Dogs Of War Vu
Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on February 15, 2020, 01:47:00 PM
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Stoneshard is a challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world. Experience the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary: travel across the war-torn kingdom, fulfill contracts, fight, mend your wounds and develop your character without any restrictions.
Home page (https://stoneshard.com/)
Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/625960/Stoneshard/)
Forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/625960/discussions/)
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eaJ5h3hcICZcY-XvDKwbw/search?query=stoneshard)
Single-player
Stoneshard – Early Access Release Trailer
https://youtu.be/QSkQ9jwvLe4
About
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Stoneshard is a challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world. Experience the unforgiving life of a medieval mercenary: travel across the war-torn kingdom, fulfill contracts, fight, mend your wounds and develop your character without any restrictions.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/625960/extras/2344444.png?t=1581678360)
EXPLORE THE RAVAGED LANDS
• Open World
War always leaves its mark: villages lie in ruins, dungeons are infested with monsters and old roads are abandoned. Travel across Aldor and learn more about its past.
• Economy
The wartime economy is ruthless, but it also presents many opportunities: fulfill contracts, hunt for treasure, trade in a variety of goods and travel the land to earn your fortune.
CHOOSE YOUR PATH
• Character Development
Experiment with 100+ abilities and 200+ equipment pieces without any class or level restrictions. Create your very own playstyle!
• Enemy Variety
Take part in intense battles against numerous factions. Brigands, abominable cults, the undead - all of them require a unique approach.
• Tactical Battles
There is no hand-holding. Only the thoughtful ones shall prevail - plan a few turns ahead, adapt to your surroundings and fully utilize your character’s strengths.
SURVIVE AGAINST THE ODDS
• Health System
Master the simple but deep health system: cauterize bleeding wounds, relieve pain with alcohol and drugs, practice bloodletting and heal your maladies with various concoctions.
• Psyche
Different in-game situations have a distinct influence on your character’s mental condition. High morale may turn the tide in your favor when fighting even the most hopeless of battles, while low sanity brings panic attacks and paranoia.
• Permadeath
Do you like risk? Then try out the Ironman mode, where every decision is irreversible and your character dies once and for all.
PLANNED UPDATES
• New Content
New settlements, including three majestic cities. New enemy factions: the mysterious Deep Dwellers and the ruthless Hive. Even more activities, equipment, enemies and abilities.
• Caravan
Gather your caravan: upgrade it, find new routes and recruit followers - their skills and abilities will surely come in handy. Feeling tired? Return to your camp to hear fresh stories or just rest by the fire.
• Devotion
Devote yourself to one of the aspects of the enigmatic deity. But remember: every blessing has
its price. Are you ready to make a pact?
• Campaign
To solve the mystery of the Stoneshards, you’ll have to visit dozens of exciting locations, make decisions with long-lasting consequences and slay a number of ferocious bosses.
• Alchemy & Cooking
Discover new recipes and experiment with potions and dishes by combining different ingredients.
Mature Content Description
The developers describe the content like this:
This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages: Fantasy Violence, Cartoonish Gore, Depiction of Alcohol & Drug Usage, Mature Topics.
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Development Roadmap
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Linux Build Is Out! + 0.5.7.18 Hotfix
Thu, 20 February 2020
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Greetings!
We're happy to inform Linux users that we've successfuly solved all Linux-related issues and Stoneshard is now available on your OC as well. Recommended distributive is Ubuntu 18.04. Other distributives may work as well, but they weren't tested.
It is important to note that depending on your version of Ubuntu additional dependencies may need to be installed to play the game. These dependencies are:
libcurl4
libopenal1
0.5.7.18 Hotfix Changelog
• Removed durability loss from Jewelry items
• Fixed another backpack-related trade exploit
• Fixed scrolls and treatises being sold for 1 coin
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Devlog: March Update Progress
Sun, 1 March 2020
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Hello everyone!
This devlog is dedicated to revealing some of the progress we’ve made with the first major content update «Trollslayer», which will be released around the end of March. As we’ve already mentioned, there are plans to include some previously unannounced things into this update. As for now, let’s go through some of the features we are currently working on:
Additional flora and fauna
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To make the world of Aldor feel more alive, we’ve added two new animals to the game: saigas and bisons, which can be encountered in the steppes and in the fields accordingly.
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Penny buns have been added to the forests, fleawort and henbane now grow in the fields and by the roadsides, mushrooms and potatoes can be cooked at campsites. The meat system has also been changed, it’s now divided into four types: tough, fatty, sinewy, and tender. Each meat type can be acquired from certain animals. In the future we plan to make the hunting system significantly more complex, but it definitely won’t be a part of the March update.
New dungeon type – Catacombs
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Proselytes have received their own dungeon type – Catacombs. Abandoned churches, monasteries, and other ruins inhabited by the vampiric cults can now be encountered around the world. At the same time there’s work being done on rehauling our dungeon generation algorithm in order to create more complex and structurally engaging levels. The work is still in progress, so no pictures of the interiors for now.
New skill trees – Athletics and Combat Mastery
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Right now we are in the middle of implementing two new utility skill trees, each containing 14 and 13 skills accordingly. Initially they were planned to be much smaller – 8-10 skills each, but during the development it was decided to add additional branches.
Combat Mastery will be a great addition to the characters focusing on using weapons. It’s designed to enhance this playstyle, introducing 7 versatile combat and tactical maneuvers.
Athletics is built around mobility and controlling the battlefield, so it can be utilized by pretty much every character
Once all the skills are fully implemented and balanced, we’ll publish a separate devlog where we’ll present them in greater detail.
Expanded dialogues
We plan to slightly expand the dialogue system for the key characters such as merchants, elders, craftsmen, etc. Naturally there is no role-playing depth of classical RPGs to be expected here, our role system is simply not designed for that. However you’ll be able to learn more about certain characters, find out their opinions on different topics, and, perhaps, get some leads on various locations and quests...
?????
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Stay tuned for new devlogs. Until next time!
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Devlog: Combat Mastery
Tue, 10 March 2020
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Hello everyone!
In this devlog we’d like to present you a new skill tree which will be added with the “Trollslayer” update - Combat Mastery.
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Combat Mastery is an utility skill tree, designed to be particularly useful to warriors and other characters relying on weapons. Overall it contains 14 abilities: 7 actives and 7 passives.
Active abilities:
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• Seize the Initiative – start combat by delivering a strike which will “steal” some of the stats from your target and grant them to you as a buff. Each following strike will increase the amount of debuff stacks on your target and the amount of buff stacks on you
• Defensive Tactics – a buff with unlimited duration. The effect depends on the number of enemies around your character. The higher the number, the stronger this dynamically calculated effect. Additionally, as long as Defensive Tactics is active, blocking and dodging will restore your Energy.
• Offensive Tactics follows a similar logic, though it provides offensive stats instead. Additionally, critical strikes and counterattacks decrease the remaining cooldowns for weapon skills while it’s active. Keep in mind that you only can have a single tactic active at a time, so you will have to choose the most appropriate one for any given situation.
• War Cry deals a small amount of psionic damage, Weakening all enemies in a large AoE. In turn, you receive Battle Rage effect for several turns - the more enemies there are, the longer it lasts.
• Finisher – perhaps some of you may remember this skill from one of the oldest devlogs about the currently retired class system. This skill allows you to deliver a strike which immediately refreshes all active cooldowns as long as it kills its target.
• Thirst for Battle is meant to improve survivability for warriors, especially when they are near death, injured, and are pretty much ready to give up on life. The power of the effect increases when low on health, so it has the potential to break the tide of battle with a significant bonus to damage and life drain.
• Against the Odds – the legendary skill of Verren from the old Prologue returns. Now this skill is a crowning jewel of Combat Mastery. Its duration was decreased to 2 turns, however if you manage to kill an enemy within this time frame, you’ll recover a significant amount of HP and energy. Against the Odds is best used in combination with Thirst for Battle and Finisher for maximum impact.
Passive abilities:
• Setup – grants you bonus accuracy and damage after you skip a turn, which makes waiting more tactically advantageous.
• Armor Crusher makes the task of disposing of armored targets easier. As long as their armor condition is more than half, your attacks have a bonus to armor piercing and armor damage. On top of this, when the target’s armor durability reaches zero, this passive increases the amount of damage the target takes for a few turns.
• Intimidation – grants War Cry a chance to daze or confuse all affected enemies for a few turns.
• Right on Target – grants bonus stats to all weapon skills. Additionally, it grants a significant bonus to your weapon damage, increasing accuracy and crit chance, while decreasing skills cost and fumble chance as long as your second hand is empty.
• Opportune Moment – grants your physical attacks a chance to decrease all active cooldowns for your skills by 1 turn.
• Stance Training adds an additional effect to your Defensive and Offensive Tactics. As long as your Defensive Tactics is active, all your stance-based skills will lose 1 stack on triggering instead of 2. When using Offensive Tactics, all your stance-based skills will activate with 6 stacks, which means that you’ll most likely lose them quickly.
• Final Push – ensures that Against the Odds is a much more reliable tool for escaping death by increasing damage and accuracy for your attacks while you are under its effects.
That’s all for now. In the next devlog we’ll tell you more about Athletics skill tree and, perhaps, will show you something extra!
Until next time!
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Devlog: Progress Update
Sun, 22 March 2020
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Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll share more details about some of the new additions which will be included in the “Trollslayer” update.
Grave Robbery
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Now you’ll be able to grab a shovel and head to the nearest cemetery. If you spend some time digging around, you might find something valuable or interesting. Just remember that this isn’t the most pleasant of activities, so your character’s sanity and morale can take a noticeable hit if you rob graves too frequently.
If you don’t have a shovel with you, you can also try digging with your bare hands. Though the process will take much more time in this case plus there’s a risk of hand injury.
Roadside Altars
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It’s now possible to randomly encounter roadside altars which were set up to honor the Host, the deity worshipped in Aldor. You can pray to the Host by these altars to gain a blessing for a few hundred turns. Blessings grant resistance to unholy damage, gradually restore psyche, and slightly increase received experience.
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With the addition of a fully-fledged worship system, the altars mechanics will be substantially expanded, but for now their purpose is to add more variety to the world and encourage traveling by roads.
Save Slots
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There were lots of requests to add character slots, so by popular demand it was decided to add them with this update. You’ll no longer need to bother with backing up game files. It’ll now be possible to create multiple characters and switch between them without any busywork.
Changes to Dungeon Generation
We continue experimenting with our dungeon generator by adding various changes. The updated version will be able to create more complex and engaging structures.
We also continue to fill the world with more details. The “Trollslayer” update will have three new points of interests. One of them we’ve already shown. Here’s the second one:
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Update Release Date
We’ve decided to add a number of initially unplanned and unannounced features (such as save slots and changes to dungeon generation), so we’ll need a bit more time to finish their implementation and polish the build. “Trollslayer” will be available in three weeks - exactly on April 14th.
Until next time!
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0.5.8.0 "Trollslayer" is Live! - Changelog
Tue, 14 April 2020
https://youtu.be/7c_MCzpBaQA
Hello everyone!
We are happy to inform you that the first major update “Trollslayer” can now be downloaded and played! This expansion adds a new boss, two skill trees, many new items, and lots of fixes, improvements, and additions – the full changelog can be seen below.
Keep in mind that because of the new locations being added to the world map, your old saves will be incompatible with this update. To experience new content, you’ll have to start a new game. If you wish to continue playing on the old version, check out the instructions on how to rollback to it.
Happy hunting!
MAIN ADDITIONS
• New boss: Ancient Troll and its dedicated quest line. Try your luck at defeating this dangerous monster, but first make sure that your character is properly leveled!
• Two new skill trees: Athletics and Combat Mastery. 27 new abilities to include into your builds!
• Save slots: No more shuffling game files around – keep as many characters as you want.
• Altars: discover them alongside the roads and gain the Host’s blessing for bonus experience.
• Grave robbing: rob graves using a shovel or your bare hands to discover valuable (or not) loot. Perhaps you’ll even stumble upon a grave of some legendary warrior?
• New fauna: saigas and bisons. Venture into the steppes to hunt them: their pelts and horns are rather valuable. Be careful – bisons are capable of standing up for themselves...
• New flora: treat your wounds with fleawort, use henbane to enter battle rage, snack on roasted penny buns.
• New meat system: every animal drops a dedicated meat type on death. Even rats and bats are not an exception.
• “Gathering the Caravan”: the quest has been expanded to have a better conclusion instead of ending the storyline abruptly upon fulfilling three contracts.
• Fast travel system between the villages, which becomes available upon completing the first part of “Gathering the Caravan”
• Two hidden quests: To discover them you’ll have to pay attention to the dialogues and maybe help a certain person in their time of need...
Miniquests/requests will be added with the follow-up patches.
• Three new points of interest. Explore the world in search of new landmarks, each with their own loot and lore. You can save your progress in some of these locations.
• New dungeon type: the Catacombs. The proselytes now inhabit them instead of the Crypts.
• Lots of new dialogues. Get to know some of the denizens of Osbrook and Mannshire
Some additional dialogues will be added with the follow-up patches.
• More low level valuables: silver nuggets, clasps, bolts of cloth, bottles of oil and much more.
• New items: new mage mantles, more greatswords and bows. Also GINGER ROOT.
• 24 new treatises. Every skill tree (except the magic ones) now has two more treatises associated with them in order to make the vertical progression more difficult and slow down the character’s power gain.
Now you won’t be able to learn every active ability of a skill tree within the first 3-4 levels, gaining immediate access to all its skill rotations. Instead, you’ll have to diversify your build by levelling starting abilities from, say, Athletics or Combat Mastery.
For now all new treatises can be bought from traders or found in dungeons. In the future high-level treatises will only be available in dedicated locations or bought from specific traders.
• Wares and reputation: merchants and craftsmen will hold onto rare items until you prove your worth to the village by fulfilling contracts. The higher your reputation, the more powerful items you’ll be able to purchase.
• New localizations: the game is now available in Latin American Spanish and Italian languages.
Official Brazilian Portuguese localization and Turkin & Czech fan localizations will be added with the follow-up patches.
BALANCE AND GAMEPLAY
EQUIPMENT
• Most weapons and some armors were rebalanced to further accentuate the differences between the items of the same type and reduce stat clutter.
• Shields and their protection values were buffed. Now they are the main source of Block Chance and Block Power.
• Increased the maximum durability for most items and decreased the speed with which they degrade (boots in particular).
• Crowbar and lancet deal increased damage instead of using bare hands’ damage.
ECONOMY
• Rebalanced prices for most equipment pieces, consumables, and valuables.
• Merchants now sell more treatises.
• Rewards for contracts now scale with dungeon difficulty slightly more.
• Tweaks to traders’ inventories – for instance, the Osbrook’s herbalist no longer sells enchantment scrolls.
• The Mannshire’s merchant gives better prices for treatises.
• The base buy price for traders is [10 > 15]% of the standard item value.
• Due to the addition of fast travel between the settlements, the Mannshire’s apprentice no longer sells equipment, but he can still fix cloth and leather items.
• Containers in more dangerous dungeons now generally have better loot in them.
• Increased reward and reputation gain for completing contracts.
ABILITIES
• Rebalanced energy costs for most abilities.
• Reduced the damage for most spells, reduced energy costs for certain spells.
• Improving associated Attributes has a smaller effect on abilities’ effectiveness. Initial values of certain active abilities were also reduced.
• Some enemies received new abilities from Athletics and Combat Mastery skill trees. Watch out for them!
• Rebalanced minimum and maximum values for most enchantments.
We are aware of the abuse with rerolling enchantments and the associated randomness, but until the item quality system is reworked, there isn’t much we can do about it.
• The effect of “Confusion” now prevents you (or your enemies) from attacking and using abilities instead of moving to a random tile with a certain chance. Random movement chance was transferred to “Clumsiness”. Most abilities, consumables, and effects which used to cause “Confusion”, now cause “Clumsiness”
• [Pyromancy] “Melting Ray” was moved further down the skill tree.
• [Pyromancy] “Ring of Fire”. Added: for each affected enemy grants +20% Pyromantic Power for 4 turns.
• [Pyromancy] “Blaze”. Added: for each point of damage dealt, the spell burns double the amount of energy.
• [Daggers] “Deadly Trick” was moved further down the skill tree.
• [Daggers] “Deadly Trick”. Instead of granting +100% Dodge Chance for 2 turns, grants +25% Crit Chance for the next turn. Also instead of Immobilization it applies Confusion. The chance to swap with the target is affected by their Knockback Resistance.
• [Proselyte Flagellant] “Driven by Pain”: decreased damage gain when on low health. Crit Chance was swapped away for Life Drain to avoid one-shotting possibility.
• Arna’s Trait “Vow of the Feat”: grants -[5 > 7.5]% Abilities Costs and Cooldown Durations for each enemy within Vision. Added: -7.5% Spell Costs and -4% Damage Taken for each enemy within Vision.
• [Staffs] “Battle Trance” replenishes [20 > 10]% Max Energy.
• [Staffs] “Triumph”: grants +20% Crit Chance for 7 turns upon killing an enemy instead of +10% Damage and Magic Power for 9 turns.
• [Axes] “Execution”: replenishes 35% Max Energy upon killing an enemy instead of reducing Active Cooldowns for axe skills by 50%.
• [Greatswords] "Parry": +[10 > 7.5]% Block Chance and +[12.5% > 10%] Block Power for each stack of the stance.
• [Ranged Weapons] "Hunter’s Mark": using this ability not only applies the effect but also performs a shot.
• [Ranged Weapons] "Anticipation": applies the target with -[8 > 10]% Dodge Chance for [3 > 10] turns each time you land a shot. Added: each missed shot against the target grants +5% Accuracy for 10 turns.
MECHANICS
• Mushrooms and potatoes can now be roasted at campfires
• Walking barefoot has a chance to damage your feet.
• Significantly increased Thirst and Hunger gain during sleep.
• Bleed damage not only depends on the target’s Max Health but also on its Bleed Resistance.
• Burn Damage no longer deals fixed damage, instead scaling with Max Health, though to a lesser extent than before.
• Rebalanced Knockback Damage. Both colliding targets now receive Crushing Damage for [15 > 10]% Max Health of the target which was knocked back. If the target was knocked into a wall or an occupied tile, it receives Damage for [15 > 10]% of its Max Health.
• Knocking the target back into an occupied tile no longer has a 100% Stun Chance. Now it takes the target’s Stun Resistance into account.
• Each enemy now has a correct set of Body Parts – no more injured snake paws. Also different enemies have different Body Part “durability”: it’s easier to injure skeletons and critters.
• Bleed Chance upon receiving damage to injured body parts is now affected by Bleed Resistance.
• Decrease the chance of modifiers to be triggered by their respective damage types – it’s now very unlikely to witness a self-sustaining loop of poisoning or burning. Decreased the base duration for those modifiers.
• Stun Chance from Shock damage and Bleed Chance from Rending damage are now affected by the respective resistances.
ENEMIES
• High tier brigands received a buff.
• Increased the amount of brigands in camps.
• Increased Accuracy for most 5-9 and 10+ level enemies.
• Increased experience gain from killing enemies by 20-25%.
• Rebalanced ambushes – they scale from your level at a significantly lower rate.
As a reminder – the enemies scaling with your level is a temporary solution which will be disabled after expanding the world and implementing danger parameters for zones.
MISCELLANEOUS
• Jonna and Dirwin start with affinity for Athletics, Jorgrim and Arna – for Combat Mastery.
• Jonna starts with first tier of Geomancy and Pyromancy unlocked instead of second.
• Characters have 6 bonus starting Attributes instead of 8.
• Each point of Vitality grants [3 > 5] Max Energy.
• Each point of Agility grants [0.75 > 0.5]% Dodge Chance
• Dodge Chance can reach a negative value, increasing the Accuracy of your enemies’ attacks.
• Reworked Block Power progression. Its initial bonus was removed, it now depends entirely on Strength. Block Power values also have a cap which is limited by Strength as well.
• Pinecaps can only be encountered in pine forests. Leaf forests now have penny buns.
• Increased the chance of finding treatises on bookshelves.
• Destroying the Well of Souls spawns wraiths.
• The witch now offers a potion instead of a pot of espresso.
• Consuming spoiled food reduces morale.
UX
• Enemies can no longer spawn in dungeon rooms adjusted to entrances/exits in order to avoid situations when the player is swarmed right after transitioning between the floors.
For the same reason enemies no longer spawn next to zone borders.
• Picking an item up while your inventory is full no longer automatically drops the item, but keeps it suspended instead.
• Added the Chapel autosave to the standalone Prologue.
• All stages of main quests now have journal entries.
• Dropping treatises and scrolls is now displayed in the log.
• Improved the scrollbar in the trading menu.
• Added an outline for runic boulders.
UI
• Added a new resolution: 2560х1080.
• Improved quests journal interface.
VISUALS
• Animals now have their own icons for Injuries.
• Improved forest generation.
• Numerous visual fixes and tweaks.
• Added new visual effects for Bad Trip.
• Added new visual effects for Drunkenness.
• New sprite work for some items.
• New sprite work for Ghouls.
• Added a new entrance variant for the Bastion (brigand dungeon).
FIXES AND STABILITY
• Fixed room renting: the game now correctly saves and detects the remaining rent time.
• Fixed the bug with a sudden HP and Energy drop when transitioning between zones.
• Fix quest items duping.
• Carts and other map encounters retain their state upon restarting the game – it’s now impossible to endlessly loot them.
• Animals can escape to other zones when they reach the border.
• Stepping on a burning tile not only sets you on fire, but also deals immediate damage. The chance to catch fire is no longer 100%, now it’s affected by Fire Resistance.
• Fixed the bug which prevented certain effects from triggering when reaching Benevolent reputation with a settlement.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed using abilities and moving on the same turn.
• Fixed bizarre trajectories for enemy’s charge-based abilities.
• Fixed the bug with immortal enemies
• Fixed numerous memory leaks.
• Improved optimization.
• Fixed lots of crashes and other minor bugs.
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0.5.8.1 & 0.5.8.2 Changelog
Wed, 15 April 2020
- Fixed Ginger Root-related crash. If you have a save with a Ginger Root present in your inventory or chest, please get rid of it and re-save the game.
- Fixed an issue with merchants not restocking treatises.
- Fixed an issue with free Ranged Weapons treatises
- Fixed an issue with items disappearing after being stored in the backpack
- Fixed weaponstands being labeled as “wardrobes”
- Increased base prices for most hides, especially bison ones [100g > 200g]
- [Ancient Troll] Troll Regeneration: Cooldown reduced from 20 to 16
- [Ancient Troll] Deafening Roar: Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12
- [Ancient Troll] Nature Damage Resistance increased from 35% to 50%
- Decreased base Knockback Chance of Mighty Kick by 5%
- Increased base Knockback Chance of Hail of Blows by 5%
- Pennybun: Gives +[5 > 3]% Health Restoration
- Decreased Brigand Rioter’s base damage – [18 > 17]
- Adjustments to treatise drop rates from dungeon bookcases.
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0.5.8.3 Changelog - Turkish is now available!
15 april 2020
- Added Turkish fan localization (thanks @ Mustafa Sinan Üçler, İdil Şenel, Ceren Coşkun, Alper Tornacı, Efe Akarca)
- Fixed Catacombs loot not taking dungeon level into consideration
- Fixed inability to enter bandit’s tower by pressing LMB
- Blood Vow animation now properly ends after the buff wears out
- Enemies no longer can teleport behind your back after using “Crippling Lunge”
- Fixed crash upon dying simultaneously with Ascended Archon
- Fixed food spawning with zero freshness
- Fixed “Seized Initiative” gaining stacks after attacking targets without “Initiative Loss”
- Fixed issues with inn room renting
- Fixed traps being generated under the furniture
- Fixed crash caused by using spells on bisons
- Fixed a bug with Block Power, resulting in character having max possible Block Power value instead of a current value
- Increased Block Power of brigands and skeletons
- [Ancient Troll] Fixed unintentionally low Knockback Resistance
- [Ancient Troll] Stun Resistance increased from 50% to 100%
- [Ancient Troll] Fortitude increased from 50% to 70%
- [Ancient Troll] Troll Regeneration now gives +30% Fortitude instead of 50%
- [Ancient Troll] Base Defense value reduced from 35 to 30
- [Greatswords] Fixed “Courage” passive ability not increasing “Heroic Charge” range by 1
- Added 50% Knockback Resistance for mooses and bisons
- Miller sells food 15% cheaper
- Nerfed Brigand Crooks and Cutthroats. Now they’re less likely to dodge, crit and counterattack.
- Increased damage of most staffs
- Merchants sell 4 treatises instead of 3
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0.5.8.4 Changelog - Brazilian Portuguese is now available!
Fri, 17 April
- Added Brazilian Portuguese localization
- Increased reputation gain from completing contracts, and decreased requirements for all reputation milestones (by ~25-30%)
- Fixed the possibility to be cornered by the priest in the Mannshire Chapel
- Fixed bison AI bug – now they don’t remain passive if you aggroed anyone from their herd
- Fixed rare crash after loading the container
- Fixed enemies standing still while the player is stunned
- Fixed Flame Ring damaging Ancient Troll multiple times
- Fixed possibility to stun against the location transition tiles
- Added special visual icon for Ancient Troll location on the map
- Added missing stats to enchantments pool: Stun Chance, Daze Chance, Knockback Chance, Armor Damage, Bodypart Damage, Cooldown Duration, Stun Resistance, Knockback Resistance, Bleeding Resistance, Physical Damage Resistance, Nature Damage Resistance, Magic Resistance, Pain Resistance, Hunger Resistance, Toxicity Resistance
- Added sound effect for Bad Trip modifier
- Entrances to some dungeons are now correctly displayed as closed if the dungeon is inactive
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Future Plans + 0.5.8.6 Patch Changelog
Wed, 29 April 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d3f879046d302e419ffadcd5a24160604c932d35.png)
Hello everyone!
