Hello mates! If you are wondering what U9 is, it is essentially the 8.4 beta as a now completed and stable version. We decided to rename it as U9 and ripple the other updates because what was intended to be a small incremental patch ended up being huge amount of additions, and the difference between 8.4 and 8.3 was so massively significant that it really seemed like its own update. ːsteamdanceː
The roadmap will change accordingly. This name change should also help clear up a lot of modding confusion going forward about what mods work with what version. Instead of a trying to figure out if a mod works with U8.X beta XYZ, the latest version will now simply u9.
So the beta period is over. This will be the live version until the next big update, and as such this should be a good stable version for long term mod reliability (ie mods made for this version won't break as often as they would in betas). And because I know people will ask - mods should not have broken between 8.4 beta 8 / beta 9 when upgrading to U9.
If you have not been following the beta period and are coming straight from U8.3, you will be in for quite a surprise! Here are some of the more major features included in this update:
Performance enhancement!
This is the big one and the whole reason for the lengthy past beta. The lag spike on spawn issue that plagued U8 has been eliminated thanks to remaking the character system, so the game should be running dramatically better than it was in U8, with performance more in line or better than U7. If you are suffering performance issues in U9 that are not simply spec related, be sure you have removed your mods and checked the pinned topics in Steam Discussions "Issues and Troubleshooting" for some solutions.
New wound and gore decals
Character decals has been completely reworked, they are now optimized, consume way less memory and look better!
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Armour denting decals
Decals are not limited to skin and wounds and you will now see dents when you hit plate armor.
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Burn decals
At last decals now support emissive and overtime effect, perfect for fire and burning. ːsteamdanceː
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Death animations (similar to U7 but new and enhanced)
Death animations were noticeably missing from U8; this is what gave the combat that visceral and gritty feel that many people missed since U7. It allowed for the player to get that short window to complete a cool John Wick type execution, rather than a 100% pure ragdoll experience. Now with a mix of ragdolls and animations, we are happy to say it is better than ever before!
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Blood spurt effect on neck
Slashing or piercing the neck deep enough has always been fatal in B&S; now you can enjoy some visual effects when you manage to do it.
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New customization parts for player and AI
Player customization is still not complete and more and more content will be added as it is made, but for now there are new beard and hairstyles for both the player and AI. The AI now have the chance to spawn with a wide selection of hair and eye colours for variety.
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Jumping to view direction while climbing
Preparing our work for the incoming dungeon update, we added the possibility to jump to the direction you are viewing while climbing, allowing you to reach more places as well as improving agility while climbing
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Piercing has a visible exit wound
A long requested feature has finally being added; you can now see the exit wound if your blade goes through the whole body!
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Self collision (dev option for fun only)
This option is available from the dev menu (monkey icon) and is solely for goofing around as opposed to a gameplay mechanic feature. It makes your full body a collidable object for your own weapons so you can hurt and stab yourself. Why would you want to do this? We have no idea, but you guys seem to like it. ːwftogrinː
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Player has visible wounds and potions will heal them
Being hit will also display wounds on your own body. Thanks to the new decals system, drinking potions will heal the wounds so you can look new again. Be aware however, it will not repair your clothes! Weapons will also clean themselves when holstered after some time.
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New and improved audio effects
If you have not played the beta, this should be very noticeable! Much cooler sounds have been implemented, especially for metal and shields, to make the combat feel more meaty and impactful.
Reworked ragdolls and better penetration
Ragdoll Physics Overhaul mod has been integrated (big thanks to SketchCritic for letting us use his work!)
Enemies should fall down in a more realistic fashion, and combined with better penetration and the return of death animations, you should be better able to skewer enemies properly and have less instances where the enemy gets launched backwards when you try to run them through.
New waves
Waves have been broken out into enemy categories such as Bandit, Knight, Gladiator, as well as new waves added for each class that are 1v1s and melee only. There are a whole bunch of new warzone waves if your PC can handle it and classic modes like "Circle of Death" and 1v1 escalating difficulty have been re-added.
New gamemode: Survival (arena, ruins and market only)
Introducing a new gamemode for those who want more challenge and structure. Choose from the randomly generated weapons that spawn with the pedestal and then survive the waves. The Survival mode is selected from the map that is on the table (it's on the left hand side) in the home.
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That is it for the highlighted features! Going forward, U9 will have small incremental patches as is the usual with updates. To give you an idea of what to expect in the next coming months, check out the revised roadmap. (subject to change, as always!) https://steamcommunity.com/app/629730/discussions/4/1743355067106410776/
The Dungeons Expansion will not be this update; that will be it's own huge update (hopefully U11).
