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[hyperduck]

Some of these environments are really breathtaking, consider my interests peaked 

[Pixelcomet]

Hi Hyperduck,
Appreciate the interest! Hopefully we can keep it

[thekosmonaut]

this is extraordinary beautiful. I especially like the fire effect!

[Pixelcomet]

Thanks thekosmonaut, We're still working on this.




Polishing up fast travel. Getting pretty close to what we envisioned  

[Pixelcomet]

Hey there, cheers to another week of steady progress and a new dev log! Last week we got into fast travel and how it functioned and why exactly we decided it was a feature we needed done and out of the way. The word Fast travel itself might make some think of it as simply a means of getting from point A to point B. A mechanic that has no real impact on Game play. Fast travel in Land of fire is really designed to be the game's metaphoric highway system. In the end this gives us a means of bridging together Zones/Maps/areas without completely destroying the player's sense of scale.

This Gif is pretty much the final iteration we're going to have on this for awhile as we move onto our next objective.



This week, we've been toiling away at player progression. For a long time we've had a general idea of what we wanted for player progression. Most of it have revolved around giving the player the most freedom possible with character development. For sometime we settled on having no set classes- This in itself turned out to be quite a challenge to design around since there was just so many possible variables and we had literally no idea where to start. This was mostly due to inexperience in developing these kinds of systems. For me it was a nightmare and I constantly put it on the back burner(procrastinated) actually trying to get it done.

So months had passed without me actually getting this thing done. This behemoth of a system was kicking my ass an there was no way I could win. So I proposed we scrapped the idea of 100% open character development in favor of something more traditional in RPG's. This is when the idea of classes actually sounded really nice.

The idea of implementing classes into the game was a pretty big one- but also one that was fairly well received by the team. Classes would allow us to actually have a solid guideline on how a certain type of player would be expected to play the game. This change was so much better, so much easier to implement.

So while classes were designed and fleshed out I wanted to keep a little bit of diversity in the mix. (just a little) Not too long ago I'd started playing path of exile, and I had quickly fallen in love with their massive passive tree.. I just found it so satisfying to have actually been giving so much freedom to play the game the way I wanted to; Granted my first few attempts ended up being really unforgiving.

I just couldn't stop thinking how much I wanted this for land of fire. More time passed and we ended up with our Passive grid.





I won't reveal what classes we have planned at the moment but they're designed to replace Canon clans.(Yes that means no clans from the anime. But I will say that clans are likely going to be a social feature in the same fashion as you'd have guilds; more on that later.

We're about to put the finishing touches on the prologue/tutorial with the emergence of a stupidly powerful enemy. It's mostly a cinematic but it's already looking amazing!.

In other news we've gotten some work done on our official website.
http://lofrp.com/wcf/wbb4110/upload/

It's still a work in progress but It'll be nice to finally have a centralized location for all information about the game.

That pretty much wraps up this week's dev log. If you haven't gotten around to it, be sure to drop by our Social media sites. We tend to have more updates on those throughout the week.

[Pixelcomet]

Another week of updates, and this one was quite the workload! Last week we began introducing our work in progress nodes concept. This week we took that concept to the table and started getting things to work. A lot of smart techniques went into making what we have possible so far and I'd like to share what went down here.

Now as you can tell from this image that was posted in the last devlog



There are A LOT of nodes involved here. And mapping this up by hand would probably have taken the entire week. As many of you already know, the team is known for creating dev tools outside of DM (a tactic Zane enforces), to allow us to create content at during game time, and we currently have dev tools set up for our grid maps, NPCs (and various other legacy systems). This time I decided to take a different route. Nodes are static, and are not something that need to be changed during game hours, however it still needed a way to have them created not by hand because that would just take too long.

So to keep things short, this is the end product -



(everything including the large nodes are connected, just needs an updated gif)

In order to achieve this, when the game starts up, it scans the entire image pixel by pixel and starts sorting based on patterns found. It is able to detect where nodes are, what their sizes are, what nodes they are, and what nodes they're connected to.

This whole system took 3 days to complete. So why do this? There are over 400 nodes involved in this tree, and that's incredibly overwhelming to have to hard code all locations and connections for each. If Zane changes connections or moves nodes around, the only thing that'll need to happen is a rescan of the image to update.

SulLight has been working on completing the animation from last weeks devlog


But has decided to remake this scene for better results.

You'll probably be seeing more iterations of this as we move forward, but it's really shaping up!

With this hard stuff out of the way (this node system took a lot of our attention this week), we're looking to complete the tree by next week.

This week I'd like to introduce Wards.

