Vapourware Sui Generis + Exanima Early Access

[AW8]

It really does take a long time to learn how to play this game. It took me about 30 hours before I could move around naturally regardless of camera position, and to start confidently dispatching enemies instead of fighting for dear life every time. So that was 30 hours where I was pretty terrible at the game and had trouble with something as simple as moving my character.

I've played for 50 hours now and am at the point where I very rarely lose arena matches, and I'm still not good at the game. It usually comes down to knowing how to move and when to swing. My most advanced move is the occasional riposte and using backhand swings against shield enemies (I think my success rate is above 5 out of 10).

The game is hard to learn and harder to master.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Technomancer is really making it sound way harder than it actually is.

The real advice is to just to bind dash to shift+movement keys in the options menu. Many people don't realize that there are actually two modes of movement in combat outside of outright sprinting - there is the dash that carries you about a meter / several feet if you hold down a movement key, and there is a regular step which covers about half that distance if you merely tap the movement keys. Tapping vs holding is clunky and frankly too much to think about in combat, so just change the above option so that you go slow by default.

The issue with dash is that, while it gives you great speed and momentum, its far too easy to overshoot people and hug them instead of hitting them with your weapon. Step instead of dashing when you are already close to the enemy and landing hits should prove much more intuitive.

Other than that, if you have trouble lining up your movement with your attacks (ie you end up attacking either before or after your movement animation is done, missing outright or wasting your momentum), try clicking the mouse button at the very same time as you press your movement key - your attack and movement animation should terminate at about the same time.

Otherwise the fundamentals of combat are pretty simple. Wait for the enemy to attack, dash out of the range of their weapon, then close the distance with either a step or a dash while simultaneously swinging/thrusting at them. Skills help a ton at making your character fight more smoothly and I personally recommend rushing fend and riposte so that you are able to do the equivalent of animation cancelling attacks into blocks and vice versa.

For the record, I've got 30 hours in exanima. I don't know how to do crazy strats like intentionally throwing people and stuff like that, but fighting by no means feels "drunk" to me once I got a good grasp of weapon and movement range, which happened intuitively over the course of few hours. The improved physics in the new patch definitely feel much more natural as well, although its way too easier to throw people around / get thrown around by accident (especially hilarious with skeletons, who you can stick to the front of your polearm and spin around like a fucked up umbrella.

 

[Technomancer]

Technomancer is really making it sound way harder than it actually is.

I probably am, but again I was speaking from experience. I started playing while working night time job and played the game periodically when I had the time. Some times I did not play for months. I only started getting good once I had the time to play whenever I wanted.

Likely you can get advanced in a week by really focusing on learning, asking people, watching tutorials and stuff. Personally I just find it extremely boring and to me it feels like a job. Better to play the game for your own enjoyment and let it all come organically.

The issue with dash is that, while it gives you great speed and momentum

That's how you throw people around and kill them in one hit. I never bothered switching dash and steps and learned the game with default dashing. Now I can do small steps and adjust my position without thinking, but before yes, I was stepping all over the place.

I don't recommend switching dash on shift because you need to use dodging wide steps a lot more than small steps to avoid hits meaning you have to do extra work by pressing shift every time. Overshooting people goes away with time. It goes away faster if you use 2h weapons, even faster if 2H swords.

 

[agris]

I coudn't learn advanced moves after 23 hours in game.
The point is I expecting I won't at all because if I coudn't in 23 hours then...

You still could be. I'm judging by my own experience and I consider myself only somewhat hardcore. I was still bad on 75 mark. On 100 I started to feel confident enough to try stuff out in combat but since I played for fun and never watched any tutorials I was still kinda bad, I couldn't do thrust or god forbid Left to Right swing and was mad at the dev who said he can do it reliably 9 times out 10. I was certain that that was a lie and this maneuver should be rebinded to do it easier. Now at 400h mark I can indeed make it 9 out of 10 and don't see the problem anymore. The one-hit kills and homerun swings as I did in the gif above I learned only after 250h, not by tutorials or guides, just by simple observation on what I'm doing good. I did not even knew it was possible untill it suddenly became my favorite move.

I feel like the real learning starts in arena once you get your character to master level with 10 skills to offer you full combat control. Before that you are just learning the ropes. Then you assemble your first exceptional plate and start wrecking. The plate and layers offer so much protection that it gives you a lot of room for error, and gives you this feeling of invulnerability. Influenced by it you soon become a bit overconfident in combat and start experimenting and take risks, often eating hits that would've killed you if you were unprotected. Coupled with experience you accumulated up until this point this is the part where you find your most effective combat move and weapon and perfect it while everything finally starts to come together.

All should avoid shields like a plague though. You can't learn nearly as much from their slow defensive playstyle.

Reminds me of

 

[Technomancer]

30/3/20

We've been a bit stuck with a particularly nasty bug this week, but we've finally fixed it and we're just about ready to release. It does mean there's a couple of things we weren't able to quite finish, but we'd rather patch them in a few days time than keep you waiting longer.

