About the Game
Built exclusively for VR, collisions are dictated by fine hitboxes, objects have weight and follow the laws of physics, creatures have full body physics and presence, and blades can be used to penetrate soft materials or deflect magic.
Embark on an adventure in Crystal Hunt progression mode, with 78 skills to unlock. Explore the dungeons and dive into the deep lore of Byeth to uncover the secrets of the ancient Dalgarians.
Play in unrestricted sandbox mode to access all 76 weapons, 90 armour pieces, and enable any skill you desire.
In Blade & Sorcery, the combat is limited only by your own creativity. Choose your weapon, choose your stance, choose your fighting style; Be the powerful warrior, ranger or sorcerer you always dreamed of becoming!
Screenshots
10 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Hey everyone, a very small hotfix was just pushed to address a critical issue with the mod manager.
The plugin we use for modio is now considered legacy and is no longer supported by modio, causing a variety of issues. We need to update this plugin, but unfortunately it is not a simple swapout and is actually a lot of coding work.
We are working on this right now, but until then, this hotfix will address the major issue people were having in 1.3.1 where you can't access the mod manager because of a "failed to obtain terms of use" error.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/ddc74ccb8a4da8a0d8b994c7a97d6892a29d7a93.jpg"]
This will at least get the mod manager working again.
Meanwhile, the team will continue working on that plugin update which should fix other less critical but extremely annoying bugs, such as instances where players were finding their mod list will appear blank. Sorry to anyone who is experiencing that! ːeagleangryː
We also pushed a a fix for another critical bug related to achievements. Several people let us know the achievement for buying every T4 weapon was not firing; it was being caused because the 1.3 Khar-Tib blade traps were being incorrectly counted as a T4 weapon, but of course they are not purchasable.
That should be fixed now.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/85eef93cc4b766adf465824c57fe8a5a2b74d821.png"]
Cheers!
Changelog 1.3.1.260730005
FIXES
- \ Fixed achievement to buy T4 weapons being blocked by counting the un-purchasable Khar-Tib spin trap blade.
- \ Mod Manager access being blocked by terms of service request
Hello mates, Baron here with a small bugfix patch from the Blade & Sorcery team!
Though the main goal here was bugfixing and optimization, there were some additional little goodies that squeezed in nonetheless. Notably, a small feature was added where larger weapons can now stagger enemies through shield (and weapon) blocks if they are hit with enough impact, better representing the transfer of force.
There is also a neat visual addition to the Khar-Tib map; the addition of Oron and the Azure Star to the skybox! Maybe some of you guys noticed and wondered about their absence, and the truth was we totally forgot to add them until it was too late lol. So we went ahead and released 1.3 without them, but knowing we would simply sneak them back into 1.3.1. ːlunar2019piginablanketː
Full changelog below!
1.3.1. Changelog
FEATURES
- \ Added new force impact mechanic to long maces, long axes, greatswords, and ballista bolts; Enemies can be staggered through shield blocks if impacted with enough force
- \ New force impact mechanic loading tip
IMPROVEMENTS
- \ Expanded the utility of OutOfBoundsFader
- \ Included invalid values in logging to make it easier to debug the AnimatorParamController
- \ Added the Azure star and the Oron planet to the KharTib map
- \ Added out-of-bounds fader to Sentara Ship, Home, and Shop
- \ Optimised Khar-Tib desert zones
- \ Adjust jump links in Khar-tib desert map to reduce NPCs getting stuck on ledges
- \ Optimised Hair 10 for both genders
CHANGES
- \ Added a scale curve to the molten beam
- \ Added Dalgarian tools to the Crystal Hunt Shop
- \ Spell bombs can now be armed using the TK spin input, lightning bombs chain-trigger any bombs in their radius
- \ Changed floating effect scaling mode
- \ Increased the skill tree music volume to match the level of the other musics
- \ Changed Falchion's shopkeeper dialogue expression from angry to intrigued
- \ Updated the fire bomb's stick targets to ensure it includes golem and modded thunder entities
FIXES
- \ Added missing level variants to Spectator and QA Menus
- \ Made MapData use its own category to prevent it from merging with other data types
- \ Fixed Weightless Kinesis NRE
- \ Fix modded skills missing when loading through the main menu
- \ Reload level if the player calibration was done inside a level to make sure all the level components are properly initialized
- \ Your hand no longer slides down the weapons on the pedestals of survival mode
- \ Fixed missing localizations of Crystal Core, Wrist Blade, and Sword of Naa shopkeeper dialogue lines
- \ Fixed Khar-Tib armor leg occlusion to only hide upper legs
- \ Sync Genie Lamp visual and sound effects
- \ Fixed player spawner spawning at origin then teleporting the creature, rather than spawning it at its target position immediately, which was causing the infinite gravity effect on the Senate
- \ Added the Khar-Tib Desert to the Crystal Hunt arena levels pool
- \ Show error window if we receive an invalid Mod Manager TOS
- \ Fixed static creature ungrab event not firing
- \ Mod menus no longer overlap each time the mods are loaded on the main menu
- \ Fixed skill tree orb destroying child effects
- \ Fixed Weightless Kinesis breaking skill orbs
- \ Disabled kinematic on ballista bow string for 0.1 seconds when the wave starts to allow string lock
- \ Fixed missing damagers on Khar-Tib Ballista
- \ Renamed and fixed unassigned handle on mercenary headband
- \ Fixed Falchion's shopkeeper dialogs not having been properly updated
- \ Added an item despawn zone on the ocean underneath the house to despawn any items that clip through the floor
- \ Disabled the Genie Lamp vfx playing when the item is created
- \ Fixed locomotion issues on the stairs of the Museum level
- \ Fixed incorrect lighting on the debris of the destroyed teleporter room door in the Home level
- \ All items now have VFX Meshes, meaning the telekinesis VFX will now appear on all items and at the correct size
- \ Reduce the in game debug console scroll speed and make it configurable
- \ Fix for Khar-Tib Warpick handle having an imbue,
- \ Fix for misalignment of the VFX on imbue for Nailclub and Hatchet,
- \ Fix for both dual-blade weapons having misaligned imbue audio & TK effect affecting parts of the weapon
SDK
- \ Various SDK fixes
- \ Made it easier to set up compound collider Zones
- \ Ensure that advanced audio containers are saved after changes
- \ Have collidergroups create the imbue mesh in the same folder as the prefab
- \ ColliderGroup-created Imbue meshes are now created as a .asset file
- \ ColliderGroup-created imbue meshes now overwrite the previously created imbue mesh when generated again
Hello mates, Baron here. The guys are already busy working on the next Byeth release - The Khar-Tib Update. However, that hasn't stopped the team finding and killing the bugs that had popped up in the Sentara Update.
The team have a Sentari bugfix patch for you today. Notable bugs that have been addressed are things like the discombobulate skill not working, or being able to skewer right though enemies with a spear, which was super buggy (the unintended behavior was being caused by the skill that allows arrows to pass right through enemy).
Heads up, if you were experiencing any very strange issues in 1.2.0 that are not mentioned below in the changelog, such as enemy with invisible faces or spell wheels not working, etc, be aware that what you have there is a mod bug! In those cases, you would need to just update your mod to the latest Sentara version, and if the mod issue persists, make a new character.
That's it for now folks. There is always the possibility of another small Sentara patch, but other than that, the guys are deep diving into Khar-Tib.
Bye for now!
