We are releasing one of our final demo updates before the launch of the game. This update comes with a lot of polish and performance updates. There is still a lot of performance left to be sorted out but we are seeing gains of 10-20FPS in most areas and upwards of 30 FPS in some others.
We are releasing this update as part of seeking publishing for the game. If you find any major game-breaking bugs that QA did not see, please email info@dragonclawstudios.com to let us know.
With over 350+ changes, we've distilled them down to a few we're most excited about!
Updated Controller and Keyboard Binds w/ more common settings. Added all Menu UI Rebinds
Updated UI widgets with improved navigation handling logic.
Balanced out damaged. Normalized damage to at least 15% of base attack
Disabled turning when opening chests, picking up items, sleeping, and mining.
Updated bloom rendering method to convolution to improve performance and Visuals
Fixed up minor VFX issues.
Minor landscape adjustments for jagged edges, smoothed if land or shaped if it was a cliffside.
Added separate X/Y sensitivity to Active Motion Combat controller.
ActiveMotion enemies no longer rotate toward the targeted player character during their death
Added Color Blind modes and intensity
Corrected issue where enemy encounters on the world map would not always patrol as they should.
Added specialized camera tracks for ranged attacks to TurnBased Combat.
Added new smoke VFX for the loading screen.
Updated Battle Transition effects
Changed Lumen Effects to only have High and Epic options as Medium/Low cause issues
Added DLSS to the options menu.
Added Max FPS values in the settings menu.
Updated Cinematic for Maris' Death with new animations
Fixed Homaran Dungeon walls flickering
Updated the Spawning/Despawning of Dialogue characters so Eir does not glitch
Updated save point lighting, water, and VFX for performance and beauty.
Updated End of Battle screen margin issues and improper fade color
Updated Actions UI for Active Motion.
Added music to Sanctuary.
Visual tune-up for Windmond lights and structures as part of performance pass.
Added horse to Homaran while under attack for the player to ride to the dungeon.
Made Bran's base stats much stronger.
Updated UI for Sanctuary to remove hotbar for now.
Added option to disable physics on cloth. When players experience low FPS cloth disables
Upgraded packaging methods and compression. Optimized download size without compromising final quality, so players have a faster download. (Previous size: 37GB, New Size: 16GB)
Realms (CCG minigame)
The Realms Minigame has been rebuilt and will be in the next release of the Demo. It was not stable enough to make its way to this release.
Thank you, to everyone, for your continued support in the Studio and the game!
It's been a few months and a lot of improvements! This one includes some overhauls for some of the core systems, fixes those awful loading times, corrects all of the currently known crashes, and provides much-needed polish to the project. We will continue to polish this experience for everyone while we continue full development.
With over 500+ changes, we've distilled them down to a few we're most excited about!
Updated sound effects for many objects in all towns.
Recreated the three main cutscenes in Homaran and Homaran Dungeon.
Updated some visual effects for world interaction magic.
New water system, aesthetics and swimming.
Full controller support for the game (excluding build mode in Sanctuary)/
Updated battle user interface.
Fixed long loading times between levels and battles.
Fixed crashes while starting and playing the game.
Added combo attacks and QTE style battle to turn-based combat.
Added counter attacking to failed QTE in turn-based combat.
Recreation of the puzzle system.
Rebuilt the mounts system and made to be more realistic.
Added full body IK to the character for full-motion movement (animations are a work in progress).
Added minimap markers for quests when asked to go to a location.
Updated the minimap to be more responsive.
Added the ability to click map points for navigation targeting.
Updated visual cues within environments to make navigation more intuitive.
Game intro music is now synced with master volume and no longer louder than the game.
Added more barriers to towns for player control to remain within bounds.
Updated dialogue for many NPCs.
Updated sanctuary for the first release of the building system.
Updated music system so that tracks fade properly and looping is now seamless.
Updated lighting through all the maps for more realistic lighting.
Added automated mouse/keyboard and game-pad control UI swapping.
Updated swimming to be more dynamic.
Updated Ryluna wolf model
Fixed the scaling in the inventory description and increased the default font.
