Shaking things up
The next seasonal shakes up the typical FRG Seasonal formula. Normally, a seasonal update contains a new device, new 'shard' type item to use in the device, a new gift package type 'reward', the new main seasonal crate, and the 'crate within a crate' (christmas crackers, plastic eggs, etc).
This is a great formula, and was forged over the years by new innovations and community feedback, it worked well. But... without varying from it too much for the last ~4 years, the normal loop has grown quite stale. Before I continue, I think it's important to discuss what happened with Christmas.
The Christmas blunder
With Christmas, I tried to combat this a bit by introducing the Christmas Spirit bar, seasonal tasks, and more server-wide rewards. This was cool, most were received well, but we saw an overabundance of the main present, which in turn caused a lot of people to not need to buy any presents with coins. Seasonals are usually a great economic time for our community, as there's a need for coins to open the main series, so it gets coins circulating and flowing while removing them from the system as well.
This results in much higher trading activity than normal, and generally just makes coins feel better to have.
When you don't have to spend coins to mass open the new series, this structure collapses. So, what went wrong?
Presents were being rewarded at a much, much higher rate than prior seasonals. I caught it too late unfortunately, so the damage was done. When I fixed one portion of it, lots of people felt under rewarded, which is not what I want to happen at all.
I also focused a lot more on making this present cooler than prior ones, which in turn made the pass suffer a bit as well and feel generally less re-playable. The pass was also the easiest to level by far due to the new tasks, and primeval coins. This all just led to there being 80 concurrent players, but only ~10 on TTT while the rest were afk opening presents because they had already flown through their pass and accumulated 10s of thousands of presents during that short time.
You might be thinking that straying from the formula is risky, well typically it isn't. Every feature we have during a seasonal resulted from some variant of a previous system that in of itself at one point was a brand new introduction to a seasonal. The pass for instance stems directly from the original "Abyssal Energy" system. Prior to that we had no seasonal passes, just a new crate, minigame, and sometimes a quest or boss fight.
I LOVE trying new things, new systems, and new mechanics. I have started to dread working on seasonals entirely because I have fallen into a pattern. I know what I have to do, despite having to make all new items. It has just become very dull for someone like me who likes to branch out creatively and try new things. I rarely let risk stop me from trying new things. Christmas was the first seasonal in all of FRG's life that I feel I've blundered. I wasted a good opportunity to gauge all these new systems because of some minor reward balancing mistakes.
The Road Ahead
Where does that leave us for the future?
Well, I started evaluating the issues from the prior seasonal, how to remedy them, then the issues that arise from potential fixes. You see, the main solution to the main issue last seasonal was to lower the amount of presents players obtained without spending coins. Pretty obvious, right? But that can feel bad when the bulk of the rewards you get without spending coins aren't that interesting. Making players feel under rewarded for their time. That is no good.
Then I looked at the typical loop from a player, all of the different UI's they have to go through, the devices they have to manage, the 'gift package' type items they have to deal with, how the "shards" feel meh, and how getting a base tier 20 item feels for the 3rd time. The baseline reward for playing should feel better, more like you're working towards something. It shouldn't just be a vessel to obtain the primary seasonal crate.
All of these things were considered when I decided on what changes I would be making to the seasonal. I wont be going into specific details about a lot of the core changes(though I may hint at some as the update approaches launch), to keep things more exciting when it launches, but I am excited to work on a seasonal for the first time in years. It's been great, progress has been very good, and there's really good suggestions this year from the community too!
I will end this by saying I just thought I should give you guys a heads up on things potentially changing, so you're just a little more aware and potentially more accepting of the upcoming changes. Oh also: There will not be any godlike or exotic pass rewards for this seasonal pass. They will instead be primordial (tier 20 will have some visual stuff to make it feel more special still), as a result the soft xp cap will be removed.