---
Sentara v1.2.1 Change Log
CHANGES
\ Allow igniting torches with the flamethrower
\ Buff Airstrike skill
\ Disable Ranged Expertise on all spears
FIXES
\ Fix Sentara Ship NPCs navmesh issues
\ Avoid NRE during Release Areas
\ handle NRE when ragdoll is destroyed while force is being applied
\ Fix NRE in EffectModuleDecal
\ Fix EffectAudio NRE
\ Fix needing to double click some survival options
\ Remove JsonIgnore from PushBehaviour merge key and reserialize to fix overriding brains
\ Fix survival reward spawning and equipment despawning
\ Reduce mesh duplication by not static batching single meshes
\ Fix issue causing discombobulate to no longer work after changing levels
\ LevelDatas failing to load due to a concurrency issue with level options
\ Fix NRE in PIDController
\ Fixed Trappdoor Collidergroup
\ Pine tree branch damager
\ Flintlock LOD dupe fix
\ Sewer wood collider
\ Fix missing colliders on Sup_pillar2.prefab
\ Female Officer helmet clipping fix and torso skin weight adjustment
\ Performance issue with the globe in the sentara ship
\ Avoid multiple items being highlighted in the item book after switching category
\ Fix Female Officer neck dismemberment
SDK
\ Improve Catalog Editor usability in modding
\ Override catalog path methods for MapData, ModOptionData
\ Changed dropdowns in a number of components to use AppendToField
\ Fix TextData JSON saving and catalog editor open folder button
\ Catalog Editor considers overrider JSONs as being not drawn and shows a note
\ Change UpdateAllExpressions signature in AdvancedAudioContainer to fix the inspector
\ Prevent NREs from GameData related dropdowns in Catalog Editor
\ Fix overriders drawing overtop each other in the Catalog Editor tree view
\ Fix LootTable UI in catalog editor by unstripping methods for buttons and labels
\ Fix custom categories, category groups, and factions not showing up in dropdowns
\ Make sure catalog data types that have generated merge keys always get a key
\ Fix error from removing element from list
\ Fix multiple jsondbs being exported
\ Improved clean destination support for android and windows exports. Improve adb command feedback
\ Fixed multiple jsondbs being exported with a mod. Added functionality to rename mod folder and move catalog/bundles with it
\ Allow modders to rename the mod name different to the folder name
\ Update Protomap board
\ Fix currencies dictionary not drawing in GameModeData InventoryStart lists
\ Expose LootTable AddLevel method and button for SDK
\ Fix copying json when exporting to game folder
Hello mates, Baron here! Patch 1.1.1 is here and it is a nice one, with some new goodies to compliment the recent release of The Rakta Update.
Rakta Faction in Dungeons
The most notable addition is Rakta enemy can now be encountered in Sandbox mode dungeons. ːpraisesunː
We knew even for 1.1.0 that players would want this and honestly their absence never felt right to us! But the issue we had was it was impossible for us to add a new faction into Crystal Hunt dungeons without rewriting the code for how factions spawn in Dungeons because it is all tied to the progression system.
Doing major code rewrites at this stage would have been way too risky and almost guaranteed to have broken the game... so you can see how this would have been far from a "small content" addition which was our self-imposed requisite when making the Byeth Updates.
It also would have needed to be shoehorned into the lore to provide some explanation as to why Raike soldiers are running around Eraden dungeons unchecked. This would have also meant new writing, journal stuff, icons, QA and dungeon spawners - all stuff that quickly adds up in scope creep.
However, a good compromise we found was to add the Rakta faction into the Sandbox mode dungeons. Since sandbox is just for fun it doesn't really matter if it makes lore sense, and makes it a nice "what if" scenario.
You will find the Rakta faction under "Enemy Factions" on the Sandbox mapboard in both Outpost and Dalgarian dungeons.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/b29f28daddb325b953ee45b883dbf366f30d52dc.gif"]
The cool things is we will now be able to do the same with the upcoming Sentari, Kharese and Madene enemy when those factions release. ːlunar2019piginablanketː
As another bonus, you can now find the previously missing Outlaw faction in Dalgarian sandbox dungeons.
Rakta Categories
A nice QOL improvement - Rakta weapons and armour appear in their own custom categories.
A surprising number of people messaged me after the update to say they didn't get the new content in 1.1.0, but the explanation was that they just didn't realize the new weapons were buried in the normal categories.
To make it more neat and tidy and to give a distinction to the special new Raike content, you can now find all the new weapons in their own unique Rakta category with the Raike flag icon.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/e790bc1ebc03abcd46ad281697ed040a199ba029.png"]
Rakta armour is also in its own special category, under Apparel. This should make it much easier to see all the components of the armour set.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/d744021b492658374acb4652845e4bdcbc11fe4e.png"]
More Rakta Waves
In Sandbox mode you can now find Rakta waves under their own special categories.
As well as that, we added more variants of Rakta waves, such as "melee only", etc.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/b27c47946944abef5bc0c5f14ad74b51706d0e9a.png"]
To go with these new waves, there are now more Raike loadouts too. Sorcerers will have the Raike dual-crystal staff, and archers will use the T3 bow and arrow.
There are also dangerous Raike spellswords, who will fight with magic and katanas.
Raike Hip-Draw
If you are a lore enthusiast you might recall the shopkeeper mentioning the Raike have a strange way of drawing arrows from their hip. It was originally just a little lore flavour line for fun, but now it is a reality!
New animations were added for Raike archers so they can draw arrows from a hip quiver.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/5c015b80c6a042a76650d0d422c498031f08ccec.gif"]
Bugfixes
There are a variety of bugfixes added in this patch which you can read in the changelog below, but the most notable fixes which deserve a shout out are the Rakta chest plate which was not blocking stabs, and the dual-staff which was not firing each end independently.
Both of these issues have been addressed!
That's it for now folks. The guys are already deep into the development of Update 1.3: The Sentara Update, which is expected to be ready sometime early next year, possibly around February.
When I have some nice previews of that I will be sharing them in the news. In the meantime, enjoy the Rakta Update!
Full Changelog - Rakta 1.1.1
Additions:
Added new item book icons for Byeth updates.
New Rakta enemy loadouts.
Additional Rakta waves.
Added Rakta Elite to Progressive 1v1 duel.
Add Rakta as faction option for Outpost dungeon.
Add Outlaw as faction option for Dalgarian Dungeon
Add animation for Rakta NPCs to draw arrows from hip-holstered quiver.
Changes:
Reward items (chosen from the pillar) remain in player hands + holsters when the wave ends.
Rakta items are now in their own categories in the item book.
Rakta melee items no longer have ranged weapon data which caused weird behaviour.
(Modding) Make brain modules merge in brain data.
(Modding) Make LightManager public to expose it for modding access.
Fixes:
Fix Rakta chest plate not blocking incoming attacks.
Fix Rakta dual-crystal staff sides not activating independently.
Prevent telekinesis targeting items while merging spells.
Fix achievement logic trying to run load method before it loads.
Fix errors caused by unloading achievements.
Fix fatal crash caused by duplicate mod IDs in mod manager.
Fix for archers with gravity imbue on their arrow shooting over the player's head.
Fix golem head emission not turning on when defeated.
Fixed ethnic group not applying in certain situations (after first dungeon room).
Fixed Rakta staff on NPCs hip holster being aligned badly.
Fixed some fire shaders causing NaNs or turning green.
Fixed LOD2 on Female Rakta right arm bracer rendering incorrectly
Cheers!
Changelog - 1.0.7.682
- Fixed bug with Mod Manager not remembering if the user accepted the terms of agreement when it reauthenticates with mod.io
The guys also knocked out a couple of other small annoying things, like an issue with the water in certain rooms being non-swimmable.
Changelog below!
