Alpha 1.19 - Massive general improvements and changes

Developer commentary:

We're almost done revamping story mode. Pretty much all the tools and programming have been completed. Now, all that's left is to actually finalize the writing and balancing. However, I have a really bad habit of working on the gameplay even when I'm not supposed to. But I'll rationalize it by calling it "preparation" for the story mode release, and as I always say, gameplay comes first.

Among all the other changes, one of my favorites is the new machine gun. How it worked went through many variations, from random scattering to combining a triangle wave and a sine wave to create "lines" of gunfire. In the end, I decided that using a flower polar graph was the one that played the best, as my other methods felt too hard or too easy. This flower pattern gives a good combination of vertical and horizontal dodging requirements, as well as not having too many unfair sweeping motions or literally undodgeable patterns. Those unfair patterns probably still exist, but I think that's also OK, because I also want to instill a fear of firearms into the player, that which didn't exist as much beforehand. Dodging gunfire is meant to be a very important motif for Clairvoyance. When a player encounters a gun, they should feel a looming sense of dread, and whenever the player kills a gunner, they should feel a sense of relief.

The second major feature I want to highlight is the anti-clustering added to the enemy AI. Some enemies aren't affected by it, but 95% will be. It prevents late game from just "kill enemies fast enough so they can't cluster and create impenetrable walls of attack bubbles". It generally limits the number of enemies attacking you to 2 + however many enemies can bypass the anti-clustering or have high range. Not to mention, enemies are generally more spread out and looks more impressive on screen.

-Dan

-Arcade mode

-Increased delay between last enemy killed to levle ending to 3 seconds

-Decreased spawn rates of gunners in early levels

-Added randomized dialogue for the start of each run

-Increased level where difficulty scaling is maxed out from 20 to 30

-Difficulty scaling is more gradual. Previously, the difficulty would increase every 5 levels.

-Spawns a machinegunner every 10 levels

-UI

-Select style page

-Replaced move text with icons in select style page

-Move buttons now show their info on a tooltip instead of on a specific part of the page.

-Styles now sorted in intentional order

-Improved style information formatting

-Move map sectors set uninteractable if not assingable with selected move

-General UI visual overhauls

-Enemy warning is now white by default. It is red if a gunner or boss enemy spawns.

-Floaty text no longer has horizontal velocity by default

-Adjusted look of tooltip textbox

-Tooltip textboxes now fade in

-Updated settings page controls names to make it less confusing

-Updated the "dodging bullets" splash screen

-Fixed multiple scrollbar functionality and scaling

-Rescaled and recolored some parts of the page

-Made "hold to pick up weapon" notifier more noticeable

-Made weapon durability + ammo counter pulse when it changes

-Updated stat bar visuals

-AOE dmaage text is orange

-Controller no longer makes your character jump immediately when starting a new level

-Stat bar tooltips now viewable with controller

-Controls text now dynamically changes for XBox and Playstation controller button layouts

-Controller now goes back from the menu with the east button (circle for PS, B for xbox and nintendo)

-Combat changes (major)

-Until Story Mode is back, everything is unlocked by default

-Added a new defensive mechanic: parry

-Activates on block + press dash

-Negates 90% of the damage

-Damages the balance of the attacker by half of the balance damage it would have dealt

-Drains an extra half the energy cost of the attack from the attacker

-Cooldown between end of parry to start of next parry is 0.3 seconds, decreased by character speed.

-Parry costs 20 energy, scaling with character size

-New ability: Stomp. Hold block + press kick to stomp, and it only hits enemies that are ragdolling

-Added "Amateur" fighting style

-Buffed basic stats, lowered skill ceiling

-Muay Thai mini rework

-when not blocking, has a passive block for the head and legs, reducing 33% of damage taken from the front.

-Muay Thai block% reduced from 85% to 75% (Default block% is 66%).

-knockback buff and resistance removed

-no longer has increased energy cost to block

-Wing Chun mini rework

-No longer literally invincible upon starting an attack

-Now activates parry instead of literal invincibility. Parry lasts 0.2 seconds

-Nerfed nonclairvoyant

-Max health: 350->300

-Energy regen: 50->40

-Speed 1.5 -> 1.25

-Arm/Leg power: 1.4->1.3

-Size: 1.13 -> 1.1

-Dash buffs

-Dashing is no longer completely blocked by an enemy, and now only goes at half speed

-Dashes cost 15 base energy instead of 20

-Dashes go 25% further than before

-Generally, all characters max energy has been increased around 50%.

-Every style has a unique starting stance

-Maximum balance now scales on character size, with diminishing returns as a character gets larger.

-Characters may have a custom balance multiplier that increases/decreases their balance, but most will have their natural balance.

-Breaking the balance of larger characters does more % damage to their health, with exponential scaling.

