VALHALL: Harbinger News

[h2]Vikings![/h2]

Today we have one more significant update!

First, we have improved combat and addressed various aspects mentioned in your latest feedback. Controlling attacks is now much easier, camera shakes can be adjusted using a slider, archers have been nerfed, and enemies are now more enjoyable to kill, among other improvements.

Our Deathmatch servers are now back online, you can fight with your friends.

The first iteration of the promised Survival map upgrade is here. It is larger and works on the UE5 World Partition system, which loads the world by chunks. Despite the increased size and updated appearance, there are some performance enhancements. All trees and stumps are now choppable, and the foliage is interactable, allowing your character to "touch the grass", among other changes.



Speaking of combat, this patch improves the experience a lot. However, we are preparing some exciting completely new features for upcoming updates. It's worth noting that the circle control system, which may feel a bit weird to some players at the moment, is still unfinished. It is a part of the features we are preparing, here's a sneak peek:



* The GIF above demonstrates a new physics control feature that is currently in development. It is not included in the current patch but will be available in future updates and will have a more polished look.

Now, let's take a look at the Pre-Beta 0.9.7 patch!


[h2]Fixed Deathmatch multiplayer[/h2]

The Deathmatch servers are now back online. We have addressed the multiplayer issues that arose after the recent combat updates. The experience should now feel more responsive and smoother as well.


[h2]Combat control upgrade[/h2]

There are many systems that influence the feel of combat control, and we continue to improve them. In this patch, it is now much easier to aim your attacks while in motion and keep your opponent in view. We have also added the ability to control your movement during special attacks and dodges. The Circle UI is now turned off by default, but you can switch it on in the options.


[h2]Camera shakes intensity slider[/h2]

We conducted a poll on camera shake intensity previously, but now we have the ultimate solution: the slider option. You can adjust it to your liking!


[h2]Dodge upgrade[/h2]

We have adjusted the system to allow for different dodges for each direction and added more animations. Additionally, we have implemented a small cooldown to prevent spamming and fixed the issue with dodging during a jump.


[h2]Block upgrade[/h2]

We have increased the speed of the next hit after a successful block and made the character move slower during it. We have also fixed the issue with blocking not working after a clash.


[h2]More hit reactions[/h2]

Added more hit reactions for different parts of the body.


[h2]FOV slider[/h2]

Now you can adjust the field of view if you need.


[h2]Enemy AI improvements[/h2]

The AI now feels more lively and has received a stats upgrade that changes the feel of fight. As many players requested, archers have become easier targets. We have also adjusted the arrow hits to be less deadly.


[h2]Arena waves adjustment[/h2]

We have adjusted the types of enemy waves and their quantity to make it easier to reach Mjolnir (the 10th wave) and to enhance the overall gameplay experience. Should be more fun now.


[h2]Survival map upgrade[/h2]

This is the first iteration of a series of coming upgrades to this map. There are mountains, fjords, fields. The map is large, and some areas may appear empty, but we will be filling them. Some content such as warrior hiring will return in future updates. Performance has improved.



All trees, stumps, and rocks can now be chopped or gathered without exception.

If you encounter any issues, you may need to restart the save. Thank you for understanding.




[h2]Chopping upgrade[/h2]

The timber axe is no longer limited to two angles, and it has been improved to feel like it sticks to the tree. Additionally, its hit collisions have been corrected to make chopping easier.


[h2]Fixed water[/h2]

There were several water-related bugs, such as the game losing track of water in certain areas, causing players to walk underwater. We have fixed these issues, so walking underwater should no longer be a problem. Additionally, swiming in random map point bug shouldn't be possible anymore. However, we know that swimming can still be a bit strange at times, we are working to improve it.


[h2]Fixed ship not spawning or drawning at spawn[/h2]

Spawning a ship should no longer be a problem. However, we are aware that there are still other issues with the ship that need to be fixed.


