Jul 22, 2023

NEWS: Attention, Champions! Combat Controls Update preview #2 is here!

We Who Are About To Die - JordyL

⚔️Aspirants! Combat Controls Update preview #2 is here -- last time we talked about visual aspects of the update, you can check that out here.
Today we'll talk about all the major gameplay changes, which is really the bulk of the update.

Third Person Mode

Wait, isn't the game already third person mode?

⚔️Kind of -- but not really! Originally We Who Are About To Die was an exploration of directional mouse based combat disconnected from the camera. To make that work, I added an overhead perspective, targeting and things like AutoCam.
Once you're used to it, it works quite well, but its very different to most games. Its love it or hate it - many people asked for a true Third Person Mode in the style of say Mount&Blade, Breath of the Wild, God of War... and I heard you!

TL;DR in this new Third Person Mode, your camera is tied to aiming input -- no more need to fight the camera. Look at these comparisons!
It is more immersive and easier to get into when new to the game, with some sacrifices of clarity and overview.

You can look and aim up & down much easier. The original mode is now called Classic Mode, and best of all -- you can switch dynamically between the two depending on your need. Just hit R in combat! Do you think you'll be playing TPM or Classic more? Let me know in the comments!

Controller Support

⚔️Combat Controller Support is introduced in the Combat Controls Update. (Career controller support will be coming later.) After lots of iteration on the control scheme I'm happy to say it feels really good.

To attack, you hit the Right Trigger and aim in a direction with the right analog stick as if you would with a mouse. There are subtle differences in how combat works with controller to make it flow better.

You can also play with controller in both Third Person Mode and Classic mode.
Lastly, thanks to our developer Lino, the tutorial and (almost) every UI element has been updated already too, as well as the rebinds menu so you can customize the layout.

Throwing System Overhaul

⚔️The entire throwing system has been reworked from the ground up. Originally, it was purely physics based and based on timing - drop your weapon ('let go') during any attack or movement and it 1:1 keeps going - a throw! Innovative and interesting, but unwieldy. Even for grizzled veterans, throwing is more of a gimmick than a true strategic component of combat.

So I decided to rework it fully and make it more useable.

Same foundation, but more automated aiming. Every mode (TPM/Classic, controller or keyboard/mouse) has a custom solution, but the gist is the weapon will be thrown to where you are aiming as long as you released your weapon during a certain (generous) window.
Certain attack types like overhead have more power and accuracy, and throwing is dependent on your character's Throwing Skill for overall force and accuracy.

At lower throwing skill (= lower strength) you will also throw more upward dynamically to reach far away targets. You have no idea what a pain this was to implement!

High character skill throws are more direct in a straight line and more likely to hit whatever is in front of you.

Smart Shop

⚔️Yosha, our programmer, has completely reworked the underlying logic fueling the 'random' shop and its items. The system now works with 'recipes' that we can easily plug in. The default shop recipe makes sure there are items that are very appropriate to your current level, that there's a great balance of different types (fewer situations with 4 weapons etc!) and that you get no duplicates (except in niche situations)

The great thing is this is fully data driven, so adding specific shop recipes is a piece of cake. We could create new events in the future that make it so the shop only sells tier 2-3 helmets and axes, or pretty much whatever we can think of.

I can personally attest from testing, the shop is significantly more engaging - there's always appropriate options to purchase and it feels so much better.

Auto-Pickup & Item Overlay

With Controller Support added, we needed a solution to pick up items. Fortunately it also translates back to Keyboard&Mouse. You can now pick up the nearest item by pressing Q or E respectively without having to click on the item -- super easy and quick.

There's a small item tooltip associated with this, and at the same time, we added an overlay that shows all tooltips on screen so you can quickly scan for interesting items.

Combat Changes

Attack Lock

⚔️The way attack (directions) lock in now has been changed. For directional attacks (sideways) you have to pull a certain distance, then it locks in. Previously it would lock your attack after a specific amount of time instead.

Damage rebalance

⚔️Damage calculation has been heavily rebalanced as to be more reliable. In short, the point of your weapon that hits the enemy is weighed less, and the overall speed of your weapon more.

Example: before, a sword would deal significantly more damage if you hit with the tip versus the middle. Makes some sense, but it made damage more unpredictable and unstable. Now turning into your attack manually is more impactful. More stable, and feels better.

Animation Fixes

⚔️Some animations have been fixed and adjusted. For example, 1 handed right uppercut attacks have been redone completely to be more clean. Polearms now have 1 single left-side stun/backhand attack animation, which is less confusing.

New FX and Scaled damage effects

⚔️All blood effects have been reworked and several new layers of FX, UI FX and sound FX have been added that scale according to your damage. In short, you can better tell how strong your hit was by the gamefeel.

Hard Mode

⚔️For the advanced players: after you've completed at least 1 legacy/backstory, hard difficulty unlocks (called Lionslayer). AI deals more damage, you earn less gold and fame and so on, but more importantly, the AI is more competent in combat from level 1 to avoid a slow & unchallenging early game. The default for this mode should be losing, even if you are very good - so I hope to get all your feedback on this mode! Remember, dying is fun!

Ready to Ascend?

⚔️There's even more to the Combat Controls Update, believe it or not - the UI has gotten polish, there's new sound effects, items (Including revamped Owakhan hats, a new spear, 2 hander and shield!), destructibles, map updates, colour customisation and more!

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think, what you're most excited about, and to help us out, share a link to this post or the game where-ever you can - word of mouth made all of this possible!

We who are about to die salute you,
Jordy

Jul 22, 2023

Engine Update News - 693 materials later ...

Monsters Loot Swag - Steve_Yorkshire

Early PBR Test: Heroic Cosplaying Catgirl T-Poses Over The Nettles To Assert Her Dominance!

693, is how many materials my models have which require converting from the previous game engine's diffuse/spec rendering system, to the new, improved and shiny PBR (Physcial Based Rendering) system for cool reflections and modern fanciness. ːhappychappyː

This has meant converting 693 diffuse textures to shadowless albedo images, and then creating Ambient Occlusion, Roughness and Metalness maps for each. Needless to say ... this has taken a while ... ːnotsohappychappyː

693 Matierals converted to PBR, though as a top-down shooter, these models LOD out quickly when looking horizontally across.

Porting to the new engine also has a fancy and modern asset system which preloads objects into memory via their instances rather than directory locations, which should help performance and stability.

Metallic and Roughness materials.

In the meantime, there has been another patch, fixing a few issues with directory/folder addresses (something the new asset system will make redundant), and I have also found some non-used audio files which can be deleted in clearup. This update does not have a new build number as no C++ was changed.

With a bit of luck, a beta release of the new game engine build will be made available next month (August 2023) before being rolled into the main branch of the game as the default once stability has been tested.

In the meantime, I am back to the code, wrapped in a blanket, huddled over a hot drink because it is
*checks notes*
British SummerTime ,,, ːcorblimeyguvnorː