Hello again everyone! We hope you have been enjoying spring so far, as well as our new creature, the Rhamphorhynchus. We wanted to catch up with you all, and tell you about the exciting things we've been working on since last month!

Lambeosaurus TLC

The Lambeosaurus TLC is coming along well, and it's getting closer to be ready to release. We've recently finished adding some updated kick attacks, and it also has a new vocal call system implemented too.

Instead of selecting individual abilities to use, we have set up vocal call sets for players to equip. Equipping a vocal call category and using the ability lets you select from a handful of calls available. For Lambeosurus, we have this separated out into a Combat category, Survival Category, and Healing Category. For example, if you select the Healing category, Lambeosaurus can select from 3 calls, one that heals yourself, another that heals other nearby dinos in your group, and also a call that heals status effects for your group members.

This allows us to give players a larger variety of support abilities to use, without overwhelming the player with choice or the balancing of so many possible ability combinations. This system also has been designed to be flexible and reusable, which means we can use it for more dinosaurs in the future, and it will also be available to modders for their own custom creatures.

New Foliage Types

We have also been working on creating even more prehistoric foliage types. We’ve recently been working on larger ferns, such as the Black Tree Fern and King Fern. And, an iconic plant type we are also working on are horsetails and reeds, which will be a staple in any wetland or swampy environment.

One of the great reasons why we are working on all this custom foliage is because we can design the assets with mobile rendering in mind. Often when you drop down the complexity of trees and bushes to render them on mobile they may look a bit chunky or lack detail in important areas. For example, when reducing the number of triangles on a tree, too many details lost in the tree trunk will make forests look unnecessarily blocky. In those cases it would have been better to instead reduce the triangles at the top of the tree canopy where most players won't really look.

When creating our foliage, we are paying special attention to the way we are creating our mobile versions of the assets. For example, removing the small details where tree branches split, because on mobile these parts would be so small and hard to see anyways. We are certainly ensuring foliage looks as good as possible given the more restricted settings found on mobile platforms. However, we are still ensuring that console and PC players are still getting high quality and detailed assets, for sure!

We are going to continue to work on improving our plant variety further in the coming months, and we'll share more plants as they are created.

Server Optimization

While we’ve seen a lot of progress on new content this month, we’ve been working just as hard on improving content that’s currently in use as well, including our server performance in-game. We’ve made some progress on improving server performance over the month, and are currently putting them to the test in our Public Test Branch.

While it's still in early testing, during a recent playtest we were able to reach 200 players on 1 server with the server still reaching reasonable tick rates and being perfectly playable. However, there were still a handful of bugs with these optimizations, such as certain abilities not working correctly, so we are still a little ways off before this is ready to be included in a patch. We are still very early into the performance optimization stage. While this doesn't necessarily mean we will be releasing 200 player servers yet, it does mean that ideally in the future players will be able to see improvements to server performance across the board. It will also be easier for communities to host their servers and have more players join and play on a single community server together.

Upcoming Rhamphorhynchus Abilities

With Rhamphorhynchus’ arrival to Path of Titans, we’ve been excited to see how players take to its new and unique gameplay, as well as keeping our eyes peeled for player feedback as players get to know our tiny flyer. We’ve been happy to see lots of feedback on the Rhampy, and have been working on some changes and new abilities to help with some of the struggles our players have been facing.

One ability we are working on adding is the passive effect 'Lucky Feather', which lets Rhamphorhynchus survive an attack that would have otherwise killed it. This will result in a puff of feathers falling from your Rhampy, and you'll be able to flee before getting attacked again. Another ability is 'Fishing Lure' which will Apply an effect to all nearby fish in a 50 meter range that causes a delay in them fleeing reaction for 3 seconds. This can make fish easier to catch!

Struthiomimus TLC

Another item we've been working on is starting on the Struthiomimus TLC. So far we have only completed the very first pass of the texture and model updates, and haven't completed any updated rigging, animations, or abilities. Below is a screenshot of the partially completed updated model and textures. Struthi will see some dramatic changes to its proportions, especially to its head shape. We're also giving it a proper beak and tongue, and improving the definition of the feathers on its body to have a more shaggy look, much like an ostrich or emu. We are still a far away from completing the Struthi TLC, however we figured you'd like to see what we've got done so far!

New UI Animations

Another quality of life improvement we’ve been working on for the game is introducing a fade transition to our UI, which helps our UI feel smoother and a bit more polished for players to use. However, if you’re not fond of the new animations for the UI, it is completely optional, and can be disabled in your settings.

Particle Effects

Lastly, we’ve started working on adding visual particle effects to our dinosaurs’ abilities. This change is being added to help players have a clearer idea of what is happening in a fight, with indicators to show when an ability is in use, or a buff is in effect. This will be a huge help to players that enjoy PvP, and help support players better visualise who they are buffing or debuffing during combat.

An example of these new effects can be seen on the Public Test Branch, with Albertaceratops' "Berserker" ability, which boosts your attack damage when you are low health. The new visual effects now clearly indicate the increased danger, with faint glowing red eyes and air snorting from the Alberta's nostrils. This just one example of how our upcoming particle effects can help display when abilities are in use, and we will be keeping an eye out for feedback as this feature continues to progress. We hope to find a good balance between realistic effects that don't break immersion, but are still clear enough to indicate when certain status effects are triggered.

As always, we are incredibly grateful for your support as we continue to work on Path of Titans, and we are excited to show you what we've been up to in the next blog. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next time!

Also be sure to check out the Springtime skin bundle currently on offer in-game for a limited time. Happy spring!