Nov 3

Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch - ODS_ThorThor

Hello, Tacticians!

We are updating Veil of the Witch to version 1.1.8 based on some of the feedback we've gotten after 1.0 release. Read on below for the details.

Patch Schedule

PT: November 3 4:30 PM
ET: November 3 7:30 PM
CET: November 4 1:30 AM
KST: November 4 9:30 AM

Changes/Improvements

New Expedition Difficulty Options

Added difficulty selection, “Witch's Wrath” and “Witch’s Whisper.” Read more about this change HERE. This replaces the previous God Mode feature.

Combat Difficulty Adjustments

The number of Vermiliths appearing in the Vermilith battle has been reduced, and other monster enemies now appear instead.
The failure condition for villager rescue maps has changed from “3 or more villagers killed” to “All allies defeated.” Successfully rescuing 3 villagers now grants additional rewards instead.
In the second Bernhardt battle, the damage reduction from his defense stance has been lowered from 90% to 50%.
In the third Bernhardt battle, Bernhardt’s HP recovery effect when receiving a critical hit now only activates while linked to his “Umbral Chains.”

Free Special Skin Set DLC - Rereleased for a Limited Time

For everyone who missed it the first time, Ashe's special skin set--including sword, bow, and armor--is now available again to download for free for one month.

Relic Improvements

Cracked Wind-Up Soldier
Deals 15 damage to all enemies whenever an ally is defeated. Triggers up to 3 times per battle.
Scholar's Candelabrum
Speaking to an ally at camp raises their Physical/Magic Attack and Physical/Magic Defense by +3. This relic can be used 2 times, then no more.
Luminescent Box
At the start of the Ally Turn, any allies below half health regain 15 HP.
Bloody Effigy
For every status effect on an ally, they gain +3 Physical and Magic Attack, but -2 max HP.
Tattered Banner
Allies under 60% HP gain +10 to Physical and Magic Attack.
Notched Hilt
Upon acquiring, the max HP of all allies is reduced by 10. With each successive victory, max HP goes up by 5 (caps at +20).

Trap Skill Adjustments

Increased gold obtained from the “Pillaging Trap” effect.
Increased damage dealt by “Bomb Snare.”

Name and Text Updates

Added clarification that the “Phantom Grudge” area created by the “Dark Phantom” skill lasts for 5 turns.
Renamed couple of Bernhardt’s effects:
- “Melee Defense Stance” → “Riposte”
- “Ranged Defense Stance” → “Repel”

System & Visual Improvements

When rerolling skills/stat cards, the card immediately before it will not appear again.
Added tutorials for certain enemy and elite enemy skills.
Added visual effects to help identify status effects.
- New status effect visuals for Bernhardt’s “Riposte” and “Repel.”
- Passive effect visuals for Silvio’s “Shadow Armor” and “Shadow Shield.”
You can now find hints for recruiting new characters starting right after the prologue.

Achievement Adjustments

The cooperation stage requirements for the achievements, “Bury the Hatchet,” “Unspoken Feelings,” “A Better World,” and “Forgiveness Starts Within” have been reduced from 4 stages to 3 stages.
The event completion requirement for “Once Upon a Time” achievement has been reduced from 3 completions to 1.
If previously completed achievements were not properly recorded, they will now automatically unlock when the game starts.

Achievements earned during the demo will automatically unlock when starting the full version.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where Vermilith would use Devour while under "Immobilized" status.
Fixed an issue in the third Fellheart battle where Fellheart only used "Shadow Cyclone" once.
Fixed a bug where Elena could make multiple moves under specific conditions while in “Lone Wolf” state.
Fixed an issue where when in Concealed state, counterattack damage did not show in preview.
Fixed an issue of “Lantern of the Dead” relic effect triggering when summons caused enemy retreats.
Fixed a progression blocker where, if “Raven Contract” and “Pumpkin Seed Bundle” relics were both owned, and “Pumpkin Seed Bundle” became disabled due to a crisis event, the player could no longer interact with the Raven thereby halting the expedition.
Fixed an issue where Behemoth would use the "Crashing Ram” skill on units in "Concealed" state.

We appreciate everyone that reported any bugs or issues that they came across during their gameplay. Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions with us on our Steam discussion boards or our Discord server.

- ODS Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2530490/Lost_Eidolons_Veil_of_the_Witch/

Nov 3

Monday Musings #31 – Infinite Resources Through Resourcefulness

MoteMancer - CyanAvatar

There's definitely been a trend from a handful of modern automation games to have resource gathering come from an infinite node of some kind. Personally I always liked games that had resource patches that slowly ran out, because it gave you another plate to spin, and a natural break point to reconsider your supply lines.

MoteMancer takes the best of both worlds, leaning into infinite creativity over infinite ease.

Natural Infinity

MoteMancer's world is procedurally generated, and infinite in its own right, so there's no true way to run out of resources. It also follows similar rules to other games that do this where resource richness gets higher as you leave the center of the world so that your collection grows to meet the increasing size of your factory. One slight 'problem' with this design is that in encourages players to wander far before settling their factory. Not catastrophic, but not ideal either.

In MoteMancer since your main objective of restoring the Great Portal happens back at the center of the map, there's a natural reward to staying relatively central to where you start. Planar Portal density is also a little more consistent near the center, so there’s plenty of reason to stay rooted. Still, should players seek super dense Mote Fields out in the wilderness, they will be there waiting. In the upcoming December patch, Shadow is going to have ways for players to teleport across great distances too, as befitting Shadow's strengths.

