SteamRSS
10-28-2010, 10:55 PM
Once again our Development Team has responded to your call for action. Based on your assistance by offering suggestions and constructive criticisms, the America's Army team has added dozens of improvements and tweaks to America's Army 3.
This release will feature a myriad of gameplay, UI, weapon fixes and more, all designed to greatly improve performance and your gaming experience. Plus, we've heard rumors about some undocumented changes, but we'll let our Developers tell you all about that, so keep watch on our forums for more details.
Stay alert Soldier, the next update for America's Army 3 is coming soon!
America's Army 3 Version 3.0.8.1 Release Notes
New Features
• New Shadowing Options to allow for realistic vs fast shadows to help with performance.
• TS3 Settings menu now allows input device selection.
• HUD now shows inventory on the right side of the display.
• The Battle Planner and BFT/Expanded Map has had several Carried Objective related Improvements made.
• M249 and Obran LMK may now jam if player fires weapon in very long bursts.
• New server switching to a new map/mission UI added.
• Updates to the video card compatibility database to fix optimal settings for newer graphics cards.
• Mission objectives are now shown as a notification (and console) message at the start of the round.
• Current mission objectives are now shown on the expanded map.
Gameplay Fixes
• Network optimizations to allow up to 20+ players depending on the server’s configuration.
• Lean distance set to return user leaning to the full distance.
• Fix to issue where heartbeat sound continued after dying when going straight to death state.
• The incapacitated Pawn will now transition into Death-state immediately after being secured.
• Player no longer gets locked out control wise after returning from pause menu.
• Continued tweaks to vault-mantle system to further prevent issues where player may get stuck when going prone.
• Added changes to reduce frequency of bullet shell emitters getting stuck in walls.
• Tweaked weapon guard logic when medic option is presented. This helps to prioritize prevents the guard from switching back and forth at the edge of the targeting area, potentially causing a misclick to instigate a nearby action (such as vault/mantle) instead of medic.
• Low Ready/High Ready will no longer be repeatedly toggled on and off when pulling away from an activated objective and firing.
• Corrected issue where available spawn points were not getting reset after team swap.
• Fixed issue where player is unable to fire his weapon, after sprinting and stopping pawn performs combat slide.
• Fixed issue where breath hold sounds continued in spite of player being incapacitated or killed while holding breath.
• Fix for incapacitated pawns sliding slowly away after falling down stairs and being unable to receive aid.
• Fixed a bug where the client wasn't getting it's crouching/proning flags updated after a failed transition to those states.
• Adjusted player prone so that a player’s torso must be supported completely by the ground or floor, otherwise player will fall into crouch position.
• Fix for lack of ladder footstep sounds from NME players.
• Changing roles during a match did not actually cause role to be swapped at the end of the round, which led to someone who chose the Squad Leader role for the next round not being able to use the Battle Planner Map for objective/rally point assignments.
• Rally-points (area of operation markers) now reset before rounds 4, and 7.
• Adjustments made to ROE including supporting a “near ROE” distance. This fixes ROE totals so that if the ROE is forgiven the integrity is now given 1/2 of the original penalty and ROE is adjusted so it's only 1/2 of original damage. This corrects the near/far determination and adds in a new rule that doubles the ROE and scoring penalty for close ROE events (less than ~5m).
• Adjustments to leaning added.
• Fix for weapon getting stuck down after sprinting vault/slide.
• Updates to weapon guard functionality.
• Changes to prevent player from climbing ladders while holding a grenade with pin pulled.
• Assigning objective as rally point will properly report the location to fire teams.
• More tweaks to reduce the chances of “Gunface”.
• Weapon guard will not wait for player movement when checking for clearance if the guard was triggered by collision with another player.
• Fixed issues with footstep sounds when moving backwards down steep inclines...such as stairs.
• Corrected issue where incapacitated pawns were not all facing the same way on all clients. Changed the method used to position and rotate incapacitated pawns so that all players see the same thing. Note that different players may still see the incapacitated player laying on different sides (e.g. One play may see the incapacitated player laying on his left side while another may see him on the right side). This will be addressed in a future update.
• Fix to prevent swap to a grenade from cancelling reload if there is no grenade left to swap to.
• Adjusted inventory system to limit players from picking up a third rifle. User will be notified that they cannot carry any more weapons.