We have some important news for you today. First of all, the 0.5.8.6 patch has been released, bringing new content and some major fixes. The full changelog can be found at the bottom of this post.
Now that the entirety of the “Trollslayer” content has been added to the game, we’d like to share our updated development plan as well as some info about our future goals.
As many of you could have noticed, the current content is limited by the first 7-10 levels - characters outgrow most dungeons and enemies upon reaching this threshold. We are well aware of this problem, however adding high level content is meaningless until we resolve two important issues.
Ideally we’d like different enemy factions to have distinct behaviour patterns. Right now the enemies only differ in their stats and skills, as they share a single template for their actions. To fix this we plan to dedicate a few months to fully rework our AI system and some of the associated systems.
The same can be said about dungeons - right now they are generated based on shared parameters. The only two things which set them apart at the moment are graphical assets and enemy rosters. We, however, would like to make the dungeon crawling process in our game much more memorable than clearing out similar room after room. That’s why we plan to work on a new dungeon generation algorithm along with the AI rework.
Both of these tasks are fairly difficult and time-consuming, and both of them require extensive testing. That’s why we can’t give you the exact date this time - we’ll have to work on these elements until we are completely satisfied with the results. For now the approximate date for the updated AI and updated dungeon generation (and any associated content as well as some additional features) is summer 2020.
To keep you from getting bored during these few months, we plan to release a series of minor updates over the course of this summer to introduce some additional content such as new weapon types and new skill trees. The first update is planned for the beginning of May - it will add crossbows, polearms, and, perhaps, something extra to the game. Follow our devlogs and announcements for additional information!
(https://i.imgur.com/SpsAHk6.png)
Thanks for staying in touch!
0.5.8.6 - CHANGELOG
CONTENT
• 17 items - new maces and axes, as well as a unique necklace and a new headpiece.
• 7 one-time requests which will allow you to earn a quick coin, improve your standing with the denizens of Osbrook and Mannshire, and receive a small bonus from certain characters.
• 2 new Proselyte minibosses: Matriarch and Abomination.
• Added 7 new dialogues for Osbrook and Mannshire villagers.
• Verren’s unique ring is now available for all players, not just to those who subscribed to our newsletter. Talk to Verren at the start of the game to receive it.
BALANCE
• Reduced the base Vision range (13 > 11).
• [Daggers]: “Coup de Grace”: added a base 0.5% bonus to Armor Penetration for each missing percentage of the target’s health.
• [Ranged Weapons]: “Long-Distance Shot” now grants +[50 > 30]% bonus Range.
• [Ancient Troll]: The troll now uses “Troll Regeneration” not only upon reaching a certain Health threshold, but also upon receiving a certain number (or some particularly prolonged) of debuffs.
• [Ancient Troll] Increased the troll’s resistance to Nature Damage (50% > 75%) as well as Stun Resistance (80 > 100%).
• Completing “Troll Hunt” now grants a significant boost to reputation with Mannshire.
• Changed the following rewards for “Troll Hunt”: staff, axe, helmet, mace, greatsword. Gryphon sallet in the signal tower has been replaced with a common sallet.
• New items can now be found in graves (including 4 uniques).
• Skeleton resistances have been changed: Slashing Damage: [20% > 15%], Piercing Damage [33% > 25%], Crushing Damage: [-15% > -10%].
• Changed loot for certain points of interest.
• Minor changes to some weapon and armor stats.
• Temporally removed Vision range from enchantment effects. It’ll be brought back once the enchantment system is reworked.
CHANGES AND STABILITY
• [Axes]: “Ferocity” no longer grants its bonuses until you learn it.
• [Combat Mastery] “Offensive tactic”: fixed the missing bonus to counter chance.
• [Combat mastery] “Right on Target”: removed the bonus to Armor Penetration which was added to it by mistake..
• [Combat Mastery]: “Right on Target]: the bonus for free offhand is no longer granted when using staffs and bows.
• [Combat Mastery]: “Right on Target”: the bonus for free offhand is no longer granted twice upon loading a save.
• [Athletics]: the Energy cost for “Dash” now correctly takes adjacent enemies into account.
• [Ancient Troll]: Added new visual effects for the trolls’ AoE Abilities.
• Fixed the bug which prevented Proselyte Hierarch and Proselyte Chosen from spawning in the Catacombs.
• Fixed the possibility of dazing and stunning an enemy at the same time.
• Fixed “Fire Barrage” and its bizarre affinity for hitting dungeon doors.
• Fixed the exploit with selling items via Shift shortcut for twice their actual price.
• Mindwort now properly removes the effect of being drunk, as stated in its description. The same thing applies to ginger root.
• Fixed the issue with “Deadly Trick” which prevented the fog of war from being removed after switching places with an enemy.
• Fixed the debuff for dual wielding which could occasionally disappear upon reloading a save.
• Removed the possibility of equipping a shovel together with cursed items.
• When stunning a dazed target, the applied stun now has bonus duration based on the initial daze.
• Fixed the bug which caused contracts to grant doubled reward when they were generated for a second time.
• Fixed the backpack-related crash.
• Fixed the stun from runic boulder destruction, which could occur when it wasn’t supposed to.
• The troll now destroys runic boulders by moving over them.
• Changed the condition for passive pain reduction. Physical debuffs such as being “Wet” no longer prevent pain from decreasing.
• Fixed the issue with Catacomb rooms, which caused chests to occasionally block passage to shelves.
• Fixed the bug which allowed learning potions’ effects without identifying said potions first.
• Fixed numerous typos and mistakes across all localizations.
• Updated log messages for picking and dropping items.
• The visual effects of daze and stun are now correctly displayed above the troll’s head.
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Changelog 0.5.8.8
Sat, 9 May 2020
- Removed “War Cry” ability from Proselyte Chosen
- Vineyard roadcart loot no longer respawns after loading the game.
- Fixed buff animation sometimes causing crashes.
- Fixed incorrect capitalization of item names.
- Fixed numerous typos.
- Fixed incorrect usage of “Adrenaline Rush” by enemies
- Fixed fleaworts not properly spawning in the world.
- Added a special icon for permadeath mode saves.
- Fixed barrels rotating after being struck by greatsword crits
- Added collisions for closed ruined bastions.
- It now continues to rain in special PoI locations.
- Abbey should no longer reset after leaving it.
- Fixed birds SFX.
- Fixed Life Drain and Energy Drain incorrectly working in some situations.
- Fixed some problems with turning in contract items.
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Devlog: Crossbows & Quivers
Sun, 17 May 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/87a7e3098ddd546da9c5af2d0a2099781ce24762.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about multiple new features meant to make ranged combat more varied.
Let’s start with the main addition - crossbows. As you may have already noticed, some existing enemies are armed with crossbows, however those aren’t available to player characters and function essentially just like bows. This situation will change with the release of the Bolt Thrower update, which will become available on June 2-3.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/1a01c22782ab54719b8a187e728d6d556896061f.png)
Crossbows are now a separate type of weaponry. Just like in reality, they are much easier to learn than bows, so they have less significant penalty to their accuracy. They also have higher damage and armor penetration, which is achieved at the expense of their rate of fire - crossbows require a turn to reload between each shot. Just like bows, crossbows make use of the Ranged Weapons skill tree, it won’t be altered in this regard.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/5d6ad13216427bb6c7b9ef22df60ff7034280f7b.png)
We’ve also introduced certain changes to bow and crossbow mechanics. Both these weapon types now occupy both hands with an option of placing arrows or quivers in the offhand, but not other weapons. Quivers are meant to make ammo management easier, as they can fit 2-4 stacks of arrows.
Additionally, they allow to quickly swap between different arrow and bolt types through the context menu. As a side note, crossbow bolts use their own quivers, since they occupy one less slot than arrows.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/382e24f49bf0b4374db8c7c54ac4a74503318ee7.png)
And finally - arrow types. There are now three arrow and bolt types in the game: leaf-shaped, broadhead, and bodkin.
• Leaf-shaped arrows are the default ammo type. They don’t have any special modifiers, offering standard damage and range values.
• Broadhead arrows were historically used mostly for hunting. They are heavier and wider, making them more damaging to both enemy health and their body parts. As a trade-off, they struggle with piercing armor. Their accuracy and range are also lower.
• Bodkin arrows are fairly light, so they have higher range. They are also good at penetrating armor and provide better accuracy, but are less effective against unarmored flesh than other arrow types.
In the future we also plan to implement additional arrowhead types to further improve bolts and arrows variety. Still, fantasy style explosive, ice, or magic arrows aren’t planned, as they fit poorly with the game’s setting. With the introduction of alchemy, there will also be an option to poison arrowheads, but it’s way too soon to talk about it.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/a74ca844f36081eff2511a3f58bcdd5be5bfcbcb.gif)
That’s all for now. Until next time!
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Devlog: Spears, Dual Wielding & A New Playable Character
Sun, 31 May 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2333564737f33b0f002eb0fec9071bd2bff79040.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll give you a quick overview of some major additions of the “Bolt Thrower” content update, which will be released in just a couple more days - on June 2.
In the previous devlog we’ve already introduced crossbows. Now it’s time for the second new weapon type:
SPEARS
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d97fbce3924f1c013d6f5b77bccf1a69019260b2.png)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/0bdb947614ff4798490d03a127f0b041a859e13d.png)
Spears are two handed weapons. They have fairly average base damage, but they compensate for it with high Armor Penetration and Accuracy. Other than the spears themselves, this skill tree also includes halberds. At the moment they deal two damage types at the same time, Piercing and Slashing, but in the future we’ll probably expand on this mechanic.
While other weapon skill trees focus on dealing damage or mobility, the spears are best explained with a single word – “control”. One of their main mechanics is Immobilization. Offensive spear Skills have 2 tiles reach, so immobilization allows you to keep your opponent at a relatively safe distance, weakening them with precise strikes as they try to approach.
(https://i.imgur.com/PzMGRK2.gif)
Active Abilities
• Nail Down – a strike to the legs. If the enemy is adjacent, deals bonus damage with a chance to Knock them back. If they are a tile away, deals bonus Bodypart Damage with a chance to Immobilize.
• Impaling Lunge hits two tiles in a line with extra Bodypart Damage, Armor Penetration, and Bleed Chance. If the affected target is Immobilized, these bonuses are doubled.
• Maneuver moves you to an adjacent tile, decreasing Active Cooldowns for spear Skills by 1 for each enemy within an area. After that grants an effect which decreases Damage Taken and increases Block and Crit Chances. This effect gets extra stacks to its strength for each Cooldown it reduces.
• Pikeman’s Stance is a stance-based Skill which gradually raises Knockback, Immobilization, and Bleed chances, while also granting bonus Damage. It’s worth mentioning that stance mechanics were changed – more details in the patch notes on June 2.
• Determination delivers a free hit with extra Bleed Chance to each enemy who steps on an adjacent tile during next turn.
Passive Abilities
• Stay Back! – when enemies step on adjacent tiles, they receive a penalty to Piercing Resistance for 1 turn. This passive also gives you a chance to trigger Impaling Lunge on basic attacks.
• Precise Hits grants bonus Immobilization Chance to your strikes. Attacks against Immobilized targets have bonus Accuracy, Bodypart Damage, and Bleed Chance.
• One at a Time! – grants bonus Damage and Block Power for each adjacent enemy.
• No Retreat – staying put on the same tile grants a stacking bonus to Block and Crit Chances, as well as reduces Cooldowns Duration. Moving to a different tile resets the bonus.
• Wounding Spearhead – spear crits deal extra Damage based on the target’s current Health. The higher it is, the higher the Damage.
DUAL WIELDING
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/109c8482bc5d0bf1b58b87176db5b3db69f2d378.png)
Another new skill tree being added with the Bolt Thrower update, it’s meant to fully develop dual-wielding playstyle. The skill tree’s main mechanic is Hands Efficiency. It acts as a resource of sorts: certain Skills and circumstances temporarily increase it, while others – decrease. This makes the gameplay as a berserker more strategic, since you’ll need to skillfully juggle your abilities to maintain high damage output.
(https://i.imgur.com/krIAGCO.gif)
Active Abilities
• Flurry of Blows delivers two dual attacks with decreased Hands Efficiency.
• Enough for Everyone performs a strike which marks the enemy with a special effect - each time you attack a different target, you’ll deliver a strike to the marked enemy as well. Each instance of this effect increases Hands Efficiency.
• Deflect is a powerful defensive Skill. For 1 turn it raises your Block Chance to 100% and grants extra Block Power, but reduces Hands Efficiency for the next 2 turns as a trade-off.
• Concentration is a stance-based Skill which gradually raises Hands Efficiency, Accuracy, while lowering Fumble Chance.
• Whirlwind delivers a strike to an enemy, switches places with them, and then does the same maneuver with another adjacent target until there are no nearby enemies who didn’t take a hit. Each Whirlwind strike slightly decreases Hands Efficiency, so it’s best used when this stat is high enough.
Passive abilities
• Berserk Tradition grants bonus Hands Efficiency, Dodge and Crit Chances, as well as Crit Efficiency for each armor slot which doesn’t grant you Protection (with the exception of belts, jewelry, and cloaks).
• Dying Fervor greatly boosts Hands Efficiency when your Health drops below 50%.
• More Blood! – this passive instantly replenishes “Flurry of Blows” Cooldown if it manages to kill its target, while also increasing Hands Efficiency for a few turns.
• Unstoppable – if an enemy affected with “Enough for Everyone” dies, this effect is transferred to a random nearby target.
• Dual Wielding Training – Skill usage grants bonus Hands Efficiency for the next turn. Doubles the bonus if both equipped weapons are of the same type. Additionally, using weapon Skills also performs an off-hand attack.
NEW CHARACTER
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/a47fd14ecbad3decfd0ae1fb7a5d1d0508257c4b.png)
We’ve added a fifth playable character to the game – Velmir, who hails from distant Skadia.
"In Skadia the most grievous offences must be paid for in blood. When Velmir learned about his brother's treacherous murder at the hands of a man named Dražan, he abandoned his life as a seafaring merchant without hesitation to personally make sure the justice is served.
For a few years Velmir had been tracking the murderer, who at first went into hiding in Skadia, then fled to foreign lands. Eventually, the chase had brought them both to Aldor. Dražan surrounded himself with bodyguards and attempted to lie low in one of the cities, but Velmir managed to hunt him down nevertheless. The bodyguards just delayed the inevitable - the reprisal was swift and violent.
Once the blood feud had been settled, Velmir realized that his life was now void of purpose - after everything which had transpired, returning to his old trade wasn't an option, nor did he actually want to. After long consideration, he decided to stay in Aldor and became a bounty hunter, so that he could continue following trails and bringing vengeance over and over again."
Velmir’s unique trait is “To Each Their Own”: when Velmir is attacked, he gains bonus Accuracy, while the attacker is applied with extra Damage Taken for the next few turns.
Velmir’s starting Affinities are Maces, Spears, Ranged Weapons, Athletics and Combat Mastery, making his early build paths quite varied.
=======
That’s it for now – the rest of the changes will be detailed in the patch notes to the update.
See you in a couple days!
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0.5.9.0 «Bolt Thrower» - Changelog
Tue, 2 June 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/58a09242bbb164c366576e451e20c9e9f870ca4e.png)
Hello everyone!
The 0.5.9.0 “Bolt Thrower” content update has been released! The complete list of changes can be seen below:
MAIN ADDITIONS
- New playable character: Velmir. A hardened revenger hailing from distant Skadia, he begins the game with Affinities for Spears, Ranged Weapons, Maces, Athletics, and Combat mastery.
- New weapon type: Spears – 24 new items.
Spears offer average Damage, but have high Accuracy and Armor Penetration, and their skills have a 2 tile Range.
- New weapon type: Crossbows – 17 new items.
Crossbows deal high Damage, do well against armor, and are much more accurate than bows, but they require to be reloaded after each shot.
- Arrowhead variation: ammunition is now split into 3 types with their own special properties: leaf-shaped, broadhead, and bodkin.
- New bag type: Quivers – there are 8 of them, 4 for arrows, 4 for bolts. They are equipped in the weapon slot and can store 2 to 4 stacks of ammunition.
- New ability tree: Spears – 10 new skills.
Immobilize enemies from afar, run them through with impaling lunges, receive defensive bonuses as you retreat, and deliver strikes to your foes as they approach.
- New ability tree: Dual Wielding – 10 new skills.
Deliver devastating flurries of blows, fight entire groups head-on, deflect incoming attacks, and cut through the enemy lines in a whirlwind of steel.
– New fauna: Hedgehogs and squirrels. Hunt them down for their new type of meat or precious squirrel pelts.
- New flora: Rhubarb and nettle. Don’t forget to wear gloves.
- Tweaks to ranged combat. Enemy and props sizes now correctly influence your shots’ Accuracy. If you want to improve your chances of hitting your foe, make sure there is nothing between you and the target.
Bows and crossbows are now considered a two-handed weapon with an option to equip appropriate ammo or a quiver in the second weapon slot.
BALANCE
- New critical weapon effects: It may not be evident at first, but different weapon types have different crit effects. This mechanic has been there for quite a while, gradually becoming outdated. As a result, it has been reworked:
Swords: 100% chance to apply Bleed for 5-8 turns
Axes: +50% Bodypart Damage
Maces: 100% chance to Daze for 2-4 turns
Daggers: +220% Critical Damage against unaware targets. Burn 10% of the target’s Max Energy
Greatswords: cleave through 3 tiles. 125% chance to apply Bleeding for 6-10 turns.
Staffs: cleave through 3 tiles. Replenish 10% Max energy.
Spears: +100% Immobilization Chance
Bows: +100% Immobilization Chance
Crossbows: +100% Knockback Chance
- REWORKED - Stance-based skills. Old stances functioned rather strangely: their duration and stack count were way too easy to ramp up and sustain throughout a fight, and it was entirely up to chance whether you lose said effect stacks or not.
Changes:
Reduced the max number of stacks from 6 to 4.
You gain 1 stack each time you use other skills from the stance’s ability tree.
Basic attacks with an appropriate weapon decrease the number of stacks by 1, but prolong the effect’s duration by 1 turn.
These changes are meant to make stances more tactical: they can no longer be activated at the start of a fight and then completely forgotten till the end of it – the new system requires balancing between maintaining stance duration and stacks, which are spent on empowering your attacks.
- Reduced the amount of reputation needed to reach Amity and Respect (by 25%)
- Rebalanced hunger and thirst gain.
- Changed some equipment and weapon stats.
- Spear-wielding enemies no longer have placeholder skills from other ability trees, and have been assigned Spear skills.
- Ancient Troll now drops his pelt and tusks on death.
- Added a new stat: Immobilization Chance.
- Stun Resistance was renamed into Control Resistance and is now also used for resisting Confusion.
- Knockback Resistance was renamed into Move Resistance and is now also used for resisting Immobilization
- [Dual Wielding] Equipping dual weapons now also grants +15% Cooldowns Duration and +7.5% Fumble Chance.
- [Dirwin] His starting Dirk was replaced with a Short Dagger.
- [Dirwin] Maces Affinity was swapped for Staffs Affinity
- [Arna] Her trait now grants [-7.5% > -5%] Abilities Energy Cost and Cooldowns Duration, as well as [-4% > -3%] Damage Taken for each enemy within Vision.
- [Jorgrim] Maces Affinity was swapped for Dual Wielding
- [Greatswords] Feint Swing: removed the penalty to Damage. Removed the bonus to Accuracy (it wasn’t really useful, as the skill already drops the target’s Dodge Chance to 0). Feint Swing now grants extra Damage, while also lowering Fumble Chance.
- REWORKED - [Greatswords] Parry: now grants Block Chance and Block Power for 1 turn. Counterattacks now trigger on every received attack. Each strike you block reduces this skill’s Cooldown by 1.
- REWORKED - [Greatswords] Feast of Steel is now a stance-based skill. It decreases Fumble Chance, improves Accuracy and Crit Efficiency, while also guaranteeing each 3rd attack to Crit.
- [Ranged Weapons]: Taking Aim grants +[50 > 75]% Accuracy for the next turn. The bonus to Damage now scales with Perception.
- REWORKED: [Ranged Weapons] Precision: hitting a target after using “Taking Aim” grants “Exceptional Accuracy” for 2 turns.
- [Combat Mastery] Seize the Initiative – changed the max number of stacks from 4 to 6. Removed duration – the effect persists until the target affected by “Initiative Loss” either dies or leaves your Vision. Receiving “Initiative Loss” removes the effect of “Seized Initiative” and vice versa.
- [Combat Mastery] Setup - bonus Accuracy and Damage you gain after skipping a turn persist for [1 > 2] turns and can now stack.
- [Combat Mastery] Stance Training: if “Defensive Tactic” is active, stance-based skills start with 3 stacks on activation. If “Offensive Tactic” is active, using applicable skills additionally grants +1 stack to stance effects.
- [Athletics] Mighty Kick: upon landing a kick, reduce the enemy’s Control and Move Resistances for the next turn.
FIXES
- The state of fog of war is now being properly preserved, so it no longer conceals previously visited locations.
- Changed the bug which caused huge Crit damage with bows.
- Just as it’s stated in stat description, blocking arrows and bolts now requires an equipped shield. This rule also applies to enemies.
- Removed the ability to shoot through dungeon walls and surface structures.
- Fast travel between villages now takes some in-game time and changes your character’s stats just like sleeping would.
- “Blessing” effect received a 1200 turns duration cap.
- Fixed Vivifying Essence not burning Energy on use.
- Fixed the use rule for fleawort.
- Fixed the softlock occurring while removing a piece of equipment when both the inventory and a container are full.
- The drunkard’s wife in Mannshire no longer flies around.
- Fixed context menu when lockpicking a container.
- Numerous fixes across all localizations.
- Torso condition now correctly displays its influence on Max Health.
- Fixed a number of mistakes in abilities’ formulas, as some of them didn’t work as they were supposed to.
- Optimized rendering
- Destroyed Unholy Altars no longer leave a lighting source behind.
- Wraiths no longer spray blood when hit.
- Effects no longer flicker on medium settings
- Fixed Ancient Troll being able to attack during regeneration.
- Many actions are now being properly logged.
VISUALS
- Improvements to lighting system. It now takes objects’ relative position into consideration
- Made some tweaks to shaders
- Changed Jorgrim’s portrait.
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0.5.9.1 Changelog
Wed, 3 June 2020
- Numerous text typos and mistakes fixed.
- Removed skill energy penalties for shields as they already have flat Energy/Energy Restoration penalties.
- Increased carpenters’ stocks.
- Decreased NPC restock time by 30%.
- Morsel can be cooked now.
- Parry should counterattack every enemy attack except melee skills (melee skills not triggering counterattacks is a known issue, we’re investigating)
- Fixed outdated energy cost for some abilities (mostly stances)
- Returned broadhead arrows test damage to its intended value.
- Tailor now sells low-level shirts, gloves and boots.
- Added a spear and a crossbow to Osbrook barracks weaponstands.
- Fixed open doors using closed doors' collisions.
- Fixed inventory-related crashes.
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0.5.9.2 Changelog
Wed, 3 June 2020
- Fixed invisible buff-related crash.
- Fixed range calculation.
- Fixed counterattacks not triggering on receiving melee skills.
- Fixed innkeeper post-quest discount exploit.
- Reduced weapon switch delay after location transitions.
- Fixed not being able to attack objects via context menu.
- Fixed 100% weapon drop caused by Deafening Roar.
- Fixed indefinite healing caused by Fleawort.
- Minor tweaks to Daze/Immobilization durations from the corresponding stat procs.
- Fixed Immobilization and Stun buffing Dodge Chance, if it was already negative.
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0.5.9.3 Changelog
Sat, 6 June 2020
- Added an option to unload crossbows.
- Reduced quivers’ prices.
- Reduced the penalty to Hands Efficiency after using Whirlwind. It also doesn’t last for 2 turns now.
- Fixed long-distance counterattacks..
- Fixed Petrification not granting Geomancy Power.
- Added visual stack indicator to applicable buff icons.
- Fixed grave collision after digging them up.
- Fixed “Enough for Everyone” causing crashes.
- Shooting distance in attack mode is now correctly calculated after switching between ammo types with different range.
- Fixed the bug with the character becoming invisible in the location with the troll.
- Parry now properly counters all received attacks.
- Fixed dead zones of “Impaling Lunge”.
- Fixed enemies not becoming hostile upon receiving Immobilization.
- Fixed bolt tooltips showing wrong values.
- Hail of Blows can no longer knock enemies back with its first 2 strikes.
- New visuals for magma puddles.
- Fixed to the audio.
- Various text fixes.
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0.5.9.4 Changelog
Thu, 18 June 2020
- “Pikeman's Stance” cancels in the Rest Mode.
- Enemies no longer move between locations if they are Immobilized.
- Fixed weapon critical effects not applying to offhand critical strikes.
- When turning in commissions, items in your inventory receive higher priority than equipped ones.
- Ancient Troll no longer attacks while Petrified.
- Decreased hunger and thirst gain from the Gnawmaw curse.
- “Parry” and “Piercing Shot” now work correctly.
- “Feint Swing” now correctly decreases Fumble Chance instead of increasing it.
- Weapon Damage stat no longer affects unarmed strikes.
- Bonus Range now applies correctly in the Attack Mode.
- Fixed crossbow unloading crashing the game on some occasions.
- “Anticipation” and “Precision” now work correctly with crossbows.
