The Bloodline News

Back again with another weekly update!
This week I focused a lot on Great-weapon game play and skills. They've needed some love for a while and I finally got around to improving them!

The newest addition to the great-weapon lineup are Ultraswords! These babies are slow and heavy, but pack a huge punch. Seriously, these weapons can send enemies flying.
Also, check out this ridiculously overpowered stab move. It's awesome.

Along with various new great-weapon skills, I also made huge improvements and optimizations on world spawning system. This new system allows me to easily specify spawn rates for wildlife, enemies and friendlies throughout various open world areas. Since the player will have an effect on the world around them, I needed a system that would allow the player to dynamically modify spawn rates of certain enemies and events. For example, if the player tends to allow Undead Rituals to complete in an area, that will influence the spawn rate for Undead enemies and events in the future. The system I had made previously wasn't too accepting of this system and made it difficult to dynamically change. With this new system, that is no longer a problem! The world will now adapt to how the player treats the inhabitants of a given area. This of course will need lots more work and balancing, but the foundations are now solid enough to begin that process!

Other than the new spawning system, I really went crazy with Ultraswords and abilities that can be used with them and other great weaponry (Greathammers, Greatclubs, etc.)
I'm absolutely loving the feel of these weapons, especially with this Monster Hunter inspired skill!.

I'm also in the process of making Slime-themed weapon sets! These will be made of Slimemetal, which, as you can imagine, is made from Slimes! The color of these transparent weapons will vary depending on the slime you use!
Here is a Slime-metal Ultrasword!



Well, that about wraps up the work I did this week! I do have some cool things in store for the coming months, so be sure to keep checking in! Thank you, everyone, for your continued support! (:

Have a fantastic weekend! See you next Friday!

HERE is the parent suggestion thread! This threads theme is GREATSWORDS, which will also share skill tree aspects with Great Axes and Great Hammers, so if you have ideas for those, drop them there as well!

I'll also check the comments here if there are any, so if you don't have a Reddit account, don't be discouraged! (:

Remember, I don't care how pointless, stupid or specific the skill is - So long as it's fun, that's all I care about! (And that it's not insanely complex, of course haha)

I'm going to try to start doing weekly update posts here on Steam! I mainly post to my social media pages, but I should do better with posting to the Steam page itself. So each Friday I'll attempt to post a summary of what I worked on that week!

To start off this week, I worked on the Donkey Mount, which will be the starter mount for the game! Slow, no special abilities but absolutely adorable and reliable! (Also, while the run anim is still in the works, the the placeholder is hilarious.

Next up was working on city life! Specifically making cities feel more alive and full of character. For Elderglen, the first city most players will visit, I added a bunch of intro quests for the various crafting/skills that you can progress.
After that, I added a ton of AI-generated voice lines for the citizens as well as new animations and behaviors for them. I think it turned out pretty well!

I was also able to improve the taming skill by adding new creature types like Green Slimes and my new personal favorite - Bunnies!
Taming these animals allows you to use them as pets! Larger animals that you tame like Direwolves, Deer, Griffins, etc, will allow you to use them as Mounts!

And lastly this week, I added a new 2-handed weapon skill - Leaping Smash! This skill throws you into the air with your weapon above your head, allowing you to smash down on enemies, ragdolling them!

That's about all I have for this week - If you guys like these updates, I'll continue to do them here! Steam isn't the easiest place to post constant updates, but I'll do my best! (:

I try to hold a skill suggestion thread and competition as often as I can where you can post your skill ideas. If they're voted high enough, it enters a competition poll and if it wins, it's added to the game!

Usually I'll post a thread with a specific theme in mind. (Pyromancy, cyromancy, swords, spears - that sort of thing) If you can think of a cool/fun/useful/goofy spell revolving around the theme, leave your idea in the comments! If others like it, they'll upvote it and it may end up in the poll competition. It's a fun way to involve the community and for everyone to get a chance to be a part of the development. (:

This threads theme is...

DUAL DAGGERS

Dual Daggers are quick and deadly and are the only weapon type that allows for some form of climbing while your weapons are equipped!


HERE is the link to the Suggestion Thread. Be sure to drop by if you have any cool Dual Dagger Ideas!

THE GREAT OWL

Thanks to the generous donations on Ko-fi, the donation goal was reached! Donors were able to vote for what mount they wanted in the game next, and the winner of that poll was The Great Owl!

The next goal is to add the option for players to use a spear and shield weapon combo, since I know lots of people (including myself) would love that style of play.

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For those of you who may not know, I am much more active on my social media accounts:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShieldBearerDev
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBloodline/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shieldbearerstudios/
TikTok: @shieldbearerstudios (https://www.tiktok.com/@shieldbearerstudios?lang=en)

That being said, I can try to post updates here on Steam as well, I'm just not super familiar with how the Steam Community works or if these updates would be annoying since I post updates nearly every weekday - Maybe I could do a weekly post recapping what I've been working on? Just an idea! Let me know what you guys think! (: