Blade & Sorcery News

Hello mates! The Baron here with the latest U11 news, and it's some good news! After weeks of whack-a-mole bug-squashing KospY and the Warpfrog team now have a new beta build candidate ready for testing (build 11.0.62). Although there may still be some more room for small U11 polish, we believe the worst offender and most game-breaking bugs have been crushed.

Do take note - there are a few known issues still in this build that we are gonna patch right away. We simple didn't wanna hold this release back another day or two to fix these known issues since they are small in the grand scheme of the beta. They include a visual issue in the distance of Citadel, some lighting issues in Citadel, post-process is not working (can crash your game) and loading Survival on the map is not working at the moment (loading survival will load sandbox). We will also be changing a few small bits to tutorial for full U11 release too.

Other than that, if this build works well for players this build is what U11 full release will be, with the small change of including the few fixes to issues I mentioned above. Otherwise if players uncover more unforeseen major bugs then it will return to beta and there would need to be a third beta build. Hopefully this will simply be the one though! ːotrfingerscrossedː

Many thanks to all who had contributed feedback and logged bugs in the original beta launch; it was a big help!

[h2]FULL CHANGELOG[/h2]

Update 11.0.62 BETA

[h3]Changes / Enhancements[/h3]

- Canyon level update (new water + interaction, more details, misc changes and additions)
- Small touches and lighting changes to Ruins
- Touchpad press is now used to use staff on Index controller.
- Added an option to slide with A / X on Oculus touch or touchpad press on Index (so using staves is easier by using trigger)
- Added an option to disable exertion noise when jumping
- Jump exertion noise will not play when close to enemies
- Updated character selection scene with new dungeon assets
- Changed loading music
- Added SFX to Warpfrog logo sequence
- Added a new room to Dungeon
- Each attack animation has a specified difficulty, and some attacks are filtered out of the pool for easy/medium enemies
- Creature muffle code has minor tweaks
- Improved collision performance
- Merged View and Inventory option menu to a new UI menu
- NPC eyes are better controlled now, and they continue looking at the player even when knocked down or grappled
- Improved NPC rock throw accuracy (It may still need further increasing)
- Reworked Mercenary armor materials
- Detection code has received some tweaks, and some JSON values have been adjusted. Sensitivity is still not finalized.
- Improved Armour detection performance and better thread utilization
- One-handed block poses have been updated
- Added several checkpoints along the tutorial. Dying will respawn the player to the end of the last completed area.
- Show player characters in the menu from the most recently played to the least recently played
- Improved English game text
- Game now include game version and minimum mod version directly into the game executable (will be used by Vortex)
- Added version revision, game version changed from 11.0.X to **0.**11.0.X (so change mod manifest jsons!)
- Removed the fake game.json that was used by Vortex in the default folder to avoid confusion and errors (Vortex is going to check executable instead)
- Removed mod zip preprocess
- Optimized background in Citadel
- Improved footstep detection and sounds. Both for the player and NPCs.
- Wearable pants/boots zones adjusted to make it less difficult to equip/unequip.
- Modder pdb files now loaded if available to help with modder debugging
- Fixed TK on some items
- Json file loading time improvements
- Reduce memory usage for least used particle effects
- (Modding) ItemModuleEdible/EventManager now has consume events
- Add multi-language support (no language added yet)