Realms (CCG minigame)
Due to a bug in the latest Unreal Engine 5 build, the system we’ve built for Realms has been unstable and unpredictable; however, we are currently working towards fixing these issues and looking forward to presenting Realms within Heart of Eir, as soon as possible. We know your all excited for its release, and so are we!
Thank you, to everyone, for your continued support in the Studio and the game!
Here is yet another patch for the demo. As always, we will continue to polish this experience for everyone while we continue full development.
Happy adventuring!
Collectibles: Completed sets no longer also show under Partially Completed sets.
Maps: Added ability to pan maps and updated icon information.
Added safety to ensure control is properly returned to player after interacting with a level transition travel point.
Added map to Road to Dawnhold
Homaran Dungeon: Adjusted torch brightness for better atmosphere and player immersion
Cleaned up End of Game widget display
Beds now reliably save the correct player spawn location as part of the save file, which prevents them from bricking your save file by spawning you in the wrong place
Beds no longer cause a softlock when player attempts to interact a second time after the "go to sleep" animation has started to play.
Added water sounds to Homaran.
Added new custom icons used by the map and minimap.
Accessing the save game menu through the bed via gamepad now correctly allows player to navigate the menu only when the menu is visible
Added ability to zoom maps via mouse scrollwheel
Preparatory work for Realms card game (coming soon!
Cleaned up code that runs every time a level is opened for better performance
Maps: Added functionality for click to navigate.
Maps: Icons for Fishing Spots and similar activities now only reveal after player has discovered them.
Cleaned up RoadToDawnhold map, removing old functionality in the way of future improvements.
Maps: Icons for enemies and chests now appear only if player has correct skills leveled up.
Maps: Added persistence to player point of interest selections.
Maps: Added resource icons to minimap.
Stryah Imbune table interaction text updated to avoid confusion if player does not have correct skill.
Improvements to Homaran gameplay checks and fixes for questrelated bugs.
Improved Map backgrounds and prepared for minimap path creation.
During prerendered cinematics, the skip cinematic button indicator more reliably updates when player presses a button on a different input device.
Windmond: Replaced temporary water with real water, allowing the player to swim and fish.
Minor bugfixes for quest items in Windmond.
Demo Build - Patch Notes#4
Greetings Eathralians!
We've been hard at work the past couple of weeks bringing a tonne of fixes and improvements to the demo build. We will continue to polish this experience for everyone while we continue development on the entire game.
Thank you for supporting TwilightStar: Heart of Eir.
Happy adventuring!
Completely removed old map system.
Road to Dawnhold map now spawns player at start of road, instead of high up in the sky.
Fixed issue where double-clicking on a category button in the game menu (such as journal, fishing, etc.) caused the menu to freeze up and made selecting any other menu option impossible.
Added a fade to black before the level loading transition screen.
Added new map system with many new features:
Mini-map in the player's HUD that can be zoomed.
Openable large map for the player's local area with guide legend.
Markers for chests, quests, enemies, NPCs, and other points of interest.
Safeties to prevent opening map in a situation where it would cause problems for the player instead of helping.
Set up default zoom levels for each area the player visits that are more appropriate for the size of that area.
Cleaned up misplaced doors and other stray objects in Homaran Village.
Improved hold button to skip functionality used in cutscenes. Clarified prompt and hold text.
Cleaned up some villagers in Windmond who had incorrect dialogue or no dialogue at all.
Fixed issue where double-clicking on buttons in the vendor menu could cause the menu to freeze up and make selecting other options impossible.
Corrected issue in Homaran Village where player did not learn the Stryah Ability as part of the quest dialogue.
No longer able to Run from Caelki General boss fight.
Enemies now appear on minimap as icons.
Fixes for floating foliage.
Performance pass for Homaran and Windmond.
Safety improvements for fishing system, to help prevent player from falling off into water while fishing.
Expanded swimmable area for water in Hermit's Retreat.
Fixed issue where player could glitch into a walking state on the bottom of the lake in Homaran Village.
Corrected animation handling for several NPCs that would slide around the map without moving their legs.
