It’s been a busy one. We essentially performed open-heart surgery on the AI, fixed some truly spectacular physics bugs, and added a bunch of new ways for you to get beaten up (and beat others up).
Thank you to Nullwake, Ultrarael, BloodyNightshade, RimmerTunes, and multitude of other game testers for finding bugs and sending videos over!
Here's the notes:
The Big AI Rework
The enemies used to be punching bags. Now they have brains.
Complete Logic Overhaul: The AI Component has been rewritten from the ground up in C++. They now understand spacing, cooldowns, and object permanence.
Dynamic Targeting: Enemies no longer tunnel-vision forever. If, say, an NPC friend hits them, they will turn around and hit them back.
Parkour & Mobility: Enemies can now jump gaps, dash offensively, and even use the environment to chase you. Nowhere is safe.
Team Tactics: They now realize when their buddy is attacking (if they have one) and will (mostly) wait their turn.
Combat & Gameplay
Stun System 2.0: Rewrote the stunning logic to be timer-based rather than animation-based. This fixes the infinite stun-lock issues.
Special Attack Logic: Tweaked the backend to make specials feel more responsive.
3 New Temp Specials: Added some placeholder moves so your move list isn't empty. Go wild.
Death System Rework: Dying is now a more dramatic affair. The Death Screen and underlying system have been polished.
NPC Squad (Experimental): Added a toggle to bring 3 NPC allies with you. It’s chaotic. It’s buggy. Have fun.
Battle Music: Added a dynamic combat detection system. The music now knows when you're fighting and when you're just chillin'.
Lock-On Improvements: You can now switch between enemies when you're locked on to an enemy by moving your camera in their direction. It also activates further.
World & Environment
Freeroam Environment: Reworked the test map to be a better playground for movement.
Death Plane: Falling off the map actually kills you now instead of letting you fall into a destroy actor plane. You're welcome.
Bug Fixes
Fixed: Dying while sliding or dashing no longer lets you slide around as a corpse.
Fixed: Getting hit while sliding no longer launches you into the stratosphere (This is the second time this has happened with sliding - What the hell??)
Fixed: Stuns no longer permanently soft-lock your character.
Fixed: Ultimate Forms now actually work for characters other than Deren instead of showing the skin mask below all characters.
Fixed: Game Over music no longer plays when BP_StaticNPC dies.
Nerfed (But Not Removed): The SuperDash bug. I know speedrunners LOVE movement tech, so I didn't kill it completely - we just reined it in so you don't break the sound barrier by accident. Consider it a "feature" now. Yeah.
Notes
Tips have been reworked and now appear in the system message log for playtesters.
Tons of other small stability fixes under the hood.
Current Build Status: Experimental but stable. If the AI does something exceptionally smart (or stupid), let us know in the discussions or in the community Discord server. Either that or message me on Discord @jakedravioli. Cheers!
- JDR | Founder of vecShift Studios