Will you answer to the flagellants for your sins? Stand your ground or run and hide!
Good day mercians!
Today we would like to reassure everyone work on update 35 is still full 'steam' ahead, we wished to release last week but more shortcomings to system changes have arose during internal testing that have become a must fix before we can release the new patch. These problems are including item replication and private session invites (steam infrastructure), that being said whilst we are dealing with pesky bugs we felt part of the team that is available could further push another must needed changes for the new update such as:
First person camera
We felt that the game's navigation, camera and combat brought "arcady" and uninspiring feel/tone to the gameplay where it was not welcome, we want the player to be fully immersed as if they were the ones curing the plague, battling bandits and shopping in town. The third person camera also brought a lot of negatives, constant tweaking to position and animation never felt it improved upon it but instead made it feel different, this change to inject a first person camera has shown the game in a new light and has provided lots of new opportunities such as an improved combat system, accurate looting and deeper exploration.
Directional combat
The new improved combat system now gives accurate first person cursor hit detection (swings passing through where you aim) and lots of attack variation based on the initial direction of movement, if you strafe you will horizontal strike, if you reverse you will do an overhand and on top of that we now have charge up strikes which allows you to hold a strike for longer to deal additional damage or delay the strike itself for extra tactical attacks. The first person camera has also allowed us to polish range weapons further (throwing weapons included) to be more responsive and authentic rather than cumbersome, all weapon types including will be receiving new animations with over 100 in total!
New NPCs
Flagellants and Celtics are new melee enemies which have reached completion internally, they deal high damage but suffer from low armour. These new enemies are to replace the monks we currently have in game (which will return as new neutral NPCs) and provide exclusive attire such as the charming kilts or the scary flagellant masks you see above.
Celtic barbarians roaming the highlands will gladly kill you to eat the flesh off your bones
IK solving and A.I. navigation
In an attempt to further improve the A.I.'s believability we decided to address the sudden turning and strange angles they adopt when travelling around Mercia (especially animals) the new changes include physics based feet placement solutions for any angle and more realistic turn rates, the result is definitely on the right path but we will be looking to add further animation variation to them to really sell it in the future.
Currently we are looking to get this mammoth update out to everyone by the end of the month so we appreciate everyone hanging on and bearing with us whilst we build up the black death to a bigger and stronger experience....... until next time, see you in Mercia!
The S.I.G. Team.