Patch 0.18.2
- Fixed an issue where player names with non-latin characters haven't been displayed properly in the arena leaderboard.
Of Blades & Tails News
Patch 0.18.1
- Fixed a bug/exploit in relation with the Beast Banishing perk.
- Beast Banishing is now explicitely limited to plants and insects.
- Fixed missing persistence of the mounted witcher in the raider camp.
- Changed how the leaderboard achievement gets triggered: It's now completed the first time you score in the leaderboard challenge.
- Added missing translation string for raider dungeon.
Big thanks to the player who reported the issue with Beast Banishing.
Your leaderboard score has been removed. I hope you understand :)
Would love to see you again on the top though!
Update 0.18.0 - World Expansion III
Hey everyone!
This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, with a completely new biome and settlement. It also brings a Combat Arena and allows you to compete with other players in the leaderboard.
Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new region and how the arena works.
[h2]Changelog v0.18.0[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]
[h3]Game World[/h3]
[h3]The Combat Arena[/h3]
The arena can be found in the northern end of Murzork.
It features 2 competitions:
[h4]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h4]
[h4]The Tournament[/h4]
[h3]Items & Equipment[/h3]
[h3]Achievements[/h3]
4 achievements have been added:
[h3]Fixes and Improvements[/h3]
[h3]Savegame Compatibility[/h3]
Savegames from version 0.17.x are compatible and future savegames will remain compatible as well :)
[hr][/hr]
[h2]What's next[/h2]
This will most likely be the last major content update before the 1.0 release! 😮
Feels pretty unreal to write this actually. We started EA last October and now we're in a great spot to reach the estimated timeline of ~1 year to full release.
So here's the (rough) plan until then: I will work on all the remaining story quests, the guild quests and of course the final region/encounter. Then there are still a bunch of smaller feature requests and QoL improvements on my list, which I will try to put in another minor update 0.19 along the way.
I'm planning to take my time with all of this and not rush it. Therefore I can't give you any exact dates right now. All I can say is: Stay tuned, we're almost there! 😊
Meanwhile, if you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :)
Until next time, take care everyone!
Felix
This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, with a completely new biome and settlement. It also brings a Combat Arena and allows you to compete with other players in the leaderboard.
Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new region and how the arena works.
[h2]Changelog v0.18.0[/h2]
[h3]General[/h3]
- The max player level has been increased to 25.
[h3]Game World[/h3]
- The game world has been expanded to the east.
- A new region has been added: The Barrenland
- A whole new biome has been added.
- A new settlement has been added: Murzork - Home of the Boar Tribe
- Several new NPCs have been added.
- New music tracks have been added.
- A new dungeon has been added.
- Several new types or variations of existing enemies have been added.
- New locations have been added: Horned Beast Grounds
- New locations have been added: Raider Camps
- 2 new quests have been added.
[h3]The Combat Arena[/h3]
The arena can be found in the northern end of Murzork.
It features 2 competitions:
[h4]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h4]
- Endless waves of alternating types of enemies.
- Players earn an arena score by defeating as many enemies as possible.
- Arena score can be boosted with Combo Multipliers, when multiple enemies are defeated in very few turns.
- Each player who participates is ranked in the leaderboard.
- The leaderboard can be viewed just outside of the arena.
- All difficulty modes (Relaxed, Adventure, Challenge) are normalized in this competition. Allowing all players to compete in the same leaderboard under the same conditions.
- Enemy levels range from 22 to 40+.
Be prepared for a definitive challenge!
[h4]The Tournament[/h4]
- A quest is offered to the player to compete in the tournament.
- It contains 5 individual stages.
- Each stage offers a unique challenge.
- This tournament will also be part of the upcoming story line quest.
(You can complete it now or later.) - The "Champion of the Arena" is granted a new legendary armor.
[h3]Items & Equipment[/h3]
- A legendary item has been added: Champion Body Armor
- A legendary item has been added: Champion Leg Armor
- New item stat levels have been added to address the increased max player level of 25.
[h3]Achievements[/h3]
4 achievements have been added:
- Level 20
- Level 25
- Get Ranked!
- Champion of the Arena
[h3]Fixes and Improvements[/h3]
- The artifact slot has been removed from the "Avg. Equipment Level" calculation.
- A problem with the world map view has been fixed, that caused it to not center on the player location after game load or defeat.
- The Fog of War (in overview mode) has been disabled in all settlements.
- Several smaller fixes.
- Improved several translations.
[h3]Savegame Compatibility[/h3]
Savegames from version 0.17.x are compatible and future savegames will remain compatible as well :)
[hr][/hr]
[h2]What's next[/h2]
This will most likely be the last major content update before the 1.0 release! 😮
Feels pretty unreal to write this actually. We started EA last October and now we're in a great spot to reach the estimated timeline of ~1 year to full release.
