Blade & Sorcery News

I've waited many months to type these words so I'm gonna enjoy it... HELLO MATES, The Baron here and you know what that means... I have the pleasure of telling you that the long awaited U8.4 is now available as an opt in beta. ːpraisesunː

[h3]What is this update, and why did it take so long if it is not a full update?[/h3]
This is the critical performance patch. As many of you have experienced, U8 had some performance issues tied into how the characters spawned, causing things like lag spikes, cpu strain, poor performance, etc. Issues arose because B&S grew outgrew the original simple concept from back when the game was first conceived, but as a result KospY and team found they had reached the limit of optimization with that original character framework, meaning there was no possibility of improving performance any further unless they went and redid the whole thing. They went and redid the whole thing. ːsteamsunnyː

It took many months, but the Warpfrog team have redone the entire character system and it is now much, much better for performance.

[h3]So where is U9?[/h3]
It is underway! Work will continue on 8.X, but rest assured there are other Warpfrog team members working on U9+ and will continue to do so. The team is broken into different specialties so even if coders are rolling out 8.X patches and fixes, other team members are working simultaneously on future aspects of the game. There is lots of juicy U9 stuff to talk about, but we elected not to on the basis that it might have upset some people to hear about cool upcoming U9 stuff when they were still struggling to play U8, even though work was happening simultaneously. So we decided that when U8.4 is all squared away, then we will get into U9 news cycles. ːwftogrinː

Do note, the roadmap for U9 has changed and gotten bigger and more complex so that throws the current roadmap out of whack. The very loose, pinch of salt, don't take my word for it, non-committed ballpark is Q1 or Q2 2021. The roadmap will be updated in the near future so keep an eye out for that is now updated.

This 8.4 patch was a huge, huge hurdle for KospY and team, as without the redo performance issues would have plagued the game indefinitely, making future things like the Dungeons Expansion unenjoyable if not downright impossible. So it surely took a while, but hopefully you all agree this was worth the time and effort in the big picture.

[h3]What to expect from this beta[/h3]
BUGS. As mentioned, the entire character system was rebuilt from scratch, meaning literally everything related to the characters had to be redone, from adding back in kick and dismemberment to configuring animations. As such, damn near everything is a bug risk and you will surely find a bug which you can report on the discord if you wanna help out. You will also likely roll across missing content that is in the process of being re-added.

This patch was all coding changes (other than a few goodies KospY threw in), so on the player side you will mostly see nothing different; but you should feel the difference.

So since this is not the full release, only the beta, the question for you is: Should I opt into the beta?

[h3]You should not opt into the beta if[/h3]
- Bugs make you stressed or sad.
- You wanna keep using mods (8.4 will break mods until modders have a chance to update).
- It annoys you to have missing features (blood decals need to be re-added, character customization is incomplete, etc, etc).
- You don't care about performance issues in U8.

[h3]You should opt into the beta if[/h3]
- You don't mind WIP things and are just curious to see how it's going.
- You wanna help the Warpfrog team by finding and logging bugs.
- You wanna help by testing performance on your system and then giving a performance log (discord is best for submitting).

To opt into the beta on Steam, go to the game properties > beta and type the code Upd84betaPlease. Update: No code is needed anymore! It is even easier now, you will see the beta in the dropdown that 8.4 beta is an option and when you select it the game will update. REMOVE YOUR MODS! Your mods won't work, and I also recommend you clean your save file so your game is fresh by deleting the folder located at Documents/mygames/BladeAndSorcery. (100% do this if your game wont load) I'm bracing myself for the floods of 'cant get the beta working' threads because of mods. ːsteammockingː



Oculus users, you can access the beta through the menu Version and Release Notes on the Oculus Store page, not the game in your library. (counter-intuitive, I know)



The beta will end when all components of the character system are re-added and all bugs are found and squashed, at which point 8.4 will be live as an actual automatic update. And just to note - this is not the end of optimization. Further performance tweaks and optimization will always keep going for maps, etc, and that will not end until v1.0+.

Here are the patch notes - do take careful note of all the things missing. As mentioned, everything is being re-added, and there is a lot to do:

[h2]Update 8.4 (beta)[/h2]

[h3]Enhancements[/h3]

- Added new hairs and beards for male and female characters
- Added new whoosh sounds for different weapons
- Added a new control panel for the monitor view
- Added a new spectator mode that automatically follow player across levels
- Added infinite imbue debug option
- Added console search field
- Added spell wheel open/close animations
- Added an option to disable blood
- Improved feet placement while climbing
- Improved armor detection precision
- Hitting the arm while grabbing it will disarm the NPC
- Added new hit sound when the head collide
- Integrated ragdoll joints values from Ragdoll Physics Overhaul mod. Big thanks to Sketchcritic for allowing us to use his work :)
- Misc options changes