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

- Fixed dungeon length option on map being ignored
- Fixed Canyon not having waves
- Fixed Market item book only working halfway
- Fixed missing physics materials in home
- Fixed throwing weapons hurting the player
- Fixed mercenary left glove floating
- Fixed white lightmap artifacts in home
- Fixed Skinning Knife getting stuck in player holder
- Fixed Waist in Full body tracking
- Fixed missing stone collider on big rock in Citadel
- Fixed survival not spawning any enemies after the first wave
- Fixed an issue when you jump while grabbing a ragdoll
- Fixed `catalog_*.json` and `manifest.json` files not being ignored when loading json files
- Fixed whoosh sounds not playing on TK grabbed items from the player’s weapon rack
- Fixed Edibles not healing or adding mana/focus on consume
- Fixed some Dungeon room lighting issues
- Fixed Dungeon Plant lighting in many rooms
- Fixed edge cases where tutorial messages were not being shown or hidden, preventing the tutorial to be completed
- Fixed highlighter occasionally floating in the air after storing an item
- Fixed NPCs sprinting away from the player as soon as the player gets within grabbing distance while undetected
- Fixed NPCs jogging/tip-toeing around dungeons
- Fixed skull duplicating its jaw when stored in inventory
- Fixed Cave_12 having no colliders and making player fall off the map
- Fixed unlit mushrooms in ForgottenEntrance
- Fixed some decals and transparent elements being invisible in dungeons
- Fixed some culling issue in dungeons
- Fixed NPCs getting stuck on the gate in Watchtower
- Fixed Quiver handles
- Fixed an issue causing feet to collide with items
- Fixed some issues with the Falchion
- Fixed NPCs teleporting when thrown into spikes
- Fixed infinite jump glitch
- Fixed collision with player and missing audio when swinging on the suspended crate in Canyon
- Fixed doors not being latch locked on level start.
- Fixed fireballs and arrows not applying force on ragdoll
- Fixed ragdoll “freezing” when the NPC die
- Fixed climbing force being weak underwater
- Fixed some problems with NPCs’ eyes doing weird things.
- Fixed an issue that would cause the chicken to T-pose and not moved.
- Fixed Armour Items sometimes getting stuck to player hands.
- Fixed Soldier Gauntlet Right breaking player hands.
- Fixed Merc Shoulders not being grabbable.
- Fixed holsters preventing armour items from being equipped.
- Fixed some problems with light level calculation
- Fixed NPCs surrounding the player more than intended
- Fixed an issue causing NPC and Items to act like they are underwater in dungeon
- Fixed NPCs entering investigate or combat, but continuing idle animations
- Fixed NPCs standing still when they can’t reach the player.
- Fixed NPCs not reacting when they bump into the player without seeing them.
- Fixed NPCs not reacting when touched by a corpse or body part.
- Fixed long item names being cut in the Item Spawner book
- Fixed pickpocketing detection.
- Fixed characters not showing the correct height in the Character Selection menu
- Fixed reveal materials being initialized multiple times in a frame
- Fixed duplicate collisions each frame, reducing damage spam and duplicate effect spawning.
- Fixed jump exertion noise playing underwater
- Fixed waist tracking not updating
- Fixed infinite loading on restart level after completing the tutorial
- Fixed dll loading time in log being incorrect.
- Fixed animationControllers not being loaded on catalog refresh
- Fixed voiceData inf load when pool size is zero
- Fixed some collision issues with player for some items
- Fixed EffectModuleParticle’s life time being set incorrectly
- Fixed pooling sizes being capped too low
- Fixed the ocean killing player in ViaductZipline
- Fixed the player sometimes collapsing and completely breaking (we hope)
- Fixed ‘Dungeon Seed’ and ‘Room Name’ not being shown in the menu book debug section
- Fixed gigantic door collider in Ruins
- Fixed a lot of props being able to move player or allow player to infinite jump on when picked up
- Fixed items acting like being underwater after holstering them underwater
- Fixed several UI labels not showing the complete/correct text

Hello folks, The Baron here with the good news you have all been waiting for - KospY and the Warpfrog team have gotten U11 into a playable state that we now feel a U11 beta is possible! ːpraisesunː

Please note, the beta is a WIP and we are introducing many new system mechanics that are likely to have bugs and lacking polish around the edges; this will be the whole point of the beta.
As such, It is only recommended to opt into the beta if you are okay with having a buggy experience, or even better if you are interested in actively helping us find these bugs and contribute feedback on your experience that will help us polish.

[h2]BETA WARNING[/h2]

The beta will also break all your mods, and we wholly encourage you to not try to mod the beta to avoid frustrations. There is a good chance that every time the beta is updated (which would be likely often) all mods would break again. Avoid the heartache; if you prefer to play mods, you should stick with U10, and if you prefer to test out potentially broken new stuff you should play the beta.

If you do insist on modding despite the warnings, then please don't give feedback on the beta as this will give us a lot of false data and may needlessly extend the beta duration! For example, we could end up chasing bugs or performance reports that were actually the result of someone's mod. Thank you in advance for cooperation on this!

But if you are still interested in all this, read on!

[h3]ACCESS THE BETA ON STEAM[/h3]

1. Right click the game in your library, choose properties.
   
   
2. Navigate to the 'BETAS' tab
   
   
3. The beta will now be available from the dropdown - Choose BETA.
   
   
   
   
4. The game will now download the beta. If no update appears, try restart Steam.

[h3]ACCESS THE BETA ON OCULUS[/h3]

Remember, this beta is for B&S PCVR and not Nomad. Nomad players can find info on Reddit.