Wards are a group of individuals who harness inner power and unleash it as devastating attacks from a distance. This class is essentially a mage class. Wards are able to mold their chakra into any of the five elements giving them a wide range of tactics to employ.

Wards are weaker physically than fighters but make up for their lack of physique with their devastating ranged attacks.

Wards are spiritually attuned to the world more than other classes. This often leads to wards being followed around by Spirits. These spirits are normally harmless but they quickly grow and change depending on who they're following. A type of symbiotic relationship is formed. The seishin protects the person they are linked to in return for being able to continue feeding on the spiritual energies of the person.

Seishin's vary most of the time but one thing that is consistent between them is how their form changes depending on the type of chakra they get from the "host" Gameplay wise, a ward's abilties will stem from their seishin.





This is the charged attack


Below is a diagram explaining how a Ward's techniques work. These are not necessarily the order in which techniques are used, this just gives an example of how they perform.




Now here's a piece I'm really excited to share. SulLight has decided to recreate how the Yokai boss scene in the tutorial area is going to be played out. This is what he has so far -


If you're wondering why this scene is being remade, the best way I can put it at this late an hour without poorly explaining it, is just compare it to why we remade the combat system. While this is on a much smaller scale in terms of the analogy, we believe every piece of interaction the player has with the game counts, and if we can make something better than it is, then we should.

Next week we'll be showcasing wards in action with either gifs or videos, most likely of the PvP variety. See you next week!

[rewgs]

This is looking amazing. Keep it up!!

[Pixelcomet]

Thanks rewgs,

We made some more tweaks to Wards, a charging animation for their basic attacks. Still a WIP

[Pixelcomet]

Greetings! Last week I shared revealed to you guys the first class in play in our developer's venture, Wards. This week we were able to clear out their neutral techniques! Mind you a lot of polish is still in the works, but for now this is the general idea. Let's dive right into what Wards will be capable of. Do be warned, this is GIF heavy!

Wards -

Basic Attack - Lvl 1


Wards are equipped with a short ranged projectile as their basic attack. This technique consumes Chakra. As an added measure, when Wards attack an enemy with their basic attack 3 times, the fourth on hit, will deal damage to the enemy as AoE. Charged basic attack applies 2 stacks.

Basic Attack - Lvl 2


After charging for 1 second, your basic attack deals more damage, consuming more chakra, and knocks the enemy back a short distance as well as applying 2 stacks of the original basic attack stack.

Arcane Pulse


Shoots an enhanced projectile forward. When max distance is reached, the projectile explodes leaving an area of "unstable ground". This area will then explode after a short delay, knocking up enemies it.
Wards can follow up with other techniques keeping their enemies juggled in the air.

Blast Wave


Fires a short range wave of energy. Minimal damage, but knockback.

Repulse


Three projectiles are fired in a volley. The projectiles will bounce off of the first enemy they interact with.

Hyper Kinetic Chakra Cannon


Fires a large blast of chakra energy forward in a beam. Consumes chakra every second, dealing damage per second to enemies inside the beam as well as knockback.

Here's some spammy gameplay of Wards in action!


And me trying to kite my way through a large amount of mobs!


Now while I did say I might record PvP gameplay and share it this week, I've decided to put it off until all the techniques are finished and polished out. There's still a lot on our plates, but we have what need to finish set in stone. We're getting closer and closer to that release! Looking forward to sharing what we have next week! See you then!

[Pixelcomet]

(EPIC Ward Art brought to you by SulLight!)

Hello again, another week of updates brought to you by the awesome team at LoF!

We're still working on finishing the Ward class. This week we've gotten through the Ward's fire techniques (with only one more to go).

Fireball -


Launches a Fireball that explodes on impact. The explosion scatters embers across the ground. Coming into contact with the embers causes burns.

Flame Bullet Storm -


Spawns 5 rotating Fireballs around you. They will launch towards any nearby enemies, leaving fires when destroyed.

Flame Thrower -


Fires a channeled line of fire. Continuously deals fire damage while consuming chakra.

There's still a few more fire abilities that are still in the works, so I'll show off some full on fire elemental combo gifs when they're ready next week.

Last week I wasn't able to show case another neutral Ward ability because it was still in the process of being worked on.

Body Flicker -


Here's what kiting as a Ward looks like including the Body Flicker ability.


There's still a few more elements to knock down for Wards before they're ready and we can move onto other classes, including a Ward's Seishin, spirit companions that aid you in battle. More detail on Seishins will be revealed as we get to them. Oh and expect some very sparky effects next week!

