Bots are now in multiplayer!

When you start a multiplayer session, bots will fill empty slots until players arrive. You can start the match with or without players. You may also switch teams at will, as of last update I changed it so you can do this during battle and not just warm up.

In Skyfear's current state where there is not an abundance of players online concurrently, I want to give you as many tools as possible to allow battles to still function and, as much as possible, let you play how you want. Feedback on this is very welcome.

Health and magic pickups

Glowing orbs of health and magic are arranged in all of the arenas! Snag them at opportune moments to restock and prepare for your next encounter. They will respawn frequently. Feedback on this is very welcome.

Other things fixed or added in this udpate

• Added press kit to website
  
• Cleaned up skyfear launch script repository
  
• Fixed an issue where clients "leave game" button would not work
  
• Infinite loading bug appears to have been fixed; this is difficult to verify but it hasn't been encountered in several months
  
• Increased bots intent to use abilities; you should now see more death runes, cloaks, shrouds, and them chasing you with bloodsight
  
• Fixed an issue where bots would not use all abilities in the game in some player progression edge cases; they should use all abilities now which should be clear in gameplay
  
• Fixed an issue where players loading into a map from ServerTraveling would be added to the game's player list again and again, causing several weird behaviors when the Server loops over all players for some mechanics
  
• Fixed an issue where bots would sometimes have Cloak enabled indefinitely - Fixed an issue where bots would sometimes De-cloak even when not using Cloak
  
• Removed some strange input logic on the pause menu that may have been out of date and unnecessary
  
• When a player switches teams, the game server will headcount the teams and force a bot to switch teams if needed, to re-balance the teams
  
• Reduced respawn time on some game modes: -1s in TDM, -2s in Magpoint, -1s in Carrer, -1s in Instakill, -2s in Turf War
  
• Adjusted some AI navigation data on Azolla
  
• Pyrite explosion sounds lowered very slightly
  
• Crosshairs will now light up for pterosaurs in the Lairworld
  
• Fixed an issue where postgame timer text did not read correct time and would appear very broken for 15 seconds
  
• Increase attentuation radius on character sounds from 400 to 600 - Improved spectator camera speed and UX elements
  
• Reduced melee range from 900 cm to 750 cm, feels a bit more rewarding there
  
• Added a page for Pickups to the Help menu, explaining how they work - Fixed an issue with horns not loading on a very rare edge case
  
• Fixed dragon's jaw staying open when spray attacks end earlier than a full duration
  
• Fixed origin location of spray attack particle system - it was attached to an old component
  
• Added lil intro animation to spore icons
  

See full Commit log here.

Regarding updates

Last time, I said updates would no longer be monthly, due to the limited time I felt I had for making sure things were not creating more problems than solving. This is the first update since then, and I feel mostly like it went better. Thank you for your patience as I learn about continuous delivery with my first game of this size.

So what's next?

Freeplay mode (Coming soon)

Soon you'll be able to freely roam around the arenas with no combat objective, and also have an experimental editor tool to place a variety of Skyfear's scenery and gameplay objects into the arena at will, including bots. This has a lot of potential and I'm excited to share it. It was almost going to be in this update, but it needs a couple more weeks of testing!

Dragon improvements (Coming soon)

I know the dragon/animation could be better, so this is my new main priority. However, it must be understood that the dragon model is heavily intertwined with a lot of gameplay, and so I can't just do a drag and drop replacement. Aesthetically and proportion-wise, there won't be a full do-over. But I will target some additional sculpting, maybe newer texturing, and definitely updated animations. But piece by piece, this will take some time.

I'm also working on new maps, cosmetics, and magic types.

See full Roadmap here.

Thank you

I want to just put here a Thank You, to any and all players who have been patiently sticking with this game since launch, giving it a chance more than 30 minutes. Means a lot to me.

See you in the arenas!
- telekrex, developer