Pirates Swashbuckling getting a makeover

Flying Labs’ developer blog has revealed that they’re currently doing work on the game’s swordfighting system.

Along with improvements to avatar combat and animation, the UI and sound will be receiving a bit of a workover.

“In short, we’ve been stripping avatar combat down to its foundation and building up again,” the game’s lead designer Kevin Maginn explained.

Apparently the original concept for the game was “somewhat of a cross between Shining Force Neo and Bushido Blade. I wanted a system that would let me slice through armies of minions like a hot knife through butter, but that would be tactical and complex in a one-on-one duel between evenly matched opponents”.

The swashbuckling had received some complaints from the game’s critics, “It was added late in the development cycle, and was thus the system in which I had the least confidence,” Maggin said. “What I discovered was… A good foundation with a very early iteration built on top of it.”

Instead of the “initiative bar” (that helps along combat abilities) starting empty and being built up throughout a battle, it will begin full. There’ll also be no finishing moves, with more focus instead on managing initiatives.

Once the update is integrated there’ll be no effect on defense from your balance rating, less skills will be roped into longer chains and all equipment will generally be much stronger. Skills will mainly now be area-of-effect, making it a little easier to battle groups of enemies and NPC characters will be getting much more in the way of archetype and skills.

If you want more on the game then go have a read of our latest preview.