Hey FRG its LMAN coming back with my 2nd installment into the FRG community frg_tdm_castle. THIS MAP WILL COME OUT WITH THE RELEASE OF THE TDM GAMEMODE
This map features cool visuals, close, mid, long range combat, and BOOST PAD INFILTRATION!!! (THANKS PARADE FOR BOOST PADS AND CASTLE ASSETS )
The map in terms of optimization lighting and visuals this is without a doubt my best work yet and its easily gonna get better this raises a new bar to my standards on map making.
To The Black Parade, BrassX, and the Community. I've learned so much about source mapping and how it works and for the past 2.5 years I've easily improved from what you taught me even with helping on fixing optimizing this map too!!! Brass your coding has stunned me and gotten me so intrested into coding with lua trying to get just as good as you because it looks like you can make anything crazy right off of your fingertips. With the guns, events, and items its flipping awesome keep it up brotha.Community you have ups and downs at times but mainly ups. You guys, YOU are cool and what help keep this cool server thriving and active. I wanna keep making maps for you guys to enjoy and if anything that is either a map error/mistake let me know at any time I will try to fix it ASAP also send me any suggestions I'm down for some because I cant always be thinking of what potentially be the next biggest project. To all of you... Thanks.
Water Treatment: Chambers is an extremely difficult variation of Water Treatment in which the map takes a more linear approach. The focus has been pointed to difficulty and "parkour content" rather than exploration.
DISCLAIMER FOR ALL RUNNERS
Chambers' difficulty is extremely elevated. For those who are or were excited for a new Water Treatment but do not have the basic grasps of Source movement, this will be very challenging for beginners and is not for faint of heart. I of course recommend you give it a fair try, but if you are struggling and becoming frustrated, take a quick breather, leave your desk, and try again or try it a different time. Not everyone will be able to complete WTC. I wish you all the best of luck
Wall Running Changes
You can now press A or D to wall run
Wall running in general has been made more intuitive to all players. Players who had a distain for wall running, see if it feels better.
After letting off from a wall you have a fraction of time to perform a jump.
Water Treatment Changes
The map has been made in a linear fashion. Players are provided with 7 unlockable courses containing 3 Chambers each. At the end of the course you will receive a chest. These Chambers are made with Lives like Agony. You have a limited number of lives before you are sent back to Chamber 1.
Water Treatment Beacons are not physical items but rather they are displayed on your screen. They can be collected first time from any chest. Checkpoints are purely to unlock new courses.
There are 42 Gems to collect throughout the map.
Trials are unlocked by completing the course for that Trial first.
Water Treatment: Chambers can be entirely solo'd. Players are allowed to help others however or wherever they can (with the exception of Trials).
Warning for Trials
Because WTC is made soloable, Trials should also be solo. Records with aid from other players will be deleted. This includes stuff like pushing buttons for the runner to decrease their time. This also includes if another player has unintentionally helped the runner in any capacity, they will also be removed. If there are a lot of players running a course you're trying to do a Trial on, it might be best to wait to prevent the unfortunate event of your new time being removed.
With all that, good luck. I don't expect everyone to like Water Treatment, and I don't expect most to complete it.
Give it your best
I've been made aware that it's a bit difficult to find info on some of the interesting current and future projects I am working on, and their schedulings, so I figured I'd make a post to indicate some stuff that is going on behind the scenes, and talk about some experimental changes I want to try on TTT. Do note - this list does not include the obvious seasonal events, cosmic bosses, or other smaller updates, those are to be expected. These are things that I've discussed in discord but not actually made any official statements about them.
Water Treatment Chambers
This is what I am currently working on. WTC is a standalone "parkour" and "jump puzzle" map, made by parade (coded by me). I hope to release this later today, or tomorrow. You can read more about it in parade's thread here.
FRG TDM
I have commissioned Twentysix to develop a 'bare bones' TDM mode we can use to test out how an FRG TDM server would play out.
On FRG TDM all traits will be dampened pretty heavily. Players will have 'shields' that regenerate after a few seconds of not taking damage. Players can not have traits proc on them or die until their shields are depleted. Very similar to Halo style shields. The exact shield amounts and hp amounts have yet to be decided, and will be decided during the play tests (we will see what feels best).
