Test Games/2021-10-10

Test games are special games occasionally launched by admins to test updates, experimental features and maps.

As test games are run to test specific things, they may not progress in the normal way (for example, heroes may be spawned artificially or monsters may be given additional mana) so that we can more easily test new features. They may be buggy or unbalanced, and may need to be restarted multiple times. Quest, achievement and stats progress may or may not be saved as normal. In-game tutorials and other text may not be updated to reflect changes being tested.

Test games help us ensure new updates work properly and allow us to get player feedback on possible new features and maps. If test games are running, anyone is welcome to join through the main portal in the lobby. We might miss some comments in game chat, so it's helpful to post feedback in the Discord afterwards.

What are we testing?

Today's test games include changes to AI Zombie behaviour and the continued testing of Slimes.

AI Behaviour

Since their introduction AI Zombies have had a fatal flaw of being bad teammates due to feeding and extending dwarf rampages. To address this some changes to AI spawning and targeting have been made.

Spawning

AI Zombies will no longer spawn on dwarves during and for the short period following the end of their rampage. This is to curb spawn camping by no longer feeding a constant stream of AI zombies to the players up front due to their proximity to player monsters.

AI Zombies will no longer spawn inside of walls.

Risk Averseness

The majority of AI zombies will now spawn with a trait which, when targeting a rampaging dwarf, will cause them to either switch targets to another nearby dwarf or flee. This is to prevent AIs from intentionally feeding a dwarf's rampage and instead make the dwarf work harder to extend their rampage.

Bloodthirsty

Some AI Zombies can now spawn with a trait to switch targets to nearby dwarves that have less mana and are bleeding.

Slimes

If you've joined any of our recent map tests, you may have noticed that slimes currently spawn as regular special monsters on the test server. This is a change we're considering making in the future, so your feedback is appreciated.

Slimes in these tests no longer grow when a dwarf they're riding dies, but will now grow (up to three times) after riding dwarves for a prolonged period. Larger slimes are tougher, with the largest slimes being much more difficult to kill. Slimes will get smaller again if they fail to mount any dwarves for too long. In addition, knockback resistance (shields/hero armour) no longer prevents slimes from mounting dwarves.