- Fixed “War Cry” duration.
- Fixed “Sudden Lunge” cooldown reset.
- Fixed immediate decrease of charge skills cooldowns upon usage.
- Fixed “Shoot to Kill” Crit Chance calculation and “Anticipation” duration.
- Fixed “Hunter’s Mark” working incorrectly.
- Fixed “Adrenaline Rush” bonus duration calculation.
- Fixed “Flurry of Blows” not working correctly when used by enemies.
- Fixed some Osbrook’s containers not being properly saved.
- Osbrook Mill location was redesigned.
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Devlog: Progress Update
Sun, 28 June 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/687f23c2bf11462dcf1d9603305f213b84efc673.png)
Hello everyone!
In this devlog we’d like to share our progress on the “Way Forward” update. It will be released in the end of summer or in the beginning of autumn and will be the largest and the most complex update we’ve delivered so far - it will include a massive rework of the AI and dungeon generation.
The large amount of time required to develop this update is linked to a significant number of systems, closely connected to the rework. Even if these systems will only be fully implemented at a later date, they already require a proper foundation which we have to lay down. Additionally, AI rework itself requires lots of testing and tweaking, so it’s hard to predict the exact amount of time needed to achieve acceptable results.
However, this rework is essential to finally start adding not just quantity to the game, but also quality. It will allow us to experiment with the behaviour of different enemy factions, add new enemy types, and introduce unique abilities to the existing enemies. With any luck, some of the new enemy types will be added with the “Way Forward” update.
At the moment the basic structure of our new AI is still being conceptualized and prototyped, but we can already share the list of targets we plan to reach:
• Create a more complex ecosystem. This will include the manual tweaking of the relations between different animal types instead of crudely splitting them depending on their ration. We plan to add some specific behaviour patterns as well. For instance, deer will flee from loud noises (instead of running towards them), carnivores will be territorial (which will allow avoiding their aggression if you make a timely retreat from their territory). There will also be a herd/pack simulation added among other things.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/5dc7c9ea15b35a296a3da1f4d324f28fb6d26034.png)
A concept scheme for the reworked relations between different animal types
• Improve pathfinding and positioning. In the current version of the game mobs simply follow the shortest route to their enemy. We’d like to give them an ability to walk around traps and dangerous AoE zones when it’s possible, avoid tiles with solid objects behind them if the player makes an active use of Knockback, and keep their distance when using magic or ranged weaponry.
• Add a more context-dependent system for using abilities instead of the existing system, which is based on chance and just one or two conditions per action.
• Grant enemies some additional options: retreat or swap positions in certain situations, call allies for help, properly react to arrow fire and spells, correctly prioritize targets.
• Introduce a more transparent awareness system, which will become a basis for the upcoming stealth system.
• Rework the NPC system, which will allow adding random NPC encounters to the game, making the exploration much more varied.
The variety aspect also pertains to the dungeon generation rework. The existing dungeons are nothing more than a few dozen square rooms, connected with a web of hallways. We are currently working on adding lots of unique rooms to the dungeon generator, removing the mandatory hallways in certain situations, as well as trying out different approaches for generating different dungeon types.
Once we achieve all this, we’ll be able to start introducing new dungeon types to the game, populating them with new enemies (the product of the reworked AI), which in turn means the beginning of the long-awaited expansion of the game’s world.
We’ve already finished working on the prototype for the updated dungeon generation. We are pleased with the result, so it’s currently being added to the game. Still, it will take quite a while to fully flesh the system out, so for now here are some concepts for the new rooms which we plan to add to the game:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/83b491c46b8a4312249625274765eeb1052cd39b.jpg)
That’s all for now, thank you for your attention.
See you in a few weeks!
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0.5.9.6 - Equipment Update
Sat, 25 July 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/451219e4e63bf01fb6b87249ef497e7b5f22b106.png)
Hello everyone!
The work on changes to the AI and dungeon generation is well underway, and we'll soon publish a devlog with some details on our progress. In the meantime, here’s a small interim patch to keep you from getting bored - it expands the roster of available equipment and brings a number of fixes and improvements.
New Items:
• 2 new daggers: Commoner’s Dagger and Elven Stiletto
• 5 new axes: Exquisite Tabar, Heavy Aldorian Axe, Aldwynnian Axe, Gilded Axe, and Lordly Axe
• 1 new mace: Elven Flail
• 4 new chest pieces: Dwarven Armor, Light Brigandine, Elven Brigandine, and Skadian Yushman
• 8 new helmets: Barbute (4 variants) and Cervelliere (4 variants)
• 3 new pieces of footwear: Town Shoes, Duelist Boots, and Splint Boots
• 3 new mage sets (mantle + cowl): Cryomancer, Electromancer, and Chronomancer
• 4 new amulets: Gold Medallion, Jibean Pendant, Amber Amulet, Lazurite Amulet
• 1 new cape: Jousting Cloak
Miscellaneous:
• Traders can now sell many items which were previously excluded from their stock.
• Added log messages for critical shots.
• Added a warning about the progress not being saved on exit when leaving the game.
• Reduced the effectiveness of roasted mushrooms.
• Numerous fixes across all localizations.
• Fixed the item dupe exploit with some of the containers in Osbrook.
• Fixed the incorrect block power calculation.
• Fixed the incorrect durability loss when blocking attacks.
• Fixed the collision between a cell and a door in Mannshire prison.
• Fixed visual effects displaying above enemies while they are in the fog of war.
• Mobs no longer display speech messages while they are petrified, stunned, or asleep.
• Added new equipment sounds.
• Fixed the incorrect “Blood Oath” log message.
• Fixed pathfinding when clicking on a NPC to start a dialogue.
• Fixed the fleawort usage with an open backpack.
• Fixed the possibility of dropping items on the ground when dragging them outside of the trade menu.
• The fog of war is now being properly calculated when using “Onslaught”.
• Fixed the possibility of decapitating targets by using “Mighty Kick” and other non-weapon skills.
• Fixed the possibility of reloading while stunned.
• Fixed the absence of psionic damage on items.
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Devlog: New Dungeon Generation & Enemies
Sun, 6 September 2020
(https://i.imgur.com/2fzp9zm.png)
Hello everyone!
It’s been a while since our last devlog, but we are finally ready to tell you about many new additions which we’ve been working on. Over the next few devlogs we’ll detail most of the new content introduced by the “Way Forward” update, which will be released on September 24th. For now let’s begin with new enemies and reworked dungeon generation.
Overall System
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/7478bd45088862ab86f520c96e40de9750870b08.png)
The dungeon generation algorithm was rebuilt from the ground up in order to avoid the annoyance of persistent generation bugs. Now the game is capable of creating much more sophisticated and complex structures, as well as fine-tune dungeons based on many parameters. This will come in handy when we begin expanding the global map and improving the dungeon respawning system.
New Rooms
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/0cf25316ba15c668e7f06d0f4684e1707a2de980.png)
New dungeons will welcome you with a large variety of unique templates - other than the usual square rooms, dungeons will also contain rooms of uncommon forms and sizes. Twisted corridors, decorated halls, roomy passageways, collapsed walls - you’ll be able to encounter all of this and more while exploring crypts, catacombs, and bastions. This addition brought significant variety into tactical situations created by the game.
In the future we plan to further develop this concept by adding even more new rooms, including rooms with puzzles, special traps, and so on.
Secret Rooms
(https://i.imgur.com/CGgnPCG.gif)
The dungeon generator can now create long-forgotten treasure rooms, the entrances to which are initially concealed from your character. Those aren’t easy to find, but the result is well worth the effort - observant characters will be rewarded with sizable loot and unique items.
In order to discover a secret passageway, you’ll have to make use of your Perception attribute - the higher it is, the higher the chance to notice that there’s something funny about that particular wall... You can also use the “Examine Surroundings” ability, which is now able to spot more than just traps.
Boss Rooms
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/944700666cfdd782fb3837448c5d852748818833.png)
Dungeon bosses are no longer cooped in tiny closets with a chest in the middle. Now they’ll be encountered in special rooms with enough space for maneuver and more valuable loot. For instance, necromancers can be encountered in special tombs, where they conduct their unholy rituals, or next to altar circles.
Skeleton Variety
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2bdf1249d37acedabefb45434bf906ab4ace6aa0.png)
The Undead faction received reinforcements. The skeletons, not unlike the existing bandits, will have different variants based on their dungeon difficulty. In the beginning of the game your opposition will consist of skeletons in rags, but in more dangerous dungeons you’ll have to fight well-armored and well-armed foes.
The skeletons fight with ultimate determination. Even in the most unfair fights they will hold their ground and never retreat.
Ghasts
Necromancy is a heavy burden. Upon acquiring the forbidden knowledge, weak-willed warlocks often quickly lose their sanity. Once the madness settles in, they transform into ghasts - a macabre shell of their former self, guided by a deranged obsession with death in all its forms.
Necromancers often turn ghasts into their servants, using them as commanders of sorts for their undead army - while skeletons and restless keep enemies busy, ghasts use their spells to support and direct them in combat.
The Restless Dead
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2a94e1f5fe9094c449a22fd6cec384a0b87b279e.gif)
The restless are favored by beginner necromancers, since it’s much easier to resurrect a fresh corpse rather than time-yellowed old bones. Due to their relatively recent death, the restless’ consciousness is much less fragmented, so it takes considerably less energy from a warlock to sustain them.
However, the restless’ most significant advantage is their incredible resilience. It’s not easy to kill something which is already dead, as rotting flesh, sustained with dark magic, is capable of surviving even the most grievous wounds. Thanks to their passive ability “Abominable Vitality”, each time a restless receives a killing blow, they have a chance to avoid death, losing a body part and completely replenishing their health in the process.
In order to ultimately put a restless in the ground, you’ll have to either bring their health down to zero a few times or deliver as many heavy injuries as possible.
That’s all for now. Until next time!
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Devlog: Reworked Bastion & Rangers AI Tweaks
Mon, 21 September 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/4f8caa9a04c663e21bb96cb63f31ebaf90cd35cc.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll share more details on the dungeon rework and the Bastion (brigand dungeon) in particular. We’ll also touch upon some aspects of the reworked AI.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/075a7e033e4d0d93862669bc3805f77e92b68826.png)
Of all the dungeon types, the Bastion received the largest amount of changes, allowing it to better match its name. The Bastion’s layout is dominated by spacious halls, complex structures, and wide corridors cluttered with junk.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/c2a3a1e892d4d799b6c355630e374f2fba07dbf7.png)
There’re also some changes to hostage rescue contracts. Hostages can no longer be found in the same room as bosses, instead being held in a dedicated cell which needs to be located first. To open the cell you’ll need a special key, for which you’ll have to fight a dungeon’s boss.
(https://i.imgur.com/Hkszr3O.gif)
Other than that, the Bastion now has more interactive elements: occasionally you’ll find water barrels, which can be used to refill your waterskin or quench thirst directly. You’ll also be able to raid a dungeon’s pantry and then cook looted meat and vegetables in its kitchen.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/bf83ea1ca7a0888ffce0d6a09684507111be42cd.png)
=======
(https://i.imgur.com/dWX2vkD.gif)
Regarding the AI, let’s start with archers - their behaviour was drastically reworked. They’ll try to stay as far from their target as possible during combat. Hiding behind a bush to lure them to a nearby tile is now a much less effective tactic, as they will attempt to keep their distance even while searching for targets outside of their Vision.
Archers will also try to maintain their distance when dealing with approaching enemies, performing a timely retreat when possible. If an enemy is right on top of them, or they run out of ammunition, they’ll draw a melee weapon and defend themselves with it.
(https://i.imgur.com/aFr8fTl.gif)
Speaking about retreating - most enemies will try to run away if things turn sour. There are many conditions influencing their decision-making, but the most important one is low Health. Once enemies take enough punishment, they’ll begin accessing their situation on a per-turn basis. The amount of injuries and debuffs, their Energy, allies getting murdered and decapitated - all of it will decide whether your enemy will turn tail and run or fight till the bitter end. It’s also worth mentioning that strong and well-equipped foes are less likely to flee.
That’s all for now. A quick reminder - the update will be released in just 4 days, on September 24th. The remaining details on new content will be listed prior to the patch release.
Until next time!
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0.6.0.0 "Way Forward" is Live!
Thu, 24 September 2020
(https://i.imgur.com/TdTvPg2.gif)
MAJOR ADDITIONS
- Complete rework of the dungeon generator.
Bastions, Catacombs, and Crypts now have a new generation algorithm and numerous new room templates.
- Basic AI was completely reworked
There are still ways to go, and we still need to perform many tweaks to make things work exactly as planned, but even with just this update the following features will be introduced to the AI:
- New decision-making system. Instead of relying on RNG when choosing which Ability to use, enemies now use a weight system - each Ability gained a number of specific conditions which either increase or decrease its weight depending on the situation. Enemies will use Abilities with the highest weight at any given time.
(https://i.imgur.com/oNulIYk.gif)
- New pathfinding system. Pathfinding was rebuilt from the ground up - the shortest way to a mob’s target is now modified by numerous conditions. Enemies will attempt to avoid traps, wait out AoE effects, stay away from locations where they can be easily knocked into walls, and more.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/982d41e9de9657baf9c8f1421a9ce7f0317f4da3.gif)
- Enemies learned to trade places when fighting in corridors and tight spaces. Enemies who prefer to fight in melee will try to swap out archers, retreating enemies will attempt to swap with those who can still fight, and those who have high Health - with those who are about to die.
- Archers and mages prefer to keep their distance and retreat when approached by enemies, wearing them down with arrows and spells.
- Mobs now use a new system to decide which targets to prioritize, trying to focus on the highest threat.
- Archers’ ammunition is now limited. They also learned to swap to melee weapon when they run out of ammo or when their enemy finally manages to catch up.
(https://i.imgur.com/5sIcczU.gif)
- Most aggressive animals will first try to intimidate your character and only attack if you don’t leave their territory within a number of turns. Different animals have their intimidation phase set at different duration - wolves, for example, will attack almost immediately.
(https://i.imgur.com/4qWrzkf.gif)
- Some enemies might decide to retreat in case the fight is going badly for them, attempting to leave the location. The chance to trigger a retreat is influenced by many factors: low Health, allies’ death, whether they have injuries or debuffs.
- The ecosystem is now much more in-depth. Boars and moose will hold their ground and defend against the player and predators, foxes will hunt rabbits, and deer will run away the moment they hear the player approaching.
- Added secret rooms which can only be discovered by highly perceptive characters. Rich loot awaits inside!
- 100+ new containers and decorations across all dungeons.
- New enemy skills: mancatchers gained “Net Throw” and “Sic!”, dogs gained “Loud Barking” and “Grab ‘Em!”, wraiths learned “Grave Chill” and “Dissipation”, ghouls gained “Bone Throw”, ghasts and necromancers - “Death Touch” and “Soul Sacrifice”.
- 25 new undead enemy types: two lineups of high-level skeletons, a lineup of restless dead, as well as ghasts - undead mages, wielding special spells.
- Certain changes to hostage rescue contracts: from now on abducted NPCs will be held in designated cells, requiring you to find a key before you can rescue them.
- Added acorns and burnet.
VISUALS & SOUND
- New culling system.
- Reworked light rendering.
- New fog of war rendering system.
- Updated steppes.
- Added fireflies.
- Visual updates to the Prologue rooms.
- Added four new music tracks, including two battle themes.
BALANCE
- Balance changes to most undead enemies.
- Increased the Abomination’s Health, but decreased its base damage.
- Most enemies gained a larger line of sight.
- “Taking Aim”: reduced Accuracy bonus (+75% > +50%).
- Removed unique items from graves and added them to secret rooms.
- Ravens now generate noise when they take off.
- Mannshire crypth has its danger level increased.
FIXES & UX
- Reworked turn and priority system for various actions.
- Made significant improvements to enemies following the player between zones.
- Added hotkeys for switching between hotbars.
- Fixed sudden Health and Energy replenishment when entering an already visited location.
- Brigands gained new phrases when retreating. The phrases upon getting injured are now tied to specific body parts instead of just triggering a generic response.
- Added lots of log messages.
- Fixed flickering stack numbers on stances’ buff icons.
- Removed the possibility of preemptively destroying the statues in the Prologue before the fight even begins.
RAISING THE PRICE
Way Forward is an important structural update, after the release of which we can finally move onto expanding the map. In the next major update, which is planned for the winter of 2020-2021, we will add the first major city, its surrounding area, and lots of accompanying content. Before that we also plan to release a few interim updates to add the remaining weapon skill trees and more.
Because of this, the base price for the game will be increased by 30% in all regions. If you wish to purchase the game at a lower price, now might be the best time for it!
That’s all for now.
Have fun playing!
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0.6.0.6 - Patch Note
Sat, 26 September 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/625960/ss_564bcfdeb7509223009a669b5264cbf077880067.1920x1080.jpg?t=1601025527)
These patch notes include changes made by interim hotfixes.
BALANCE
• Increased the Damage and Health for boars, moose, bison, deer, and saigas.
• Increased the experience gained for killing most animals and the restless dead.
• Reduced Health and Dodge Chance for wraiths.
• Most undead enemies and brigands had their Health reduced by 10-15%
• The intimidation state is now 1.5-2 times longer for most aggressive animals.
• Rebalanced spawn points for most enemies. The dungeons should be less overcrowded now.
• Proselyte Adept’s behavior pattern was changed from Mage to Close Combat.
• Increased the cooldown of “Loud Barking”
• Reduced the duration of the “Netted” debuff to 6 turns.
• Most herbs now raise thirst upon usage to reflect their bitter, astringent taste.
• Reduced brigands’ Vision range by 10%.
FIXES
• Numerous minor fixes to the AI.
• Fixed the rendering algorithm for the fog of war in dungeons.
• Fixed the issue with enemies not using dashing abilities.
• Fixed the issue with secret rooms’ generation.
• Fixed the issue with Morale multipliers, which had been causing each enemy type, including bosses, to have an equal chance to retreat.
• Numerous fixes to rooms and accompanying collision issues.
• Fixed the bug with archers replenishing their Energy upon switching weapons.
• Fixed the bug with archers shooting through walls.
• Animals can now properly escape instead of darting around frantically.
• Fixed the crash caused by “Necrophage”.
• Fixed the crash caused by “Soul Sacrifice”.
• Fixed the crash caused by “Leg Sweep”.
• Fixed the crash caused by “Blaze”.
• Fixed the bug with foxes being stuck in their intimidation state.
• Fixed the issue with enemies disappearing after following the player to another location.
• Fixed the bug with ghouls spawning in the fog of war.
• Fixed the issue with the ghoul’s Morale multiplier, which had been causing them to be much less prone to retreating than intended.
• Proselyte Flagellants no longer use “Lash Blessing” on the player.
• Fixed the issue with “Grave Chill” range.
• Fixed the issue with “Anticipation” having an effect even before it’s actually learned.
• Fixed the description of “Abominable Vitality”. The chance to trigger the effect is 75%, not 50%.
• Fixed the issue with “Rune of Enfeeblement” reducing resistances to -100%.
• Fixed the problem with containers’ reset in brigand camps.
• Fixed the crash caused by gold inside containers.
• Made it more preferable for enemies to avoid tiles with traps.
• Fixed the issue with beds’ collision.
• Fixed the issue with Burnet using the effect of Nettle.
• Fixed the bug preventing acorns from being roasted.
• Fixed the inability to interact with wardrobes in one of the boss rooms in crypts.
• Fixed the issue with Ghasts granting too little experience on death.
• Fixed the issue with High Priests not granting any experience on death.
• Added the missing descriptions to some enemies.
• “N/A” in fan translations are temporarily replaced with English text (the translations are already on their way!)
• Optimization improvements.
• Changes to layouts of some hovers.
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0.6.0.9 - Patch Notes
Thu, 1 October 2020
- Fixed the multiplier for noise generated by certain actions.
- Fixed some issues with retreating enemies.
- Added additional statuses to the inspection menu.
- Fixed the bug with dogs spawning inside dungeon walls.
- Fixed the bug causing walls to become traversable after destroying certain objects next to them.
- Fixed the bug causing Cooldowns to drop to zero.
- Fixed the issue with the number of grimoire rooms during one of the crypt contracts.
- Fixed the incorrect zones for ranged attacks.
- Disarming no longer forces you to skip a turn.
- Enemies now properly react to being lured by “Shout”.
- Fixed the AI issue which had been causing mobs to stop reacting to attacks outside of their Vision range.
- Fixed the possibility of picking a lock after throwing away a required consumable.
- Removed guaranteed critical hits against retreating targets.
- Storing food in containers no longer prevents it from spoiling.
- Fixed excessive loot in Proselyte dungeons.
- Removed the possibility of breaking through cell doors with a crowbar during NPC rescue contracts.
- Fixed the issue with crowbars disappearing after their durability reaches zero.
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0.6.0.12 Changelog – Reputation Tab
Tue, 20 October 2020
NEW ADDITIONS
- Added a Reputation Tab to the journal. Now you can look up your Reputation level at any time and see how exactly it influences your character.
- Consumables for brigands: brigands are now spawned with a random supply of bandages, splints, and vivifying essences, which they can use to deal with bleeding, injuries, or low Health.
- Added two new variations of Wraiths to high level crypts.
- Ghasts and Necromancers learned a new skill - “Binding Sigil”.
BALANCE
- Rebalanced enchantments. The randomness of stat bonuses was removed - each enchantment stat bonus is now a static value, which is overall slightly lower than the maximum values you could potentially roll in previous versions of the game.
Enchantment scrolls now apply a single enchantment instead of two. Magic items (items with two enchantments) can only be acquired as loot from enemies and containers.
These are just temporary measures, meant to reduce the amount of save scumming (if not to negate it) associated with enchantments before the release of the rarity system update, which is planned for the next year.
- Rebalanced curses. There were also some changes made to curses and cursed items (they will be greatly updated and expanded upon next year as well).
The chance for a curse to trigger now grows significantly slower, and killing enemies is also much more effective at slowing it down. Additionally, curses are now several times stronger than before, making them feel more dangerous.
The changes apply to curses’ stat bonuses as well - some of them didn’t work properly with certain equipment types, so they were fixed or straight up changed.
• Curse of Everfear: +N Unholy Damage > -5% Damage Taken. Low Morale improves the bonus.
• Curse of Gnawmaw: +10% > +13% Life Drain. Hunger and Thirst improve the bonus.
• Curse of Goldhoarder: +25% Lock-picking & Disarming > +13% Experience Gain. High amounts of gold in the inventory improve the bonus.
• Curse of Gorelust: +10% > +13% Weapon Damage. Low Health improves the bonus.
• Curse of Soulstealer: +10% > +13% Energy Drain. Low Energy improves the bonus.
• Curse of Sufferjoy: +7% > +10% Crit Chance. High Pain improves the bonus.
• Curse of Loudmouth: +N Psionic Damage > +10% Control Resistance.
Curse descriptions were tweaked, improving their transparency, and their effects are now registered in the battle log.
- “Raise Shield” no longer grants Dodge Chance if its value was negative when the ability was activated.
- Increased Control Resistance for skeleton enemies.
- Added Bleed Resistance to Restless and Ghasts.
- Reduced Resistances and Accuracy for Proselyte bosses.
- Enemies now need a visual confirmation that their allies are being damaged before turning Hostile.
- Bottom dungeon floors are now generated with 20% less rooms.
- Reduced Dodge Chance for Chronomancer Mantle.
- Slightly increased “weight” for skeletons, restless, mages, and archers - they will now spawn in smaller numbers.
- Fixed the issue with Moose and Bison granting too little Experience on death.
- Lowered the chance of food and alcohol drops in Bastion containers.
- Overall reduced life span for most food types.
FIXES
- Fixes to actions’ priority: bleeding now triggers before the beginning of the turn, and cooldowns no longer refresh right after the effect is activated.
- Refactored the priority for reducing modifiers’ duration.
- Staff crits now correctly replenish Energy.
- Traps can no longer be spawned under enemies.
- Traps can no longer spawn in boss rooms.
- Fixed the bug with mobs leaving their collision behind after going to another zone.
- Fixed the bug with mobs leaving dungeons to chase the player.
- Mobs now correctly travel between dungeon floors.
- Enemies no longer use “Mark of the Feast” on themselves.
- Fixed crashes caused by Inferno, Ring of Fire, and Fire Barrage.
- Added an additional condition for the Task of acquiring falchions and cleavers: the smith will no longer accept cursed swords.
- Fixed the food spoilage in merchants’ inventories.
- Fixed the bug with Distracting Shot.
- Fixed the bug with lighting up fires.
- Fixed the bug with Distracting shot not dealing damage.
- Fixed the bug with Experience Points not being granted when mobs bleed out outside of Vision range.
- Fixed the bug with repeating reputation gain for completing three contracts.
- Fixed the map activation during dialogues.
- Fixed Brigand Warlocks appearing behind their targets after using a dash.
- Removed the possibility of luring the Ancient Troll away from its location.
- Fixed the bug which had been adding cooldowns to zero cooldown abilities.
- Fixed lightning strikes in villages.
- Fixed the incorrect collision disappearance in certain scenarios.
- Fixed dungeons not resetting upon generation of new contracts.
- Fixed the bug with Proselyte Tormentor’s ability, which had been causing him to apply Stun and Knockback with every strike.
- Fixed a number of bugs caused by animals moving to other zones.
- Fixed the crash caused by opening a container outside of camera view.
- Removed the possibility of leveling “Excess Heat” twice.
- Removed the possibility of performing Counterattacks and Attacks of Opportunity with a bow.
- Fixed the bug with archers recovering from their injuries after switching to melee.
