Hello everyone, The goal of this update, besides the usual fixes and QoL tweaks, is to address some of the feedback I've been receiving in regards to certain mechanics. It has become clear from watching gameplay and listening to players that certain elements could do with some adjustments: - Shoving is too fast to react to, and too powerful as a gameplay crutch for interrupting opponents - Trading blows feels like a dead-end, there isn't enough strategy to the back-and-forth of clashing and parrying. - Counters are underpowered. This patch addresses those issues with some gameplay changes. With the exception of the shove, which has received an increased wind-up time, all the other mechanics have either been buffed or left as they are. The goal of this patch is not to re-invent the gameplay, but to give players more options and more freedom in how they approach each engagement, and to rely less on the same techniques in order to win. This patch also attempts to make difficulties on Normal and below a little more friendly to new players by adjusting the stats of the AI enemies. Those who preferred the original tuning of the enemies on Normal should now try playing Tough mode, which has identical AI stats to the original Normal. ------------------ Version 1.25 Gameplay Tweaks: Adjusted parries: - Two equally-charged attacks will cause the blades to slide off eachother, and both players will be pushed back. - An attack with more charge will overpower the other attack, granting the attacker a faster follow-up attack, faster stance-change speed, and a burst of forward speed to close the distance. - An incoming attack that has more charge can be overpowered by matching its stance - causing a reversal parry. Ie: An enemy charging a mid-attack can be parried using a mid-attack. Slightly adjusted attack timings, here's a full breakdown of them for reference: - The high-attack is 2-frames faster than the mid-attack (this is new) - The low-attack is 2-frames faster than the mid-attack (this is new) - A dodge attack is 2-frames faster than any normal attack (increased from 1) - Attacking after a successful parry is 2-frames faster than any normal attack (this is new). - A perfectly-timed counter is 8-frames faster than any normal attack (increased from 5). - A combo attack (left-right, right-left, up-down, down-up) is 7 frames faster than any normal attack (this is 1-frame slower than it was before). (note that 'frames' refers to the FPS of the game, not animation frames). (note that this does not account for wind-up time when an attack is started from neutral - this is the release time of each attack after it has entered the correct stance height in the 'held' position behind the character) Buffed counter-attacks: They now have faster release time, faster stance-change speed, and a burst of movement speed. A player that has been blocked will momentarily have faster stance-change speed to adjust their stance for a followup attack. Slightly increased the window to start instantly running after a kill. Players will no longer be able to pass each-other when one or both is attacking - unless performing a dodge. There is now a slight delay during the shove windup (the pre-shove pose now lasts for 10 frames rather than 4). The shove now pushes the shoving player away very slightly when it connects from very short range. The AI will no longer attempt to shove the player in the back. Slightly lowered the Dojo boss' shove force. The AI's reactions are now slightly reduced on Normal Mode and below. Tough Mode now has the original settings that were on Normal Mode. Reverted changes to the boss stare-down. Now if the player is facing the opposite way he will just turn his head. Enemies spawning off-camera on Nightfall now have an increased distance when the camera edge is too close to the player. Bugfixes: Fixed an issue causing some local Last Man Standing scores to be saved incorrectly (thanks namelessdoll). Addressed an issue causing zombies to get stuck in the 'shoved' state. I couldn't recreate this myself but I'm 90% sure I know why it happened (thanks shentu). Fixed an issue causing zombies to get permanently stunlocked by fleeing civilians (thanks shentu). Addressed an issue causing zombie grab targets to be moved off-screen when grabbed from very small distances (thanks puttputt). Removed the ability to turn around with the shove-input + up (legacy feature, redundant). Fixed NPCs doing That Thing where they sometimes waggle their sword around after spotting the player. Fixed an enemy spawning too far behind and getting stuck in Sunset Act 1 hard mode / co-op, and another enemy spawning in the ambush state too far away to trigger (thanks CheshireChester). Fixed dropped swords from reverting to their default colours when they stop being active. Fixed non-ai players triggering the master achievement when killed. Fixed a crash during certain scenes when the fog is set to 0%. Hidden enemies now hide their laser swords until they stand up. Other Changes: Added 'goatee' face option. Reorganized the credits slightly to put the much shorter 'special thanks' list before the longer one. Optimized the wind-on-grass effect very very slightly. The Player Setup screen now clarifies whether it's Singleplayer or Multiplayer to prevent confusion. The mission difficulty setting now defaults to 'Merciful' for new players.