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Below you will find the changelog that resume all the work that has been done since the first beta!
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U9 Changelog
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Features & Enhancements
- Performance optimizations
- Character system overhaul
- New decal system for characters
- Improved dying animations
- Added tone mapping post processing option
- Moved the wave spawner next to the table in arena
- Added and reworked some weapon collision sounds and effects
- Piercing stuff with a weapon imbued with fire will now emit a sound and generate smoke
- Ragdoll materials (flesh, leather, chainmail, plate) are now used for NPC environment damage
- Player wounds are now visible
- Holstering a weapon will clean them after some time
- Drinking health potion will now heal wounds visually
- Reworked penetration system and damage calculation
- Added skewer detection, now piercing through a body will do a decal and effect on the other side
- Added self collision debug option
- Piercing or slashing neck will now show a bleeding effect
- Hats are now using the new character system
- Reworked gravity grab visual effect
- Added 2 male and female hairs
- Added 2 beards
- Reworked all waves
- New Buckler Model
- Survival gamemode added
- Updated LIV to 1.5.4
- Updated Unity to 2019.4.21
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Balancing
- Hips move back a bit more when looking down
- Improved Shields and Shield Bashing
- Increased slash damage on bladed weapons
- Adjusted pierce damagers to be overall better
- Adjusted damage for all part types (hands and feet should take less damage)
- Nerfed Slow-Mo Punch force a bit
- Blunt weapons feel more powerful
- Daggers can now dismember (though it is harder than usual)
- Ragdolls no longer one-shot enemies
- Blades and Axes can now pierce wood easier
- Sand is now pierceable in the arena
- Rapiers now use their own slash damager
- The player takes less damage from arrows and fireballs
- Adjusted probability of all classes. You should now see more melee than archers and mages
- Made Warzone less randomized on faction spawns
- Misc balancing changes
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Fixes
- Fixed infinite loading when loading a save with an item not existing
- Added misc error checks
- Fixed thumbstick not working with HP Reverb G2
- Fixed some lightning issue on maps
- Fixed clipping issues on some outfits
- Fixed texture issue on Rapier
- Fixed an audio issue after player death
- Fixed missing jump sound
- Fixed missing fall damage sound
- Fixed hand going through objects after ungrabbing
- Fixed axes penetration
- Fixed some Out-of-bound access areas in Citadel
- Fixed NPC dying animations
- Fixed some NPC navigation issues
- Fixed an issue causing weapons and projectiles to unpenetrate when the NPC play some animations
- Fixed haptic causing performance issue on Oculus
- Fixed mesh particle warning spamming the console
- Fixed some missing physics materials
- Adjusted Navmesh in arena to prevent NPC getting stuck on the wave spawner
- Fixed navmesh that caused NPCs to get stuck on a rock in Canyon
- Fixed Water rendering over the waterfall effects in Canyon
- Fixed weird lighting of doors inside the sewers of Citadel
- Fixed hole in Citadel
- Fixed rope at the scaffolding in Citadel
- Fixed misc errors and warning
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Modding
- Reworked default and mod directories
- Effects JSON gradients replaced by colors
- Added fleePoint component to manage NPC flee locations
- Reworked collision system to make it easier to maintain and update.
- Removed materialDamage and materialEffect JSON
- Materials is now handling effects and materialDamage is replaced by damageModifier JSON.
- Reworked penetration damage logic
- Reworked penetration dampening, added temporary modifiers to improve piercing
- Added filters into effects JSON to help simplify the collision system
- Added audio playing delay option to EffectModuleAudio
- ColliderGroups with the same name will no longer override each other's ImbueGeneratedMesh
- Fixed Custom Holsters/Quivers making them crash the game
- (C# plugins) The struct "CollisionStruct" is replaced by a class "CollisionInstance"
- Reworked effects logic, added filters and imbue filters to effects to simplify collision management
- Blades and crystals physic material is no longer changed when imbued with a spell
- Potion liquids are now moddable (derive from the "Liquid" class)
- Removed creature DamageModifier and moved variables to Ragdoll.PartData
- ItemPhysic and ItemSpell are now merged into ItemData
- Added game mode support
- Removed quantity on ContainerData.Content
- Added sliceSeparationForce and sliceVelocityMultiplier to creature json
- Added loadorder support
- Moved back velocityDamageCurve from material damage to damager JSON
- Added self damage multiplier on damagers JSON
- Reworked container, loot and creature table JSON
- Moved avoidance priority from brain to creature JSON