Renown
New Developer Update!
Raid Alpha Patch notes 0.7.9.1
Fixed vehicles breaking movement replication
Tweaked shield hold block angles
Reduced Parry angle
Fixed stone amouns on stone croppings
Fixed roof sockets
Fixed preview building blocking upgrade traces
Mail Hauberk is now 1:1 sized
Tweaked armor costs to make it easier to bulk craft
Increased Katzbalger damage slightly
Increased Mace damage slightly
Increased Waraxe damage slightly
Bows now only go on the primary slot
Quivers only go on secondary slot
Resource bag only goes on secondary slot
Bandages can now be placed on the toolbelt
Wall torches are cheaper
Cloth and Leather craft faster now
Cloth is cheaper to craft
Rebalanced fuel and charcoal costs
Fixed resource bag not dropping properly
Increased resource bag size
Fixed Icon scaling
Fixed Icon scaling when rotated
Armor can no longer be repaired if it falls below 33% durability
Added Battering Ram recipe
Added many missing icons
Bow Draw strength has a penalty on high encumberance (Slower projectiles, less damage)
Added Steel tools
Removed Unused keybinds
Improved Roof placement
Fixed issues with triangle floors
Fixed up window directions
Fixed issues with invisible resources nodes
Improved some Emote anims
Added noise that scares deer away to arrow impacts
Improved deer AI
Fixed damage resistances on buildings
Fixed ladder dropping a full mesh
Fixed command wheel opening while chatting
Added starting beds to raid map banners
Swapped context menu options for banners
Reduced Maul damage
Reduced Stakes cost
Fixed some repair costs on buildings
Tweaked Steel weapon costs
Reduced Iron Hoe cost
Added Primitive arrows for Shortbow
Fixed lock position on Gate
Beds now require a floor and banner
Fixed warmup spawns
Players now recieve a notification when they can't build while under siege that shows the time remaining
Fixed a bug causing raid mode to never end
Endgame screen shows proper winner now
Fixed flying bug
Rewrote Bed spawning system
Fixed Pillars not working well with Walls and Floors
Fixed Ladder volumes being hit by melee attacks
Fixed boulders persisting
Fixed Plant fiber cluster spawning in the same location as other Plant fibers
Added Wheelbarrow for mobile storage
Tweaked Raid time added from damage
Scaffolds now have 1 HP
An Update on Updates, a quick update since OTK and Steam Next Fest, and archery
Firstly, we’d like to apologize for the absence of our regular dev updates in recent months. I want to assure everyone this is not a reflection on the teams’ efforts over this period.
Progress on development has been moving rapidly, so much so that when iv gone to write an update for you, there is already new topics to discuss. This all said as we grow closer to the initial raid mode, we hope to have the time and media to provide better insight going forward.
As always, a huge thank you to our amazing backers, and the wider community as a whole. We literally couldn’t do it without you, and your support is a constant reminder that we’re on the right track. Likewise, a huge thank you to our awesome mod team here on discord for all the same reasons.
I’ve written a “Brief” explainer/recap of what our daily work has been since OTK/Next Fest.
Likewise given we’ve got a lot to discuss. As such to avoid long drawn-out essays, we’ll be attempting to bring back our weekly, or fortnightly updates.
Currently we’ve got an interview with ItsMoxie regarding our new Bandit and Animal AI. Kz and Mr.Z have attempting to tackle the animation problem themselves. Likewise, Delta has been doing some great stuff with External Fortress walls, Battlement attachments, and destruction meshes. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for these updates, and related art/media.
For this post, Mr.Z has written us a nice quick section regarding his recent exploits in archery/ranged combat development.
Dev Recap since OTK/Next Fest Expo
TL:DR – We’ve been carefully integrating survival elements for months, creating new maps and biomes. We’ve had several internal tests which have been awesome fun, but there’s still a lot to be done.
Full – As folks might be aware, we had a great run after the OTK Games Expo, and Steam Next Fest. The results of this have been great for our marketing, and ongoing crowdfunding. That said we’re still only a small team, and we need to work within a scope we can manage.
In effect this means we’ve been selecting specific elements of survival gaming which we then prototype, implement, and then balance these elements to create the survival/combat experience that is our vision.
As an example, we’ve been running regular internal tests of the Initial Survival Build. If you looked at it from the outside, it has all the bells and whistles of a prototype for our full game. Players can currently: Harvest/Farm, Create Keeps with a verity of building pieces, Progress in technology via upgradable workbenches, Place beds for respawns, Hunt working AI deer and even engage in the first implementation of raiding.
However, it must be clear, on inside there is still much work to be done. The most prevalent ongoing activity is pure balancing. This includes everything from how much the first swords should cost, to how many hits of a battering ram should take down a door/wall.