1. Navigate to the B&S PCVR Store Page on Oculus - https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/2472374902778951/
   
   
2. Scroll down the page until you get to "Additional Details" section and find "Version + Release Notes"
   
   
3. At this section you will see the current game version (should say 10.2.48 for you) - there is a little dropdown arrow that you can click and from there you can select BETA.
   
   
   
   
4. The game will now download the beta. If no update appears, try restart your Oculus App.

[h2]LEAVE YOUR FEEDBACK HERE[/h2]

EDIT: Thank you guys, the feedback forms are now closed. We gathered almost 1500 responses so we have a ton of data to work with. Cheers!

Here is a link to the beta feedback form: https://forms.gle/bhNQZCoAXSeoNQPm8

If you only want to report bugs and not feedback, you can also use this for here: https://forms.gle/PQd5iZCXYW4kZTqG8

From the hundreds of bug reports we received, newer bug reports that come in are all reporting the same things so no need to report any bugs on Reddit, Steam or Discord as they will very likely already be logged. Thanks!

[h3]WHAT TO EXPECT AND TEST IN THE U11 BETA[/h3]

Spoilers of course, but here are the new features to be tested in the beta:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

TUTORIAL

ATTENTION: If you choose to play the tutorial but then go off track don't follow the tutorial steps you will break things and get stuck with no powers, no inventory, etc. A fix to this would be you'd have to delete your character to restart fresh. We will fix this in U11.X, but for now if you opt to play the tutorial, please play it through start to finish.

U11 introduces a tutorial for new players to get used to locomotion, game concepts as well as B&S gameplay design. It is played by choosing 'yes' when asked if you want to play the tutorial on first load. The tutorial ends when the player reaches the Home.

Even if you are a veteran B&S player, please test out the tutorial so we can get feedback. But remember, once you start the tutorial you must finish it or it will break your game.

CLOTHING SYSTEM
Players can now equip clothing. It can be done two ways - in front of the mirror or via the book spawner.

For the mirror, the player must stand in front of the mirror and pull the little lever to raise the shoe bench - this "activates" clothing to equip. Then the player must hove a hand over clothing to remove it with the grab button (a white outline is visible). Place new clothing on by holding it in your hand and hovering it over the body part you want to place it (white outline appears) and release grab.
You can also simply place new clothing over old clothing and the old clothing will be auto-removed.

For the book equip it is super simple; simply select the item of clothing and pick "equip".

If you find bugs, please take note which item of clothing is bugging out and leave the information in the feedback form.

NEW SPELLS
There have been new spells and staff effects added. Specifically they are:
- Fire and Lightning Merge
- Fire and Lightning Staff Slam
- Fire, Lightning and Gravity Staff Use
- Lightning Rework (Conductivity, Disarm)
- Gravity Slow Fall (Charge spell while falling)
- Gravity Jump (Gravity push downwards or while in air)

Mess around and see if they are intuitive enough to use and figure out on your own. If not, check the beta feedback form for controller help and let us know it wasn't intuitive.

INVENTORY SYSTEM
U11 introduces an inventory system which is mainly going to be of relevance in 'Progression mode'. However the player can still use it to store useful health potions right now.

Currently the inventory is opened by holding a hand to your body/waist/back and pressing the spell button to open. Interaction is done by rotating the controller and clicking trigger/grabbing items. Storing items is done by placing them over your shoulder.

ANIMATION OVERHAUL
U11 is the first iteration of AO; a rework of B&S combat to be more fluid and dynamic, and feeling like less like stilted and predictable animations. This is only a first pass and much tweaking will surely be required, so please don't consider this finished.

NEW HOME EXTERIOR
Find anything strange in the home exterior? Please screenshot if possible, and report it in the feedback form

PERFORMANCE
PCVR graphics received a big boost in U11, but there were also a ton of optimization and performance improvements added.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE PLAYTESTING WITHOUT ANY MODS!

If you are playing modded or with a bogged down save, it will give us false performance data.

BUGS
Prepare for bugs galore! While we tried to squash as many as possible before the beta, it is inevitable that players will find a dozen more as this is just the nature of things. Hopefully none are game-breaking, but if you find anything please report it with as much precise and descriptive detail as possible in the bug form.