Sustainability

But, that's not necessarily as comforting for people who want a set and forget solution so they can focus on the production chains themselves. MoteMancer offers several ways to achieve this, and more are on the way - but as MoteMancer is a game about logistics puzzles, most of them come with the cost of creativity and problem solving.

Let’s take a look at the options currently in your toolkit. In-game right now, there are three ways to gather infinite resources in a sustainable way:

Coral Pools - Life/Water hybrid tech allows you to slowly grow Mote-generating Coral in a verdant shallow pool. All 6 Elements are represented, though Mushroom (Shadow) and Fire Coral need a little more effort to plant as they are opposing elements. Each Coral Pool has 9 coral bed slots, and each Coral will produce 1 Mote per minute. This takes up considerable space and the process is slow, but once planted lasts forever.
Scythe and Rift Reaper - If you have truly abundant Power and are not afraid to call forth Rifts that can disrupt your factory, Scythe will tear open a Rift wherever you are, and Rift Reaper will drop a vein of Motes wherever the Rift is sealed. Scythes near Mote Patches will create the same element type, but can be fully random as well if they are far enough away from any other Field.
Transmutation Engine and Entropic Alembic - The Entropy tree provides a powerful but very complicated option - reclaiming Motes from Entropy itself. The catch is that the result of coaxing Motes out of Entropic Shards is random, and players need to get creative about how to handle this powerful ability to get non-native resources. Air/Water tech will be getting filtering (Enchanted Grippers and Enchanted Deltas), and Earth will be getting the ability to lock inventory slots for earth chests, but those techs will still require a fair bit of work to access. Again MoteMancer is still about problem solving and taking your time rather than one-click solutions to ease and scale. Creative and aesthetic mastery remain the goal.

On the horizon there will be a few extra options:

Overgrowth Pillar - Life's last Structure will follow the path of Mystical Agriculture - growing flora on Mote Fields, but also come with technology that lets collectors gather Motes from the flora itself - extending the resource-collection ability of a given Mote Field. MoteMancer does still carry the vibes of finding balance with the world, and if you are able to plant more than you collect, even a meager Mote Field can become forever sustainable. Overgrowth Pillars will start working on Life only, but you can unlock a master level tech to extend its capability to any type.
Sovereign Manaheart - (Life/Earth) This end-game building used to be the pinnacle of Solar Power generation, but Mana Leaves and Mana Canopies do the job so well that its functionality is a little redundant. As a means of synergizing with Overgrowth Pillar and being kit appropriate to Earth, Sovereign Manaheart will channel excess power back into the ground and replenish the Mote Field that it resides upon. This well let you grow fields to be larger than they would naturally grow, and let you set up sustainable farms from large solar arrays.
Foundry - (Earth/Fire) The final structure for Brimstone research will allow you to pour materials back into a feedback loop and get Elements straight back out. An example Foundry recipe will be to process 1 Brimstone and 1 Ingot to catalyze together and output 12 Elemental Fire, netting you a positive but less refined result. You can of course reprocess this back to complete a feedback loop, but it will require balancing your production lines to claim the benefit, with the added bonus of skipping the need to use Elemental Binders to recombine your Elements.

MoteMancer is still a sandbox with multiple paths to victory, and multiple intricate steps on each path. But, when affixes are introduced that remove access to certain Elements or have other requirements, your problem solving will have to adapt. Maybe flora is indestructible, but can still be harvested from collectors, or maybe you'll need to change the way you filter a sushi belt because Air research is completely shattered. There will be many puzzles to solve and a menagerie of tools at your disposal.

MoteMancer’s world will always provide, but it’s your ingenuity that makes it truly infinite.

Back to the lab! 🌿
~Cyanavatar

Nov 3

Farmer Fowl's Farmhouse's Final Patch!

Farmer Fowl's Farmhouse - VoidVoyager

Hello everyone!

Ladies and gentlemen! We present to you the FINAL update for Farmer Fowl's Farmhouse! We have loved hearing your feedback, watching your videos, and hearing your screams over our game! However that doesn't mean we haven't heard your frustrations as well. We have had many complaints of how difficult and frustrating the game's objectives are, and well I am happy to announce that some changes have been made that I'm sure everyone will agree makes the game less infuriating and still provides a challenge! Here are the changes and additions made!

Added Checkpoints For Respawns

Added checkpoints for Easy and Medium mode for when you die. Now when you complete an objective such as opening the basement, or unlocking the fusebox room, once you die, this progression will be saved. However in Hard mode there will be NO checkpoints. (note these checkpoints will not save the game for when you close the game or return to main menu).

Changed Rare Death Scene Chance

Changed the chance of going to the rare death scene from 1/3 to 1/30 (what it was meant to be. Silly code typo).

QoL Changes

Changed the player's FOV from 40 to 50. (highly requested).
Added more Props to Eli's Apartment, including food in the fridge. (poor hungry Eli).
Fixed various clipping issues.
Added rain outside Eli's Apartment.

Changed Note Spawns

The Note with the code will now spawn in the same place every time, but still have a different code on it.

Thank you all so much for your feedback and support! We are very happy with the attention the game has been getting. As said, this will be the final update for Farmer Fowl's Farmhouse (unless something game breaking is found, don't go looking). We want to thank you all so much for playing this game, this was our first ever game we've released and we can safely say that we are mostly satisfied with it now. Until next time friends! Take care, and keep on playing!

Until next time everyone! Keep the chatter going!