Some of the things that we were working lately are ready & published.
The update covers two main things requested by the community
1. Too little variety of enemies on the later waves
2. Improve the gameplay on the castle map.
There is lot more to come very soon :)

The green dragons are usually used to protect the orcish gold. Nevertheless, if the orcs footmen are ineffective for too long the orc chieftain may decide to use one of them against the defenders. The green dragons are equipped with golden armor that makes them extra hard to kill.


The black war troll was kept by orcs until the day of the final battle. His thick skin and heavy steel helmet make him very hard to take down without using advanced magic.


We have adjusted the difficulty both on the Village and Castle. Now the waves with bosses are harder and the wave following the boss wave is easier. That’s why you should focus as much as possible on the boss waves and have some rest during the wave following the boss wave.
Now all the bosses (including the red dragon) appear in the Single-Player mode.


Starting tower:
1. Improved visibility of the left entrance and orcs on the bridge.
2. Improved visibility through the left middle gate. (possibility of shooting orc on the stairs)
3. Improved visibility through the right middle gate. (possibility of predicting when the orc appears in the gate)


Catapult Platform
4. Improved visibility through the left middle gate.
5. Improved visibility through the right middle gate - move the catapult and scale the monument. (possibility of predicting when the orc appears in the gate)


The Right Tower
6.Added the possibility of shooting the orcs in the center entrance (change the tree position and scale)


Cannon platform
7. Added the possibility of shooting orcs through the left middle gate.
8. Added the possibility of shooting orcs through the right entrance.



The Front Tower
9.Added the possibility of shooting the left the entrance.
10.Make the tower higher. (possibility of shooting the orcs on the front part of the map)

Some of the things that we were working lately are ready & published.
The update covers two main things requested by the community
1. Too little variety of enemies on the later waves
2. Improve the gameplay on the castle map.
There is lot more to come very soon :)

The green dragons are usually used to protect the orcish gold. Nevertheless, if the orcs footmen are ineffective for too long the orc chieftain may decide to use one of them against the defenders. The green dragons are equipped with golden armor that makes them extra hard to kill.


The black war troll was kept by orcs until the day of the final battle. His thick skin and heavy steel helmet make him very hard to take down without using advanced magic.


We have adjusted the difficulty both on the Village and Castle. Now the waves with bosses are harder and the wave following the boss wave is easier. That’s why you should focus as much as possible on the boss waves and have some rest during the wave following the boss wave.
Now all the bosses (including the red dragon) appear in the Single-Player mode.


Starting tower:
1. Improved visibility of the left entrance and orcs on the bridge.
2. Improved visibility through the left middle gate. (possibility of shooting orc on the stairs)
3. Improved visibility through the right middle gate. (possibility of predicting when the orc appears in the gate)


Catapult Platform
4. Improved visibility through the left middle gate.
5. Improved visibility through the right middle gate - move the catapult and scale the monument. (possibility of predicting when the orc appears in the gate)


The Right Tower
6.Added the possibility of shooting the orcs in the center entrance (change the tree position and scale)


Cannon platform
7. Added the possibility of shooting orcs through the left middle gate.
8. Added the possibility of shooting orcs through the right entrance.



The Front Tower
9.Added the possibility of shooting the left the entrance.
10.Make the tower higher. (possibility of shooting the orcs on the front part of the map)

Although the green wyverns have been included in the orcs forces for a short time before, we needed to take them down as their animation of death wasn't improving the immersion.

Since then (a few months ago) we've been continuously testing and improving them.
In the current state, they are using adjusted ragdoll physics that make each of their death unique. We tried to achieve the most realistic and immersive movements.

That is why the wyvern falls down using the initial velocity of its fly, the force of an arrow and gravity combined to achieve that effect. While this creature is falling down you can notice their panic wings movements that do not prevent from the unavoidable fall.

Here is the gif:

Although the green wyverns have been included in the orcs forces for a short time before, we needed to take them down as their animation of death wasn't improving the immersion.

Since then (a few months ago) we've been continuously testing and improving them.
In the current state, they are using adjusted ragdoll physics that make each of their death unique. We tried to achieve the most realistic and immersive movements.

That is why the wyvern falls down using the initial velocity of its fly, the force of an arrow and gravity combined to achieve that effect. While this creature is falling down you can notice their panic wings movements that do not prevent from the unavoidable fall.

Here is the gif:

1. The previous system of moving orcs was recreated from scratch, to achieve much better performance. This took us quite a lot of time and introduced many new bugs which (hopefully all) have already been found and fixed. What's the most important, there won't be any lagging orcs anymore!
   
2. The arrow's trail renderers now match the color of the player.
   
3. Orc footsteps sound now finishes just after the orc is dead.
   
4. Add dust particles after the orc is dead.
   
5. Fixed bug when the master was pausing the orcs for others while being in the Vive menu.
   
6. Fixed bug when the player could cheat a time penalty after he/she was killed by the axe (by opening the menu).
   
7. Improved Oculus Touch support.

1. Improved lights and shadows quality
   
2. Items on the table were reorganized for better accessibility
   
3. Spells teleport platform position was adjusted for better accessibility of items
   
4. The mass of the items on the table was adjusted so the interaction is more realistic.
   
5. Impact sounds were added to the items on the table
   
6. Fixed a bug with spells buttons working even if they were not visible
   
7. Added tutorial when you haven’t learned a spell yet and have a spare Spell Points
   
8. The image of the map type is displayed in the lobby
   
9. Fix the "stuck in the main menu" bug

1. Improved texture's quality of the platform floors
   
2. Terrain changed to a custom mesh. This significantly reduces the number of draw calls sent to GPU and thus improves the overall performance.
   
