I’ve made significant updates to Swordai over the past few weeks, focusing on gameplay improvements, balancing, and bug fixes. Below is a summary of all changes, along with an exciting announcement for this weekend's events!
The servers will be opened from the 15th until the 22nd of December following our special weekend events!
Special Weekend Events
Join me for two exciting events this weekend!
2v2 Tournament: Saturday at 1 PM Pacific
Tower Race Challenge: Sunday at 1 PM Pacific
Prizes
Winners of the 2v2 Tournament: Exclusive in-game titles and special cosmetic rewards.
Fastest in the Tower Race Challenge: Rare item drop boosts and leaderboard recognition.
These events will be streamed live, so be sure to tune in or participate directly!
Patch Notes
New Features
- Preliminary 3rd-Person Mode: Toggle with the Home key (default is now "V" and bindable).
- Spectator Mode: Dead players in the tower now spectate the player with the most essence in the area.
- Note: Fixes for far-away spectating implemented; further UI enhancements ongoing.
- Combat Log Updates: Added options to display the last log line onscreen and toggle damage/essence text visibility.
- Barrier Statue Challenge: Added a new tutorial element in "Beginnings" requiring players to deal 60 damage in two hits from different directions.
Gameplay Adjustments
- Animation Improvements: Smoother walk/run/idle transitions; reworked swing animations for down-left, down-right, and upright angles.
- AI Enhancements:
- Improved AI range and spacing to reduce missed attacks.
- Some AI now utilize sprint boosts to chase players effectively (e.g., puppeteers and lost souls).
- Adjusted AI difficulty scaling: higher levels are less vulnerable to spacing exploits, while lower levels retain weaknesses for new players.
Combat Mechanics:
- Introduced "perfect blocks," refunding stamina for blocking an attack within 750ms of initiating the block. Plays a unique sound and logs as "perfectly blocked."
- Stagger updates: Hits 200ms after a stagger begins will break the stagger.
- Removed "on-hit slow" effect; replaced with a "chase" speed buff when sprinting towards another player’s back within 10 meters.
- Increased base attack damage by 20% for testing in PvP scenarios (may require NPC rebalancing).
- Stamina Regeneration: Increased both idle and running regen rates significantly.
Balancing Changes
- Rewards and Scaling:
- Increased tower time rewards for defeating golems and scavengers.
- Adjusted tutorial flow: the tutorial is now optional, and unlocking features have been streamlined.
- Added new freeform and tower modes disabling cultivation upgrades, randomizing load-outs, and preventing item portals.
- Equipment Changes: Removed "undying" and "equality" from randomized load-outs as they were incompatible.
Bug Fixes
- Resolved memory leak issues on tower servers.
- Fixed spectator mode bugs when viewing players across the map.
NPC Behavior Fixes:
- Coffin-spawned NPCs now return to their coffins after losing sight of their targets.
- Addressed an issue where duel climb AI would fall off levels.
- Fixed NPCs holding attacks too long under certain conditions.
- Resolved a glitch where hovering over status effects didn’t display their descriptions.
- Fixed issues with freeform floor visuals at certain angles.
- Miscellaneous UI fixes and improvements.
Quality of Life Improvements
- Added a reticule animation when targeting valid objects or enemies.
- Made the "Enter" key for chat bindable.
- Tessellation detection updated to improve GPU compatibility.
- Updated UI elements in the tutorial to better convey progress.
- Adjusted the moving platform in "Beginnings" to prevent resets regardless of the time taken.
- The Health bar now rounds up (e.g., 0.4 HP displays as 1 HP).
Developer notes
I’m closely monitoring these changes based on your feedback. The removal of the "on-hit slow" effect and introduction of "chase speed" was aimed at balancing disengagement mechanics, particularly in 1vX scenarios. Perfect blocks and stagger updates are early steps toward enhancing combat depth.
Don’t forget to join me this weekend for the 2v2 Tournament and Tower Race Challenge—your participation and feedback are vital!
As always, please share your thoughts with me on Discord or Steam discussions.
Your input is crucial as I continue refining Swordai!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321890/Swordai/