Tech Demo 4 - The DragonSlayer One! on Adventure Quest 2D (2024)

The Tech Demo was a Success

AdventureQuest Worlds: Infinity is running the most experimental test yet. All testers will log in with the new DragonSlayer class skills which uses the new combat system. This new combat system has no auto attack and no targets. You press your skill and your attack goes whichever way you are facing. It is very different from the target based combat of the original game. Based on your feedback we will be determining if every class in the game will work like this.

WHAT: Tech Demo #4 - The DragonSlayer One
WHY: To give us open and honest feedback on the Artix Entertainment Discord Tech Demo 4 channel about the experimental new combat system, converted armors, and drop & loot system.
WHEN
- Started: Wednesday, June 12th, 2024 @ high noon
- Ended: 10:40pm EST
WHO: Open to 15th Upholders of AQWorlds
WHERE: Download link available on the AQWorlds Account Webpage.

PLAY BY PLAY

I will post everything that is happening as it happens right here. Refresh this page during the test to get the latest info!

10:00am - Today is a big one! AQW:Infinity is doing Tech Demo #4 & AdventureQuest 3D is releasing the Oracle Class.
10:25am - Artix, Zhoom, & Warlic are caffeinated and online.
10:30am - Warlic is compiling the final build for today's Tech Demo.
11:00am - Reens, Captain Rhubarb, J6, Yorumi online. All systems nominal.
11:00am - Uploading AQWorlds Infinity Tech Demo #4 and starting the review for today's release.
11:08am - Ruh roh...
11:18am - "I swear, everything was working last night! I swear!" We are encountering some issues with the Dragon's Lair. We have 1 hour and 40 minutes left on the clock to fix it before the test goes live.
11:31am - Aha! Turns out there were a horrifying number of server code changes around 11pm last night from multiple coders. Note to self: "Do not change data structure of the entire quest system the night before a big release :D" We are reverting those changes now.
11:40am - Code reverted, new server being published. We need to upload a new version of the game client too. (So any of you clever hacker types that knew where I uploaded to upload the file... you are going to need to pull a new one in a bit. XD.)
11:50am - On an unrelated topic, tomorrow Warlic's daughter will be going to the lab to Shadow Zhoom for the day! It is part of a school project. So, I guess we will have a few more good memories at the current lab before we move to the next one.
12:00pm NOON - When you are sitting in the server room, never ask for CHIPS for lunch. After your first byte, you will regret it. (...and might result in a buffer overflow.)
12:03pm - DragonSlayer class does bonus damage against Dragon Kin (which is any draconic monster.) We were surprised just now when we found out it was working. Maybe those 11pm server updates are not so bad after all.
12:05pm - Reens just uploaded the final version of the Dragon's Lair for today's test. The cut scenes still need work, but thew two that testers will encounter today should be functional. This is our first ever test of cinematic cutscenes in Infinity. While Flash makes creating these sorts of cutscenes very simple because it is an animation tool. Unity, not so much. We have spent a lot of time working our the process of converting our animated cutscenes to unity.
12:12pm - Surprise! Tech Demo is now open. 15th Upholders can download the client from the AQWorlds Account webpage and play.
12:20pm - 66 players online, and their armors from the other game appear to be loading!
12:25pm - Servers offline to run a query to reset everyone's DragonSlayer quests back to the beginning (since the quests all changed and it is the only way to see the cutscenes) and set Infinity level to 1 for this test.
12:30pm - Servers back online!
12:32pm - 95 players back on. Looks like everyone is testing their armors. Reminder! The game is currently forcing everyone into using the DragonSlayer skills regardless of what class they have equipped. Please help spread the word if anyone seems confused.
12:34pm - 119 players testing . All systems nominal.
12:43pm - 179 players testing. All systems nominal. The team is in game and on discord fielding bug reports and feedback.
1:00pm - 259 players testing. The team is reviewing the bugs and comments.... making a list. Checking it twice.
1:08pm - 275 players testing. Removing drops from the Red Dragon that were supposed to have quest locks. (When we copied the drop table, it did not respect the locks.) Also, we are setting the minimum version of the game client required to be the new version.
1:30pm - Overall, the server is holding steady. We are investigating the combat jitter and things that are being reported. The combo attacks are a huge hit.
1:55pm - SERVER RESTARTED to fix the DragonScale stacking issue.
2:18pm - Posted a bunch of polls to get player feedback in Discord. (Very interesting responses)
2:20pm - Meanwhile, Oracle Class is being prepared to launch in AdventureQuest 3D.
2:27pm - Great catch by player-tester
3:15pm - Investigating the issue with the Dragonscale quest. The game is not telling you when your inventory is full and cannot turn in the quest. Also, if you do not have the exact number to get to the goal it is weird. We are also investigating a memory leak issue.... probably a hole on the side of the game. All the game juice seeping out.... gonna get some duct tape.
3:20pm - Oracle Class just went live in AdventureQuest 3D!
4:02pm - We discovered that DragonSlayer class is not generating "determination" because it was hard coded into the Class ID-- and no one actually has the class O_O. This of course means we will have to release DragonClass Class as a drop in an upcoming major test. We will also need to make a number of changes based on everyone's feedback before that.
4:25pm - Oh man.... kudos to the player who create a guild in Infinity.... (we did not know it was implemented and live) ... and named it with special characters... special characters that do not show up normally, and required us to go into the database and remove it manually... /facepalm. But still, congratulations to the first guild built in Infinity! As short of a time as it lasted. R.I.P. new guild. The best part was I logged in to announce that we were restarting the server. They said, "Was it me?". I said, "Did you create a guild?". They responded, "Yeah." I said, "Yup! It was you :D". Funny and bizarre stories like this are the best part of these tests. They did not expect that guild they created to carry over to the normal version of AQWorlds.
4:50pm - Leaky Memory Investigation results. Looks like all that art is getting stuck in memory. The game loves loading the art, but never wants to let it go. Relatable. We are starting with the NPCs in the map, and then working our way to player art to try to solve the problem.
4:57pm - We think we found it. The script that is responsible for z-ordering all of the characters is likely the culprit. Might be able to fix this with a single line of code.
5:14pm - Nope. We are back to investigating.
8:00pm -- This was the scheduled time to take down the test, but if it is OK with you, going to keep the server online for another hour. I saw a few comments in chat about people just getting home from work who really wanted to login. So enjoy!
10:50pm - Server Shutdown. Test results..... success. Major move forward for releasing the game for all players.

