted to be less inconvenient
•   Added collision to hoy port barrel
•   Captain is immune to bleeding from ship ram
•   Shooting a grappled or spawn protected ship will display in crew hit info
•   Waterspouts spawn further out

Balance
•   Block stun lasts 50% longer
•   Demasted ships now have 2x more repair segments
•   Nock gun reload is sped up by 40%
•   Number of Hand Mortar and Grenades are doubled
•   Speed of equip, light/throw of Grenade increased by 2x

Bug Fixes
•   Fixed collision on Brig's broken nose, so you can now jump onto it
Polish
•   "Travel to Ship" at the ship builder will now teleport rather than kill you
•   Reduced strength of waterspouts for less glitchy physiques
•   Player swim height slightly lowered so they don't visually float as often


See you on the seas!

- Dakota & Tyler

[Asid]

TournamentWake I
22 FEB MASTFIRE STUDIOS



Hello everyone!

The wonderful community has decided to host a tournament event this weekend. They will compete in a 2v2 CTB tournament with multiple teams.

Where can I watch this?

The tournament will be casted live with spectating mode and multiple casters here:

When will the tournament be played?

City   Local Time   Date
Los Angeles, USA   12:00   Sat, 23 Feb
Houston, USA   14:00   Sat, 23 Feb
New York, USA   15:00   Sat, 23 Feb
London, UK   20:00   Sat, 23 Feb
Berlin, Germany   21:00   Sat, 23 Feb
Moscow, Russia   23:00   Sat, 23 Feb
Sydney, Australia   7:00   Sun, 24 Feb

It will be live casted by a group of casters, mostly veterans in the game. In the link below the previous tournament with casters is linked. VOD of last time (a lot of downtime in the matches, check the comment below the video for the timestamp)





Winners will receive the Golden Parrot Cup, a temporary trophy to display on their shoulders until the next tournament winners.





How to join?

If you would like to join in on future tournaments check out the community discords!

Communities that might be participating are:

RF (Russian fleet) https://discord.gg/RU7zW6p

GT (Great Tortuga) https://discord.gg/XrSgx6N

Ahoy (UK Ahoy) https://discord.gg/YhkQwGC

CC (Candlelight Cove) https://discord.gg/QpsAYf2

VME (VME Community) https://discord.gg/75UzXug

Other communities or groups of 14 players are welcome to sign up.

Where can I watch this?

The tournament will be casted live with spectating mode and multiple casters here:

Sounds like a lot of fun!

See you on the Seas!

- Tyler & Dakota

[Asid]

Tournamentwake II
17 Mar - Mastfire Studios