Kept you waiting- It's been a while since you heard from us last time, and we sincerely apologize for such a long period of radio silence. More than anything, we want to make a game that you will love to play, and we want to thank you all for your support, because it is the main force that lets us continue working towards that. We always preferred to speak with our actions, not words, and today we have something to show. The result of all our work during this silent time is finally here!
Update 0.6.1 Major changes:
Combat
Reverse gripping. Added the ability to rotate your weapons (vertically for bladed weapons and horizontally for the rest) by holding down the Swap Hands key. With swords, you can go to the mordhau grip if you do that from the halfsword grip. But be careful, without proper hand protection you may cut yourself :3
Alternative stance. Reworked alt thrust so that you can perform zwerchau. With two-handed swords, you also rotate your weapon horizontally to the ground. Can't wait to see what master strikes you perform. This particular feature was inspired by the mod The Art of Combat by Seancarter78 We are sure that with this update you can make even more cool stuff, fellow fencer.
Stronger wrists. Made wrists more rigid so that your weapons flop less. Basically returned wrist mobility to Demo settings, but also reworked animations so that you can cut from more angles. We will continue exploring more historical techniques and refining the feeling of combat even more to bring Half Sword as close as we can to the ultimate medieval combat simulator.
Performance
Active Ragdoll Total Overhaul. Massively optimized ragdolls and rebuilt the whole structure from the ground up. Gonna be frank, I made this system years ago and it worked well, but was too performance-heavy. Now it is twice as good performance-wise and hopefully feels the same (or even better).
New foliage assets. Optimized the hell out of the trees (thanks to our new hire - Eldar). The guy is really good, you will feel it in the Forest Map. - General asset optimization. Removed things that worked badly and replaced them with stuff that works better. It is an ongoing process. We slowly but surely optimize our stuff. Step by step, we will make this game run on toasters (fingers crossed).
Armor and Weapons
Armor material customization. Now you can change the metal and color of your armor at the Armorer. Better metal gives more protection and restricts your movements less. Also, you can dye the fabric of your garment in any medieval color. We plan to expand armor customization even more in upcoming updates.
Equipment affects mobility. Made characters faster and more nimble in general, but heavy equipment (including both armor and weapons) will affect that. The heavier you are, the heavier the movement feels. Increasing physical strength makes you move more lightly in armor.
Axes. Added lots of new axes both as premade weapons and as new modules for crafting. - Armor protection rebalance. Refined the math for armor protection. It should be harder to one-shot a fully armored knight now.
Rigging and skinning. Gradually refining how our armor looks in motion. Arm armor in particular should look much better and have less clipping (thanks to our new hire Danny). It is an ongoing process. We also have lots of new and ready assets for armor and weapons awaiting implementation, so we will be able to give you new tools to play with soon.
Game
Expanded Free Mode. You can choose maps and time of day now, and the maximum amount of opponents has increased to 10. Your character's height and weight can also be customized in the Inventory (the UI for that will be changed soon).
New map. Added a new map, Pit. Basically a Yard map but with a hole in the center. We will start adding more unique maps soon, but first we are reworking and optimizing the existing ones. - Bridge Fight. Added the combat scenario "Bridge" for Pit and Slums.
Better AI. AI is more responsive and aggressive now. Next, they will learn how to fight in groups.
We have a lot planned for the future, and there will be more changes to the overarching gameplay loop soon. Fight well <3
If you have installed mods be sure to do a clean reinstall. We also recommend stating a fresh save for best results.