Another factor to consider as we add new layers, (Archery for instance) it drastically changes the way the game is played, from how players act in the world to how bases are designed. We’re basically attempted to layer these on as quickly as possible, while still adhering to the level of quality we like to aim for.
In this way we’re making really good progress towards our end goal. If we can keep going as we’ve been doing so, before to long (hard dates not being easy to predict), we’ll reach a point where every layer has been implemented, and we can do a last balance pass before launching the raid mode to our backers.
That said i should remind folks that this is a slow process, and we’ve got a thing for quality. We can’t wait to get the wider community to be playing and testing the initial raid mode, however we’ll be doing our best to release it when we feel it’s ready.
Archery
Salutations Renowners, Mr. Z speaking! Over the past few months Archery mechanics have begun their first implementation. The goal of archery in Renown is to be a useful supplement to melee combat without becoming the dominant form of combat. We do not want the game to devolve into a shooter with every man bringing a projectile weapon to the fight, the focus of this game is melee combat first and foremost. That being said, Archery is meant to be a playstyle that allows people who are newer and less experienced at melee combat to be able to be useful in PvP without as much effort.
Archery has many uses, not just limited to PvP as hunting down deers with a bow is much easier than trying to run up to them with a sword in hand. There are 2 types of arrows, Bodkins (Anti Armor) and Broadheads (High Damage and Bleeding) points. The bows have many quirks such as how strongly they affect aiming difficulty, movement speed, firing rate, etc. One somewhat hidden mechanic is called Encumbrance. Encumbrance is when your equipped armor affects a lot of Bow mechanics such as how much Stamina is drained by aiming with the Bow and movement speeds with bows as well as difficulty to aim. Ideally for easier aim, one should desire to have a minimal loadout just including some gambeson and a helmet to avoid any Encumbrance penalties. Additionally using a Bow requires a quiver which takes up a primary weapon slot, same as the bow, so effectively one cannot use large 2 handed weapons while using a bow. I feel this is a good enough downside that archers are not expected to dominate in melee given the relative lesser power of one handed weapons compared to 2 handed weapons.
One thing to take special note of is that Bows do not use a random cone of fire mechanic for aiming, the arrow is always pointing where it will travel, aim difficulty comes from how hard the camera shakes while aiming. Another very important mechanic is deflection chances, good armors such as plate armors have a high chance to deflect Arrows which massively reduces damage taken, the deflection chance is also stronger the farther the projectiles have traveled so a smart Longbowman will want to prioritize shooting enemies at distances close enough that it’s possible to be threatened by melee opponents closing the distance. One should take special care to use armors in good condition as deflection chances drop the lower armor durability gets, that rusty plate of armor isn’t going to be a strong defense against a good archer.
Additionally, there have been new bows added, namely the Shortbow and the Warbow. The Shortbow is the first Bow you can craft, as such it is the weakest of them all, however they are also the fastest firing and have the least penalties to movement and aiming. The Warbow on the other hand, is the slowest of the bows, the most damaging and longest ranging, it also has the least chance of having a deflection. However its Stamina requirements are absolutely massive and it would be a bad idea to get caught in close quarters with it.
Another new development is the return of Throwing weapons. In the past I experimented with allowing players to throw any weapon of their choosing. This proved to be a mistake as people chucking Zweihanders at incredible velocities which seemed very wrong. It also led to a lot of melee engagements being decided by a spontaneous weapon throw from one of the parties, which was hardly sportsmanlike. Given this, a complete rework of throwing was due, and now only specific dedicated throwing weapons are able to be used.
We now have 3 types of throwing weapons: Throwing Axes, Throwing Knifes, Javelins, and in the future different kinds of medieval grenades. These weapons are able to be made early on in the tech progression and are a good supplement for a powerful 2 handed primary weapon or can even be used with a shield in hand. They are very useful for killing players who are running away or dealing damage before a melee engagement. Thrown weapons can be parried however so anyone ready for them is unlikely to be hit by them.
Given that the ranged combat has received so many new additions, it was also time to overhaul the Shield blocking mechanics. Shields now can block projectiles using their hitboxes rather than just giving complete immunity to ranged attacks in the past. More importantly, it’s now possible for Shields to block Projectiles passively, even when they are on your back or the side of your horse.
As always folks, thank you very much for your ongoing support and enthusiasm. We’ll hopefully have the next update out next week with either itMoxie on bandit and animal Ai, or Kz/Mr.Z’s animation progress. Let us know in the discussion channel what you’d rather see.
