Hello All,
Just pushed another update for the demo and wanted to highlight fixes and changes that I have been working on:
The main issue was performance. Though I had done a couple rounds of optimization already, I saw there were many complaints due to low frame rates. The main issue was a portion of an unused function that was continually running in the background. Among some other smaller optimizations, disabling this function appears to have improved framerate greatly.
There were other complaints about the combat and the overall difficulty. Though I don't want the game to feel too "soft," I recognize there is definitely an issue. Sometimes it's difficult for me to tell, as I've gotten very used to the combat mechanics. In addition to toning down overall difficulty, I've also implemented some other changes:
Wider warp target collision - this should help with attacks moving past enemies. The warp target determines the distance traveled for attacks with root motion, and collides with enemy meshes, so a wider acceptance radius should reduce issues with sliding past enemies when trying to attack them.
Soft-lock system - a compromise between aiming and full target-lock. Some players expressed issue with not having a lock-on system. Though I think aiming is part of the main gameplay mechanics, and becomes more relevant when using ranged weapons, I wanted to compromise to have a system to soft-lock onto targets when aiming in their general direction (or hovering over with the mouse). This, combined with wider warp target collision, should help to alleviate issues with combat accuracy.
Stamina optimization - some tweaks to stamina usage and costs for different actions like running should improve mobility.
The parry window - this was increased after watching several streamers fail to land many parry attempts.
Additionally, there were many bugs and issues to be cleaned up:
A bug where the boss at the end of the second area starts sliding towards the character before the introductory animation plays.
A bug where part of the tutorial hint text remains on screen after leaving the bounding box.
A bug where the players torso would twist around after attacking but not aiming.
Several areas where the player was able to escape the level bounds.
An issue with an enemy spawning function causing a specific area to spawn an enemy randomly, right next to the player and attack them immediately (this was funny but unintended).
An issue where a change to any setting from the main menu caused the moving camera setting to also be turned off.
The enemy ragdoll upon death occasionally left the enemy standing up without falling down.
Plus various other small issues and glitches that only became apparent after more people had played the game (so thank you for all of your feedback).
On another note, several people have commented on the fact that yes, the barrels and crates and such do not explode into a thousand particles when you smack them with your sword. I may end up adding this, but I would not want to cause a performance issue, so it will depend.
Finally, really, thank you to everyone who played the demo, and if you have not yet, please do and let me know your thoughts. I'm always open to feedback to improve the game!