[h3]WHAT IS MISSING RIGHT NOW[/h3]

• The work on character customization (more faces, hairs, skin tones) has not yet been implemented into the U11 build. We will try get that done as soon as is possible.
  
  
• U11 has a door framework implemented and you will be able to mess with doors in the home. "DOORS!" has become a bit of a community joke over the past months so I just wanna make sure you guys know there are no doors in U11 Dungeons!

Many thanks, guys! We are hoping this can be a short beta. ːotrfingerscrossedː

[h2]FULL CHANGELOG[/h2]

[h3]Features[/h3]
- Added outside environment for home
- Added tutorial
- Added player inventory, (run tutorial for explanation to how to use it)
- Added clothes changing (using home mirror)
- Added eatable food (apple)
- Added doors to the new home
- Added some new weapons
- Some armor increases the rate at which your mana recharges, and how fast you can charge spells
- Added rock throwing to NPC when the player is not reachable
- Added levers
- Added muffling NPC with your hand to avoid doing noise
- NPC now react to touch, light, bodies, items being held with telekinesis, and other NPCs being held with telekinesis.
- Updated NPC combat animation and behavior for one-handed and two-weapon AI to be more dynamic, including parrying and riposting
- Added water interaction with creature, player hand and items
- Added underwater effects and drowning when player (or NPC) stay too long underwater
- Added new spell merge for fire (meteor) and lightning (ion beam)
- Added new magic abilities to fire, lightning and gravity imbued staff (press spell menu when handled to activate)
- Added new staff slam effect for Fire and lightning
- Lightning now chains between metallic objects, imbuing other weapons nearby
- Lightning can now have a chance to disarm NPC when their weapon is fully imbued
- Grabbing an NPC and casting the lightning spell will instantly shock them
- Added gravity hover, charging the Gravity spell while falling slows your fall
- When gravity push is aimed downwards or when you are airborne, it will push you in the opposite direction
- Added real-time lighting to spell charges
- Added effect and mana cost to telekinesis spin
- Allowed player to tele-grab NPC-thrown fireballs
- Staffs will now steal energy from NPCs when you hit them, recharging their current imbue
- Gravity bubble now have an effect on player

[h3]Enhancements[/h3]
- Wave and item selector UI overhaul
- Improved gravity spell audio effects
- Reworked Citadel vicinity
- NPCs make less noise when killed in stealthy ways
- Grabbed NPCs now behave differently when grappled so they don't try to move and such like before
- Archers stow their bows when their targets are too close
- NPCs can now damage each other when they're far away from the player
- Warzone is added back on the wave selection menu
- Improved stealth mechanics: AI detection has been fine tuned for a better experience
- Dual-wielding NPCs swap their left hand weapon to their right hand if they drop their right hand weapon
- NPC are able to blink
- Spells and imbues now stop when in water
- Moved further invisible walls near ocean in some dungeon rooms
- Removed ocean kill zones in some dungeon room
- Improved and changed some dungeon room layout and spawns
- Chickens’ wings are now physical parts of their body
- Added handles to most props
- Reworked torch model
- Weapons now lose imbue slower
- Lightning stuns metal-armored enemies for much longer
- Increased arm stretch length to avoid hand disconnecting from handles when too far
- Improved spell haptics
- Improved collision performance
- Improved effect spawning performance
- Clarified the “Max arm length reached behavior” option description, and set the default to “Hold”.
- Removed bloom threshold and tonemap options. Added post process profiles options instead.
- Boosted the damage and force behind the player kick.
- Added audio slider in menu option to increase or reduce the slow motion sound effect
- New “Clean visible dropped items” option. Which will periodically clean up dropped items even when you can see them.
- When cleaning dropped items, only duplicate ones of the same item will be despawned first, then any will be despawned until the number of items is under the max dropped items limit
- Added kick audio
- Added new jump audio
- Added a compensation force to the player’s hands to stop them from dragging behind when you walk
- Oar can be put in back holster
- Minor balance changes

