It is a huge relief to get the new combat and spell progression system out. We have something solid to build upon.

This week’s focus is fixing priority combat issues and letting the dust settle.

Here is what we are working on for a Thursday patch:

• We’ve read every bug reported, these are current priorities:
  
  
  • Clicking lag and other performance issues
    
  • Giant monster sprites taking up the whole battlefield
    
  • Weapons breaking combat
    
  • Equipment re-equipping bug/exploit
• Based on the feedback combat is too hard, we’re revisiting the tuning
  
  
• We’re revisiting Character Creation to get you more starting spells. This will address some of the “Combat too hard” issue.
  
  
• I made a bad call that led to errors in the quest quantities. Separate from the combat branch we made some fixes to the dialogue highlighting code. Then we merged it in last minute and it created problems. We got a hotfix out on Sat evening.
  
  
• We’re finishing off the Skeletons race to get them back into the game

- Temporarily disabled the highlighting of keywords in NPC conversations to resolve the issue of weird characters appearing in the middle of dialog. The highlighting will return in the next patch.

Today we are very proud to release our BIGGEST UPDATE EVER with a NEW Combat system. It changes almost every aspect of the game.

• All new combat with FIVE unique, full featured, spell schools, totaling 52 new spells!
  
• All new weapons, equipment, and protection system. Even magically charge your weapons!
  
• All new spell progression and learning system. Get learning bonuses and affinities.
  
• All monsters completely revamped, with all new abilities and AI
  
• New monster race: Crocodons

• Previous worlds and save files are not compatible. We tried really hard but couldn't do it. Sorry! Read more on how to switch to the Legacy branch to maintain your progress and update when you choose to here.
  
• Combat is intentionally challenging. Don't expect you can take on some monsters with the one spell you learn in school! Go to a chapter house and do some research. More info in this post.
  
• Skeletons are temporarily disabled until next week. It's complicated. :winter2019happyyul:
  
• We're still working on Combat. Testing, tuning, playing, reading your feedback. We feel this is a good first step.

More info on the thinking behind the Spell Schools:

• Introducing Storm Magic
  
• Introducing - Earth Magic
  
• Introducing - Fire Magic
  
• Introducing - Ice Magic

With changes this massive there are bound to be issues. We think we solved the major ones today with a short Beta. We appreciate your help and support!

Hey everyone!

We're getting really close to the launch of the new Combat Update we've been working hard at for the past little while. This is just a quick update to let you know that tomorrow we are planning to release a Beta version of combat earlier on in the day for those of you who want to jump in a little bit early and preview the new update before we launch it publicly later on in the day. We are doing this so that we can hopefully catch some more last might bugs that we may have missed, and would love your help in finding before we fully release the new combat to the wild.

If you'd like to get in on the beta release, be sure to switch your Archmage Rises' branch on Steam from "None" to "beta - External Beta Testing" so that you will be able to get the new update when it hits the beta branch.



I know you're going to ask us when to expect the update to release, and while I don't know 100% when it will get released, we're aiming for around a noon EST release for the beta and around 5pm EST for the public release. These are ballparks, so it's possible these timeframes may change...

As usual, I (Phil) will be available in Discord if you have any questions about the update or want to get more live updates on the progress of the release tomorrow :)

PS: If you do download the new combat update early, we'd love your bug reports! We'll be continuing to polish the update right up until the public release, so the more early feedback we can get, the better! Thanks for your help and patience :)

August of last year I said we would make best efforts to maintain player progress as we release updates to the game (you can read about that here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/506480/discussions/0/3809535864677346416/ )

Unfortunately, despite best efforts we won't be able to make old save games work in the new update. I'm really sorry. :crying_yeti:


NEW Combat is a massive undertaking rewriting how items, spells, player progress, character creation, monsters, abilities, and gear all work. With so much change we knew it would be challenging. We got sample save files from the Discord community to test with. We tasked a programmer with solely working on this problem.

He did, and hit a dead end.

We made another attempt, with a new programmer for new thinking. Today I got the results that it just isn't going to work. Now, the work on this is jeopardizing our ability to release NEW Combat on Friday.

The problem has to do with the simulator nature of the game and bad data which has accrued from several versions ago to today. We can load the data, world, progress. So on the one hand, loading previous saves actually works. But once you load your old save, you can't save it anymore... That's where things are currently breaking.

We really made best efforts on this to protect player progress, but it just can't be done.


If you would like to continue your existing save file, we've created a new branch called "legacy" that you will need to switch to before the new combat update releases on Friday.

If you haven't switched branches before, here's how to switch branches in Steam:

1. Open up Archmage Rises in your Steam Library

2. Click on the gear just below the banner on the far right

3. In the dropdown menu, click on "Properties"



4. In the new window that pops up, click on "Betas" on the left side menu

5. You should see an option called "Beta Participation" - click on the dropdown menu to the right of that and select "legacy - Legacy & Rivals (Pre-Combat Update)" which should now change your branch to the Legacy branch.



