Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
This week we went very deep into the new randomisation systems, as there are many important additions and improvements we wanted to make. We really want to get this right, as making late additions or changes to itemisation can be very problematic.
Items will be much more varied than before, with various implications. The same item can now be made with a variety of different materials, but these aren't just "random", for every small part of an item we can define what range of materials might be used, how luxurious or cosmetically important each of those can be, and various other parameters. For example a brigandine might now be covered with various leathers or fabrics, and other elements of the item will have their own range of materials and finishes, with the number of individual materials per item now being as high as 8, up from the previous 4. The choice of materials importantly depends on external factors such as the wealth of its owner. Materials aren't just cosmetic, they can also modify the properties of the item and what traits it can acquire.
Colours are also important here, with the introduction of a dye system, where dyes have different values and can be a sign of wealth and status. These must be chosen accordingly, and can also follow rules for matching themes (e.g. an arena company's colours) or colours favoured by the wearer. This introduced various complications, and we wanted something that kept the items in the world consistent with what the player could do, but we came up with some nice solutions.
All this serves several purposes. Combined with the other itemisation changes, it means much more varied and more detailed items. Items won't just be "the brigandine in x quality", but something that feels much more unique. We can make outfits reflect the status of their wearer, important in the updated arena. All items in the new arena will be persistent, NPCs will own items that befit status, and also trade them between each other and the player. When you join an inept match with high ranking fighters, this will be obvious from their expensive items and colourful outfits. It also allows us to rapidly design or generate suitable outfits for various characters. This is something we'd like to use in the story too, with more special encounters having clearly recognisable themes and yet having different items on each playthrough. This is important as they currently provide very static item progression paths for the player.
All that aside, we've updated more assets for the new renderer, including the ogres, which led to some improvements to our subsurface scattering, which can now be better adjusted for different creatures and materials. We added some very nice silk to our procedural items, and made various improvements to all cloth materials, which now look more realistic and also generally more vibrantly coloured.
We did also have another go at solving performance issues on AMD, but with the current status of their Windows drivers there doesn't seem to be a quick fix. There are some things we can still try, and we will be in touch with AMD about it, but this will be quite time consuming and it will have to wait until we're less busy with just getting this release ready.
Itemisation changes was really the last thing to do here, and we'll be glad later that we're being thorough. We're at the stage where we've started writing release notes, and we'll continue to work through christmas.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
This week we went very deep into the new randomisation systems, as there are many important additions and improvements we wanted to make. We really want to get this right, as making late additions or changes to itemisation can be very problematic.
Items will be much more varied than before, with various implications. The same item can now be made with a variety of different materials, but these aren't just "random", for every small part of an item we can define what range of materials might be used, how luxurious or cosmetically important each of those can be, and various other parameters. For example a brigandine might now be covered with various leathers or fabrics, and other elements of the item will have their own range of materials and finishes, with the number of individual materials per item now being as high as 8, up from the previous 4. The choice of materials importantly depends on external factors such as the wealth of its owner. Materials aren't just cosmetic, they can also modify the properties of the item and what traits it can acquire.
Colours are also important here, with the introduction of a dye system, where dyes have different values and can be a sign of wealth and status. These must be chosen accordingly, and can also follow rules for matching themes (e.g. an arena company's colours) or colours favoured by the wearer. This introduced various complications, and we wanted something that kept the items in the world consistent with what the player could do, but we came up with some nice solutions.
All this serves several purposes. Combined with the other itemisation changes, it means much more varied and more detailed items. Items won't just be "the brigandine in x quality", but something that feels much more unique. We can make outfits reflect the status of their wearer, important in the updated arena. All items in the new arena will be persistent, NPCs will own items that befit status, and also trade them between each other and the player. When you join an inept match with high ranking fighters, this will be obvious from their expensive items and colourful outfits. It also allows us to rapidly design or generate suitable outfits for various characters. This is something we'd like to use in the story too, with more special encounters having clearly recognisable themes and yet having different items on each playthrough. This is important as they currently provide very static item progression paths for the player.
All that aside, we've updated more assets for the new renderer, including the ogres, which led to some improvements to our subsurface scattering, which can now be better adjusted for different creatures and materials. We added some very nice silk to our procedural items, and made various improvements to all cloth materials, which now look more realistic and also generally more vibrantly coloured.
We did also have another go at solving performance issues on AMD, but with the current status of their Windows drivers there doesn't seem to be a quick fix. There are some things we can still try, and we will be in touch with AMD about it, but this will be quite time consuming and it will have to wait until we're less busy with just getting this release ready.
Itemisation changes was really the last thing to do here, and we'll be glad later that we're being thorough. We're at the stage where we've started writing release notes, and we'll continue to work through christmas.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