We will be trialing this to see if it's fun. If it's fun it will probably stick around, if it proves fun enough I will add scroll progression and dailies to it.
FRG Survive 2 (working title)
Survive 2 has been delayed numerous times. I'm sure a lot of you are wondering why. Well I will outline exactly why, and why it's actually a positive thing.
At first survive 2 was supposed to just be... Survive 2. Pretty simple really - New map, new zombies, and a way to end the run via a boss fight. As you may know by now, when parade and I get passionate about something, we get a little ambitious and like to push the boundaries. This has caused Survive 2 to turn into so much more than just a sequel.
Survive 2 is a rogue-like lite mode that is nearly entirely modular and supports multiple maps, and the way I have set it up allows every map to completely change how the mode functions. On top of that I made a web-based control panel we can use to tweak each maps cfg settings.
The core 'rogue-like' elements are presented to you in the form of upgrading weapons. When you spawn in, you will be able to choose one primary and one secondary weapon from a number of options presented to you.
Once you do that, you can upgrade each weapons stats via 'stat stations'. Fully upgrading a weapons stats will bump it up to the next rarity class (i.e. Rare -> Legendary). This serves 2 purposes; 1. It allows you access to more and better stats, making your weapon deal more DPS, and 2. It allows more trait slots and access to better traits.
You add traits to your guns via 'trait stations'. These will list a number of random traits on them, and their requirements to unlock. You will just select the one you want and it'll apply to your weapon!
There will be some really nutty builds you'll be able to do, which adds to replay-ability and the overall fun factor of the event.
That's just a couple bits of info about the event, and while it was definitely scope-crept(much like Tribulation was), I think it will be a better event because of that. I apologize for all the delays, but let me remind you that I am just one person and can't do everything at once! I would rather delay something and have it be as good as it can be, than rush out something unfinished.
I plan to get back to work on this post-easter, but I am in no rush personally.
FRG Slayer
FRG Slayer is a fairly simple new persistent PVE mode I want to start developing this year. FRG Slayer will be a way to progress through things like the bm pass without needing to rely on other players to be online. The mode will focus on completing 'slayer tasks', which are assigned to you via an npc on the lobby. You will get a slayer task (which is kill x mobs), then be able to join the pve server and seek out the monsters and slay them. Completing a task will grant xp to all applicable sources, on top of slayer XP. Your Slayer Level will be used to determine what monsters you can actually fight and damage. This also includes a new series of bosses I will be making, that have unique loot. These bosses are still much to be decided, but definitely will need specific slayer levels to fight them properly (might even have rare boss slayer tasks).
FRG Boss Rush
That's right, FRG Boss Rush is still on the table. A few months ago I made some significant progress with player skill trees, it made things a lot more interesting and is one more step in the right direction.
BR needs more bosses, and unique loot to self sustain. But I definitely want to work on it over the summer.
Those are some of the main projects I want to work on this year. I don't know if I will accomplish all my goals this year, but I hope to.
Now on to some experimental changes I'd like to try on TTT. I am considering trying out some basic across-the-board trait dampening on TTT only to see how it impacts gameplay. I know some will be split on it, but I think it's pretty clear people aren't having fun on TTT much anymore. Some blame the traits, some blame sweaty people. So I think it might be interesting to test this. What do you guys think of this?
Would you like your ban shortened or repealed?: Anything beside Permanent
Reason for ban: I said the N word in chat
Did you commit the actions stated in the ban reason?: Yes
What really happened?: All I did was say "I'm gonna say something Racist" and then the N word in chat and got permanently banned I think that's kind of harsh
i wanna play frg ttt again, i miss it. you probably knew me as celery god, if that name rings a bell. it's been long enough and enough about me has changed since I last touched frg that I felt like I could use a reintroduction. i can't wait to play ttt with the people in the computer yay
also to the people who remember playing w/ celery god, thanks for being so cool to me on frg over the years, you guys are great.
