Patch notes 0.4.1
There is a lot packed into this patch, but here are the highlights. For full details see discord.
- Added offhand abilities, that you activate while taking your hand off your sword (you can cancel them by blocking or charging an attack, but you can't do blocks/attacks simultaneously with offhand abilities). The first two abilities are in game, but the longer term plan is that there will be a sizable pool of abilities you can unlock and you can then pick abilities to fill your slots (2 passive slots, which should come in March, 2 offhand slots which now exist, 2 warcries of which Kiai is currently 1, and kick/dodge for a total of 8). The two new offhand abilities are a ranged "tether" ability that slows your target increasingly if you keep your cursor over them. If you keep your cursor on the player for long enough you teleport to them, if your cursor is off them for too long the ability fizzles. Second is a self heal, just channel the ability until it completes and then you get 15s of passive health regen. You can't sprint while channeling the abilities but you can run and you can immediately cancel them to block/attack/kick/dodge at any time. The longer term plan is that the synergies between the abilities and the passives will drive certain play styles.
- Fixed a very tricky spectator bug, where in soulwar if you are spectating a player and they are far enough from where you died that your client isn't loading data you wouldn't see the person they are fighting.
- Fixed a soulwar spectator bug where if you join the match late as a spectator the health bars and UI wouldn't display properly.
- Renamed the "Duels" map to "Arena" to be a bit more clear that it is structured.
- Made soulwar split players into 2 teams rather than 3 if there are 8 players or fewer.
- Fixed a bug where you could get stuck blocking in the default controls if your click drag sensitivity was less than 1 and you started an attack and then switched to a block without inputting an attack direction. Big thanks to @Ghostickles for providing an input recording for this one.
- Fixed two camera issues, where strafing right while blocking up or strafing left while charging an up attack would cause your right arm to block your camera
- Added a reset to defaults option on both the key settings and mouse settings
- Made the tether VFX on the teleport ability more performant
- Updated the arena duels map visuals
- The clouds now update in real time when the overall graphics quality settings are changed, before you had to leave and rejoin the map.
- Made the up left and up right attacks significantly horizontal to make them more unique and distinct from the overhead. Also decreased the damage penalty for hitting with the late part of those swings so that they are more draggable. One of the passives I plan to add will be a cleave which will focus on those two swings.
- Updated the claw lizard animations to use the new system that the sword fighters use and fixed a bug both with their AI and their kick animation
- Updated the player kick animation to raise your foot a bit higher and make it a bit more draggable but also slightly slower
- Made the lost soul at the end of the tutorial charge his attacks for longer so new players have more time to visually see which way to block
- Redid the look and feel of the kata grounds map to be more performant while also not looking more consistent on low quality and matching the rest of the game a bit better