The MiniLog - Load 'er Up, Slice 'em Down

Hey everyone~ As promised, a new build is here!

• Download Arkavite [0.13.0-A]

I've added the long awaited Save / Load system. This will allow you to save and load your created characters. In order to make this work, the method I’d typically use for storing and processing player data had to be reworked across the board (hence the delays). The system is new so let me know if you happen to run into any issues~

For my librarians out there, save and load are being added to TLoH for the next update. 

As the CYOA portion of the Character Creator happens to use the same save string backend, I'm considering adding an import/export option so players can design their favourite loadouts (race, blessings, curses, items) and share it with others. It's a small addition which may foster fresh discussions. Do you think it’d be a neat feature? Let me know your thoughts!

Pickups & Drops

Up until this point, it's been the case that players drop their weapons on ragdoll. This little mechanic was primarily intended to arise in combat when facing certain kinds of attacks. For instance, the player could ragdoll if hit by a boulder, or high energy electric blast. Something you’d expect would cause you to drop what you're holding.

I understand many have taken issue with dropping their weapons on fall, so in order to balance out this little mechanic I’ve checked off yet another long overdue objective. Weapons will now be sheathed/holstered and attached directly to your person while out of combat. You can only drop something while it's being held in your hands.

In addition to this, I’ve introduced the proximity pickup system. In simple terms, the game tracks items in a cone from the player position in the forward vector of the camera, and the closest item in that cone in line of sight of the player (not behind a wall) is made intractable. It's a pretty straightforward change and should make picking up items a heck of a lot easier. 



Factoring in the auto-equip system (where a weapon will automatically equip to your hand on pickup if no weapon is equipped), and the aforementioned sheathing/holstering of weapons, not only will these changes lower the rate of accidental drops, but if and when you do drop your gear, you can pick it right back up.

As a side note, I’ve also increased the lock-on range for enemies (now at 20 meters) and set them up to use the same proximity interaction system. Just one last note on the proximity interaction system; I am aware it’s not perfect yet. I’ve found It doesn’t work so well with shelves and cluttered desks (possibly a result of uninteractable clutter blocking intractable items), but I will be exploring solutions in the new week.

Feeling Animated~

Spears glorious spears! I've added a custom animation set for spear attacks. As the spear is a two handed weapon, the spear specific animations will only play when you have no gun in your offhand. Spear-like weapons (e.g. polearms, brooms, and staffs) will use the same animation set as spears. I am planning on adding heavy weapon animations for the greatswords and sledgehammer. I would also like to add throwing animations so I can implement weapon throwing, and possibly later, potion throwing.

I've added a simple in-air sword slash for when the player jumps and attacks. Gravity still applies to the player when they're attacking in air, but I may look into changing that so we can have chained in-air attacks. It’s not all that realistic, but it would be pretty thematic. It may also become another platforming adjacent mechanic with wider reaching uses. Something for me to think about.

Also in the news, torches are now treated like torches. They have their own “held in hand” animations for when the player is walking and aiming. The flame effect has been updated to look less like a choo choo train and more like a fire burning in a torch. Torches still use the same attack animations as short swords, however, they will now deal damage to enemies.

Dungeon Lurkers & Weapon Changes

All the recently added weapons have now been given descriptions. This should provide them with a little more flavour. 

I must also note a change which is more a fix than an addition. At some point there was a alteration to the way melee hit tests are performed and I realized today that I forgot to set a size for the weapon hit boxes. This means that for a while now, weapons have had pencil thin attack boxes making it very difficult to hit enemies (especially small ones). This issue has now been corrected.

Speaking of enemies, slimes will now spawn randomly throughout dungeons. Gone are the days of walking the halls in solitude. Squishy monsters now lurk in these dark halls...
Soon we should have more enemies to join them. In the new week, I would like to get golems in and make some further improvements to player melee.

Upcoming

The 27th is being targeted for the next update, though you’ll probably hear from me sooner if any bugs crop up. We have golems on the cards, as well as enemy drops and more changes to combat. I will also try to address the reported dungeon soft lock issues. 

I’ve yapped a bunch, but before I close here, I'd like to know what you personally would like to see. Is there a particular vein of content you'd want to see be brought to the forefront or see be developed more? More items, or items which could do more? More enemies? New systems you're hoping to see sooner rather than later? More lewds? 

I'd love to get a read on what you want to see and hear your thoughts on all these new changes. While there is always a lot of work to be done, I'm not against increasing priority on areas of interest~

Be sure to let me know your thoughts and feedback in the comments! Till next time~