Change log 1.0.7.677
Fixes:
- Fixed mod manager not properly reauthenticating when the login token expires
- Fixed Water in Drainage and MonumentalWaterfall dungeon rooms
- Fixed Underwater1 dungeon room black thin wall being visible
- Fixed a issue with the sky sometimes blurring on android in the main menu
- Fixed null error when modded skill tree crystals dont have sparkle Effects
- Fixed null when modded skill tree crystals dont have music
Changes:
- Added 2 more Aldaric statue lore spawners to the chapel dungeon
- Increased the lore chance to spawn rate by 25%
- Added option to prevent crystal merging in ItemModuleCrystal
Besides a bunch of bugfixes, we have a surprising QOL feature addition in this update - a height offset.
If you are really tall or really short, you probably knew all about how annoying that could, and this was an accessibility feature we always wanted to have but encountered issues with implementation due to the full body avatar. However Wully found an unexpected and nice way around it, so now you can offset your character height vs your real height. This also means you could play the game sitting down if you wanted. ːtmntleoː
This update took freaking ages to roll out, guys... After 5 years of development our game framework ThunderRoad has become really difficult and inefficient to work on due to regressions. The good news however is that KospY has been developing ThunderRoad 2. All those nagging issues we had from TR1 are no more on TR2, so this allows us to work much faster and more efficiently on our next game. ːpraisesunː
Full changelog below, cheers!
UPDATE 1.0.7 CHANGELOG
FEATURES
- Added height offset feature in options book (Seated mode)
- Mod Manager in-game report functionality
FIXES
- Creatures should no longer play death animations if they died while in the air
- Bhaptics integration fix
- Metal textures being too dark in infuser room on Android
- Fix localisation not updating in character creator
- Fix dungeon arena gates not opening if enemies died through weird means
- Fix for gravity holes on end tower puzzle disappearing
- Fix for grip on index/vive controllers. Added back grabGripAction for SteamVR
- Fix for stabbing an edible object then eating it makes the edible object stay stuck
- Fix inventory orb lagging behind the player
- Fix issue with missing items not being returned to the player stash if they fell through the ground
- Fixed TK Problem on Small Crate
- Fixed an edible audio not being linked to volume controls
- Fixed gamemode option description not updating
- Fixed lighting in dungeon not using normal maps on Android
- Fixed hole in mesh in temple
- Fixed wearable sfx not linked to volume controls
- Made Crate able to be stored in Inventory
- Fixed TK Issue on crate
- Mod manager TOS localised
- Fixed some VFX not fading to black when changing level on Android
- Prevent Gravity Hammer from picking up the player
- Prevent backing out of mod manager when its loading to prevent invalid state
- Fixed not being able to grab Dalgarian door orb with your hands
- Underwater1 Mesh fix for lighting
- Updated new mods warning Spanish translation
- Improved light probes in UrbanStreets2
- Possible fix for lore not being saved on Android
- Fixed issue with static batching breaking vertex data on pcvr
- Fixed blue glow on things in home on PC
- Add slice random button to spectator for dismemberment testing
- Added button to spawn an item owned or not owned by the player in QA menu
- Dev mode command line arg added
PERFORMANCE
- Lots of mesh optimisations within Dalgarian dungeons
- Optimised Market exterior terrain
- Reduced animation memory usage
- Unlocked additional GPU level on Meta headsets for improved GPU performance
SDK
- Add "AppendNextDrawer = true" to uses of ValueDropdown in SDK to allow modders to type in custom IDs instead of using the dropdown
- Add persistent levels list to Crystal Hunt GameMode class + JSON for persistent levels other than the shop
- Move capture audio syncer out of editor folder to fix missing scripts error
- Separate face property bindings so the shopkeeper face bindings can be included in the SDK
- URP changes annotated
- Expand player mana events to include spell casting, add skill count to skill event linker to check loaded skills
- Add creature tool methods to equip apparels
- Methods to unequip apparels in CreatureTool
- Add level module to define shop data ID in JSON
- Add messageSkipEvent as alternative to onMessageSkip in SDK
- BrainModuleSpeak now automatically closes the jaw when not speaking
- Fixed issue with ethnic groups on creatureData not merging properly
The value of the gold bag in the dungeon treasure room chest is now reduced, but in contrast the value of the actual loot you find is increased, and more of it is added to the end of dungeon chest. That means a player who just races through the dungeon and doesn't bother searching for any extra loot will come out of the dungeon with around the same gold value as 1.0.5. But any player who actually searches for additional loot will now walk away from the shop with more gold. The idea here was to reward the players who search for hidden loot by offering a much more juicy incentive to do so.
This will hopefully make the shop experience a little nicer so that you don't have to take out a second mortgage just to buy that rusty dagger anymore. This was the first attempt at rebalancing by the game design team and hopefully it will be good right out of the gate, but the guys are going to monitor how players feel about these values and then determine if further tweaks are necessary.
UPDATE 1.0.6 CHANGELOG
CHANGES / QOL
- Improved paper note text resolution
- Rebalanced the loot from dungeons. Players should come out with more money than before when selling loot at the shop
FIXES
- Duplication bug when leaving items on the weapon rack then completing an arena fight in Crystal Hunt
- Added missing lore pages to lore spawners, they were second pages of existing lore packs that weren't set up
- Issue with enemy weapons not colliding with the players torso/arms/legs
- Paper notes flickering at a distance
- Prevent persistent items from being despawned by the level cleaner, fixes falchion and barons hat being despawned
- Minecarts not being lit properly causing them to glow
PERFORMANCE
- Fix memory leak with lighting data from dungeons
- Reduced music memory usage
- Reduced paper notes memory usage by half
About half of the patch is pure bugfixing; a nice one being the fix for the pause button which was not working when you press space bar. There is a super rare Unity bug in all Unity VR games that can randomly occur where the game will start paused. Those unlucky enough to experience this rare issue were stuck because the usual fix of just unpausing the game with space bar was not working, so this patch will be a relief for anyone who encounters that.
Other than that there is a few new things such as new tutorials, console commands, and couple of small QOL things; NPCs armors now make sound when they move around or attack - this will hopefully make it less annoying when you are attacked from behind with no way to know. Now you can hear enemy who sneak up and surround you.
Lastly, there are a bunch of performance improvements and SDK additions.
Cheers!
Full Changelog
Version 1.0.3.576
Enhancements
- Armor tutorial
- Spell wheel tutorial
- Armor SFX - NPCs armors now make sound when they move and attack
- Support for Pico Trackers & New tracker calibration page on the main menu
- Comfort movement vignette
- Default hmd bindings for steamvr for index and vive cosmos
- Console command to make player invincible
- Console command to load a spell on the players hand
- Console command to take panoramic screenshots
Fixes
- Added sound effect on arena crystal break
- Added weapon rack position to bone
- Can now click and hold on various UI buttons to increment values
- Carpets not having collisions, things could fall through them
- Eye lashes not being transparent
- meteors not breaking when thrown against breakables
- molten arc persisting on enemy weapons under very specific circumstances
- thunder-sapping lightning not applying modifiers immediately
- Shop keeper subtitle not changing language
- Twin flame and swarm detonation event not unregistering correctly (fix flamewall stacking more and more effect each we reload level)
- arcwire blocking TK
- canvas on worldmap board being hidden by the mesh
- creatures thinking they werent on the ground when going down stairs
- handles being setup incorrectly on crates and broken crate parts
- issue with spell wheel effects going missing when spammed open/close
- placement of subtitles covering barons face
- some death animations causing npcs to teleport to the side
- some dynamic objects not being lit properly in dungeons
- tribal shield not doing damage
- twin flame fire line spawning instantly
- LitMoss fixed detail maps not looking correct.