So we're just going to wrap it up now and get the release notes ready, you can expect the update to drop within a couple of days.

We want to again thank our beta testers, we couldn't do it without you!

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Technomancer]

Ok, 8.0 is out. You can magic psionic from now on. Patch notes later.

 

[Technomancer]

Exanima 0.8 is out, and it's our biggest update yet. The thaumaturgy system is here, the largest content addition to date, new creatures, new features and many improvements.

Thaumaturgy is the last major system we needed to make Exanima's planned content work and make it feel like a complete game. It's Mind now, Force is next. Mind is by far the most challenging form, and with the gameplay systems, mechanics, UI, controls etc. done adding force will be a blast! :#

We do still have some big items on our roadmap, like multiplayer and to a lesser extent ranged combat, but none of that is needed to finally start making Exanima feel like a complete game with purpose and structure, to take advantage of the foundations we've been building and improving.

MIND THAUMATURGY

Thaumaturgy is here, and we're starting with Mind. This adds a whole new dynamic to the game, new tactics, strategies and builds. Mind is all about influencing and controlling the actions of others, necromancy and more.

Our concept for thaumaturgy is not just a collection of abilities that do very specific things, but a way of interacting with the world. It encourages creative problem solving, situational use and synergies. You should also pay close attention to the world and its characters, not just what your own abilities do in isolation.

With thaumaturgy also come the Insight and Concentration skills, with 16 techniques in total.

We did run into some last minute issues, so note that one of the core powers and some mods and minor mechanics aren't currently working. We decided to patch those in over the next few days rather than keep you waiting.

ANIMATION IMPROVEMENTS

We're not quite done with improving things. Our physics driven character motion has come a long way, it works well and in the hands of a very experienced player it can look very good. It will realistically always feel tricky and look a bit silly for a new player, because you have such direct control over how your character moves.

At this point we only have a few specific things we want to improve. In this update we're introducing a sort of better "AI" control over how tense each virtual muscle should be at any time. This creates generally smoother motion, removes a lot of jittery moments and improves physics interactions with characters. Importantly, it also offers a bit more control over motion using physics. As we've tightened up the animations over time, they lost a bit of their physics feel, and this brings some of that back.

We've also improved how characters negotiate uneven ground, stairs etc. Characters are better at remaining balanced under harsh conditions in general, resulting in less tripping and generally more responsive control when in difficulty.




NEW FIRE EFFECT SYSTEM

With new features we're adding to the game we needed a better way to simulate fire that is more versatile, better performing and looks better under different conditions. Currently only some newer assets use this system, but we'll gradually replace most of our fire with it. There's a lot of cool things we'll be able to do with this new fire in future.




NEW CREATURES AND FEATURES

We've taken another step in simulating more than the basic human form and now we're able to add extra body parts, or take them away. No, this doesn't mean we've added dismemberment and quadrupeds (yet), but it is an important step for our character assembly an motion systems. We are going to be doing a bit more with this in the near future.

ENCUMBRANCE REVISITED

This has been on the way for a while. We've been changing encumbrance values on armour to be more realistic and balanced. The largest changes concern full plate armour, but also which areas are encumbered. You should no longer want to wear chain under full plate, and alternatives to the heaviest armours aren't simply worse in every way.

The aim is also to make the upgrade path to the best armour a bit more considered than just always replacing whatever you have with something better. You'll have to consider your armour as a whole a bit more. We've also introduced a set mechanic, whereby pieces of armour that were designed to fit together will encumber you a bit less when combined.



Major changes in Exanima 0.8:

• Mind Thaumaturgy, with many core powers and various mods
  
  
• 2 new skills, Insight and Concentration (16 new techniques)
  
  
• Two new large interconnected areas to explore
  
  
• New encounters
  
  
• Support for new body structures and character types
  
  
• Improved character physics and animation fluidity
  
  
• Improved character balance and negotiation of uneven ground
  
  
• Improved undead animations
  
  
• New fire effects
  
  
• Rebalanced skill progression
  
  
• Many AI social and behavioural improvements
  
  
• Combat AI improvements
  
  
• New AI visibility and detection mechanics
  
  
• New ground rendering features
  
  
• Armour encumbrance value rebalance
  
  
• Armour set bonuses reduce encumbrance of pieces designed to fit
  
  
• Improved clipping with armour for weapons resting on shoulders
  
  
• Item description texts have full formatting
  
  
• Undead no longer take wound damage
  
  
• Improved loading times and initial performance
  
  
• You can now follow characters by clicking on them when spectating in arena
  
  
• Performance improvements
  
  
• Many bug fixes and small improvements

 

[Lithium Flower]

>TWO new large, interconnected locations

Oh boy! Here I go cooming again

 

[Fenix]

