Swordai News

This patch is the release candidate for the 1st public playtest which I am currently planning to open up mid next week, I'll probably release one more update with some minor visual improvements and fixes for any bugs that come up but no new features.

The highlights

• Added a sequential progression throughout all the game content where one thing unlocks another. This means that to an extent Memories is required to unlock various things. You can still join servers for any map as long as you have done "beginnings".
  
• Added a few more achievements, there are now 25
  
• Added a pure difficulty to challenges that you unlock by S grading the base version of the challenge.
  
• Changed thrill of the hunt to refund stamina on hit and reworked second chance to heal on block.
  
• Add links to the discord, the new wiki and the steam page into the game. The wiki needs some fleshing out, I'll be working on that over the next few days, if any community members want to contribute let me know on discord.
  
• Made it so you have to S grade the previous kata to unlock the next one
  
• Added a "home" area with training stuff that you will be able to upgrade in the future
  
• Made the challenge of initiation its own map (screenshot below)
  
• Adjusted the up right and up left charge animations a bit to make your arms more visible in first person
  
• Added a first person visual effect for getting staggered that replaces the "staggered" popup
  
• Changed the display for being out of stamina or trying to use an ability when its on cooldown
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when you exited a level right after finishing a kata or a challenge while the web request to store the result was in flight.
  
• Fixed a camera issue when holding an up block while landing from a jump. As part of this I redid the way the jumping animations work so they also should look a fair bit more smooth when you are doing left side attacks in mid air.
  
• Fixed a bug with the block trainer where he was fienting sometimes
  
• Added a display and stat tracking the block trainer where he tracks your blocks in the last minute and block percentage and you have to unlock the higher attack speeds
  
• Made the block trainer despawn if he doesn't attack anyone for a while, he also starts despawned and you can summon him from his rune stone.
  
• A lot of other minor tweaks
  

Patch notes 0.4.1

There is a lot packed into this patch, but here are the highlights. For full details see discord.

• Added offhand abilities, that you activate while taking your hand off your sword (you can cancel them by blocking or charging an attack, but you can't do blocks/attacks simultaneously with offhand abilities). The first two abilities are in game, but the longer term plan is that there will be a sizable pool of abilities you can unlock and you can then pick abilities to fill your slots (2 passive slots, which should come in March, 2 offhand slots which now exist, 2 warcries of which Kiai is currently 1, and kick/dodge for a total of 8). The two new offhand abilities are a ranged "tether" ability that slows your target increasingly if you keep your cursor over them. If you keep your cursor on the player for long enough you teleport to them, if your cursor is off them for too long the ability fizzles. Second is a self heal, just channel the ability until it completes and then you get 15s of passive health regen. You can't sprint while channeling the abilities but you can run and you can immediately cancel them to block/attack/kick/dodge at any time. The longer term plan is that the synergies between the abilities and the passives will drive certain play styles.
  
• Fixed a very tricky spectator bug, where in soulwar if you are spectating a player and they are far enough from where you died that your client isn't loading data you wouldn't see the person they are fighting.
  
• Fixed a soulwar spectator bug where if you join the match late as a spectator the health bars and UI wouldn't display properly.
  
• Renamed the "Duels" map to "Arena" to be a bit more clear that it is structured.
  
• Made soulwar split players into 2 teams rather than 3 if there are 8 players or fewer.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could get stuck blocking in the default controls if your click drag sensitivity was less than 1 and you started an attack and then switched to a block without inputting an attack direction. Big thanks to @Ghostickles for providing an input recording for this one.
  
• Fixed two camera issues, where strafing right while blocking up or strafing left while charging an up attack would cause your right arm to block your camera
  
• Added a reset to defaults option on both the key settings and mouse settings
  
• Made the tether VFX on the teleport ability more performant
  
• Updated the arena duels map visuals
  
• The clouds now update in real time when the overall graphics quality settings are changed, before you had to leave and rejoin the map.
  
• Made the up left and up right attacks significantly horizontal to make them more unique and distinct from the overhead. Also decreased the damage penalty for hitting with the late part of those swings so that they are more draggable. One of the passives I plan to add will be a cleave which will focus on those two swings.
  
• Updated the claw lizard animations to use the new system that the sword fighters use and fixed a bug both with their AI and their kick animation
  
• Updated the player kick animation to raise your foot a bit higher and make it a bit more draggable but also slightly slower
  
• Made the lost soul at the end of the tutorial charge his attacks for longer so new players have more time to visually see which way to block
  
• Redid the look and feel of the kata grounds map to be more performant while also not looking more consistent on low quality and matching the rest of the game a bit better
  

Alpha 0.3.36 has been released and includes a major overhaul to the camera setup and first person mesh which allows for a higher FoV (with Panini transforms to counteract distortion), and better visibility. In addition, this update has a new WASD based direction input system, definitely check it out and give feedback!