[h3] Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed NPCs ganging up to attack corpses
- Fixed NPCs alerting themselves by knocking over items, and also fixed NPCs getting alerted by sounds from friendly NPCs they can see
- Fixed NPCs not hearing player weapons hitting certain surfaces
- Fixed chicken duplication glitch which would spawn broken chickens in the home
- Fixed a bug where the player could take damage from NPC weapons well after their attack is finished
- Fixed telekinesis-grabbing an item on two handles, then releasing with both would cause it to float
- Fixed friendly NPCs treating the player as an enemy if the player makes sound which sets their alertness too high
- Fixed a couple bugs with spectator mode which would cause NPCs to spam the log with errors
- Fixed NPCs being unable to move if trying to test the game without a headset on
- Fixed player hand phasing through NPC when grabbing/ungrabbing their parts
- Fixed static items with penetration capabilities having a small chance to move when NPCs are impaled
- Fixed Jar2H json causing hand to break
- Fixed navigation issues in maps
- Fixed broken handles making your hand become unresponsive (detailed log now displayed with how to fix)
- Fixed loading a level before Warpfrog logo ends doesn’t allow user to use any UI (Books and Menu)
- Fixed some NPC parts not changing colour with SetColor (sclera/iris/etc)
- Fixed an issue disabling kick foot collision when grabbing an item
- Fixed Gravity merge bubble not picking up NPCs unless the player was close
- Fixed the game attempting to break spacetime when you try to drop an item that has a holder - such as a quiver - inside itself.
- Fixed missing physics material on Canyon bridge causing no sounds when hit and causing fireballs to glide across the surface.
- Fixed imbue effects generating a VFX mesh every time a weapon was imbued
- Fixed lag spike when imbuing weapons
- Fixed thrown items not been cleaned up when they go outside the map / far away from the player. Like fireballs being shot out the map.
- Fixed a variety of visual and render order bugs
- Misc fixes and improvements

Hello mates, The Baron here with a U11 status report that is perhaps not exactly what you were hoping to hear. So here it is guys — U11 is not ready for release. ːsteamsadː

We thought about it and thought about it, but in our hearts we just don't feel comfortable to release U11 in it's current state as we feel it still needs significant polish to be considered complete, not to mention we are not satisfied that enough bug-testing was done.

Really sorry about this, guys. To give some context as to how/why this is happening, there are just so many new and major mechanic frameworks added to this update, all of which are new and untested, so we really want to avoid a U8 type situation and release something half-baked.

However, we know how hyped you guys are and how long you have waited, so since we have a build that we are playtesting, we decided this — Let's do an open beta.

This way, hardcore fans who are simply dying to play but also have the sensibilities to know that this is a hardcore WIP with fully to-be-expected bugginess and other jank can join us by getting into the weeds in providing some constructive feedback on the new systems, which we will actively tweak throughout the beta.

Meanwhile, more casual players who are not interested in the development of the game, don't really follow B&S news, or are more just interested in the final finished product can stay on U10 and keep using mods. Most of these type players will probably not even be aware of the beta, since it will be an active effort to opt into it, as opposed to it being an automatic update that everyone is auto-opted into.

So, there will be a PCVR open beta sometime next week. I know Nomad players also read PCVR Steam news to stay informed, so Nomad folk, I know this beta news will be disappointing for you; I added some more Nomad specific news here - (link) which also has some info on the long awaited scripted modding.

Next week I'll post a Steam news that will have the code for anyone who wishes to access the beta, along with instructions for how to do this. That news will also have a brief overview of what to expect in the update, so you can know what to test out and so forth, and I'll probably have a link to some kind of a central location (maybe reddit or a google form) so people can post their feedback and we can collect it effectively.

Cheers, guys!

Hello mates, The Baron here with a little sneak peek at a cool bonus surprise being added to U11 that we didn't mention before. As it relates to graphics, this news is exclusively for PCVR (sorry Nomad folk).

As we have mentioned in the past, we are always striving to push the limit when it comes to PCVR. Whenever I would read anxiety comments from people concerned Nomad could mean the abandonment of PCVR, I was bursting to reveal this secret project because I knew it was being worked on these past months and that it is pure PCVR goodness. ːpraisesunː

As always, the following preview images are WIP and some things may change / not be final.

I present to you, the B&S U11 graphics makeover:



To really understand the impact, have a look at this comparison before and after of the iconic "Dungeons" photo as you would all know well. The top image is as it currently is in B&S, and below is the new and improved graphics.



And another before-after comparison - the top image is the old U10 Watchtower as you know it from U10, and below is the U11 rework. I should note, these changes are only impacting Dungeons right now, with plans to expand into the Arena maps at some point the horizon.



