The Sentara Update is now available!

Hello mates! Baron here, and the Sentara Update is officially upon us!

Update 1.2 is now live, and it wraps up everything we’ve been previewing over the last couple of news posts into one big Byeth release. This marks the 2nd of 4 free Byeth Updates, with the goal being to canonize some of the extended lore of Blade & Sorcery through additional content and maps.

Of course I say that was the goal, but then as usual the update spiraled into a bunch of unplanned scope creep... ːamadeus_happyː But luckily things didn't get so out of hand that the ThunderRoad framework exploded, so it's all good, lol.

Now, let's get into it!

Welcome to Sentara

Sentara is a small maritime nation west of Eraden, known for its sailors, traders, pirates, and general seafaring shenanigans. We tried to incorporate those themes throughout this update, with the weapons, armour, maps, and even how water behaves.

New Sentari Weapons

The staple of every Byeth update: a full batch of new themed weapons.

Sentara is loosely based on the aesthetics of Mediterranean maritime nations, so we took inspirations from pirates, sailors, and privateers.

The full weapon list includes a classic cutlass, stiletto dagger, a boarding axe, a harpoon, a dueling sword, and quite a lengthy sabre.

But of course… it wouldn’t be a pirate update without something extra.

Sentari Firearm

We did it boyz; guns in Blade & Sorcery. But... not gunpowder.

Rather than opening the can of worms that comes with real life musket simulation and long, complex reload procedures, we went with a lore-friendly, crystal-based firearm. It works by imbuing a base crystal with an element, then striking crystals together to unleash powerful effects.

Different imbues have different unique effects.

A fire imbued firearm can set enemies ablaze and create zones of fire.

I love all the imbues, but this one really rocks because it feels totally gnarly to shoot.

A gravity imbued firearm does exactly what you probably expect, and hits enemies like a truck, blasting them and all surrounding objects in the cone of fire away.

If you catch an enemy with enough force, you may also blow off a limb!

The lightning imbued firearm is the most insane of the three, in that it flat out gibbs enemies on impact, lol. Quad damage time!

Also, to preemptively answer a question I know folks will have - if you are wondering if the imbue retains when you holster the weapon - yes it does!

You can keep multiple firearms charged and holstered, ready to fire just like real life pirates did.

This is likely the point at which you may be thinking, "But Baron, these look wildly overpowered??"

The rule of cool was very much in effect here, as is often the case with Blade & Sorcery design. The Sentari firearm was designed to be flashy, powerful, but most importantly, fun. Lyneca worked on this firearm, and he and I are very much each others enablers when it comes to circumventing game balance for the sake of cool, lol.

However, jokes aside, I think you will find it is not as overpowered as you might expect. A good balance was struck between having a musket experience that was something between a real life 20 second reload simulator, and a magic boomstick. Feedback received was that the imbue reload on the firearm was just right for Blade & Sorcery gameplay.

Sentari Concoctions

The bottles that some of you guys pointed out from previous news were not health potions; they were a whole big scope creep.

Sentara introduces three new concoctions, designed to be playful, situational, and occasionally chaotic, just like the Sentari themselves.

Feather Draught

Temporarily makes you weightless, letting you “swim” through the air. Just remember, when it ends, gravity comes back.

I guarantee there will be community posts about people falling to their death from this lol.

Burning Draught

Causes the drinker to belch flames and briefly glow, which can be useful as a byproduct to temporarily illuminate dark areas of the dungeons if you have no torch.

Shocking Draught

Triggers a short-term magnetism, pulling nearby metal objects into orbit. This is a very contextual and utilitarian concoction, since you can imagine how useful it would be if you are surrounded my metal-clad opponents wielding metal weapons. YOINK!

For the design of these concoctions we tried to go a direction that was not pure damage tools, since there is already a ton of that in Blade & Sorcery. So the idea here was that they are more utilitarian, and open up creative and emergent gameplay moments.

But we were also aiming for just plain fun.

Sentari Armour Set

Sentara’s faction armour leans more toward mobility and style than raw protection.

The full outfit includes light cloth attire - a shirt, jacket, trousers, boots, hat, and some decorative jewellery. It’s practical for life at sea and has a bit of flair to it.

Sentari enemies will wear mix-and-matched variants of this armour, and players can equip the full set as well.

The jewellery pieces are cosmetic only, for those wondering.

New Faction Maps

One the very first Byeth announcement we stated that we were at risk of breaking our game framework (ThunderRoad) if we were not careful about the content we add in these updates. As such, you may remember me saying NO MAPS because maps are one of those risky things.

But it just didn't feel right!

We knew before Rakta release, and we surely knew after, that there was a hole missing there and it left us uneasy to be adding lore elements from different parts of the world yet you don't even get to see what that part of the world looks like.