3. Changed the terrain texture so that the map looks much better.
   
4. The path of the dragon was adjusted for a better gameplay. Now you can shoot it comfortably.
   
5. The speed of the dragon was decreased when it is near the players. Now it's more likely you will be able to kill it before it burns you.
   
6. The environment near the far elven house was improved.
   
7. Anisotropic filtering was used on textures - this improves the quality of the textures.

1. First part of changes on castle map making the gameplay better. There was too little visibility of the orcs on this location and the gameplay was very chaotic. We have changed the archery platforms positions. This also gives a possibility of performing long distance shoots. We are now looking for the suitable place for the ballista. :)
   
2. Big optimization on the castle map.

1. The previous system of moving orcs was recreated from scratch, to achieve much better performance. This took us quite a lot of time and introduced many new bugs which (hopefully all) have already been found and fixed. What's the most important, there won't be any lagging orcs anymore!
   
2. The arrow's trail renderers now match the color of the player.
   
3. Orc footsteps sound now finishes just after the orc is dead.
   
4. Add dust particles after the orc is dead.
   
5. Fixed bug when the master was pausing the orcs for others while being in the Vive menu.
   
6. Fixed bug when the player could cheat a time penalty after he/she was killed by the axe (by opening the menu).
   
7. Improved Oculus Touch support.

1. Improved lights and shadows quality
   
2. Items on the table were reorganized for better accessibility
   
3. Spells teleport platform position was adjusted for better accessibility of items
   
4. The mass of the items on the table was adjusted so the interaction is more realistic.
   
5. Impact sounds were added to the items on the table
   
6. Fixed a bug with spells buttons working even if they were not visible
   
7. Added tutorial when you haven’t learned a spell yet and have a spare Spell Points
   
8. The image of the map type is displayed in the lobby
   
9. Fix the "stuck in the main menu" bug

1. Improved texture's quality of the platform floors
   
2. Terrain changed to a custom mesh. This significantly reduces the number of draw calls sent to GPU and thus improves the overall performance.
   
3. Changed the terrain texture so that the map looks much better.
   
4. The path of the dragon was adjusted for a better gameplay. Now you can shoot it comfortably.
   
5. The speed of the dragon was decreased when it is near the players. Now it's more likely you will be able to kill it before it burns you.
   
6. The environment near the far elven house was improved.
   
7. Anisotropic filtering was used on textures - this improves the quality of the textures.

1. First part of changes on castle map making the gameplay better. There was too little visibility of the orcs on this location and the gameplay was very chaotic. We have changed the archery platforms positions. This also gives a possibility of performing long distance shoots. We are now looking for the suitable place for the ballista. :)
   
2. Big optimization on the castle map.

The today's update (1.0.9) was switched from the main branch to beta because someone reported that the performance got worse after the update. I will try to figure it out tomorrow.


PS. To switch to beta you need:
1. Right click on the Elven Assassin game in steam
2. Click "Properties"
3. Select the "BETA"
4. Select "beta" from the dropdown

The today's update (1.0.9) was switched from the main branch to beta because someone reported that the performance got worse after the update. I will try to figure it out tomorrow.


PS. To switch to beta you need:
1. Right click on the Elven Assassin game in steam
2. Click "Properties"
3. Select the "BETA"
4. Select "beta" from the dropdown

We've been working on the improvement of bow mechanics for quite a long time.
Finally, we can show it to you.
Here is the list of changes we made to accomplish that:

1. Vertical Offset introduced - the further you stretch the bow, the closer the arrow gets to your's eye (In the vertical axis) This allows for the best aiming results. Besides that, it makes the arrow not fly above the orcs. This is represented by "Improve Offset" option in settings
   
2. Increase Horizontal Offset - now the arrow goes straight forward, while before it went to the left
   
3. New Horizontal Offset calculation - before the rotation of the Arrow hand controller have a big impact on the direction of the arrow. We have change the way of calculation so now the aiming should be much more consistent
   
4. Fix arrow spawning position - Before, upon the release of the arrow it's position was slightly changed especially when holding bow horizontally. Now it's fixed.
   
5. Scale the bow model for easier aiming.
   
6. Make arrow thicker for better visibility.
   
7. Increase velocity of arrow
   
8. Improve release arrow sound

Here is a capture of a very professional benchmark: :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQG4hN3DKTg


We will appreciate any comments about new mechanics. Thanks for support.


Other Fixes:

1. Caching the Achievement Statistics for better performance.
   
2. Slightly increased difficulty on SinglePlayer (the last update messed it up)

We've been working on the improvement of bow mechanics for quite a long time.
Finally, we can show it to you.
Here is the list of changes we made to accomplish that:

1. Vertical Offset introduced - the further you stretch the bow, the closer the arrow gets to your's eye (In the vertical axis) This allows for the best aiming results. Besides that, it makes the arrow not fly above the orcs. This is represented by "Improve Offset" option in settings
   
2. Increase Horizontal Offset - now the arrow goes straight forward, while before it went to the left
   
3. New Horizontal Offset calculation - before the rotation of the Arrow hand controller have a big impact on the direction of the arrow. We have change the way of calculation so now the aiming should be much more consistent
   
4. Fix arrow spawning position - Before, upon the release of the arrow it's position was slightly changed especially when holding bow horizontally. Now it's fixed.
   
5. Scale the bow model for easier aiming.
   
6. Make arrow thicker for better visibility.
   
7. Increase velocity of arrow
   
8. Improve release arrow sound

Here is a capture of a very professional benchmark: :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQG4hN3DKTg


We will appreciate any comments about new mechanics. Thanks for support.


Other Fixes:

1. Caching the Achievement Statistics for better performance.
   
2. Slightly increased difficulty on SinglePlayer (the last update messed it up)