Swordai News

[p][/p][p]Huge thanks to everyone who tried the game this playtest. It was awesome to hop on and fight with you all. Had a blast in duels, 3v3s and getting stream sniped with Firebox in the tower by players hunting my bounty. [/p][p]Counting only new players who hadn't launched the game before this playtest, there were over 10,000 tower runs, over 100K PvE kills, 30 million online damage dealt by players, 16K PvP kills and 34k chests looted. [/p][p]Several gold nametags were claimed by, @GK (won two categories), @HotsaucE who already had one, @Cable, a guy with a blank name who probably needs to dm me if he wants the reward, and @☣ZomBiE. I will award the name tags and sort that out the chests winner late this week.[/p][p][/p][p]Anyone who has access to the playtest is welcome to keep playing, servers aren't always up inbetween playtests but there is probably roughly 90% uptime, details are here: [/p][p]https://discord.com/channels/1139642147356811465/1176902764232720424/1396693288073035810[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I will plan on updating the short term roadmap and making a video or something sharing my thoughts and takeaways either towards the end of this week or early next.[/p][p][/p][p]Truly grateful to everyone who gave the game a chance. Super excited to keep on building.[/p]

[p]Join us this weekend (July 17-21) for Swordai playtest 6 and battle the upgraded Flame Acolytes, experience the new Endboss, duel Elder Xun, fight the updated Puppeteer, take the new Combat Trial, and much more.[/p][p][/p][p]Playtest 6 features everything from major QoL improvements, control improvements, optimization work to new enemies, new abilities, and new quests. The playtest will only run for 4 days so don't miss it![/p][p][/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[p][/p][p]Playtest 6 will start on 7/17/2025 and features a ton of improvements based on your feedback and new content. [/p]

• [p]There is a new End boss with a massive persistent health pool (per region eg. NA/EU/ASIA). When a region defeats him, players who dealt damage to him will get special rewards based on their damage contribution.[/p]
• [p]A new "Combat Trial" has been added to the entrance, test your skills on the official leaderboards.[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p]

• [p]Entrance redesign. Cultivation and ability crafting are now accessible in the tower entrance along with katas, the combat trial and other training modes. There are also new NPCs to duel.[/p]

[p][/p]

• [p]QoL and control improvements. Based on feedback from Playtest 5, I put a lot of work into the angle before click controls, fixed some bugs related to the turn cap and made dozens of other little tweaks to make the game feel smoother and more responsive. [/p]
• [p]Tutorial rework. The tutorial has been significantly expanded and improved to better teach the core combat system[/p]
• [p]AI improvements. In addition the the new end boss AI, all of the npcs have gotten a bit of an upgrade. You can see a sneak peak of the boss AI as it was being developed here:[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• [p]And much more, see discord for full patch notes.[/p]

[h3]Major Updates and New Features[/h3]
This patch contains all the new features for playtest 5 which starts on 4/30/2025. Between now and then I will just be working on bug fixes and QoL.

Bosses: There are two new bosses, the Basalt Golem in the tier 1 area and the Ice Wraith in the tier 2 area.



Swords: You can now loot unique swords by killing enemies or looting chests. There are different types of swords (claymores, longswords, etc) and within each type there are randomized stats (damage, charge speed, swing speed, etc). The swords have a chance to have an "Awakened" property and can be upgraded.

Awakening swords is something you do within a single tower climb, each run your sword starts unawakened and you can stack its awakened buff by doing a specific thing. Some swords awaken by killing other players, or claiming blessings, or looting chests, etc.

To upgrade your weapon you will need to kill enough monsters with it to fully charge it with essence. Then take it to an upgrade table and supply the required materials and it will get a random buff.



Reconnect: If you disconnect your character will now stay where they are in game and you can reconnect. Having your internet connection go out will no longer mean losing all your loot.

The meta loadout: After extensive dueling with Lome I think we are both of the opinion that the meta loadout for this playtest will use Winter's Chill and Shatter to provide slows, Wrath for its overall combat power, mist step in the dodge slot, and Disrupting Kiai, along with the standard Kick and Combo-parry. You can see a us dueling with that build here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Misc: There are tons of other new things to check out such as, a new ore type (glacial ore) the ice cave now has 6 blessing shrines and is (slightly) easier to navigate, lots of AI and performance tweaks, a bunch of QoL and bug fixes, etc.

I can't wait to play with you all next week!

[h3]Major Updates and New Features[/h3]
A pretty substantial update today containing some significant progress on items and loot as well as some performance optimization and an engine update to UE 5.5. Because of the engine update the download for this patch will be big as most of the files change.

Amulets: Introduced a new gear item, amulets, which give a damage absorbing shield that recharges rapidly when out of combat.



Selling: You can now sell items to the sect quartermaster.



Trading: You can now trade with other players



Sword Kill Tracking: Swords now track how many enemies they have killed. In the future this will tie into the system for upgrading them.



DLSS 4: Added DLSS 4 and multi-framegen support



Optimization: Did a fair amount of optimization work. Also added toggle for many performance effecting features as well as 240 and 360 fps cap options.



Combo Feint: You can now hit feint during the combo window and stop your attack at that point.
Tutorial Flask: The Lost Soul in "Beginnings" now drops a simple flask the first time you kill him. For existing players that have killed him before, he will appear to drop two flasks but only one will be stashed. For anyone killing him for the first time everything will work as expected.

Thanks as always for all the feedback, particularly on the performance related items. It is invaluable—thank you for being an integral part of this journey! Stay tuned for the next update.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321890/Swordai/