We felt this omission would be something that would disappoint the players, and that made us feel bad. So here we are in 1.2 and we are releasing faction-specific maps. (plural!)

Sentara Map

Being a maritime nation, you surely guessed the Sentara map would involve some sort of ship!

The enviro team had a lot of fun making and designing this environment.

A Sentari ship, marooned against a crumbling lighthouse, cracked open to reveal a mysterious crystal.

The lighthouse has some fun effects for you to discover, but I will let you explore it yourself!

The map is a lot bigger than you probably realize, as it includes the ship deck, a captains quarter, a below deck, and a small island with the lighthouse.

There are fun parkour opportunities as well since there are lots of rigging, sails and things to swing on.

Crazy design detail note: the window frames on the ship are designed to mirror the Sentari flag. Absolutely insane attention to detail by the one and only Kaou from enviro team.

Rakta Map

The Rakta are a highly magical and martial people, with their aesthetic being loosely based on an amalgamation of east-Asian cultures.

This new map is a Raike dojo, located deep in the southern tropics of Rakta, where their fierce warriors train for warfare.

This map was an interesting lore expansion for us. Up to now, the only mention of the Raike are from the perspective of the shopkeeper, who describes their homeland as a snowy and mountainous.

But with this Rakta map we wanted to expand on the idea that the Rakta Empire is quite large and expansive, much like Eraden, so this map is located in the southern reaches of the empire which crosses into a more tropical climate.

Both maps are playable in Sandbox, and both can appear in Crystal Hunt as special opportunities to fight for money.

For lore logic, the faction maps lock enemy types - Sentari in Sentara, Raike in Rakta - but Sandbox still lets you mix and match freely, because why not. Sandbox is always a great for "what if" type scenarios in my opinion.

Each future Byeth update will include one faction map, but 1.2 gives you two since the Rakta map is a retroactive bonus.

Before you ask, yes you can ring the gong! This was a critical inclusion, lol.

There are also mounted katana all along the walls of the dojo; great for when you need a weapon quick.

Mapboard Rework

To support these lovely new locations, the mapboard has been redesigned.

The new layout is cleaner, more readable, and introduces tabbed world maps. You can now switch between Eraden, Rakta, Sentara, and future regions via the nice little icon tabs, with the background map updating to match the lore.

This system is also modder-friendly!

Space has been reserved so modders can add their own tabs and custom regions if they want. Hypothetically, a modder could add an entirely new region and have all their location icons neatly grouped there.

Survival Mode Rework

A little scope creep that went out of control; introducing the new and improved Survival mode, which has been completely reworked.

In summary, the new system is highly customizable and progression-based. There are tons of goodies you can tweak, but to give an overview, some of the things that are new:

• Earn skills as rewards
• Unlock armour sets or full themed bundles
• Retain and accumulate power across waves in a roguelite fashion. Will you focus on becoming the ultimate glass cannon fire mage, or will you diversify your skillset?
• Play a chaotic roulette-style mode where you pick one reward per wave, which resets after every round. One round you may be blasting with a meteor and the next you are reduced to a rusty dagger.

However as I say, the beauty of this new Survival mode is that it is highly customizable, so you can tailor it however you want and by doing so create new scenarios.

For example, perhaps you would like to unlock only weapons as rewards, disabling skills and magic.

Or perhaps the opposite, maybe you wanna do a mage run only where you accumulate magical power with each incremental reward.

Maybe you want to tweak it so you can or cannot take enemy weapons.

For true freedom, there is even an option to allow you to enter the Survival with sandbox equipped gear and skills, in case you wanted to do a very specific custom build run or even if you just wanted to give yourself a starting boost.

Our main goal in the redesign was to give players who have played Blade & Sorcery to death a new way to experience the game. We also wanted to provide a little structured challenge to those who crave it, yet without telling anyone how they should play or have fun.

Another beauty is that the Survival mode works on all maps, including the new faction maps. And best of all, we made it so it’s very easy for modders to plug their own content into the reward system. That means you could play the Survival mode where you are unlocking modded weapons and spells!

Buoyancy Simulation

Sentara wouldn’t be complete without water behaving properly.

What started as a small "I wonder" project evolved into full buoyancy simulation, based on weight and material, and yes, that includes bodies!

New Music

Two beautiful new tracks have been added to the Byeth faction maps, composed by our very own Glamdok, the same composer behind the original soundtrack.

This will be case for the future Khar-Tib and Madlu maps as well.

You can check out the full game soundtrack in this Blade & Sorcery OST playlist over on YouYube.

Survival Achievement Change

A small QOL change, but worth it's own section because of how annoying this achievement was.

Those of you who achieved the the “Wildfolk Stamina” achievement: I salute you. For everyone else who tried and gave up, you surely experienced how incredibly draining the achievement was, as it required you to last 50 rounds in one sitting.