Welcome to Preview #2 of the upcoming content update. (Celebrating the anniversary of the game!)
In Preview #1 I gave some info about 1.0 and look at some of the new traits, attributes system as well as some of the new items.
Today I'll reveal more content and dig into the big overhaul this update will have: the AI overhaul (the second one if anyone's counting!)
After the last Major Update (Blood & Sand) where we massively improved combat and animations, the AI started to fall behind again in terms of quality. For me it was the one big weak link in the game's combat. We set out to overhaul the AI again (staying fearless!) with some specific goals in mind:
To get more movement and lethality in the AI. Make them more aggressive and fix them being static and passive.
Make the AI go between much more clear "tired" and "not tired" states
Bring back some bite - the AI was generally too easy, especially low level
Fixing glitchy stuff like odd movement, failed attacks, jitters, odd repetitive blocks etc.
Depicted: twitchy odd behavior of the old AI
To achieve these goals we rebuilt the AI from scratch, which was scary, but turned out very worth it.
In the last update we vastly improved stamina from a gameplay and visual POV. The old AI was not super aware of its own stamina.
Some Aspirants would never run out of stam, and some would be permanently tired once they got gassed out.
Generally speaking Aspirants are now much more aware of their own stamina than in the past. They still care about the amount of enemies, health, their own personality and weapon type and much more, but Stamina has a higher priority now.
Depicted: a retreating, tired enemy.
The AI will be far more aggressive when full of energy and go into a very passive mode when gassed out. They will then retreat, recharge and go again.
You'll have to keep this in mind and switch between aggressive and defensive as well! The dance of the arena...
Depicted: the counter attack
In the new aggressive state, they unleash attacks after attacks, including combo's, and are generally far better at hitting and being scary - they really go for the throat.
We have elimited all the weird unnecessary pauses and blocks they used to do too, so it can get quite intense. (especially higher level enemies and on Lionslayer mode)
This all required a dramatic stamina balance overhaul.
Most AI will now go back and forth between energised and gassed out (at varying durations) but it still depends on lots of other factors such as their health or the weight of their equipment (just like the player.) Stamina for both player and AI has seen some general rebalances (mostly providing more, but also playing with the ratio of Max Stam vs Stam Regen.
TL;DR: the simplest way to show is to show an uncut fight!
In the first version of the overhaul it was kind of crazy how competent they were. I've been playing my own game for over 10 years now and I straight up lost 1 vs 1's against low level enemies. We had to tone it down a lot, but I still think the game is more challenging, and we'll have to probably further balance after your feedback.
Balancing in a very complex physics and animation-driven game like this is hard. Very hard. In the previous versions I resorted to making the early-game AI just really slow and dumb, having them barely move and slowly attack at low levels, but it makes the game feel bad and look bad. Obviously, not great.
Instead of making the AI dumber/slower, this time around, we have boosted player skills, rewards and a ton of other small things.
So as of v0.85, a fresh character will feel more responsive. What was previously 25 skill points is now 0, as a general example.
You can move and react faster, have more stamina and generally get more of a chance to use your hard trained player-skill without being held back by the character's skills. You'll also make more gold and fame to get more gear quicker so you have a chance to pace your meta-game despite the tougher combat.
The lower level AI still has less Stamina, will telegraph slightly longer, unleash attacks a bit slower, and so on, but the overall more competent AI was the opportunity I needed to boost the player and make the whole game feel better.
I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Remember, we have a big Discord for the game and I'd love to hear your feedback when the update drops. DISCORD
In Preview #1, I showed the new Attributes system. Quick recap: we added attributes to each item in the game and have made a bunch of traits revolving around these.
Here's the remaining traits that are designed around these attributes!
Collector gives you a shop discount for each matching attribute among items you have. So if you have 5 Outlaw items = 4x the bonus. If you also have 3 Scrappy items, that's another 2x the bonus. In order to help you dig for stuff, shop rerolls are also cheaper!
This trait also counts items in your aux inventory, so you have a reason to hoard collect items.
Being shady is a positive trait in Terantia - of course. With these underground connections, Outlaw items are cheaper, and even more so if you happen to be a Villain. Shady + Villain + Criminal run?
Showman boosts any "Extravagant" or "Ornate" items. These are usually fancy, beautiful items - helms with plumes and items that choose form over factor - a legitimate choice for Aspirants. With Showman, they are even better at multiplying your fame. Time to show off.
The Vain Aspirants prefer to hold on to ornate / extravagant items. You will get 0 gold when trying to sell anything worth holding on to!
That's it for today. I'll post Preview #3 very soon, and by the way, the update might drop very soon after!
Want to stay up to date on the game and Aegic's development?
We who are about to die salute you,
Jordy