Annihilation Annihilation Update - Chunky Arsenic (4.1.0)

Annihilation Update - Chunky Arsenic (4.1.0)

Hi Everyone!

We are thrilled to announce our latest update Chunky Arsenic!

We would appreciate constructive, well-founded criticism (positive and negative!) once you have experienced this update in-game. Nothing is ever set in stone and we look forward to seeing your opinions.

Changelog:

Clans update:
Clans are a big part of our community and we felt that the in-game experience of viewing, joining and creating/managing clans was not up to par, so Clans has been completely refactored. You should begin to notice the changes immediately whether you're a clan Leader or just an admirer.

This change has many benefits for you, but also for Annihilation, as it's much more efficient. Here's a non-exhaustive list of changes:

View

• The clan view has been given a makeover. Clans with lots of members will now be able to view all of their members.
• If a clan has a reward (e.g. for competing in a tournament), this will now be visible from the clan view.
• The clan tag reward now supports full RGB colours. If you are a clan Leader with a custom tag colour, as a one-off gesture, we are offering you to change the clan's tag colour. Please reach out to either Galap or DJ_Pedro on the forums with your clan tag and the colour you would like.
• Each clan member is coloured according to their rank within the clan.
• You can now see which clan someone is in using their username with /clan who <username>, even if they're offline!

Manage

Clan Leaders will notice that the manage UI has been overhauled too. The previous UI was not very user friendly, but now each action presents you with a chat message to click and run the command. This change helps to prevent mistakes and now each action has a command you can use without opening the GUI.

Officers will notice the clan manage UI only shows actions that you have permission to use. We have also fixed some bugs with the officer rank that allowed them to change the custom title for the leader, or other members.

All clan commands now suggest clan members where appropriate, even if they're offline, making it much easier to manage your clan members.

Feedback

If you are a clan Leader or Officer, please provide feedback on these changes, and anything else you would like to see. We value our competitive players, and clans are a big part of this community, so we want them to be as useful to you as possible.

Lobby updates:
You will have already noticed some of these changes to the Annihilation Lobby, we're still working on this to make it a more useful place to be, but here's the changes so far:

Custom Spawns

If you have a premium rank on Shotbow, you can use the spawn setter to set a custom spawn location for yourself in the Annihilation Lobby. This works the same as the main Hub, allowing you to always spawn in your favourite place. When we change out our lobby, you will be able to set a new spawn, and if we return to that lobby, your saved place will be right where you left it.

Game Sidebar

We have added a scoreboard that shows you an up to date view of the currently running games, events and if there's a new update out. This change means you can jump into a match when you see your favourite map even if you don't have the game selector open.

Game Selector

The game selector (compass) has been updated so it will now display both normal games and any events in the same UI, for this reason, the sand block has been removed from your inventory. The new UI updates frequently, showing you the most up to date game information. We plan to hide private event matches that you are not whitelisted for in a future update.

Event NPC

We have brought back the event NPC and improved it so we can set it to any mob, keep an eye out in the AL for the event NPC that when clicked, will open the game selector for you to join the event quickly!

Game changes:

Priority Queue
We have introduced a queue limit for each team to help reduce the waiting time for players to join the game. The queue now allows up to four players to be queued for a given team. You can still wait around if you want to play with friends already in the game, but we would encourage you to chose another team or click 'Random' to get in quickly.


Launch Pads: Jump Pads!
Launch pads are a long-standing and well-loved mechanic of Annihilation. Today, we are pleased to introduce a new type of launch pads: Jump pads! These pads allow vertical ascension and can be used together with the classic launch pads.

It's been previously a rumour in Annihilation that gold and diamond launch pads launched you further, well, that was true and continues to be so! Here are the different launch pads you can use:

Horizontal launch pads:

• Iron block: x2 power
• Redstone lamp: x3 power
• Diamond block: x4 power

Vertical launch pads:

• Emerald block: 1.2x power
• Gold block: 1.4x power

New Boss: Tarus
A new boss has entered the permanent pool of challenges that await you from Phase 4: Tarus. This boss lives in an ethereal world where everything feels a bit like a dream. We won't spoil its mechanics here, so you'll have to get in game and face the mysterious foe for yourself!


Ender Furnace: Overclocked
We have increase the rate in which the Ender Furnace smelts at its base level. Each phase (1 -> 5) will increase the smelting speed even more, with Phase 5 being 80% faster!

We hope this change will help players to gear more quickly, especially during later phases.


Time limited Ender Pearl chambers
A suggestion was put into #game-suggestions on our Discord to balance Ender Pearl chambers ("stasis chambers") which was quite a divisive topic. We have decided to introduce a time limit, so now Ender Pearls will self-destruct after 1 minute 30 seconds (90s) after launch. There is no notification when they expire because we feel this tactic is already quite strong, and therefore the risk should be equal.


