Hey, Savara adventurers!
The Steam Fest demo is fast approaching! We've been working hard to offer an even more immersive and dynamic experience! This new version of the demo was shaped by your valuable feedback. We listened closely to your suggestions and tweaked a number of elements in order to give you the best gameplay experience. From updated game mechanics to added story elements, here are the latest changes coming to the demo for the upcoming Steam Next Fest.
1. Smoother Maneuverability
We went all out to improve how you control Savara and make each action more intuitive and fun.
- Redesigned endurance system:
In the new version, as long as your endurance stays above 0, you can perform any of your actions (attacks, dodges, and abilities), giving you more freedom and fluidity in combat.
- Enhanced dodge roll:
We've increased the duration of invulnerability during a dodge roll, so you'll have more room to dodge enemy attacks.
- Maneuverability during attacks:
You will now have more control over your ability to quickly turn around while attacking, allowing you to chain attacks more smoothly and react to enemies' movements more quickly.
- Weapon swap:
The time it takes to recover after swapping weapons has been reduced from 3 to 2 seconds, which lets you switch between weapons more often, for a more fluid combat experience.
2. Redesigned Weapons
Weapons are now unique and strategic, with features adapted to different play styles.
- New weapon:
the longsword. What sets this weapon apart is its mechanic based on timing. By precisely chaining your attacks, you can increase the speed and power of your hits while conserving your endurance. This is a weapon for players who like a challenge.
- Reworked sword and shield:
We've given this weapon category a stronger identity. The sword and shield now feature a Counter mechanic on the ultimate attack, which lets you counterattack after parrying an attack. Also, if you perform a Counter right before the attack hits you, the counterattack deals more damage and instantly refills the gauge for the ultimate!
- Great sword:
Now whenever you use the third attack in a combo, the charged attack or ultimate attack, you apply the Weakening effect on any enemies hit. This effect increases damage suffered by monsters hit by this attack by 25% for 8 seconds.
- Dual blade:
When you hit an enemy with your combo attacks, you gain the Frenzy effect. Thus, each combo increases the speed and damage of subsequent combos by 20%, up to 100%. Frenzy goes away when you stop chaining combo attacks. Focus on endurance gains to maximize them!
3. Redesigned Interfaces
The interfaces have been redesigned to offer a more intuitive experience.
Interface tutorials:
We've added various tutorials to our interfaces in order to clarify how they work.
Talent select UI:
Now clearer and more intuitive, we wanted to emphasize unlocking talent slots and their connections to the various tiers on the statue.
Forge UI:
reorganized to make it easier to navigate, and available enhancements easier to understand. We also made it possible to see effect stacking on your currently equipped weapons.
Equipment summary UI:
This interface has been reworked to offer a more comprehensive, detailed recap of your equipment (weapons, armor, talents, and badges), along with the bonuses acquired during a run (blessings). You can now track every aspect of your character in real time to better plan out your strategies.
Blessing select UI:
This interface has been improved to be more attractive and readable, which should help make your choices more strategic.
4. New Blessings
We've added exciting new blessings to add even more variety to your runs and to enhance your tactical choices.
Judgment:
creates AOEs (areas of effect) that deal damage as a percentage equal to 10 + 0.2% of the HP of the monster in the AOE, per second. It's useful for dealing with multiple enemies.
- Devotion:
spawns orbs that can be collected to increase damage on the next string of attacks. This strategic blessing will maximize your combos.
5. Improvements to Existing Blessings
- Aftershock:
inflicts 140 damage -> 200 damage + 4% of the target's missing health. The aftershock now gains power over the course of the fight, against opponents with a lot of health.
- Electrified:
inflicting damage on an electrified enemy causes a lightning bolt to strike, dealing 15 damage -> 8 damage + 10% of the attack's damage, allowing you to more effectively combine this blessing with other attack damage increase effects, as well as make the blessing more effective on slower weapons.
- Bleeding:
applies 1 stack per hit on an enemy -> applies stacking equal to a percentage of damage inflicted. Each stack inflicts 5 -> 1 damage per second. Also, when over 20 stacks are placed on a target, the target now suffers 30% extra damage when you attack it. Just like Electrified, this category used to be ineffective with slower weapons. This change should make it more viable, regardless of your weapon of choice.
- Armor:
This blessing now stacks more quickly, but it is capped at 20% of the player's health, making it easier to use while preventing it from becoming too dominant.
6. Interactive Environments
Between good vibes and a gameplay element, we decided to make some in-game environments destructible.
- Pots :
can be destroyed by the player or monsters: a must-have.
- Walls:
These obstacles can only be destroyed by bosses and elite monsters, which will gradually impact your ability to take cover while fighting these fearsome opponents.
7. Traps and Bonuses in Each Room
There are new room mechanics offering challenges and bonuses.
- Healing orb:
These orbs restore 20 HP, enabling you to survive the festival longer.
- Gong:
This can be activated by attacks from the player or from monsters. When activated, it stuns all enemies in the room for a few seconds so you can get the upper hand.
- Spike trap:
When the player goes over it, spikes come out of the ground and deal damage to self and to monsters.
- Fire-breathing statue:
These statues spew flames one second after the player goes over them, inflicting damage to the player and to enemies.
8. New Monsters and a Second Boss
To make each run more dynamic, we've added new monsters, along with variants of existing monsters. You'll have to contend with new behaviors and attacks, adding even more variety to every run you do.
We've also added a second boss at the end of the demo, with unique mechanics to put your skills to the test!
9. Create Your Own Armor
Armor is being introduced to Savara! You can now create new armor items in the forge menu, letting you customize your equipment even more in order to face whatever challenges may come.
10. Dialogue
Finally, we've added early dialogue to the game, with voiceover available in English and French. This dialogue will enrich the story and interactions with the characters, allowing for deeper immersion in the Savara universe. We worked with talented actors to offer high-quality voiceover, both in English and French.
11. Enhancements to Effective Damage
Choose the right weapon for each monster. To encourage players to use the right weapon on the right part of the monster, we reevaluated effective damage. Here is what changed:
The increase ratios for effective damage are now 30 to 100% higher, depending on what part of the monster you attack. This will maximize damage by targeting enemies' weak spots and favoring a more tactical approach. We also made the different fonts for damage clearer based on context (white = ineffective weapon, yellow = effective weapon, red outline = broken part).
You can now see what parts of the monster are weak against what damage types in the Codex section of the game, so you'll be able to adapt your equipment to the weaknesses of enemies encountered, and even to ones you may want to aim for.
