Hey everyone!
In this preview post I want to share more details of what I'm working on right now and what you can expect not only for the next update but also for the months to come!
We've got a few things to cover, so let's get started :)
World Expansion
First of all I want to tell you more about the upcoming world expansion. It will be part of Update 0.14 and introduce the Haunted Forest and Southern Swamp regions. The Home of the Deer Tribe will already be part of the map but not yet accessible. It will get introduced in a separate update, same as the other displayed regions on the map below.
The new swamp area will feature tall (new) mushroom trees, which we of course all love since the dawn of Morrowind ;) It contains a dungeon and new legendary rewards.
The Haunted Forest is a dark and spooky area, occupied by cultists and summoned spirits. It also introduces a new overworld mechanic which I'll explain below.
The new regions will be based on existing biomes, but I try my best to add enough variety to them so that they still feel fresh when you first visit them.
Story and Main Quests
In Update 0.14 you will be able to advance further in the story line. However, I want to point out that I divided Story and Main quest in two different branches. It's just a subtle change that you may not even notice, but if you want to read more about my reasoning here we go:
When I started Of Blades & Tails I knew I wanted it to be a game that quickly delivers the main plot and target destination to the player, so you don't have to play through a bunch of story quests in order to "beat the game". Instead you could focus on the core gameplay (combat, character development, exploration) if you want to. So the game's basically saying: "There's where you need to go eventually, good luck!", and with that the player is free to roam.
(Well, at least you have to complete the first quest and find Aro. But I hope you get the idea anyways ;) )
Now the Story Quests on the other hand will be for players that enjoy storytelling along their journey and want a bit more guidance. They will lead you through the world and also ensure you will obtain certain items that will make beating the game easier!
I believe this separation will also make sense for everyone who starts a second or even third playthrough, where you aren't required to play through all the story quests if you already know them.
So what actually changed in the game?
TL;DR the quest Of Rats & Ferrets that sends you to Immerfurt and the following quest(s) are all part of the story line. The Main Quest is Over Hill and Dale and sends you directly to the Great Lair. Eventually the story line will join in with the Main Quest.
Okay... Lots of text. I hope you found it interesting enough :)
Let's have some screenshots now!
The Haunted Forest
As mentioned before, the Haunted Forest will be part of Update 0.14 and it will be a much darker area than what we've had in the game so far.
The area also introduces two new factions: Cultists and Spirits
They both are allies but are hostile to all other factions in the game. So you can expect to see plants and insects having smaller skirmishes with them as you explore the forest.
Besides an eerie atmosphere and dangerous enemies I also implemented a new overworld mechanic for this zone. I don't have a cool marketing name, so I just call it the "Haunted Feature"!
(Same as in the code actually, because naming things is hard...)
As you stroll through this area, you will inevitably incur the displeasure of the spirits that haunt it. This will be visualized by a larger spirit sprite that floats along your left or right screen edges. After some time more spirits will join in, up until 4 of them. A vignette effect will continously darken the corners of the screen as well.
Now it's definitely time for you to find and activate one of the Light Pools that are placed throughout the forest. Activating a Light Pool will dispel all spirits that are currently haunting you and also damage all spirit enemies around you by 50%.
If you don't make it to a Light Pool in time, the 4 spirits will "spawn" right next to you and hopefully give you a hard time, since especially a pack of them is designed to be pretty hard ;)
My intention is to make travelling through the Haunted Forest a more intense experience than previous areas. Also there is no bonfire inside the forest, so if you don't make it through it by using the Light Pool mechanic (or being very powerful?), you'll have to start over at the beginning. Little bit of a mini-roguelike experience if you want.
But Of Blades & Tails wouldn't be an accessible game that rewards exploration if there weren't things that could make your forest crossing easier... And I don't necessarily mean this one thing that already can be found in the game ;)
So yeah, it's a new mechanic. I hope you like it and enjoy the challenge. If not we'll work on it until it's great! In that regard I'm really looking forward to your feedback.
Reworked Skill Bar & Slots
Another highly requested feature that will make it into Update 0.14 is weapon set based skill bars, or simply put: More skill slots!