- Fixed the bug with the Troll not using “Shockwave” in melee range.
- Fixed food items being placed underneath other items in the inventory upon spoiling.
- Fixed the crash caused by being forced to drop an open quiver.
- Fixed the bug causing the loss of control over the character upon removing a consumable from hands.
- Fixed the bug allowing to receive both Stun and Daze.
- Fixed the camera return when trading and the movement restriction when opening containers.
- Added a restriction for resting while there are retreating enemies within Vision.
- Fixed the incorrect reset of modifiers’ duration time.
- Fixed camera bugs.
- Fixed NPC collisions.
- Fixed the bug allowing opening doors without spending a turn.
- Fixed the bug with lock-picking not spending a turn if it fails.
- Removed the possibility of moving the camera while the trade or container menus are open.
- Fixed a number of AI bugs.
- Fixed the crash caused by a golem being summoned after the caster’s death.
- Fixed the crash during a delayed attack.
- Fixed the collision bug in hallways.
- Fixed effects’ duration for consuming acorns.
VISUALS
- Added an animation for dropping coins.
- Removed outlines during animations.
- Improvements to the lighting system.
- Fixed visual bugs with Bastion rubble.
- The Mancatcher’s net no longer glows.
SOUND
- Fixed aggroing sounds.
- Fixed the disappearing Troll step sound.
- Added a sound effect for the Curse of Loudmouth.
TEXT
- Villagers received new speech lines for different reputation levels.
- Added a log message for switching ammo types.
- Added a log message for learning an unidentified potion's effect by drinking it.
- Numerous fixes across all localizations.
===============
By the way, we’re going to publish a devlog explaining our current plans this weekend. Meanwhile you can take a look at our updated roadmap to find out what to expect next!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/6eccd450c293e1821a4da1639c2b9baa212ed184.png)
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Devlog: Current Plans
Sun, 25 October 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/3c27644f44b4842725fce6e6deaddb828293c369.png)
Hello everyone!
The work on follow-up patches for the “Way Forward” update is complete, so in today’s devlog we’d like to give you more details about our future plans.
The current state of the game is such that we can no longer add new content to the existing map: there’s simply not enough space for it anymore. The small scale of the game world creates a number of temporary restrictions, which overall render the experience less enjoyable, such as randomized treatises, instantly respawning dungeons, skewed gear and character progression, sudden difficulty spikes, caused by the lack of area for more starting dungeons, and so on.
Therefore, our top priority is to expand the map and add the first major town, which will finally allow us to resolve most of these issues. This task will take a lot of time and effort, but it will most definitely pay off - our game will finally work as it was initially intended, paving the way for many long-awaited features, from the trait system and character generation to the improved economy and a new enchantment system.
Other than that, the global map will also require implementing a large number of accompanying, closely linked systems: a foundation for the caravan system, new points of interests, new enemy factions, significant changes to the progression, and more. All of this will be a part of the next major update, “City of Gold”, which will be approximately released in Q2 2021.
In the meantime we also plan to release a large content update before the end of 2020, which will help you pass the time while waiting for the upcoming major changes. This update will include two new weapon types: two-handed axes and hammers, their skill trees, new gear, new traps, new combat consumables (including nets and placeable claw traps), and a few other things. There’ll be more details about these additions in the following devlogs.
For now, we’d like to share some of the results of our recent work:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/8aece32bb20b5f97746ca51eadf35beb99c43937.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/817194017f3568f3fa9ca5c3823a2ec53027edbc.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/e6715016c93f7bc28868ee6e1e83236671903f6b.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/3bc5ab60c2f6896a412aa93978e7dd49b93890df.png)
Until next time!
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Hotfix 0.6.0.17 - Japanese Localization
Wed, 4 November 2020
• Added Japanese localization.
• Fixed the error in the hit detection algorithm, which hadn’t been correctly factoring in Dodge Chance when calculating hit chance for arrows.
• Fixed archers being resurrected with a ranged weapon after dying with a melee weapon.
• Fixed “Blaze” granting double reduction for active Cooldowns.
• Fixed dogs being able to open doors.
• Fixed the bug causing Reputation gain each time you take a free beer from Brukk.
• Praying at shrines now immediately restores some Morale and Sanity.
• “Deafening Roar” is now put on cooldown when the fight begins.
• Snakes can no longer poison when missing their attacks.
• Fixed the issue with changes to cursed items' stats not being correctly displayed.
• Fixed the issue with two or more Ghasts casting “Binding Sigil” simultaneously.
• Increased prices of most consumables.
• Decreased prices of all treatises.
• «Anticipation»: Applies the target with [-10 > -5]% Dodge Chance [10 > 4] after landing a shot and grants [5 > 7.5]% Accuracy for [10 > 4] turns when missing.
• «Flame Saturation»: [Replenishes 5% Max Energy > Grants -20% Spells Energy Cost for 2 turns] each time an enemy within Vision is ignited.
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Devlog: Throwing System
Sun, 15 November 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/0fb44228e77d8341b79ce43297927acdf5f53576.png)
Hello everyone!
In this devlog we’ll tell you about a new, previously unannounced mechanic, which will be added with the Content Update II, planned for this December. This mechanic is...
Throwing items! Initially, we didn’t plan to add this feature during this stage in development, however it ended up necessary for the implementation of certain new consumables, so we had to adjust on the fly. So how does it work and what can you do with it?
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/b5e2b7e45a1fe050c254ad39dc6cfc8217ed29a9.gif)
For the most part, throwing is used for dealing extra damage to enemies. It’s worth mentioning that any item in the game can be thrown. The resulting distance, the amount and type of damage depend on a thrown item’s weight and material. For instance, if you lob heavy stuff such as moose antlers at someone’s head, you’ll deal heavy damage as long as they are not too far away. A pine cone, on the other hand, is only good for attracting attention.
Additionally, certain items have unique properties:
• By throwing a potion at your enemy, you can apply its effect for a quarter of its base duration.
• Clay and glass items shatter into pieces, dealing piercing damage.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/6c1713352c8bbc5ed1935b13ebeba054d5493f40.gif)
• Breaking a bottle of alcohol or oil on an enemy greatly increases their flammability. On top of that, foul liquids getting into their eyes will make it hard to concentrate on combat...
• Highly flammable items (made from cloth or paper) will burn in fire. Pyromancers, watch your flames!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/64a2de151a081766c6776a7a58788257b37b3854.gif)
• A heavy enough item can trigger a claw trap or a pressure plate.
• The amount of noise generated by a thrown item depends on its weight and material. The sound of breaking glass will attract much more attention than a tumbling acorn.
• It’s no easy task to restore a thrown tomato to its original form. Only throw tomatoes you don’t need!
• The same holds true for ale mugs - it’s hard to throw them without spilling their contents.
• And so on...
Weapons
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/367cc5f9253f148616c567cfa3f7c7324ec95d36.gif)
Weapon-throwing is a completely different thing. Instead of weight and material, it takes a different factor into account - a weapon balance, which combines item weight and its aerodynamic properties. The better the balance, the further and more precise a throw will be, and the more damage it will deal upon connecting.
Most daggers and light axes can be easily thrown, offering you a significant edge in combat. Certain spears (not halberds) are slightly worse in this regard. When it comes to swords, maces, and two-handed weapons, they don’t fly far, and they don’t deal significant damage, as these weapon types aren’t well-suited for throwing. It’s also not always a good idea to overuse this mechanic even with a suitable weapon - doing so will quickly drain its durability.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d318e1bb52b5d29b9e36ff2cfd382de03776ba02.gif)
Naturally, your character stats are factored in as well: the damage for throwing any item is influenced by Perception, Strength, and Agility, the distance is decided by Strength, and the hit chance (including the Crit Hit chance) depends on Perception and Agility.
Keep in mind that throwing is meant to be only a supplementary combat mechanic and not a play style, so we don’t plan on introducing a dedicated skill tree for it. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to beat the game by throwing axes and daggers, although you can still give it a try.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for future devlogs - we still have a few more surprises up our sleeve!
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Devlog: Skinning & New Traps
Sun, 29 November 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/abee4f4bc8473e61a0d91bd10c9382fcb7a4e3a9.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about some new features of the Equipment Update II, planned for this December (and which ended up containing more than just new equipment).
Harvesting meat and pelts
Since the game was first released, pelts had been dropping with a random chance. It was meant to imply that sometimes pelts are way too damaged, and that there was no use harvesting them. However, this mechanic wasn’t well-explained - unsurprisingly, it was only confusing players when they weren’t getting any loot after killing an animal.
To resolve this issue (and to increase immersion), we’ve added a new mechanic - skinning. Killing an animal is now just a first step: in order to get pelts, meat, antlers etc, you’ll need to harvest them. To do so, you’ll need something sharp in your inventory: a dagger, an axe, or at least a sword.
For the time being, skinning is implemented as a basic skill with 100% efficiency, but once Survival skill tree is in place, you’ll need to spend some Ability Points to learn how to do it properly.
(https://i.imgur.com/5m3iWt8.gif)
The way an animal is killed is an important factor. You’ll get the best outcome with piercing weaponry, which won’t damage pelts too much. If you score a kill by primarily using Piercing Damage, the chance to get a pelt will be the highest.
On the other hand, Slashing damage types fare much worse, as cuts won’t do any good to a pelt’s condition. As for using Pyromancy, you can imagine the outcome... Naturally, the market adjusts accordingly: since harvesting pelts is harder now, their value has been greatly improved.
(https://i.imgur.com/RkDQZ1F.gif)
Certain damage types can also affect the harvested meat. Animals killed with Fire Damage get well-cooked in the process, while Poison, Caustic, or Cursed Damage might cause the meat to spoil.
Traps
In addition to skinning, we’ve also implemented more dungeon traps. Let’s start with pressure plates, which, for the time being, will have two variants:
(https://i.imgur.com/6XWkwgY.gif)
The first one is a fire trap. It will ignite the floor and deal heavy damage once triggered.
The second one has a twist: it creates a cloud of poisonous gas, slowly filling the surrounding area. Staying in this cloud will deal Poison Damage with a chance to cause violent coughing, which reduces Accuracy, increases Fumble Chance, and generates lots of noise.
At the same time, certain traps will be available to players as well.
(https://i.imgur.com/tfsp9pk.gif)
For instance, claw traps can now be disarmed, stored in the inventory, and then placed.
(https://i.imgur.com/mEnQPpM.gif)
Caltrops are light enough to be thrown right in front of the approaching enemies.
(https://i.imgur.com/i4ly2Vi.gif)
Nets will help dealing with particularly agile foes (although they won’t help much against ghosts, for obvious reasons).
(https://i.imgur.com/0Dc7tMc.gif)
And finally - smoke bombs, which function similarly to poison traps, capable of ruining the day for enemy archers: the smoke obscures vision, triggers coughing, and deals a small amount of Poison Damage.
That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!
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Devlog: Two-Handed Maces
Sun, 6 December 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/fb20c7c999d12fef9a7586192f11981b3e850bfb.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about the first of the two new ability trees, which will be added to the game with the Equipment Update II – two-handed maces!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/547007080768cb5b7e42249e3c50673e01538d0d.png)
Let’s start with the general structure of the ability tree:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/a7d1fd9d9c34b4a0abb160f36a129df2688839d7.png)
Just like ability trees of other two-handed weapons, 2h maces have 10 abilities: 5 Actives and 5 Passives. Their overall theme is controlling the battlefield with Stuns, Dazes, Knockbacks, Debuffs while dealing large amounts of damage with powerful, but slow strikes.
Let’s have a closer look.
Active Abilities
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/c56471dd8174307f3423012e2fa978cc28ab9696.gif)
Mighty Swing – the first of the two opening Active abilities is a buff which grants bonus Weapon, Armor, and Bodypart Damage, as well as extra Stun Chance for the next turn.
Other than that, it also synergizes with the rest of 2h mace abilities: if “Mighty Swing” is active when you activate them, they receive additional properties.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/02b9a5a47a0ecab748236612814e6da57451ffa0.gif)
Unstoppable Force - the second opening Ability. It performs a strike on three adjacent tiles with a large bonus to Knockback Chance and Armor Damage.
Additionally, for each enemy you successfully Knock back, it reduces Skills Energy Cost for the next few turns.
If “Mighty Swing” is active, successfully Knocking enemies back also puts their abilities on Cooldown for a few turns.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/1824f58ae52dd3ae59f0890e1c6a85b2f97db85e.gif)
Skull Crusher lets you perform a one tile dash and swing at the enemy’s head with bonus Stun Chance and Bodypart Damage
If “Mighty Swing” is active, this skill also burns the percentage of the target’s Energy equal to the percentage of its missing Health.
(https://i.imgur.com/y9dZQAt.gif)
Slaughter - a stance-based skill, customary to all Weapon ability trees. It grants bonus Crit and Knockback Chance, reduces Skills Energy Cost, and increases Armor Penetration with each stack of its effect. On top of that, every 3rd attack has 100% chance to Daze.
If “Mighty Swing” is active, using this ability will deliver a strike to a random adjacent enemy.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/1d6fff4fffe12150066dfa32614b832bc0fcf271.gif)
Forceful Slam - the final Active ability, which can be used to either start a fight or finish off a stunned enemy.
First, “Forceful Slam” marks a tile, skipping a turn. If the next turn this tile is occupied by an enemy, the character will deliver a strike with a significant bonus to Crit Chance and deal bonus damage (scaling with the target’s Max Health) for each remaining turn of Daze, Immobilization, or Stun affecting the target.
If “Mighty Swing” is active, this skill also weakens the enemy occupying the marked tile, applying them with extra Damage Taken and reducing their Control and Move Resistances.
Passive Abilities
• Blow after Blow - killing enemies with 2h mace attacks and abilities grants the effect of “Mighty Swing” for the next turn and a bonus to Energy Restoration for the next few turns.
• Unbalance - Knocking enemies back with 2h mace attacks and abilities applies them with extra Fumble Chance and reduces their Control Resistance and Dodge Chance for the next few turns.
• Bonebreaker - attacks against enemies without Armor or with their Armor Durability lower than 50% gain bonus Bodypart Damage. Attacks against enemies with their Armor Durability higher than 50% gain bonus Armor Damage.
• Severe Concussion - Stunning, Dazing, or Immobilizing enemies with 2h mace attacks applies them with a debuff to Move Resistance and increases their Fumble Chance for a few turns.
• Revel in Battle - killing enemies while under the effect of “Slaughter” replenishes 20% Max Energy. Killing enemies while under the effect of both “Slaughter” and “Mighty Swing” additionally reduces the ability tree’s active Cooldowns by a few turns.
That’s all for now. Until the next time!
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Deblog: Two-Handed Axes
Sun, 13 December 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/fee06a2d634a6f36101e0d82385e3f4aba8aae43.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about the second new ability tree of the Equipment Update II: two-handed axes!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/76b750ea9f5c57145c4e6166c6a0d7c78e118875.png)
As always, let’s start with a general overview. This ability tree consists of 5 Actives and 5 Passives, focused around the same thing as 1h axes - damage, Bleeding, and Injuries.
Active Abilities
(https://i.imgur.com/aZWCZLv.gif)
Wide Cut - the opening skill of the ability tree. It performs a strike with bonus Weapon and Armor Damage. Additionally, it affects three body parts upon a successful hit.
(https://i.imgur.com/Hrxdf5f.gif)
Dismember performs a strike to a random Body Part affected by a Minor or Medium Injury (or a random Body Part if the target is uninjured) with a huge bonus to Bodypart Damage and Crit Chance.
If this strike worsens an Injury or applies a new one, it causes Bleeding, and the target itself loses 9% Max Health.
(https://i.imgur.com/aLZ4n2I.gif)
Reign in Blood performs a strike which prolongs active enemy Cooldowns by 1 turn for each Injury and 20% missing Health affecting them. Also has a chance to cause Bleeding on each Injured Body Part, replenishing 5% Max Energy for each Bleeding caused.
(https://i.imgur.com/fO0r5vL.gif)
Rampage - a traditional stance-based skill. It grants stacking bonuses to Crit Efficiency, Bleed Chance, Bodypart Damage, and reduces Cooldowns Duration.
Just like with other 2h weapon stances, every 3rd attack with two-handed axes is granted a special effect: it deals bonus damage equal to 15% of the target’s Max Health (the damage has a threshold tied to the character’s level).
(https://i.imgur.com/e7VysHh.gif)
Make Space performs a strike on three adjacent targets with bonus damage for each degree of Injury affecting them. If this strike kills at least one target, performs a second strike on the same area (this effect can only trigger once).
Passive Abilities
• Finish ‘Em - attacks against targets with more than 50% Health gain bonus Bodypart Damage. Attacks against targets with less than 50% Health gain bonus Weapon Damage.
• Shieldbreaker - 2h axe attacks decrease their target’s Block Chance and Block Power for 5 turns. This effect stacks.
• Maim and Kill - applying Injuries and Bleeding grants bonus Weapon Damage and Crit Chance for 4 turns.
• Fatal Strike - while under the effect of “Rampage”, Critical Hits grant an additional stack of it and apply their target with extra Damage Taken.
• Tool of Execution - activating “Rampage” grants bonus Crit Chance for each enemy within two tiles.
And finally, here are some of the two-handed axes which will be added to the game:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/95a70ea04748b85884a77fe7ce4a2031db5eb539.png)
That’s all for now. Until the next time!
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Devlog: Update Wrap-Up
Sun, 20 December 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/30e38eb4ac840bce05214935f7d23fc30a799eb3.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about the remaining new features of the Equipment Update II and also announce its release date - December 25th!
Hearing System
(https://i.imgur.com/vYbTadw.gif)
The noise system will now work not just for your enemies, but your character as well, allowing you to better plan out your actions. As you explore the surface or dungeons, you’ll be able to hear enemy activity, which will mark their location on your screen. The chance of hearing the enemy depends on their actions and your Perception: enemy steps are the hardest to detect, but the noise from a fight will be heard from many tiles away.
Berry Bushes
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/554d45fb02e03ed7f61d2cbe6289626f0291d0bb.gif)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/ccbdd8dbf1a52662ba57744ceb160c98f16e7d24.png)
Berry bushes will come in handy if your character is starving. Depending on the biome, you’ll be able to encounter six berry types: bilberry, raspberry, blueberry, lingonberry, gooseberry, and barberry.
New NPCs
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2bac6b5ac24fc464dfcc84cb5b4fded4e3bbbbb2.png)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2bac6b5ac24fc464dfcc84cb5b4fded4e3bbbbb2.png)
Two new characters will be added to the game: Bran the Trapper and Unar the Scribe.
The trapper will periodically appear in either Osbrook or Mannshire, offering you some hunting gear, including the new traps.
Unar the Scribe can be found selling treatises in the Mannshire castle - you’ll be able to shop from him after completing three Osbrook contracts and gaining access to the castle.
New Consumables
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/dc2b9f8c3b06bdfb383bf50be65ddfab8591685f.png)
We’ve added a number of new narcotic substances to the game. Consuming them provides powerful buffs for a short period of time, however you’ll have to pay for them with a long and painful aftermath.
• Al’qud will give you a stamina boost, increasing Max Energy and Energy Restoration, while decreasing Abilities Energy Cost.
• Abasa will put you into the state of narcotic rage, granting bonus Weapon Damage, Crit Efficiency, Armor Penetration, and Pain Resistance.
• Hornet Honey will sharpen your reflexes, improving Accuracy as well as Counter, Dodge, and Crit Chances.
• Nikkaf will improve your concentration, increasing Vision, Experience Gain, Hunger Resistance, and decreasing Fumble Chance.
• Paregoric is a potent painkiller which will decrease Pain and Pain Limit while improving Morale, Pain Resistance, and Healing Efficiency.
• Stardust has already been available for quite a while, but its effect is now different: it will grant Magic Power, Magic Resistance, Bonus Range, and decrease Cooldowns Duration.
New Enemies
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/b8430c799ee22d5b2e6931ea28a7e09660b22e83.png)
The enemy roster has also been expanded: this update will add 10 new brigand enemies, armed with two-handed maces and axes, and a few new minibosses, including the skeleton ones - eliminating the latter will be a part of a new contract.
That’s all for now. Until the next time!
Game
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0.6.1.0 - Equipment Update II: Changelog
Fri, 25 December 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/b40b6b6e03d674dc8e10ef885aef1e88c9addb3d.png)
NEW ADDITIONS
• New weapon type: Two-handed axes - 29 pieces.
• New ability tree: Two-handed axes- 10 new skills.
• New weapon type: Two-handed maces - 23 pieces.
• New ability tree: Two-handed maces - 10 new skills.
• New mechanic: Throwing. Throw weapons and other items to deal damage, distract enemies, and trigger traps.
• New mechanic: Skinning. The chance to harvest a pelt now depends on the damage type used to kill an animal. Added new hunting trophies: dog pelts, snake skin, and bear fat.
• New mechanic: Hearing. Increase your Perception to hear nearby enemies before seeing them.
• Two new NPC: Bran the Trapper and Unar the Scribe.
The trapper travels between Osbrook and Mannshire, selling various hunting gear and some other items.
The second NPC can be found in the Mannshire castle upon completing 3 Osbrook contracts - he trades in treatises.
• 20 new enemy types, including 7 new minibosses.
• 25 new armor pieces: 7 helmets, 9 chest pieces, 5 belts, 2 sets of gloves, 1 pair of boots, and 1 shield.
• New traps: Pressure Plate (Flame & Poison Cloud), Sound
• Combat consumables: added a claw trap, a net, caltrops, and a smoke bomb.
• 5 new drug types, completed with reworked drug mechanics.
• New Mannshire crypt contract.
• Additional flora: added 6 berry shrubs, 1, new mushroom type, and 1 new herb type.
ATTENTION: This patch IS COMPATIBLE with the previous version’s saves. It should be possible to continue your current playthrough after this update.
However, we highly recommend starting a new game: item tweaks won’t affect the already equipped or stored items. Additionally, the new contract won’t spawn when playing from an old save.
GAMEPLAY
• Enemies can now also feel pain.
• Throwing potions applies enemies with their effect for 25% of the original duration.
• Fabric, leather, paper, and organic items will burn if dropped on a burning tile.
• Added a system for enemy interactions with traps. By default enemies are aware about the traps of their faction and the traps which were installed within their Vision. Other traps will remain hidden - the chance for them to be discovered depends on enemy Perception. Some enemies also learned how to disarm discovered traps.
• Activated claw traps can be picked up, repaired at a blacksmith, and then placed again.
• Manually disarming traps will grant experience.
• New stat: Stagger Chance
• New effect: Stagger. Reduces Crit, Counter, Dodge, and Block Chances to 0, and increases Fumble Chance to 100%.
BALANCE
• Changes to the characters’ Affinities:
Arna starts with Two-handed maces.
Jorgrim starts with Two-handed axes.
Dirwin starts with Two-handed axes.
Velmir starts with Two-handed axes and Two-handed maces, but no longer has Maces affinity.
Jonna starts with Dual Wielding.
• Rebalanced primary Attributes:
Strength:
+[1 > 0.5]% Melee Damage
+[1 > 0.5] Block Power
+[2 > 1.5]% Crit Efficiency
+[1 > 1.5]% Armor Damage
Agility:
+[0.5 > 0.75]% Counter Chance
-[0.25 > 0.5]% Fumble Chance
Added +0.5% Armor Penetration
[Removed +0.5% Stealth
Perception:
+[0.5 > 0.75]% Accuracy
+[0.5 > 0.75]% Crit Chance
+[1 > 0.5]% Ranged Damage
Vitality:
+[1 > 2] Health
+[5 > 4] Energy
Removed bonuses to Immunity
Added +1% Intoxication Resistance
Willpower:
+[0.75 > 1]% Pain Resistance
+[0.5 >0.75]% Magic Resistance
+[1 > 0.5%] Magic Power
• Rebalanced pain gain from all damage types.
• Made balance changes to most enemies.
• Increased the base chance to evade a trap.
• Reduced the base chance to disarm a trap.
• Traps balance changes:
• [Claw Trap] 20 Slashing Damage > 35 Rending Damage.
Immobilization duration: 3 > 4-10
Base disarm chance: 60% > 75%
• [Spike Trap] 25 > 40 Piercing Damage
Bleeding duration: 10-16 > 10-20
Change the formula for damage from Bleeding and Burning - now they don’t scale from Max Health as much.
• Base unarmed damage was increased by 2 points.
• Block Chance now only works if you have a weapon or a shield equipped.
• Crit Efficiency: the base damage multiplayer for crits has been increased from 110% to 120%.
• Rebalanced loot from the brigands.
• [Brigand Madman]: removed “Adrenaline” and “Painful Stabs”.
• [Ancient Troll]: Decreased its Accuracy from 100% to 90%.
Troll’s Armor was decreased to 50.
Experience granted on death was increased by 20%.
• [Stun]: its maximum duration was decreased from 5 to 2 turns
• [Daze]: added maximum duration – 5 turns
Removed: +5% Fumble Chance
• [Unholy Blessing]: +20% > +15% Life and Energy Drain, Damage Reflection.
• [Blessing]: The duration of shrine blessings was increased to 1440 turns.
Removed passive Sanity and Morale change.
Added an immediate Sanity and Morale boost upon using a shrine
Added +10% Healing Efficiency.
• [Satiety]: added +10% Healing Efficiency.
• [Deafening Roar]: To avoid situations with the simultaneous Stun and Disarm, there’s now a sequence of checks, launched one after another in case the previous one fails: firstly, it’s 25% to Disarm. Then, it’s 75% to Stun, and finally - 100% chance to Daze.