Here is a summary of the patch notes, for full details join us on discord.

• Changed the location of the camera so that you can see a bit more of your arms / shoulders / sword while charging a swing / blocking / etc to give more visual clarity
  
• Redid the first person mesh
  
• Switched the default sword to a katana, redid the "longsword" that was the previous default, and added the capability to switch between swords. Katana's should handle hit less as they have a much smaller cross guard, but they have slightly shorter range.
  
• For testing purposes, in freeform only you can do "/weapon katana" or "/weapon longsword" to switch between the two
  
• Made some small changes to the idle right, down right block, and overhead swing animations
  
• Made a more significant change to the stab animation so that you can see your sword while charging it
  
• Changed the default FoV to 110, increased the max FOV to 130. Not that UE5, and Swordai tend to refer to horizontal FoV while Mordhau's FoV number refers to vertical FoV. The exact correspondence between the two varies with aspect ratio but on a regular wide screen monitor, 130 horizontal FoV = 101 Vertical FoV and 110 maps to 78 (https://themetalmuncher.github.io/fov-calc/). If your FoV was at the default 90 before it will automatically go to 110 when you update, otherwise it will stay at whatever you set it at, but I encourage everyone to try values at 100+
  
• Added a new post processing effect that attempts to invert the "fishbowl" effect that you get at high FoV. This is on by default but can be turned off/on under experimental settings in the mouse settings mneu
  
• Added the option to use WASD controls for blocks only, attacks only, both or neither. Also made it so that if you are using WASD controls for both, the direction indicator now appears and updates as you move
  
• Fixed a UI bug with the buff / debuf display where icons were showing at different sizes
  
• The chat window now auto hides / collapses based on feedback from @Mack and @Chastokol There is now a damage notification that pops up a bit below the center of your screen.
  
• Some visual updates to Freeform to further performance test some of the stuff
  
• A bunch of behind the scenes work on soulwar
  

Alpha 0.3.33 has been released and includes a new map called Memories which teaches the fundamentals of Riposting, Fienting, Kicking, Comboing, Kiai's, maximizing damage output with head shots and swing sweet spots, and more!

The map includes a variety of enemies, kata ball challenges, and a fairly difficult boss fight.

And here is a summary of the patch notes, for full details join us on discord.

• Released the new tutorial, if you go to Learn from the main menu there are now two parts. The 2nd part teaches fienting, riposting, kicking, comboing, kiai, dodge, etc.
  
• Redid the look and feel of the beginnings map
  
• Tweaked many of the animations to look nicer and to make the swing sweet spots more consistent
  
• Improved the way the AI handles non 1v1 scenarios. It is more aggressive about engaging opponents who are fighting someone else.
  
• Added client side prediction and ping normalization to the combo window
  
• Made it so you can't combo off of handle hits
  
• Made it so the flinch animation doesn't trigger if you get hit while riposting
  
• Added keybinds for all attack directions in settings -> controls -> keys. Note that the first time you set them up, it will mess up your existing bindings, after than it should be fine (sorry about that)
  
• Fixed a pretty a bug with the hit detection that would occur in rare cases where your opponent was blocking the wrong way and you hit them near their sword.
  
• Fixed a bug with the Initiate Duelist achievement, it now works.
  
• Added a setting to change the transparency of the crosshair
  
• Added an indicator that shows when you can riposte so you can see exactly when the riposte window times out.
  
• Fixed a bug where when the AI would swing and hit a door rather than the player it would get confused and stop fighting
  
• Added a /ping command to the chat that will show your ping
  

Alpha 0.3.23 has been released and includes a new character models and a redesign of the freeform map.

Here is a quick look at a duel on the new map:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And here is a summary of the patch notes, for full details join us on discord.

• Skinned the main character and change him to use the same skeleton as the NPCs so that I am only managing one set of animations for the time being.
  
• Decorated the freeform map, its no longer empty, but should still have very good FPS on low
  
• Added clothing sounds (so your clothes rustle a bit when you wind up a swing, take a swing and move)
  
• Fixed a bug with the music volume setting where it would incorrectly disable music
  
• Freeform now defaults you into pure when you drop down to the lower level but you can remove it with /remove pure
  
• There is now a music volume slider in the audio settings by request from @Mack , I had to manually tag each music file as music for it to work and I missed the kata/challenge of mists song, that will be fixed next update.
  
• Fixed a bug with the animations when fienting that was hard to notice at low latency but should make everything more smooth
  
• Very slightly increased the player collision capsule that blocks movement so that you can't facehug quite so tightly
  
• Changed the footstep sound
  [
• }WASD now all move relative to your camera angle rather than your foot position
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause camera jitter when you got kicked
  
• More QoL, UI customization options