Pixel Tennis Changelog

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Added RSA encryption for user login message

UI
Improved login and character creation screen

pixeltennis-login.png (46.92 KiB) Viewed 35594 times

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Prevent bruteforcing logins
Fixed returning to current room after finishing a match
Fixed handling unexpected player disconnects
Fixed trying to start a game when not all players are ready

Animation
Added character idle animation
Character now looks towards its movement direction

Character Design
Added support for different character models (currently DefaultBoy/DefaultGirl) and utilize them in character selection screen, character info screen, room and match
Decreased character size compared to the court size
Pills now have eyes!

UI
Fixed unintentional closing of login and character selection screen
Added chat command @CharacterName to directly contact an online player
Added chat while in match
Keep chat history when switching menus
Toggle Room/RoomTeam chat with Ctrl
Show score banner after scoring a point during match

Gameplay
Fixed player could not win set on advantage
Fixed player movement issues on high (100+) framerate
Fixed detecting if serve was hit back at the front

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Added option to kick players in a room. Kicked players cannot rejoin the room
Added option to switch room settings while in room
Added character name validation and configurable blacklist
Limit room size based on game mode, prevent switching to room slots 3 or 4 on 1on1

UI
Added support for multi line chat messages
Added list of players currently online with option to message them

Gameplay
Added option to access settings during a match
Added option to forfeit a match

[WongKit]

Gameplay
Revised player shot creation logic. Now, players can only send input direction, source position and charge duration to the game server. Ball speed and position is handled for each client individually preventing manipulation from the hitting player.
Added basic cpu controlled player to debug match play
Hide ball before match begins
Player turns towards dive/stumble/miss position

Adjusted gameplay behaviors to be closer to Fantasy Tennis. This includes
- shot direction steering
- prevent hitting the ball outside of court using slice shots
- increase shot distance for charged shots
- increase shot angle when player is closer to net
- adjust shot angles if charged / uncharged
- adjust "stun" time for diving towards the ball, hitting air and returning smash shots
- near missing ball animation now always triggers if ball is behind the player
- reduced shot angle penalty for stumble shots
- removed shot target shift for stumble shots

Adjustments are mainly made based of frame data analysis of Fantasy Tennis single player mode

[WongKit]

Website / Forum
Updated forum to phpbb 3.3

Gameplay
Gameplay balancing adjustments to be closer to Fantasy Tennis
- shot speed between 0 and 100 str
- movement speed between 0 and 100 dex (+5 movement speed)
- ball spin between 0 and 100 wil
- stun time for hitting air and returning smashes
- special shot meter increase for uncharged and charged shots

In order to do accomplish that, I captured about 130 different scenarios (shots, movements, animations) in different situations (0-100 str/dex/wil, court position, charge) from Fantasy Tennis and compared them frame by frame with video editing software.

I prefer to have a similar gameplay feeling like the "original" game for the first release, but I will not copy every aspect of it. Did you know, that lob shots in FT were slower when executed at net? This will not be part of Pixel Tennis. You will also be able to do slice shots if the ball did not bounce first.

[WongKit]

Network Gameplay
Added some primitive form of latency compensation. If a client hit a slice at the very last position, the controlling instance might considered it as too late, because the hit information was transferred x milliseconds after the ball bounced twice. Now, clients "negotiate" if a player scored. This custom logic still needs to be tested in a live environment.

Animation
Added own ball trails for lob / slice
Ball trails of previous shots now do not disappear instantly anymore

Gameplay
Added ### shot
Fixed serve smash shot was way too easy
Fixed mole shot traveling above the court
Fixed snake shot too fast at net
Fixed diagonal player movement too fast

Gameplay balancing adjustments to be closer to Fantasy Tennis
- guard break and skill shot return knockback time
- shot speed for special shots
- shot speed for smashes
- reduced lob bounce height
- initial shot distance for stroke and and slice reduced
- increase initial shot distance if player is near net
- increase bounce speed for lobs
- reduced shot correction time
- reduced charged ball speed

[WongKit]

Network Gameplay
Added ball reset on heavy desync. This should not happen, but if it does, it is handled by the server
Player forfeits are not treated as disconnects anymore
Smoothed out network player movement and rotation

Animation
Added ball bounce ripple
Fixed camera stuttering on logon and during skill shot animation
Added scene transitions

UI
Added match result screen with summary and exp and value gain per team

Gameplay
Added serve timeout
Added short strokes at net

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Set free character slots to 2 for new accounts
Do not restore free character slots on character deletion
Prevent character creation for names with less than 3 letters
Make exp rate bonus configurable

Animation
Improved animation state handling
Adjusted ball trail visuals
Changed charge animation
Charge animation does not show up if charge time too low
Fixed running animation not always active after serving

UI
Added count of available character slots on character select menu
Improved FPS counter performance and accuracy
Fixed player name tag appearing before match result screen
Fixed character data not applied after returning from a match
Updated match charge meter and score ui
Score banner now also shows set points after set