SulLight will be working on completing that wonderful Ward piece, and continue by finishing up a piece for each class. If you like his art, check him out at http://ignuton1994-x.deviantart.com/
And if you haven't already, you can check out an old piece he did for Land of Fire at

in speed paint form. He'll be recording the next class pieces he makes so we'll be sure to upload those in speed paint form as well!

Zane won't let me share the awesome map he has in the works, so hopefully your pretty eyes get to set on those next week. All I can say is, I cannot wait to move around in whatever he has cooking up.

I say this every dev log now, but we really are getting closer and closer to release with each one (duh), and I honestly can't wait to see everything come together in the end! I'll see all you next week!

[Pixelcomet]

UPDATE!! New Gifs!

Another busy week working on the game. We've Managed to complete a handful of new abilities for the ward class. The ward class in a nutshell  is essentially a class of spiritually attuned mages that throw energy balls and blasts at things. The class is mostly centered around utilizing mid to long range 'magic'
Spent some time working on a new fire ability. It's still a heavy work in progress


Still working on an actual start animation to help it seem powerful...

We've also started some work  on some new lightning abilities!


This one is meant to be an electrical surge and discharge. I think this one could also do with a slightly longer cast animation and windup. Build a little bit more anticipation leading into the skill.


This ability is suppose to create an area of eletrical current that slows and deals damage over time. Like others this might be better with some more 'tells' instead of instantaneously appearing on the map.

Going to start posting gifs that are made outside of our test environment since not many people like looking at the grid background. Hopefully this would get more people commenting here with that crucial feedback.

Thoughts?

[Pixelcomet]

Hey guys, back again with another late devlog (although at this point they might as well be the normal scheduling now). This week, we're packed with loads of sparky gifs that might even brighten your day more than they do the maps.

Last week I mentioned that there was one fire technique missing, and here it is.

Inferno
Blast fire into the Earth to create a column of fire underneath marked area.


And here's a gif showing off a few fire techniques in a scene.


So that takes care of fire elements for Wards pretty much for now. Before I get into the lightning techniques I want to share this video of me using fire techniques to defeat the dark forest mini boss Yamone and his evil henchmen. I was even able to get the video running in HD!



I've started posting gifs with the dark forest scene visible. The team and I felt it would help make the techniques stand out a little more as they should when the game releases.


Lightning Techniques


Zap

Fires a bolt of lightning towards the cursor. If there is a second enemy nearby the lightning bolt jumps to them dealing half of the initial damage.

Tesla Burst

An electrical current erupts from the player dealing electrical damage to all targets nearby. This is a channeled attack that lasts as long you hold it. If enemies stay within the zone for 3 seconds, they are stunned but may not be stunned by the technique for another 5 seconds.

Distortion Field

Creates an area of electrical distortion. Slows and deals damage over time.

Volt Cannon

Fires a narrow beam of electricity that pierces and stuns whatever it passes through for 1 second. The technique can be reactivated once more to pierce enemies a second time, cancelling the stun but dealing damage based on the initial damage. The earlier the technique is reactivated, the more of that damage it deals.

There's still a lot of polish that the lightning techniques need to go through, and they still don't deal any type of damage yet, but that'll be taken care of this week.

Zane has been working steadily on the new town map soon to occupy the world of LoF.

This is an early interpretation and actually not the newest version I can get a hold of at the moment. We'll share the newest one on the next devlog.

SulLight has been hard at work on the next concept art, this next one being for the Rogue class. Here's an early sketch of what he has so far.


That'll be all for this week fellas! We'll be wrapping up Wards this week with Earth elemental skills being the last of their abilities (for now). If we get a chance we might even be able to show some Rogue class stuff next week. We're moving along pretty nicely this month, so keep your eyes peeled on the status of the game!

[wizered67]

Awesome! Can't wait to see more!

[Pixelcomet]

Greetings and Salutations, friends! We're back this week with some brand new Ward techniques. Ward's earth elemental techniques are now completed. Their highly defensive earth techniques allow you to change the tides of battle, protecting you and your allies from the potential bullet hell that is "Wards".


Earth
Earth Wall
Create a protective wall of Earth in front of the caster. The wall can be destroyed with sufficient forces. If the wall is created underneath or near a unit, that unit will be displaced up and out of the wall. You can spawn the wall in any direction on yourself by pressing the Self Cast key (Alt).



Earth Dome Prison
Create a barrier of earth around a designated area. The dome blocks outside forces.


Siphoning Mud Trap
Creates an area of mud that deals damage over time. The zone will apply several stacks of slow (up to 70%) over time.


Stone Golem
Creates an allied unit to fight for you. Very slow, pretty durable and hits like a truck.