• Fixed issue where the wrong team was given the victory if one team is eliminated during a swapping round (4-6, maybe OT). Now the correct team earns the victory and the correct results are displayed in the AAR when a team is eliminated or a team completes the objectives.
Weapons Fixes
• The m320 will now correctly select its ammo from the misc. inventory list on the right side of the HUD.
• Added extra guards to reduce sticking scope effects for some situations.
• Added reset for lingering scope effects after a map change.
• Added additional checks to prevent scope issues caused by vault-mantle volumes.
• Added checks to disallow toggling of fire modes during a melee attack or sprint/
• Added checks to reset scope after falling while holding breath.
• Corrected issues causing misplaced aimpoints when using scopes.
• Modified reload cancelling for m4/m16 weapons to restore the magazine that had been removed instead of forcing it into a pouch.
• Allow selection of iron sights in load out.
• Changes to melee attack to tune attack range.
• Fix to allow melee smashing of the Bucket’s restaurant windows from the inside.
• Disallow shooting while changing weapon modes.
• Fix for bullet penetration with very thin materials such as glass.
• Tweaked DMR and Obran MSP unscoped aim accuracy.
• M249 will now jam if you fire it without pause with an increasing probability of jam. Weapon will not jam until 40 rounds are fired in a burst and then the chance of jam is applied based on a rising scale up (from 1%) up until the player has fired 100 rounds fired where jam likelihood is 25% for each round fired. Obran LMK also has the same jam support the M249 does.
• Changes to prevent repeated fire effects at the end of the clip with quick bursts
• Holding cooked grenade that explode sometimes didn't kill player. Now it always does. Holding cooked flash bangs that explode will cause a tiny bit of damage (as well as apply the normal flash bang effects). Holding cooked smoke grenades that explode will not hurt you.
• Adjusting NME 320 grenadier mod to sight correctly.
• Fix for grenades auto-throwing when you swap between lob/throw while pin is pulled (you can once again cook grenades).
• Fixed issue where weapon occasionally would not come back up after a grenade toss.
Server Additions/Fixes
• Lots of server-side optimizations improve performance.
• Lots of tweaks to server logging that reduce performance.
• Added a server side configuration variable, bShowOpponentExtractionVolume. When set to true, players can see their opponents' extraction volume in both CO and VIP missions. The current default is set to true.
UI Updates
• Updates to ammo inventory now shows the four different types of ammo on the right side of the display:
1. m16/m4 clip
2. m249 SAW box
3. m320 m433 grenade launcher frag
4. m320 m714 grenade launcher smoke
These icons should contain a picture representing their ammo type. They should also match the style of the other miscellaneous inventory.
• Changed the Ready button on the Pre-Game screens to to be more obvious. Ready button also added to the Role Select screen.
• An issue where the ACOG filter was very rarely being enabled after launch of game and would cause blurring of background at the login screen has been corrected.
• Teamspeak now resets when players switch servers so that the HUD notifications are properly triggered if a player changes to a new server or the server switches maps and the player's client travels to the new map.
• The "Honor Only" filter was updated to show both honor and non-honor bearing servers when set to no. When set to "yes" it shows only honor bearing servers.
• Added client-side messaging to explain being unable to toggle the m320 rangefinder during reloads.
• Fix for interface settings message display setup where the 'server' and 'none' options were functionally inverted.
• Player is now notified correctly when objects block and/or interrupt combat slides and dives.
• Added UI support for the new shadow options.
• Ready button now works properly on Role Select screen at all times. Also added new feature of check marks next to players' names on Role Select and Battle Planner to show which players have actually voted "ready".
• The posture indicator should no longer display prone after a failed prone transition.
• Added back buttons to all Go Army child pages and fixed some graphical bugs.
• Messaging for some missions is incorrect (VIP especially) when enemy team is eliminated. This corrects multiple missions’ “messaging”.
• Rank wasn’t displayed correctly in game UI. This corrects SMA rank display and next rank display in Soldier overview (and changes how the next rank to display is calculated). It corrects one the rank field for one rank in the rank conversion table (changes First Sgt to E8 instead of E9). Note that an additional issue in the scoreboard and battle planner relating to some ranks will be addressed in a future update.