[h3]Performance optimizations[/h3]

- New optimized character & creature system (no spawn lag anymore, improved performance, LOD...)
- Optimized ragdoll performance
- Improved memory management
- Reworked and optimized dismemberment system
- Reworked and optimized armor hit detection
- Added an option to reduce physic accuracy
- Added an option to reduce texture quality

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

- Fixed mage hood visible from first person view
- Fixed an issue causing character to broke when customizing a character with specific weapons
- Fixed player head probe lightning issue
- Reduced player character idle movements
- Updated Unity to 2019.4.12 LTS

[h3]Modding[/h3]

- Assets bundle management is now using addressable
- Enum are now serialized as string in JSON files
- Simplified serialization of quaternion, vector2Int, vector3Int and layer mask in JSON files
- Misc JSON changes

Hello folks, we just released update 8.3 which includes another slew of bugfixes and performance optimizations. However, in terms of further optimization, we unfortunately have reached a dead end with the current third party character system ːsteamsadː
The current character system was an acceptable solution for the beginning of the project, but now with the new ambition of the game we simply need to stop finding workarounds on a system that is simply not suited for our needs. So, in an effort to better optimize the NPC spawning and rendering performance, we are in fact going to redo the whole character system.

KospY and the team already started to work on a custom made prototype and the new system should drastically simplify our workflow, allow us to support non-humanoid creatures, make characters/armors/creatures moddable as well as hopefully fixing (for good!) the performance issues about characters including the dreaded lag spike on character spawns. It's too early to say if this will be a golden fix for performance, and we would be hesitant to make promises, but the theory seems really promising. This overhaul will take some time, but it is planned to be released as a "minor" update of U8.

Besides spawning lag, if you are still feeling performance issues in general even after 8.3, be sure to try all the various graphics options included in the option book, and also remember that mods may impact performance too. Also, you might have missed the following new options were added to help lower spec video cards (click to enlarge):

(atlas refers to resolution, so lower is better at the cost of graphics)

And here are some other performance tips if you are struggling (all in options book):

1. Lower render scale
   
2. Disable shadows
   
3. Disable antialiasing
   
4. Limit persistent bodies / items to 1 or 2
   
5. Reduce character quality
   
6. Enable fast gen
   
7. Play on Arena map
   
8. Remove mods causing performance issues (check possible console errors spamming with F8)
   

In other news the game Store pages are finally getting a long-overdue makeover since the screenshots and information are dramatically out of date! Our concept artist also did a brilliant job by reworking our store cover ːsteamhappyː

Below the full resolution images if anyone would like it as a wallpaper (with and without logo):
https://imgur.com/7wdaX7R
https://imgur.com/2WeUJcy

Thanks for your amazing support and stay safe!

Cheers!
Baron, KospY and the Team


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[h2]Enhancements[/h2]

• Screenshots are now saved to a smaller format (JPG, can be changed in game.json)
  
• Added metal footstep audio
  
• Added death audio
  
• Added focus depleted audio
  
• Added a debug option to disable armor detection on NPC (increase spawning performance)
  
• Added an option to enable/disable character expression (decrease performance)
  
• Added whoosh audio to fire imbue
  
• Added haptic to imbue whoosh and spell charge
  

[h2]Performance optimizations[/h2]

• Optimized character texture sampling
  
• Optimized armor hit detection
  
• Misc optimizations
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Added missing handle orientations on bucklers
  
• Fixed feet tracking not working correctly
  
• Fixed a shadow issue on characters
  
• Fixed weapons on ground not being cleaned when level change
  
• Fixed dropped bows not being auto-cleaned while in combat
  
• Fixed NPC sometimes not dying when dismembered
  
• Fixed HDR colors on screenshots
  
• Fixed imbue issue with the small buckler
  
• Fixed medium shield handle issue when swapping hands
  
• Fixed left wrist stats position on female character
  
• Fixed male/female ratio option not working
  
• Fixed NPC pickup animation issue
  
• Fixed female ragdoll joint limits issue
  
• Fixed missing inner mouth on one of the male face
  
• Prevent NPC to come and go when looking for weapon
  
• Fixed slicing damage not being correctly applied
  
• Fixed dual blade staff imbue acting on both blades
  
• Fixed a misconfiguration preventing some shields to be pierced
  
• Fixed fireball and lightning decals not showing on shields and props
  
• Fixed reloadjson command not working
  
• Fixed wrong damager icons on item spawner
  
• Fixed flanged mace imbue flickering
  
• Fixed bow and wrist blade imbue animation issue
  
• Fixed archers missing their first shoot too much
  
• Fixed water splash effect
  
• Fixed arena flags rendering issue
  
• Fixed staff not accelerating spell charge speed
  
• Fixed missing audio when shooting fireballs from fire imbued staff
  
• Fixed fire imbued staff not consuming imbue energy when shooting fireballs
  
• Updated Unity to 2019.4.1 (may fix some crashes)
  
