PTR Release
Ilysia PTR Launch Notes
New Features: Character Controller Overhaul
The character controller for Ilysia has been rewritten. This affects all aspects of movement, including walking, jumping, crouching, swimming, sprinting, climbing, and gliding. In addition to the fundamental rewrite, the following new actions can be used:
- Climbing has returned to Ilysia. Players can now climb ladders, ropes, pitons, etc. Climbable objects in the world are shown via a patch of yellow coloring. When successfully grabbed, climbing points will give feedback to the player. Additionally, players will find 'ledges' they can grab to teleport them to the top of a ledge at the end of a climb.
- Zip Lines: Players can now use zip lines to traverse the world. Grab the yellow handle to ride a zip line. You can depart by letting go at any time during the ride.
- Airship Travel: After much tinkering, Airships in Ilysia now function as intended – You may ride airships to your heart's content without jittering and sliding off. Several new airships have been added to aid players in their journey. Currently, you cannot use your backpack/Codex while riding – we're working on it 🙂
- Sprinting: Players can now use arm movement instead of joystick control to Sprint.
- Swimming: Players can now use arm movement to swim. Swim direction while underwater is now based on HMD orientation.
- Hand gestures: – Hand poses such as thumbs up/down, pointing, and fists have returned to Ilysia!
- World Item Pickup: Players can grab objects on the ground from a distance without reaching down to pick them up. To aid in this, a laser pointer and an 'open hand' gesture have been added when reaching for an object you can pick up.
- Combat sprinting: You can no longer Sprint while in combat; you may still run away from mobs to get them to exit combat, or you can root them via a skill but cannot simply sprint through packs of mobs.
New Features: Combat Overhaul
Base combat for Ilysia has been rewritten on both the client and server sides. This affects ALL types of combat in the game, as well as several individual feature changes and updates described below:
- Melee: Cooldown Removed: Along with several adjustments for hit detection, the cooldown on melee strikes has been removed. We have redesigned our system to ensure players cannot surpass the maximum DPS of their weapons without relying on a cooldown.
- Melee: Swing detection: Players must move their controller a minimum distance to register a valid hit. This threshold is low to allow players with more limited mobility the ability to enjoy Ilysia still.
- Melee: Dual Wield Changes: Dual wielding in Ilysia has been nerfed. Players can now dual wield for additional damage; however, the damage rate is capped. New skills that extend this damage range will be coming in the future.
- Melee: Shield Blocking – Besides providing boosts to your base Armor class, blocking with shields is now functional in Ilysia. To block an attack, hold your shield up in real-time during combat when a strike is incoming. An indicator on the back of the shield will tell you when your shield is in the correct orientation to block an incoming attack. Damage blocked will be dealt to the shield versus your health pool, and the shield's health is indicated as a ring on the back. When the shield has been depleted, your shield will cease to block incoming damage while it regenerates. After blocking a hit, the shield's health pool will stop regenerating briefly.
- Melee: Skills Overhaul: The Martial Tree skills melee combos are now functional.
- Ranged: Core Mechanics: Bows have had their mechanics redone, like melee; you can now fire as fast as you like but with diminishing returns not to exceed the DPS of the ranged weapon and a shorter range on fast shots.
- Ranged: Trajectory indicator: Bows show your arrow trajectory in real-time to assist in lining up shots.
- Ranged: Skill physics: Warden archery skills should now respect arrow physics.
- Caster: quick cast base spell: All caster weapons now have a new 'quick cast' basic attack mechanic for casters to utilize to get out of bad situations and use as filler DPS. "Flick" your wand/scepter/staff up and down to activate your 'quick cast' dart. The ring of floating projectiles around your caster weapon displays the number of darts you can fire. Don't worry if you run out – charges regenerate over time. These base attacks consume no mana.
MobAI/Combat state Changes:
Mobs in Ilysia have been updated to include core rewrites to AI states. This will lay the groundwork for future updates to add more immersive action/reaction-based combat.
- Mob AI States: Mobs in Ilysia will now circle strafe and sidestep ranged attacks to be more responsive during combat. More changes are coming; this is just the beginning.
- Mob Hit Distance: The range at which a mob can hit you in melee has been reduced.
- Mob AI Pathing: Mobs behavior in getting to the player has been updated to be more effective.
- Mob AI Range: Mobs will now properly react to being hit from max range of ranged weapons.
UI Changes:
- Laser-pointer added with new reticle for UI navigation
- Vendor UI updated
- Questing UI updated and adjusted
- Codex UI updated and adjusted
- Login screen UI updated
- Skill UI updated
- Audio settings added to login menu (behind you)
- Video settings added to login menu (PCVR Only, behind you)
- WayDar now smoothly follows head rotation
- Turned off remote character backpack icon
- Updated NPC 'chat' UI
VOIP Changes:
VoIP has been overhauled to be more reliable and effective.
- Region Chat: Local area chat is automatically joined by default when playing Ilysia. Area chat is distance sensitive; the closer you are to someone, the louder they will be; likewise, if you're too far away from someone, you won't be able to hear them.
Memory Management:
We have redesigned our memory management logic to improve performance on lower-end mobile devices. Help us test via general gameplay.
General Fixes:
- Overall weapon damage and mob health balance changes.
- UI interaction indication/laser has been updated.
- POI markers for NPCs are now visible on Waydar through the terrain.
- Increased visible distance for NPC POI markers.
- Multiple quest changes.
- The keyboard now despawns when the Codex is closed.
- The trash can in the backpack confirmation dialog is now in the foreground.
- The trash can in the backpack delete confirmation text has been reformatted.
- Our original mob frames have been updated to work with the new system and added back.
- Signs in the world have been replaced with lamp posts as we work on the mini-map.
- Grab poses for all weapons and items have been adjusted.
- Damage zones such as lava now properly hurt the player.
- The Random grab target U indicator ' visible on the local player body when pointing at yourself has been removed.
- Stamina is no longer consumed when swimming.
- Stamina Bar HUD moved down slightly.
- Continuous ('Smooth') turn Vignette adjusted.