• Scoreboard wins/losses aren't updating after the first round. Now they do.
• Added extraction objective color changes to the Battle Planner map Extraction icons are now color-coded. GREEN = The extraction point you are trying to reach. RED = The extraction point you are trying to defend (Carried Objective maps).
• Carried objectives will now flash whenever drawn on the Blue Force Tracker expanded map.
• Extraction volumes will flash if they are the current extraction volume needed to be reached by the team who is carrying the objective. Also put in a fix to allow swapping of mission briefing stuff when both teams are on secure and extract, and teams change spawning location.
• Widened objective text field in battle planner row to prevent cutoff of "W" for Whiskey objectives.
• Adjusted the initial mission objectives notification to display for 8 seconds and added writing it to console as well to make it easier to keep track of.
• Ready button now appears after the last player on your team has had at least a second to choose a role **AND** you have selected a role yourself.
• Fix for server info page not disappearing when it should (ESC pressed, menu page change, etc.
Training Fixes
• Fixing bug for not being able to skip advanced riflemen training dialogue.
Maps Fixes
• Bridge: Fixed a lightmap resolution problem on one of the walls causing an unlit area of the southeast catwalk.
• Bridge Fog Classic: Briefing was omitted for the Bridge Fog Classic mission. Added briefing.
• Impact: Turned the VIP spawn point around so that they aren't facing a wall anymore when they start.
• Ranch: Fixed elevation of objective markers
• All maps: Updated "Team Briefings" strings in Mission Info for each team and mission type.
• Bridge: Tank should no longer be without collision. That was very much a weird one, for some reason the blocking volumes were in the VIP level.
• Ranch: Corrected issues on Ranch that caused ACOG and other weapon/attachment/etc. issues.
Misc Fixes
• Enemy soldiers should no longer demonstrate bad third person hand IK attachments while reloading an Obran LMK.
• Adjusted STS temporary file fmap file handling so odd characters and spaces in username no longer cause issues when starting the game.
• Punkbuster fixes to reduce frequency of getting kicked from a server for no apparent reason.
• Changes were made to improve the PunkBuster integration which should address a number of issues reported by players.
• Teamspeak 3 will now let you select an input device via the in-game UI and the game validates the list of available devices displayed in the settings menu to make sure they will work with TS3 before letting you select the device (meaning if a device isn’t listed in the settings menu it didn’t pass the TS3 device validation). Changes were also made to allow “on the fly” device changes so you can test various devices either while using the “test voice” button in the settings or while attached to a server. TS3 will also validate the device specified in the configuration file and if it is found to be invalid will revert to the system default device.
• VOIP status notifications were removed for this release to fix the crash triggered by players talking when the scoreboard was displayed. We will look into restoring VOIP status notifications in a future update.
• Corrected issue where Alley Fog wasn't listed as having the TAH mission in the AdminChangeMission help.
• Player initiating map vote no longer counts twice when voting.
• Changing Vsync setting will now reset the direct 3d device so that changes take effect immediately rather than waiting.
• Initial Logitech G15 LCD support. Currently only displays America's Army 3 on main LCD display and shows current version and build number. Future versions will introduce additional support.
• Corrected the “Stick to the Plan” award notification localization entry so it now appears properly.
• Corrected “Ultimate Sacrifice” messaging from saying it requires you to save “two or more” to properly state “one or more.
• An issue where “Not On My Watch” localization string was missing was corrected.
• Corrected an issue where the server browser was not reporting PB enabled properly all the time. This changes how it asks PB for it being enabled and should eliminate the issue.
• Corrected issue where PunkBuster was restarting on server after every round. Now it only restarts after a map change.
• New (updated) PBSV tool added to installation. This is the PB service installation tool that is run automatically the first time you install the game. Note that users updating existing installations of AA3 (or those that have already installed PB on their systems for any game) will not need to use this tool.
• Updated PB client DLL's. You may still wish to run PBSetup.exe to verify your PB is up to date prior to playing this new release.
• A change was made to prevent unwounded soldiers from calling for medic.
• Fix to ensure inventory UI will always be properly initialized was added.
• Removes some client side logging when the expanded map is displayed to improve client side performance.
• Fixed grammar in the Game Help section.
• Fix for player hands vanishing at certain spots on certain maps!
