Ave Aspirants!
For the holidays, here's our last present of the year to you - a new update: new content, general game-improvements and bug-fixes!. The game is also 30% off for the Winter Sale!
Before we get into it, I want to take a moment to reflect on 2024 and thank everyone for standing by the game and by us: thank you. It has been an incredible year of massive updates and I feel like the game has been absolutely transformed this year. I'm really happy with the our progress and how far it has come, and that we've still been making bold choices and overhauls in development. It's been a long year with many all-nighters!
The Animation Overhaul and the Character Traits system are my personal highlights, both from a player and developer POV. The Spectacles Update in particular was record breaking and it has been so satisfying & assuring to see that the work we put into this game is absolutely rewarded - the reception continues to be beyond my wildest dreams.
I'm coming up on year 10 of development (might have already passed it, not 100% sure!) personally and still not tired of it at all. If you told me I'd go from a no-programming-skills, solo dev, no-big-hopes situation to thousands of players & a full time career with a team 10 years later, I'd never believe you! I'm very grateful to be given this chance.
I can't wait for 2025 and to show you what we have in store for the game! Best wishes to all of you!
New Arena!
A new arena has emerged in the heart of Terantia. Located at the base of the stairs leading to the great temple, combatants are forced to face off on the city terraces.
New map variation
In this new variant, the Grand Plaza is scattered with oil patches and fire pots. Use the terrain to your advantage by igniting your enemies.
The fire system in the game has been upgraded to go with this new variation!
Throwing a fire pot ignites a fire upon impact, spreading flames to any connected oil patches nearby. When the fire pot lands, it leaves ashes on the ground, while ignited oil patches create fading ashes. These fire pots can now also be thrown into any map by the audience.
Additionally, here's a new interactive trap that players can kick over.
Floating damage numbers and weapon trails!
We've added a weapon trail to the player swings, trails will be default on from now on:
We've also added floating damage numbers, this is default off. You can turn it on in the Game Options.
Destructible Objects mini-Overhaul
Destructible objects like barrels and boxes' mass now plays a role. Characters and players can now be pushed back by physics objects. (before, they were massless and would fly off if you ran into them with zero resistence.)
Sound effects have also been improved. On-hit sounds and floor-based sound effects have been added, so interactions like a barrel bouncing in mud now sound like a wood impact combined with mud. Particle effects have been introduced for hits and destruction, enhancing the visual feedback when props are broken.
Here's a Before and After:
Kick Improvement
Previously, when it comes to the destructible objects, kicking was handled purely by leg physics, but it now uses a curated forward impulse for more consistent behavior.
Objects moving at high velocity (after a kick for example) now explode on contact and knock back and stun characters on impact.
New Hanian Infantry Armor (Classic Roman legionary set!)!
Fitting with the last update, a classic Roman "Lorica Segmentata" armor was added. About time!
These armors have been added to many Hanian units as well.
Note: currently the names for these and everything else new in this update that has text will be english only. We'll update the translations later!
New 2H swords
We've added the long awaited Godly 2 Handed Sword - Clavadir and a Unique 2 Handed sword for the Elite Legate Dividus !
Audience item drops overhaul!
We revamped the system behind the items thrown into the arena by the audience during fights. Weapon throws will now be more varied, as the selection is drawn from all weapons & shields available in the shop. The throws will also be more randomly aimed and better balanced for the player rank.
And more!
- Improvements to the training section. Decimal points have been removed and we added some QOL-fixes, making it easier and more straightforward to track progress when training specific skills.
- Characters and players now turn their head towards their target, making them look less stiff. They did this once upon a time but it was lost during the locomotion overhaul, added back in now.
Full Changelog
- New items: Hanian Infantry Armor (Chest & Arm armor)
- New item: Clavadir (Godly 2H)
- New item: Legate Dividus' Daaka
- New Arena: City Terraces
- New Arena Variation: Grand Plaza oil/fire variation
- New weapon trails
- New floating damage numbers (enable in game options)
- Added rain scenario to Grand Plaza maps
- Fire pot & Fire system improvements
- Destructibles now have mass & better physics
- Kicking destructibles into character stuns them now
- Audience item dropper mini-overhaul
- Training system improvements and tweaks
- Bribing system improvements and tweaks
- Knockbacks in general have been slightly increased
- Starting weapons for Veteran Aspirant have been given balancing tweaks, they are all now Sturdy tier.
Bugfixes
- Fixed some issues with character damage physics, things should work a bit better hopefully.
- Fixed characters T-posing on death where they are cut in half.
- Added translations for the repair notification window.
- Fixed skinning issue on the head
- Fixed incorrect weight on backstory character selection screen
- Fixed armor overview displaying wrong items sometimes
- Fixed accidental double stamina buff on Slave
- Heirloom now mentions Unique tier items too
- Fixed an issue where the death screen always displayed "sewerrat" incorrectly next to the rank.
- Fixed an issue on the graphics options screen where some text would go out of bounds.
- Fixed an issue where the pegleg trait incorrectly triggered during the intro sequence when using a gamepad.
- Fixed an issue where focus was lost when re-entering the pause menu after visiting the game options when using a gamepad.
- Fixed an issue on the loading screen that prevented entering the match when changing the game options during loading.
- Possible fix for AI that stops working (Not 100% sure, it's hard to replicate)
- Fixed an UI-scaling issue on the Victory Screen for the Chinese language.
- Fixed noticeable UI scaling issues when entering the main menu.
- Fixed an issue where weapons with the fragile item trait would not break when thrown on the ground.
- Fixed an issue where training sometimes did not work correctly for a new character.
- Fixed an issue where no items were thrown in the Stadium Ballista variant when the Brawler trait was active.
- Fixed an issue in the Ambush event where the ambushers would appear partially inside the ground.
- Fixed an issue where bribing certain Patrons did not work as expected.
- Fixed an issue where certain events incorrectly granted patron favor to certain patron(s).
- Fixed an issue where the Farerdaka could not be picked up in combination with a shield in third-person mode.
- Players no longer need to exit and re-enter the game to see their Battle log preference applied
Happy Holidays everyone!
We who are about to die salute you,
Jordy