- Navigation issues in home and arena and stairs in various scenes
- Player hand stretching
- Player hands will now snap back to the tracking origins if they are unnaturally far from the player.
- Prevent merge when not casting spells
- Prevent persistent items from being despawned by the level cleaner, fixes falchion and barons hat being despawned
- UI sub menus toggle height according to the text lines count
- Various mesh gap issues fixed across scenes/dungeons
- Various translations and localisation UI components
- Add delay to heatwave for when instant casting is enabled
Performance
- Performance improvements for the mod manager
- Atlased various icons
- Change menu prefabs to use sprites to reduce draw calls
- Culling improvements in tower
- Optimized many meshes
- change mirror to thunderbehaviour. Cache shader properties. Avoid checks in update when not active
- dont play hinge creak noise when its barely moving
- dont try updating finger poses when they are at the target weight
SDK
- Added exclude type on container saver
- Clean up animation data fields and remove unused melee animation datas
- Fix cast left/cast right now calling cast side method to actually trigger spells
- Fix item tool method issues, fix mod option linker not invoking value invokers, add TK enable/disable to player mana linker
- Fixed protomap, compile issues, added ocean example
- Fixed protomirror
- Make note textgroupId and textId public
- Move materialenumdrawerextended to the sdk so sdk shaders have drop downs
- Prevent removal of License.txt in future SDK builds, include License.txt in project to copy if cleared
- Put normalize + mix to mono macro in SDK/Examples/Characters/Facial Animation folder
- Reserialize all animation JSONs
- Strip _SOFTPARTICLES_ON on android globally as they need depth and thats not supported on android
- Unstrip ModManager code which allowed JSONs in mod folders to load in SDK Catalog Editor
- Added new events for DamagerEventLinker
- Added owned parameter to spawn item command
- Prevent exceptions and warnings if ItemModuleWardrobe effect ID is null or empty
- Meta SDK from v68 to v69
- PICO SDK to 3.0.0
One of the roughest consequences of having an EA development over 5 years and going from just KospY as a dev to having a full studio of devs is the amount of spaghetti code that can occur! What is meant by spaghetti code is that the code is "messy" with many dependencies, making the threat of regression rampant.
It's like having a big bunch of knotted strings where if you want to pull one you risk it pulling on another by accident, and this is what happens when we say regression; you change one piece of seemingly innocuous code in one place, and it causes a ripple effect elsewhere to create some unexpected consequence, and you had no defense against it because you can't possibly QA the entirety of every little thing in the game every single update.
This is what happened to us with our AI in 1.0 release - some of the AI behaviors were weird, buggy, or flat out missing! The state of AI was less obvious to us because there was an overwhelming amount of other stuff to focus on in 1.0, and we hadn't been expecting AI to degrade (ie, you are never expecting regression until it happens).
We had been in 1.0 dev mode for so long that the AI slowly degrading was like watching a plant grow for us, versus for you guys who came straight from U12 to 1.0 and could do a direct comparison. It really wasn't until post release and some players saying "didn't the AI used to behave XYZ way?" that made us realize how the AI had gotten lobotomized.
Long story short, that brings us to now and we have been working on repairing this! With this patch, we believe we finally have the AI back to where it was right after Animation Overhaul in U11. ːlunar2019piginablanketː
This should be a major improvement if you have been playing 1.0, though as always with the AI, it's far from perfect. There is no real solution for "dream AI", both because on a technical level a VR full physics simulation will always have a risk of strange things or jank that a non-physics simulation does not, and because of what I was mentioning about about regression risk in our game framework Thunder Road, which makes it slow as hell and an absolute nightmare to work on.
This is one of the reasons we are dying to move to Thunder Road 2 which will be our new game framework for the next game; we can learn from the rookie mistakes made in Blade & Sorcery development and create something better if we are able to start from scratch.
Anyway, this is just some background information I wanted to share with you guys to give context, but let's actually get into the AI fixes in this patch!
NOTE: If you were playing with AI mods now or at any point since 1.0 release, it is highly recommended you remove the mods and delete your save / start a new character save.
If you do not do this, the AI mods are likely gonna conflict with this patch and cause derpy behavior or even break things. This includes if you had an AI mod but didn't delete your save - the AI mod can create weird behaviors in your save even when the mod is removed. If you report bugs and then it is discovered you had AI mods installed or were using a corrupt modded save...
https://media1.tenor.com/m/3l4Ky00EA8IAAAAC/liam-neeson-i-will-find-you.gif
Here is what is improved in the AI:
1v1 improvements, parry and riposte restored
1v1 AI is now working really well and restored back to U11 levels. ːpraisesunː
The AI should be responsive and not just stand there; now they should actually engage you aggressively.
https://media.giphy.com/media/mvxLWHeliwpsxbRI8m/giphy.gif
The AI can chain attacks like they used to be able to, and can perform a parry and riposte.
Some animations that were not triggering are now working, such as the straight stab.
https://media.giphy.com/media/o4NfLOncgAgUTN4dHT/giphy.gif
A huge improvement is no more face hugging enemy! This was such a pain in the ːpontius_angryː and ruiner of combat, so hopefully you will not be experiencing this anymore.
Although rangefinding was majorly improved there is still some risk of facehugging with enemies using certain small weapons - in particular the hatchet, and sometimes the club. The reason there is a risk is because these weapons are so small that the enemy needs to get up very close to effectively use it, so it is not so much facehugging as a result of a rangefinding bug as much as it is the nature of the weapon in VR type thing.
Regarding these "little weapons" we were split on it between removing them from AI and thus removing the problem, or keeping them in so as not to lose content but retaining that rangefinding risk. In the end some of the team felt very strongly for keeping them in, so we are going to leave it and see how it goes.
https://media.giphy.com/media/J3aoCipFlAJnh5UYp5/giphy.gif
Something worth noting -- The upper faction tiers (Eraden, Eye) are better fighters than the lower factions (Wildfolk, Outlaws).
You should still have a pretty easy time with the lower factions as they are not fighting to their full capabilities, so if you want more of a challenge and to see the full extent of the 1v1 AI you should try fighting the upper factions in 1v1.
Longsword AI improvement
The AI was already using longswords but you might have noticed a ton of jank in the animations or very questionable rangefinding.
A complete oversight by us was the AI was not setup to effectively use the longsword because it was never intended to be a thing - we have no two-handed animations and never intended to use one-handed animations for longswords. However, this got added late in development for extra content, but with this oversight the consequence meant the quality was not there.
Other than removing longswords from AI there seemed to be no great solution for this because as mentioned, the AI was never setup to use this sword with one-handed animations. However, to our pleasant surprise a great solution was achieved by tweaking the animation speeds so the AI swings it a little slower.
This is something we would generally avoid doing because things get weird when you change animation speeds, but in this case it worked really well! It actually seemed to really help the physics of the longsword when the AI is using it and you can achieve some really awesome parries.
https://media.giphy.com/media/POWfdD0lVzBPvzlnHh/giphy.gif
Shield AI improvements, shield bash working properly
Worth saying right up front, pre-patch 1.0.3 the shield bash AI was legit broken! The AI was engaging in a really obnoxious behavior where they would move in to shield bash as a primary attack, which meant every shield guy you met was charging right up into your face to bash you (as if the facehugging issue was not bad enough) because that was the only attack they had.
This was actually addressed in patch 1.0.3 but it has been further refined and improved here.
https://media.giphy.com/media/S24lFNIimcnEqnu0ZA/giphy.gif
Something to note is that shield enemy attack don't engage as aggressively as one-handed enemy in chaining attacks and will turtle more.