Tech Demo #4 Details

"First.... Meet Immortal Joe! He is going to take over from here" - Artix

Hello everyone, Immortal Joe here. Spider and I have been hard at work designing and developing a new and improved combat system for AQW Infinity, and today I'd like to share a few details with you all!

About Me (You Can Totally Skip This Section)

Fun fact about me, I actually grew up playing AdventureQuest Worlds, starting all the way back in 2009. I played non-stop, logging in every day after school and on the weekends. I remember grinding all the way to level 20 to get Nulgath's (or Miltonius') Void armor when his zone first released, and then spending way too much time trying to farm Diamonds to evolve it. I remember when Necromancer first released, and how crazy it was to have a class that could solo bosses. One of my fondest memories however, was when the Ledgermayne boss fight first released, and how cool it was to actually be able to dodge one of their attacks by physically moving towards one of the circle pads on the map, rather than having to rely on my Dodge stat to avoid an attack. As the years went by and I got older, I got the opportunity to join the AQW Team as a Bug Hunter, then eventually becoming a Class Designer and Release Balancer a few years later. During my time on the AQW Team, I've learned a lot about the systems that are in place for creating classes (and monsters) and how limiting they are, and while I've strived to make my class designs as fun and unique as possible, I've always felt like there's a lot more that I've wanted to do, but just couldn't. But with Infinity, that's where things change.

The Goal

Our goal with the combat revamp is to make combat more fun, interactive, and expressive. We have several plans in place to achieve this, with some having already been implemented, and many more on the way. I won't be going over everything today, but here are the most important details.

New Class Mechanics

Hitboxes

In AQW, the way a skill "hits" a target is entirely based on a Hit Chance/Dodge Chance system, which essentially boils down to "either a skill hits or it doesn't based on a calculation that the player has no control over". This is a very un-interactive system that we're experimenting with abolishing in Infinity, instead primarily replacing it with a hit detection/hitbox system.

The way hitboxes work is that when a skill is used, an animation plays like normal, except the damage from the skill isn't dealt until both a). A certain point in the skill's animation is reached, and b). The animation collides with the target at the point where damage would be dealt. Due to the fact that hitboxes will be a primary source of damage, we want them to be relatively easy to land (because let's face it, missing sucks), so in most cases we'd have animations and hitboxes be generously sized.

In the future, we may also implement different types of hitboxes, such as moving hitboxes (Mage's Fireball for example), lingering hitboxes (for example, leave a field of poison on the ground that damages a target as long as they're standing on it), and summons.

While hitboxes will be a primary source of dealing damage, they won't be the only source. Some skills may still use a "direct hit" system that doesn't require a hitbox to deal damage, similar to what AQW has, but this will depend on if a class skill calls for it or not.

