Ave Aspirants!
Lino here, co-developer on We Who Are About to Die. Like Jordy, I wear a lot of hats: coding, art, design,... The main difference? Unlike Jordy, I usually do my work with pants on!
I'll be showing some of my work in this post! For Preview #2 of the Blood & Sand update, I'm excited to share some of the latest updates to the Career management and combat visual effects, as well as a call for closed testers!
Patrons Upgrade!
From the start, we’ve always intended for Patrons to play a meaningful role during a run. I'm happy to announce that, with the new Blood & Sand update, you can now make more meaningful decisions regarding which Patron to support and see a clearer impact on your gameplay.
The Patron system has seen lots of little broad adjustments. Patron Events are more likely, Favor gain pacing is higher and there are more ways to earn Favor now too. Many of the new features allow you to lean more towards someone specific - building up favor in a strategic way really pays off over the run.
Events
Firstly, we've added 15 new Patron events, bringing more variety to each run. Each Patron now offers a balanced mix of positive and negative events that will trigger based on your Favor standing with them. For example, each patron has an event that increases the likelihood of matches being hosted by them, giving you the opportunity to further specialize as their disciple.
Other events may grant free shop orders, increase bet payouts or even reward (or burden) you with a temporary Character Trait. All this and more is waiting for you to discover!
Festivals
We are also introducing Patron hosted Festivals! These are special positive events, that can occur once per run. There's the Festival of Wine, Festival of Blood, Festival of Masks and the Festival of Fortune!
Each Festival has special effects for the entire week it takes place. After a few weeks of preparation, the city of Terantia will come alive with celebration, decorations, and bonuses tied to the Patron!
I won't spoil all 4, but for the Festival of Fortune for example, Valerius will make sure that gold spills from fallen Aspirants. Even more, Valerius will distribute pouches of coin to the crowd, who will eagerly hurl them toward the Aspirants they hope will succeed!
Betting Overhaul
One major goal of the Blood & Sand update is to address community feedback and to strengthen the weaker systems. Next to other systems that will talk about in upcoming previews, betting has received a complete rework.
Instead of 4 betting options in total (shoved in a menu on the side), I've integrated the betting panel directly into the match option panel, meaning there are now 3 bets per match, and making it much easier to see which bets are possible on which match.
We are also introducing smart bets! Eliminating impossible or nonsensical choices.
Next to an increase of the minimum payout, bets will now also pay out Favor with the Patron hosting the match, which circles around to the Patron Expansion.
I've also redesigned the Patron UI panels and tooltips to show all related benefits and information at a glance. For example, some players might not have been aware that your Patron standing influences match payouts and fundraising. After a victorious fight, it is also clearer how your favor with each Patron changed.
Combat - FX Upgrades and more!
With the new anim & physics updates, it was the perfect time for us to also enhance the current visual effects for combat.
Since shields play such a crucial role in combat, I've added visual damage on the shield itself, which directly indicates its remaining durability.
Above you see the first damage state which indicates a shield durability range of 50%-35%, the second damaged state shows a 35%-10% range and the last one 10% or lower.
A cool side effect of this system is that it also shows on the inside of the shield, so as a player you will also have a visual clue of your shield's durability and know when it's time to search for another shield to pick up!
In addition to drastically optimizing existing FX like environmental dust, we’ve added a upgrade to all combat-related FX - better shield splinters and metal sparks on impact, along with impact effects to clearly show the exact point of your strike on enemies. There is more dust scattered up due to combat, better and clearer footstep FX and SFX and more.
Audience Items
Another noticeable thing is I've overhauled the way the audience throws in items. Before, the items they can throw in were taken from a limited pool of 3 items (low, mid and high tier).
Now, it's fully dynamic - they can throw any weapon or shield in the game (that is buyable) -they just throw stuff that is appropriate for the tier of the player. This effectively means more variety in combat with looted items, and buffed looting via Spoils to the Victor and Luck of the Draw.
WANNA PLAY NOW?
CALL FOR CLOSED TESTERS!
If you want to try Blood & Sand ahead of time:
We are currently in the debugging and polish stage of this update and we can use your help!
We're launching a round of closed testing - do you want to help out and play this update early?
Join our Discord and write an application in the channel #closed-test-application
That's it for preview #2 of the Blood & Sand update! I can’t wait for you to dive in and explore these changes. Let us know what you think!
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We who are about to die salute you,
Lino