3D Modeling
Improved arena court lighting performance

Gameplay
Revoke player charging state if ball was hit earlier by another player (2on2)
Adjusted smash shot bounces
Adjust near missing ball stun time similar to FT
Fixed charged shots did not trigger in certain scenarios
Don't reward players for short matches (< 1 minute)

Misc
Lots of technical improvements

[WongKit]

Network Gameplay
Increased network poll rate for lower latency

Network Gameserver
Prevent starting a match with not enough players
Prevent starting a match not as room master

Animation
Improved charge effect
Added ball hit and smash effect
Fixed charge animation not resetting between match rounds
Replaced ball git sound and reduced default music volume

Gameplay
Reduced chance for snake shot to bounce outside of court
Make court boundaries more precise
Make special shot type dependant on player level until inventory logic exists
- Level 1-3 Power Shot
- Level 4-6 Eagle Shot
...

Misc
Improved texture sizes and performance
Improved performance of release builds
Added installer

[WongKit]

Animation
Added screen shake on special shot

3D Modeling
Optimize textures, lightmaps and quality settings

Character Design
Player tic tacs now blink (!)

UI
Auto hide chat lines while in match
Added indicator for unspent skill points in main menu
Added close button to login menu

Gameplay
Adjust sloppy shot distance detection
Fixed banana shot not curving correctly before first bounce
Adjusted mole shot speed

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Fixed exp rate unintentionally increased by factor 10 due to wrong float conversion

3D Modeling
Improved menu and arena court lighting

Leveling System
Increased skill points per level from 1 to 2 until shop and inventory is introduced. With a maximum level of 50, you can now spend up to 104 points to STR / STA / DEX / WIL

UI
Increased scrolling speed with mouse wheel

Gameplay
Improved player input handling
Added default gamepad mapping. Pixel Tennis currently does not offer an ingame UI to reconfigure keys and gamepad controls. However, you can set them up when holding the Shift Key while starting the game.
Sloppy special shots can no longer bounce outside of court
Reduced mole shot speed
Added player movement acceleration

Misc
First successful live tests with 1on1 and 2on2 matches!

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Fixed player could appear multiple times in the same room
Fixed potential server crash when player disconnects (might be connected to the room bug)
Fixed player could start multiple match instances

UI
Fixed wrong room layout when switching from 1on1 to 2on2
Fixed broken chat when leaving and entering a room
Fixed server disconnect while in a match did not give an opportunity to close the game

Gameplay
Reduced slice speed when shot at net

A new client is available for download in the downloads section. You will require the new version to play the upcoming public testruns.

[WongKit]

UI
Colorize room slots with team color

Gameplay
Improved ball collision prediction accuracy
Adjust player hit boxes
Reduced snake shot speed
Increased hit lag based on FT

I did not have much time to work on the game, so the upcoming test run(s) only have minor changes.

[WongKit]

Website / Forum
Fixed download of Pixel Tennis installer broken in certain scenarios (also saves 2 bytes!)

Network Gameserver
Prevent double hitting a ball by 2 players on the same team by 75% (the lagging hitter still could see his move overwritten by his/her team player)
Remember kicked players of a room by their character ids instead of their connection ids

[WongKit]

UI
Fixed Online List and Stats window do not open again if they were open before while switching from room to lobby

Gameplay
Fixed: When you walk diagonally towards the net, you can't move - you can now rub against the net like in FT!

[WongKit]

UI
Logon screen now reacts to Tab and Enter key (should be KeePass Auto-Type compatible now)
Username or password field is preselected on game launch
Chat container is moved upwards on the end of a match, so that it does not get overlayed by the match result banner
Fixed receiving chat messages during special shot animation

Gameplay
Added small initial delay before player can start serving and hit the ball

A new client (version 0.1.3) is available in the download section and will be required for the upcoming test run.

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Fixed rare condition that could crash the server on higher load

UI
Fixed FPS counter accuracy

Gameplay
Increased effect of WIL attribute
Decreased smash return power penalty
Increased lob speed
increased smash speed

Misc
Added easter egg*

*If you coincidentally own a file named "lucy_voice_miss.wav", put it into "C:\Program Files (x86)\Pixel Tennis\Pixel Tennis_Data\StreamingAssets\" and it will be used in the game :D

A new client (version 0.1.4) is available in the download section and will be required for the current test run.

[WongKit]

Gameplay
Slightly decreased lob speed

A new client (version 0.1.5) is available in the download section and will be required for the current test run. Sorry, for the inconveniences!

[WongKit]

UI
Added version information to login screen

Misc
Added custom auto update mechanism (Windows only)

[WongKit]

Network Gameserver
Heavily revised networking to improve cpu and memory usage.

This is again one of the topics that do not bring new features to the game, but are still important.
I spare you with technical details, but I can tell, that the game server would have hit its performance limits at around 20 parallel matches during the last test run. This is now fixed.