Matched Play v1.0 Released!

Matched Play v1.0 is officially released! We have made several changes and fixes to the system over the last few months, but our official release includes improved regional servers with more dedicated power for a better performing experience.

Our programmers have been hard at work behind the scenes working on new and improved bots. Bots have been reworked from the ground up to provide a much more intuitive and similar gameplay mechanics of a real player. All life forms and commanders have had changes and improvements added so that you can play a game by yourself or with a small group of friends and not need to wait or fill a lobby. All of the official maps have been updated in one form or another to add better bot functionality and additional player gameplay experiences.

We would also like to thank psyk for all of their hard work to bring us our newest official map AYUMI. Inspired by the NS1 map of the same name, this five techpoint map feels like a blend of Jambi and Tram and is sure to lead to some fun and exciting rounds.

Changelog

Optimizations

• Significantly improved listen server (localhost) performance by making server updates asynchronous

• Updated LuaJIT and re-enabled trace stitching to increase the amount of code JIT’ed

• Improved player bot performance by increasing JIT coverage of bot code and optimizing the frequency of bot updates

Tweaks / Improvements

• Reduced default match concede timer from 7 minutes to 3 minutes

• Reduced Alien tunnel re-drop cooldown timer from 6 seconds to 3 seconds

• The default AFK timer implementation now correctly handles spectating / respawning / dead players, and provides a warning to players who are in danger of being AFK kicked.

• Matched Play server performance has been greatly improved to reduce network related issues and spin up time.

• Servers will default to ranked status if they:

• • Utilize the default consistency config file;

  • Set between a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20 player slots;

  • Use a maximum of 5 spectator slots;

  • Use only whitelisted mods. The list can be found in our discord server, or on our wiki. You can apply for a mod to be whitelisted in our #modding discord channel.

Matched Play Changes

• Added several quality of life features to the Matched Play interface:

• • Players in the same group will be color-coded in the lobby menu.

  • A sound will be played to wake you up once the lobby enters the Waiting for Commanders stage. This only works if the “Mute on Minimized” game setting is disabled.

  • The map vote status of each player is displayed with a checkmark on their avatar during the Map Vote phase - now you can know for sure who’s AFK during the map vote!

  • You can see the opposing team’s roster during the Planning Phase in case you forgot who you were playing with.

  • The system displays the number of users waiting in lobbies and playing a game on the lobby search screen.

• Added vote kicking functionality to Matched Play Lobbies. During the Waiting for Players phase, any user can initiate a vote kick against any other player in the lobby. If 60% of the lobby members vote yes, the vote passes and the kicked player is removed from the lobby and cannot rejoin.

• Added kicking functionality to Matched