It has been one full year since Water Treatment 2 came out. First releasing back in 2022 on January 14th, according to the patch notes.
This is a thank you to everyone who played Water Treatment! Even if you played for 5 minutes and quit on the first wall running section
It has been wonderful seeing everyone run these courses and putting in the effort to maximize runs, and even help others who might need a hand running the sewers ((The Suess, Alibi, Philip, the most notable people I can think of right now))
I again want to think everyone who has played and given their feedback on the gamemode, even the ones who have nothing good to say or for me to use. I of course want to thank Brass for putting in the time to develop a standalone gamemode, and take the risk on an already mixed event from 2020's Water Treatment.
I could end this post here, but I decided to look back on Water Treatment, its conceptions, the different iterations, and what's coming next...
Click on the spoilers under each title to display its contents. Krampus (2016)
Krampus was the first official parkour event. It was part of the Old Lobby map as a disconnected area, which you can talk to Santa to participate instead of the Santa group fight you see every year.
Krampus was released in the 12/17/2016 patch (an xmas event releasing near the day of xmas, a very reoccurring theme with Brass ). Krampus was a strictly linear course, get to the start and finish.
The goal for Krampus was as follows --
Quote:Krampus. This is the evil lair of Santa's Nemesis. He has stolen and stashed away presents here, your goal is to collect as many as you can, and attempt to complete the entire map. You get 1 gift per every 2 presents you recover here (if you only recover one it's a 50% chance to get a gift), you can only recover each present once per 24 hours. How fast players complete the map is tracked(if at all), and there is a leaderboard displayed on the map for the top 15 fastest clears.
This map can be a pain in the ass, and you should PLAY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. It may contain images/colors that can induce seizures, so play at your own risk.
This event lasted for a few weeks, like a standard seasonal pass. After the event was over, you could still run Krampus via a command, but you couldn't collect anymore loot. Unless you were waiting to !ejoin, Krampus received little activity, and soon was removed 2 years later.
To be clear, I DID NOT MAKE THE KRAMPUS COURSE. Krampus, and the Old Lobby, were created by brass' cousin. I actually was not part of the community in 2016.
So... what did Krampus look like? I've collected a few screenshots of the various courses (they should be very familiar).
Krampus was split into 6 Courses. Each course got more challenging. Once you've completed a section, you will move on and gain a Checkpoint. You always kept this checkpoint until you exited Krampus. Checkpoints were not saved. Krampus was a test of endurance and patience
Course 1: Water Slide
Water Slide was a course in which you sped down a very fast lane of spikes. You had to jump, crouch and weave through these spikes. Hitting a spike would deal half your health. Each lane became harder and more intricate to figure out how to complete
Course 2: Platforms
The platform section was a simple parkour routine. There were platforms that moved and... platforms that didn't move. Pretty cool...
Course 3: Wall Crushers
Wall Crushes was a simple maze, but the goal was to pace your movement in align to the moving metal walls, which would instantly smash you.
Course 4: Elevator
It is easier to see what the course looks like in the Hammer Editor
The runner would be lifted by an automatic Elevator in which you would have to dodge each static platform. Simplistic but challenging to complete.
Course: 5: Maze
In this course, the player would have to traverse in a horrific maze, dodging lasers, travel in darkness, and not to mention... your flashlight was disabled in this section.
I at least have a soul and empathy when I make my courses. This is a truly evil course.
The yellow lines displayed in Hammer is the path of all of the lasers. You did not see the path ingame, however.
Course 6: Lava Tube
Lava Tube was the FINAL course to victory. Lava tube rotated rods of lava in a long tunnel. You had to dodge these rods to escape the tube.
Krampus was a short, yet gruesome test of might and willpower to complete. From Brass himself, it was a "pain in the ass" (although he's not that good).
