HammerHelm News

Beta 3.7 includes updates and improvements for monster AI, specifically while monsters are in combat.

• Monsters will now always attack when they make an attack noise. This fixes a bug where you'd hear the monster attack noise, but it doesn't attack right away, instead waiting a couple of seconds, causing you to mistime your block.
  
• Fixed a few issues that caused monsters to stop strafing.
  
• Monsters who are strafing and then decide to attack will go into their idle animation for a quick moment before beginning their attack. This gives you a quick visual queue that they are about to take a swing at you!
  
• Monsters who are hit and playing their "got hit" animation, don't do this pause as this is a counter-attack. I might add the idle pause to this though if it's confusing.

Overall these changes should help monsters in combat act in ways that you have time to react to. If after getting this update you have any additional feedback on monsters feel free to let me know!

Barring additional feedback, this wraps up my work on improving controls and combat. Now back to the Halloween content!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/8326Jef

Beta 3.6 includes a fairly large update to the way controls are detected in HammerHelm. The new system works the same as the current game (meaning the actual inputs are the same) but is more efficient and less error prone.

• Fixed the stuck keys bug!*
  
• Your character will no longer get stuck in the basic attack animation when clicking to close a UI.
  
• Clicking attack while your character is rolling will no longer cause your character to continue drifting in the direction of the roll.
  
• Other refinements and changes to help combat feel smoother.
  
• Also fixed a bug that caused Blood Stone Weapons to disappear.

In addition to the above, I'm also going to be working on a few other things related to controls and combat.

• Monsters sometimes make their attack sound but don't actually attack until later. This makes timing blocking difficult, so I'm going to be looking into fixing that.
  
• Add the town manager key to the keybinds menu.
  
• Add the hotkeys (the potion bar) to the keybinds menu.

Once all of that is complete, I'll be back on the Halloween content. Then controller support and localization support after that in addition to some new quests and some other things I've been meaning to get to.


Note, I am going to leave the logging that I put in to track this down in for a while just in case. So if you do encounter a problem with keys like ESC, the town manager, or the build menu not working, please let me know.

And last but not least, a quick sneak peek at one of the new hair styles coming soon!



The white arrows on her braid are bones, meaning this part of her hair will animate like the current hairs move. They won't be visible in the actual in game model.

There are four new styles in total. Two unique to female characters and two shared by both male and female. These will likely be early access rewards, but more on that in a future update. :)

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/8326Jef

Beta 3.5.3 includes a fix to slow down the base attack for most monsters. Right now they are playing too fast, making blocking difficult. The new attack animation speed should make it a bit easier to block incoming attacks.

This build also includes a lot of logging to help track down that nasty stuck keys bug where certain keys, like V to open the town manager or ESC to open the options menu, don't work.

if you encounter anything like this, please send me your output_log file and I can hopefully finally nail this darn bug down! To send me the file, follow these instructions:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/664000/discussions/1/1736595227848425568/

Thank you for the support all! I'm focusing on this bug above all other things, so not much work on the Halloween event. Hope to get back to that soon!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/8326Jef

Beta 3.5 includes some changes and fixes to the way controls work in HammerHelm.

• Fixed a bug that caused your character to roll in place if you rolled right after letting go of the attack button.
  
• Added some additional checks to the combat system controls for when you stop attacking. This sometimes caused the UI controls (like opening your inventory) to fail because the system thought you were still attacking.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused your character to not start a new attack.

Overall these changes should help the controls feel more stable. If you run into any problems please don't hesitate to contact me!

Thanks everyone!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/8326Jef

Beta 3.4.1 fixes the bug that sometimes caused your character to slide past an NPC when you talked to them. Aside from being very rude, this also caused your character to get stuck in that state. The bug occurred if any of your dodge-roll keybinds were the same as your talk key. Part of this fix blocks rolling when in speaking range with a townsperson.

With that in mind, I've also made some changes and fixes to the keybind system.

• You can no longer assign the same key to two different actions. I can't think of any reason you would want to do this, but if there is, please let me know.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the secondary key binds to not save.
  
• Removed an extra slider for the shadow setting.

I'm still tracking the stuck keys bug. If you encounter a situation where your keys don't work (meaning you can't open your inventory, the escape menu, etc.) you can use the right-alt + L hotkey to add some more data to your log and email it to me.

You can find out how to do that in the Beta 3.4 announcement:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/664000/announcements/detail/1598139890298182826
Thank you again everyone who sent me log files and posted more information about the sliding character bug. I really appreciate it!!! :)

This weekend, in addition to continuing to look for the cause of the stuck keys bug, I'm going to focus more work on the Halloween Event. I hope to be to show some more progress soon!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]

• HammerHelm Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/helm_hammer
  
• My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
  
• Discord Channel: discord.gg/8326Jef