There's a couple polish that needs to happen. As you can see the player doesn't play any animations yet when using the abilities.


Wards
Wards have a total of 17 Abilities.
4 Neutral Techniques
4 Fire Techniques
4 Lightning Techniques
4 Earth Techniques
and Body Flicker
Each ability is unique in their own right. Not just in how they deal damage, but in how they're deployed, the way some behave on hit, and of course some very cool crowd control.

Body Flicker is tied to your right mouse click button as an access at all times ability, enabling Wards to efficiently kite their opponents while still being able to send a flurry of techniques their way.

As Wards continue to be polished and balanced, bare in mind they are what we've always made them out to be: Mages. They are the spell casters of the LoF universe and a lot of what we do to them will revolve around that.


Next Step
So what next? With the class's abilities implemented, it's time to move on to Rogues. As unique as Wards are, we want Rogues to receive just as good a treatment, and really make their gameplay stand out as what they're meant to be. However what they're meant to be isn't truly set in stone yet, but it will be. While we will be working on Rogues this week, there's still some polish that Wards will be going through to help ensure smoother gameplay, comfort, balance, as well as a lot of efficiency changes to make sure the server can really handle all that spam. We also have to go back and make sure all spell animations are playing, chakra is being consumed, and add cooldowns to abilities. If all goes well, you can expect to see some PvP gameplay next week showing off Wards using their elemental powers against each other.

That's all for this week! Feel free to ask questions, share thoughts, suggestions, ideas, what have you!

[thekosmonaut]

most image links are broken for me in your last few entries (starting with reply #30)

EDIT: nvm, maybe it was just the internet, sometimes they load sometimes they don't. strange.

I think the effects look very good they do look very sharp, but some of the smoke lighting fx can maybe be a bit bigger? What do you think?

It's also hard to judge since the gifs are not representing actual gameplay resolution/size.

[Pixelcomet]

Hi thekosmonaut

We're still pretty new at this so a point in the right direction would be much appreciated. Regarding the resolution size are you saying we should record gifs of the entire game window? I can kinda see what you're saying. Gonna try scaling up the effects a little bit and we can see what comes out of it.

[batiali]

Looks super polished. Will keep an eye on this. 

[Pixelcomet]

Hi batiali,
Thanks for the support! We're planning a kick starter for maybe August or September. Pretty new at this and it's pretty nerve racking! 

[Pixelcomet]

Hey guys! Ishuri back again with another devlog this week! This week we get to show off the long anticipated Rogue class! Cunning and stealthy, the Rogue class is perfect for players looking to sneak up on enemies and unleash a flurry of attacks and combos up close. Also, who doesn't like wielding katanas?


To start this off this week, I'd like to share the first weapon Rogues will be capable of using, and man does it feel awesome to run around with!

Katanas



At the moment Katanas only have a single combo move consisting of 2 attacks. They will be getting the same treatment as unarmed fighting, complete with heavy attacks and fun chain-able combos. This is also one of 2 weapons Rogues are able to wield. The other will be revealed at a later date.

Stealth



Become temporarily invisible outside the enemy's vision radius. Using abilities excluding Blind Side will break stealth.

Just a couple of points about stealth.
-To other players, you will be completely invisible outside your stealth radius. Party members will still be able to see you.
-Taking damage within 1 second after activating stealth will cancel it. This is to help prevent stealthing during fights or combos.
-Using Blind Side will grant you Stealth Immunity for 0.5 seconds. This prevents you from being seen within your stealth radius. Breaking stealth will cancel this.
-NPCs are unable to target you/chase you outside your stealth radius.
-Taking any damage will break stealth.
-Running into any unfriendly mobs will break stealth. Running into party members will not break stealth.

Blind Side


Dash forward. During the dash you are granted 0.5 seconds Stealth Immunity. Blind Side can only be used while stealthed.

Flurry



Strike rapidly with weapon. Up to 5 strikes over 1 second.

Cleave


Swing your weapon in a large arc leaving damaged ground. The damaged ground deals AoE damage to all inside the cracked ground.

I think I'll avoid announcing PvP videos and the likes until we actually do them. Although we do have something really special in the works, and I personally can't wait to share it with all of you!

Luke has been hard at work preparing our "secret project" for Land of Fire, this is what he's done so far!


There's more but I can't really share them yet. I look forward to showing you guys more of what Rogues are capable of next week, as well as a little more of Luke's work! Until then, it's back to my mental cubicle, see you all next week!

[Pixelcomet]

Started working on this new ability for our rogue class. Basically the skill allows you to dash through a maximum of five enemies within close proximity and deal damage to them.