I never managed to defeat even first 3 zombi in starting area lol.
One of the reason besides my arms-growing-from-ass was that game crashed in single story mode after some time, so I played mostly arena.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Fenix, you're not supposed to fight those zombies at all. They are not aggressive (except the crazy one in locked room), so you can just walk around them. Just make sure you don't act threateningly. When you get some armour, and some better weapons (iron rod is good enough imo), and you're decent in arena, you can kill them easily. There is no point in that though, as they don't have any sweet loot.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There is no point in that though

Sir, fighting them is the point.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Ok, fighting them is fun. If you're good enough you can of course beat them with the piece of wood you get in first room. But, the "zombies" in this game aren't evil. From what you can figure out of the story, they are really hapless victims of questionable magick/science experiments, and there's nothing but your bloodthirstiness (which you have plenty of judging by your lovely avatar ERYFKRAD), to provide incentive to kill them.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

From what you can figure out of the story, they are really hapless victims of questionable magick/science experiments

Well fuck. Now I feel bad. Guess I will have to kill the elves responsible.

 

[Harthwain]

Ok, fighting them is fun. If you're good enough you can of course beat them with the piece of wood you get in first room.

It doesn't have to be a piece of wood. You can find a better weapon. I am using either a hatchet or a handsaw (you should be able to find it in the log room).

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Piece of wood you get in first room. Hatchet you can either get off first zombie or find not far away, and handsaw requires you to run to the log room, not spook the zombie shambling in the L-shaped corridor, and picking it up. But AFAIR (last time I played this was 1y+ ago) there's a matchete very close to where you can get the handsaw, and that's vastly superrior.

 

[Technomancer]

No need to pitty zombos. Their minds forcibly transferred from ghost realm back into their rotting bodies, the only cure for undeath is second death.

 

[Lithium Flower]

I always start by going to the lumber room where you can pick up a two-handed axe, then killing the zombie there to get the chest and then getting the unguarded chest across the hallway. If you are lucky you can get padded armor and/or a billhook, which should have you set for level 1.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

The best I ever got from the first chest was a nice pair of padded pants. Never got armour.

 

[Harthwain]

Chest have randomized loot. I got gambeson chestpiece from the first few chests quite often in my own runs. But that was a long time ago and it's possible they changed how chest item generation works.

Generally the best way of doing it is not getting hit (mostly because you're not likely to regenerate that without decent armor) and gather whatever loot zombies have on them, whatever fixed loot there is and whatever loot you get randomly from the chests. By the end of the first level you should be armored enough to not lose life while taking hits here and there.

 

[Fenix]

Fenix, you're not supposed to fight those zombies at all. They are not aggressive (except the crazy one in locked room), so you can just walk around them. Just make sure you don't act threateningly. When you get some armour, and some better weapons (iron rod is good enough imo), and you're decent in arena, you can kill them easily. There is no point in that though, as they don't have any sweet loot.

The point was - for me - to be ble to eliminate them. And while arena is arena, I couldn't manage myself and ruined that every time lol. It looked like I was completely helpless.
But if it's really hard then maybe...

I am using either a hatchet or a handsaw (you should be able to find it in the log room).

Tried hatchet, no luck.

 

[Harthwain]

It takes some time getting used to the combat before you can be somewhat competent at it. Evenmoreso considering that now a lot of moves are hidden behind skills, so you have to level them for combat to be smoother. So don't be disheartened when you fail a lot. It's part of the learning curve.

The reason I recommend hatched is because it is fairly short, so you are more likely to hit an enemy with it when close. Knowing when to close and when to keep your distance is vital. Machete rewards keeping distance, for example, because it's longer. Same goes for the maul and the axe - you need to hit with the specific part, so you need to know your footwork, but the payoff (and the feeling) is worth it, when you see the impact of your weapon hitting your opponent's head.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I'm definitely a fan of longer weapons in Exanima, which is why I keep metal pole for most of the tutorial area (3 levels). I also like heavier weapons, though would say they are not for beginners. It is extremely satisfying to one shot your opponent with a big wet smack of a hammer to the head.

Anyway, really glad the guys released the update. Probably still won't plain the campaign, holding off for 1.0, but I'll def give arena a shot.

 

[Fenix]

The reason I recommend hatched is because it is fairly short, so you are more likely to hit an enemy with it when close. Knowing when to close and when to keep your distance is vital.

I had some middle success on Arena, even defeated some guy on easiest mode I think? but not in real combat lol.
It was horribru - after 3d zomphy char was so wounded I gave up realizing there is no point to play further.

 

[Lithium Flower]

I don't know if its placebo but after the recent update the character movements feel much more natural and precise.

 

[Technomancer]

I don't know if its placebo but after the recent update the character movements feel much more natural and precise.

Didn't you read the update?

In this update we're introducing a sort of better "AI" control over how tense each virtual muscle should be at any time. This creates generally smoother motion, removes a lot of jittery moments and improves physics interactions with characters. Importantly, it also offers a bit more control over motion using physics. As we've tightened up the animations over time, they lost a bit of their physics feel, and this brings some of that back.