• Misc error fixes
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]

• Added an option "allowDecals" on items. This option is disabled by default to avoid some imbue issue related to the shader conversion and missing variants
  
• Merged "creatureID" and "creatureTableID" in creature table and wave JSON to an unique field "referenceID"
  
• Merged "itemID" and "lootTableID" in container and loot table JSON to an unique field "referenceID", allowing JSON mods to append any existing container and/or loot table ("referenceID" being the JSON merge key)
  
• PlayerDefault container spells and apparels will now be loaded each time the game start (should be useful for mods adding spells or changing player outfit, as you simply need to override this JSON)
  
• Fixed custom holderSlot not working correctly
  

Hello, folks! The following is from KospY himself:


Following the release of U8, we are working hard to fix the performance issues and bugs.
We are happy to announce that today with the 8.2 patch, most major issues should have been fixed,
and performance should be back to around how it was in U7.

Obviously it will not be the last patch for U8 as there is still many issues to fix (see known issues at the bottom). We will continue to work on U8 for some time to bring more performance improvements, fixes and even some minor content.

Thanks to everyone for their patience while we were working on fixes. U8 was an huge update and a pretty major challenge, such an update for an early access game is not something common, and we hope the majority will be happy of all the changes ːsteamhappyː


You will find below the changelog of update 8.2 (as well as 8.1!)



Features / Enhancements

- Added female version of the "gladiator" armor
- Improved gravity & TK push effect
- New punch sounds


Performance optimizations

- Optimized NPC spawning performance
- Enabled incremental GC
- Fixed point cache generator not disposing correctly
- Added new character quality options for performance testing / low-end computers
- Misc performance enhancements

Fixes

- Fixed game parameters not saving correctly
- Fixed character customization not saving correctly
- Fixed an issue preventing U7 save file to load (infinite loading)
- Fixed an issue with characters being merged between male and female
- Fixed mirror light not lightning player head
- Fixed some wave issues
- Fixed wrong axe penetration effect
- Fixed characters not moving their mouth when speaking
- Fixed missing colliders in Arena
- Fixed fireball telekinesis highlighter showing on hit objects
- Fixed characters getting their mouth deformed after switching gender in the character selection screen
- Fixed player hand animation being way too fast (climbing fix)
- Adjusted male hand pose and fingers colliders for climbing
- Fixed a climbing collision issue with locomotion
- Fixed gender not refreshing correctly in character selection
- Fixed female pose in character selection scene
- Fixed debug collision marker
- Fixed arena and ruins spikes
- Fixed tree spikes on Citadel
- Fixed magic staves not regaining imbue energy
- Fixed music not looping in the character selection scene
- Fixed dummy head material being wood instead of fabric in the home
- Fixed light probe not taking into account directional light (dark area should lit objects better)
- Fixed baguette sword holster
- Fixed harmless warnings in the log to avoid clutter and wrong diagnostic
- Updated to Unity 2019.4 LTS (may resolve some crashes)




Features / Enhancement

- New "Gladiator" armor for NPC (male only)

Performance optimizations

- Fixed a performance issue with UI
- Reduced general CPU usage
- Fixed a Oculus only issue causing performance drop when both controllers are vibrating
- Market: Optimized terrain, trees and disabled grass
- Optimized terrain on Arena and Canyon
- Heavily reduced draw calls on Citadel
- Reduced CPU usage on Citadel
- Improved locomotion CPU usage
- Fixed wrist stats CPU spike when shown
- UI auto disable when the player is far
- Temporary disabled face expression causing a performance issue
- Reduced default shadow distance and max number of corpses
- Improved staff gravity shockwave performance
- Misc performance enhancement

Tweaks

- Reworked waves
- Added fabric physic material
- Minor weapon visual tweaks
- Increased imbue duration and reduced hit drain
- Tweaked some collision sound and effects
- Axe imbued with fire can now pierce metal and stone (like daggers)

Fixes

- Fixed broken waves
- Fixed wrong effect when pierce is done by pressure
- Fixed slicing texture being randomly invisible
- Fixed physic rope material missing
- Fixed missing cursor in character selection screen and death sequence
- Fixed spell menu not closing when hovering holster
- Fixed spell continuing charging if we press grip
- Temporarily removed axis highlighter as it was buggy
- Fixed wrist stats missing on left arm (male only)
- Fixed NPC using two weapons at the same time
- Fixed some NPC navigation issues on Market and Canyon
- Fixed an inaccuracy issue with material detection on NPC
- Fixed some warnings in the log
- Fixed fabric bleeding blood on pierce