Improvements to swimming system:
Attempting to rapidly surface while swimming forward no longer shoves the player far underwater.
Oxygen gauge is now much more visible when underwater and more accurately displays how much oxygen the player still has.
Improved control responsiveness for swimming and recognition of when player is or is not in the water.
Prepared swimming system for use in Sanctuary.
Red "drowning" screen tint that indicates the party has taken direct health damage due to running out of oxygen properly goes away when oxygen bar refills.
Fixed progression issue in final demo conversation with Bran that prevented player from receiving quest to go to Dawnhold.
End of demo screen now properly displays and has working, clickable link to the DragonClaw Studios Community Discord!
Ladders should now correctly snap the player in place when climbing on, even when player is running sideways toward the ladder while interacting, instead of sliding the character off into a possible soft-lock.
Blocking volumes and level tweaks in Windmond to reduce risk of player becoming stuck while exploring common areas.
Fishing now does not allow the player to accidentally open the map.
Fixed issue where player could not start a new game or load a safe after drowning without first closing the game.
Cleaned up obsolete tutorials.
Fisherman Letter now correctly added to Journal when picked up.
Dockmaster now takes the fish the player catches for him when his quest completes.
Bran can now use Spears and Staves as weapons.
Player party now heals to full when the player enters the Homaran Dungeon for the first time.
Homaran Dungeon Golom boss-fight can no longer be bypassed on accident by slowly walking along the far-right side of the room.
Fixed Homaran Village Entrance save point cutscene. Now properly shows character instead of focusing on a fallen tree.
Corrected numerous typos across the entire demo. Item descriptions, cutscenes, dialogue, and more!
Hermit's Retreat fish no longer swim out of water and strand themselves on land against a tree trunk.
Minor adjustments to ladders placed in maps to prevent player from climbing "out of the ladder".
Adjusted gameplay flow in Windmond to guide player toward cutscene where Kira joins the party.
Prevented enemies from rushing in to trigger a battle during the cutscene where Kira joins the party.
Added quest indicator to Bran for his second quest.
Added dialogue box for Hermit's Retreat on the world map if player arrives before finishing the correct quest.
Filled in a hole in the world map on the climb up to Hermit's Retreat where the player could easily become stuck.
Interacting with gravestone now spawns only one Kira, not two.
Updated villagers that had incorrect dialogue in Homaran.
Fixed Stryah Energy tutorial to function like other tutorials. It is now scrollable with mouse.
Using the D-pad to navigate through menus no longer causes the player to accidentally jump or take out the torch.
Increased speed of transition from third to first person, and reverse.
Corrected issues with first person view while mounting a horse.
Going into first person view while on a horse no longer turns the character invisible.
Corrected issues with camera clipping when party members appeared for dialogue.
Added quest indicator for Homaran Village's second Late for Combat Training quest section.
Incoming demo! Are you ready to claim your destiny?
Greetings Eathralians!
Over the last several months, we have been gearing up for a demo release of TwilightStar: Heart of Eir. We had initially planned the release for this demo to be Friday 12th November; though, due to snags with our data center and a few team members being sick the past week, we lost some valuable time in our preparations, so we had pushed back the release by 24hours.
Our internal tests before the release uncovered some crafty hidden bugs that we believe would ruin your experience in Eathral. With a heavy heart, we have decided the best course of action is to delay the demo release until Friday 19th November at the latest.
We hope the community will understand why we have chosen to do this--we want your experience of the demo to go off without a hitch and immerse you in the world of Eathral. Eathral wouldn’t exist without you, and we’re ever grateful for your support and excitement for the game’s progress.
That being said, we’ve done a lot the last several months, below are just some of the additions/changes:
- Upgraded to Unreal Engine 5 (This alone comes with so many beneficial changes)
- Fixed loading screen crashes
- Seamless loading into battles
- Rebuilt battle system(s)
- Implemented turn-based and active motion battle systems
- Updated puzzle system
- Added many new Official Eathralian Creatures
- Added new characters
- Rebuilt all gameplay and cinematics to create a more interactive, story-driven, and immersive experience
