Hey everyone!
Time for another devlog to get you all updated on the work that is going on behind the scenes.
But before we're getting to all the exciting upcoming features I want to thank everyone who participated in the Steam Next Fest for wishlisting and giving feedback on the Demo version.
I received hundreds(!) of mails with a lot of great suggestions and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the input and it already helps me a lot to shape the game to an even better experience once we start into Early Access later this year.
Now let's get to the stuff that I've been working on over the last weeks!
New Swamp Biome
I added a new swamp environment that contains a lot of small lakes and all new assets for vegetation and rockwork among other suprises ;) Here is an early preview:
Expanded World Map
The swamps will then be the next larger region in the expanded world map:
Fast Travel
And with an expanded world map comes the ability to fast travel quickly between discovered locations!
Visible Armor Styles
You will be able to change the appearaece of Reik by wearing different armor sets.
There will be light/medium/heavy armor classes and each piece will give you different advantages or disadvantages.
Light armor comes with the least phyical resistance per item level but gives +5% mana.
Whereas heavy armor grants the best resistance and +5% health but also comes with the cost of -10% stamina.
Please know that this is just the first iteration and stats or numbers may change in the future!
New Enemies and Experimental Gadgets
Magic and Expertise
Elemental magic will be the first available talent for all you wizards and sorcerers out there!
Expertise is another addition for more advanced talents like arcane magic, dirty tricks, (probably stealth?), and so on... Some abilities in those talents will require expertise to unlock them. You can gain expertise points through books or scientific papers that you can find throughout the world.
This should give you yet another incentive to explore the world in order to optimize your preferred talent build.
Rumor has it that some NPC guilds encountered later in the game also offer expertise to those willing to join their ranks...
Enemy Details View
Still pretty much WIP but you will be able to review more information about an enemy and especially the status effects and their duration that are active on the target.
It's a start and there's of course room for more information in the future.
Tutorial and Difficulty
These topics are hot! :D
Mainly because I just got as many mails in which people thanked for the easy to understand mechanics and the challenging but fair difficulty level, as from those who missed a better tutorial and found the game very difficult to unfair!
I haven't done any work on those issues yet but I have ideas for a better introduction and also consider adding difficulty levels that you can select upon the start of a new game.
I personally want the difficulty to be challenging but I also want enable most people to enjoy the game even without experience in the tactical turn-based genre. After all it can and should be a relaxing experience if you want to. So for the time being, rest assured that I will try to make those ideas possible in the future.
Last but not least ...
Some honorable mentions because quite a few of you asked for it! :)
- Improved camera panning by holding down RMB or MMB
- Numpad support for diagonal movement
That's it for now! I hope you like all these new featues and changes and you are as excited as I am for Of Blades & Tails' next step in development!