A game variant, new levels and a new weapon are waiting for you. Deep dive into the second largest update Block League has seen so far!
Only Sword
Only Sword is a game variant where players can bring with them only melee weapons and passive skills. The playstyle completely differs from regular matches, as it turns every exchange in a short sword duel where dexterity and nimbleness are key. To deliver a fun experience, spicing up the melee scene was a must: that’s why the Only Sword update introduces status effects and a whole new weapon!
Originally, Only Sword was featured in S4 League, the game Block League is inspired to. The mode was so popular that it was played as much as standard matches, if not more. Clearly, we had to take into account that aspects like the input system and physics are not the same (please Luanti give us SSCSM for a better input system 🙏), so we had to adapt some mechanics to make them fun on our minigame.
Stun and Thrown mechanics
The first update regards the 2H Sword: by left-clicking whilst in air, your character will now get locked and quickly reach the ground. If an enemy is in front of you, they’ll get stunned. It’s the first mid-air attack Block League features and it turns the 2H Sword in an even more deadly weapon with 2 crowd-control attacks.
Stun is a gamechanger: during our tests, we’ve noticed how strikers are way more cautious when they push with the ball, whereas people defending must calculate when it’s the right moment to stun. If they miss, they’ll remain lock for a little less than a second, which is enough to be melted by a sniper or riddled by a juicy load of SMG bullets.
Stun lasts for 3 seconds and it can be evaded by jumping, at the cost of 90 stamina. Which means that who carries the ball is highly unlikely to be able to save themselves, yet other players might have a chance to nullify the stun and take small advantage of the enemy being locked.
The other mechanic is Thrown: when players are under Thrown, they’re pushed away and can’t use their weapons until they touch the ground. An “X” will appear instead of their crosshair to communicate that they’ve been affected. Like Stun, Thrown can be interrupted by jumping - in this case at the cost of 20 stamina.
Thrown makes our sword a bit more powerful, especially against people using fire weapons. In general, the combo of stuns and throws makes the Only Sword scene way more interesting, quite similar to our Skywars Duel mode - just more frantic.
However, 2H Sword is not the only weapon who can stun or throw you. Introducing Right Hand!
Right Hand and Guard mechanic
It’s a hand; it goes on the right arm; so… 🧠.
Right Hand is a new melee weapon, capable of stunning and throwing people away… in an AoE-orderly fashion. First things first though.
Its basic attack is a fist swinging you forward, which can be useful to peel the opponent and to move a little bit faster when out of stamina. However, you have to be careful, because if you hold the primary action key long enough, another attack will go through: the AoE push! Right Hand is the first weapon featuring a held-key attack, and in order not to confuse whom uses it, a crosshair indicator will tell you whether you held long enough to trigger the AoE push or not (the basic attack will run instead). Also, guess what? It applies Thrown!
Loading and firing the held attack
The other fancy mechanic is the secondary fire attack: by holding down the secondary key, you’ll enter in Guard state. It doesn’t actively damage anyone, but if they hit you with light melee attacks (Right Hand punch, 2H sword swing and dash), the’ll get stunned if standing in front of you. A shield on top of your head will communicate to other people you’re in Guard state, so they can do their math and understand how to act accordingly.
Some preparatory work Zughy did
New level cap
With the Only Sword update not only we’re introducing new mechanics and weapons, but we’re also extending the cap from level 18 to level 24! If you’re tired of a gray icon level, you now have the chance to flex your yellow Amateur icon 💅
This was made possible by enabling the level system on both the Right Hand and on the previously added H.E.A.L. (3 levels each). This also means you can unlock the silver skin of these weapons if you level up them enough.
Speaking of level ups, during the early weeks of the beta, we noticed how people focused on the licence goals so much that that they sometimes forgot about the goal of the game. All the licences were (and still are, beta is still in progress) the same: kill 3/5/10 enemies. And that is bad, because a licence should nudge players into using a weapon smartly; meaning the licence should be propedeutic to learning how to get better with that weapon, not a massacre simulator. This is why we’ve planned a more structured licence system for when the beta will be over, which also means more complexity and work to do for us (🫠). The Only Sword update brings the first piece of the aforementioned system, with the Right Hand lv1 licence asking… something different (no spoilers!).
Easier BL Betatester title
Last but not least, you’re still in time to unlock the BL Betatester title. To help you a little, if you haven’t unlocked it yet, we’ve raised the required level from 18 (previous cap) to 22, instead of 24 (current cap). We admit 10 kills with a bomb are quite difficult to deliver - and rest assured we’ve got rid of that goal for the post-beta launch :D - so the title should now be easier to obtain.
You’ve made it to the end! All done, right? Well, yesn’t: first of all, we’d like to thank Scarecrow01 for the Right Hand model. He’s an amazing voxel artist and all the Block League weapon models are made by him; check him out! Then we’d like to thank all our financial supporters for believing in us, with a honourable mention to the anonymous donator who, a few days ago, sent ~€150 to one of our developers - who decided to convert such amount of money into work for Block League, bringing us here: 🎉
Speaking of that, the Only Sword update has been in the working since the first days of April. 5 months might be a long time but we’d like to remind that A.E.S. is all volunteer work. As stated in the past, we’d like to deliver the creme de la creme, and donations allow us to do so, as they act as an accelerator. We’d like to bring more of these things in the future, possibly faster, so if you want to keep them coming, don’t forget to support A.E.S. even with €1/month pretty please. Also, have we told you that it’s all free software (or open source, pick your favourite term but don’t tell Zughy)? What we build for us, we build it for the world too.
See you in game with the new update: enjoy!