Of Blades & Tails News

Hey everyone!

Here goes the last, slightly bigger update before we reach 1.0 :)
It contains the missing "Challenge" difficulty mode, rename/delete options for save slots and other requested quality of life improvements.

[h2]Changelog v0.19.0[/h2]

"Challenge" difficulty mode has been added with these modifiers:

• You will lose 20% exp and 8% of your coins upon defeat.
  
• Enemy density is increased by roughly 50%.
  (This primarily affects the overworld levels)
  
• Recovery at bonfires is disabled.
  
• Fast travel cost is increased.
  
• Your starting health is slightly decreased.
  (This primarily affects the overworld levels)
  
• Enemy base level is increased by 1.
  
• Auto-recovery is disabled.
  (Recovery from herbs, potions, etc. still works as normal)
  

Other improvements and fixes

• It's now possible to rename and delete save slots within the game.
  
• The current difficulty is now shown in-game in the statistics view.
  
• It's now better indicated in the character view if you reached the max player level of 25.
  
• The attribute tooltips now include detailed numbers of the affecting bonusses, like base value, equipment bonus, and other bonusses.
  
• A problem with custom keybindings has been fixed, that caused the previous key to still trigger the action that has been assigned to a different key.
  
• Multi-threaded rendering has been enabled, which should increase performance on mid and low end systems.
  
• Interactive objects in the world can now be highlighted by keypress (default ALT).
  Please note that it's possible that you need to rebind this key in the options, if you already changed other keybindings.
• The game now automatically keeps 1 backup of your last savegame.
  If you run into any issues with your savegame, you can now manually restore it in the save folder.
  However, this will most likely never be necessary :)

• (chinese) Fixed a wrong direction description in the journal entry of the first quest.
  
• Updated several other translation strings.
  

• Fixed an issue where player names with non-latin characters haven't been displayed properly in the arena leaderboard.
  

• 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!

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]

• 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