Instead of the current 6 skill slots total, you'll be able to use 2x5 slots. The skill bars are swapped based on the weapon set that you're using.
A button to switch the weapon set has been added to the bar as well.
This gives access to a total of 10 skills during combat.
I do believe this should be enough to make use of most (if not all) skills in a specific talent line and still requires players to choose their loadout carefully. It also encourages to use different weapon types.
Additionally one more quick item slot has been added as well.
Item Downgrading
Yes, you will be able to downgrade your items if they became too powerful and you started hurting yourself!
Jokes aside, this is the way to reclaim already spent Orbs of Magnificence, if you want to use them on a different item.
As you may know Orbs of Magnificence are very limited, but you should still be able to experiment with new and old equipment. Therefore Orbs of Modesty will be added. You can find them throughout the world and also for defeating specific bosses. Those encounters can be repeated as often as you want for as many Orbs as you need.
Which leads to ...
New Overworld Encounter: Ancient Sentinel
Ancient Sentinels are very hard bosses, that can be encountered at specific spots in the overworld. They have a new Defensive State, which means they won't attack you on sight, unless they feel threatened and/or you stay in their territory for too long.
This way you hopefully won't start a fight with them by accident.
Another new mechanic is that Sentinels have a random set of skills that they use. They have like 8 skills in total and select 4 of them randomly when they spawn. This way it should always be a bit of a surprise how they will engage in combat and also make repeating encounters more interesting.
They can also have slightly different appearances each time.
New Locations (in Old Places)
Update 0.14 will also introduce new (small) locations that won't be marked on your map! You can only discover them by careful exploration.
They will reward you with small bonusses to your character stats or very handy consumable items. However, they are completely optional side locations. Therefore similar to Spider Nests, they won't mess up your world map with ?-icons.
Even though you may want to find them all, once you stumpled upon one ;)
As the headline indicates, they can already be found in the starting area and forward.
Oh, before I forget: New secrets and lore around humanity will be added as well!
Updated Roadmap 2023
I want to use this post to revisit the Roadmap and give you a better idea of what's already done and what's coming in the future.
As you can see Winter is already done. Parts of the Spring/Summer content will be implemented in Update 0.14, including first quests for the Adventurers Guild.
Future Talents
New talents won't make it in this update. They will be part of a separate update that won't focus on world expansion.
You can also see that a pure Summoning talent maybe won't make it in. You will be able to summon minions, that's for sure! As a matter of fact that's already something you'll be able to do in Update 0.14..... Even without a new talent... But enough of the teasing!
Most likely there's gonna be a new magic-based talent that also contains one or two summoning skills. I just have to figure out what makes the most sense and offers enough overall utility for magic players.
Talking about utility: Engineering is something I've had in mind now for some time. Actually since I added the Portable Dummy to the game :)
This talent will evolve around putting together gadgets like turrets and other placeable utility objects (like the dummy). It will most likely be a supporting talent for stamina-based play styles.
Future World Expansions
I also want to share how I want to divide future world expansions during Early Access.
As I mentioned in one of the last posts, creating world content is the most time consuming part. It is probably also the hardest part when moving forward, because there's so much stuff to consider to make it fresh and interesting and still working together with content and mechanics that already exist in the game. However, it's very rewarding to see the world growing!
That being said, I think it makes sense for me to divide world expansions in smaller parts and alternate between them and other updates. Other updates may introduce new systems/mechanics or add new talents for example.
I have ideas for a reasonable crafting system, but I need to get Update 0.14 out before I can focus on it or even share details with you... Stay tuned please :)
Support for Additional Languages
Last but not least I think it's safe to say that new languages will be added to the game in the near future!
This has been made possible by the amazing members of our community Discord server.
Portuguese (Brazil), Finnish, and Turkish are already in a very good shape and should be available soon!
Please keep in mind that these translations are entirely managed by the community, so it's likely that after an update there will be strings missing and still appear in English (default fallback) or that they contain smaller issues.
If you'd like to help out with translating the game to your language, please join our Discord server and let us know.
Update 0.14 when?
After this rather long post, I keep this section short: Early March :)
I hope you're happy with the things I introduced in this preview post and I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
Until next time, take care everyone!
Felix