One of the most major changes has been to the lighting tech used; in short, everything in the environment now receives dynamic, realtime lighting from a much bigger variety of light sources. Before this change, static objects had their lighting fully "baked-in", and received dynamic lighting from
only a few sources such as hand-held torches.
In the new update, static objects receive beautiful dynamic lighting from nearly every light source in the game, most notably from the sun, and the result is much more vibrant and crisp than ever was possible before. To keep performance high, most shadows are still baked in and static.



Brick and stone architecture have received a big upgrade. Throughout Dungeons, you’ll feel a much greater sensation of 3D detail. However, this is not simply tessellation; these are individual bricks that are true 3D and can be interacted with, collided with, climbed, etc.
The Warpfrog environment team worked their butts off to make all this possible, so huge thanks to big brain Chris for all his work on this the past months, and to Kaou and Drags for their tireless asset and integrations work.



In interior assets, stone columns and many other elements have been upgraded, optimized, or rebuilt to increase visual quality.



Outdoor environments in Dungeons were improved also; rocks and cliffs assets have been swapped for higher quality ones and majorly improved.



This is about the point that your GPU starts sweating about performance hits. Don't worry! Everything that was reworked is significantly more optimized than the old versions.
Bits of cave rock that protruded out of the map and beyond the player's vision have been removed to reduce overhead. There were some cases where the total polygons and lightmaps for rocks were reduced by as much as 70%. In layman's terms it translates to simply better optimization for Dungeon rooms while still having it look awesome.



On top of the aforementioned big and obvious improvements, there are also tons of little graphical and environmental optimizations that you can experience for yourself soon enough.



Not so fast - one secret bonus is cool, but two are even better! Also coming to U11 PCVR, KospY has added support for post-processing profile options. This would be things like visual filters, such as "Filmic", "High Contrast", etc.



If you ever messed around with the "ACES" setting in U10 then you might have an idea what it is like already. This is super cool on it's own, but even better is that it will also be moddable. ːsteamdanceː That means modders could get in and make custom 'looks' for the game. This may be very appealing for modders making maps that want a complimentary unique look, or for players who want things like darker/scarier dungeons for example.

So that's the news, guys!

[h3]Great, but when is all this released??[/h3]

I feel you! I'm afraid it is the same news as last week; The team are compiling all their U11 work (today!) to make a playable internal build. With that, we will bug-test and make sure nothing is flat out broken, like the game crashing.
It's hard to say how long this will take because it is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, and for that reason we decided it is best not to set any exact release date, just in case there is something unforeseen that pops up during bugfixing and delays things. It is better to have you guys be pleasantly surprised to discover U11 has released than be disappointed that a deadline was missed.

[h3]Today is April 1st...[/h3]

If you are reading this news the day it was posted, you might notice the date is April 1st... April Fools Day... How angry would you be if I told you it was all a joke? ːsteamlaughcryː Well don't worry, it's very much real, haha!
We wanted to do something for April Fools Day though, so my good friend Lyneca ("the magic man!") has whipped up something fun for you guys - a whacky April Fools Day mod. You can grab it on nexus here (pcvr only):

https://www.nexusmods.com/bladeandsorcery/mods/5921

What the mod does is for you to find out! Remember the mod is just a joke, and crammed with silliness that is not meant to be balanced in any sense.
The world modifier will change every 20 seconds for a range of weird and whacky status effects, including a few that are hidden - can you discover them all? It would be recommended to run this mod solo so that you can be sure to know what strange bizarro behaviors are being attributed to this mod.

Cheers!

Hello mates! The Baron here with a little sneak peek of some of the upcoming U11 magic stuff that I had alluded to in previous news.

Magic expansion was not directly advertised as one of the bigger features of U11 because we weren't sure how much would/could be included in time for U11, and as always we didn't wanna say too much in case it didn't work out and have people disappointed. We figured it is better that you guys are pleasantly surprised than disappointed. So, surprise! haha

The general design decisions for magic has been (as it always has been) to make Fire a more direct damage spell, Gravity more about utility and versatile function, and Lightning about crowd control. We hope that we can pad out magic with enough features that it can make full mage builds not only viable, but also fun and exciting to play.

So without further ado, let's take a look at some of the magic changes in U11!



[Do take note that all previews are of WIP stuff, so some things may be incomplete. Previews were recorded in a buggy alpha, so forgive any lighting strangeness or enviro glitches in the previews!]

The first things you will notice in-game is magic got some really nice VFX and audio overhauls. There are a lot more particle effects going on including small stuff, like being able to see pebbles from the gravity blasts, as well as in general things just look cooler! These gifs don't really do justice to how cool it looks in VR.

