Golden Xan

The team always appreciates seeing the community at large engaging with the content revealed. It's nice to see the thought processes people go through when thinking about the Chronicles, and any reveal in general. Here, and on every other platform. Part of the enjoyment I always had in Deadhaus was speculating. Not so much on getting everything right or wrong, but the journey in the theorization, and putting pieces together as others shared their thoughts and tiny bits they caught. One thing that has been consistently true was that there are always multiple layers to the stories shown. Things are, and are not, as they seem. This latest episode helped reinforce that idea, through the concept of resonance, but it is not reserved to only the magickal aspect. Unless everything is magick...

Very, very good analysis overall, Mortis. You had many sagacious insights.

Light attacks are not being buffered, which means that they are not triggering as fast as they should be in chains. This is a known issue. Heavy attacks will eventually be able to be chained as well, this is merely an initial iteration of them. Exsanguinate's channeling needs some tweaking, but it's getting there. Thanks for the observations, everyone.

It does through lore yet unrevealed. The Revenant is still being worked on, so it might/will change, but this is precisely what we are currently going for. Currently, I believe your attack speed increases up until 100%. If you are not at 100%, you have not achieved maximum benefit from it. As for Elveone's suggestion, all those options have been considered already. They are good suggestions. When I told Varik that the Bloodlust cannot be judged right now because it is in a vacuum, that holds absolutely true. There are aspects of it that currently feel off because there are no other systems that supplement it currently implemented, but when everything is working together, I do believe it will feel like a natural part of the gameplay, and then it will only be a matter of balancing it. I will say that I personally prefer having the Bloodlust present rather than not. While it would be possible to invert it with health (the lower your health is, the more Bloodlust you have) as you suggested, I think this is something that would be especially fitting if the Vampire used blood as fuel for his spells, but the undead faction of DHS uses mana for that instead, so this alternative would fall out of place. Lastly, I would like to say that I see people's concerns and understand them. I even agree with them, being a player myself. Keep in mind that, as features are added over time, they might initially feel off-putting until they are fully realized, and this realization may come through either changes to the feature itself, or the addition of completely new mechanics that supplement it, all being worked on. That said, the feedback is especially useful when it diverts us from directions we shouldn't be going and orients us towards aspects we should be focusing on.

Sorry to hear that. As the game gets developed, there will be a time for optimization, and then it's likely it will run more smoothly on older specs. That was the original intention, it will likely become a part of the default controls, or at least an optional configuration, over time. Without the use of special keys for it. Me too. Combat still has a long way to go, and we might end up presenting that in the future, but for now, the thinking is the undead don't care too much about getting damaged too much, their bodies are already considerably destroyed. They care about dishing out damage. Either way, the Vampire is meant to be able to dodge from enemy attacks, which is his own signature way of avoiding damage when necessary or desired. It's possible we'll bring guards or parries in some capacity in the future, but it may not happen.

Rend was a temporary skill meant to satisfy a necessity at the time. Telekinesis is likely to replace it in a more lore-friendly and interesting way. The idea is that there should be multiple ways for the Vampire to acquire blood other than Exsanguinate. In any case, the Bloodlust system is still going to get tweaked a lot, so the gain might increase in speed, and the decay may have delays before triggering, or decrease in other, specific ways. In its current state it does feel like a chore.

Bloodlust was conceived as an innate mechanic for the Vampire, where other classes would/might have their own. Many potential ways to gain Bloodlust were considered, as well as many ways it would affect the player. My favorite conceptualization of Bloodlust is it affecting each and every Tarot Card in a unique way. For Danse Macabre, that makes your attacks faster. For Exsanguinate, it could increase how many targets you Exsanguinate at a time, as an example. But these things are still being played with and it may change many times over. It may not even work this way. Between gaining Bloodlust with attacks or drinking blood, I prefer drinking blood. The analogy is that of addiction. The more the Vampire drinks blood, that which he is addicted to, the more he craves it. The more he craves, the more vicious he becomes. I find it fitting, and I prefer that over losing all Bloodlust upon the first feeding. The current system, as well as the previous one and any others to come, cannot have its potential properly recognized in a vacuum (not that you were doing that). The whole system depends on many other features being implemented and working together. An example of this is the fact that some weapons would cause blood sprays from which the Vampire can feed, which is something else that would add to its gain together with Exsanguinate. Another aspect is that we have a cooldown on Exsanguinate, which we are not supposed to. Another aspect is that it wasn't costing any mana, and that you couldn't choose how much blood to acquire at any one particular moment. These are all aspects that will be iterated upon over time, and each iteration is going to bring the pendulum to one side or the other, but the Tarot will only truly be judgeable once we have many other systems implemented together. The main and only hindrance that I believe should be tied to Bloodlust is how fast the passive drain of your health is. On the first system you guys saw, the passive drain would kill you in the Physical State, which it was not supposed to. The idea was for you to stay alive with 1 health point minimum. That makes it so that when your Bloodlust is at maximum, and your health is draining extremely fast, you are more powerful on all your abilities, but you also die more easily, so it is a double-edged sword. Now, the idea is that the more Bloodlust you gain, the harder it is to increase it, because your health drain will also increase, and you must always drink more and more blood to maximize the Bloodlust. Doing so is optional, in the sense that you have no necessity to do it, but if you do it can bring you power, while also demanding that you keep a steady flow of feeding in combat, otherwise your thirst will not sustain itself. But this, too, has to wait until it is fully implemented to be balanced.

