Hey everyone! This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, with a completely new biome and settlement. It also brings a Combat Arena and allows you to compete with other players in the leaderboard.
Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new region and how the arena works.

Changelog v0.18.0

General

• The max player level has been increased to 25.

Game World

• The game world has been expanded to the east.
• A new region has been added: The Barrenland
• A whole new biome has been added.
• A new settlement has been added: Murzork - Home of the Boar Tribe
• Several new NPCs have been added.
• New music tracks have been added.
• A new dungeon has been added.
• Several new types or variations of existing enemies have been added.
• New locations have been added: Horned Beast Grounds
• New locations have been added: Raider Camps
• 2 new quests have been added.

The Combat Arena

The arena can be found in the northern end of Murzork. It features 2 competitions: [h4]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h4]

• Endless waves of alternating types of enemies.
• Players earn an arena score by defeating as many enemies as possible.
• Arena score can be boosted with Combo Multipliers, when multiple enemies are defeated in very few turns.
• Each player who participates is ranked in the leaderboard.
• The leaderboard can be viewed just outside of the arena.
• All difficulty modes (Relaxed, Adventure, Challenge) are normalized in this competition. Allowing all players to compete in the same leaderboard under the same conditions.
• Enemy levels range from 22 to 40+. Be prepared for a definitive challenge!

[h4]The Tournament[/h4]

• A quest is offered to the player to compete in the tournament.
• It contains 5 individual stages.
• Each stage offers a unique challenge.
• This tournament will also be part of the upcoming story line quest. (You can complete it now or later.)
• The "Champion of the Arena" is granted a new legendary armor.

Items & Equipment

• A legendary item has been added: Champion Body Armor
• A legendary item has been added: Champion Leg Armor
• New item stat levels have been added to address the increased max player level of 25.

Achievements

4 achievements have been added:

• Level 20
• Level 25
• Get Ranked!
• Champion of the Arena

Fixes and Improvements

• The artifact slot has been removed from the "Avg. Equipment Level" calculation.
• A problem with the world map view has been fixed, that caused it to not center on the player location after game load or defeat.
• The Fog of War (in overview mode) has been disabled in all settlements.
• Several smaller fixes.
• Improved several translations.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.17.x are compatible and future savegames will remain compatible as well :) [hr][/hr]

What's next

This will most likely be the last major content update before the 1.0 release! Feels pretty unreal to write this actually. We started EA last October and now we're in a great spot to reach the estimated timeline of ~1 year to full release. So here's the (rough) plan until then: I will work on all the remaining story quests, the guild quests and of course the final region/encounter. Then there are still a bunch of smaller feature requests and QoL improvements on my list, which I will try to put in another minor update 0.19 along the way. I'm planning to take my time with all of this and not rush it. Therefore I can't give you any exact dates right now. All I can say is: Stay tuned, we're almost there! Meanwhile, if you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-07-20 13:55:31 CET ] [ Original post ]