Post from the game's lead developer — @Tyron.
How about a progress update on the combat part of the 1.23 update! As with many new projects we tackle, some things turn out more challenging than we anticipated. As mentioned in our previous devlog, we are looking into multiple areas of combat. Here's what we've got so far:
- Physical hit detection. This tests for actual collision of your melee weapon against a target. This is working and is being fine tuned.
- New weapon swing animations. Currently being worked on. A lot of work to get just right. Hit detection is now animation authoritative, so the animations play 2 roles — look good and actually hit the enemy in a predictable way. The hardest part is to fulfill both roles just right. Weapons will have a variety of swing animations.
- Weapon overhaul. Should only require polish at this point. We added multiple new 1h weapons and a reason for them to exist — damage types on weapons and weaknesses to these damage types on mobs. The damage type will also affect the mobs' drops. Weapons will now also have a per weapon knockback strength. 2h weapons might get added later still.
- Armor overhaul. Is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There is going to be a brand new armor crafting system that lets you customize armor almost like you can customize blocks with a chisel.
- Creature death and knockback animation variety. Now supported, but animations are still a work in progress. If you are great with these (or with weapon swings), please drop us a line at jobs@anegostudios.com.
- Minor tweaks. Combat in water has been nerfed, but also tall grass and other tall plants will no longer get in the way of combat. Enemy knockback now also feels tighter by fine tuning the knockback formula and the client position prediction system.
Task 1 and 2 will likely take the longest to get just right, possibly requiring fine tuning even beyond the 1.23 release, which is why we will have a setting in 1.23 that makes the physical hit detection an optional feature, so that the old combat system can still be used until the new system feels great.