In this update I've done some long overdue housekeeping. As a solo developer, I've been continuing to learn Unreal Engine over the 4 years I've been making Soran. And because I don't know what I'm doing, I managed to ignore a few thousand null reference errors over the years. They piled up, but generally didn't seem to break the build. Well in this update I managed to reduce that number to 2 pesky errors that I'm still working to fix. I did that by ensuring that every reference my code tries to point to is considered "Valid" before it grabs them. If you're an Unreal developer and haven't heard of validated gets, I highly recommend looking into them. They're great for helping fix a few thousand "accessed none" errors.

Also in this update I found a reproduction and fix for the worst and most elusive bug we have. This bug would occasionally cause a player to spawn without any of their weapons. This should be fixed now. Please tell me if it's not, and I'll happily return to pulling my hair out over it.

Also also I've added the vaulted maps "Horizon" and "The Bridge" back to the game and matchmaking rotation.

There are still some occasional netcode issues relating to things like ammo pick ups, swapping weapons, and CTF. Please report these if you see them! Once I fix them, Soran will finally become 1.16 updates old, and I'll begin on my next big art pass.

That's all for now, thanks for reading and playing Soran!

In this update I'm trying out some balance changes to address the gameplay goals of "defenestrating players off of the map should be fun" and "the player should never accidentally fall off of the map."

Here's what's new...
-New Arena "Sym2" added to Custom Matches for Testing
-Vertical knockback increased on the Defenestrator
-Melee boost slightly increased
-Wavedash boost slightly decreased
-NLL or "No Lives Lost" mechanic disabled (falling off of the arena will always grant your enemy a point)
-Air control increased from 0.1 to 0.2
-Various small bug fixes