However, with regards to chained attacks there is a new behaviour added which is that the AI can use the shield bash as part of their attack chains, so for example they may slash and then bash.
https://media.giphy.com/media/RP8yj38PyOrqGoiSfv/giphy.gif
Other general improvements made have been to the shield tracking. While still far from perfect, the tracking is a bit more aggressive now to improve the chances that the AI catches an incoming slash with the shield.
We thought this type change would be a bit risky because whenever you mess with tracking you run the risk of the AI motions looking really weird, however it is pretty good!
https://media.giphy.com/media/XiqAZDUBEatBSRUXbG/giphy.gif
Death animations
In patch 1.0.3 we had discovered that death animations were literally not working at all ːeagleangryː but we had been able to restore them.
We have further improved them in patch 1.0.4 and now it should be more like the old days.
https://media.giphy.com/media/n3hnQfYkD8Abo7OSP0/giphy.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/79Nz9je3ra8hYShtyV/giphy.gif
Same as it used to be in the past, death anims should be a combination of animation and ragdoll so you can get that "finisher" type kill.
https://media.giphy.com/media/fwcTb9o9sssXENzWSl/giphy.gif
General Rangfinding improvements
The pox on 1.0 combat.... this had been a major bug that burrowed deep into our code. The issue which I'm sure you all know well is that the enemy was getting so close to the player that they were practically glitching inside the player avatar.... ːvsskullː
This was probably the worst issue of all the AI regressions so the guys pored over and over this issue to improve it. Hopefully you will find it much better now!
https://media.giphy.com/media/G13yr6Y2UEJyCJvTsV/giphy.gif
Dodge
We have had a hell of a time trying to improve dodge.
The issues we are encountering are with enemy self-preservation and finding a hard balance to strike between "the AI can't get out of the way of a weapon fast enough" and "the AI are dodging so ridiculously fast that they are Sonic".
Part of this issue is Thunder Road, but another part of this issue is just the fact that it super hard to counter the reality of the game being VR and that the player can attack in any direction, in any manner, with any type weapon, and at any speed. To try and deal with this, when the AI dodge is ramped up to increase survivability it just too goofy looking... if the player jiggles their sword the AI is diving 20 feet back. ːgoblinː
The guys worked really hard to find the sweet spot and what we have is probably the best middle ground. Overall I am still not 100% happy with it, but am coming to peace that it may be the best it can be on the Thunder Road framework. I think my disappointment comes from wishing there was a "perfect answer" but the reality is it will never be so perfect to account for all situations possible in VR.
https://media.giphy.com/media/ea5upSun477NJScXm7/giphy.gif
Two-weapon combat improvements
Enemies who were using two weapons were one of the major contributors to the broken rangefinding.
The issue we were having was that the two-weapon animations were not well suited to VR. Essentially all the AI animations we were using meant the AI would "step in" to do their attacks, but as you know, if you were too close to the AI this meant the AI would basically step up into your face and get tangled in the player avatar.
There was no way to fix that behavior because the issue was in the animations, so what we did instead was remade any of those animations where the enemy steps in. Now the enemy is rooted when they initiate the animation.
https://media.giphy.com/media/I9KZmVozu427OGSH58/giphy.gif
As mentioned earlier about "little weapons" like the hatchet, there is still some risk with those weapons, such as the double axe guy, simply because the enemy needs to be pretty close to use them. Overall it should be much better though.
---
That's it for AI stuff! Besides AI, did I mentioned this was also a massive bugfix update? lol
Full changelog below!
Update 1.0.4 Changelog
Improvements
- All NPCs have a higher chance to dodge and try to dodge earlier, they also don't ignore certain types of attacks anymore, making them dodge better again
- All NPCs have had their block settings tweaked so they properly assess where an attack is coming from (making them block better)
- Attack ranges have been slightly tweaked to reduce how often NPCs end up too close after stepping in to attack
- Death animation strength has been tweaked so they play more noticeably
- Dodge animations don't instantly switch back to idle poses when they finish
- Dual-wielding enemies don't slowly creep into your space as they make combo/chain attacks, using tweaked animations with their feet locked in place
- Fix NPCs not being able to draw an offhand if they already have their main hand equipped
- Fixed npc double fireball cast if interrupted
- Fixed npcs staying in death animations when pushed with gravity, they now properly ragdoll
- Heavily armored NPCs have a lower chance to dodge in general
- Inactivity timer to auto-end waves after 60 seconds without action, to help prevent being stuck when the AI is lost/stuck somewhere
- NPCs with heavier weapons play their attack animations more slowly to account for physics differences
- Prevent NPCs dropping items sometimes when pulled from quiver on body
- Shield enemies can now perform a shield bash as a quick counter-attack when you parry their attack
- Shield enemies no longer include their short-range shield bash in range-finding and only activate it if you get too close
- Shield enemies position their shield more in-line with an incoming attack than before
Features
- Add button to spawn lore from journal when dev mode is enabled
- Added unlock lore cheat to sandbox menu
- Add physic timestep console command
- Added command to open the lore journal in your hand
- Added lodbias slider to devmode graphic options
- Add per-hand apparel charge time modifiers
- Added new tutorials for quivers, spell wheel, armor equipping
- Updated the tutorial for the item book to explain the tabs more
- Updated/Fixed BHaptics support
- Use hand written fonts on home maps and travel papers
Fixes
- Fix bug with modders shaders that were explicitly added to bundles being stripped
- Fix creatures not having their eyes roll back if they weren't looking at something before dying
- Add a collider on the infuser pipe to prevent hard earned crystals falling down
- Added colliders to carpets so items dont get hidden under them
- Added colliders to the Loot Chest handle
- Added fakeview to the hidden cave entry
- Added some real nails next to the static nails in Transi_22
- Always spawn creatures from the pool when possible
- Avoid NRE if we give an invalid string id to get the message's image/video address
- Catch OneDrive Directory read/write exception when loading saves
- Changeed creature table drop weight from int to float for greater precision in weighting
- Enable click and hold feature on new char manual height arrows
- Ensure that audio fading happens even if post processing is disabled when loading levels
- Ensure the game doesnt try to pause twice. Add logging when system menu opens
- Fix broken coin stacks not going into inventory
- Fix chicken being flagged as a golem
- Fix for click and hold feature on arrow buttons being active when the pointer enters the button again after exiting the button while holding the trigger
- Fix game mode icons not loading when going back to the main menu
- Fix issue with breakables parent interactable data overwriting the broken items interactable data
- Fix modded skill trees not playing
- Fix profiler end samples not being called when zone code returns early
- Fix unintentional not-not condition preventing GolemSpawner stun golem buttons working
- Fixed Dungeon sometimes changing sun positionin levels when leaving dungeons
- Fixed Handle inconsistencies on the Plank_2.25 prop
- Fixed LOD1 Male wrist going invisible
- Fixed NRE when the player is holding a non-item handle at the end of the survival mode wave
- Fixed Ragged Trousers LOD1/2 reveal
- Fixed Signs & Traps missing in Survival
- Fixed Torch Holder orientation of Torch in some dungeon rooms
- Fixed a collider overlapping with the interior of the cave, causing the cave to be culled if you touched it
- Fixed a missing handle to the leather part of the greatsword
- Fixed bug with creature body/skin mats not loading
- Fixed bug with crystal links on golem not disabling sometimes when the golem was killed
- Fixed bug with mod addressable assets being loaded when loading json only
- Fixed buttons not being cleared if trigger button was released with the pointer outside the button
- Fixed canope jar lid not being able to be taken off
- Fixed creatures not taking damage if wrist sliced while attacking
- Fixed dungeon layout spawning to allow certain rooms to spawn side by side
- Fixed duplicate air helper component on player creature
- Fixed gap behind pillar wall in Golem Arena
- Fixed golem crystal sometimes falling through the ground
- Fixed golem face plate glitching in certain circumstances
- Fixed handle reach gizmo to align with default grab axis ratio
- Fixed handles on crates and broken crate parts using the wrong interactableIds
- Fixed issue with climbing/swimming/fist logic was running for non player creatures
- Fixed issue with some effect prefabs being marked with IsPooled in the prefab causing them to be despawned incorrectly.
