http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/08/06/dev-frame-assemble-your-army/
Of Kings and Men
dev frame - Assemble Your Army
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/08/06/dev-frame-assemble-your-army/
Hotfix - 1.6.4.124.47306
- Fixed bots not dueling each other.
- Fixed leaving the game while dueling causing issues.
- Reverted Two-Handed barracks animation.
- Added two new custom heraldries.
Changelog - 1.6.4.122.24870
Main changes
Scheduling battles
A system for scheduling battles has been added in this update, making a promised Raid Mode closer, while still being useful on its own. Every player now can schedule his own battle, choosing between Conquest and Skirmish, and selecting a preferred time and date. Essentially, it's a system for creating timed events by anyone who is interested.
Once a battle is scheduled, every player is free to sign up for it, and then join with everyone else, making it easy to see who is coming and who decided not to participate in a particular battle. A new Battles menu is accessible from the barracks, where you have options to choose a region you would like to fight in, so you're always aware of what ping to expect.
When playing in the lobby, you will receive a popup notification about your battle starting, so you never miss it, and a newly added Discord alert system will make it even more convenient!
Map design
One of the lobby maps has been significantly reworked for the update to improve its visuals and put a new AI improvement in use by having complex Hold Your Ground and Arena areas. Bots can now attack you from many different places, so you have to be always aware of your surroundings and try not to get caught off guard from behind by sneaky enemies.
With all the trees, peculiar mountainous terrain, villagers' houses, and battlefields, it's a very interesting map to simply explore! You can go on a small adventure alone or with your friends, and, if lucky, find some treasure chests to reward your curiosity!
Smarter AI
AI is currently being used for duels in the lobby area, in Hold Your Ground, and in The Arena. Those are all combat modes, so they require some more advanced AI than we used to have in the game to provide an interesting experience while taking part in either of them. With that in mind, AI system has been reworked, and is continuing to improve.
Bots now easily find ways to avoid obstacles when attacking players, are aware of their weapon lengths and try to use footwork to stay in preferable distance, and generally act smarter in hostile environment. There will further additions for AI in the game, including peaceful NPCs, so let us know your suggestions for what you'd like to see changed!
Combat changes
Better blocks
Blocking is one of the most important parts of the combat in any situation, and being able to outsmart your opponent to hit him. If two experienced players meet on the battlefield or simply practicing by dueling, it's not rare that their fight would be very long, which might make it quite boring after some time. To make personal skill affect combat even more, a system of good and bad blocks has been added.
In order to do a good block, you have to match your opponent's attack perfectly, resulting in increased counterattack speed, and allowing you to start hitting back. Bad block on the other hand, is done by blocking with stances adjacent to the one that matches an attack, which then makes your character generally slower for a short period of time, allowing your opponent to continue attacking.
Bows and Crossbows
Ranged class has seen some improvements over the past few updates, but we're still working on making them as bug-free and interesting as possible. Most importantly, projectiles have been heavily rebalanced, making crossbow bolts fly far and fast, and generally balancing arrows too. Crossbows now have a much better advantage over bows in terms of speed and distance, so don't pick a bow right away!
Some small tweaks have also been added for bows and arrows. You can now walk after shooting with Right Mouse Button being pressed to allow you to start moving right after firing an arrow or a bolt. Also, a transition for changing from 3rd person view to aiming with a crossbow is now much smoother and pleasantly looking.
Small improvements
Gain respec
There's been quite a lot of suggestions to allow more ways to gain respec points for your character, so we decided to add a secondary mechanic, which isn't based on getting XP and leveling up, but simply playing game modes. While you play normal modes like Conquest and Skirmish, or lobby modes like Hold Your Ground and The Arena, you have a chance of finding a special item that, when used, evens out your build.
For example, if you had 25 Damage and 5 Health, using an item would change up to 5 points at once, making stats 20 and 10 respectively. There is no limit for having those items at the same time, so you could play as much as possible to accumulate a big number and try multiple builds to find the one that suits you best!
Battle Alerts
In order to avoid happy accidents of players forgetting about the battles they signed up for, we've added a new system of notifications, which works via integration with Discord. Once you sign up for alerts in the game, you will receive messages from our Discord bot when your battles are about to start!
There are other options we consider to make it freely accessible even if you don't use Discord, and it would be helpful if you could let us know what services you would like to use for that kind messages.
Lots of loot
Loot chests in Hold Your Ground and The Arena resulted in other modes not being as rewarding to play, which is why we decided to add them to Conquest and Skirmish too. Now every time you finish a map of either of the modes, you will be given chests for participating. If you win, you will get either an uncommon or even a rare chest, and if you end up losing, you will get a common chest.
With the updated lobby map, exploring became much more interesting, and what's better than finding a treasure chest while walking through a village or woods? Before the update, you could find every type of a chest, including those with small rewards, but we've removed common chests from spawning, so you can only find good ones. Go explore!
Sound matters
Fin has been making some more changes to the sound in the game, improving an overall quality and reliability, while also adding new sounds to make the game feel more real, as good sound plays one of the biggest roles in immersion while playing.
There is still much work left to be done until the sound system can be considered perfect. If you have suggestions or bugs related to sound to report, there is a special Sound channel on our Discord server!