[h2]Fixed incorrect drop[/h2]

Animals used to drop incorrect items instead of meat and fat, but this has been corrected now.


[h2]Fixed foot kick issues[/h2]

Previously, when kicking with a foot, a bloody trail would appear on the weapon, and when chopping a tree or mining a stone, the leg would also give resources. These issues have been fixed now.


[h2]Fixed lack of blood effects from stabbing and special attacks[/h2]

This includes effects, wounds and ground decals.


As always, thanks a lot for your feedback guys. Hope these improvements feel better and you enjoy this update!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

[h2]Vikings![/h2]

We're excited to announce that our game has made the transition to Unreal Engine 5!



This upgrade brings a lot of significant improvements to the game. Some of the benefits you can feel today, while others will become available in the future.

Players can now experience a whole new level of graphics. To fully take advantage of these new visuals, we recommend to check out the new graphics settings that have been added.



This patch will reinstall the entire game, so please be aware that this process may take some time. The existing saves should remain, but if you encounter issues, please clear them. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We've taken care of most of the problems that came up during the transition, but there may still be some remaining issues or performance instabilities that we will work to improve. The Survival map will also see significant updates in the future utilizing the capabilities of UE5.

UE5 makes possible an unprecedented level of detail and we will use its power to change our building system and add a variaty of elements. Nanites will allow placing a big amount of them without killing performance.



Certain elements of the combat system, such as camera animations, were temporarily removed during the transition. Also, some animations may currently be stuttering in multiplayer. However, the upcoming patches will prioritize and greatly improve the combat experience with the new features that will be added.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.5 is here, let's take a look!


[h2]Transition to Unreal Engine 5[/h2]

Next-gen Unreal Engine 5.1 features such as Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution are now available in the game.

We recommend to experiment with these new graphics settings to find the perfect balance between visual quality and performance for your hardware.

Nanite provides highly-detailed geometry rendered from millions of polygons without huge performance impact. DirectX12 is required to run Nanite.

Lumen provides real-time global illumination and high-quality ray traced reflections on glossy materials and water.

Virtual Shadow Maps enable highly detailed shadowing. Every leaf and modeled detail will cast a shadow, and the self-shadowing of characters is extremely precise.

TSR is an upgrade over Temporal Anti-Aliasing, a high-quality upsampling technique.

FSR is currently not available as we are waiting for it to be updated to UE5.1.

Going forward, players on PC will need to use Windows 10 or a higher version in order to play the game natively. Windows 7 and 8 will no longer be officially supported.

The graphics is one aspect of the transition, but it is not the only one - the physics, destructions, and all future updates will take advantage of the capabilities of UE5.


[h2]New Arena[/h2]












[h2]New Deathmatch[/h2]

The Loki's Maze Deathmatch mode has been replaced with a requested more traditional arena-based Deathmatch mode. The Loki's Maze feature will be updated and re-introduced in a new form in the Survival mode.


[h2]Improved basic lighting in Survival[/h2]

We received a lot of feedback that the lightning during different weather conditions was too dark. We've made it brighter, so that storms should no longer cause complete darkness. The lighting during overcast and rainy weather has also been improved. Overall, the lightning and post-processing has been enhanced. We will continue to make further improvements.


[h2]Almost all stones can be collected[/h2]



You can now destroy and collect most of the stones on the map. Large rocks and small stones cannot be collected using a pickaxe.


[h2]Main menu update[/h2]




[h2]Parkour on built objects[/h2]




[h2]Fixed quests issues[/h2]

The problems preventing the completion of the assault quest and sending the player to the end of the map have been resolved. If the issue persists, a save restart may be required.


We would like to thank you for your support and patience as we work to improve the game. We appreciate your feedback and participation in the form from the game. We can't wait for you to see what's next!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

[h2]Vikings![/h2]

Today we have great news, we haven't mentioned it before, but we are finishing up the transition to Unreal Engine 5.

And this Valhall upgrade will be already available in the next patch!