• [Henbane]: reduced the duration of “Battle Rage” to 12 turns. The effect is no longer guaranteed to activate, instead there’s a 25% chance – high Intoxication can raise this chance up to 100%.
• [Velmir]: The Condition of his starting helmet was reduced from 60% to 40%
• [Waterskin]: reduced the number of uses from 10 to 6.
• [Stardust]: changed its effect.
• An item’s level now has lower influence on the damage from enchantments.
• Dual Wielding now consists of 3 tiers, just like all other ability trees with 10 skills.
• Increased the maximum level for items sold by merchants.
CHANGES TO ABILITIES
SWORDS
• [Endurance Training] 25% chance to replenish 5% Max Energy on hit > +25% Energy Restoration for 3 turns after using a sword ability.
• [Honed Edge] +5% Bleed Chance for 5 > 3 turns.
MACES
• [Armor Break] Added a Stagger Chance.
Applies -30% > -15% Control Resistance.
• [Dazing Strikes] Changed: +5% Daze Chance for mace attacks > Mace attacks apply their targets with -3.5% Accuracy and -3.5% Damage for 4 turns.
• [Moment of Weakness] Stunned enemies take +33% > +20% Damage.
• [Concussion] Changed: Mace attacks apply -5% Control Resistance for 4 turns > Mace crits apply -15% Control Resistance for 3 turns.[/list]
TWO-HANDED SWORDS
• [Feint Swing] Now applies its target with +10% Damage Taken for 4 turns.
Other bonuses are doubled if the target is Staggered.
• [Feast of Steel] Added +5% Crit Chance to its stacking effect.
Every third attack gains +100% Crit Chance > +100% Stagger Chance
• [Heroic Charge] Added a Stagger Chance
• [Parry] All received attacks are guaranteed to trigger a Counterattack > Grants +75% Counter Chance
Each successful block reduces the Skill’s cooldown by 1 > 2 turns.
Added: Each Counterattack grants +7.5% Crit Chance for 3 turns.
• [Arc Cleave] Added a Stagger Chance.
Each enemy hit reduces active Cooldowns of the ability tree by 1 > 3 turns.
Added: Replenishes 7.5% Max Energy for each Staggered enemy.
• [Courage] Added: If the target survives, grants +10% Damage for each adjacent enemy.
• [Fight to Death] While “Feast” is active, killing enemies reduces active Cooldowns of the ability tree by 3 turns > Each consecutive strike against the same target grants +7.5% Stagger Chance and +5% Counter Chance for 5 turns. The effect resets upon attacking a different target.
• [Taste of Victory] Killing enemies with two-handed swords replenishes 7.5% > 15% Max Energy.
Added: Attacks against Staggered enemies grant +5% Damage for 4 turns.
• [Revanche] Added: while Parry is active, blocked attacks replenish 5% Max Energy.
[/list]
DAGGERS
• [Double Lunge] Now also reduces the Skill’s cooldown when killing an enemy.
• [Deadly Trick] Grants +25% Crit Chance > +25% Bleed Chance and +25% Counter Chance.
Added: The strike also has a Stagger Chance.
• [Gaping Wound] Applies the effect for 8 > 10 turns.
Using abilities has a 50 > 75% chance to trigger Bleeding.
The Bleeding duration has been increased.
The effect applies +20% > +33% Abilities Energy Cost.
Added: the effect applies -25% Bleed Resistance.
• [Coup de Grace] Finishing an enemy off with this skill now grants +50% Crit Chance for 4 turns.
• [Quick Hands] Killing enemies > Dagger strikes reduce active Cooldowns of the ability tree by 1 turn.
• [From the Shadows] Added: Thrown daggers do +30% more Damage.
• [Counterattack Mastery] Dagger strikes grant +4% > +5% Counter Chance for 5 turns.
• [Weakening Jabs] Dagger attacks apply their target with +4% Damage Taken > -5% Damage and +5% > +7.5% Cooldowns Duration.
• [Danse Macabre] Changed: Dagger crits gain +10% Life Drain > Dagger Crits grant +4% Dodge chance for 5 turns and permanently apply their target with +10% Damage Taken and -10% Bleed Resistance.[/list]
STAFFS
• [Unwavering Stance
] Added: Every 3rd attack gains +100% Crit Chance
• [Destabilizing Hits] Added: the effect is also triggered by applying Stagger.
• [Now or Never] Effect duration 1 > 2 turns.
Added: is now also triggered by Dodging and grants +25% Stagger Chance.
• [Battle Trance] Staff crits now reduce all active Cooldowns, not just the ability tree’s.
SHIELDS
• [Retaliation
] Added: Can now only trigger once per 5 turns.
• [Last Bastion]: Added: Can now only trigger once per 8 turns. [/list]
PYROMANCY
• [Ring of FIre] Applies -20% > -10% Fire Resistance for 4 > 3 turns.
GEOMANCY
• [Rune of Sustention
] Added: Grants the caster -10% Damage Taken when occupying tiles adjacent to their runic boulders.
• [Runic Boulder]: Raising a boulder will now generate noise.
COMBAT MASTERY
• [Seize the Initiative
] Reduced the maximum number of stacks from 6 to 5.
If the target uses active abilities, they reduce the number of debuff stacks on it and the number of buff stacks on the attacker.
Added: added a Stagger Chance to the initial hit and Counter Chance buff/debuff to its stacking effect.
• [Defensive Tactic] and [Offensive Tactic]: Changed:
Instead of a static bonus for each enemy within Vision , they now grant stacking bonuses for performing certain conditions.
Tactics now work for a limited number of turns.
Switching tactics no longer takes a turn or spends Energy.
• [Finisher]: Added: this attack now has +25% Crit Chance.
• [Against the Odds] Prevents Health from dropping below 10 > 15%
Added: the first attack received during the next turn does no damage and is automatically countered.
• [Stance Training]: “Defensive Tactic” now increases weapon stances’ duration by 1 turn for each received attack.
ATHLETICS
• [Mighty Kick
] Added: Failing to knock the opponent back now Staggers them for 2 turns.
• [Sudden Lunge] Confusion Chance was replaced with Stagger Chance.
• [Dash] Bonus Damage for each adjacent enemy was replaced by Counter Chance.
• Each enemy adjacent to the starting position increases the Energy cost of the Skill by 20% > 10%[/list]
DUAL WIELDING
• Some of the skills were moved around. “Dual Wielding Training” is now available earlier, while “Dying Fervor” was moved further down the ability tree.
• [Enough for Everyone] The effect is no longer removed if the target leaves the adjacent tile.
• [Deflect] Changed: Using this skill no longer reduces Hands Efficiency.
Each fully blocked attack now grants +5% Hands Efficiency for 2 turns and reduces active Cooldowns of the ability tree by 1 turn.
• [Whirlwind] Changed: Can now jump between the same targets for an unlimited number of times.
Each jump now grants -10% > -15% Hands Efficiency .
The Skill’s Cooldown is no longer reduced by killing enemies. The same goes for bonus Hands Efficiency - killing enemies no longer increases it.
Added: +4% Dodge Chance for 3 turns per each strike.
• [Concentration] Lasts for 6 > 12 turns.
Added: receiving damaging attacks reduces the duration of the effect by 1 turn.
• [Dual Wielding Training]: Using weapon-based skills no longer grants bonus Hands Efficiency.
Using weapon-based skills while wielding two weapons of the same type grants +7.5% Crit Chance and -7.5% Fumble Chance for 2 turns.
Using weapon-based skills while wielding two weapons of the different type grants +25% Off-Hand Efficiency and +7.5% Counter Chance for 2 turns.
• [Berserk Tradition] +2.5% Hands Efficiency > +4% Counter Chance.
All bonuses now scale based on the character’s level and Attributes.
• [Dying Fervor] Grants +10% > +20% Hands Efficiency when Health drops below 50%.
Added: Additionally grants +7.5% Crit Chance and +7.5% Counter Chance when Health drops below 33%
SPEARS
• [Nail Down
] Changed: Immobilizing enemies with this skill no longer reduces active Cooldowns of “Nail Down” and “Impaling Lunge”.
• [Impaling Lunge] Changed: The bonuses are no longer doubled when attacking Immobilized Enemies.
Using this skill against Immobilized enemies now does -25% Damage and halves other bonuses, but instantly refreshes this Skill’s Cooldown.
• [Maneuver] Changed: now gains stacks for each reduced Cooldown, not fully refreshed one.
• [Determination] Added: replenishes 10% Max Energy for each affected enemy. The enemies are additionally applied with -20% Move Resistance for 3 turns.
• [Precise Hits] Grants +10% Accuracy > -5% Fumble Chance and +20% > +15% Bodypart Damage.
• [Stay Back!] Affected enemies are applied with -25% > -15% Piercing Resistance for 1 > 2 turns.
The chance to trigger “Impaling Lunge” on a basic attack is 15% > 10%.
• [Wounding Spearhead] Spear crits deal extra damage equal to the target’s 4% Current Health > 5% Max Health. Added a threshold for the max damage, based on the character’s Strength and Agility.
BUFFS TO UNIQUE ITEMS
As you may already know, the shortcomings of the existing item quality system prevent the unique items from being enchanted, which makes them less attractive to players. To compensate for this issue while the quality system is being properly reworked, most of the existing unique items (with the exception of the starting ones) were buffed:
• Fancy Sword: -15% Abilities Energy Cost
• Engraved Sword: -15% Cooldowns Duration
• Decorated Warhammer: +25% Armor Penetration
• Ornate Flanged Mace: +10% Daze Chance, +5% Stun Chance
• Decorated Dagger: +10% Crit Chance
• Carved Longbow: +10% Immobilization Chance
• Vagabond Knight's Armor: -7.5% Damage Taken
• Ceremonial Cuirass: +5% Health Restoration, +25% Healing Efficiency
• Occult Cloak: +13% Bleed Resistance
• Jousting Cloak: -5% Damage Taken, -5% Abilities Energy Cost
• Raven Heater Shield: +15% Fortitude
• Pig-Faced Bascinet: +15% Fortitude
• Cervelliere with Ear Guards: +10% Control Resistance
• Ornate Barbute: +5% Accuracy
ART
• New potion sprites.
• New icons for some modifiers.
• New sprites for some consumables.
• Some enemies got their visuals updated.
• New shop signs for merchants and artisans in the settlements.
UI & UX
• Changes to the mode menu: the attack and rest modes can now be moved to the ability bar. Added Shout and Reload actions to the mode menu.
• Upon equipping dual weapons, the stats for both hands are now being displayed separately in the character menu.
• Sleep and Blindness effects now make the screen go dark.
• Bow and crossbow hovers now display their Range.
FIXES
• Removed the rain sound from the winter biome.
• Fixed issues with the enemies’ Injury thresholds.
• Fixed issues with the fog of war.
• Fixed blood decals appearing in wrong situations
• The Ancient Troll now properly fells trees when moving.
• Surface enemies no longer spawn inside trees and impassable ravines.
-
Year One Anniversary & Progress Update
Sat, 6 February 2021
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Hello everyone!
Today Stoneshard celebrates its first anniversary: it’s been exactly a year since the game was released into Early Access! By an amazing coincidence, the Black Boar tavern’s anniversary shares the same date - to honor this remarkable event, Brukk the Innkeeper decided to decorate his establishment. During this month his guests will also be gifted a free pie, baked by a special recipe. Make sure to launch the game to participate in the festivities!
Now back to our plans. Over the last year the game saw noticeable improvements: there were four major updates and a content patch, as well as an innumerable amount of hotfixes and smaller updates. We still have a long road ahead of us, something we will talk about today.
Right now we’re working on the “City of Gold” update, the largest one yet. It’s meant to significantly expand the global map, add basic caravan mechanics, the first major city, new biomes, new points of interest, random encounters, and also a number of currently unannounced, but very important features. As you can see, this is a lot of content, so “City of Gold” will be released approximately in Q2 2021.
Most new systems are still being prototyped, so it will be a while before the devlogs on them are published. While we’re working on the technical side of the global map, have a look at this concept art and teasers for the upcoming content:
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/a5d6921465f6dda591d4f3b25992d12595fb0899.jpg)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/876a6d5a847200c07c941329c24292a6d825b91c.jpg)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/51b4c2100b71465429d78fbc0dd562ce4184f987.jpg)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/765da69c994493d07e459d90370a3a0dbc13d6ff.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/T3ndUs9h.gif)
As we implement the city of Brynn, we also plan to expand the game’s lore. There’ll likely be a few devlogs dedicated to it as well.
That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!
0.6.1.8 – CHANGELOG
- The Black Boar tavern was decorated in celebration of the anniversary.
- You can now get a free pie from Brukk.
- Changed the troll rewards:
• Increased the gold reward up to 10 000 crowns.
• Most item rewards were changed: Weber will now give more expensive and higher level items.
• Added an option to ask for a crossbow, a spear, a two-handed axe, or a two-handed mace.
-Increased the loot quality in secret room containers. Some of them are now guaranteed to have unique items.
- Vases as well as both common and wealthy sarcophaguses now contain less valuable loot.
- Temporarily removed unpopular or useless effects (such as resistances to rare damage types) from the list of possible enchantments.
- Changed the power of some enchantment effects:
• Bleed Chance, Damage Reflection: +5% > +7.5%
• Fire, Unholy, Move, Control, and Bleed Resistances: +5% > +10%
• Armor Damage: +25% > +33%
• Crit Efficiency: +20% > +25%
• Spells and Skills Energy Costs, Cooldowns Duration: -10% > -7.5%
- With certain exceptions, equipment higher than level 10 can no longer be found in graves. Drop rates for the rest of the valuable loot were increased.
- [Counterattack Mastery] No longer grants Off-Hand Efficiency if the main hand holds a shield.
- Decreased the base level range for the equipment sold by merchants.
- Fixed the Skeleton Crossbowman, which was technically armed with a bow.
- Defensive Stance now works as described.
- Skinning a dog now yields a pelt of the correct color.
- Fixed the bug preventing unlocked skills from being saved.
- Fixed the bug with the Sigil of Darkness disappearing prematurely.
- Fixed animals not displaying a visual indicator when entering a territorial state after being shot at.
-
0.6.1.9 - French Localisation
Sun, 7 March 2021
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Hello everyone!
We’re happy to announce that Stoneshard has been fully translated to French. The today’s update added French to the list of available localizations, making it eleven in total!
In the near future we also plan to make the game available in European Spanish and Korean languages. Stay tuned for the upcoming announcements!
Until the next time!
0.6.1.9 - Changelog
- Added French localisation
- Black Boar Inn celebration has ended
-
Devlog: Crime System
Sun, 2 May 2021
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Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about the crime and punishment system, which will be added with the “City of Gold” update, planned for the end of this summer.
Initially, we didn’t plan to add this feature so soon, however the random encounters system that we’re currently working on requires killable NPCs and, subsequently, a punishment for killing them. Other crimes are just a logical continuation of this option. Let’s start with reviewing the general mechanics.
Crime Mechanics
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/23f22a253eb85374812073309041dd361ad08b15.png)
Any unlawful action that you perform in front of a NPC is considered a crime. This includes:
• Disturbing the peace
. Opening containers that don’t belong to you, setting traps in public locations, throwing items at NPCs, using certain abilities (such as spells) in public, trespassing, and so on.
• Breaking a lock
. Attempting to pick or force open locked chests and doors.
• Theft
. Taking items that don’t belong to you.
• Livestock slaughter
. Killing animals that are considered more valuable (such as cows and horses) will result in a more severe punishment than killing cats and dogs.
• Assaulting an NPC
. Delivering a first strike counts as an assault.
• Killing or knocking NPCs out
. In case you decide to follow through with your assault.
• If you commit anything from this list (other than an assault or a murder) and don’t get caught in the process, this won’t count as a crime.
Punishment
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Every crime has a number of consequences:
• Reputation loss
. The amount lost depends on the severity of a crime. For instance, a murder can negate the Reputation gain from completing a few dozen contracts and will make the locals hate you.
It’s worth mentioning that the Reputation loss also affects your standing with the entire Faction, even if to a lesser extent. Therefore, if you frequently get caught stealing in Osbrook, the rumors will reach Mannshire and Brynn, damaging your Reputation there as well.
• Becoming wanted
. For the duration of being wanted, guards will try to fine or arrest you, and the local population will refuse to have any dealings with you, be it trading, giving contracts and tasks, or even talking. It’s also impossible to sleep and save your game in the settlements where you are a wanted person.
You’ll also become wanted in other settlements of the Faction, not just the one where you commit a crime, so it might be a good idea to wait it out in a neutral location or, in the future, with another Faction.
• Receiving a fine and serving jail time
. You can atone for your crimes by doing one of the following: pay a fine or go to jail. The amount you have to pay or the time you must serve depends on the severity of your crimes.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/897b8b7f4d5f85fcfd3da7cae67786a838cc21b4.png)
However, you can always refuse to cooperate, temporarily making the guards hostile. If you start losing a fight with them, you’ll be given another chance to surrender.
Jail
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/8312ef4865a348edec25555422dba2a53d48d85c.gif)
If you decide to save your money and go to jail instead of paying a fine, your sentence will depend on the amount and severity of your crimes - up to forty days. You’ll also experience it personally: all your items will be temporarily confiscated, and your character will be locked up in a cell. You’ll have access to a cot, which you can use to skip a day, and to a guard, which will bring you a daily plate of gruel and a chunk of bread to keep you from starving to death.
Spending time in jail will gradually increase your reputation up to Neutrality, reflecting your redemption. At the same time, the lack of practice will cause you to lose experience. However, you won’t lose much and you can’t regress in levels - you can only lose the experience accumulated towards your next level up.
Thievery
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/5442b6c1e3b8e749b58ff09166c1daaa1d6d81a3.gif)
Most containers in the settlements will now belong to Factions, and any item that you take from them will be considered stolen.
It won’t be possible to sell “borrowed” goods to traders in the same location - you’ll have to either move to another settlement, find a fence, or just wait for things to calm down. The duration of search for stolen items depends on their value - for instance, a stolen bucket will quickly be forgotten, while a piece of jewelry will have people looking for it for a long time. The same logic also applies to the severity of fines.
Murdering NPCs
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d8c4c30364566dea9ea9a7efe06afea88567291a.gif)
All NPCs outside of settlements will be killable - any patrol or a merchant that you encounter on the road can be murdered and looted for an immediate gain.
NPCs within the settlements will remain unkillable, since doing otherwise might potentially prevent the players from being able to progress. It would also require a huge amount of context-dependent dialogues, visual changes to the settlements, and so on. To sum it up, it wouldn’t be wise to spend so much resources on a feature that would be ignored by most players.
Although, it will still be possible to attack these NPCs - upon being brought down to 0% HP, they’ll become comatose, regaining their senses once their Health regenerates to a certain threshold. Doing so will count as a murder within the planned crime system. If you have the inclination, this will allow you to knock out village merchants and rob them of their crowns and a few items, but you won’t get to loot the entirety of their stock..
=========================================
That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!
-
Brynn Lore: Part II - Leaders
Sun, 23 May 2021
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Hello everyone!
Today we’ll share some of the lore coming with the “City of Gold
” update, planned for the end of this summer
. This time it’s about the most influential people of Brynn, whom you will have a chance to encounter. To better understand the context, we recommend checking out the previous lore entry.
Denvar Brie, the Guildmaster
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Unlike the rest of the Brynn elites, Denvar Brie is neither of noble birth nor possesses incredible riches. He was born in the family of a successful, yet common artisan, which makes the journey to his current standing even more remarkable.
Denvar has always been energetic and assertive. These qualities, in addition to his reputation as an outstanding weaponsmith, allowed him to claim the venerable title of the Grandmaster in the Blacksmith Guild, one of the most influential guilds in Brynn.
Despite his position of power, Denvar never forgot his roots. Although his lavish spending habits set him apart from simple craftsmen, he put a lot of effort into making their lot easier, something which no one in Brynn had ever done before. As a result, he gathered widespread support among common citizens.
The events of spring 427, when the freshly-formed Magistrate attempted to subjugate independent guilds by merging them into a single, easily controllable entity, only increased Denvar’s popularity, solidifying his place among the city leaders. Right now he’s the man representing the interests of every craftsman in the city, so both the local merchants and the nobility have to reckon with him.
Denvar is well-aware that he’s surrounded by enemies, and he’s also not too eager to openly confront other factions. No one knows what plans are brewing in his ambitious mind, but one thing is certain: he’s waiting for an opportune moment to strike a painful blow against his opponents, leaving them no chance to recover. For now his main weapon is a threat of mass strike, which he uses to gain further influence.
An otherwise enlightened man, Denvar has an open distaste for elves, whom he sees as the main threat to both his position and the prosperity of Brynn. Thanks to Jeon Ballar’s protection, elven goods recently took the city’s market by storm – there isn’t much that can rival their quality, and their price, while still fairly high, continues to drop with every weekly shipment of Ahjat weapons and Jibean jewelry unloaded in the Docs. If nothing changes in the next few months, many of the Guild’s craftsmen might lose their job.
Therefore, Denvar considers the House of the Azure Thread, the trade representative of the Jacinth Kingdoms in Brynn, his personal enemy. Many are afraid that if he ever becomes a ruler, he will not rest until Aldor is free from all traces of elven influence, even if it unleashes Jacinth armies upon the realm...
Jeon Ballar, the Comprador
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Throughout his entire life, Jeon Ballard has been incredibly lucky, starting with him being born in the wealthiest family of Brynn. A silk-cushioned childhood, a carefree adolescence, rowdy university years, an easy, profitable job in the merchant League – while others fell victims to intrigues and hardships, Jeon always appeared unscathed by misfortune.
The period of political infighting and instability, which followed King Etbert’s untimely death, brought ruin to many, but Jeon only benefited from it: if anything, that’s when his swift rise to the top began.
Brynn had long been discontent with the Crown, and the King’s death gave the conspirators, Jeon being one of them, a free rein. The meticulously planned overthrow was a success: the freshly-formed Magistrate seized the power, and Jeon managed to become its leader in just a few weeks, greatly assisted by the sudden murder of the previous burgomaster, something which he vehemently denies any connection to.
Knowing nothing of the military matters, Jeon was smart enough to delegate the control over the army to experts. Unfortunately, the sudden outbreak of the Crimson Plague robbed the Magistrate of its victory, leaving Jeon surrounded by power-hungry military commanders. Still, Jeon’s remarkable ability to drop meaningful hints and make promising concessions allowed him to firmly remain in his seat.
This can’t go on indefinitely though. The truce becomes shakier with each passing day, and it won’t be easy to finish off the Council, which had enough time to recover from its defeat. Perhaps this fear of an encroaching demise was exactly what forced Jeon to seek the help of the elves, whom Aldor has an age-long grudge with. For now their support isn’t very noticeable, but Jeon has big plans - after all, establishing closer ties with elven allies is where the profit is at. This trend, however, unnerves the rest of the Magistrate – very few people are willing to share money and power with outlanders.
Jeon’s luck might soon run dry… But who knows how many more tricks this genius of intrigues and compromises still has up his sleeve?
Arno di Berro, the General
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d68f1c8adb17b5def3120e2f4556d187d087d57b.png)
Poet. Warrior. Strategist. Leader. Duke Arno di Berro is an embodiment of true aristocracy, making it even more remarkable that he found himself a part of the republican Magistrate.
A scion of a noble family, which fled from the Bronze Isles, Arno di Berro was born and raised in Aldor. At the same time, he still feels like an outsider, making him as demanding to himself as he is to others. Some ill-wishers claim that Duke di Berro’s main goal in life is to become a better Aldorian than actual Aldorians – although one has to admit that if that is true, he has been quite successful so far.
Until recently, very few people knew the name of di Berro: he had an excellent education in the University and participated in many of King Etbert’s wars, but otherwise he was a completely unremarkable Brynn nobleman. After the monarch’s death, he became a major player in the Magistrate – the sudden cooperation between the haughty Duke and merchants and craftsmen, whom he had previously openly despised, came as a surprise to many, even his new allies. At the same time, no one in Brynn can deny that upon taking control over one of the city’s armies, Arno proved his loyalty to the Magistrate with his actions.
Under the skillful leadership of their decisive and fearless commander, the Magistrate forces successfully captured pro-royalist Maen and, after the Council launched an attack on the Southern front, marched back to Brynn, breaking the siege. All this earned the Duke a reputation of a war hero and the savior of the Magistrate. During the truce Arno also made great strides in reforming the military: under his command a ragtag army of mercenaries and militia transformed into a powerful force, ready to follow their leader to the end of the world.
Unsurprisingly, both the League and the Guild wish to garner Arno’s favor, however he believes himself to deserve much more than that. Too prideful to compromise and share power, the Duke doesn’t want to join forces with other Magistrate leaders, counting only on himself and his soldiers. At the same time, there is an increasing number of mysterious ships being met in the Docs by the Vanguard troops under the cover of night, so perhaps the usually straightforward Duke plays his own game, just like everyone else in Brynn.
Arno continues to proclaim his unwavering support for the Magistrate, and yet, judging by the fiery speeches he gives to his soldiers, his vision for the realm is much more different than what the Guild or the League have in mind. Proud and power-hungry, the Duke wishes to unite the land under a single banner, with him leading Aldor towards great victories. And even though Arno di Berro continues calling this new order a republic, will it actually be any different from the monarchy, which so many in the Magistrate died fighting against?
-
Devlog: Global Map
Sun, 8 August 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d2bfd90618236faf5c0919d5be20f113dd23e1c7.png)
Hello everyone!
It’s been a while since the last announcement! During this time, we’ve been working on lots of stuff: new enemies, locations, mechanics, quests, changes to combat, and other features - we’ll tell you about it all in a series of devlogs prior to the “City of Gold” release, planned for this October.