- Fixed issue with water sometimes running updates in realtime, impacting performance
- Fixed issues with rivers fake transparency capture
- Fixed missing collider on wall prefab
- Fixed no PlayerSpawner in Underwater1 & Transi 21 | Water Color
- Fixed notes sometimes being frustrum culled when holding them close
- Fixed rope sliding speeds being different depending on headset refresh rate and physics settings. Removed unused reverse code on GetTimeStepMultiplier
- Fixed shopkeepers pants turning shiny on hit
- Fixed some edge cases when unlocking lore not saving properly
- Fixed some items not being lit properly in dungeons
- Fixed some weird culling on rocks in home
- Fixed statue sword not rotating correctly when using tele spin
- Fixed throwable dagger not being flagged as a throwable weapon, and lacking ranged weapon data
- Fixed world items like the spikes in arena having their colliders move in unexpected circumstances
- Foot tracking adjustements & Prevent IK target zone to trigger for tracked foot
- Force items with light volume recievers to always use dynamic triggers in dungeons
- Gravity hammer skill works on dalgarian key orbs
- Improved dalgarian door textures
- Improved draw cutting and enabled pressure stabbing for weapons.
- Improved tutorial UI message positioning
- Increase reach on nail club
- Item prices dont show decimal places now. As everything sells for whole integers
- Journal will now update correctly when changing languages.
- Link the credits to the master audio mixer so the credits arent super loud
- Mainmenu - Tweaked the size and positions of the UI elements inside the panels to make them visually more pleasing
- Minor adjustment to pressure cuts
- Move unused head wardrobes out of bas catalog
- Prevent lightning and molten beam breaking golem faceplate before defeat
- Prevent releasing a null video clip
- Prevent shadows being disabled completely on PCVR by claming shadow distance to 0.1. This prevents shaders breaking
- Prevent the new crystal being grabbable when its initially spawned on the infusor before the item magnet grabs it and locks it
- Properly localize Dalgarian words in Italian
- Release the icon from skilltree orb on despawn
- Reload localization after loading mods
- Rework LightProbeVolume to remove sha textures from materials when the texture are unload so it can effectively unload
- Subtitles increase size when in long distance
- Tweaks to ocean visuals in various dungeon rooms
- Update owner on SwapWith if new item can be stored in any kind of storage
- Updated ItemAltar prefab
- Fix AI casting immediately on spawn
- Fix missing handle data for wickerbasket_06
- Fixed the exposure zones in home
- Fixed tribal shield not being able to imbue
- Fixed typo in loading screen tips
- Reduced required velocity to damage with punches
- Vastly improved draw cutting on all swords and daggers
- Fixed detail maps not showing on some materials like rocks
- [Lore Journal] Fix issue with only showing text IDs instead of the localised text
- Add a delay between item grab and when it can be used to dive strike
- Don't rotate Hyperfocus VFX with creature
- Enable dive strike swing detection
- Fix arcwire blocking TK
- Fix items getting re-trapped in grav bubble while it's closing
- Fix molten arc persisting on enemy weapons under very specific circumstances
- Fixed gravnado targeting vfx hitting creatures
- Increased armored enemy resilience to being ignited
- Prevent gravity pushing own held item
- Use capsule colliders instead of mesh colliders for tierbound skill orbs to improve performance
- Fix potential NRE in skill tree receptacle
- Improved filtering performance
- Improved image downloading performance
- Improved mod loading performance
- Improved performance when uninstalling mods
- Reduced the number of API calls used, lowering the chance of a "please wait" message appearing
- Updated Mod.io plugin
Performance
- Asset rework on ladders to reduce draw calls
- Catalog - avoid running coroutines we dont need to
- Catalog - optimisations to load the catalog in parallel with addressables where possible to reduce idle time waiting for assets to load
- Changed many UI components to use sprites to improve batching
- Fixed skill tree not being SRP batched
- Home optimisations
- Improved UI performance on shop price tags
- Improved culling performance in dungeons
- Improved performance when golem blows apart
- Improved static batching performance in dungeons
- LightVolumeReciever performance improvements
- Merged many UI element sprites into a sprite atlas to improve batching
- Optimized interactable data loading by stopping it attempting to load more after its found the data
- Reduced duplicate assets in bundles to reduce build size and memory usage
- Reworked tower asset in home
- Various code optimisations
- Various dungeon asset performance optimisations
Modding
- Add save value field to mod option data, and default value index. Set up a bypass to circumvent the automatic default value index assignment. Also prevents mod options with "saveValue" from loading from the player save if they had ever been saved before.
- Added extra logging to notify of invalid mod installation
- Allow ModOptionData to override the default value index, don't load saved values if option doesn't save value
- Default value index defaults to -1, only read from member if value is left at -1
- Dont try to load mods in nested folders. This was to support mod.io initially but was resolved and this code wasnt removed.
- Add IKTargetZone back to sdk
- Add SDK invokable methods to force creatures and items to enter/exit zones
- Add a button to check labels for missing android/windows labels
- Add a warning in the SDK if a modder tries to build a bundle that doesnt have IsMod checked
- Add check for missing labels on mods addressable groups in the SDK
- Add clear statuses methods to CreatureTool and ItemTool
- Add default owner field on item spawner
- Add extra events onto some components to facilitate new/expanded event linkers
- Add improved SMR bone transfer tool, remove BonesDuplicator
- Add missing override for Remove status function
- Added SetEditMode to mirror back
- Added a bunch of methods to Creature, CreatureTool, and ItemTool to broaden the range of things modders can do within the SDK with no scripts necessary
- Added bakedlodgroup / plv example to protolevel
- Added event for the data being setup on the creature
- Added isZeroIntensity to AreaGlobalSunParameter to allow rooms with 0 intensity sun (a fake sun essentially) to spawn side by side
- Added item sell/buy events and item ownership change events
- Added lots of shaders to the shader bundles to reduce duplicates and duplicate memory
- Added reparenting to IToolControllable
- Added script to enable a component when devmode is enabled
- Added the Proto Potion
- Added timeslicing support to thunderbehaviour
- Adds a golem linker component (Allowing modders to trigger events on certain golem states and actions, as well as control the golem in limited ways)
- Adds a player mana component (Allowing modders to add events to spell load, focus use, power use, etc. and also activate certain mana abilities such as loading spells, changing focus, and activating powers)
- Adds a skill linker component (Allowing modders to add events that trigger on skill load/unload events)
- Adds buy/sell events to item event linker, as well as ownership change events
- Adds default owner field to item spawners, and SwapWith keeps the ownership of the item beforehand if the item was storable
- Area/Gateway restoreed some methods
- Change probability drop weight from int to float
- Creature despawn event for WaveSpawner inactivity timer
- Fix SDK method stripping on FxController
- Fix SDK stripping issues on CatalogData, StatusData, and Zone
- Fix index out of bounds errors if StanceData has only one idle pose configured
- Fix migration issue in the SDK where modders addressable groups lose the bundle schema, so we can automatically add it back
- Fix mirror gizmo
- Fix price tag gizmo
- Fixed Proto Assets Spawn and PriceTag Points
- Fixed mod asset bundle groups not using the correct build/load paths and not being set to the default group when building
- Make sure Shader strip config uses the quality level instead of the build target to get the correct stripping config
- Missing constructor for ItemContent
- Move BlendShapeSyncer out of core into SDK
- Move FaceCam script to SDK
- Prevent event linkers encountering errors when copying
- Refactor discombobulate a bit to allow modders to stun creatures using static method
- Rename ReleaseString to TryReleaseString, add back void ReleaseString method
- Set root nodes in HumanCombatCrossbow and HumanCombatFirearm to empty so modders can overwrite
- Status/skill fixes
- Change triinspector to an embeded package so git isnt a requirement for people to use the sdk
- Expose spawn/stop methods for effect spawner
- Fixed eventcontroller stuff being stripped from sdk
- Include triinspector package in the SDK
- Migration from easy buttons to triinspector
- Readded missing Begin/End buttons for the shaker for the sdk
- Updated SteamVR Unity Plugin to 2.8.0
- Updated oculus sdk plugin. Use OVR with OpenXR backend
1.0.4.613 hotfix (25/09/24)
- Fixed Dalgarian Dungeons not unloading memory for rooms that you are not in
- Fixed issue with save location not being created in LocalLow if it cannot be created in Documents due to OneDrive
- Fixed Item Tool method issues.
