Test Server Update (2013/10/23)

General:

• Performance changes of all kinds. Too many to list and more on the way.

UI:

• The Centralized HUD has been redesigned with a new look to increase performance. You can try it out by checking the "Centralized HUD Mode" checkbox in the General Settings.
• We've renamed all the Warpgates to geographical names. So you will now see the "Indar Northern Warpgate" instead of the "Indar TR Warpgate"

Misc Bug Fixes:

• Fixed shotgun pellet count tooltip. Instead of saying, "The amount or pellets each time the shotgun fires" the tooltip now says, "Single-shot Pellet Count / Pellet Spread"
• Added 1x sight for VS Eridani SX5G
• Fixed an issue where Resupply and Repair Sunderer icons would not display when within 100 meters of the vehicle
• Fixed an issue where The Smoke Screen Utility tooltip on the loadout menu has a different duration value than the cert rank for Sunderers
• The AV turrets at West Highlands Checkpoint should no longer be floating
• Fixed floating turrets at West Highlands Checkpoint and The Stronghold
• Removed erroneous painfields around Indar
• Fixed an issue where the two projectiles would sometimes be visible when firing the Recon Detect Device when only one was fired
• Fixed issue where lower ranks of Sunderer Proximity Repair could not repair Sunderers that had a higher rank equipped
• Depot Bundles and store items have had a pass to ensure correct faction usage is written in their descriptions
• AV turret projectiles should no longer disappear in large battles

Major Known Issues:

This is not an exhaustive list of what we know about, but we’re turning around a lot of bugs each day and these are the major outstanding issues:

• SLI and Crossfire Hitches – You may want to turn off SLI and Crossfire for the moment as there are some performance hitches we’re working on
• Minimum Spec PCs – If you have the bare minimum or very close to, you may still be experiencing some significant performance issues.
• GPU Particles –These could cause cosmetic anomalies, performance issues and crashing, so please turn them off for now
• Freyr - We’ve decided to hold back the base flows changes in Freyr a little while longer. Likely won’t be until after this first performance update is live
• Video Capture - May cause performance issues, but feel free to test and send us information on what you’re seeing

Help Us Test:

• Performance in large battles - We only have so many people at SOE to test large battles, so this is an area where we really need your help. We’ll be collecting data on the backend, so no real need to send us reports.
• Animation - We’ve made a ton of changes here to improve performance and are still working through some issues. Please report any oddities or bugs in first or third person animation.
• Indar - Indar has received a full optimization overhaul. Look for cosmetic and functional issues in regards to bases and terrain. (Esamir, Amerish and Hossin haven’t had their optimization passes yet.)
• Overhead Indicator Revamp and General UI - We’ve made a lot of optimizations just about everywhere in the UI, so please be on the lookout for anything not functioning properly
• Art Assets - We went back and touched most of our existing art assets (weapons, decals, environment objects, FX, etc.), so please let us know if something doesn’t look right or is just plain missing.
• Stability - If you crash, please let us know in a bug report what you were doing before you crashed
• Double/Triple Loading Screens - We may still have a few lingering cases of this but need to get more testing on this
• Everything Else - We’ve made core changes to the game that could have caused just about anything. We’ve already found and fixed a ton of these, but we’re surely missing some and won’t see them until we get a critical mass of players.
• Framerate Smoothing Option - In graphics settings, you’ll see this an option for Smoothing. If you’re looking for a smoother frame rate, you want this on. If you’re willing to deal with performance spikes -- good spikes and bad spikes – leave this off. We expect most players are going to want this on for a smoother experience, but you’re welcome to test for yourselves and give us feedback. If you’re just looking to see how high your frame rate spikes on Test compared to current live, you will want this off.

Test Server Incentive:

• If you log on to Test Server any time from today until the day before the patch goes live, we’ll give your Live account a 3 day XP boost to use on any character
• You must use your Live account on Test Server to get this reward, otherwise we have no way to determine who to give the reward to

Reporting:

• In-game Reporting - This is the best way to give us feedback as Test Server bugs are emailed directly to us. Push Esc, then support, then Report a Bug
• Forums - Please use the Test Server sections and work with other players to help give us information. The more condensed and easy to read the reports are, the easier it is to get them addressed