Dynamic Weather
Another game suggestion was to add dynamic weather and we really liked this one and think you will too. Rain and snow may seem like a cosmetic change, but it has wider impacts such as flame being less potent, riptide being usable on land and invisible players will have an easier time sneaking around.

Weather in Annihilation doesn't follow normal Minecraft rules, so don't be surprised to find your cover gone as fast as it arrived!


Netherite Sword in Phase 5
Just like blaze powder appearing in the Brewing Shop at the start of Phase 4, you will now have the ability to purchase a Netherite sword at the start of Phase 5 from the Weapon Shop for 10 Diamonds. This sword is slightly more powerful than a diamond sword, and has the added benefit of being fireproof!


Ore'nt you excited?
We have changed Iron and Gold ores so they now drop the raw variant instead of the ore block. Along with this change, we can now support the deepslate versions of all ores, which you may see in future maps! This is an aesthetic change, which doesn't impact the amount of ores you get when mining.


Class Changes

Iceman ➡ Neptune
Iceman has been given a new name and been completely refactored under the hood.

Tidebringer

Neptune's Trident will change the battlefield of Annihilation by bring in a new way to target enemies. Tidebringer, a trident, has two attacks:

• Riptide
  • As the name suggests, this uses the Riptide enchantment, allowing you to zoom out of the water and deal damage to any foes who get in your way.
  • This attack can be used when it's raining, but be careful of fall damage!
• Curse of the Sea
  • Enemies you hit with this attack will have their lungs turned into gills and find the air impossible to breathe. If they don't submerge themselves (or be graced by rain), they will take three hearts of drowning damage.
  • Be careful with your aim, Tidebringer will always return to you, but it may not be as fast as you would like!

Ground Freeze

This classic ability continues on in Neptune, but now with more ice! We have changed the way the platforms generate to help players with higher ping stay on the platform when moving.

Swimming Buff

Neptune is the God of the sea, and so can move gracefully in water. When swimming, you will be much faster and more nimble. You also cannot drown, never fear the deep blue depths.

Builder

Replication Cache

Builder has been given a powerful new way to obtain building materials with its Replication Cache. Once placed, you can insert a block into it to replicate the block. The replicator can be extracted from at any time, but it will continue to passively increase the blocks until it reaches its maximum capacity.

The Replication Cache is currently limited all full sized (1x1) blocks (excluding Delaying Blocks) that you can get from Builder's Resource Drop. We may add to this in the future. However, this limitation can be lifted during events, so keep an eye out on the Event News channel on our Discord!

Miner

We have removed the coal and blast furnace from Miner's default spawn kit, but fear not, you can still obtain both by mining ores. Every sixteen ores mined will give you one blast furnace, and every map has a coal mine. We feel this change brings the fun back to early game gearing and rushing, and removes the need to spam a command for the competitive edge.

Archer

Poison Shot

Archer has a new selectable shot ability. Poison Shot can be activated by left-clicking a bow (same as Rain of Arrows) and when shot, it will spawn a lingering potion of poison where the arrow lands. The potion will fall down and break, leaving a small area poisonous to enemies. This attack allows you to get a hit even if enemies are cowering behind a wall.

Berserker

A small nerf to Berserker's Unbreakable Will: it will no longer be immune to mining fatigue, meaning delaying blocks, team doors, and Wizard's Glacial Nova will once again be a formidable counter to the ability.

Bug Fixes

• TNT and Skulls (player heads, skeleton skulls etc.) can now be broken with or without any tool.
• Fixed soulbound items being able to go into decorated pots.
• Fixed a bug that caused the void anti-block-glitching mechanic from working.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to right-click on enemy team doors to remove them client-side and interact with objects behind it.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Alchemist to obtain more than one personal brewing stand.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Robinhood to place the Steed spawn item on the spawned steed.
• Made Robinhood's steed recall automatically if it takes suffocation damage so it spawns safely rather than taking unnecessary damage.
• Fixed Engineer's Bunker Buster breaking team doors.
• Fixed beds being placed near the map boarder so they extend into the void.
• Fixed Boss Buff potions being able to turn dirt into mud, and consuming the potion.
• A host of administrative/backend/lobby fixes and updates.

Closing Words:
While we have fixed a few bugs in this update, some you may have experienced and others you probably didn't know were there, but we are aware that we still have bugs to fix and we appreciate all the help you can give us with getting those fixed. If you find a bug in Annihilation and want to have a chance of owning a special Bug Finder cosmetic, you can report it on our official Discord by using this command: !support bug <IGN>.

Credits:
Many of the changes we have made in this update have come from you the community, and from our wonderful staff team who continue to strive to make Anni the best it can be. All credit goes to them for their tireless efforts that more often than not go unnoticed, thank you team for being so awesome.