In the future, we'd also like to implement this hitbox system of monsters so that their skills and abilities can be interacted with (somewhat similar to how Legdermayne, Nightmare Carnax, and The First Speaker work in AQW). While monster combat won't be featured in the next Tech Demo, it's the next core game mechanic we plan on implementing, so there's a good chance that a future Tech Demo will heavily revolve around monster combat.

New Resource Bars

Mana (and HP) no longer have to be the only resource that classes use. When we design classes, we want them to use a resource that feels appropriate for their respective playstyle and theme, and sometimes Mana doesn't fit that criteria. Now that classes don't need to be designed around a sole resource, there's a lot more we can do with them now. For example, resource bars could now start at 0 and accumulate as skills or used, or a class like Skyguard Grenadier or Ranger could reload ammunition. Basically, different resource bars are another way to make classes feel unique from one another!

Weight System & No More Global Cooldowns

No don't worry, we're not adding an equipment load system. The type of weight I'm talking about has to do with class skill animations. When you use a skill in Infinity, you'll be committed to your animation, meaning that you can't use another skill, and in some cases even move, until the animation of the skill that you're using finishes. However, this isn't entirely the case, as most animations will be cancellable in some form, meaning that if you're near the end of a skill animation, you'd be able to cancel that skill's animation by using another skill, immediately playing that new skill's animation. A system like this allows for a wider range of class play styles that we can create. For example, a class like Chaos Avenger, might take some time to swing its weapon, then have some recovery time afterwards, whereas a class like Rogue would swing its weapons fast, and then be able to use a dash to quickly cancel its swing animation.

Additionally, since skill usage is now determined by another animation being active or not, in this experiment we've removed global cooldowns from all skills as they didn't mesh very well with the new animation system.

No More Auto Attacks

Perhaps one of the most significant changes outside of the hitbox system is that this AQW Infinity experiment will have no Auto Attacks.

DragonSlayer Class

If you played the previous Tech Demo, you're probably familiar with Umbra, a Tech Demo only class that was created to showcase some of the new class mechanics coming to Infinity. While Umbra won't be around for future Tech Demos, we made a new class to demonstrate these new mechanics, DragonSlayer.

Future Stuff

Class Design & Power Scaling

Farming and Bossing are the two most popular types of combat in AQW, and we'd like to further expand upon them in Infinity. I'll get into specifics regarding Farming and Bossing shortly, but for now, I'd like to mention some changes we're considering in terms of class design, which involve making all classes both viable for farming and bossing, and making all classes scalable so that you can use your favorite class well into the endgame, even if it's a starter class like Warrior. If we go this route, that means all classes would eventually have relatively equal footing in terms of performance, but there would also be several new systems in place that you could make use of to increase your power level.

Farming

Farming mobs can be boring, but we also understand that a lot of you don't like to think about what you're doing in-game while farming. We'd like to keep farming relatively low maintenance so if you're the type of person who enjoys watching Netflix on the side as you farm, you can still do that. However, with that being said, we'd also like to add some new mechanics to farming to make the experience more interesting and engaging. We don't have specifics on this yet, but when we do, we'll let you know.

Monsters & Bossing

As stated above, we'd like to implement the new hitbox system on monsters, but we'd also like to change the way they navigate around players. For example, monsters currently "zoom" into your melee range when you attack them. This would make sense if the monster is something like a bird or an airplane, but why does a turtle move so fast, and why does a mob with a bow move right up into your face? We're looking into the possibility of changing the way monsters approach a player before attacking them, as this would add another level of depth to combat.

We'd also like to add more intricate boss fights with unique mechanics. The difficulty of boss fights will be kept on the more reasonable side for story based content, while the more challenging fights will be kept as optional content.

We know that some players prefer soloing bosses, while other player's prefer fighting bosses with a group. To satisfy both types of players, we may look at experimenting with a "party scaling" system of sorts which if implemented, would allow for bosses to be doable both solo, and in a group without being made too easy.

And More

This is just some of what we have planned for AQW Infinity's Combat. There'll be several more classes on the way (starting with the starters) and a lot more mechanics to try out. We're really happy with what we've accomplished so far, but most importantly, we hope that you all are! If you're able to play the Tech Demo, we really need to hear your thoughts and feedback (whether positive or negative) so that we can make AQW Infinity the best it can be!

