Hello again! We wanted to close August out with another monthly progress update! We’ve been working on some really interesting content, so let’s check it out!

Kentro TLC

As mentioned in our previous blog, our Kentrosaurus TLC has been released! Kentrosaurus has arrived with a big update to its visuals, including changes to its proportions and textures. It has also received several new abilities like Spit, Spiked Gathering, Detonate and Juke! Each of these new abilities will help bring out Kentrosaurus’ potential as a hit n’ run bleeder, and you can read more about them in our previous blog here: https://pathoftitans.com/blog/kentrosaurus-tlc-released.

Critter AI Progress

One of our main focuses of this month is continuing our work on critter mechanics. This includes planning out and experimenting with more varied ways players can interact with them, both in and out of combat. Here are some examples of the improvements we’ve been working on this month!

More Immersive Critters

We’re eager to make critters behave in different ways from each other so that each creature feels like a more realistic animal encounter. We’ve been tweaking the speed and movement patterns of each creature, as well as adding more animations such as foraging and watching for danger. These are just a few of the improvements we’ve been working on to make Path of Titans feel a little more ‘lived in’ for players!

Dynamic World Spawning

As this is one of the most important updates to critters, we’ve been putting a lot of effort into the dynamic spawning mechanic. This will allow critters to spawn in-game and wander around, no burrows needed. We’ve been doing some adjustments so that different critters will prefer to spawn in certain biomes, such as the Platyhystrix spawning in swamps, and Dynamosuchus spawning in open grasslands. Critters will be also able to spawn in different ways too, some spawning in packs while others will be wandering solo! This includes critter species that attack too, which will add a little more danger to adventuring juveniles.

Visual Improvements

We are also looking to improve the visuals for critters as well, including improving their movement and turning to feel more fluid and natural, as well as attention to smaller details such as ‘digging’ effects for critter burrows. We plan to find more ways we can improve critter visuals as we continue with development, and will keep you posted!

Why This Matters and What This Means For The Future

Critters play an important role in Path of Titans, they are the first hunt for many dinosaurs and help players immerse themselves into the prehistoric worlds of Gondwa and Panjura. They also provide a decent source of food to carnivore players who may be too young or small to bring down another player. But we know they can be much more than that, and the work we have been doing to expand their capabilities will help us give critters and AI in general more life in Path of Titans. As we continue to work on improving our critters, we will also be looking at possibilities for more critter types, with more new and complex behaviours!

Our progress with improving critters in these ways may not seem like it, but is extremely important for upcoming content aside from just the critters themselves. Critter AI has direct ties to our dinosaur AI, including how they spawn and interact with the world to the abilities they will be able to use on players. As the potential for critters in combat grows, so too does the potential for future full dinosaur AI! Additionally, as critters become more complex in what they can do, we can incorporate these new capabilities into future quests and challenges!

Silesaurus Critter

To round off our update on critters, we also have some news on Silesaurus, along with another new critter! The Silesaurus has now been fully modelled, has it’s skin, a set of vocalizations, and is being prepared for animations and the final implementation into the game. The plan for the Silesaurus's behavior is for it to be very skittish and quick, often grouping together a bit like deer. However, if provoked by smaller creatures, it will lash out with kicks and scratches to defend itself.

Bagaceratops Critter

Alongside Silesaurus, we have also started work on another new critter, the Bagaceratops! Bagaceratops is a small protoceratopsid from the Cretaceous period, and will play the role of a tiny aggressive herbivore, perfect for smaller dinosaurs to test their skills on. This creature has been modelled and skinned, however and the animations, audio, and in-game setup will coming soon!

Game Modes and 200 Player Servers

In addition to our work behind the scenes, we have also been holding some tests with our in-game community! Our team recently held several public tests on our official servers, inviting players to take part in our upcoming game modes, King of the Hill, Deathmatch and Capture The Egg. We also opened up a 200 player server for our players to try out, and we’re excited to say the tests were a great success! The key reason for testing 200 player servers was to see how the server infrastructure would hold up under the stress of higher playercounts, and also see how player behavior changes in-game with so many other dinosaurs around.

A big Thank you to everyone that took part in testing these new features with us. Thanks to you we have found a number of improvements we can make, and we will continue to work towards releasing our gamemodes and a permanent server player count increase

Foliage Update

To finish up this month’s devblog, we’d also like to share another foliage update with you! Our developers on the art team have recently put together some new food assets to add more variety to the edible items on the map. For example here we have fern cones, massive pinecone-like seeds that grow from the middle of ferns that will be edible for those with the forager diet type.

As always, we’d like to thank you all for your continued support and interest in Path of Titans, it inspires our work to improve the game every day!

We also wanted to let you all know that the Reptilian Skin Pack is available in our store page for a limited time. These skin packs help fund our development, allowing us to keep working to bring new content and improvements to Path of Titans. Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you next month!