The first devlog will showcase the largest of the new systems: the global map.
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The global map is one of the most ambitious mechanics that we have ever worked on. It’s vital for implementing the proper scale and introducing the intended progression system, so that’s why it took the longest to make.
We experimented with multiple map sizes, settling on a size smaller than what we had originally intended - this way the map will be denser with points of interest and random events. In the “City of Gold” update you’ll be able to explore Brynn and its surrounding areas - it’s about 20% of what we plan Aldor to be on full release and ten times larger than the existing map.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f4346e241d89b53f5c66e1d5434cf3433f2bb3db.png)
The map generation uses a mixed approach: some elements are static, while others are randomized with each new playthrough. The static locations are mostly tied to lore, they include cities, villages, some story locations, mountain ranges, the coastline, and rivers (although rivers will also be randomized in the future; we’ll talk about them in greater detail in a separate devlog).
Most points of interest, dungeons and their types, forests, some bioms, and roads are procedurally generated, preserving the spirit of exploration even after multiple playthroughs.
In the future it’ll also be possible to use the caravan to travel across the global map, but it won’t be just an unlimited fast travel option. It’s more of a means to occasionally cross large distances rather than something you use to ride to a dungeon and back.
NAVIGATION
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/0c06e216a7aebc1a66d96e6168fe7b4222fc2e8d.png)
In a sense, the global map records your journey, only marking the locations you personally visit or hear about. The rest is concealed by the fog of war.
That’s why instead of replacing paper maps, the global map will complement them. You’ll still need to purchase paper maps in order to find points of interest and to navigate through new zones, comparing the information you learn from them with the global map.
Naturally, there’ll be other ways to learn about interesting locations (rumors, for instance), but paper maps will remain the most readily available and reliable option to do so. They will more or less work as notes - the large part of their function, such as pop-ups with tile descriptions, was moved to the global map.
(https://i.imgur.com/Yc14hsu.gif)
This function was greatly expanded as well: most locations now have lore descriptions, letting you better understand the game world. Abandoned carts, roadside shrines, graves, and other minor landmarks now have their own map marker. So does the player character, as it’s way too easy to get lost on such a large map without a character marker, especially after taking a long break from a playthrough.
Our ultimate goal is to make exploration exciting and unpredictable, and the world - vivid and more detailed. That’s why we also added many new points of interest as well as places where you can rest and regroup for a fair fee, such as lonely homesteads or roadside inns.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/fb641e89fd320e53eefa0a5e2d55838e87da9cea.png)
SYSTEMS
The global map has a few hidden systems under the hood, meant to improve the player experience and make the world more logical and believable.
The most important of them is the reworked progression of dungeons. Now that we aren’t limited by the map’s size, we can place many more dungeons on it. As a result, there’ll be only beginner level dungeons around Osbrook, which will prevent sudden difficulty spikes and will make levelling smoother and more measured.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/2e92134bee63b4df650036d47f2127c88c3b802b.png)
The dungeon respawn system was also reworked. First of all, it will take significantly longer for them to respawn: you’ll have to move between settlements upon completing all their contracts, otherwise you’ll waste a huge amount of time waiting.
The level of enemies you encounter in dungeons is no longer static - it can shift with subsequent respawns, making enemies stronger or weaker. However, it’s still limited by the zones’ level: even by the time you reach the endgame, you won’t be able to encounter rogue knights around Osbrook.
Some dungeons can only be found far from settlements - you’ll have to search for them on your own, as they don’t have contracts leading to them. The payoff is usually more than worth it: there you will find not only the strongest foes, but also the most valuable loot.
Another important factor is the Wildness
of an area. This hidden parameter influences many things: it increases the overall amount of animals, the chance of them spawning, and also reduces your chances to run into a random bandit group in the middle of the woods. This parameter is much lower next to cities and dungeons, so it will be a rare occurrence to come face to face with a bear or a huge wolf pack upon stepping outside of Osbrook. The wilderness factor also affects the chance of being ambushed: there’ll be less ambushes on distant roads and more of them near brigand Bastions.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/92514a276171b39d923853143325e909f7e64645.png)
There’s one more important addition - a new type of points of interest that can be called “dens
” or “habitats
”. These locations attract specific animal types, guaranteeing that you will encounter them there. Most large animals will have such locations: wolves, bears, moose, boars, etc. The habitats also increase the spawning chance for these animals in the surrounding map tiles, so discovering them can make hunting much easier. On the other hand, it’s best to exercise caution in your search - sometimes instead of a deer trail you can find a ghoul den or something even worse...
==================================================
That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!
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Devlog: Changes to Mechanics
Sun, 22 August 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/eef435d293229af1908d0603a1b988833e0d3277.png)
Hello everyone!
The City of Gold update is going to be the largest one yet not only in terms of content, but also the overall mechanics. The introduction of the global map will greatly affect the progression and will be the first step in making it work as originally intended - and that’s where tweaks to the mechanics come into play. Today we’ll address some of them in this devlog and tell you about every important change to the combat system.
Splitting Protection
Let’s start with the most important change: splitting the Protection stat between different body parts. The current Protection system is a remnant of those times when Stoneshard was envisioned as a simpler and shorter game. Every piece of armor increased the unified Protection stat by a certain amount, affecting all incoming strikes and allowing, say, plated boots to protect the entire body.
This resulted in a number of issues: the stacking of resistances and heavy armor was way too effective, allowing to almost entirely shrug off most enemies’ attacks. We decided to abandon this system: Protection, as well as Damage and Bleed Resistances, granted by each individual piece of armor, now affect only their designated body parts. Helmets only protect the head, cuirasses - the torso, and gloves - just the hands.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/16d40a2a7e50b1ac464ddbf0854aca6900f8753e.png)
This makes middle and late game combat noticeably deadlier, strengthens the role of individual pieces of equipment, and allows more flexibility in armor progression - before the City of Gold, heavy helmets only granted 2-3 more Protection than the mail coif, but now the difference is quite substantial.
Finding the balance between the offensive and defensive playstyles will become more important than ever: the heavy plate is safer, but takes a toll on Energy; on the flip side, light and medium armors provide less defense, but allow using skills more liberally.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/acdd973b56db9c0e0c21c2bf2e1843be8c4ae1b3.png)
The shown numbers are subject to change
Protection, just like Block Power, now also affects the incoming Magic and Nature damage, but only with 50% effectiveness: you’ll need 20 Protection to fully soak 10 Fire Damage.
Changes to Block
As you may have guessed, the Blocking mechanic was affected as well, gaining some extra depth. Meet the new stat: Block Power Recovery.
Before the rework, it didn’t really matter how hard or how many times you got hit on the shield: if your Block Power was high enough, you were completely invulnerable to enemy attacks. Now, however, Block Power is expended by blocking, representing the exertion and the loss of balance, and then slowly being recovered each turn.
Let’s say you have 25 Block Power and 20% Block Power Recovery. An enemy strikes you for 25 Damage: you block it, spending 25 Block Power, so you’re left with zero. After that, 20% Block Power Recovery replenishes you 5 Block Power: if you block another attack during the next turn, you’ll receive 20 Damage.
This way prolonged fights, especially against multiple opponents, will quickly drain your Block Power, so you’ll have to use your resources more strategically or rely on specialized skills.
Naturally, shields were affected by this change the most. They lost their innate Protection and gained higher Block Chance and Block Power to compensate for it. Other than that, shields were roughly split in three categories: light, medium, and heavy.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/220dafbb766c26b8b7bb1895ef1bdece760954db.png)
The shown numbers are subject to change.
• Light shields
have the lowest Block Chance and Power, boasting a large bonus to Block Power Recovery instead: they block limited amounts of damage, but they do so with reliable effectiveness. Certain Shield skills also grant them additional bonuses.
• Medium shields
are a jack of all trades: they have decent Block Chance and Power, but lack the bonus to Recovery, making them a balanced choice for defensive playstyles.
• Heavy shields
have a huge bonus to Block Chance and Power and can withstand some of the most devastating attacks. But woe to you if you run out of Block Power in the middle of a fight - heavy shields Recover incredibly slowly, so unless you invest into the specialized skill tree, you risk handicapping yourself with an unwieldy, heavy piece of equipment.
Accuracy Calculation
In the current version of the game, the hit chance formula is very simple:
Hit Chance, % = The attacker’s Accuracy - The target’s Dodge Chance
We decided to change it by splitting dodges and misses into two distinct categories: there’ll be two independent checks for the attacker’s chance to hit (depends on their Accuracy) and the target’s chance to perform a dodge.
At the same time, Accuracy over 100% still reduces the target’s Dodge Chance, and the negative Dodge Chance contributes to the attacker’s Accuracy.
Changes to Dodge
Now to the next important change - the new Dodge system.
Initially, Dodge Chance was a completely secondary stat, and we didn’t plan making dedicated Dodge builds a thing. This changed with the introduction of the Dual Wielding skill tree, when we tried adding some dodge-focused gear and the “Berserk Tradition” passive that granted a huge Dodge bonus to characters without armor.
That experiment wasn’t very successful. The issue with its current implementation lies in the “all or nothing” conundrum: you either take no damage or you take it all. Dodge builds revolve entirely around stacking Dodge Chance, running a very thin line between invulnerability and being borderline unplayable: sometimes it’s possible to consistently avoid all damage only to have your character annihilated by a single instance of bad luck..
To sum it up: Dodge builds ignored a large portion of available gear, mindlessly stacked a single stat, and were overly reliant on two key skills (Elusiveness and Berserk Tradition) - none of it worked with the rest of the game.
That’s why we listened to our community and changed Dodge in accordance with the suggestion made on our Discord server by @WatcherOfArabia, that was also supported by other players: instead of simply negating all damage, performing a dodge turns successful attacks
into fumbles
, and fumbled
attacks into misses
.
This way Dodge becomes more nuanced, functioning as an important stat with numerous applications. It can be combined with light and medium armors (their lower Protection is more manageable with the 50% Damage penalty on fumbled attacks) or with more aggressive playstyles that focus on applying Stagger
and Fumble Chance
debuffs with skills, passives, or certain consumables.
The “Berserk Tradition” passive was remade as well - it no longer requires you wearing no armor and has different mechanics and bonuses associated with it.
Other Changes
The rest of the changes aren’t that massive, but they are still worth mentioning:
• Most conditions and injuries were rebalanced to make them more distinct and to increase the influence they have on gameplay.
• Being knocked back into an occupied tile now applies Daze instead of Stun. This was done to prevent stunlocks and counteract the strategy of abusing doorways and corners, which is way too effective in the current version
of the game. Stun now grants a significant bonus to Control Resistance, which should also make stunlocks much less frequent.
• Some effects received a rework: Wetness, for instance, now has stacks that depend on the overall duration of the debuff. The longer you stay under the rain, the stronger the effect. Rain now also causes metal items to slowly degrade :)
• Skill trees received short descriptions with keywords, meant to help new players to quickly understand their theme and possible synergies..
• There were also some changes to main Attributes, but more about them later...
That’s all for now! Stay tuned: we’ll begin revealing the upcoming update’s content starting with the next devlog.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/47a3b6fcef2fbb4af61f5475dc9810bb46fc9d1e.png)
Until the next time!
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Devlog: City of Gold Release Date & The Latest News
Mon, 4 October 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/e2f99e12bcf198137ca1c1f8e146d9cb99995d1f.png)
Hello everyone!
Let’s start with the release date: as many of you might already know, the City of Gold update was moved to November due to a number of reasons. And today we’re ready to announce its exact release date - November 18. This date is final, so make sure to set up a reminder!
Now to the latest news. We’re currently working on bringing the city to life, setting up NPCs and implementing side quests, many of which will have multiple paths and long-term consequences. Even though we would be happy to give you details, it’s not possible without getting into spoilers, so we’ll let you discover the secrets of Brynn streets by yourself.
Here’s a teaser just to get you started. And in return we’ll tell you about many other things that will be added with the City of Gold:
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/daaa6a9c45530f5ebf89c863d195b575e6d78412.jpg)
We haven't yet finished setting up NPCs, so you can expect the end result to be much more lively.
Read on: Click Here (https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/2877228228749793707)
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Devlog: Changes to the Leveling System
Sun, 10 October 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/eb0f31b02582278904b34abb4576a1e13cf85087.png)
Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about changes to the leveling system that will be introduced with the City of Gold update.
ATTRIBUTES
As we observed choices made by players when building their characters, we found out the following things:
Players rarely spread points between multiple Attributes - both stat points gained upon leveling up are usually invested into a single Attribute to receive a more noticeable increase in power.
Primary Attributes affect too many secondary stats: it’s difficult to keep track of them for most players, and leveling usually comes down to focusing on 1 or 2 build-defining stats.
Some primary Attributes are way too important for certain archetypes while being pretty much ignored by others.
That’s why we decided to revise our old Attributes system:
All Attributes are now capped at 30 points
.
Each Attribute governs only two secondary stats
.
You only gain one stat point
upon leveling up, but its impact is now much more noticeable.
Each primary Attribute now also has thresholds
- upon reaching them your character will receive a powerful bonus to 3 additional stats. Each Attribute has 4 thresholds that you can reach - 15, 20, 25, and 30 points.
We noticed that many players enjoy investing into Perception for much-desired Bonus Range breakpoints - it’s one of the reasons why we’re introducing a similar twist to other Attributes, making leveling more engaging and providing players with goals to pursue.
The bonuses to characters’ starting Attributes were reduced.
(https://imgur.com/5Cm5HWc)
All these changes will require you to put more thought into building your characters - many important stats are only increased upon reaching an Attribute threshold, so you’ll have a lot of things to consider: shall you put your precious SP into Vitality to gain bonus Health? Perhaps it’s more worthwhile to invest into Perception for Accuracy and Crit Chance? Or maybe the best course of action is to continue pushing Strength, hoping that its bonus Damage will offset the characters’ shortcomings? The decision is yours to make.
Read on..... https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3005581668794326902
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Devlog: Rumor System & Artifacts
Mon, 8 November 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/8f8e27f6866dc25f59711f8d7d8da35327b1f78d.png)
Hello everyone!
The City of Gold is almost here! Before its release on November 18th, we plan to publish one more devlog with a summary of the update’s most important changes and additions. Today, however, we’d like to tell you about two previously unannounced systems.
Rumor System
Rumors are closely tied to the new global map. As you may recall from its designated devlog, the global map will be initially concealed in the fog of war that you need to clear by exploring the world.
The same principle applies to Points of Interest, the location of which will be hidden until you stumble upon them yourself or learn about them from rumors.
Rumors are scraps of the latest news, gossip, and other interesting information, mostly exaggerated and sometimes not matching the reality at all. This mechanic is already partially present in the game: most NPCs can be chatted up to learn their thoughts about recent events, although this feature currently doesn’t have any gameplay applications.
(https://i.imgur.com/KOi7ZRs.gif)
After the CoG update, talking with some characters will actually provide you with valuable information, usually hinting at nearby POIs, which will then be marked on the global map. Different types of Points of Interest will have their own rumors associated with them: you’ll be able to learn about nearby camps, hunting grounds, monster dens, unique locations, distant dungeons, and so on.
Keep in mind that sometimes NPCs will request payment for valuable rumors, so make sure to bring your gold purse when fishing for information. If you fail to learn anything useful on your first attempt, don’t be discouraged - you’ll be able to try again in a few days.
Artifacts
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/be92a8a1e310d57d992a2f377cf63fb7155a4f36.png)
Let’s talk about artifacts, a new type of loot with special properties. Artifacts are powerful relics of both recent and ancient past, some of them even dating back to antiquity. They’re usually imbued with mystical properties and can greatly benefit your character if you’re willing to sacrifice inventory space to carry them around.
Artifacts function as unique items: each of them can only be acquired once per playthrough. You’ll be able to find them in distant dungeons - dangerous locations situated far from settlements. These distant dungeons don’t have contracts associated with them, so you’ll have to either find them on your own or rely on rumors.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f0ab902482c87658f5bbfe8b67e9a0280033ef53.jpg)
In the future, we might introduce additional means of acquiring artifacts: you’ll be able to find some of them in special locations, and others - in secret rooms or during quests. But for now, here are some of the artifacts you’ll have a chance to encounter in this update:
Casket with St Wald Relics
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f3503bff4a5c53c4d69b4a8204eae4e47fa32624.png)
“St Wald, one of the first Aldorian saints, left his mark in history as a great preacher and an implacable enemy of heretics and the wicked. His relics are said to possess miraculous properties, capable of warding off the evil eye and cleansing malicious curses”
Effect:
grants +30% Unholy Resistance and immunity to the “Curse” effect.
Codex of the Triple Hand Order
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/25ff2d42d474712fdc447d7212ebeea10b359c96.png)
“This hefty tome is written in the Order's notorious code which no one has yet managed to crack. It's rumored that this book was blessed by all three Hands of the Host, and that it contains the full history of the Order and every mystery of creation they were privy to…”
Effect:
killing undead or Proselyte enemies has 25% chance to grant “Blessing” for 100 turns.
Nikos of Arpheon's Astrolabe
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/3b26159991952aa57df1d78ec42aae1683a51fe4.png)
“Nikos of Arpheon was perhaps the greatest seafarer known to the world. He was the first one to make a successful voyage around the Continent about a century ago. Even in the eye of Southern storms or amid icebergs of the North, Nikos's unparalleled skill as a navigator allowed him to always keep his ship on the chosen course”
Effect:
can be used on the surface during night time once per day. Upon activation, grants the effect of “Clear Vision” for 2880 turns, boosting Crit Chance, Accuracy, Vision, and Bonus Range.
Blessed Aquamanile
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/9b3d66589874b688da6cca6735d91b8f5f580db8.png)
“A bronze jug in the form of a lion, expertly crafted on the Bronze Isles by an unknown master. Somehow this aquamanile found its way to Aldor, where it was blessed by the Archtheurgist of the High Hieron himself to serve as an eternal source of water to those dying of thirst - whenever emptied, it miraculously refills itself”
Effect:
can be used once per day. Upon activation, sates 50% Thirst and also replenishes 25% Health and 15% Condition to each body part.
=============
That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!
Game
Stoneshard
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Devlog: Final Preparations
Wed, 17 November 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/d83a1d2ab61a794c8318998362ca8222d3a62c34.png)
Hello everyone!
The City of Gold update is soon to be released: the approximate time is 21:00 MSK, November 18th. Right now is a good moment to give a summary of the progress we’ve made, talk about the update’s new features and what will be added to the game until the end of the year, and also discuss our plans for the future development of Stoneshard.
Global Map and Rumor System
The City of Gold update will feature the long-awaited expansion of the game’s world: the old 17x11 map will be replaced with a 40x40 one - there’ll also be a new menu for navigating it. This map will be filled with numerous Points of Interest, including monster dens and some new unique locations.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f4346e241d89b53f5c66e1d5434cf3433f2bb3db.png)
As for finding these locations, you’ll need to make use of the new Rumor System - chatting with NPCs will occasionally provide you with valuable (and sometimes not so valuable) hints about places that are worth checking out.
Read on..... https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3119301148800909733
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0.7.0.0 “City of Gold” is out!
Thu, 18 November 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/de46bfa8f2e9348b11b72615c19a751a3ead4840.png)
MAIN ADDITIONS
- Global Map and Rumor System
The size of the game’s world has grown almost 10 times - from 17x10 tiles to 40x40. You’ll be able to track your journey across it with a new global map menu that will also feature a character marker.
In your travels you’ll have a chance to encounter many Points of Interest, including monster dens and a handful of new unique locations.
- Brynn
The first major city will open its gates before you. It consists of four separate districts, each with their own vibe and special traders.
- Saving on Exit
Your progress is now saved automatically upon exiting the game. However, these saves are deleted upon loading, so in case of your character’s death, you’ll be brought to the latest “hard” save made by sleeping.
- Rumor System
Instead of being marked on the map from the get-go, Points of Interests are now discovered by learning rumors about them. You’ll be able to learn gossip and news from certain characters - some of it will end up leading you to an interesting location.
- Crime System
Theft, assault, and disturbing order within settlements is now a punishable offense. The punishment includes fines, jail time, and being executed on the spot.
- Bodies of Water
The game’s world will now feature rivers, allowing you to fill a waterskin in the wild or just take a dip.
- Changes to Combat
- Protection values from different items no longer stack, instead affecting only the body parts they are actually equipped on.
- Fumbled attacks now have their Stun, Daze, Knockback, Immobilization, and Bleed Chance set to zero.
- Dodge Chance now turns successful melee attacks into fumbles, and fumbles - into misses.
- Block Chance received an additional sub-system: successful blocking now costs some Block Power, which takes time to recover.
- Changes to the Accuracy formula: Accuracy and Dodge Chance now have two separate rolls, but their extreme values (Accuracy over 100% and Dodge Chance below 0%) will still have an effect on each other.
- Improved Leveling and Trainers
- Decreased Stat Point gain per level to 1. Main Attributes cap at 30 points.
- Attributes grant larger bonuses to a smaller number of stats.
- Each 5 points invested into an Attribute grant a special bonus to three additional stats.
- Reworked the structure of every Ability Tree: each of them received more starting paths. Unlocking powerful spells and skills will now require you to first learn all the abilities connected to them.
- Abilities now have Attribute requirements as an alternative way of unlocking them.
- You can now learn the first tier of Ability Trees from trainers - for the right price.
- Artefacts
These are powerful relics of the past that possess unique properties - some of them require activation, while others grant their boon directly from your inventory.
You’ll have a chance to acquire them from distant dungeons - particularly dangerous locations, situated far from the settlements.
- New Enemies
Encounter three new enemy types: Crawlers, Harpies, and Deathstinger Swarms.
- New Throwables
Three new bombs: Nistrian Flame Flask, Spider Blood Flask, and Deathstinger Jar.
- Playable Lute
Recreate your favourite songs!
- 41 Steam Achievement
Will you be able to earn them all?
AND ALSO
- A special quest in the beginning of the game.
- Reworked dungeon progression.
- Most dungeons won’t have a fixed difficulty level - it can shift back and forth during subsequent repopulations.
- Added special distant dungeons: there are no roads or contracts leading to them. They have the most dangerous enemies and the most valuable loot.
MECHANICS
- Rebalanced most passives and some active abilities.
- Rebalanced all Injuries and Conditions.
- Being Knocked into an occupied tile now applies Daze instead of Stun.
- Fixed and rebalanced Durability - it now functions as intended.
- Bows now have an Accuracy penalty when shooting at targets within 1 or 2 tiles.
- Ranged weapons receive Accuracy penalty for shooting at distant targets: -2% Accuracy for each tile beyond half the maximum Range.
- “Sudden Lunge” and “Seize the Initiative” have an increased Range when used with a spear.
- “Seize the Initiative” now properly works with bows and crossbows, using the Range of an equipped weapon.
- Each firebolt from “Fire Barrage” now has a separate chance to hit.
- “Petrification” will now remove Bleeding.
- “Ensnarement” and “Immobilization” will either decrease Dodge Chance by 25% or set it to zero, whichever is more impactful.
- Tweaked caps of many secondary stats.
- Abilities’ hovers now properly display the Attributes that modify them.
- Increased damage from Knockback.
- Decreased the chance for curses to trigger their effect.
- Shouting now generates less noise.
- “Stun” will also grant Stun Resistance to reduce the possibility of stunlocks.
- “Wetness” now has stacks, the number of which depends on the duration of the effect.
- Dungeons will take twice as long to repopulate.
ENEMIES
- Birds can now be hunted.
- Rebalanced the Troll: decreased its Resistances and increased its Max Health. The Troll also gets weaker when low on Energy.
- The Restless received higher Bleed Resistance.
- Archers can now drop their melee weapons on death.
- Rebalanced the chance of enemy spawns - it now depends on the nearby dungeons, hunting grounds, and the hidden wilderness factor.
ECONOMY
- Rebalanced prices for most items.
- Increased the amount of valuables inside NPCs' homes.
- Rebalanced the price of arrows and bolts.
- Rebalanced money and reputation rewards for completing contracts.
- Tweaked reputation values.
- Rebalanced merchants’ stock.
- You can now request a starting weapon from the sergeant in Osbrook.
- Added 2 Catacomb and 3 Brynn-specific contracts.
- Changed rewards for completing tasks.
- Reduced the Mannshire scribe’s stock.
- Changes to the Troll quest: it can now be accessed only after reaching level 10.
ITEMS
- Added lots of new dishes.
- Added new items.
- Increased the base chance of triggering “Battle Rage” with Henbane.
- Antitoxin no longer completely removes Aftermaths from drugs, now only reducing them by half.
- Mindwort no longer completely removes Drunkenness, only decreasing its duration by a few turns.
- Increased the spawn chance for herbs.
- Added spoiled milk.
OTHER CHANGES
- Added pop-up speech lines for casting spells.
- Ability trees now have hovers with a short list of their strengths and effects.
- Numerous changes to in-game texts: item descriptions, characters’ bio, contents of treatises, etc.
- You no longer need to earn entrance to the Mannshire castle.
-
Hotfix 0.7.0.14 – Grocery Shop and Bakery
Mon, 29 November 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/ebb1c2403ce010eeb58de63cec938f3e055cdf2e.png)
THIS UPDATE IS SAVE COMPATIBLE!
MAIN CHANGES
- Added two shops to Brynn along with their own NPCs: Fat Yann’s Grocery Shop
and the Bakery
. You can find them in the Old Towers quarter (northeastern part of the city).
- Added a few secondary NPCs to Brynn.
- Added Long Bread
, Kipfel
, and a few other dishes.
- Hunting Grounds
have been fully implemented. You can find them in the previously empty Points of Interest.
