5 August

Experimental (0.3.27.0)

The primary changes in this patch support the roll out of boss battles. During the implementation we’ve focused on Mossclaw and Bonefinger (see videos below). More boss battles will follow in future patches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UNDHnQ7gYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1OJg20OoeM

Experimental Build:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/224440/discussions/0/541906348034355622/

Player: Added Mossclaw abilities (slam, stomp, strangle, summon) and AI behaviour
Player: Added Bonefinger abilities (acid breath, acid puke, slam, screech) and AI behaviour
Player: Difficulty should now be more appropriate on normal
Player: Doubled distance selected units can travel to engage in melee
Player: Pathfinding is now immediate rather than having a 0.1-0.2s delay, commanding units more responsive
Player: Cleared 'efficiency' field in the workers tab to reduce confusion (since it has not done anything for a long time)
Player: Turning AutoAI off prevents heroes using special abilities and they’ll not aggressively engage in combat
Player: Camera shake is now played at full strength if a large character causing it is on screen (e.g. Mossclaw)
Player: Potion consumption action can now be key bound
Player: Heroes: Ser Gregory: Added screenshake to some abilities
Editor: Remapped 'move world down' to 'ctrl+shift+d' and now camera path points are moved too
Assets: Audio: Added Bonefinger sounds
Assets: Audio: Added Mossclaw sounds
Assets: Audio: Added Beastmen sounds
Assets: Audio: Added swamp, glade and Bonefinger’s cave ambience sounds
Assets: Audio: Added sack and spider den ‘death’ sounds
Assets: Characters: Replaced Fenrin’s melee idle animation to fix glitch
Assets: Characters: Replaced Fenrin’s knockdown/collapse animation to remove silly spin
Assets: Characters: Updated Spriggan collapse animation with shorter version
Assets: Characters: Updated Urzal’s low magic spam attack animation so wand is parallel with ground ready for ammo
Assets: Characters: Quixl: Added basic conversation animation
Assets: Characters: Quixl: Added TNT plunger push animation
Assets: Characters: Changed crypt beetles to explode when they die
Assets: Kits: Added Murp Dentistry Props
Assets: Kits: Terrains: GrasslandCaves: Added bubbling acid pools x 2 with sfx
Assets: Loot: Added House Hraun cloth armor set
Assets: Terrain: Grassland Caves: Added acid pool (for use in Bonefinger’s Lair map)
Fix: Moving the whole world would move child world objects (e.g VS scripts) twice as much
Fix: 4 bows weren’t working as intended
Fix: Occasional exception caused in WorldText node
FIx: Moving whole world up/down in Editor would move child objects (example script cogs) twice as much
Fix: Quixl’s backstab can no longer be exploited to get around obstacles such as locked doors
Fix: Removed last of old advisor sound files to prevent them being picked up by regex match
Fix: Removed some minor per-frame memory allocations
Fix: Improved Willow’s AI to prevent her healing units with full health
Fix: Campaign: Exiting dungeon before Mordrich could walk to his lab could prevent story from continuing
Fix: Campaign: The Glade: Moved everything down to only more headroom for the camera
Fix: Heroes: Ser Gregory’s taunt shield sound effect wasn’t playing

• Heroes can sometimes become stuck (might be after revival) - if so, please save and reload
  
• Villagers cannot be commanded to help with construction/repair
  
• Brom, Lilith and Nara are all too easy
  
• The Butcher protecting the Everbloom Antidote is too easy
  
• The minimap markers on The Rotwold Fens quest aren’t showing
  
• Repelling the Gladefolk can be a tough challenge

This patch adds a powerful mathematical curve animation system to beef up the visual effects system that we use for special abilities. It’s first use can be seen on Mossclaw’s abilities such as stomp, when radial spokes of earth erupt outwards. We’ll be doing a lot more on special abilities in subsequent patches.

The character state machine has been rewritten to better support boss battles. While we aimed to restore many of the behaviors to what they were, players may spot very slight changes in character behavior. Please do let us know if you spot something strange that didn’t happen before that isn’t listed under known issues.

13 July

Experimental (0.3.26.0)

The primary changes are combat auto-balancing (monster levelling) and a new difficulty gameplay setting, hero AI so they use their abilities when not selected, and the addition of minimap location markers for all campaign quests.

We've confirmed that Sandbox is brutal (but not impossible) in this experimental patch following community feedback. We'll resolve this for the next patch, but for now you can turn down the difficulty level under gameplay settings.

