Version: 0.24.0-9680

New Directive Games Account and Login

As The Machines Arena becomes multi-platform cross-play and cross-purchase we had to create a new Accounts, Signup, and Login system to link to all our new partners. 

The first time you log in now, you must create a new Directive Games account, and link it to your Epic account to access your existing account and inventory. This also makes your existing inventory accessible on other platforms such as mobile, and allows you eventually to simply link other platforms like Sky Mavis directly. There are known issues and edge cases, so please submit a feedback report! 

This website is also the home to your player profile and inventory, where you can choose to mint your Skins and Familiars, and shortly, you will have more leaderboards, quests and activity tracking that all count towards Play to Airdrop rewards. Check it out on www.themachinesarena.com.

If you encounter any issues while creating or managing your account, or while minting Skins or Familiars, please submit a ticket using our Customer Support form: https://form.asana.com/?k=HRZiRNnVxz3QghTZ0zbXaA&d=16779917582785 

Mobile & Cross-Play

The Machines Arena comes to mobile on Android devices with full cross-play capabilities. PC and Android users can play together via cross-play, and progress is carried over between devices. This is an early version for Android so please send us all feedback and bug reports on our Discord or new Customer Support form. A lot of work has been done on making The Machines Arena accessible on Android mobile devices, ranging from performance improvements, downscaling VFX and LODs, to mobile-specific controls and general improvements to most systems. Note:

• An option to toggle on/off aim assist has been added under Options->Gamepad this option only affects mobile and if a player is using a controller on PC
• A specific in-game hud UI has been implemented to support mobile touch controls.
• While mobile performance optimization have been achieved, and more are coming, they also benefit the PC client performance.

Familiars

A new gameplay feature has emerged with Familiars now mintable on Ronin. Familiars come in 4 forms available, each combining with 3 unique abilities, resulting in 12 variants of Familiars introduced in this release. A bundle of 3 free Common (non-mintable) Familiars is available for a limited time to every player to test out this new feature and ensure a leveled playground for every player. The potency of the abilities depends on the rarity of the familiar. As the feature progresses in future iterations, more and rarer Familiars will be introduced with further enhanced effects. Familiars can be minted on the website through your profile. It's important to note that Familiar boosts scale equally for everyone in Ranked PvP to maintain fairness.

Abilities the Familiars offer are:

• Damage boost
• Health boost
• Ability cooldown boost (excluding Ultimates)

PvE 

• Difficulty adjustment for the boss encounter in biome02 
  • Removed 2 Dayes
  • Added 5 Nobles
  • Note: Always a Work in progress.

PvP

• Ranked mode continues to have specific events, leaderboards, and limited-time openings.
• More Game Server Regions, with more always-on servers in all Regions to decrease latency, less chance of matchmaking you in far away regions. On-demand capacity requires you to wait for a physical server to spin up, always on is uhm, always on!
• Inactivity detection and kicking
  • In-game activity detection has been implemented. Inactive players will be kicked from an on-going match. Account XP and other progression is only granted to those that are present at the end of the match.
• Bots
  • Sight range has been halved

Hand of God Tech Demo

The Hand of God game mode has been disabled for now while we evaluate the outcomes, and what would be great next steps. Thank you for participating in the survey!

Other notable changes and improvements

Season, Skins & Rewards

• Closed Beta season 3 has ended
• The first Open Beta Season is next up with details to follow
• The Closed Beta Welcome Bundle has expired and therefore the Playmaker XE skin will not be available as a reward again
• New Welcome Bundle has includes the 3 Common non-mintable Familiars
• Closed Beta Rank Reward has closed and Bravo Zulu Mercenary, XE Urban Commando, Desert Ranger Tesla, and Daye Demo are all mintable. These skins will never be available again.
• Reaching Silver rank in Ranked PVP in Beta Season 3 is over and the reward skin Riot: Sandbrushed, will be given out and will never be available again.
• Remember: Owners of skins that are no longer available, still need to mint to Ronin to be visible on the market. Therefore players sometimes take their time minting all their skins, but should do so before mint passes are required to mint.

Gameplay bug-fixes

• Canceling a purchase in the store now only trigger the button sound once
• Zulu Explosive Rounds audio looping forever fixed

UI/UX improvements 

• Hero gallery revamp: 
  • New and improved UI
  • Updated ability and weapon description
  • More visual interaction with skin
  • Right side panel is hidden when no hero is selected
  • Selected tab stays selected when switching between heroes
  • Complete control when rotating the hero
• Updated character poses and images for each skin
• Added splash screen animation
• Updated character skins materials and emissive materials
• Updated LODs for skins
• PvP hud has been completely reworked
• PvE hud has been partly reworked
• Added Familiars’ cards to the Store
• Improved the UX of claiming a free bundle in the store
• Updated UX on social interactions.
  • Adding friends and forming parties has gotten a makeover.

Options

• Added option ‘UI Scale’ so players can scale the UI to their preference
• An option to toggle on/off aim assist has been added under Options->Gamepad this option only affects mobile and if a player is using a controller on PC
• An option to add milkshakes was abandoned as it predictably only brought boys

Known Issues

• You may want to create the new account and link your Epic account directly via the website before logging in for the first time, as there is typing involved.
• Be sure that you link the correct Epic Account to your new Directive Games account. It picks up if you are already logged in to Epic in the browser and links you to that account. 
• Game Client may not login properly the first time, simply try again. It should then retain the correct login token, and you only need to press login after that - but do not enter username and password.
• Game Client on PC may perform better than the old client as a result of performance improvements achieved for Android, but the Android client is still problematic on older devices and chipsets. If your phone is 4 years or older, it will not run well, and even some newer devices will have hardware specific problems. Please submit a Bug Report.
• New PC direct download and Android installer, launcher, and patcher (“Launcher”) does not correctly install or update the game client (rare). A full removal and re-install has helped this issue. There is also a repair function in that launcher that is being expanded upon to fix this. This does not apply to the Epic Store client which is its own launcher.
• If you encounter any issues while creating or managing your account, or while minting Skins or Familiars, please submit a ticket using our Customer Support form: https://form.asana.com/?k=HRZiRNnVxz3QghTZ0zbXaA&d=16779917582785 The same form can be used for suggestions and feedback to the team.
• For submitting bug reports, game crashes, mobile performance, and other in-game issues, please submit a ticket using our Bug Report form: https://form.asana.com/?k=queShsGEX5OfU_XV6GrGpQ&d=16779917582785