DragonSlayer Class - Infinity Edition (Experimental)

Skill Breakdown

The first AQW Infinity class is… DragonSlayer! When we remake an AQW class in Infinity, our goal is to preserve its themes while at the same time, updating its skills to fit a more modern playstyle. In DragonSlayer's case, we want it to preserve its Dragonslaying theme, remaining a class that's most effective when fighting dragons, but is still very much usable against non-dragon mobs. As for its skills, DragonSlayer utilizes a heap of cool new class mechanics that we talked about in our last post (add link here), including multi-part skills, charge attacks, dashes, and a new resource type!

How to Obtain

During the Tech Demo EVERY player will log in with the DragonSlayer skills already equipped. There are no additional requirements for obtaining DragonSlayer during the Tech Demo!

Skill Breakdown

PASSIVES

Veteran Slayer: Your skills deal 20% more damage to Dragonkin.

Determination: Your skills grant you Determination, up to 100. At 50 Determination, become Determined, causing the next skill you use (except Slayer's Combo) to consume 50 Determination and become empowered with an additional effect. Using a skill while Determined does not grant you Determination.

Instead of Mana, this class uses Determination as its resource. Upon using a skill, your Determination meter fills up. Once you reach 50 Determination, the next you use becomes stronger, either dealing more damage or applying an additional effect. The amount of Determination you gain varies per skill, but the rule of thumb is to make sure you're always using a skill so you can fill your Determination as fast as possible.

Skill 1 - Slayer's Combo

Target: Enemy
Range: Short
Cooldown: 0 seconds

A three-part attack. Hold down the skill key to continuously use the skill:

First hit: Pulls surrounding regular enemies towards you.
Second Hit: Swing your weapon upwards and leap into the air.
Third Hit: Swing downwards while landing and gain 5 Determination.

This is a relatively straightforward skill. When you hold down this skill's key, you'll alternate between three different attacks, with the third attack filling your Determination. Since this skill has no cooldown, repeatedly using it is the fastest way to fill Determination on DragonSlayer, so be sure to use it while your other skills are on cooldown.

Skill 2 - Impale

Target: Enemy
Range: Long
Cooldown: 4 seconds

A forward thrust that deals damage, then pulls regular enemies towards you. Gain 10 Determination upon striking an enemy.

Determined: Deals 25% more damage and Heals yourself upon striking an enemy.

Like the first part of Slayer's Combo, this skill pulls monsters right to you, allowing you to easily follow up with your other skills without having to reposition yourself. When Determined pulling in monsters will also heal you, keeping you alive for longer!

Skill 3 - Evade & Engage

Target: Self/Enemy
Range: Self/Long
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Dash in the direction you're moving and gain 10 Determination. If you're targeting an enemy, you can recast this skill within the next 2 seconds to leap in front of them, dealing damage upon landing.

Determined: Damaging an enemy also stuns them for 2 seconds.

Currently, the main function of the dash is to quickly move from one point to another, allowing you to get around the map quicker. When monster functionality is added, dashes will ideally be used to assist with evading their attacks as well.

If you're targeting an enemy, you can also use the second part of this skill, a jump strike, allowing you to quickly close the distance between you and a monster, while stunning them in the process if you have at least 50 Determination.

Skill 4 - Scorched Steel

Target: Enemy
Range: Short
Cooldown: 5 seconds

Charge for up to 2 seconds, then unleash a fiery attack. Deals increased damage based on your charge time. Gain 10 Determination upon striking an enemy. If Dragonbane is active, charge twice as fast. You can freely move while charging.

Determined: Deals 50% more damage.

Damage wise, this is DragonSlayer's stronger skill. The longer you charge this skill the more damage it does, and if you have 50 Determination, you deal even more damage! Unlike other skills, your movement isn't restricted while using Scorched Steel, so you can freely position yourself in front of a monster before delivering a devastating blow.

Skill 5 - Dragon's Bane

Target: Self
Range: Self
Cooldown: 25 seconds

Raise your Dragon Blade skyward, instantly filling your Determination. For 10 seconds, your Determination gain is doubled, Scorched Steel charges twice as fast, and your bonus damage to Dragonkin is increased to 50%.

Determined: Your outgoing damage is increased by 25% for the duration of Dragon's Bane.

A temporary buff that's all about increasing DragonSlayer's damage output. Between instantly maxing your Determination, causing Scorched Steel to charge faster, and increasing your damage to both Dragonkin and all monsters, you're getting a massive power boost!

Conclusion

That concludes the DragonSlayer Infinity Class Design Notes post! We've spent a lot of time designing and implementing DragonSlayer's new skills, and we're ecstatic to have something that we can finally share with you all! We hope you all enjoy your time with the newly re-imagined DragonSlayer, but please note, the class is currently in the testing phases and nothing has been balanced yet, so what you see now may change in the future based on your feedback!

Have fun & enjoy the class,
Immortal Joe