U8 News: Armor
Hello folks! The Baron here with a little bit of U8 news for you, and today we are talking about Armour!
First up, here is the overview: Armour (player and AI) will be tiered and modular. The categories are cloth, leather and plate (metal), and within those categories you have tiers suggesting just how protected the person will be. For example, here is a comparison of the male Leather T1 vs Leather T2.
And a little bonus, here is little peek at the concept art design for Female Leather T1 and Male Plate T2.
The big unique factor about armour in B&S is that KospY wants to avoid "gamey" mechanics, most notably that in 99% of games when you see an armoured enemy, you can assume he is just some tougher guy with more HP. Well in B&S armour does not mean extra HP; it means armour, lol. Enemy are still as vulnerable as ever, IF you can get around their armour. Depending on the category and tier, some weapons may penetrate (leather, e.g.), but if the enemy is wearing something like plate, then the player will have to use new tactics to overcome them; using magic to sear a hot blade that can slice through metal, utilizing the environment, breaking out the blunt weapons or using finesse to stab between the vulnerable gaps in the armour.
What's interesting about all this is that if you are a gamer for your whole life like myself you will relate that our whole lives we have been conditioned to think about armoured enemy as HP sponges that generally just require grind. But what if you came across a boss character in full metal who could be killed with a single dagger to the exposed neck? This is a real mechanic game-changer and I think it will require gamers to rewire their thinking to break the conditioning of traditional games. But if any game were to pioneer this then it makes sense for it to be B&S because I think VR players are a little more nuanced and open to new, game-changing ways to play video games. And then even more specifically within VR community, the B&S fanbase who had an open mind towards B&S' alien combat system that utilized physics based melee.
So the great news is Kospy was cranking away the last few weeks and has actually now finished working on the armour collision system! And best of all, he says the hitboxes are pretty precise and he is happy with them. Knowing KospY as a perfectionist, I know that if he is happy then I think that translates into it is gonna be awesome. He reworked all the collision and materials logic, so now there is stuff like dynamic damage by penetration depth, and maximum penetration depth relative to materials. This new system inherently means we will have a super cool non-roadmap, but very long requested feature: being able to push a blade into flesh without a windup! Yes you heard that correctly but let me say it again just so it sinks in: stabbing is now achieved by applying pressure!! This is such a huge fan wishlist request and was only possible thanks to the penetration rework. So related to armour, while a blade will easily push into flesh, it will not easily push into leather, and that's where force would come into it in order to break through the armour layer.
Going along with new armour we will also be getting new models! It has long been the desire to move away from Unity store assets in favour home something homemade that will be more fitting than discount kanye west and bald lady #1, so after a year of slaughtering the same gormless faces, the new models will surely be a breath of fresh air. Here is a sneak peek at the base mesh model (i.e. a "naked" enemy with no armour equiped)
That's all the news for now, folks! Non U8 related, KospY is in the final stages of taking on 3 fulltime employees with intent for them to get a headstart on "Dungeons" and make sure B&S hits its EA to 1.0 release date goals. Hopefully WarpFrog will be settled into their nice new office soon. Office pictures to come when they are all set up!
First up, here is the overview: Armour (player and AI) will be tiered and modular. The categories are cloth, leather and plate (metal), and within those categories you have tiers suggesting just how protected the person will be. For example, here is a comparison of the male Leather T1 vs Leather T2.
And a little bonus, here is little peek at the concept art design for Female Leather T1 and Male Plate T2.
The big unique factor about armour in B&S is that KospY wants to avoid "gamey" mechanics, most notably that in 99% of games when you see an armoured enemy, you can assume he is just some tougher guy with more HP. Well in B&S armour does not mean extra HP; it means armour, lol. Enemy are still as vulnerable as ever, IF you can get around their armour. Depending on the category and tier, some weapons may penetrate (leather, e.g.), but if the enemy is wearing something like plate, then the player will have to use new tactics to overcome them; using magic to sear a hot blade that can slice through metal, utilizing the environment, breaking out the blunt weapons or using finesse to stab between the vulnerable gaps in the armour.
What's interesting about all this is that if you are a gamer for your whole life like myself you will relate that our whole lives we have been conditioned to think about armoured enemy as HP sponges that generally just require grind. But what if you came across a boss character in full metal who could be killed with a single dagger to the exposed neck? This is a real mechanic game-changer and I think it will require gamers to rewire their thinking to break the conditioning of traditional games. But if any game were to pioneer this then it makes sense for it to be B&S because I think VR players are a little more nuanced and open to new, game-changing ways to play video games. And then even more specifically within VR community, the B&S fanbase who had an open mind towards B&S' alien combat system that utilized physics based melee.
So the great news is Kospy was cranking away the last few weeks and has actually now finished working on the armour collision system! And best of all, he says the hitboxes are pretty precise and he is happy with them. Knowing KospY as a perfectionist, I know that if he is happy then I think that translates into it is gonna be awesome. He reworked all the collision and materials logic, so now there is stuff like dynamic damage by penetration depth, and maximum penetration depth relative to materials. This new system inherently means we will have a super cool non-roadmap, but very long requested feature: being able to push a blade into flesh without a windup! Yes you heard that correctly but let me say it again just so it sinks in: stabbing is now achieved by applying pressure!! This is such a huge fan wishlist request and was only possible thanks to the penetration rework. So related to armour, while a blade will easily push into flesh, it will not easily push into leather, and that's where force would come into it in order to break through the armour layer.
Going along with new armour we will also be getting new models! It has long been the desire to move away from Unity store assets in favour home something homemade that will be more fitting than discount kanye west and bald lady #1, so after a year of slaughtering the same gormless faces, the new models will surely be a breath of fresh air. Here is a sneak peek at the base mesh model (i.e. a "naked" enemy with no armour equiped)
That's all the news for now, folks! Non U8 related, KospY is in the final stages of taking on 3 fulltime employees with intent for them to get a headstart on "Dungeons" and make sure B&S hits its EA to 1.0 release date goals. Hopefully WarpFrog will be settled into their nice new office soon. Office pictures to come when they are all set up!