- Fixed mod option linker not invoking value invokers
- Fixed missing TK enable/disable to player mana linker
- Fixed cast left/cast right now calling cast side method to actually trigger spells
- Fixed SessionBlackboardTool bool comparison being true when comparing a bool that doesn't exist yet
- Fixed textgroupId and textId not being public on Note class
Fixes in this patch address a wide range of issues such as the exploits where you could duplicate items, to full-blown nasty bugs such as crystals having a chance to fall through the ground when physics is set to set to low.
There are also a bunch of AI fixes included in this patch. As mentioned before, AI is hell for us because we have a very complicated system of behavior trees that have way too much cross-branch dependencies and spaghetti code which creates a system where one tiny thing changes here, one massive thing breaks over there, and a ton of iteration time in between.
This was just the way it all organically happened from constantly developing the game, adding a ton of new staff to the team to the previously one-man project over time, and changing the roadmap scope over years which added things to the game that were never planned for, etc.
The most major thing that would fix these type of issues would be to start from scratch with the lessons learned to develop a nice new clean code, and that is exactly what we will be doing when we develop our next game on the new Thunder Road 2 framework. However for B&S we are stuck, so the best we can do is keep tweaking what we have and try to iron out the worst issues.
One of the most notorious issues to be addressed in this patch was related to the AI getting too close to player, sometimes even glitching into the player. It may not be perfect as it is still a WIP but an easy first step fix we took to alleviate this issue was to remove the tiny weapons from AI where they could never effectively find the right attacking distance in VR; for example the little hammer.
Another good rangefinding fix was addressing an issue with shield bash where shield enemy would constantly get in the player's face to try and rangefind the bash attack as the primary behaviour, instead of only bashing as a secondary circumstantial behavior when player got in the AI's face. Before now, if you were fighting a shield enemy they were most likely constantly in your face trying to shield bash you which was the opposite behavior than intended; the bash was supposed to keep you away from the enemy.
These two fixes help a bunch, but where things get hairy is in waves of multiple enemy, as AI rangefinding issues tend to get compounded when multiple enemy are present. To help, we amended a behavior for AI where those were not actively attacking the player will now hang back and not crowd the player.
Multiple enemies will still close in to attack player, but those who are not actively attacking will get out of the way rather than just standing there idling in your face. This will hopefully help reduce the sensation of AI crowding the player for no reason in group fights.
Meanwhile 1v1 the AI seems to be doing well and ranges all seem to be good, and attack pattern seems to be good and working as expected. The later factions (Eraden, The Eye) will attack with more ferocity than the early easy factions (Wildfolk, Outlaws).
https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExcng1amZwcXF3cHI0NThnOHFmNXFzNjF6eDUwM2dqYW05YXVzcXV2byZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/mvxLWHeliwpsxbRI8m/giphy.gif
The dodging behaviours for all AI is something we still need to iron out, as it is still not triggering properly and so was not included in this patch. We have a strange issue to diagnose where the dodging enemy is moving as though stuck in mud... they do the dodge animation but remain on the spot, which as you can imagine is not effective, lol.
A nice plus for AI in this patch is that some missing death animations were restored! It was one of those things where a "simple" change somewhere totally innocuous caused a ripple bug effect to cause regression and it had disabled death animations.
https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExcjk5N2czaW9nOWl1eHIwN201Nm1oaDFlaWZlaWQ0cXFra3Z5YTE3YSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/n3hnQfYkD8Abo7OSP0/giphy.gif
Last note - You might have noticed the download for this patch is huge; really sorry about that, guys! There is an optimization in Unity we needed to activate because it improved loading times for all assets, including up to 50% faster loading for dungeons, which of course is a great thing. But that bad part is it causes all the asset bundles to rebuild, meaning a full redownload of the game bundles is needed. However, this was just a once-off thing, so the good news is it should not need to happen again in the future.
Cheers guys, full changelog below!
Full Changelog
Version 1.0.3.576
Enhancements
- Added initial enriched presence for Steam
- Increased audio sample rate SFX/Music to improve audio quality
- Resetting settings in the option book will save options with the default value
- Added some logging and fallbacks if the game cant write to the log file
- Added SpectatorHide layer which the spectator camera cannot see.
- The inventory artifact mesh preview is now invisible in the spectator camera. But is visible once grabbed
Fixes
- Fixed Navmesh issues in Collapsed Ceiling/SewerGate/Castle_10
- Fixed Transi_Castle_16 Rope rotating when the LOD changes
- Fixed T1 Lightning crystal falling through the ground in home on Low Physics quality
- Fixed items loading the wrong itemId when spawned via ItemData
- Fixed bucklers improperly positioned when worn
- Fixed error with archery target and archery target support not showing in inventory
- Fixed water settings refreshing too often, spamming the log file
- Fixed the skip message SFX not being linked to the UI audio slider
- Fixed Eraden Tunic nerfing the player's focus regen
- Fixed reveal decals not working on npcs when their ethnicity is changed
- Fixed missing characters on UIs with handwritten fonts on asian languages
- Fixed mod option tooltips not closing when a options' category is closed
- Fixed metallic props and weapons being too dark
- Fixed warbow orientation when held in the right hand
- Fixed citadel bird spawner facing the wrong way
- Fixed colliders on scaffolding in UndergroundZipline preventing you from going into the scaffolding
- Fixed some collision issues in CoastalFort
- Fixed collider on Museum ocean so it cant be walked on
- Fixed incorrect flowmap texture used on fire imbue trail vfx
- Fixed bug with some ethnic groups eyes not being able to change color in character select
- Fixed storm beam vfx flickering
- Fixed some typos in the lore
- Fixed eyelashes using old shader, they now use TR/Litmoss
- Fixed tutorial stone in home using old shader, now uses TR/Litmoss
- Fixed male and female shirt textures stretching
- Fixed small stone sword holder orientation being wrong in the shop
- Fixed the journal not being lit properly in some instances
- Fixed new characters in character creation having the inventory of a previous character
- Fixed an issue where saving a new character wont refresh the character slot
- Fixed the gold death penalty causing all gold to always be lost
- Fixed currencies not being reset on death
- Fixed multiple cheats carrying over from sandbox to crystalhunt when switching characters
- Fixed being able to duplicate items in the item book
- Fixed the players eyes looking at nothing when close to the mirror
- Fixed spectator cam not enable book UIs after changing level
- Fixed being able to store broken parts of items
- Fixed NRE when cloning null content states
- Fixed issue with the shopkeeper not burning
- Fixed incorrect, broken mercenary shoulders appearing in shop
- Fixed the item book being empty if the category is null
- Fixed the game attempting to load old saves from before 1.0 and logging it as a error
Optimisations
- Build size reduction from removing duplicate assets
- Added LODs to particle effects so they fade out/disappear when you are far away from them
- Optimsed many particle effects to reduce their memory impact
- Optimised infuser VFX to hopefully reduce crashes
- Asset bundle optimisations
Skills
- Fixed unconscious creatures becoming intimidated.