Fire has some beautiful new particle effects, smoke, and heat haze FX. The overall effect makes fire imbue look more like the character in the poster art.



Gravity has a new shimmering haze and purple mist, emphasizing the more vortex-nature of this spell. The new audio similarly has a much more fitting and menacing bassy sound improvement.



Lightning is more crackling, erratic and beefy in the lightning streaks.



So let's get into some feature specifics, starting with Fire.

You may have noticed from that first gif a sneaky fire merge happening... Yes, indeed! Fireball merge is finally complete (being dubbed 'meteor'), and I think you will be surprised to see how crazy it is in-game. ːwftogrinː



Using it is as simple as merging two fireballs (similar to gravity bubble) and then launching it forward. It is pretty powerful at the moment, so you can Kamehameha to your heart content!

Fire staffs finally have a proper feature! By pressing the 'alt' button ("A" on Index) you can utilize the Firesling effect; this launches fireballs from the staff as though your were hurling a rock.

In classic B&S fashion, it is easy to use and mess with, but difficult to master! But once you get a feel for it you will be lethal.



Slamming the staff on the ground activates the Twin Firebolt feature. These bolts will circulate and home in on enemy, a bit like a magic missile (although with a chance to miss).



Next up, Gravity has received some more utility additions.

The player is now effected by their own gravity bubble, making you lightweight inside the bubble, and able to jump higher and slower. You can combine this with the new Gravity ability to "Gravity Jump". This is achieved by simply blasting gravity on the ground to launch yourself upwards; very useful for Dungeons! Combining the two effects can give you some strategic advantage and leap great distances.



Continuing on this note, one of my favourite new additions is the Gravity Glide. This new feature is achieved by simply blasting and holding gravity downwards (think Ironman or something) as you fall, to engage in a featherfall type effect where you can glide to safety.



As well as being just cool to do, these new Gravity features should open up some new traversal options for the Dungeon, and alleviate some problems for players who hate climbing.

Gravity now has a staff alt effect too! Being dubbed "Gravity Hammer", the staff can whip up objects and suspend them as though they were weightless, allowing the player to slam enemy with them or launch them like missiles.



If you were wondering if you could also whip enemies up into the air - not at the moment! We are thinking about adding this, though it is technically still possible to do by grabbing the weapon in their hand and lifting the weapon with them holding onto it, haha.

Finally, Lightning.

Lightning is still heavily WIP so some stuff is missing in this preview due to missing final VFX; namely the staff slam feature, which blasts a shockwave around the player stunning everyone - the ultimate in crowd control! So maybe I will keep this one a surprise that you can see in-game yourself.

But here is something you might like, the new staff feature: Lightning Arc



It's so fun! It's still majorly WIP in terms of balance and bugs, but to activate this you simply press and hold the alt use button to create a lightning whip-type arc. The arc will stun those it touches, but it also decapitates! Swing it at the legs of an enemy charging towards you and both legs will slide off. ːpraisesunː

Also, here is something fun: Lightning now has proper metal conductivity.



Lightning transfers between metal objects, so this can lead to some really crazy scenarios with lightning blasting everywhere. Be careful you don't accidentally charge all your enemies swords!

But on that note, 'overcharging' enemies will also cause them to release their weapons, so no more enemy infinite blocking your lightning with their weapons.

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That is about all for now, folks! Still no word on the Soul spell, which is still not planned until the later updates. I should also note that this features listed above are not everything planned for magic! There is still a whole bunch of more magic features coming, but likely in U12 (or possibly U11.X at a stretch).

If you are wondering about U11 release time, still no solid date, sorry! I am sure a few people are getting antsy because it was slotted for Q1 and we are now technically approaching the end of Q1. This is why we never give release dates anymore, haha.
We are looking like the update could be finished by the end of Q1 (end of March) but we would really like to / need to do testing and bug-finding, so realistically it may not be available until April. Perhaps there will be an open beta, or it might be more efficient to just do an internal beta bug-fix blitz and then release the live update sooner (which means less version confusion/mods breaking a million times during beta versions). I will keep you guys posted when we know the release plan!

If any Nomad players are reading, here are the answers to the questions I know you will have, haha: Yes Nomad will received these updates (minus the graphics changes), the update would be released some time after PCVR (maybe a week or two), and still no news on scripted modding! (I promise I will let Nomad players know immediately as soon as there is)

Cheers!