Vapourware Sui Generis + Exanima Early Access

[Technomancer]

27/12/21

The update has been out a week and we've already updated it 7 times with various fixes and improvements and solving performance issues for some configurations.

We've done some quality of life improvements like giving the tournament forfeit a confirmation dialogue and a bunch of improvements to shops. The shops rotate faster now, items are ordered from newest to oldest and don't change positions at all unless the shop's stock changes. There's a few more improvements we want to make such as allowing you to rearrange your roster order.

There's more we've been working on, we've improved thrust behaviour, we've solved an issue with AI doing a lot of circling in combat and we're working on more AI improvements, specifically who and when they attack. We are also working on fading objects that obstruct the view, which is an issue in one the new arenas. With a couple more small patches we should be in a good place to continue mostly working on new things, but of course we're always adjusting and improving.

In the immediate future we're looking at a smaller update to introduce various general improvements to combat and weapon mechanics and dyes. Beyond that we've got a bunch of stuff we want to add and update in story, we're still trying to figure out a release schedule that could allow us to get it out in stages rather than just one big update.

Anyhow, we'll keep you posted on that, and future updates as always.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Lithium Flower]

I really like the new arena changes: less RNG, less time wasting bullshit, faster progression, etc etc. Got a character to Master in an evening of play.

What is the most efficient way to win tournaments though? Am I really supposed to grind up 2-3 extra recruits to Master for this shit or are hired combatants reliable enough to win rounds for you?

I hate the segregation between recruits and hirelings, what a waste of time. Just make them interchangeable, let me control whoever I want, and let the AI take over the rest. I'm sure there is some sort of problem in game economy that the current system addresses, but it just seems like a really inelegant solution and makes me very reluctant to have more than 1 fighter.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Hey, you. Yes, you.


18252

You think you can just pop in and RATE my POST like that without putting up a fight? I am the MASTER of the ARENA, goddamn it. I've spent New Year's Eve playing this game because that's how committed I am to my title. I have my fucking pride.

I'll see you on the server in an hour - 1v1, poleaxe only, final destination.

 

[Pink Eye]

Oh dude. If they ever do get pvp into this game. It would be neat to 1v1 codexers.

 

[Alienman]

Could be fun. I'm hoping there is big brawls too.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Coop campaign could be deliciously tense as well.

I can't imagine they built the game with netcode in mind, though, what with all the physics simulations.

Then again I ain't no computer nerd so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[mediocrepoet]

Oh dude. If they ever do get pvp into this game. It would be neat to 1v1 codexers.

What are you doing? You just keep running away!

I threw salt at him, I'm waiting for his armour to rust out in real time.

 

[Technomancer]

3/1/22

This week we've mostly been looking at feedback, fixing, adjusting and improving things.

One thing that received a significant rework is how the camera deals with things blocking the view. We mentioned last week that we were working on fading objects in the way, this feature is in the game now and we plan to use it in various ways. While we were at it though we also improved the default behavior of the camera tilting to keep the character in view. This used to abruptly switch to an almost top-down view when near a wall or other obstacles, which was quite annoying. We went through several iterations of improvements and it is definitely much better now. It uses smarter predictive methods to detect obstacles, it only tilts in small increments as needed, it moves more smoothly and quickly returns to normal angles when it can.

Something else that got reworked is how characters flinch from being hit, how this interacts with actions and how the security skill technique works. Security was causing characters who got hit during the windup to a swing to launch odd and unpredictable attacks as they recovered, not fondly known by players as the instant retaliation glitch. These mechanics have been reworked to prevent this issue, but also to generally make the flow of combat when exchanging hits feel more natural and consistent, regardless of the skill.

We've also been updating more story assets for the new renderer, these are getting better and better and easier to do as we build workflows with our tools. There's not much left that we haven't updated, but the older assets kind of stick out like a sore thumb now, and replacing them also improves performance.

We're doing a bit of engine housekeeping too, working through driver issues and supporting Linux. The new rendering engine is very streamlined in how it uses the GPU, but the game and our tools do a lot of other stuff with the GPU that we're trying to give the same treatment. When this is done we hope to see less compatibility and performance issues with specific drivers, and it will also make an eventual transition to Vulkan much easier.

We're working through a list of more combat mechanics improvements, some quite significant, some small, but they should all make the combat feel better. This and a couple of new features and QoL improvements will be the focus of a smaller update in the near future.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Technomancer]

10/1/22

We did another patch just yesterday with lots important bug fixes, content fixes, some improvements to animation, to AI, some assets were updated and the expert ogre now has a flail.

Madoc is still simplifying parts of the engine that we think might cause compatibility and performance issues on some systems. At this point this is just some special user interfaces. One area of focus was the item icon rendering, which due to its nature can be quite slow when many icons are involved. Every icon in the game is a rendering of the in-game model generated on the fly. This means models and textures need to be loaded, procedural models and textures generated, a high quality rendering needs to be made and processed to give icons that clean look and so on. Displaying a loaded arsenal could easily take several seconds.

This icon rendering was completely reworked to simplify driver interaction, but also massively increase its speed. Icons are now generated 3 times as fast, so opening those big arsenals and other item windows feels a lot more responsive. This also greatly reduces the freezes that you might experience when looting a container or a body. There are further improvements planned for procedural items which should make this much faster still, while also improving loading times in general.

