Hey all!
A deep and heartfelt thank you once again to everyone playing Helskate! The amount and detail of feedback has been fantastic. This update is all about Feel & Flow and the connection between skating and combat. First, the major combat rework is now live. We’ve retuned the weapons and increased knockback and impact forces to the enemies. The result should allow you to fight enemies without breaking the flow of skating. Put another way, enemies are now a tool for scoring a big combo.
Second, we’ve added a feature that helps bridge skating and combat: the Combo Shield. When you hit enemies or smash objects in the environment, a meter builds up. As long as the combo shield meter is active, it will prevent your combo from breaking. We’re still working on the exact tuning, but this should help new players ease into scoring big combos and provide another reason to incorporate combat into your combos and vice versa.
Finally, we’ve added two of your most requested features: the Classic Skating Camera and Free Skate Mode. Let us know what you think!
Thanks again! <3
-The Phantom Coast Team
CHANGELOG
Combat feel improvements
- Carry force (ground) - enemies inherit player velocity when hit to improve flow and feel
- Juggle force (air) - player will reorient to hit nearby enemies in the air and stay in the air for a bit after a hit
- Knock-back’d Enemies now take damage (and bounce!) when hitting walls and each other
- Added attack interrupts for most enemies
- Increased enemy health to balance against new movement and damage options
- Improved speed and feel of magnetting to enemies
- Improved hit detection
- Improved usability of the “Combo Shield”
- Increased combat camera FOV
General Improvements
- Added Free Skate mode
- Added “Classic” camera mode
- Improved settings menu visuals
- Combo break clarity (Player flashes red and plays an animation)
- Changed competition score calculations so that it does not get out of hand
- Added option for character relative controls
- Added new vault
- Changed menu exit button assignment to Circle (Playstation) / B (XBox)
Levels art and visual improvements
- “Triangular” level art
- “Donut” level art
- “Garbage” level art
- The hub had a set dressing pass
- Miniboss Grindwyrm VFX pass
Bug Fixes
- Total playtime should no longer randomly be reset
- Fixed a bug where re-entering a wallride would break
- Various collision fixes
- Fixed tattoo shop disappearing
- Fixed various animation transitions
- Improved navmesh generation
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