Official Discord server - https://discord.gg/DRqmAQ6
Convenient clans
As it was planned from the start, clans received a number of changes to improve convenience of using them by clan leaders and their loyal members. Clan leaders are now allowed to pass their privileges to other members of their clans. It's helpful when you'd like to join another clan, start a new one, or simply going on vacation and would like someone to oversee the clan with additional permissions in the game like accepting new members or kicking them.
Clan balance has also been added to the game. Now, instead of having to create a party with your clan mates, the game will automatically try to put you in the same team. Also, if you're a member of a party after all, the game will put you and your party members together, avoiding clan balance.
Animate it
When selecting weapons in the barracks, your character now does a battle stance instead of idly standing, as if he was posing for a picture, and not experiencing horrors of war by participating in battles. It serves no gameplay purpose, but is supposed to improve immersion by having your character look like he's prepared to fight the enemy.
Ping pong
A rather small change, but useful nonetheless. Now you can see a ping to a specific server when selecting regions in the barracks. It was requested by some of the players, so if you have more ideas for improving convenience, let us know on Discord or forums!
Bug fixes
dev frame - Hubs and Battles
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/30/dev-frame-hubs-and-battles/
dev frame – Lobbying Castles
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/23/dev-frame-lobbying-castles/
dev frame - Battle Sign Up
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/15/dev-frame-battle-sign-up/
dev frame - It's New
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/09/dev-frame-its-new/
1.6.4.097.32672 - Hotfix
The team appreciates all bug reports and suggestions. Please use our forums or Discord to report them.
http://ofkingsandmen.net/forum/
https://discord.gg/DRqmAQ6
Bug fixes
- Fixed bots causing game to lag.
- Fixed tutorial not starting after pressing Space.
1.6.4.096.49786 - Unite and Progress
Main changes
Progress your character
As it's been mentioned in the latest dev frame, character progression is being changed from a feature that allows to improve your character every level you gain to a balanced system that encourages you to level up in order to customize your build and receive new unique items, while providing good character builds even for new players without any experience.
In short, all players, no matter what level they are, have 60 stat points in total, and level one characters have all of them distributed fairly - 15 points in each stat. Even without changing anything, that build could be used with any armour or weapons and be fairly efficient. Every level you gain a respec point, and can customize your build by increasing one stat, while decreasing another one. Also, during a journey from level 1 to 50, you're able to find special loot boxes that contain items. Some of them are new and special, so keep leveling up!
You can read a full description of the system in the previous dev frame - http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/02/dev-frame-level-up/
Join a clan
Clans have always been a very important part of Of Kings And Men, so it was clear that a more structured way for them to function in the game, while providing special mechanics like heraldry would be an important part towards a more defined team and group gameplay.
Clan leaders are not able to form their own clans in the game from a new menu, and select a more or less personalized coat of arms to be used on clan members' equipment for recognition on the battlefield. If you'd like to have a completely unique heraldry made by yourself or your fellow clan members, there will be a forum thread set up soon, where you'll be able to submit your emblems!
Grow some hair
Character appearance customization is absolutely necessary in order to know who is who while fighting or even socializing in the lobby. For that to improve, we've added a set of new assets for everyone to apply to their characters - hair, a beard, and a moustache. Later on, we'll be looking at improving current options, adding more colours to choose from, and implementing new styles to expand on customizability further
Hear the difference
As updates for sounds are becoming regular, there are going to be more additions and tweaks instead of fixes for the current sound system. For now though, there are still some issues we would like to get rid of, but there are also many new improvements and implementations in this week's update.
Thanks to your suggestions for curses and mockery on our forums, some of them managed to get into the update as a part of the new voice set! In order to use a new voice for your character, simply go to the Appearance tab in barracks, and choose the third voice option. Don't stop suggesting your phrases though, there are still two more voice sets that are planned to be added in near future.
Combat changes
Shoot like a pro
While there are not many issues with a default third person camera for melee combat, and it's possible to easily customize it to your liking in game settings, first person camera for bows and crossbows requires code changes and thorough testing in order to work. Since the old camera positions weren't very clear as to where projectile will fly after releasing it, making it incredibly hard for unexperienced in ranged combat players to be at least somewhat efficient in combat, we decided to work on both cameras to make shooting intuitive and fun.
It's not a very big change in terms of development, yet it changes shooting experience drastically, so it would be very helpful if you could try out a bow or a crossbow, and let us know what you think about the new tweak!
Small improvements
Bots - not clones
Bots were using the same default faces and bodies since the very beginning of the game. Even though the default appearance is rather handsome, it was very strange seeing a whole group of fighters being identical twins. With this recent change, all bots now have randomly generated appearance, and use newly added hair and facial hair as well.
Less waiting
In order to make Hold Your Ground mode a little bit more dynamic, waiting time between waves has been changed from 20 seconds to only 10. It's a very small change, but it's worth mentioning, since we'll be continuing with some other tweaks for the mode that are supposed to provide more fast developing combat instances, instead of slowly progressing rounds.
Important frames
Being one of the recent community requests, we've added more options for the FPS cap in our game settings. If you'd like to suggest your own ideas, please use our forums or discord!
Forums - http://ofkingsandmen.net/forum/
Discord - https://discord.gg/DRqmAQ6
Bug fixes
dev frame - Level Up
http://ofkingsandmen.net/index.php/2017/07/02/dev-frame-level-up/