- Dungeons can now properly change their level
upon respawning, growing more or less difficult in the process.
- It’s now possible to skip the Prologue
even if it hasn't been completed yet.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/43245ac11c8394b6edc552f2e27cec3bb9792518.png)
OTHER
- Increased the radius for rumors by 20% (NPCs can now give hints about more distant Points of Interest).
- Fixed the bug with the missing rumors for Camps and Hunting Grounds.
- Fixed the bug causing the character to skip a turn when performing a counter while dual-wielding.
- Fixed the bug with the missing chests in distant dungeons.
- Fixed the issue causing impassable tiles to be generated in secret rooms and in some doorways.
- Fixed the Prologue hints not working as intended.
- Fixed “Rune of Cycle” not working as intended.
- Enemies should no longer attack the obstacles that they can simply walk around.
- Enemies will no longer use charge abilities against targets in deep water.
- Guards will no longer follow the character into deep water.
- Fixed the inability to trade with a vegetable vendor in Brynn.
- Fixed the Mannshire carpenter’s dialogue.
- Fixed the issue preventing the character from using abilities after being affected by skills that put them on cooldown.
- Fixed the issue causing the text from other translations to appear in some localizations.
- Enemies can no longer spawn on impassable terrain on map tiles next to mountains.
- NPCs at the vineyard are now assigned to the correct settlement.
- Raised the cap for Magic Power to 250%.
- Reduced damage from Burning by 10%.
- Added a new sprite for Bread: it now occupies two inventory tiles.
- Certain items (such as nails and coal) were moved from the “Junk” category to “Valuables”.
-
Hotfix 0.7.0.16 - Custom Map Markers & More Fast Travel Destinations
Mon, 6 December 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/1e886610c4e9c91494f7be2b9a19aa2b69e959b2.png)
THIS UPDATE IS SAVE-COMPATIBLE
MAIN CHANGES
- Verren can now give you a ride to some additional destinations: the Ralph & Sons Inn, the Rotten Willow Tavern and the Oaken Barrel Brewery. You’ll need to discover these places first though.
- Added an option to place markers on the global map.
- It’s now possible to use a waterskin to pour water over yourself or surrounding tiles. This feature can be used to extinguish flames and reduce the duration of Burning.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/73e810313ce46ef82cc149067841a4227ba8b5b8.gif)
BALANCE
- Traveling with Verren now skips time in the same manner as does sleeping in a tavern: it will increase Hunger and Thirst, improve Bodypart Condition, although it won’t grant Vigor or improve Morale and Sanity. The amount of skipped time depends on the travelled distance.
- The composition of ambushes and random brigand groups is now more diverse.
- Block Power now scales with Strength rather than the character’s level. Starting Block Power was reduced.
- Tweaked Pyromancy spells’ damage in accordance with the updated armor system.
- Rebalanced secret rooms: their loot now scales with a dungeon’s level. Overall they’ll provide you with much more money and valuables. High tier unique items no longer spawn in low level dungeons’ secret rooms.
- Rebalanced Hunger and Thirst: reduced Hunger and Thirst gain from traversing tiles, skipping a turn, and attacking. Increased Hunger and Thirst gain from the Rest mode and casting spells. Reduced Thirst gain from shouting.
- Reduced items’ Durability loss from Wetness by 25%.
- All characters start the game with Peasant Shoes instead of Travelling Shoes.
- The Hazzun Celestial Sphere no longer grants the effects of Elusiveness and Vigor.
- Reduced the chance to ruin a pelt with Slashing Damage (slightly), Piercing Damage (significantly), and Crushing Damage (significantly).
- Reduced the influence of the wilderness factor on enemy and animals’ spawn rates: very low wilderness will no longer result in completely empty tiles.
- The duration of Burning can now be reduced by skipping a turn (the same mechanic as with freeing yourself from Ensnarement).
- The speed of reducing the duration of Ensnarement by skipping a turn is now also affected by Agility.
FIXES
- Removed the possibility of finding additional copies of already acquired artifacts.
- Fixed the error in the fog of war calculations that sometimes allowed revealing tiles through walls upon entering a dungeon.
- Fixed the incorrect trajectory for chopped heads.
- Fixed the combination of Saiga Horns and Lentil Soup appearing in containers more often than it should.
- Fixed “Seize the Initiative” always hitting its target when used with a ranged weapon.
- Fixed “Endurance Training” not triggering under certain circumstances.
- Removed the possibility of selling unidentified and cursed items to regular traders. Cursed items can still be sold to a certain NPC that was added in one of the previous hotfixes.
- Fixed enemies abandoning the chase quicker than expected.
- Increased the number of turns required for transitioning from the Territorial state to Hostile.
- Fixed incorrect formatting of the pawnbroker's opening line.
- Fixed Magic Resistance affecting Rending Resistance.
- Traders should no longer move around while you trade with them.
- Removed the possibility of repeating the dialogue about the brewery with Odar, preventing repeated Reputation loss from choosing certain lines.
- The dog at the mill no longer complains about the weather or tells you to move out of the way.
- Birds will now fly away if you miss a shot at them.
- Fixed some containers in houses not having an owner.
- Fixed the crash caused by opening a new container without closing the previous one.
- Fixed the possibility of moving around while sleeping.
- Fixed Two-Handed Swords’ treatises unlocking incorrect passives.
-
Hotfixes 0.7.0.18-0.7.0.22 - Changelog
Tue, December 21, 2021
- Curbed the inflation to reduce the amount of gold purses required for purchasing and maintaining high level gear.
- Rebalanced weapons’ Durability - most weapons will now require less frequent repairs.
- Reduced the amount of food dropped in Bandit dungeons.
- The money reward for killing the Troll is now the same as declared in the dialogue.
- The Royal Ranger Gambeson is now a unique item - its stats were adjusted accordingly.
- Starting enemies’ stats were tweaked to better work with balance changes to weapons’ damage.
- The map marker for the “Head to Brynn” quest is now placed on the correct map tile.
- Increased Reputation gain from bringing occult items to l’Owcrey.
- Increased the influence of Reputation on NPCs’ selling prices (-5%/-10%/15% > -10%/-15%/-20%).
- The power difference between low and high level Necromancers is now more apparent.
- Returned lockpicks to the Osbrook blacksmith’s stock.
- The Brynn merchant now sells gold purses.
- Fixed the bug causing higher level minibosses to spawn in low level Undead and Proselyte dungeons.
- Fixed “Crimson Gift” being applied to all enemy types in distant dungeons rather than just Proselytes.
- When performing a task for the Osbrook blacksmith, you can now also bring him Home-Made Swords.
- Fixed destroyed crates not dropping loot.
- Fixed the buying and selling prices for Barrels of Beer - trading in them is now profitable.
- Fixed the bug allowing Barrels of Beer to be bought for cheap and then sold at a higher price to the same character.
- Fixed the bug granting additional Crushing Damage to shield-wielding enemies’ attacks.
- Fixed the bug allowing to indefinitely stack Magic Power with “Baptism by Fire”.
- Fixed the bug causing minions in Necromancer rooms to spawn multiple times.
- Fixed some Brynn craftsmen not being able to repair equipment.
- Fixed the Mannshire milk trader’s missing stock.
- Fixed Forest Vipers' overly high spawn rates.
- Fixed the crash caused by Harpies’ passive.
- Fixed the crash caused by certain Brynn NPCs.
- Fixed “Precision” not working as intended.
- Fixed the bug causing you to lose all money when bribing the carpenter in Osbrook.
-
Devlog: Survival
Fri, 28 January 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/b51aa6111bb0ebd130a7a77370920d2d0c114b57.png)
Hello everyone!
Over the last couple months, we’ve received a lot of feedback and justified criticism about drastically increased travel times and long distances between Points of Interest.
We’d like to assure you that the current version of the global map is far from final. In addition to obvious tweaks to distances between locations, which will happen in the next major update along with the saves wipe, we also plan to implement a number of systems and mechanics focused on making the open world exploration less time-consuming and tedious. One of these additions is the Survival tree that will soon be introduced to the game.
The main purpose of this ability tree is to help your character weather the hardships of mercenary life, giving them a better chance of surviving the wilderness without a sizable stash of supplies. It’s worth mentioning that over the course of development Survival and Medicine ability trees were merged together, allowing us to remove unnecessary fluff and fully focus on the synergy between some of their skills.
Let’s start with the ability tree’s overall structure. It consists of 6 active and 5 passive skills:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/485d35758b5606ccd747467e5724fe2cf633bbe9.png)
Survival skills are acquired in the usual manner - first, you need to unlock them by finding a corresponding treatise or improving relevant Attributes, then you purchase whatever you need with Ability Points. There is a caveat though: the first tier of Survival is unlocked for every character by default.
On top of that, Survival skills have much lower Attribute requirements than other ability trees: in order to unlock the second tier, you’ll only need to invest 3 Stat Points into relevant Attributes, and the third tier becomes available right after you spend 5 SP.
Active Abilities
“Skinning”
was moved to the Survival tree where it belongs, and you’ll need to spend an Ability Point before you can use it. At the same time, we greatly increased the price of most pelts, making hunting so much more profitable.
With the exception of these tweaks, the skill remains the same - the chance to harvest a pelt still relies on the damage type you kill a creature with.
(https://i.imgur.com/I1vIr10.gif)
“Campfire”
allows you to start a fire at any suitable location. To do so, you’ll need four sticks - a new item that is aplenty in the woods. This campfire has the same functionality as the ones you find when exploring the world: it can be used for cooking, drying your clothes, and to empower some of the ability tree’s skills.
The campfires you make only exist for a limited amount of time: they go out after 6 in-game hours.
It’s the only skill in the ability tree that doesn’t need to be purchased with Ability Points - all characters start with “Campfire” already learned.
(https://i.imgur.com/BOaWkQk.gif)
“Make a Halt”
allows you to combine a pelt, a length of rope, and some straw to craft a new single-use consumable - a sleeping bag. Sleeping bags give you an option to sleep and save your progress in suitable locations far enough from dungeons, settlements, and points of interest.
Sleeping this way is rather uncomfortable and doesn’t provide the benefits of resting in an actual bed: you’ll suffer a penalty to Health Restoration, won’t replenish Morale and Sanity, and won’t receive the Vigor effect. Additionally, there’s always a distinct possibility of being ambushed by brigands or wild animals that can stumble onto you while you're asleep…
Investing into this skill is completely optional, and it is possible to purchase sleeping bags from some traders. Still, being able to craft them yourself will save you money and inventory space - it’s fairly easy to find the required items while exploring, and the materials themselves don’t take as much space as an actual sleeping bag.
(https://i.imgur.com/WWyo2ts.gif)
“Cauterize Wounds”
is great for emergencies: this skill allows you to instantly stop all Bleedings, suffering some Pain and slightly damaging affected body parts in the process. Using this skill will also temporarily increase your Bleed Resistance. This bonus becomes stronger and has a longer duration if there’s a lit campfire nearby.
(https://i.imgur.com/Smz2fq1.gif)
“First Aid''
teaches your character the procedures necessary to set a dislocated limb or clean a wound without outside help. This skill stabilizes all your Injuries, but raises Pain and reduces Morale.
If there’s a lit campfire nearby, this skill slightly improves the condition of Injured body parts.
(https://i.imgur.com/95PPSHN.gif)
“Will to Survive”
replenishes a small amount of Health and removes all physical and mental debuffs. This skill also affects persistent Conditions (effects caused by Hunger, Thirst, Pain, Injuries, etc), removing them for 10 turns.
If there’s a lit campfire nearby, using this skill additionally replenishes some Health for every removed negative effect.
Passive Abilities
(https://i.imgur.com/k4SzHEV.gif)
“Pathfinder”
improves the “Examine Surroundings” basic skill, granting it new functionality.
Firstly, when used on the surface, it allows you to spot tracks left by beasts and other enemy types, making it much easier to locate them on the map tile.
Secondly, “Examine Surrounding” lets your character to closely listen to what’s happening around them, displaying hidden creatures as question marks in a large radius. This skill works in dungeons as well, allowing you to better prepare for dangers that lurk behind closed doors.
And finally, “Pathfinder” greatly increases your character’s passive chance to hear nearby creatures.
Passive bonus:
+1 Vision
“Huntmaster”
significantly improves the chance to successfully harvest a pelt. In addition to this bonus, it allows your character to extract rare ingredients that can later be sold at a high price (in the future they will have alchemical uses). Right now there are three rare ingredients: Bear Fat, Crawler Eyes, and Harpy Stomachs.
“Huntmaster” also grants your attacks +15% Weapon Damage and 10% Crit Chance when fighting beasts. As a side note, the Ancient Troll counts as a beast.
Passive bonus:
+3% Accuracy
“Adaptability”
is a skill for those who want to shrug off anything that life throws at them. It passively improves the rate at which you recover from Pain and Intoxication, decreases the duration of Poisonings, Bad Trips, and Drug Aftermaths, while also removing Restoration penalties when using a sleeping bag. Other than that, “Adaptability” improves your Morale when resting near lit campfires.
Passive bonus:
+10% Fortitude and 10% Intoxication Resistance
“Austerity”
makes your character less reliant on food and water, raising the thresholds for negative Conditions caused by Hunger, Thirst, and Pain by 10% (these Conditions will activate only upon reaching 35% / 60% / 85% thresholds rather than 25% / 50% / 75% ).
This skill also decreases Hunger and Thirst gain by 20% and makes resting near campfires more beneficial, granting Healing Efficiency and restoring Sanity.
Passive bonus:
+15% Pain Resistance
“Ever Vigilant”
is perhaps the most “combat-oriented” skill of the Survival tree. Once learned, it lowers the Accuracy of enemy attacks by 5% and halves their Crit Chance (this is particularly useful when hunting bears).
It also halves the chance of ambush when using a sleeping bag, doubles the chance of evading a trap instead of activating it, and reduces the Vision penalty while in the Rest Mode.
Passive bonus:
+5% Dodge Chance
==========
That’s all for now. As mentioned above, the Survival tree will be added with the next intermediate patch, so you’ll soon have a chance to test it out for yourself!
-
Patch 0.7.0.24 - Year Two Anniversary (Survival Skill Tree)
Sun, 6 February 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/581cde9b14147b896864ab1351f887d9a95e21c9.png)
- Added the Survival tree
- it comes with 10 new abilities
.
- Added a new consumable item: a Bedroll
. Bedrolls allow creating single-use sleeping spots outside of dungeons, offering an additional opportunity to save your progress.
- Added new gear:
Pot Helmet, Visored Pot Helmet, War Hat, Baron Sabatons, Levy Bow, Curved Bow, Brotherhood of Ouroboros' Shield (unique), Shield of the Truth's Eternal Sun (unique).
- Added new abilities
to some animals:
Howl, Pack Sense, Dying Rage, Ramming Charge.
- Reworked loot generation rules
for containers. Loot generation now occurs when the world or locations are first generated instead of each time you open containers, removing the possibility of rerolling their contents.
- Tweaked sleep effects in different locations:
Tavern: 100% Restoration effectiveness, replenishes Psyche, grants Vigor.
Bedroll: 50% Restoration effectiveness (100% with “Make a Halt” skill), doesn’t replenish Psyche, doesn’t grant Vigor.
Camp: 50% Restoration effectiveness (100% with “Make a Halt” skill), doesn’t replenish Psyche, doesn’t grant Vigor.
Leprosarium: 100% Restoration effectiveness, damages Psyche, doesn’t grant Vigor.
The Watchtower Tavern (Brynn): 125% Psyche replenishment.
- Discovering new locations now grants 100 XP.
- Hands Efficiency can now exceed 100% when using a two-handed weapon.
- Picking up an item that doesn’t belong to you while being observed by an NPC will summon a dialogue with an option to either return said item to its owner without any repercussions or to keep it to yourself, which will count as a crime.
- Removed the basic Intoxication decay. Instead, Intoxication is reduced by expending Immunity.
- Immunity over 100% will now gradually decrease down to the 100% threshold.
- General resistances are now properly factored into locational resistances and are displayed correctly in the character’s menu.
- New effect type: Lingering. Lingering effects don't count as Physical, Mental, or Magical.
- The Osbrook’s sergeant now provides arrows or bolts when asked for a bow or a crossbow respectively.
- Increased the base price for most pelts.
- Reduced the spawn chance for leeches. Leeches can no longer spawn in sea water.
- Map tiles with rivers can now spawn wild ducks.
- Added willow trees to river banks.
- It’s now possible to gather sticks in the woods and use them to start fires.
- Made it possible to catch butterflies.
- Added new achievements.
- Improved optimization.
-
Devlog: The Current State of Affairs
Fri, 25 March 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/996d311de9e60fed433fe4aeed009b8be10d0122.png)
Hello everyone!
Today we’d like to tell you about the circumstances affecting our studio and the future development of Stoneshard. It’s been almost a month since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and it had a rather negative impact on the lives of our team. Let’s start with the most important part.
A significant portion of our team (our game designer, one of the coders, the promo artist) are Ukrainian citizens. The war caught everyone off guard: while some managed to quickly leave the war zone, others got stuck or simply didn’t want to abandon their homes. Right now these team members are in relative safety, but there are still issues with accessing the Internet and setting up a proper work space. There also wasn’t enough time to backup everything, so we lost some assets, although it shouldn’t set the development back too much.
Other than that, there are financial problems: as many of you already know, Steam no longer makes transactions with Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarus banks. Naturally, it affected our team as well, preventing us from receiving income from Steam. At the moment, we still have enough resources, but if we don't find a solution to this issue, we won’t have enough money to continue outsourcing the specialists who’ve been helping us with the game - this might noticeably slow down the rate of updates, even if temporarily.
As for the Russian members of our team, most of them are currently busy with moving to other countries, which will require some time. However, the overall situation is more or less stable, and we most definitely won’t stop working on the game. For now everyone contributes as much as the circumstances allow, but once the most pressing issues are resolved, we’ll continue developing Stoneshard’s at the usual pace.
Now let’s talk about more distant plans. Before the war, we already began working on an interim content update that was supposed to add interiors to key buildings on the Mint Square in Brynn. After that, we wanted to implement some of the long-planned city quests, and then - to start working on the next major update, “Rags to riches”, which was meant to introduce random encounters, a functioning Caravan, tweaks to contracts and the economy, and more.
The Mint Square interim update is already partially complete, so it will be released relatively soon. The rest of the original plan will have to be readjusted - we’ll make sure to share the details and post an updated roadmap once everything is said and done. All we can say for now is that some features will likely be added in a different order and that major updates might end up divided into smaller ones.
And finally, some teasers:
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/1f8730f6acf858ef3755c848bf3f59a5357ce8a7.gif)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/97bd2ef5f2d85987ac913aab604eb687cc050301.gif)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/97b52506951866ccc45ff118891168eae7875db3.gif)
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/35a196cc14202769b633ad8b7a3b623d5553403a.gif)
In conclusion, we’d like to say that your support and sympathy are extremely important to us right now. We love and appreciate our community, and we hope that this sentiment is mutual. Stay safe!
-
Devlog: Current Progress
Fri, 20 May 2022
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Hello everyone!
It’s been a while since our last devlog, so we’d like to share some details about what we’ve been working on.
In the previous entry we mentioned a plan to release an interim patch with the Mint Square’s missing interiors and NPCs. There’s been some adjustments since then: first of all, we decided to add new content not only to the Mint Square but also to the Docks.
Secondly, there were some tweaks to the timeline, so these additions will be a part of the next major update, which we haven’t yet chosen a name for. This update will also include some of the features that were originally planned for Rags to Riches and Wizard’s Fate. Here’s a list of things we’re working on right now:
- Next stage of the main quest
- it will wrap up the introduction sequence and will prepare players for the sandbox part of the game. After that, the main story will be put on hold until we finish implementing all the remaining mechanics and content.
- New magic school, Electromancy
, that has potential to deal high damage while offering some decent crowd control.
- New utility tree, Magic Mastery
- a worthwhile addition to any magic-focused build.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/79239b5e3f43f5a2c08ba80935769462aecadc3f.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/81d0e47e0d5eff96664a40af62bb405de6d40177.gif)
- Fatigue System
and supplementary magic mechanics
that will require mages to be more thoughtful about positioning and the way they spend their resources (including financial ones).
- Second tier of Proselytes
: ten new dangerous enemies that come with roughly 20 new active and passive abilities.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f2e2495514f9f0f2b816d40d69dc618cb8a81fb2.png)
- Several carefully designed Points of Interest, each of them boasting its own backstory.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/f3da222058e6fcf8cb3b98ae7230c781f81eb1c1.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/58adc415226bbdddedf6ab65e8a132e1ba49eeb5.png)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/99a1b568929535587ec3a3f289c1fe92e4330c58.png)
- Caravan stop
, which will provide you with a place to save your progress and store your items. As for global map traveling, we plan to add this functionality in one of the subsequent major updates.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28578038/01bc8f38dedefa89eac1755e3cb25a31663aa900.png)
- Folios, a new type of valuable loot that will give you an opportunity to learn more about the game’s world as well as gain some experience points.
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- New content for the Mint Square
(the Cathedral, the University, a bank, a printing house, the Golden Grain Inn, Azure Thread Tradehouse) and the Docks
(the Alchemical Emporium of Curious Goods, a dockside store, the Close Harbor Tavern, and a bathhouse) that we already mentioned.
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- Something cool and unexpected
that will be revealed alongside the announcement of the update’s release date.
The ongoing war still causes certain financial and organizational issues, so we can’t guarantee that everything mentioned in this devlog will be a part of the next major update, but we’ll do our best to make it happen nonetheless. We’ll tell you more details about the new additions in future devlogs, so stay tuned and follow the news!
The update’s release date will be revealed in a separate announcement once we complete the bulk of the work on new content. And after the update is out, we’ll also revise our Development Roadmap and publish an up-to-date version.
That’s all for now. Until next time!
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Devlog: Fatigue and Magic System
Sat, 9 July 2022
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Hello everyone!
We’d like to begin today’s devlog by making an important announcement. The upcoming major update, titled as “Forgotten Lore”, will be released this year on August 5th.
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It will include the following:
• The long-awaited surprise that we promised some time ago - a new boss
! Similarly to the Ancient Troll hunt, this quest can be acquired in a location of questionable repute after you reach a high enough level.
• A new quest, “Gwynnel’s Answers”, which will conclude the opening sequence of the main story and send you off to explore the open world.
A quick reminder - for the time being, this quest will be the end of the main questline. We plan to focus on the overarching plot only after we finish implementing the necessary systems and mechanics.
• New magic school, Electromancy, which will allow you to master dangerous and unpredictable lightning spells.
• New utility tree - Magic Mastery. We’ll tell you more about it in the next devlog.
• Several new points of interest.
• A large portion of the remaining Brynn buildings: the printing house, the House of the Azure Thread, the Bank of Brynn, the Golden Grain Inn, the Cathedral, the University, the Close Harbor Tavern, the Alchemical Emporium of Curious Goods, and a dockside store.
• New enemies: 13 new types of Proselytes(including two minibosses), as well as Gulonsand Young Trolls.
• New mechanic: Fatigue. More details below.
• New magic mechanic, Backfire, and a few additional magic stats. More details below.
• New loot type:
Folios
. These texts provide information on various aspects of the game’s lore. Reading them also grants some Experience.
• Caravan Stop
that can be used for resting and storing your items. Caravan travels will be added in subsequent major updates.
• New biome, seashore.
• New items.
As you may see, one of the largest Stoneshard updates is almost upon us. To ease the wait, we’d like to share more details about two new systems that will be added in “Forgotten Lore” - Fatigue and Backfire.
FATIGUE
Fatigue is one of the few remaining survival mechanics that we plan to implement. It has a number of important gameplay functions:
• Create an additional layer of planning and character management.
• Increase the importance of sleeping (right now it’s only used for saving the game).
• Boost the value of certain consumables such as stimulants and exquisite foods.
Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3352382812588459185
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Devlog: Magic Mastery
Tue, 26 July 2022
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Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog, we’ll tell you more about the second ability tree, Magic Mastery, which will be a part of the next major update - “Forgotten Lore”, to be released on August 5th.
Magic Mastery is designed to be a highly impactful support tree, useful to any mage build. As a result, its abilities are mostly focused on two things: increasing the effectiveness and safety of your own spells and countering enemy magic.
To better understand our design choices, we highly recommend you to check out the previous devlog - it contains important details about the upcoming changes to the Magic System.
OVERALL STRUCTURE
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Magic Mastery consists of 12 abilities: 6 actives and 6 passives. The ability tree can be roughly divided into two paths: the left one mostly targets pure mage builds, while the abilities on the right have a lot to offer to hybrid characters.
Active Abilities
Seal of Finesse
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Activates an effect that lowers Fumble and Backfire Chances, reduces Cooldowns Duration, and speeds up the decay of Backfire Damage. When used, this spell also vents a large amount of already existing Backfire Damage.
The Seal works similarly to Weaponry stances: the number of the effect’s stacks increases with every passing turn, but decreases when your character moves to another tile.
Seal of Power
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Activates an effect that grants major bonuses to Magic Power, Weapon Damage and a bit of Bonus Range. But that’s not all: whenever your character uses a specialized spell, the effect transforms into the Seal of a corresponding Magic School with its own unique bonuses and has its duration slightly prolonged.
For instance, Seal of Pyromancy grants Pyromancy Power, a fiery enchantment for your weapons, and a boost to Crit and Miracle Chances. In addition to Electromantic Power and Shock Damage on strike, Seal of Electromancy reduces Backfire and Fumble Chances. Seal of Geomancy comes with a bonus to Geomantic Power and Block Chance as well as faster Backfire Damage decay and lower Damage Taken.