When designing Minor Arcana, we are definitely leaning so far more to the side of variants than straight-up upgrades for the Tarots. Increasing damage/range/speed is often a byproduct of either leveling the card, but not so much upgrading it. An example of a variant would be your suggestion number 2 for Exsanguinate, or 3 for Telekinesis. Having reduced or no cooldown is something that I would like to see, and I believe most of them will not have those aspects. Some of these have received improvements, such as Mist Form's distance, but these are better left discussed in the Blood Bath section.

I am sure the deck interface will be most helpful when people are choosing their Tarots, as you will be able to read the skills' descriptions, their functioning, and that of any upgrade they may have. As well as a few extra interesting things.

This issue has been identified, it apparently was introduced in the last update.

It is a myth that, for features to have variety and depth, they need to be complex. Simple systems, with smart implementations, can have amazing depth. I am often in favor of complexity, but I am more in favor of intelligent solutions. We will certainly experiment with many different systems to get a feel for what is best, and the community's testing will be useful in tweaking these implementations. I do believe the next step will be to bring some more variety to combat. I am in favor of systems that require skill more so than mindless repetitive actions.

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You assessment is correct. Danse Macabre is an offensive Tarot Card, and a lot of depth does come from the other Cards you pick for your Hand, some of which are focused on defensive abilities. Cards can be further modified, often mixing between the offensive and defensive realm. There will be more information on that coming in the future. I believe it's safe to say that not all engagements will be purely mindless mashing, there will have to be planning involved for success to be achieved.

Hey guys, It's awesome to see this interest. I'll answer what I can as directly as possible. Keep in mind that all features are in active development and may change drastically over time. Currently, there are two ways that the Bloodlust goes down. If you spend a few seconds without engaging in combat (attacking or being attacked), your Bloodlust will start to wither. The second way is feeding. If you drink blood, your Bloodlust is reset. When you feed, the Bloodlust swiftly dwindles until empty, as it does so, all the sounds associated to it are proportionately muffled, until completely muted. Danse Macabre is a Tarot Card exclusive to the vampire. It actually takes the same space as any other Tarot Card, which is 1 slot in your Tarot Hand (your currently-equipped Tarots). The Bloodlust system is separated from the Danse Macabre, but it does have specific relationships with the Tarots. Any damage you inflict on the enemy increases your Bloodlust, but this is not exclusive to Danse Macabre, as any other damaging Tarot will also increase your Bloodlust. The plan is for Bloodlust to modify certain Tarots. For Danse Macabre, that makes your attacks faster. It also allows you to dash at your enemies after a certain threshold. The Bloodlust chanting improves as the meter is filled. The words are announced as you fill the symbols, and the chanting itself begins when you reach halfway through. Once it passes that point, it currently enters a loop. This may be changed in time. There are more abilities in store for everyone. The blood splatters are currently a result of executing your enemies (dismemberment). Answering some questions from the stream: - "Are there any keys locked behind moondoors?": I feel confident that there will be many secrets for the players to find in the game, some of which might be connected to the astrological aspects of the game. - "Tarot Cards": They are acquired through various means. Danse Macabre is the first Tarot any vampire acquires, as it represents the basic combat functionality. Some Tarots may be acquired through leveling and exploring, others as rewards, and others as secrets. - "Waves": There idea is that you cannot trigger more than 1 wave at a time. Perhaps that is something we should allow in the future.

When I initially thought about the skills a Revenant would have, I thought of them in the Magickal and Essential realm more so, and I made them somewhat variants of typical spells with a wrath theme to them. But upon thinking some more about what the developers have told us about their intents, I shifted to think that their powers are going to be very uniquely themed, and lore restricted. That being the case, if the Revenant is a physical brute, I imagine all their powers, no matter of what specialty, are focused on the material side only. For Revenants, I imagine their powers revolve around the ideas in your last paragraph: the use of their bodies to perform amazing feats of strength. Unnatural resistance, unnatural capacity to wield heavy objects, unnatural capacity to bend the laws of physics. Well, unnatural to a human's perception, of course.