4 years later, WATER TREATMENT came out as another limited time xmas event. It was released in the 12/18/2020 patch. The above picture was a promotional teaser of the xmas update (2 out of 3 or those promised content updates came out...). The patch notes read the following --
Quote:With this comes a new obstacle course: Water Treatment. See if you have what it takes to clear all of the courses and gain a cool badge to show off your achievement.
Water Treatment was not a standalone map, but connected to The Lobby. Instead of a command or an NPC to access this event, it was attached to The Lobby itself (you can still find the entrance in current day lobby).
Water Treatment was directly inspired by Krampus, and used all the previous courses (excluding Platforms). Each course (besides Elevator and Maze) were refreshed with either new additions or new layout patterns.
What was the twist with Water Treatment?: Water Treatment was not linear and relied on your exploration skills to complete the map. The added exploration wasn't entirely parkour, and you can find secret passages and sections. At the end of some of these areas you might have found an "end course", in which you've acquired an infinite life checkpoint to try and complete the course. These end courses were the old Krampus sections
The goal to "complete" Water Treatment was to find and loot every Chest inside the sewers. Once you've collected every Chest, you gained a badge for completing Water Treatment. Water Treatment also brought back a record system, except the records also tracked the individual courses. After you've completed Water Treatment, you could go back and re-open "big chest" at the end courses. just like a pve event, it would go on a cooldown for a period of time.
Water Treatment did not have any unique items with the exception of the badge.
Other inspirations for Water Treatment: The concept of Water Treatment was inspired by the Destiny 2 raid Leviathan. Leviathan's architecture and the design was easily my favorite out of every raid up to that point, and specifically the underbelly of Leviathan was the seller for Water Treatment, using the sewer theme as also an underbelly type area of The Lobby.
Early development of Water Treatment
I do not have a lot of old Water Treatment stuff, but here are some images of Water Treatment.
This was a dev/nodraw version of Water Treatment (nodraw off)
The entrance to Water Treatment. This is the same current day entrance except there are lights.
Water Treatment itself. These sewers should be familiar to you
Old Wall Crushers
Ingame look of The Maze
In this version of Water Treatment, there was only one path, which lead to Krampus' Lava Tube.
Planned sketched of Water Treatment
With that, Water Treatment was very unique from other events, even from its predecessor Krampus. After the Christmas event was over, The Lobby was updated and removed Water Treatment (except for Speed Road and Wall Crushers, which can still be accessed through Easter Eggs).
WATER TREATMENT 2, as the making of this post, is the current iteration of Water Treatment (I'm going to referred Water Treatment 2 as WT2 from now on). WT2 is (essentially) a sequel from the original Water Treatment 1 version. It was released on January 14th of 2022 in a separate patch note, not belonging to any event or seasonal, and as an entirely new event.
WT2 expanded on WT1. It featured the original play area (with minor tweaks and removals, such as Maze and Elevator being absent, and Wall Crushers being moved and reiterated elsewhere). WT2 also included 2 brand new end courses. Death Tube (player is locked between two transparent moving walls and must keep up with the walls through a course), The Wall (a co-op course in which one player controls moving walls and the other player must use these walls to complete the course), and also returned the Platforms from Krampus.
WT2 also included WALL RUNNING. Wall Running used a more updated version of the D20 wall running Divine Mode. This added an entire new dimension to courses. Wall Running was used almost everywhere in the expansion of WT2.
As WT2 was a separate 40 player map, Brass treated the mode with some new content and quality of life, such as spectating other players, reviewing record holders' records in a 1st person perspective, a menu that holds your checkpoints, records and gems, and other updates to make the mode better.
WT2 included a Checkpoint system. Unlike a traditional Checkpoint, these were locked at first, and to unlock a Checkpoint you'd have to search for Water Treatment Beacons in "small chests". After using a beacon on a checkpoint, you can teleport and respawn their via the Water Treatment GUI.
WT2 had two goals. To locate every chest and find 50 gems littered around. After doing this you will be given the Trailblazer Badge for your effort, which also gave you access to the disconnected area, Agony, a very challenging 4 part course where you had limited lives.