Seal of Insight
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This Seal reveals a few places of power in a small area around the caster. When the character occupies an empowered tile, they gain Magic Power, Miracle Chance, Energy Restoration and have their Spells’ Energy Cost reduced. The effect persists as long as the character remains in place, growing in power with each passing turn and getting weaker with each cast spell.
This means that if you plan to cast a lot of spells within a short period of time, it might be a good idea to make use of places of power along with Seal of Finesse. This tactic comes with a price though - you’ll have to sacrifice your mobility for it to work.
Seal of Cleansing
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This spell allows you to remove all magical and physical effects, both positive and negative ones, from the main target and everyone adjacent to it. Additionally, the spell extinguishes burning tiles, clears puddles of acid, unholy blood, and magma, and also removes runes and other magical entities. Each removed effect or object replenishes a small amount of energy to the caster and reduces their active Cooldowns.
If the caster targets themselves with the Seal or is affected by its AoE, they gain Miracle Chance and reduced Damage Taken for each removed positive effect and are applied with reduced damage Resistances for each removed negative effect.
Using the Seal on magical creatures, such as the Undead and Wraiths, temporarily increases the damage they receive.
Seal of Reflection
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This powerful defensive buff not only increases your character’s Resistances to all types of damage but also reflects* half the damage received from melee attacks. And most importantly, while under the effect of the Seal, all spells aimed at your character will be redirected to a random target within Vision (if there is one).
* - there were some tweaks to the Damage Reflection mechanic: the damage will now be reflected before Protection or Resistances are applied, which greatly increases the effectiveness of this stat.
Seal of Shackles
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The ultimate Magic Mastery spell applies a powerful Seal that significantly reduces the target’s Energy Restoration and increases its Skills’ Energy Cost, Cooldowns Duration, and Fumble Chance.
While under the effect of the Seal, enemies can’t use spells, and each ability that comes off cooldown will burn their Energy (scaling with its Energy Cost) and deal Arcane Damage for the same amount.
Passive Abilities
Precise Movements
Investing Ability Points into specialized Magic Schools reduces Backfire Chance of their spells.
Remaining on the same tile gradually lowers Backfire Chance.
Dissipation
Each point of received Magic or Nature Damage replenishes one point of Energy and grants a small stacking bonus to Magic and Nature Resistances.
Body and Spirit
Spellcasting generates 20% less Fatigue. By 20% reduces Sanity loss from Backfired spells.
Lingering Incantations
Increases the duration of all magical effects - this includes Areas of Effect created by magic, such as magma or ball lightning.
Thaumaturgy
Grants all spells a bonus to Miracle Chance and Miracle Power. Performing a Miracle provides a stacking reduction to Backfire Chance and Backfire Damage.
Arcane Lore
Grants a small bonus to Magic Power for each learned magical ability*, including Magic Mastery actives and passives.
* - In the current version of the game, this effect exists as Jonna’s starting trait. It will be changed in “Forgotten Lore”: Jonna will receive Magic Power for reading magical treatises, and each learned magical ability will permanently increase her Experience Gain. This is the first of many changes to the preset characters’ starting traits that will arrive with the fully fledged Trait System and Character Creator.
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That’s all for now: we hope you liked these new abilities and will soon make them a part of your newly created characters’ builds. Make sure to follow the news, it won’t be long until the update is released!
Game
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Hotfix 0.8.0.18 - Changelog
Sun, 20 November 2022
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FIXES
- Fixed the NPC in the Order’s Prison not appearing on some saves.
- Fixed the inability to interact with the Boulder Circle on some saves even after performing all the prerequisite actions.
- Fixed Deathstinger Swarms having 100% Piercing Resistance.
- Fixed tier 4 Electromancy and Magic Mastery treatises spawning only in one specific distant dungeon.
- Fixed “Piercing Shot” not benefiting from “Taking Aim”.
- Fixed magic missiles being affected by the same close range Accuracy penalty as bows.
- Fixed Agility not affecting Backfire Chance.
- Dirwin’s unique trait should now work as intended.
- Fixed Anmarraks not spawning in distant Catacombs.
- Fixed “Keep Them Coming” instantly removing the effect of “Mighty Swing” granted for killing enemies.
- Fixed the incorrect loot in some secret rooms. Increased the amount of loot spawning in secret rooms’ chests and sarcophaguses. Added guaranteed loot to certain secret rooms.
- Fixed the incorrect loot in the Catacombs’ containers. Church-themed valuables should now appear more frequently.
- Fixed Brigand Geomancers and Electromancers dropping incorrect treatises.
- Fixed the occasional crash caused by using “Chain Lightning” in certain circumstances.
- Fixed the occasional crash caused by Harpies’ “Peck”.
- Fixed the crash caused by moving to another location while under the effects of “Will to Survive”.
- Fixed “Will to Survive” checking for incorrect conditions.
- Fixed “Recharge” granting its bonuses before it’s actually learned.
- Fixed “Pathfinder” granting its bonuses before it’s actually learned.
- Fixed the duration and stacks of “Maneuver” not adding up as intended.
- Fixed “Offensive Tactic” being able to indefinitely stack Crit Efficiency.
- Fixed the incorrect duration of the Damage Taken debuff applied to the Ancient Troll upon interrupting its “Troll Regeneration”.
- Fixed “Coordinated Advance” reapplying its bonuses each time the character enters the same location, potentially resulting in enemies receiving a massive damage boost.
- Fixed the effect of “No Retreat” not being removed when moving to a different tile.
- Fixed the possibility of stacking the effect of “Taking Aim” with “Precision”.
- Fixed “War Cry” receiving bonuses for every object and piece of furniture within its area of effect. Fixed the ability’s missing damage.
- Fixed the glitches occurring with the Servant in the Golden Grain when she delivers breakfast.
- Fixed the Tanat's Skull raising Fumble Chance instead of lowering it.
- Fixed the occasional crash caused by purchasing rumors from the Fence.
- Fixed some of the Restless being able to feel pain.
- Fixed Rotten Boiled Eggs’ incorrect sprite.
- Fixed the inability to eat or cook Harpy Eggs.
- Fixed some treatises granting incorrect amounts of XP when read.
- Fixed some high tier Geomancy spells having incorrect Attribute requirements.
- Fixed the incorrect price of renting a room in the Rotten Willow when attempting to pay for it on the second floor of the tavern.
- Fixed the inability to reduce the duration of “Ensnarement” by skipping a turn when it’s applied by Crawlers.
- Fixed the bug allowing extreme Intoxication to drop Immunity below zero (which then prevented it from being raised).
- Fixed the inability to swap between loadouts while interacting with a Backpack or the Caravan Storage.
- Fixed the bug which, upon loading a save, spawned incorrect loot in graves.
- Fixed the possibility of placing a Backpack inside another Backpack.
- Fixed the missing “rotten” state of Gray Crabs.
- Fixed enemies not having a cap on their Weapon Damage and Damage Taken.
- Fixed issues with the barrels in the Rotten Willow.
- Fixed issues with abandoned carts’ generation.
- Fixed issues with some of the Restless’ shadows.
- Fixed various visual bugs in Brynn.
- Fixed the sprite of one of the Craftsmen in the Guild Quarter repeatedly flickering as he attempted to enter the building.
- Fixed Brynn guards being able to sometimes step inside walls.
- Incense now counts as a Valuable.
BALANCE
- Numerous tweaks to various items’ stats*.
- Reduced most weapons’ Armor Penetration - this change affects enemies as well*.
- Reduced most weapons’ penalty to Skills Energy Cost*.
- Rather than being an universal stat, Bleed Resistance from armor now works as it was originally supposed to, providing its benefits only to specific body parts.
- Added Bleed Resistance to most pieces of armor*.
- Certain stats are now less impacted by the Dual-Wielding penalty.
- Magehunters now spawn in higher tier dungeons.
- Magehunters no longer have access to “Against the Odds” and “Seize the Initiative”.
- Added new abilities to some Proselytes.
- Increased the amount of loot in distant dungeons’ boss chests.
- Reduced the effectiveness of most Staff passives.
- Rebalanced One-Handed Axes passive abilities.
- Rebalanced Two-Handed Axes passive abilities.
- Tweaked Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces abilities to smoothen the difference in their impact and efficiency.
- Reduced the minimal possible value of Block Power Recovery to 1% (from 5%).
- Fixed the overly high chance of “Petrification” to apply its effects. As a baseline, a character with unmodified stats will need a buff from three runic boulders to raise the Petrification chance to 100%. This chance can now be decreased by the target’s Magic Resistance. Also increased the spell’s Damage over time and its Cooldown, but decreased its Energy Cost.
- Numerous tweaks to the AI’s usage of abilities.
- Casting spells now increases Backfire Damage by 30% instead of 20%.
- Tweaked the effects of some enchantments and curses.
- Perception now has 50% higher impact when passively discovering secret rooms.
- Changed the loot-generating algorithm for distant dungeons' boss chests: rather than performing two separate 35% rolls to spawn a Unique and an Artifact, chests will have 50% chance to spawn a Unique. If this roll fails, you'll be guaranteed to find an Artifact instead.
* - these changes won’t affect already saved items.
UI & UX
- “Maneuver” now correctly grants the bonuses listed in its hover.
- Removed the mention of a non-existing Aftermath from Stardust’s hover.
- “No Mercy” now correctly grants the bonuses listed in its hover.
- Updated the hover of “Claw Swipe” - it now has a description of the skill’s hidden mechanic.
- When interacting with a Lute, the “Use” line in its context menu will now appear as “Play”.
- Rather than recover Reputation incrementally with each day spent in jail, you’ll now instantly receive the full amount once you’re done serving your sentence.
- Learning “Austerity” now changes the debuff thresholds listed in the hovers of Thirst, Hunger, and Intoxication.
- The Hostess in the Close Harbor should now have her role correctly displayed.
- Fixed the “Mindwort” dialogue option being displayed incorrectly during “From the Cradle to the Grave” quest.
- Made some improvements to the camera edge panning option.
- The Turkish localization is now up to date.
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Devlog: Settlement Outskirts & New Bags
Thu, 30 March 2023
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Hello everyone!
The last couple of months our team has been working on lots of new content: the long-awaited Caravan, the previously highlighted rework of the Dungeon Generator, and dungeon and settlement modifiers that will be a part of the upcoming Contract System rework - speaking of which, today we’d like to elaborate on some of its elements, namely Outskirts locations.
Outskirts are a new type of Points of Interest that will be introduced to the game with the next major update, “Rags to Riches”. Located a few tiles away from settlements, they still act as their continuation of sorts
Their main purpose is to add more variety to the basic contract loop and facilitate early game exploration. Most Outskirts will usually offer you the following things:
A spot to save your progress.
Access to one or more traders and craftsmen who will sell vital consumables, fix your gear, etc.
A chance to interact with new NPCs who can offer you contracts or give rewards for their completion.
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It’s fair to say that granting alternative access to contracts and rewards is perhaps the Outskirts’ most important function. After “Rags to Riches”, village Elders won’t be the only ones in the contract business, the following three new NPC types - Officials, Captains, and Couriers - will be able to participate as well.
Their main difference from Elders lies in the rewards they will offer:
- Captains
won’t pay as much, instead providing extra Reputation with settlements you complete contracts for.
- Officials
will split the Reputation boost between all settlements of their faction (for instance, completing Osbrook contracts will slightly improve your standing with both Brynn and Mannshire).
- Couriers
won’t actually hand out quests, instead giving rewards for completing contracts that require you retrieving certain items. Bringing those directly to a Courier will earn you extra gold.
Additionally, contract rewards can be received from any of these NPCs regardless of your initial quest giver, thus breaking the routine of walking the same roads over and over again. So instead of having to stick to the “settlement-dungeon-settlement” route, you’ll be able to receive a contract in a village, clear out its dungeon, get your reward in a nearby Outskirt, grab a new contract there, sell your loot and replenish supplies (optionally), then head straight to the next dungeon.
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All Outskirts can be roughly split between these three categories:
- Military Camps and Outposts
. This is where you’ll find Captains and, most likely, someone to fix your gear and sell you medicine and ammunition.
- Trade Posts and Production Sites
. Their main role is selling special goods that can be transported to other settlements via the Caravan and sold at a profit. An example of such a site would be the Osbrook Mill or the Mannshire Winery, which many of you are already familiar with. This is where you may also encounter Officials, who are tasked with overseeing the production.
- Homesteads and Roadside Inns
. These locations will offer a hearty meal, a place to catch some shut-eye, and a chance to meet a Courier, should the need arise.
To better illustrate the system, here are some of the new Outskirts:
Osbrook - Roadside Tower
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Not wanting to be caught off guard if the Council suddenly breaches the truce, the Magistrate took it upon themselves to restore the web of outposts and signal towers that now covers the entirety of the Brynn March.
Osbrook - Drunken Woodsman Inn
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The Drunken Woodsman is a safe haven for any hunter whose trade brings them close to Osbrook.
Mannshire - New Orchard
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The war gave the best cidery in Aldor little time to react: its previous owners couldn’t save neither themselves nor the flourishing gardens, taking the ancient recipe of their specialty beverage to the grave. But not all hope is lost: the new proprietors of the New Orchard are determined to do everything in their power to restore this place to its former glory.
Mannshire - Southern Outpost
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This encampment was originally established by Duke di Berro during his brazen counterattack against the Council army. It’s not nearly as large as it used to be, but it still plays an important role in bringing order to the Magistrate-controlled lands.
It’s worth mentioning that the existence of Brynn contracts and dungeons is only temporary (in the future there’ll be an entirely new way of gaining city Reputation), so it won’t have Outskirts in the gameplay sense of the word. At the same time, you can expect a certain other location to receive its share of Outskirts POIs…
New Backpacks
Let’s move onto the next addition planned for “Rags to Riches” - a wide selection of new bags and their overall rework.
Right now the game features just one backpack type that offers as many slots as it occupies in the inventory - this was done to prevent exploits associated with carrying multiple backpacks.
In “Rags to Riches”, all bags and backpacks will become much more capacious. As a tradeoff, you’ll have to equip them first before storing any items, and they’ll have to be emptied before you can place them in the inventory. These combined tweaks allowed us to create a bunch of new backpack configurations:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//28578038/d29a26bea05fc461612c251e34fcff632f0aaed6.png)
Medium Backpack
grew in capacity and received sizable side pouches.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//28578038/14948a40da4181503824ca2c05cb592680fa4d73.png)
Small Backpack
isn’t particularly roomy, but it’ll be much easier to obtain than other bag types.
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Field Surgeon Bandolier
- a solid choice for anyone who wants to carry lots of meds and other consumables.
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Herbalist Satchel
allows you to not really worry about precious inventory space while transporting large amounts of potion flasks and other vessels or gathering important herbs.
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Hunting Backpack
is meant to easily fit a few pelts and can be used to comfortably carry a bedroll.
Treasure Seeker Backpack
will greatly improve your carrying capacity, although its bulky frame will do no favors to your agility and finesse.
On top of all that, it will also be possible to store single cell treasure items in common Purses.
And finally, here’s a teaser for the much-anticipated Armor ability tree that we’re currently working on as well:
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That’s all for now. Until next time!
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Devlog: Armored Combat and the Equipment III Update Announcement
Tue, 2 May 2023
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Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll take a look at the new ability tree - the long awaited Armored Combat. We also have a surprise announcement to make.
Initially, we planned to add Armored Combat with the next major update, “Rags to Riches”. But since there’s still a lot of work to be done, and it’ll be a while before “Rags to Riches” is released, we decided to make this one ability tree a part of the previously unannounced Equipment Update III, which will introduce many new pieces of armor for mages and hybrid builds.
On top of all that, Equipment III will feature various tweaks to half the existing abilities. There was a lot of negative feedback regarding Ranged Weapons, Warfare (former Combat Mastery), and Shields, so these ability trees in particular were changed the most. There’ll also be certain QoL improvements, such as reworked skill hovers and a better system for skills classification. The exact details will be revealed in the patch notes.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//28578038/f8462e806a028018e70b66304ca68256ada2ffe3.png)
We aim to release the Equipment Update III on May 16th. Please take note that this interim update won’t feature new bags, reworked Dungeons, the Caravan, and everything else that was explicitly presented as a part of “Rags to Riches”. The exact date for the latter will be announced a short time before its release. Another thing worth mentioning: the Equipment Update III will be compatible with your current save files.
Now let’s move onto the new ability tree. Armored Combat consists of 8 skills, spread evenly between actives and passives.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//28578038/d538be60aafa39348115ee86041607cec40d9297.png)
While conceptualizing Armored Combat, one of our goals was to make it useful to all armor types, both heavy and light.
As a result, its skills are designed to dynamically change depending on the equipped armor. This mechanic bears some resemblance to the one used by Shields, although the differences between armor types’ effects are significantly more noticeable.
Light armor adds bonus Dodge Chance to the skills’ effects or otherwise improves the effectiveness of evasion. It also allows using Armored Combat skills more frequently.
The main drawback of heavy armor is its hefty penalties to Max Energy, so its changes to the ability tree’s skills are focused on counteracting them in one manner or another.
Medium armor offers a compromise between Energy efficiency and Protection. For the most part, it doesn’t require any bonuses to be effective, and wearing it usually won’t modify Armored Combat skills in any way.
Read On: https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3685676362465959270
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0.8.2.3 Content Patch - Changelog
Fri, 15 September 2023
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MAIN CHANGES
- Added 9 new enemy types
: Accursed Ghast, Ancient Ghast, Putrid Restless Soldier (2H Axe, 2H Mace, and Halberd variants), Wraith Monk, Wraith Cleric, Wraith Squire, Wraith Sergeant, Wraith Templar, and Wraith Commander.
- Added 5 high level minibosses
. Undead: Ritualist, Revenant Commander and Wraithbinder. Proselytes: Brander and Juggernaut.
- Added 12 new enemy abilities
.
- Added paper maps
. Using them creates an outline of a specified area on your global map. Paper maps can be purchased from elders and governors (additional maps become available after you reach Benevolence with their settlement) or found as random loot in Mannshire and Brynn dungeons.
- Added a new artifact
: Barbados the Lame’s Atlas of Aldor. Just like other artifacts, it has a chance to appear in distant dungeons.
- Added a Statistics tab
(can be accessed through the Journal menu).
- Refactored the passive abilities
exclusive to the player character, which made it possible to assign them to enemies.
- Fully reworked the enemies’ Will to Fight mechanic
. The new version basically works as a gauge that can be affected one way or another through a series of random checks. And once a creature’s Will to Fight drops to 0%, it is guaranteed to start fleeing.
The list of conditions and situations that can potentially affect a creature’s Will to Fight:
The creature is high on Health (gradually restores the creature’s Will to Fight depending on its current amount of Health).
The opponent is low on Health.
The opponent is Injured, Bleeding, in Pain, or affected by certain other negative effects.
There’s an ally within Vision (increases Will to Fight depending on the ally’s level).
The creature is low on Health.
There’s a significant level difference between the creature and the opponent.
The level of the character’s equipment is much higher than the creature’s level.
The creature is Injured, Bleeding, in Pain, or affected by certain other negative effects.
The creature loses Health due to the opponent’s attacks and abilities.
Allies receive Injuries within Vision.
Allies start fleeing within Vision.
Allies die within Vision (the impact depends on an ally’s level and whether their death was a result of a critical strike or miracle-casted spell.
GAMEPLAY AND BALANCE
- Rebalanced most enemies to maintain their power on roughly the same level as it had been before they gained access to additional passive abilities.
- Rebalanced the Experience gain from killing most enemy types - high level enemies (and minibosses in particular) will now yield significantly more XP.
- Changed or updated the following enemy abilities: “Curse of Decay” (former “Curse”), “Curse of Agony” (former “Curse of Weakness”), “Desecration” (former “Bolt of Darkness”), “Unholy Blessing”, “Lesser Ritual of Resurrection” (former “Resurrection”), “Blasphemous Sigil” (former “Sigil of Darkness”), “Spectral Haunting” (former “Dispersal”), “Soul Sacrifice”, “Grave Chill”, “Sacrificial Blood”, “Mark of the Feast”, “Draining Sigil” (former “Vampiric Rune”), “Blood Scent”, “Neverending Torment”, “Taste for Flesh”, “Swarm”, “Loud Barking”.
- Changed the special effect of Unholy Damage: [chance to apply “Curse” > Health Replenishment].
- Changed the special effect of Sacred Damage [Health Replenishment > Energy Replenishment].
Added a new Reputation perk, “Specialty Goods”, which makes additional paper maps available for sale.
- “Deadly Tail”: swapped the chance to apply “Sacrificial Blood” with a chance to apply “Mark of the Feast”.
- “Net Throw”, “Bone Throw”, “Web Spit”, “Blood Spit” now use the missile mechanic, giving them a chance to miss their target.
- Made it possible to block and dodge Girruds’ skills.
- Updated the Stealing Mechanic: NPCs should no longer be able to detect you through walls.
- The Casket with St Wald’s Relics now grants immunity to an additional effect, “Curse of Agony”.
UI AND QOL
- Rewrote enemy abilities’ hovers in accordance with the Equipment Update III standards. Added a dynamic display of scaleable stats to enemy abilities’ hovers (their relevant Accuracy and Damage Dealt, for example).
- You’ll now be able to see enemies’ Will to Fight while inspecting them.
- When inspecting enemies, their abilities will be displayed in a predetermined order rather than randomly.
- The Character Menu and Journal tabs will now retain the position of their sliders when reopened.
- Improved the Global Map optimization.
FIXES
- Fixed the bug causing different enemy types to use the same basic Health Restoration value.
- Fixed some AoEs having dead zones.
- Fixed the inconsistent display of certain AoEs and ability trajectories for different character’s positions in relation to the target.
- Fixed the bug preventing negative Dodge Chance from increasing the Accuracy of incoming attacks.
- Fixed the bug which allowed Pain to exceed Pain Limit.
- Fixed the Anmarrak being able to use “Wide Swipe” while its Tentacle Hand is actively participating in combat.
- Fixed Harpies and some other enemies using incorrect animations after recovering from “Petrification”.
- Fixed “Lion Leap” granting the Manticore an unlisted Dodge Chance bonus.
- Fixed the incorrect interaction between the dual weapons’ Damage and “Residual Charge”.
- Fixed Immobilization, Stun, and other similar effects not being able to interrupt Charge skills.
- Fixed the incorrect description of one of the Brynn Reputation perks, “Better Gear”.
- Fixed “Cleaving Strike” granting an incorrect bonus to Counter Chance.
- Fixed the potential softlock caused by missed “Distracting Shot”.
- Fixed “Onslaught” having its Cooldown reduced by an incorrect number of turns after failing to knock the target back.
- Fixed “Mutilating Lunge” having its Cooldown reduced by an incorrect number of turns after failing to cause an Injury.
- Fixed the buggy interaction between “Courage” and counters.
- Fixed “From the Shadows” applying its debuff even after missing the target.
- Fixed the incorrect duration of “Endurance Training” bonuses.
- Fixed the incorrect duration of “Startling Volley” effects.
- Fixed the combination of “Mighty Kick” and “Push the Falling” not prolonging some of the debuffs it’s supposed to.
- Fixed the Codex of the Triple Hand Order granting its bonuses even when the Undead or Proselytes die without the player’s direct participation.
- Fixed the disappearance of certain effect animations after moving to another location.
- Fixed the “Knockback” pop-up hint.
- New sprites for some items.
- New visuals for some Necromancy-themed abilities.
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Devlog: Caravan Upgrades - Part I
Mon, 6 November 2023
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Hello everyone!
This is the first post in the series of devlogs dedicated to the new features of the upcoming update, “Rags to Riches”, the release date of which will be revealed in the final entry. Today’s topic is the update’s most important addition and the last major system to be introduced to the game: the much-anticipated Caravan.
We’d like to begin by explaining our reasoning behind the system and what we plan to achieve with it. One of the most frequent player suggestions is to add some sort of permanent dwelling, a purchasable and customizable house in a village or city. However, Stoneshard is a game about a mercenary, a character who’s always on the move in search of contracts and glory, so anchoring them to a single location would go against the main theme. At the same time, we aren’t averse to the concept of home in a broader sense - and that’s where the Caravan System comes into play by adding a customizable mobile camp.
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//28578038/d2edb19d962d2f51c1a455f46a210e03f2860b92.png)
The Caravan’s main purpose is to allow for easier exploration, making it possible to travel large distances across the global map - with a few limitations.
Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3769010076992373472
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Devlog: Dungeon Generation - Part I
Sat, 3 February 2024
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Hello everyone!
In today’s devlog we’ll demonstrate the final version of the reworked Dungeon Generator and showcase the main principles that governed its development.
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Let’s start with a list of reasons that led us to reevaluating our approach to dungeon generation. The player feedback we received about its current state revealed the following issues:
- There isn’t much visual variety to speak of - the only difference between dungeons of the same type is what enemies can spawn in them, not their layout or overall design. This quickly makes dungeons feel predictable and uninspired.
- All dungeons use the same generation algorithm, which limits the room for structural distinction and environmental logic.
- The overall room structure and the abundance of single tile passages facilitate the funneling of enemies into doorways, trivializing both combat and positioning.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//28578038/e2a504798f2a62776b684fda071e608dfe63c8f5.gif)
Our new approach is based on dungeon tiers. Initially, tiers were an informal term used by players to refer to dungeons based on their difficulty - in RtR they will actually become an official form of categorization. So instead of using hidden, rudimentary mechanics built around levels, this new system splits everything, be it enemies, items, or dungeons, into 5 distinct tiers.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/625960/ss_273a3eb8060ee1336c01d30a8e7447a6826b010e.jpg)
Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/3952539375950125460