• Fix for hands vanishing while throwing grenades.
More... (http://store.steampowered.com/news/4538/)
This release will feature a myriad of gameplay, UI, weapon fixes and more, all designed to greatly improve performance and your gaming experience. Plus, we've heard rumors about some undocumented changes, but we'll let our Developers tell you all about that, so keep watch on our forums for more details.
Stay alert Soldier, the next update for America's Army 3 is coming soon!
America's Army 3 Version 3.0.8.1 Release Notes
New Features
• New Shadowing Options to allow for realistic vs fast shadows to help with performance.
• TS3 Settings menu now allows input device selection.
• HUD now shows inventory on the right side of the display.
• The Battle Planner and BFT/Expanded Map has had several Carried Objective related Improvements made.
• M249 and Obran LMK may now jam if player fires weapon in very long bursts.
• New server switching to a new map/mission UI added.
• Updates to the video card compatibility database to fix optimal settings for newer graphics cards.
• Mission objectives are now shown as a notification (and console) message at the start of the round.
• Current mission objectives are now shown on the expanded map.
Gameplay Fixes
• Network optimizations to allow up to 20+ players depending on the server’s configuration.
• Lean distance set to return user leaning to the full distance.
• Fix to issue where heartbeat sound continued after dying when going straight to death state.
• The incapacitated Pawn will now transition into Death-state immediately after being secured.
• Player no longer gets locked out control wise after returning from pause menu.
• Continued tweaks to vault-mantle system to further prevent issues where player may get stuck when going prone.
• Added changes to reduce frequency of bullet shell emitters getting stuck in walls.
• Tweaked weapon guard logic when medic option is presented. This helps to prioritize prevents the guard from switching back and forth at the edge of the targeting area, potentially causing a misclick to instigate a nearby action (such as vault/mantle) instead of medic.
• Low Ready/High Ready will no longer be repeatedly toggled on and off when pulling away from an activated objective and firing.
• Corrected issue where available spawn points were not getting reset after team swap.
• Fixed issue where player is unable to fire his weapon, after sprinting and stopping pawn performs combat slide.
• Fixed issue where breath hold sounds continued in spite of player being incapacitated or killed while holding breath.
• Fix for incapacitated pawns sliding slowly away after falling down stairs and being unable to receive aid.
• Fixed a bug where the client wasn't getting it's crouching/proning flags updated after a failed transition to those states.
• Adjusted player prone so that a player’s torso must be supported completely by the ground or floor, otherwise player will fall into crouch position.
• Fix for lack of ladder footstep sounds from NME players.
• Changing roles during a match did not actually cause role to be swapped at the end of the round, which led to someone who chose the Squad Leader role for the next round not being able to use the Battle Planner Map for objective/rally point assignments.
• Rally-points (area of operation markers) now reset before rounds 4, and 7.
• Adjustments made to ROE including supporting a “near ROE” distance. This fixes ROE totals so that if the ROE is forgiven the integrity is now given 1/2 of the original penalty and ROE is adjusted so it's only 1/2 of original damage. This corrects the near/far determination and adds in a new rule that doubles the ROE and scoring penalty for close ROE events (less than ~5m).
• Adjustments to leaning added.
• Fix for weapon getting stuck down after sprinting vault/slide.
• Updates to weapon guard functionality.
• Changes to prevent player from climbing ladders while holding a grenade with pin pulled.
• Assigning objective as rally point will properly report the location to fire teams.
• More tweaks to reduce the chances of “Gunface”.
• Weapon guard will not wait for player movement when checking for clearance if the guard was triggered by collision with another player.
• Fixed issues with footstep sounds when moving backwards down steep inclines...such as stairs.
• Corrected issue where incapacitated pawns were not all facing the same way on all clients. Changed the method used to position and rotate incapacitated pawns so that all players see the same thing. Note that different players may still see the incapacitated player laying on different sides (e.g. One play may see the incapacitated player laying on his left side while another may see him on the right side). This will be addressed in a future update.
• Fix to prevent swap to a grenade from cancelling reload if there is no grenade left to swap to.
• Adjusted inventory system to limit players from picking up a third rifle. User will be notified that they cannot carry any more weapons.