WT2 featured "Trials", a replacement of records in which you teleported to the selected course to complete it as fast as you can in a single life. This also included a Trial for completing the "main way" of Water Treatment 2 (Death Tube path).
Why a new Water Treatment?: I was inspired to make Water Treatment simply because of wall running. Wall running came out inside the D20, and it would be a waste of an idea not to use it as a parkour mechanic. With a little refurbishing and only allowing you to wall run on specific textures, it became a very fun (and frustrating for some) mechanic.
The surface map of Water Treatment. Top half is WT1, bottom half is WT2. Top right is Agony.
There was actually a start of another new section to WT2, however due to the lack of map resources, it was never conceptualized out of this one area.
This area of Water Treatment 2 is actually a section of another event that is currently shelved, labeled as Exodus. It was an area that was fully fleshed out and I wanted the location to see the light of day. It also was an opportunity to reference The Lobby (warehouse area).
An area of WT2 (Shoreline / To The Shoreline).
Early layout concept of the expanded area.
An attempt to capture the entire map.
The Suess, avid WT2 enjoyer, created a walkthrough for all 50 gems in this video.
Philip, avid WT2 fan, completed the map goals and Agony in 44 minutes
Agony
Agony, the bonus course after obtaining the badge (or having the WT1 badge), is a hardcore parkour course using extremely difficult jumps and wall runs. Agony was not originally planned, but Brass had the idea to finally give the WT1 badge a purpose (allowing you to enter this bonus course without needing to complete WT2. Agony took about a week to design and test, a week before WT2 released.
Water Treatment has developed greatly, and has been a good way for me (and Brass) to experiment with the mode. So far, Krampus/Water Treatment has been altered every time it comes back, the next map is no exception.
Water Treatment: Voltage was going to be the third iteration of Water Treatment. It was going to follow similar exploration as WT2 with chests and gems, although with a new look away from the sewer design.
I've shelved this map and may return to in the future. It was another large map and something I didn't want to put all my time into when I was making it.
Very early layout of Voltage/what's been made. Map is entirely textureless with a few dev textured areas.
WATER TREATMENT: CHAMBERS is the next Water Treatment releasing this month and will be replacing WT2.
What is Water Treatment: Chambers? WTC is the third iteration of Water Treatment. This map is an extremely difficult map, and throws everything you've learned from WT2. The map has less exploration and focuses on the parkour rooms themselves. This map still features chests and gems. This is a much smaller map than any of the water treatments made thus far.
I wanted to make something completely new for the mode. I was inspired mostly by Portal (theme and map layout. Portal is a very simplistic looking game, which also allowed me to keep a lot of the map resources for more courses). The map is not linear like Krampus. You have a choice of what set of Chambers to complete. Checkpoints will be returning but I have spread beacons out in a way where you have a lot more freedom on what to pick.
A Chamber in the map.
An overboard room is placed at the start of each level. Just like Portal it shows what's inside of the course before you begin.
Once the map is released I will add more information on the map. For now, prepare for a new challenge, for those who are willing to attempt..
Have you ever been banned and why: Karma, old exploit abuse, and pretty sure thats all I dont know
Why would you like to be promoted?: To be able to help out in the server more when I get the chance to play
Why do you think we should promote you?: Long time member of the server and would like to be able to help out with reports as I did before the +member cleanse since I do play actively again
Do you have any administrative experience: Senior Admin on Moat(when it was alive), Darkrp, MilitaryRP.
Do you agree to FRG's policy on applications(yes or no): yes
(By agreeing above you are agreeing that you understand you are not entitled to said promotion, and that we have all rights to deny or approve the application
for any reason we see fit, you agree to not stir up any trouble if the application outcome is not your desired outcome.
Failing to abide by this can result in a full demote, or perma-denial.)
)
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler
). Krampus was a strictly linear course, get to the start and finish. 
