Hello Draconians! A new dev blog is ready, summarizing the most important changes we've already made and those we plan to make in the future!
A lot has been happening on our end across several areas. Let's dive in! Skill tree System & General VFX We have been heavily working on the VFX for the new skill tree system, starting with the abilities players will be able to unlock at earlier levels. The complexity and impact of these skills increase with the character's level, because a high-level dragon should both be and feel stronger!
The active skill tree currently consists of approximately 70+ abilities across all species. "Active" means they need to be activated manually, such as Fire Breath and Fireball attacks. However, many of these abilities can be upgraded, which changes both their stats and visuals. As a result, the actual number of required VFX is almost triple that amount.
The counterpart to the active skill tree is the passive skill tree, which consists of general passive upgrades for your dragon. These upgrades can improve your active abilities, stats, or other things your dragon can do, such as resource harvesting and looting. It also allows your dragon to evolve in several different directions, enabling it to become a healer instead of a damage dealer or tank.
This allows for unique builds that can create unexpected encounters, especially in PvP, and gives the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" a new meaning. However, some upgrades are more beneficial to certain species than others, so choose wisely!
On top of the ability VFX, we have also been experimenting with general VFX used during movement and within the environment, such as dust clouds when characters land. Below are some examples of the VFX we have been working on. Movement & Animations We recently added evasive maneuvers to the ground movement, which were the last missing pieces of the new movement system. However, it is not done just yet. Heavy polishing is being done to make it feel as natural and smooth as possible.
This requires a refactor of some systems that tie into it, such as character camera position, FOV, and turning behavior, to name a few.
Stats like movement speed and stamina usage will be adjusted separately and will, for now, use the old values. While the new movement is being polished, we are already starting to move some of the other characters over to the new system.
The new European Dragon will release with the new movement system already in place. Characters that have already undergone a rework, or will not undergo one, will follow as soon as possible.
Some of them still require additional animations that are necessary for the new system, such as turn-in-place animations. In addition to movement assets, some older characters will also receive new emotes. With the next patch, the Griffin will get a full set of six emotes.
The Golem’s emotes are also close to being completed. The Art Corner Our artists are working on a wide variety of things at the moment.
Their work ranges from bringing more characters and character textures to life, as well as designing new customizable body parts, ability icons, and new locations. Sawyer has been working on a range of possible head customization options for the Eastern Dragon, Quetzalcoatl, and Behemoth, and is now working on various tail options for these three. Our texture artist has been busy working on new warpaint for the European Dragon and the Lindworm, and is now working on several options for the new Eastern Dragon model. You can find some of the concepts in our more recent dev blogs. Other 2D work involves designing ability icons. Some of the old ability icons, such as the shadowbreath, firebreath, and poisonbreath icons, have already been replaced and will be updated in the upcoming patch.
The new ability icons are more generalized and can be used for several species. They are also more representative of what the abilities look like. Last but not least, we have also worked on concepts focusing on new aquatic ecosystems that partially tie into already existing areas above and below the ocean surface. A lot of you have been asking about aquatic locations.
Since the majority of our characters are flying or land creatures, the area below the ocean surface sits lower on our priority list, but it's there!
The ocean is big, and we have lots of ideas for it! Other Things The third island is currently being heavily expanded. While it looks very inviting compared to the other islands, it will be a very hostile environment on all levels. Even doing simple things, like not watching your step, can be a fatal mistake. We want this area to be a feast for the eyes, but also a challenge for both PvE and PvP players. Speaking of challenges, we are slowly increasing the survival difficulty levels in the upcoming patches. Hunger and dehydration have hardly been a problem so far, but we want food and water to be more important - not just side stats that you check once every hour. Using your ability to sniff out resources will become more crucial, and you will be required to plan ahead for longer journeys. On top of that, players will also start to run into environmental hazards, some of which long-time players might remember from the legacy version of Draconia, as well as new threats that can lurk around every corner, some more obvious than others. Steam You can now acquire a few Draconia avatars and avatar frames on the Steam Points Shop. We will add more over time and hope you like what has been released so far! That’s it for this dev blog. If you want to see more, consider joining us on Discord and maybe even supporting us on Ko-fi.
Thanks for reading! <3