• Fixed issue where the wrong team was given the victory if one team is eliminated during a swapping round (4-6, maybe OT). Now the correct team earns the victory and the correct results are displayed in the AAR when a team is eliminated or a team completes the objectives.
Weapons Fixes
• The m320 will now correctly select its ammo from the misc. inventory list on the right side of the HUD.
• Added extra guards to reduce sticking scope effects for some situations.
• Added reset for lingering scope effects after a map change.
• Added additional checks to prevent scope issues caused by vault-mantle volumes.
• Added checks to disallow toggling of fire modes during a melee attack or sprint/
• Added checks to reset scope after falling while holding breath.
• Corrected issues causing misplaced aimpoints when using scopes.
• Modified reload cancelling for m4/m16 weapons to restore the magazine that had been removed instead of forcing it into a pouch.
• Allow selection of iron sights in load out.
• Changes to melee attack to tune attack range.
• Fix to allow melee smashing of the Bucket’s restaurant windows from the inside.
• Disallow shooting while changing weapon modes.
• Fix for bullet penetration with very thin materials such as glass.
• Tweaked DMR and Obran MSP unscoped aim accuracy.
• M249 will now jam if you fire it without pause with an increasing probability of jam. Weapon will not jam until 40 rounds are fired in a burst and then the chance of jam is applied based on a rising scale up (from 1%) up until the player has fired 100 rounds fired where jam likelihood is 25% for each round fired. Obran LMK also has the same jam support the M249 does.
• Changes to prevent repeated fire effects at the end of the clip with quick bursts
• Holding cooked grenade that explode sometimes didn't kill player. Now it always does. Holding cooked flash bangs that explode will cause a tiny bit of damage (as well as apply the normal flash bang effects). Holding cooked smoke grenades that explode will not hurt you.
• Adjusting NME 320 grenadier mod to sight correctly.
• Fix for grenades auto-throwing when you swap between lob/throw while pin is pulled (you can once again cook grenades).
• Fixed issue where weapon occasionally would not come back up after a grenade toss.
Server Additions/Fixes
• Lots of server-side optimizations improve performance.
• Lots of tweaks to server logging that reduce performance.
• Added a server side configuration variable, bShowOpponentExtractionVolume. When set to true, players can see their opponents' extraction volume in both CO and VIP missions. The current default is set to true.
UI Updates
• Updates to ammo inventory now shows the four different types of ammo on the right side of the display:
1. m16/m4 clip
2. m249 SAW box
3. m320 m433 grenade launcher frag
4. m320 m714 grenade launcher smoke
These icons should contain a picture representing their ammo type. They should also match the style of the other miscellaneous inventory.
• Changed the Ready button on the Pre-Game screens to to be more obvious. Ready button also added to the Role Select screen.
• An issue where the ACOG filter was very rarely being enabled after launch of game and would cause blurring of background at the login screen has been corrected.
• Teamspeak now resets when players switch servers so that the HUD notifications are properly triggered if a player changes to a new server or the server switches maps and the player's client travels to the new map.
• The "Honor Only" filter was updated to show both honor and non-honor bearing servers when set to no. When set to "yes" it shows only honor bearing servers.
• Added client-side messaging to explain being unable to toggle the m320 rangefinder during reloads.
• Fix for interface settings message display setup where the 'server' and 'none' options were functionally inverted.
• Player is now notified correctly when objects block and/or interrupt combat slides and dives.
• Added UI support for the new shadow options.
• Ready button now works properly on Role Select screen at all times. Also added new feature of check marks next to players' names on Role Select and Battle Planner to show which players have actually voted "ready".
• The posture indicator should no longer display prone after a failed prone transition.
• Added back buttons to all Go Army child pages and fixed some graphical bugs.
• Messaging for some missions is incorrect (VIP especially) when enemy team is eliminated. This corrects multiple missions’ “messaging”.
• Rank wasn’t displayed correctly in game UI. This corrects SMA rank display and next rank display in Soldier overview (and changes how the next rank to display is calculated). It corrects one the rank field for one rank in the rank conversion table (changes First Sgt to E8 instead of E9). Note that an additional issue in the scoreboard and battle planner relating to some ranks will be addressed in a future update.
• Scoreboard wins/losses aren't updating after the first round. Now they do.