We should be mostly done with the housekeeping now and we can start focusing on bigger improvements and additions. The plan is still to release a smaller update soon which includes various improvements to combat mechanics, some content additions, some QoL improvements and the dye system. We'll still likely continue to add some of this incrementally as we're in a good cycle of frequent small updates now thanks to not having to "break" any major game or engine systems. Players get improvements faster, and we can stay on top feedback and issues as we work on things, so it's a win-win.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[agris]

Look at what Father Frost brought us, faster fucking icons!!

 

[Technomancer]

Look at what Father Frost brought us, faster fucking icons!!

You missed the ogre flail, one step closer to Sui Generis

 

[Alienman]

After recently playing I think they refined the combat movement a little too much. While it keeps the uniqueness it's starting to play out a bit more routine. Sounds weird maybe, but I really liked when it was more chaos and "drunkenness" to the combat movement. Characters keep the balance too well now and it seems fights goes down the same way each time which have killed some of the fun randomness factor

 

[gurugeorge]

After recently playing I think they refined the combat movement a little too much. While it keeps the uniqueness it's starting to play out a bit more routine. Sounds weird maybe, but I really liked when it was more chaos and "drunkenness" to the combat movement. Characters keep the balance too well now and it seems fights goes down the same way each time which have killed some of the fun randomness factor

lol, you're making me want to try it again. The "drunkenness" was what was putting me off.

I think the problem with a pretty realistic sim is that by the time you're over 20, the basics of keeping balance and not bumping into furniture are handled automatically by the brain - you learned that shit as a child growing up. So you need some elements of the movement and combat movement to be automated, precisely in order to simulate the reality, part of which is autonomous and automatic.

By contrast, having a game where you're basically learning movement like a toddler, is unrealistic. What you'd be learning, realistically, in that situation, is the basics of fighting, with the basic elements of movement already ingrained.

But I suppose the drunkenness was sort of amusing, and maybe that's what attracted some of the people who like the game - the lulz factor. But then in that case the designers failed in their job, the game wasn't supposed to be for the lulz.

 

[Pink Eye]

After recently playing I think they refined the combat movement a little too much. While it keeps the uniqueness it's starting to play out a bit more routine. Sounds weird maybe, but I really liked when it was more chaos and "drunkenness" to the combat movement. Characters keep the balance too well now and it seems fights goes down the same way each time which have killed some of the fun randomness factor

That actually sounds like an upgrade to me.

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, I understand what you are saying. I do enjoy the game more than just the lulz though, the atmosphere and location is amazing. But I just can't deny seeing zombies and whatever else tripping over tables, accidentally flinging chairs into someones face wasn't top notch comedy

 

[Tyranicon]

I've been keeping an eye on exanima for a while and I think I'll just go ahead and buy it. How much content is actually in the game?

 

[Alienman]

I've been keeping an eye on exanima for a while and I think I'll just go ahead and buy it. How much content is actually in the game?

You got a really nice mysterious dungeon that is hard as nails. And you get the arena gladiator mode. Not played too much of that, but I highly recommend getting it for the dungeon. It's mysterious, dangerous and spooky! One of the best dungeon diving experiences I ever had.

 

[Tyranicon]

So got it, and put a couple hours in. The game is a ridiculously good dungeon crawl with physics-based combat ( as long you don't mind flailing about the first few hours).

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

As a long time player I would also like to add that the rework of the arena system is awesome!

 

[Technomancer]

17/1/22

We know it doesn't make for exciting development news, but we're still largely focusing on compatibility general engine stuff. The new renderer is very streamlined and modern, but there's' a lot of other stuff the engine does on the GPU like some special interfaces and procedural generation that doesn't really fit with that. This seems to be causing some drivers to misbehave or perform poorly. We're very nearly done updating every other little part of our engine and our tools now, improving how it all works along the way. This should solve many compatibility and performance issues, and help us stay on top of these things in future.

While on topic, we want to thank members of the community who have been patiently helping us identify issues with their systems, we couldn't do this without your help.

Besides all that our main focus has been updates to weapon and combat mechanics. For weapons this starts with a new specification which carries more detailed information about how weapons behave and deal damage, including with different grips, better sound feedback and using the procedural system to define specific weapons rather than just random ones. Combat wise we have lots of improvements planned to swing, parry and other behaviours that should make the combat feel more fluid, consistent and realistic. There are also some specific improvements to controls.

We are still working on some quality of life and general improvements to arena. We've now colour coded the roster and allowed drag-drop to rearrange it to your preference. Our next goal would be making it easier to understand who is using what equipment and perhaps some other improvements to the arsenal.

That's it for now, next week we should be reporting on some more specific changes and updates we've been making.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[Tyranicon]

After spending some time on the Arena and combat in general, I have to say that while the combat has a moderately high skill floor, it also has a low ceiling.

As soon as you get the feel of swinging weapons and their most effective arc/range, understand that you can body an opponent and bully the AI, you pretty much will win most duels.

Additionally, it seems like Fray appears to be the best consistent way to make money hands down. The AI will kill each other and you can sweep in from behind to finish off the survivors.

I hope the combat improvements will spice things up.

 

[Technomancer]

zweihanders, the objectively coolest swords in history and making them properly huge too. Most games call regular two handed swords greatswords when they're way too small.

Check out exanima zweihanders:

Spoiler

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Guy hasn't implemented half swording yet right?

 

[Technomancer]

Guy hasn't implemented half swording yet right?

Partially. Trusts with some weapons are done half swording. Madoc shared plans for future grips and stances some days ago:

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Guy hasn't implemented half swording yet right?

Partially. Trusts with some weapons are done half swording. Madoc shared plans for future grips and stances some days ago:

Nice. Someday someone will fuse this and Hellish Quart together and we'll never need another game again.