Aug 30.2017 — Change Log

PATCH NOTES

Echo Arena Patch Highlights

NEW FEATURE: PRIVATE MATCHES

Private Match Prep
A player first needs to add 5 Oculus friends into their Echo Arena party (please note that a private match requires 6 players before it can be created). Once there are 4 or more players in a party, “Find Match” will no longer be available to select on the matchmaking podium.

Starting a Private Match
Once there are six party members, the Party Leader can use the matchmaking podium to select “Private Match” and sort players into the Orange or Blue team (there is currently a max of 3 players per team). Once the teams have been established, a button will light up on the top right of the private match UI that the Party Leader can press to start the match and transport the players into the Arena.

Please note that playing private matches will not increase stats or XP.

NEW FEATURE: IN-GAME SETTINGS MENU

Players can now adjust their settings through an in-game settings menu. To access the settings menu, hold down the “Menu” (hamburger-looking one) button on the left controller; an icon will appear on the bottom left that indicates how long it needs to be held before it opens up.

NEW FEATURE: PUSH-TO-TALK/PUSH-TO-MUTE BUTTONS

Through the settings menu, players can now set whether they want VOIP enabled, VOIP disabled, push-to-talk, or push-to-mute. Push-to-talk/push-to-mute can be bound to either the “A” or “X” button on the Touch controllers.

UPDATE: MATCHMAKING ADJUSTMENTS

Although this won’t encompass all changes made (and more are coming), we’ve made a few alternations to our algorithm in our efforts to improve matchmaking:

• Players below level 10 will not be matched with players above level 10 as frequently as before. This will help newer players learn the ropes with each other and avoid major smackdowns that have been occurring (high-level players, if you find yourself teamed up with or against a low-level player we recommend practicing some of your trick shots/headbutts or using that opportunity to teach those new players — Echo Arena will get better and better as there are more skilled players in the matchmaking pool).
• Parties are more likely to match against other parties over players randomly matched together.
• Lobbies will be created much sooner so there isn’t as long of a wait from the main menu or after leaving the Arena and transitioning back to the lobby.
• Some changes were put in place to help prevent imbalanced teams (4v2, for example); we’re going to see how it works and continue making tweaks in case it’s still happening.

UPDATE: POD ANIMATION HAS BEEN SPED UP SIGNIFICANTLY

UPDATE: ARENA PODS NO LONGER HAVE A POD RELEASE HANDLE

Thank you for your feedback on this, community! ♥

Bug Fixes

1. Blind dates have been removed (AKA party invites will now show who they’re coming from).
2. Made some changes to help prevent the crash after the buzzer (which results in everyone’s bodies hanging lifeless and an error message that spits players back out to the main menu).
3. The Party Leader icon will now appear next to the new Party Leader when they’re promoted.
4. Fixed an issue where the Arm Computer wouldn’t work if you had the player options open during the post-match transition back to lobby.
5. Fixed multiple crashes related to transitions to or from the Arena.
6. The “Send Party Invite” screen no longer gets stuck if a player receives an invite while on it.
7. Fixed some issues with the disc being offset from the hand while being gripped.
8. Resolved some stat-tracking issues related to Overtime.
9. Repeatedly punching the dummies will no longer result in a crash. Swing away.
10. The barrier/shield in front of the goal is no longer grabbable. That’s a funny word.

Known Issues

Critical

• Players using the Windows 7 operating system are reporting a high frequency of connection errors such as “Cannot Connect to Server” at the main menu, or getting a blackscreen when connecting to a match and getting dropped back to the main menu. Players who have updated to Windows 10 report that these issues have almost entirely subsided.
• If a player rejects a party invitation, they will be unable to receive and/or accept a party invitation by the same Party Leader. To resolve this, the Party Leader will need to reboot their game client.
• If any party members leave a party, the Party Leader will need to reboot the game client before they can join the same party again. This is the result of a limitation due to the backend system to prevent party invite spamming and not a bug, but we wanted to add it here to provide more clarity on why this happens.

Parties

• The Arm Computer does not update when the Party Leader begins matchmaking; Party Leaders, make sure to check the “Party Chat” section in our previous Change Log for some ways to communicate with your party.
• There is currently not an indicator on the matchmaking podium to indicate why the “Find Match” option is locked when the party has four or more members. As a reminder, the current maximum party size allowed in matchmaking is three.
• The Oculus friends list in the Arm Computer does not consistently display all friends. This may be related to the privacy settings we mentioned in “Party Prep” in our previous Change Log.
• Accepting a party invite to a full party prevents the invited player from accepting any further party invites from that Party Leader. This may be resolved by the Party Leader and invited player restarting their game clients.
• There is no notification when a player attempts to join a party that is already full.
• The Party Leader does not receive any visual or audio notifications when players join or leave the party. Check the party tab in the Arm Computer to see who has joined or left, and check the “Party Chat” section in our previous Change Log for some cross-lobby communication options available to keep in touch with your party.
• The party invite message does not clear from the Arm Computer when a player accepts the invite using the Oculus UI.
• There is no notification when a party invite is rejected.

General

• If you’re receiving a “Service Unavailable” error when attempting to play Echo Arena, please try uninstalling the Echo Arena Open Beta if it’s still in your Oculus Library, as this seems to be the source of the issue.

Compatibility & Performance

• Some players are reporting that playing without the latest Nvidia graphics drivers is resulting in crashes. If you have an Nvidia graphics card, please follow this link to make sure you have the latest driver.
• AVG has been the source of multiple crashes due to it blocking parts of Echo Arena. If you find that you’re crashing on startup, when pressing “Play/Start Game”, or seeing a black starfield when attempting to play, please check AVG to see if it’s been blocking “threats” related to Echo Arena.
• McAfee is blocking the Echo Arena executable file which can result in errors or crashes when attempting to run the game. You can add EchoArena.exe as an excluded file from realtime scanning in McAfee LiveSafe by right-clicking on the McAfee Icon in the system tray > Change Settings > Real-time Scanning > Excluded Files > Add File > Browse to EchoArena.exe and add to Excluded Files.