So here's the (rough) plan until then: I will work on all the remaining story quests, the guild quests and of course the final region/encounter. Then there are still a bunch of smaller feature requests and QoL improvements on my list, which I will try to put in another minor update 0.19 along the way.
I'm planning to take my time with all of this and not rush it. Therefore I can't give you any exact dates right now. All I can say is: Stay tuned, we're almost there! 😊
Meanwhile, if you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :)
Until next time, take care everyone!
Felix
Patch 0.17.3
- Fixed a problem with certain seeds in dungeon level generation that caused a locked door to appear before players can toggle the switch that unlocks them.
- Fixed a problem with certain seeds in the Odd River Spur level.
- Fixed persistance of the bandit engineer at the Occupied Mine camp spot.
Preview: World Expansion III
Hey everyone!
There's still plenty of work to be done until the next content update for Of Blades & Tails will be ready, but I figured it's about time to give you all an idea of what you can expect from world expansion part 3.
So in this post I want to show you impressions of new Barrend Land biome and how the Combat Arena will work!
[h2]The Barren Land[/h2]
The update features a whole new region with a new biome.
It is also the home of the Boar Tribe, which have their settlement Murzork in the heart of the Barren Land. You can reach it by following the road from Levendell to the east.
(The final region layout is still subject to change.)
The Barren Land features a dried out, earthy soil, tall mushroom trees and clay-like rocks.
Unfortunately I can't show you screenhots of the new boar settlement yet, but it will feature a new architectural style that is somewhat inspired by orcish/barbarian housing.
However, the thing I can show you is a glimpse of what Murzork is widely known for...
[h2]The Combat Arena[/h2]
As teased in one of the previous posts, the next update will feature an exciting combat arena and I can finally share a few more details with you now.
The Arena of Murzork will have 2 different events:
[h3]The Tournament[/h3]
The tournament mode contains a finite number of stages, each stage will throw 3-5 waves of enemies at you and comes with special modifiers to the combat and the arena layout.
For example, one stage may be flooded and contain only little walkable areas, while you're being chased by flying enemies. Another stage could have a rule that you must end your turn next to an enemy or otherwise all enemies will get healed.
Things like that :)
(The arena level is still work in progress and not final, but with this you can get an idea of its size.)
You'll be able to leave the arena after each stage to receive your reward and prepare for the next stage.
This tournament will probably be also related to certain quests and the tribe story.
[h3]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h3]
The combat arena will also feature online leaderboards in the challenge mode!
This mode is one "endless" wave attack. With each wave enemies get tougher and grow in number (with a limit of 8 enemies per wave).
By defeating enemies you can increase your arena score.
Defeating multiple enemies within a short amount of turns will also grant you score combo multipliers.
For example if you manage to defeat 2 enemies in max 3 turns, you'll get a x2 multiplier. If you manage to defeat more enemies you can keep the multiplier up or increase it even more!
Otherwise it will eventually drop back to x1.
The challenge mode will also have other surprises for you, that will pop up every X turns and make the following turns more thrilling ;)
Ultimately, your own defeat in the leaderboard challenge is inevitable! Once you're defeated, your final score will be submitted to the online leaderboard and you can see your global rank on a board outside of the arena.
It's worth noting that only your highest score will be displayed in the leaderboard and this score is saved by your username, not by your character. Of course you're free to participate with as many characters as you want.
I also managed to make this feature cross platform, so players from Steam, GOG and eventually consoles will be able to compete in one leaderboard.
It will also work independently of the difficulty mode you have chosen. The difficulty modifiers will all be normalized when you enter the arena in challenge mode, so there is no separation between difficulty modes necessary.
There might be more categories of leaderboards introduced in the future, but that's completely depending on its popularity.
I'm aware of the fact that many players will never see the challenge mode or participate, because it's meant to be an "end game" feature for high level characters.
However, for all the hardcore fans out there, I hope this will be a pleasant surprise!
Needless to say that I'm more than excited to see where some of you will take this :)
A few more thoughts regarding fake scores or playing with modified savegames:
Originally I wanted to introduce a validation for new savegames, so they can't be easily modified anymore and then used to achieve otherwise impossible scores in the challenge mode.
But that would have caused older savegames to be disqualified from the leaderboards, because figuring out programatically if a savegame was already edited turned out to be very hard and/or inaccurate!
This would also have excluded almost all of our current early access players and I didn't want that to happen.
So while the actual score submission is reasonably safe, the possibility that players just "tweak" their stats in the save file, is still an open concern.
To address that, the related savegame (with only your game data!) will be referenced when submitting leaderboard scores. With this information it will be possible to detect if unreasonable high scores in the leaderboard are legit or probably fake and therefore subject for deletion.
For now, I'm happy for anyone who joins the leaderboard challenge, fake or not! :D
But the possibility to investigate and curate the entries in the future is possible, making it hopefully a fair competition for all players.
TL;DR: Everyone can participate in the leaderboards and fake entries can be detected!
[h2]Update 0.18 when?[/h2]
I need you to stay patient a little longer this time!
There's still the entire boar settlement to be set up, NPCs, quests and more surprises to be added.
Even though the leaderboards are already fully working, the remaining expansion content might still take another month or so.
I hope you're nevertheless happy with the things I introduced in this preview post and I would love to read your thoughts in the comments!
Until next time, take care everyone!
Felix
There's still plenty of work to be done until the next content update for Of Blades & Tails will be ready, but I figured it's about time to give you all an idea of what you can expect from world expansion part 3.
So in this post I want to show you impressions of new Barrend Land biome and how the Combat Arena will work!
[h2]The Barren Land[/h2]
The update features a whole new region with a new biome.
It is also the home of the Boar Tribe, which have their settlement Murzork in the heart of the Barren Land. You can reach it by following the road from Levendell to the east.
(The final region layout is still subject to change.)
The Barren Land features a dried out, earthy soil, tall mushroom trees and clay-like rocks.
Unfortunately I can't show you screenhots of the new boar settlement yet, but it will feature a new architectural style that is somewhat inspired by orcish/barbarian housing.
However, the thing I can show you is a glimpse of what Murzork is widely known for...
[h2]The Combat Arena[/h2]
As teased in one of the previous posts, the next update will feature an exciting combat arena and I can finally share a few more details with you now.
The Arena of Murzork will have 2 different events:
[h3]The Tournament[/h3]
The tournament mode contains a finite number of stages, each stage will throw 3-5 waves of enemies at you and comes with special modifiers to the combat and the arena layout.
For example, one stage may be flooded and contain only little walkable areas, while you're being chased by flying enemies. Another stage could have a rule that you must end your turn next to an enemy or otherwise all enemies will get healed.
Things like that :)
(The arena level is still work in progress and not final, but with this you can get an idea of its size.)
You'll be able to leave the arena after each stage to receive your reward and prepare for the next stage.
This tournament will probably be also related to certain quests and the tribe story.
[h3]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h3]
The combat arena will also feature online leaderboards in the challenge mode!
This mode is one "endless" wave attack. With each wave enemies get tougher and grow in number (with a limit of 8 enemies per wave).
By defeating enemies you can increase your arena score.
Defeating multiple enemies within a short amount of turns will also grant you score combo multipliers.
For example if you manage to defeat 2 enemies in max 3 turns, you'll get a x2 multiplier. If you manage to defeat more enemies you can keep the multiplier up or increase it even more!
Otherwise it will eventually drop back to x1.
The challenge mode will also have other surprises for you, that will pop up every X turns and make the following turns more thrilling ;)
Ultimately, your own defeat in the leaderboard challenge is inevitable! Once you're defeated, your final score will be submitted to the online leaderboard and you can see your global rank on a board outside of the arena.
It's worth noting that only your highest score will be displayed in the leaderboard and this score is saved by your username, not by your character. Of course you're free to participate with as many characters as you want.
I also managed to make this feature cross platform, so players from Steam, GOG and eventually consoles will be able to compete in one leaderboard.
It will also work independently of the difficulty mode you have chosen. The difficulty modifiers will all be normalized when you enter the arena in challenge mode, so there is no separation between difficulty modes necessary.
There might be more categories of leaderboards introduced in the future, but that's completely depending on its popularity.
I'm aware of the fact that many players will never see the challenge mode or participate, because it's meant to be an "end game" feature for high level characters.
However, for all the hardcore fans out there, I hope this will be a pleasant surprise!
Needless to say that I'm more than excited to see where some of you will take this :)
A few more thoughts regarding fake scores or playing with modified savegames:
Originally I wanted to introduce a validation for new savegames, so they can't be easily modified anymore and then used to achieve otherwise impossible scores in the challenge mode.
But that would have caused older savegames to be disqualified from the leaderboards, because figuring out programatically if a savegame was already edited turned out to be very hard and/or inaccurate!
This would also have excluded almost all of our current early access players and I didn't want that to happen.
So while the actual score submission is reasonably safe, the possibility that players just "tweak" their stats in the save file, is still an open concern.
To address that, the related savegame (with only your game data!) will be referenced when submitting leaderboard scores. With this information it will be possible to detect if unreasonable high scores in the leaderboard are legit or probably fake and therefore subject for deletion.
For now, I'm happy for anyone who joins the leaderboard challenge, fake or not! :D
But the possibility to investigate and curate the entries in the future is possible, making it hopefully a fair competition for all players.
TL;DR: Everyone can participate in the leaderboards and fake entries can be detected!
[h2]Update 0.18 when?[/h2]
I need you to stay patient a little longer this time!
There's still the entire boar settlement to be set up, NPCs, quests and more surprises to be added.
Even though the leaderboards are already fully working, the remaining expansion content might still take another month or so.
I hope you're nevertheless happy with the things I introduced in this preview post and I would love to read your thoughts in the comments!
Until next time, take care everyone!
Felix