- Karate chop always scares at least one additional creature
- When in hyperfocus you move faster
- Ranged Expertise will bounce projectiles off walls instead of going through them
- Fixed movement speed multiplier on swords slowing you down
- Heatwave shouldnt stagger if the creatures already burning.
- Fixed boost jump resetting when you reload the spell
Crystal Hunt
- Lowered the number of enemies in the eye home invasion wave.
- Lowered Golem explosion radius
- Fixed issues which can break the golem fight
- Prevent staggering if the golem is already stunned
- Prevent the golem from exploding without the crystal being pulled out
- Fixed issue with effects not stopping in some circumstances
- Fixed issue being unable to respawn if you die while climbing the golem
- Lowered meteor damage to player
- Fixed the secret ending being solvable with only one fuse
- Fixed the infuser orbs not making you ungrab any of the orbs before they despawn
- Fixed being able to store items in inventory while they are in the infuser or skill tree holders
- Fixed your hands still holding onto the infuser orbs if you take out the ungrab the orbs when the crystal is taken out the infuser
- Fixed gravity push knocking the crystal out the infuser
- Fixed errors when loading and unloading the tutorial dungeon
AI
- Removed very small weapons from dungeon enemies to prevent them from getting up too close
- Exclude shield bash ranges from min and max melee ranges. Significantly improves the behaviour of shield enemies, prevents them getting super close
- Fixed Shopkeeper movement issues in some situations
- Fix death animations not playing properly
- Prevent creatures playing death animationss if inert or destabilized when killed
- Prevent creatures not engaged in melee from advancing in and hugging the player
Modding
- Add begin transaction event to shop
- Made skill load events static
- Fixed issue with SDK manikinproperty scriptable objects not being treated as equal to the base game ones. It will now check it based on the asset name
- Fixed overriding ethnicity in creature tables and waves jsons not working
- Made some methods on the golem virtual
- Brains can load a subclass of a module types, allowing for extended brains modules
- Avoid NRE when the playerhand has no ragdoll hand
- Added a public setter for the Spectator.LockedTransform
- Added automatically calculating the defaultValueIndex for mod options based on default values on the method parameter/field/property
Some notable inclusions --
Players who spent crystal shards to upgrade and then accidentally died on Home map would lose their shards. This bug really sucked, so I'm sorry about that for anyone who unfortunately suffered this!
Players are now immune from Airstrike fall damage. Players looking to test out their new skill would jump off a cliff only to find they died on impact. ːpontius_angryː Now it operates as it always should have.
Some T4 weapons (Slaughter Sword, Noble's Dagger) were not appearing in the generation pool at Baron's Bounty, meaning no matter how many times you visited the weapons would never be for sale - they should be appearing now.
There was a bug for gold loss upon death where the player was losing their entire gold instead of only partial gold loss; it must have felt like playing hardcore difficulty! This is now fixed.
Full changelog of fixes below!
---
Unrelated to this patch but related to bugs, I also wanted to mention --
If you have played U11/U12 you might have felt the AI seemed a bit derpy in 1.0 by comparison.... You are not crazy!
We are still exploring this, but it seems we suffered from regressive AI bugs that are lobotomizing some of the AI's behaviors; notably AI not dodging, not using their shields properly, being unable to parry and riposte, and the very annoying "AI hugs you to death" rangefinding issue returns. ːeagleangryː
These were AI issues that we ironed out in the "animation overhaul" efforts back in U11, so it's annoying as hell to see them back! With so many moving parts in 1.0, the slow drip of tweaking code over time meant these issues slowly and stealthily reintroduced themselves. It's the kind of stuff that goes unnoticed because it happens so gradually that it is like watching a plant grow,. It's only when you can A/B compare the updates that things jump out!
Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know we are aware and looking into a fix!
Crystal Hunt
- Updated inventory tutorial videos
- Fixed some typos in multiple languages related to the spelling of "Dalgarian"
- Fixed duplication bug when swapping inventory pages while grabbing an item in the inventory
- Fixed issues with the golem not stunning when it should
- Added missing T4 greatsword and dagger to the shop loot table
- Fixed issue with the player model breaking if they died while climbing the golem
- Fixed issues which can break golem fight
- Fixed gamemode gold death penalty causing all gold to be lost
- Fixed lore typos in English translation
- Fixed gold/shards not resetting on death
- Fixed item book duplication glitch
- Fixed outpost dungeons not using Very Large length for difficulty 4
- Fixed issue with golem crystal being storeable before the player kills the golem
Sandbox
- Added Very Large outpost dungeon length to Sandbox on the mapboard
Skills
- The player is immune to fall damage during airstrike, its reenabled after 0.5s
Modding
- Fixed modded crystal merging
- Fixed issue with ItemIds in ItemData not overriding ItemIds on the prefab consistently when spawning the item
- Made lore easier to mod via public methods
- Allow calling MergeCrystal directly for rudimentary cross-tree merge support
- Fixed errors when modded skill tree orbs are null
- Fixed ModsMenu event firing incorrectly.
- OnLocalGolemSet is now a static event, not a static Action
- Fix NRE with ThunderEntity.GetCenter
- Fix missing status duration on Thunderbolt
Fixes
- Fixes to prevent arcwire/teslawires causing glitchy decapitations
- Fixed memory leak with the skybox not being unloaded from dungeons
- Changed currencies so that they are only serialised to disk when the players inventory is saved
- Fixed issues where dying while climbing would cause the player to be disconnected from their body
- Prevent creatures breaking if spawned in shop
- Lowered vertical rope slide speed to prevent players from dying due to fall damage
- Optimised loading some json by a avoiding expensive operations that weren't necessary
- Fixed mesh issues with Ascent, MiningHub, Townsquare, LostCove
- Fixed waterfall in SewerMaintenance
- Added items to Museum and Temple
- Fixed Observatory Support having no colliders
- Fixed one sided texture in Market
- Fixed bad granary hole
- Male Officer armor neck protector returns!
- EndTower optimizations
- Fixed CoastalFort causing a progression blocker due to out of bounds collider
- Added colisionHandler to Trapdoors
- Fixed negative collider in Main Menu
- Adjusted colliders for t4 short sword
- Long axes texture fixes
- Update VFX assets data files
- Many particle effects memory usage was optimized
- Fix duplicate charge sapping vid on skill tree
- Fixed Culling between Museum and GatheringHall
Current Release
Build 24471221
Uploaded Aug 07, 2026
System Requirements
How to Install
BladeAndSorcery.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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Download Blade and Sorcery for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Blade and Sorcery for free. Blade and Sorcery is a Action released by WarpFrog.