What's to come is just mind-blowing. Next-gen graphics, a larger and more optimized world, improved physics and much more.



Despite how it looks, your computer won't explode, the visuals and optimizations stay balanced.






The electricity situation here in Ukraine is hard, but we keep pushing progress and the updates ahead will be significant. Today's patch is not very big, but some of you will definitely like it.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.3 is here, let's take a look!


[h2]Better dodge[/h2]

Dodge got accurate movement instead of instantaneous, updated animation, smoother blending, lower stamina cost. You can see it in the GIF above.


[h2]Hit reaction update[/h2]

New body parts based hit response with extra movement and longer recovery.


[h2]FOV adaptation[/h2]

FOV now adapts to screen resolution. On the ultra-wide monitor, the field of view was distorted and uncomfortable to play, now it is as it should be.


[h2]Unstuck feature[/h2]

A useful feature for when you accidentally get stuck somewhere, we've heard feedback that this is not uncommon.

Firstly, there is now an "Unstick" button in the pause menu, which will help your character get out. What is important, it does not just teleport you forward, but takes into account the environment and does not let you into locked places, for example, houses.

In addition, in some cases, it automatically detects the stuck position and helps you without need to press the button.




[h2]Fixed random parkour and character flying[/h2]

Yes, parkour caused many problems, this time almost all of them should be fixed and your character should no longer fly erratically.


[h2]Additional improvements[/h2]

UI adjustments. Added Command wheel rebinding.


Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback and filling out the form from the game.


May the upcoming holiday season bring happiness and joy to you!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

[h2]Vikings![/h2]

Today's update is pretty big. New cool stuff and a lot of improvements based on the latest feedback.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.2 is here, let's take a look!




[h2]Cataclysm & Shrinking zone[/h2]

This is part of the Challenge system that we are preparing. It will rule world events like cataclysm and bring new activities that go to Survival and BR. We are now starting to test the shrinking zone in Survival and will share information about BR separately in future updates.

In this patch, a cataclysm comes and the zone starts to shrink on the 7th in-game day, then on the 50th and 100th day of survival. Later, this will be tied to the days of the Challenge and will only occur when it is activated.

There are several battlefields on the map, and the zone will randomly select one of them to make it your arena for that day.



When the zone begins to shrink, a marker appears on the compass. The intensity of the earthquake and sound should also help you orient. Be careful while running!



As soon as you arrive on the battlefield and the zone closes the arena, waves of enemies attack you. During the fight with these waves, you will respawn at a random point of the shrinked zone.



The zone will disappear after all the enemies of the last wave are killed.


[h2]Relight[/h2]

Lighting has been updated in many ways to fix gameplay comfort issues and improve the overall look.

First of all, we fixed those random moments of darkness. The brightness has been adjusted for different weather conditions, so that even during a storm at night you can still orient. In addition, shadows are now of better quality, and updated post-processing makes the game more beautiful without compromising performance.


[h2]Updated and optimized characters[/h2]

Most of the characters have been replaced with more optimized and higher quality models.



We also improved existing ones, updated textures, optimized them, and fixed issues with cloth physics.


[h2]Ragdoll and physics update[/h2]

Ragdolls no longer fly like crazy and explode on impact. The related issues have been fixed and it now works correctly in multiplayer as well. Impulses for different weapons and some other aspects of physics have also been improved.


[h2]Parkour improvements[/h2]

Now you need to press the jump key to climb, auto-climb while sprinting is disabled. Adjusted NPC parkour abilities. Reduced unwanted parkour behavior.


[h2]New Loki's Maze Deathmatch servers[/h2]

We have moved Loki's Maze Deathmatch to new, more powerful EU and US servers provided by GPORTAL. Survival servers will also be there in a little while, we will announce about them in another update.


[h2]Settlement raid fixes and adjustments[/h2]

Raids have been changed to be more logical and less frustrating. Your house is now attacked less often.

