Taival Development Update - Sneaking, taming and scaling
October was full of exciting new things for Taival. On the systems side of things we added a sneaking/stealth system, worked on the Henki shapeshift form taming, and added content scaling for the content.
For the stealth system we wanted a really lifelike and intuitive feel. This means when an enemy sees you, it actually sees you. Raycasting (checking from the physics system whether a line is obstructed by a collider) for sight is nothing new, however, it is usually not really performant especially with a lot of enemies. It also requires very accurate physics colliders on the target to make the rays feel right. I was however able to come up with a new piece of tech that allows us to have extremely accurate visibility checking to only the actual visible drawn player (or other character). This system requires very few rays without requiring ANY colliders on the target to get accurate results. Really looking forward to getting feedback from you guys on how it feels!
The taming is coming along nicely. All creatures and animals in Taival have their favourite foods. By observing them, you be able to see thought bubbles above them, revealing what they are currently up to. Once you notice them being hungry and thinking of food, you'll notice what food they crave.Your next mission is to find a piece of this food item - don't worry, the shapeshift form menu contains all observed foods, and hints where to find them.
After acquiring the food and returning to a creature of the same race, you drop the item near it. For this, the sneaking system is very much relevant. Hostile enemies can't be tamed once they've been aggravated, on the other hand, easily frightened creatures might run away from you. Once the food is dropped, the creature should smell it, and approach it quickly. It will start eating the food. This is when your Henki pet will get busy. It will approach the creature, observing its movements. It will mimic its animations, shapeshifting into a spirit-like version of the creature. If the Henki is able to mimic long enough uninterrupted, you will unlock the creature's shapeshift form right there and then, and your Henki will shapeshift into the new creature's race.
World scaling is a hybrid of letting the player feel stronger as they proceed, while still applying some scaling to the difficulty of the game as player levels up, allowing the content to stay relevant for more longer. This was achieved by having a minimim and maximum level range in which the enemies maybe spawn. The level scales their health and damage, and the level is selected according to the players' level - it usually isn't 1:1, there is a weight variable there that defines how strong the scaling is applied. Eg. 0.75x will let player's health and damage grow while still keeping the enemies relevant.
In addition, the items that drop to the players as well as are found in chests are scaled by the players' level. This allows for the player to always receive gear and loot that is relevant to them, allowing them to get better items as they progress regardless of which quests or places they choose to explore first. Of course, this too has a minimum and maximum levels to scale to, to allow the player to move on to a harder biome once they've outleveled the zone they're in.
Content wise, we got to implement a couple new biomes and cities!
Pines Biome (polishing)
The pines biome got a complete overhaul. The trees were reworked with updated textures, we added new plants, like bushes, grass, undergrowth and shrubs. The ground texture was also revamped to resemble a more dry and rough terrain found in pinewoods.
Gaelwind Town
We tried to make the Gaelwind town feel like a crammed maze-like mediterranean town, with narrow corridors, bright brick and stone surfaces and lots of stairs that lead to different levels of the town. The player can climb on the roofs of the buildings and there usually are walkways connecting them so the playable area is not limited to just the ground level!
We also built a harbor for the town (don't mind the plain white placeholder elevators, they will be replaced with proper models later on)!
Jungle Biome
The jungle was a completely new biome we added this month. We added a few different tree types, LOTS of ground vegetation and a lot of different shaped rocks and ancient jungle style props. We tried to make the feel like it is very damp, foggy and shadowy with huge trees and making the canopy so large it basically blocks the sun from most parts of the jungle. Jungle is filled with temples, caves, camps, settlements, small rock guys, stuff like that!
Let us know what you think!
Taival team