Here is a sneak peek at what I have been working on for the next major content update. If you are interested in more regular updates, make sure to join my Discord. I have made good progress, and the heavy lifting for UPDATE 4 is done. I have no release date yet, but it will probably be available by the end of March.
The melee and ranged combat have been redesigned from the ground up. This includes new animations, effects, and mechanics. Presenting all the new features would be beyond the scope of this post, but here are some high points.
With the new combo system, you can now build momentum with consecutive hits and increase your combo count to earn combo points, which are required to perform powerful combat actions.
With ranged combat, the shot distance and headshots also influence your combo gain. New arrow types and abilities like the power shot or pushback kick further expand your arsenal and make ranged combat more versatile and fun than ever.
The parry mechanic has long been a point of criticism and has been completely changed. You won't need to block first anymore and can parry at any time, which makes it way more responsive and immediate. Besides, you can only block permanently with a shield and need to rely on parries otherwise, which adds to the diversity of combat.
Many more aspects have been changed to elevate combat to the next level, and things are so much smoother, more responsive, and just fun now.
The enemies have also received an extensive overhaul. Over 40 new animations have been created, and many have been improved, to feature full directional movement.
The whole AI navigation logic has been rewritten from scratch, and the combat behaviors have been improved. Enemies now strafe around their target and step back and forth. They also follow you in a more natural way and are less stubborn.
The new enemy stamina system changes how stuns work. Each enemy can be stunned and collapsed, but some have higher stamina reserves than others, making it much harder to stun them. To keep things balanced, traps now only deal high damage instead of killing instantly.
In addition, four completely new enemy classes have been added to provide each species with their own unique boss. This includes the Goblin Chieftain, Boggart Warlock, Skeleton King (old name new class) and Hunger Behemoth.
Many enemies also have more appropriate names and updated appearances to make them stand out. This is especially true for the Skeletons, which have received a complete makeover.
The icing on the cake is the overhauled skill tree and 16 completely new skills. I have tried to remove less interesting skills and introduce more ability unlocks and improvements.
In addition, the level requirements for equipment have been replaced with skill requirements. The appropriate classes now feature mastery skills for each type of equipment.
A cool surprise feature also found its way into this update. I added about 30 enchantment effects for the artifacts in the game to really make them stand out. The vast majority of artifacts will have unique effects, and only a few will have the same, making it much more rewarding to collect and use them.
Although this post is quite long already, it is still just the tip of the iceberg. This makes me realize how massive this update has become once again.
I haven't even talked about the new game settings, weapons, save slots, and more. But there needs to be some stuff left for you to discover, right?