Till next time
Ashur
0.6.8.3
Tuned Footstep sound attenuation
Loadouts are better Sanitized now
Fixed issues with crouching while sprinting
Fixed Bear overthrow skin
Added Archer and Crossbowman Loadouts
Fixed Crossbow quiver
Fixed Crossbow aiming and projectile velocity
Increased Grossmesser Combo and Windup durations
0.6.7.9
Belt can store items
Added Iron Hoe
Quiver Ammo fixes
Increased Arrow hitbox size
Fixed Arrow trajectory being too high
Added Broadhead arrows
Added the ability to toggle different arrow types (Altmode Key)
Added new Emote
Increased chase mechanic time
Fixed crouch speed bug
Players dont disappear on disconnect now
Fixed up bow handling of Ammo
Added animations to the longbow mesh
Fixed arrow orientation
Lowered Intro music volume
Added sockets for Bandages carried in equipment slots
Added Bandaging animation
Fixed equipping bastard sword while in altmode with a Shield
0.6.7.6
Reduced Bash windup
Lowered Fists and Tools damages
Added Longer feint cooldown on consecutive feints
Fixed some issues with Stagger
Reduced Kick range
Increased Base walk speed
Increased Stamina miss cost across the board
Removed hidden platform on Grove
Fixed up Collision issues with the Bow
0.6.7.3
Removed damage on weapons from hitting the world
Fixed not being able to drop quivers
Added more Damage textures to Helmets
Fixed Bandages
Fixed weapon model not disappearing on Death
Fixed being able to gather resources with Kicks
Encumberance Mechanic for Ranged weapons (heavier armor and weapons make using bows harder)
Encumberance increases stamina drain for bows
Bow draw is cancelled when Stamina runs out
Arrow properly gets destroyed when switching out of bows
Fixed Combo into Parry timings
Fixed up Archery anim replication
Fixed up Parry Morph bug
Fixed Crouching Speed
Fixed Shield Model durability checking
Increased turnspeed while kicking and increased recovery time
Changed Action bar to Show item icons
We've reached 100,000+ wishlists!
A huge thanks to all of you who have supported us this far, and we can't wait to continue sharing this journey with all of you.
New Devblog and a brief update of what's going on behind the scenes!
We found many bugs as a result of the massive amount of new people playing the game, and throughout the last few months we've been fixing a lot of stability problems that were discovered. We have been splitting our development time between bug fixing, balancing combat, adding new features and working quietly on Raid mode.
As some may have noticed in the patch notes, there are sometimes things in there that seem related to Raid mode. This is because over the last month we've been mostly developing Raid mode and Survival mechanics now that the Combat Alpha has more or less reached its conclusion. We've been making very steady progress on Raid, as a Developer I can say that I've never been more relieved to see the game's core gameplay mechanics all working together harmoniously. Every week ItsMoxie and I have been playtesting Raid mode internally and discovering all sorts of bugs and tweaks to do, at the start we've been walking away from a test with an average of 50 tasks to care of and the number keeps getting smaller each week. We've been making a lot of progress on Raid and we want to make absolutely sure that the gameplay loop is as fun and bug free as we can, even in this early state it is in.
There were 3 other major additions to Renown during this time as well. Shield Destruction, Armor Destruction, and Archery. It is too much to go over in one Blog post so I will be discussing Archery next blog.
Shield Destruction mechanics were added recently with some expert modeling and texturing from KZ. The Shield models actually update as they are taking damage, with their textures and models changing, and they get especially destroyed with weapons like Axes. When a Shield is fully destroyed this causes the player to get staggered, this should help keep people playing overly defensive with Shields at a disadvantage.
Programming the Armor Destruction mechanics was fairly simple to add shortly afterwards. It became clear to us that our old Rendering system for Armor damage did not sufficiently convey damage details to players. As such, KZ spent many weeks authoring all the new textures as the process of making these impressive damage details is no trivial task at all, many models required a lot of reworks and improvements and attention to detail it takes to do this was nothing short of impressive. The results speak for themselves, with these new details we can say confidently that Renown has something many other games wish they would have.
The look of the armors has been designed so that someone can quite quickly see whether an armor piece is damaged or not and have a good idea of how damaged it is. When an armor has lost enough durability, its stats start to become less effective, when this happens is also when the first damage textures are blended in so there is a very clear connection between the artwork of the game and gameplay consequences.
Combat has also received many refinements since the Demo. Many balance changes were made, the movement system was redone, Parrying and Flinching was made more consistent, Kicks were reworked, the Swing manipulation was reworked, and there have also been improvements to 1vX combat.
0.6.7.1 Archery Hotfix
Added Ping Compensation to Bows
Increased Arrow Damage
Added Arrow Trails
Fixed Arrow Collisions
You can no longer sprint with a Bow Drawn
Your movement is slower with a Bow Drawn
Removed Flinch from Projectiles
Fixed Arrow Canceling
Ranged Weapon users can now be Flinched out of their Draws
Added Stamina Drain while Drawn with a Ranged weapon
Added Sockets for Bow on the Back
Fixed Archery animations not blending correctly in Third person
Reduced Cone of Fire with Bows
Added Broadhead Arrows