Fixed an issue that caused Settlement raid bots to respawn after logging back into the game.


[h2]Death and respawn markers[/h2]

The spawn point you set is now displayed as a compass marker.

You can see the place of the last death, so you can come back.


[h2]Adaptive focus of interaction with water[/h2]

You can pick up objects under drinking water, the selection outline will switch depending on priorities.


[h2]Fish trap improvements[/h2]

Now it can be placed without problems both in lakes and in sea water. Fixed accessibility issues.


[h2]Fixed issues with lakes[/h2]

Lakes no longer glitch and instantly kill, and are now easy to get out of.


[h2]Fixed Mjolnir hit[/h2]

Fixed issues with Mjolnir's hit causing it to not work.


[h2]Fixed water passing through the ship[/h2]

High waves no longer pass through the ship bottom.


[h2]Fixed squad revive[/h2]

Warriors now respawn when revived.


[h2]Additional Improvements[/h2]

• Vikings now always have something in their pockets.
  
  
• Fixed get up animation playing randomly.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the get up animation would play randomly.
  
  
• Quest texts corrected.
  
  
• Optimized the performance of Loki's Maze Deathmatch mode.
  
  
• Fixed strange inventory sounds.
  
  
• Fixed hanging deer collision.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the squad control wheel to appear and break the game in Loki's Maze Deathmatch.
  
  
• Speed up the respawn time of Weapon test bots.
  
  
• Fixed collision of trees that blocked attacks.
  

Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback and filling out the form from the game!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

[h2]Vikings![/h2]

Before we take a look what today's patch brings, we'd like to show a part of the larger content we're preparing.



This is an epic shrinking zone. We will share the details about it in the next update. It will have multiple roles in the future and we will start testing it in Survival mode first in the next patch.



Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.1 is here, let's see what's in it!


[h2]Movement update[/h2]

We received a lot of feedback about the movement, in short, it was too slow.

We adjusted sprinting, running and walking with new speeds, corrected animations, blending and updated the boost system (at first you don't start running at full speed and you need time to accelerate).

It still has the balancing features for combat, such as moving backwards more slowly and stopping sprinting in some cases, but now feels more dynamic and satisfying.


[h2]Stamina update[/h2]

Since there is a movement update, there is also a stamina update. However, it's not just about the new sprint costs. This improves the overall balance of stamina. As for the sprint, there is now a tangible cost of initial acceleration.


[h2]Effects update[/h2]

The torch is now brighter and covers more distance. We also heard a lot about how it looked like it was from the last decade, so here are the new visuals.



The wall torch and some other effects have been updated too. The effects won't become blurry like it used to be from time to time.

Light no longer passes through walls in some strange way.



Post-effects and some other aspects related to graphics have also been improved. Reduced motion blur, adjusted and reduced head bobbing, fixed small but annoying visual glitches.


[h2]Unlimited light sources[/h2]

There is no longer a limit on the number of light sources that can be placed at the same time. Light up your settlement.


[h2]Raids adjustment[/h2]

Raid spawning has been adjusted to avoid enemies spawning in your house if you have a large house. Also added more wave days.


[h2]Replaced broken quest[/h2]

One of the quests that was causing issue has been replaced. A little later we will add more quests along with world events.


[h2]Fixed disappearance when falling from a height[/h2]

Fixed issues with character disappearing and game breaking after falling.


[h2]Fixed flying away during parkour and after death[/h2]

The character no longer flies away or falls under the map. However, bot ragdolls can still have this issue and we will fix it soon.


[h2]Fixed crash after death[/h2]

The bug that caused a crash after the death of the player should now be gone, but to fully prevent this problem from happening again, we will make some additional changes in the next patch.


[h2]Map improvement[/h2]

The landscape now has better detail and looks smoother. Also, small floating rocks and grass that weren't level with the ground and were casting strange shadows now sit well in place.


Guys, thank you for sharing your feedback and filling out the form!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts