Today we patch the first installment of several combat upgrades. The goblins have picked up some defensive skills and are now able to duck arrows and parry melee attacks. They have not mastered these new skills, but overall they've improved their combat tactics. The goblins are slow learners, and their tutor believes there’s room for improvement, so expect further updates during the course of development.
New Stuff
- Controller tracked locomotion (also known as 'Onward-style'). Multiple presets for different movement preferences (teleport, free locomotion, both of the above). To access them, press the menu button above the touchpad on the right-hand Vive controller.
- Breakable pots and jars have been added throughout the game. These can be shot, hit with weapons, picked up and thrown, or smashed against each other by holding one in each hand. May contain valuables.
- Goblins may dodge arrows and parry melee attacks.
- Enemies now respect your zone of privacy. Instead of standing in your face (literally), they keep a proper fighting distance.
- While not actively engaged in combat, players will, if their current health is less than 50%, heal back to 50% of their max health over time.
- Added health bars to all enemies. These will only show if the enemy is hurt, or actively engaged in combat.
- Added damage numbers when enemies are hit.
- Hitting different parts of the environment will now produce sounds, sometimes effects, and controllers will vibrate slightly. Environment is not destructible, we just found it to be much more immersive to let you hit it.
- Added warnings when health is running low, in the form of an audible heartbeat and on-screen visualization.
- Added a billboard to the lobby where recent patch notes will be displayed.
Tweaks and Changes
- Ability to cause damage wiggling your weapon has been reduced. Practice on the target dummies to become familiar with the changes. As always when fighting in Karnage: Pretend you're wielding a real weapon.
- Improved AI pathfinding: Monsters will no longer stack up behind their buddies if they can find a way around them in order to reach you.
- Added more rocks to the water in the level 2 puzzle room to make it possible to get across using locomotion only.
- Changed the boss monster health decal to be a proper health bar.
- Added vibration to bow-hand when pulling the arrow.
- Most combat sounds should now be audible from further away, including hitting monsters, hitting the environment with arrows, and death rattles.
- The Vulture Bear (level 1 boss) and the Corrupted Troll (level 3 boss) have each learned a new trick.
General Bug Fixes
- Players should no longer take damage from simply touching the weapons of the enemy. Monster weapons will only deal damage from actual strikes.
- Players should no longer randomly take damage when performing a successful parry.
- Fixed a bug where the Corrupted Troll would sometimes stop attacking.
- Fixed a bug where some steps in the Corrupted Troll area could not be teleported on.
- Fixed a continuous vibration bug with the bows.
- Fixed a bug where the copper coin value of 1 was displayed incorrectly.
Plans for Next Combat Patch
We have no schedule for when the next combat patch is going live, but we still want to share with you some of what we have planned:
- Further improvements to parrying and dodging.
- Enemies will start using special attacks to break through shield guard in melee combat.
- Enemies will start using feints in melee combat.
- Enemies will start using melee counter attacks.