Beta v 1.0.2.3
Wave two of lots of new things in-game in preparation for the Steam Winter Sale! Please note that these changes are being added to the public beta, and we are aware of a number of quality of life problems and some bugs that we are still working on polishing up before we push the changes to the live default build.
The new player controller makes its first appearance. Reworked animations, blending, and controls, all from the ground up (not a pun). Still hopping down sheer slopes a little awkwardly, and depending on your characters size, I think particularly shorter characters are not properly positioning themselves on the ground, but again we will get this all sorted out in the next few days.
Tab to open the main inventory screen is no more, replaced with tab to cycle nearby targets. You can also click to select enemy targets. This system does away with the physics based projectiles, both "ranged" and magic based. Projectiles will now automatically seek their target, assuming the player has line of sight, as Solace Crafting is much more about rolling stats against one another. Whether you hit or miss or critical or the monster dodges or resists is based on your and your enemies stats. Some next steps for these systems includes using the cursor to aim target AOE abilities such as Flame Glyph which still currently rely on the crosshair or reticle, and adding the ability to "charge" or cast spells over a period of time while remaining still.
The click to target system is not however replacing everything else in the game. Harvesting, facility interaction, doors, etc., can all still be interacted with using the F key (by default) as usual. Holding the right mouse button down will rotate your character as well as move the camera, while holding the left mouse button down will rotate only the camera. This is a very standard method of camera control that players of any sort of 3rd person RPG or MMO should be very used to.
I is the default key for opening up the main inventory, and can be reassigned via the in-game menu / settings / controls, if you have changed that or had it turned off. We are however working on a lot of new UI pieces I'm planning to bring up in the big push next week, some of which should make accessing the inventory and other interfaces much easier and much more user friendly. Those will not be ready to be implemented by next week, but they are coming along and I want to bring up the proposed changes with everyone to gather input.
Gold makes it's way into the game for the first time. We've only had copper and silver nodes up until now, but gold can now be found in goblin dungeons if you've the gear and the guts to brave them. Dungeon layouts have also been reworked a bit to include secret rooms, breakable barrels, "storage rooms" with special loot, as well as deadly traps. We still want to make more extensive changes and upgrades to dungeons and caves in general, but knew that we would not have enough time to do everything before the holidays start, so this is kind of a first pass on dungeons in general.
I've also made some changes to monster health bars. Champions and Heroes now have different colored and shaped health bars both above them and when targeted. I've long planned to add named mobs, mob and dungeon modifiers, and have already implemented a monster class (tank/rogue/etc) system I hope to make more understandable with these changes. The champion and hero nameplates don't quite stand out enough yet, but these too shall be improved now that they are all in and working.
It's super late, Saturday night here, I just patched and logged into the BKG beta server, and it seems that mobs are going invisible in multiplayer past 8km again, I may have inadvertently reintroduced that bug through my poor version control management skills (one of the 27 professions expected of a indie developer), but should be able to fix it in the morning.
Still a couple of small things I want to get in before the end of next week, but again we plan to focus on bug fixes and polishing up all of this that we've been putting together over the past couple months, and have a lot more planned for 2023!
v 1.0.2.3 2022.12.17
- Implemented new player controller
- Implemented tab targeting / click to target
- Improved monster health bars
- Improved terrain texture quality filtering
- Added Gold Mine rooms to Dungeons, gold can now be mined from exposed gold veins in these rooms
- Barrels containing resources can now be found scattered around dungeons.
- Storage rooms now occasionally spawn in dungeons, where players may find useful items and uncommon goods.
- Secret treasure rooms now spawn in dungeons, if players spot and reveal their location, they are rewarded with treasure.
- Spike traps now spawn in some corridors, making dungeons more dangerous
- Reduced the size of goblin dungeons
- Fixed bugs causing void areas where no walls or floor would exist
- Switched to Fast Approximate Anti-aliasing (shader compatability issues, may be temporary)
- Fixed stun skills not working properly
- Fixed damage over time abilities not properly adjust damage for level differences
- Fixed debuffs/effects overriding one another
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
Join us in Discord!
Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!
Check out the bug / suggestion tracker
The new player controller makes its first appearance. Reworked animations, blending, and controls, all from the ground up (not a pun). Still hopping down sheer slopes a little awkwardly, and depending on your characters size, I think particularly shorter characters are not properly positioning themselves on the ground, but again we will get this all sorted out in the next few days.
Tab to open the main inventory screen is no more, replaced with tab to cycle nearby targets. You can also click to select enemy targets. This system does away with the physics based projectiles, both "ranged" and magic based. Projectiles will now automatically seek their target, assuming the player has line of sight, as Solace Crafting is much more about rolling stats against one another. Whether you hit or miss or critical or the monster dodges or resists is based on your and your enemies stats. Some next steps for these systems includes using the cursor to aim target AOE abilities such as Flame Glyph which still currently rely on the crosshair or reticle, and adding the ability to "charge" or cast spells over a period of time while remaining still.
The click to target system is not however replacing everything else in the game. Harvesting, facility interaction, doors, etc., can all still be interacted with using the F key (by default) as usual. Holding the right mouse button down will rotate your character as well as move the camera, while holding the left mouse button down will rotate only the camera. This is a very standard method of camera control that players of any sort of 3rd person RPG or MMO should be very used to.
I is the default key for opening up the main inventory, and can be reassigned via the in-game menu / settings / controls, if you have changed that or had it turned off. We are however working on a lot of new UI pieces I'm planning to bring up in the big push next week, some of which should make accessing the inventory and other interfaces much easier and much more user friendly. Those will not be ready to be implemented by next week, but they are coming along and I want to bring up the proposed changes with everyone to gather input.
Gold makes it's way into the game for the first time. We've only had copper and silver nodes up until now, but gold can now be found in goblin dungeons if you've the gear and the guts to brave them. Dungeon layouts have also been reworked a bit to include secret rooms, breakable barrels, "storage rooms" with special loot, as well as deadly traps. We still want to make more extensive changes and upgrades to dungeons and caves in general, but knew that we would not have enough time to do everything before the holidays start, so this is kind of a first pass on dungeons in general.
I've also made some changes to monster health bars. Champions and Heroes now have different colored and shaped health bars both above them and when targeted. I've long planned to add named mobs, mob and dungeon modifiers, and have already implemented a monster class (tank/rogue/etc) system I hope to make more understandable with these changes. The champion and hero nameplates don't quite stand out enough yet, but these too shall be improved now that they are all in and working.
It's super late, Saturday night here, I just patched and logged into the BKG beta server, and it seems that mobs are going invisible in multiplayer past 8km again, I may have inadvertently reintroduced that bug through my poor version control management skills (one of the 27 professions expected of a indie developer), but should be able to fix it in the morning.
Still a couple of small things I want to get in before the end of next week, but again we plan to focus on bug fixes and polishing up all of this that we've been putting together over the past couple months, and have a lot more planned for 2023!
v 1.0.2.3 2022.12.17
- Implemented new player controller
- Implemented tab targeting / click to target
- Improved monster health bars
- Improved terrain texture quality filtering
- Added Gold Mine rooms to Dungeons, gold can now be mined from exposed gold veins in these rooms
- Barrels containing resources can now be found scattered around dungeons.
- Storage rooms now occasionally spawn in dungeons, where players may find useful items and uncommon goods.
- Secret treasure rooms now spawn in dungeons, if players spot and reveal their location, they are rewarded with treasure.
- Spike traps now spawn in some corridors, making dungeons more dangerous
- Reduced the size of goblin dungeons
- Fixed bugs causing void areas where no walls or floor would exist
- Switched to Fast Approximate Anti-aliasing (shader compatability issues, may be temporary)
- Fixed stun skills not working properly
- Fixed damage over time abilities not properly adjust damage for level differences
- Fixed debuffs/effects overriding one another
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
Join us in Discord!
Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!
Check out the bug / suggestion tracker