• Added extraction objective color changes to the Battle Planner map Extraction icons are now color-coded. GREEN = The extraction point you are trying to reach. RED = The extraction point you are trying to defend (Carried Objective maps).
• Carried objectives will now flash whenever drawn on the Blue Force Tracker expanded map.
• Extraction volumes will flash if they are the current extraction volume needed to be reached by the team who is carrying the objective. Also put in a fix to allow swapping of mission briefing stuff when both teams are on secure and extract, and teams change spawning location.
• Widened objective text field in battle planner row to prevent cutoff of "W" for Whiskey objectives.
• Adjusted the initial mission objectives notification to display for 8 seconds and added writing it to console as well to make it easier to keep track of.
• Ready button now appears after the last player on your team has had at least a second to choose a role **AND** you have selected a role yourself.
• Fix for server info page not disappearing when it should (ESC pressed, menu page change, etc.
Training Fixes
• Fixing bug for not being able to skip advanced riflemen training dialogue.
Maps Fixes
• Bridge: Fixed a lightmap resolution problem on one of the walls causing an unlit area of the southeast catwalk.
• Bridge Fog Classic: Briefing was omitted for the Bridge Fog Classic mission. Added briefing.
• Impact: Turned the VIP spawn point around so that they aren't facing a wall anymore when they start.
• Ranch: Fixed elevation of objective markers
• All maps: Updated "Team Briefings" strings in Mission Info for each team and mission type.
• Bridge: Tank should no longer be without collision. That was very much a weird one, for some reason the blocking volumes were in the VIP level.
• Ranch: Corrected issues on Ranch that caused ACOG and other weapon/attachment/etc. issues.
Misc Fixes
• Enemy soldiers should no longer demonstrate bad third person hand IK attachments while reloading an Obran LMK.
• Adjusted STS temporary file fmap file handling so odd characters and spaces in username no longer cause issues when starting the game.
• Punkbuster fixes to reduce frequency of getting kicked from a server for no apparent reason.
• Changes were made to improve the PunkBuster integration which should address a number of issues reported by players.
• Teamspeak 3 will now let you select an input device via the in-game UI and the game validates the list of available devices displayed in the settings menu to make sure they will work with TS3 before letting you select the device (meaning if a device isn’t listed in the settings menu it didn’t pass the TS3 device validation). Changes were also made to allow “on the fly” device changes so you can test various devices either while using the “test voice” button in the settings or while attached to a server. TS3 will also validate the device specified in the configuration file and if it is found to be invalid will revert to the system default device.
• VOIP status notifications were removed for this release to fix the crash triggered by players talking when the scoreboard was displayed. We will look into restoring VOIP status notifications in a future update.
• Corrected issue where Alley Fog wasn't listed as having the TAH mission in the AdminChangeMission help.
• Player initiating map vote no longer counts twice when voting.
• Changing Vsync setting will now reset the direct 3d device so that changes take effect immediately rather than waiting.
• Initial Logitech G15 LCD support. Currently only displays America's Army 3 on main LCD display and shows current version and build number. Future versions will introduce additional support.
• Corrected the “Stick to the Plan” award notification localization entry so it now appears properly.
• Corrected “Ultimate Sacrifice” messaging from saying it requires you to save “two or more” to properly state “one or more.
• An issue where “Not On My Watch” localization string was missing was corrected.
• Corrected an issue where the server browser was not reporting PB enabled properly all the time. This changes how it asks PB for it being enabled and should eliminate the issue.
• Corrected issue where PunkBuster was restarting on server after every round. Now it only restarts after a map change.
• New (updated) PBSV tool added to installation. This is the PB service installation tool that is run automatically the first time you install the game. Note that users updating existing installations of AA3 (or those that have already installed PB on their systems for any game) will not need to use this tool.
• Updated PB client DLL's. You may still wish to run PBSetup.exe to verify your PB is up to date prior to playing this new release.
• A change was made to prevent unwounded soldiers from calling for medic.
• Fix to ensure inventory UI will always be properly initialized was added.
• Removes some client side logging when the expanded map is displayed to improve client side performance.
• Fixed grammar in the Game Help section.
• Fix for player hands vanishing at certain spots on certain maps!
• Fix for hands vanishing while throwing grenades.
More... (http://store.steampowered.com/news/4538/)