-Balance damage equation: (mapHP * 0.2)^(sqrt(fighter size))

-Fighters now only drop weapons if they are ragdolled while the weapon is equipped

-Camera has a slightly more gradual movement when following the player

-Removed "first strike" mechanic, as it has been made nearly irrelevant by newer combat mechanics

-First strike was a mechanic introduced to change up the player and enemy hitting each other simultaneously. Whoever struck first would reduce the attack of the one who struck second.

-Removed "fatigue" system, as it was annoying and also mostly irrelevant and also mostly only a player nerf as enemies did not tend to spam the same attack as much. I also didn't like the design direction of it. It might be reworked and added back in the future.

-New gene mods:

-Enhanced ATP Processing: When at max energy, boosts attack damage by 10%/25%/50%

-Densified Adrenal Glands: When at low health, 10%/25%/50% increase to attack speed, 33%/75%/150% increased energy regeneration

-Kevlar Muscle Threading: Take 50%/75%/90% less damage from bullets

-Modular Lung Tissue: Standing still gives 50%/100%/150% bonus energy regeneration

-Spatial sense now determines how far the player can see behind them

-Combat changes (minor)

-Trickster energy regen buffed from 30 to 40, speed from 1.25 to 1.3, foresight from 0.4 to 0.5

-All characters given minor changes.

-Chain punch angle is now dynamic, will slightly aim at the closest front enemy

-Gun now aims at the upper torso instead of the pelvis

-Slightly reduced distance where enemies block you

-Updated jump animation and physics

-Adjusted knee strike animation and hitbox

-Kyokushin no longer has access to a single jab

-Staff thrust attack area made shorter

-Lifesteal nerfed from 10%/20%/50% to 10%/20%/35%

-Sonic strikes buffed from 2/3/4 range to 3/3.5/4

-Lithium vacuoles adjusted from 35/70/200 to 40/90/150

-Nerospec: Perfectionist now increases damage by a percentage modifier instead of a flat amount. The multiplier stack starts at 1.00 and each hit adds 0.02/0.04/0.06 to the stack.

-Neurospec: Bully nerfed from 50/100/200 to 25/60/100 bonus damage upon knockdown

-Added a particle effect for dashing

-Combat visuals

-BIG: added cosmetic system. At the moment, they're all unlocked from the start, but more will eventally require unlocks.

-Added particle effect for gunshot at the barrel

-Quantum strikes lightning effect now spawns on the enemy when successful and on you when failed

-Knockdown damage is now part of the main damage number and no longer has a separate damage number pop up

-On the killing blow, the damage number now shows all overkill damage instead of just the remaining health

-Added different particle effect for blocked attacks

-Recolored bonus damage particles to red

-Made all damage numbers more readable

-Item powerup particle effects now scale with character size

-Adjusted weapon art

-Assassin renamed to Prodigy

-Boxer renamed to Warrior

-Enemies

-BIG: Enemies now have a soft-cap on the number that can attack at once. Enemy AI has been given a new anti-clustering feature, where enemies that are close to the player try not to stack on top of each other, unless they are going in opposite directions.

-BIG: All enemies now block and dash at different rates depending on the enemy AI type.

-BIG: New enemy: "Machinegunner"

-50 round LMG, sprays it at you in bursts, with a long recharge.

-New enemy AI: "Tyson"

-Fast, erratic head movement

-Strong preference for punches

-More tactical than standard aggressive AI'

-Gunner enemy now fires a volley of 7 shots, but at a slightly slower fire rate than before.

-Gunner enemies will now try to pistol whip the player if theyre too close

-Cybernetic enemy type now has a maximum of 2 morphine shots

-All enemy AI types got at least minor updates to their behavior from back end overhauls

-Bug fixes

-BIG: Fixed most issues with enemies being knocked over and having erratic movement while getting back up

-Fixed the body model bug where the fighter would bend their back too far when a fighter gets up from a weird pose

-Gamebreaking bug band-aid fix: very rarely, a fighter's model completely breaks and stretches way out of bounds. Once going a large distance past the map borders, the fighter will die.

-If this happened to an enemy, it would softlock the player since they would not be able to kill the enemy.

-The cause of this bug is currently unknown as it is very uncommon and nobody has figured out how to reproduce it yet.

-Significantly reduced leg jittering when fully extended

-Fixed hook hand going way too far if leaning back

-Fixed enemy present sorting order clipping into the previous enemy future

-Fixed springloaded legs not showing full description

-Fixed boss spawn buttons in training room not working

-You no longer accidentally put away your weapon immediately after picking it up by releasing the key too early

-Enemies will no longer lock up because they are trying to go to two head sectors in opposite directions

-Fixed controller issue where if you were holding block and you just ended an animation, you would not start blocking again -Fixed most if not all animations scaling for very big and small characters

-Fixed the arm further in the background accidentally being too thick

-Fixed berserk not removing its max energy effect after it's done

-Fixed gun glitchy visual flickering

-Stats displayed in the checkpoint screen will no longer go off the screen

-Pressing the home button on controller can now leave the training level