Happy Holidays everyone!
I was hoping to make this post at the same as pushing the changes currently on beta to the live build, but there's still some small bugs that we're ironing out, so I'll be covering a mix of what's currently on beta and some of what's just around the corner.
[h2]What's going on on Beta?[/h2]
Currently on beta we have a LOT of changes being tested. The biggest of which are:
- New player controller. The player controller is what blends the huge amount of different animations the player uses as it runs around, swings swords, and throws fireballs. This has been re-written from the ground up for a much smoother, modern controller.
- New world generation algorithms. World generation is something that has to run in real time as the player moves around, up to and beyond 1 million kilometers in any direction. It's one of the most important aspects of the Solace Crafting engine, and has been upgraded in a wide variety of ways with better code, making better use of multi-core processors, and spreading the hard work out across multiple frames. This is an ongoing process with the goal always being as smooth and high of a frame rate as possible. Unfortunately one of the developers I hired specifically to work on improving our draw calls, a major drain on frame rate, disappeared without word. I hope he's alive and well, but was forced to freeze the contract.
- Mob targeting. Combat has always been a bitter sweet part of Solace Crafting. "Kinda janky" would be a fair explanation of the previous state of combat. In truth, combat was never intended to be the main aspect of Solace Crafting, but it is still a very integral part of it as crafted equipment needs a good reason to use it. Switching to a targeting system is the first step in an extended plan to improve the combat experience, with a lot of upgrades to monster AI, combat mechanics, and a few surprises planned out for the next few months.
This change has primarily switched from the camera previously being locked to the mouse, to a more MMORPG style of controls where the right mouse button is held down to move the camera. A locked camera mode for those that prefer it has also been implemented, but by default this unlocks the cursor for use to be able to click on monsters, NPCs, and UI buttons, all of which play into more upcoming improvements we have planned for 2023.
The bulk of these features are in and working, we're just smoothing out some of the rough edges before we push things to the live build.
[h2]New UI in the works[/h2]
A user interface revamp is in the works, and I wanted to take this opportunity to bring it up a little bit to get the discussion going. We're still in the planning and design phase, so these images do not reflect the final look of what we're aiming for, just the layout and flow improvements. One of the main improvements that I personally want to add is the ability to click and drag windows so players can position and dock things as they see fit.
Here the proposed layout for the main inventory screen collapses the stats window by default for a much slimmer design, and reorganizes the equipment slots to a more body relevant layout.
The crafting window is planned to do away with the profession buttons, instead listing the profession that a craftable item is related to along with the players current level in that profession. The stats and ingredients lists will automatically scale to fit however many lines are needed making the UI viable for more complex items.
In today's patch I've introduced some simple buttons on the overlay linking to inventory, crafting, etc., and these may remain in some form or another, but I also like the proposed idea of holding down CTRL to bring up a window selection wheel something like the above image, for quick access to the most common windows.
Again, these aren't the actual colors or design of the windows that we are going for, just proposed changes to their layout and functionality. Please let us know what you think!
[h2]New building skins under construction[/h2]
Currently we have a mix of wood and stone structures, but we will be upgrading from two materials to nine materials early next year. This will also open opportunities to get new town and player harvesting resources in. I was hoping to get some pictures up for this section, but it's Christmas Eve =D We'll show them off when they're done.
[h2]Encounter improvements[/h2]
In order to get some basic improvements up in time for the winter sale, we have not begun work on the more serious plans we have for revamping encounters such as caves and dungeons, but we do plan to be spending a fair amount of time in January working on combat improvements, mob variation, and most fun of all, encounter generation methods. For starters we've added a few new things to goblin dungeons including a storage room, a secret room, traps, and gold veins. We would like to next month really step up the room and layout generation of all encounter types, above and below ground, to not include just rooms, door, and hallways, but platforms, pits, stairs, balconies, and lots of inter-connectivity to better work with the variety of mob abilities and modifiers we have planned.
[h2]Closing[/h2]
All-in-all there is a lot we're excited to start working on including new recipes, recipe types, weapons, skills, dimensions, quests, town functions, modding support, full controller support, and improved multi-lingual support. We've gone from just me to around 2.5 people over the past few months, and it's really exciting to see the hastened progress. Hopefully our baby keeps gaining traction and we can continue to expand our capabilities to bring better and more engaging content as time goes on!
Thank you so much to everyone that supported me through Early Access, and to everyone that has stuck around despite a less than perfect launch. Merry Christmas!
Kyle Postlewait
The latest changes to beta are as follows:
v 1.0.2.6 2022.12.24
- Added character, inventory, craft, skills, and journal buttons to the overlay
- Improved tab target algorithm
- Fixed the building and terraforming interfaces reading WASD movement even when not holding down RMB
- Fixed character size being able to affect foot position on ground
- Fixed running down slopes resulting in a hopping animation
- Fixed death and revive animations
- Fixed an issue with entering encounters
- Fixed underwater animations
- Fixed demons not spawning properly with solace defense waves
- Fixed animations getting stuck when performed in quick succession sometimes
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
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