Experimental Build:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/224440/discussions/0/541906348034355622/

Player: Added monster auto-levelling and challenge balancing; game is now harder
Player: Added five levels of difficulty settings to the gameplay tab, defaulting to normal
Player: Extremely basic hero AI has been enabled for non-selected heroes in the player’s party
Player: Reduced hero revive time in village maps to 30 seconds
Player: Doubled health/power given by potions
Player: Added confirm button to the load saved game dialog and world map fast travel dialog
Player: Spider waves are now disabled on easiest difficulty setting
Player: Increased probability of woodcutters planting saplings, and introduced some randomness into which trees they choose to chop down
Player: Added some basic damage/miss/critical text during combat
Player: Rate of health recovery is determined somewhat by Vitality score; power recovery by Mind score
Player: Made villagers a little less squishy by doubling their health
Player: Non military villagers now flee when they or a nearby unit is attacked and they have less than 50% health
Player: Master volume now fades to 0 when the application loses focus
Player: All needs are now disabled until the supply wagon has been built
Maps: Campaign: All: Added minimap location markers for all quests
Maps: Campaign: Shirebrook: Added subquest to place the supply wagon and encourage foraging to help new players
Maps: Campaign: Shirebrook: Added lesser potion drops in crates and urns
Maps: Campaign: Shirebrook: Bandits no longer raid when repelling the undead or gladefolk waves
Maps: Campaign: Bandit Caves: Added option to recruit Quixl even if player initially declines
Maps: Campaign: Glade: Removed needless travel back to Nara after defeating Lilith
Assets: Audio: Added looping ambient sounds to machines in Mordrich’s Factory
Assets: Audio: Updated magic weapon impact sounds
Assets: Audio: Added fuse and explosion sounds
Assets: FX: Added explosion prefab that can be instantiated via workbench (used in Bountiful Bog map WIP)
Assets: Characters: Beastmen: Updated great weapon collapse animation
Assets: Characters: Beastmen: Updated dual wielding bullock to fix belt
Assets: Characters: Grublins: Added Urzal (Grublin Boss) with basic animation set
Assets: Characters: Grublins: Added Scruplez
Assets: Characters: McDougal: Updated knockdown animation
Assets: Characters: Ogres: Updated Murp mesh to fix gap above belt
Assets: Characters: Ogres: Updated Ogre Zombie mesh
Assets: Characters: Toadkin: Added Blotch (Toadkin Ambassador)
Assets: Characters: Toadkin: Added Sage
Assets: Kits: Props: Added faction crossbows (04-11)
Assets: Kits: Fishing: Updated textures and props
Assets: Kits: Buildings: Goblin Village: Updated textures
Assets: Kits: Buildings: Construction overhauled with more modular pieces
Assets: Kits: Traps: Moved Cage into it’s own kit to prevent pulling in other assets
Assets: Loot: Added Grublin chainmail armor set
Assets: Loot: Added House Hraun chainmail armor set
Assets: Loot: Added Withering Dead leather armor set
Editor: Workbench: Added StatisticItem node to track how many resources are harvested
Editor: Workbench: Added SubQuestLocator and SubQuestLocatorMultiple nodes
Editor: Workbench: Added ClearBuffs flag to OrderMove nodes, true by default
Editor: Workbench: Removed 'pointInWorld' input from all quest nodes
Editor: Workbench: Added IsAsset node
Fix: Fixed local rotations on levelup visual effect
Fix: Added WorldObject to DemolishEffect prefab so it can be instantiated via Workbench
Fix: FOW stopped working after the world map was loaded
Fix: Beastmen were visible in fog of war
Fix: Set default faction on some humans to be correct
Fix: Worked around Unity UI bug causing the 'Exit' button on the world map to be invisible
Fix: Rows were being duplicated in marketplace UI when reloading the map
Fix: Camera rotation could sometimes be restored incorrectly
Fix: Kenny now attacks after the warning conversation dialogs completes and not before
Fix: Kenny failed to flee if he was stunned when his accomplices were defeated
Fix: Some variables were not being cleared when loading locations; could cause minimap decals for completed quests to re-appear when portaling back into a map
Fix: Reduced max distance from enemy to defeated hero to block revival of that hero
Fix: If players entered then immediately exited the Desecrated Cathedral, they couldn’t get back in
Fix: Destructible doors are now destroyed with one hit as intended
Fix: Population wasn’t expanding in sandbox maps other than the starting map
Fix: Camera is now hard-clamped at edge of map, and soft nudging turned off
Fix: Floating grass can sometimes be left over when portalling to a different map

• Some Goblin buildings had incorrect pivots (especially the farm), and may need adjusting if level designers have used them in their maps
  
• Scruplez and the Toadkin Sage aren’t fully implemented as they lack their ranged attack code. They have been added to facilitate the rollout of the next stage of the campaign

Enemies now have their challenge level set when first emerging from the fog of war. It is now much more important to use hero abilities and potions. If it’s too difficulty, dropping the difficulty down from normal to easy will reduce the challenge level.

SubQuestLocator nodes in workbench are intended to update the position value on StartSubQuest nodes, and replace most cases where MinimapDecal nodes were previously used. Both the magnifying icon next to sub quests in the UI and the minimap decal are now set together. Please see the Shirebrook scripts for implementation examples.

As your heroes get higher, untrained military units that fail to keep up are going to become more squishy. It is therefore important to give these units combat experience to gain levels, craft better gear, and brew health potions at the Herbalist Den.

The construction kit pieces have been deprecated (still there but hidden so no existing maps break), and new modular building exterior pieces added that snap. Please see the tavern exterior in the sandbox Haven map for an example of how to use them.