- Some amd GPU seem to cause double vision (RX 5XX more specifically), rolling back from an older driver may fix the issue
- Face expression are missing
- Beheading sometimes not kill the NPC
- Left wrist menu with the female character is wrong
- Archers has some animation and shooting accuracy issues
- Picking weapon animation for NPC is wrong
- Wrong grab position on female ragdoll
- Female ragdoll joint limits are wrong, causing some animation and ragdoll issues
- Particles can't be seen in the mirror
- Male/Female ratio slider is not working
- Full body tracking don't work (foot rotation is wrong)
- Water splash is not working correctly



- More hairs, beards and faces options for male and female characters
- New blood decals
- New/cleaner dismemberment
- Spell menu animations
- Spell sub menus (more than 10 spells, for modding)

Hi everyone!!

Update 8 is now released!

First, I wanted to thanks everyone for their wonderful support during this Early Access, it's a really great thing and such a good motivation for me and everyone in the team!

So U8 is now out and you can play right now! It's a major milestone for B&S as the game now feature all the main combat mechanics planned : spells and armors, allowing us to work on the next steps for the game, player progression and dungeon!

But, our focus should still be on U8 during the next coming weeks as we plan to work on minor updates to implement some missing features as well as working on bug fixing.
We are aware that there is some performance issues on U8 and we advise everyone having problem with this to roll back to U7 (using the steam beta tab) while this is being investigated. We really want the game to run as smoothly as possible on different configuration and we will do our best in the next coming days to better optimize this.

Below you will find the full changelog with some gif of the new U8 features :)

- New spells: Fire and Gravity










- New map: Citadel




- New characters design
- Added armors support to NPC




- Added hit material detection on characters, allowing different behavior and protection for flesh/clothes, leather, chainmail and plate

- Replaced models and textures of bow, quiver, arrows and large shield

- Added magic staves




- Lightning spell rework for consistency with other spells, improved vfx and audio

- Added the possibility to select a spell and imbue the closest blade while holding a weapon (enabled for bow and wrist blade)






- Wrist stats and spell menu overhaul

- NPC are now able to throw fireballs and use gravity to push their opponents



- New cast and throw animation for NPC
- Spell merging and staff shockwave only work with Gravity (other spells will come later)




- Added the possibility to deflect a fireball with some weapons



- Spells sound effects overhaul
- GPU painted blood decals on bodies
- Player fall damage (can be disabled from the debug menu)
- Blood decals overhaul



- Added motion blur option to spectator mode
- Game can now run without any headset (spectator mode only)
- Added new console commands: "SpawnCreature", "SpawnCreatureTable", "GetCreatureTable", "SetPlayerFaction", "ToggleBookMenu" and "SetTimeScale" (type "help" in the console for more details)
- Added 4K screenshot support to spectator mode
- Updated Unity to 2019.3.14f (LWRP is now URP)

- Physic materials and collision system overhaul
- New effect system for sounds, VFX, particles, decals and painting, improved performance
- New slow motion sound effects
- Lightning bolts performance enhancements
- Added more physic props to environments
- Improved Market map
- Changed stereo rendering mode from single pass to single pass instanced (better performance)
- Added damage relative to penetration depth
- Added penetration using pressure
- Improved hit detection
- Improved accuracy of penetration position
- Flesh is now easier to penetrate with a blade
- Improved item throwing flying rotation
- Improved player body hips position
- Added Early Access text to spectator mode
- Reworked knockout logic
- Increased player view distance
- Misc performance optimizations

- Fixed collision detection inconsistencies
- Fixed light probes not working correctly
- Fixed lights flickering in some situations
- Fixed bow not shooting arrows in a straight line
- Fixed arrow rotation when nocked
- Fixed spectator camera not changing from first person view to third person
- Fixed spectator click after loading a level
- Opening console locks keyboard spectator commands

- Gladiator armor (for the arena)
- New blood decals
- New/cleaner dismemberment
- Spell menu animations
- Spell sub menus (more than 10 spells, for modding)

Hello folks! The Baron here and I did tell you the next time you heard from me would be with trailer news and a U8 release date, so here we go!

The U8 Trailer will premiere on Tue May 26th at 9am PST on The Baron Reviews:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You'll have to figure out that time for your own timezone, or set a reminder.

U8 "The Sorcery Update" will be available to Steam and Oculus players on June 4th, the extra time being unfortunately unavoidable for critical bugfixing. But its only a few days and we reckon it will be worth the wait. ːsteamhappyː

So now that there is a date, and soon a trailer, hopefully it will make the wait a little more bearable. Hope you all can attend the premiere, and the big man KospY will be there himself, so be sure to say hello!

Cheers!