Swordai News

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
  

Alpha 0.3.20 has been released and includes a ton of feature requests and UI polish driven by community feedback. It also includes a new NA East dedicated server that has decent ping for EU players and the new server will be used to host the 1v1 tournament.

Join the alpha and hop on discord to participate in the first 1v1 tournament on December 9th at 10:30AM PT.

Participants will join the "Duels" map which features Duel Climb mode where players fight 1v1 battles to ascend to higher platforms within the arena. There is no elimination and everyone is free to keep climbing for up to an hour. At 11:30am the 2 players on the highest platform (or 3 if two players are tied) will go to the Freeform map for a best of 3 final match. More details will be provided on discord.

Along with the new server, patches 0.3.13 - 0.3.20 include a ton of improvements to the game, some of the highlights include:

• A ton of tweaks to the controls and inputs to add more customization and to smooth things out (reduce lockout, input buffering, better performance, etc).
  
• Added a block trainer to freefrom that will spam attacks at you based on settings that you choose (attack directions to use, attack speed, whether you alternate attacks or randomize, etc). Eventually this will be part of the second phase of the tutorial but for now its just in freeform (you can play offline or on the server if you want to practice with ping)
  
• Added a fountain to freeform to heal you between duels
  
• Added a new type of NPC to Duel climb, the "Novice swordsman" so that there is an easier opponent for new players, based on feedback that even winning a single match was very hard. They always lose to the other NPCs so you are almost guaranteed to get one for your first match (if playing on the server).
  
• Added mouse settings for inverted camera movement and sensitivity
  
• Added keybindings for Kick, Emote, Kiai, Dodge, and Kata Reset (they first time you set them it may clear out some existing settings)
  
• Added an emote menu with two flourishes and two taunts, default keybind is X
  
• Added the ability to use number keys to interact with the radial menus (so you can emote with x1 to flourish)
  
• A reset key for katas so you can instantly restart your current kata if you make an error
  
• You can now start to input a new attack during the windup phase of a previous attack without hitting feint, so you can riposte -> feint up -> stab with block -> drag LMB up release, immediately drag LMB down release
  
• Kicks no longer have a recovery period after you hit your target, so if you kick and stagger someone and miss the combo window you can still start a swing immediately
  
• Changed the dodge ability timings a bit to make it significantly more responsive, play around with it and let me know what you think. As before you can dodge during your combo window. The main changes are initiating the movement faster and reducing the recovery period at the end.
  

For a complete list see our discord: https://discord.gg/YyYnKn9dVP

Alpha 0.3.12 has been released and includes a new multiplayer team fight game mode called Soulwar, complete with destructible spawn points, towers, new abilities, unique buffs and more.

Join the alpha and hop on discord to participate in the fist Soulwar on November 25th at 2:30PM PT.

Along with the launch of Soulwar this patch contains a lot of other improvements, see the full release notes below:

• Added the soul war game mode, it is a multiplayer map with towers, destructible spawn points, unique buffs / abilities, etc. If you're up for helping me test it out, I've scheduled the first round of playtesting here.
  
• You can now block or feint during the windup phase (even if you have buffered the release action) and you can feint during early release (either with right click or with the feint key). The timing window on being able to feint after a swing release is quite tight but it should be normalized to work even with moderate ping.
  
• Added an on screen alert if you try and do something but cannot due to a lack of stamina so it is more clear when that happens.
  
• Freeform mode now lets you set your team color with /team red. You can set your color to red, green or blue, everyone defaults to red
  
• Clicking away from the chat window now automatically closes it so that you can get confused by having your mouse input blocked until you exit chat
  
• Fixed a bug with respawning when multiple players die within a short time frame
  
• Added a setting to resize the crosshair / direction indicator
  
• Fixed a bug with drag click and mouse inversion settings. Currently the drag click direction indicator will show the direction you are dragging (non-inverted) and then when you attack or block it will apply your inversion settings to that direction. This is because you may have attacks inverted but blocks not inverted or vice versa.
  
• Scoreboard now sorts by score and the visuals are updated
  
• A variety of other QoL tweaks
  

This is a smaller update, but it includes a redesign of the in game HUD, which I think is a major upgrade. I got very positive feedback on last patches improvements to the controls and the addition of drag-click mode but I will be making a few more minor tweaks to those features in the next update.

Patch Notes 10-20-2023

1. Redesigned the look and feel of the UI
   
2. Added an audio cue and visual effect to the orbs when your attack charge hits the required threshold
   
3. Added the decoration for the kata of the burning sands
   
4. Added the background visuals for the kata training map
   
5. Fixed some bugs with katas and challenges in multiplayer when people would quit in the middle of a run
   
6. Reduced the stamina usage for kicking
   

See below for the full patch notes and join us on discord to discuss the latest patch.

You can also see the new dynamic difficulty scaling from stage one of the Initiates Challenge here: https://youtu.be/MYLIZ99BBKI

Patch Notes 10-07-2023

1. Added sensitivity settings for click drag
   
2. Added drag click
   
3. Added option to rebind feint key
   
4. Fixed some random menu bugs where hitting escape didn't always do what one would expect
   
5. Made the blocking instructions during the tutorial more dynamic
   
6. Smoothed out collission on the wooden bridge in the challenge hub area and fixed the collision on the stone pillars by the challenge of Lava
   
7. Added a stamina check point to the kata of burning sands and changed the time requirements for the higher grades accordingly
   
8. Made all of the katas D and E grade requirements easier
   
9. Added essence rewards for the first time hitting a new best grade to the kata of burning sands and reset best scores
   
10. Made the kata song system use the same code as the tutorial which plays music more smoothly
    
11. Made the orbs have long swords so that their swing length is more directly comparable to a players
    
12. Made the skill icons on the cultivation tree have bigger buttons
    
13. Added support for running dedicated servers hosting the training modes, I need to do some server maintenance to launch the server side component of that, expecting to have servers for those up and running sometime tomorrow
    
14. Restored DLSS support
    
15. Added input buffering so if you release your mouse button while dragging to pick a swing direction, it buffers the mouse release and swings as soon as your direction is set
    
16. Maybe fixed a bug where you would sometimes see inactive floating NPCS is bloodbath
    
17. Changed the duel climb max match time to 2 minutes
    
18. Upgraded to UE 5.3 which means the game can use machine learning stuff (https://youtu.be/NwYUNlFvajQ?si=vS8Cw2ijJs7-1oSK) but unfortunately means DLSS is disabled for now
    
19. Added a tutorial and a new challenge
    
20. Added a new mostly empty map for P2P team fights / practicing / whatever
    
21. Fair amount of Optimization
    
22. Hid or fixed everything in the menus that was place holder, if you see it in the game it should work flawlessly, if not report a bug
    
23. Added tracking of stats which will be used for titles that gives buffs, the stats are visible now but the titles aren't active
    
24. Major overhaul of the AI in relation to #1, it shouldn't feel too different to fight (maybe a bit harder due to bug fixes), mostly behind the scenes changes
    
25. Redid the look and feel of a lot of the menus and such, they should all look reasonably polished now (the in game UI is still rough)
    
26. Launched the steam page, https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321890/Swordai/, tell your friends to wishlist / follow, it helps me a lot. You have no idea how many different sizes and types of images and logos and such steam wants, launching a store page is a huge time sink.
    
27. Second chance is disabled, I'm going to rework it into an active ability of some kind