Now that you're on the new branch, it should prevent your game from auto-updating to the new combat update build that will release on Friday.

When you're ready to switch back to the most recent public build of the game, you can follow the same process to switch back to the "default" branch by selecting "None" under the Beta Participation dropdown menu.


Very unlikely.

The new data structure of everything is THE new data structure of everything. We see no reason to change it again. I was in a meeting yesterday about the rest of the roadmap and nothing coming is close to the work we've had to do for new combat. Adding features like factions, world spell casting, enchanting, it all builds on top of what we've got here. It doesn't change the base.

That being said, while we don't foresee any more issues in preserving save games from now on, in August I was smart enough to write the following so I'll repeat it here again:

Q: Are you promising I will never lose progress during Early Access?
A: No! I'm too experienced to make that naïve promise. I'm sure at some point, maybe more than once, it just won't be possible. What I am promising is much more effort and robust tech put into testing and preserving player progress. Dropping it from forced restarts 50x before 1.0 to maybe 5x.

Today is one of those "impossible points". Really sorry about it.

Friday Jan 19 we publish the NEW Combat system. It’s significantly different and better. Here is a taste:



It’s a final push to get everything working:

• We targeted 30+ spells, we’re shipping 50+ spells! The new system and tooling allows better spell creation and iteration. That’s about 10 spells per school! The most the game has ever had.
  
  
• Weapons and Armor are a total overhaul and actually work! Shocking I know! Weapons and armor are now viable and equal to spells in the game as a choice in combat.
  
  
• Skeletons won’t be in this release, but will be in next week’s patch

[/b]

• We promised a new race of Crocodons so we made sure those were working first. But we discovered a serious problem with skeleton’s resurrection ability. Presented with delaying the whole launch or launching without the skeletons, I had to make the tough choice of delaying the skeletons a week.
  
• Quests that involve skeletons are being temporarily turned off.
  
  • If you already have a skeleton based quest, you won’t be able to complete it until the patch.

Crocodons will appear in existing saves/worlds in place of skeletons.

• It was an easy way to get them in.

As of Monday Morning on the 15th, our existing save file migration is not working. 😭 We’ve just put a new programmer on it to try and resolve it. Worst case scenario is players will have to start a new game, something we’ve put a lot of effort already into preventing.

In light of the significant changes, a player posted there probably will be a lot of new bugs. A fair expectation. We’ve done two full QA passes on the whole game. We’re performing a third pass today. It is inevitable some things will slip through. We’re committed to following player reactions and hotfixing and patching as necessary. Appreciate your patience and belief in us!

[/list]


A strange thing to say, I know, but after reading all the posts and discussion I want to be clear that our focus is on the Combat experience. Other than changes to spell progression/research, the rest of the game is in the current state. It’s one step at a time here. Wish we could do it all at once, but we can’t.


NEW Combat has been a significant investment of energy and money. I’m happy we’ve done it.

NOW we can work on the rest of the game. Many structural changes come in combat (items, spells, monsters, school progression) and jammed us up until they were complete.

Resources free up to start tackling really cool and important features:

1. Update #3: Exploration
   
2. Enchanting
   
3. Dynamic Quests
   
4. Better NPC conversation
   
5. New UI
   
6. Better Map generation

If you’ve already bought the game, thanks for your support! You paid the dev team’s salaries.

If you haven’t yet bought in, this is the cheapest the game will be for a long time. I can’t say it better than this reviewer:

Buy it while its cheap and enjoy it later when it’s more complete.

Only one week left until the new combat releases! Take a sneak peek at it here:

Chaos.

As our most chaotic spell school, Storm Magic in Archmage’s new combat is about capturing lightning's unpredictable nature in a bottle… and using it to your advantage.

While Storm Magic generally has many high-damage potential spells, many have a bonus chance to do something extra. Lightning Bolt can strike the target twice, while Stormstrike sometimes hits everything nearby. Shock, a strategic spell meant to interrupt enemies, has a chance to completely stun the target on success.

Skillful Storm Mages can turn the tide of battle in their favor by drenching their foes with water-themed spells, such as cloudburst and monsoon. Once drenched, the odds of the storm spell bonuses occurring increase dramatically.

Here are a few of the storm spells you can learn:

• Lightning Bolt: Blast your enemies with a sudden discharge of power.
  
• Stormstrike: Lash your enemies with an unstable chain of thunderbolts.
  
• Cloudburst: Drench your opponents with a sudden downpour.
  
• Monsoon: Call down a deluge to flood the battlefield and soak your foes to the bone.
  
• Gale: Summon a roaring wind to batter your foes to and fro upon the battlefield.
  
• Shock: Attempt to stun your sodden foes with a bolt from heaven.
  
• Storm Shield: Weave yourself a crackling mantle of lightning to repel your attackers.

We'll have more details diving deeper into the magic of a Storm Mage as we get closer to release.

What do you most want to see in the new school of storm magic? Let us know in the comments!

What is a Earth Mage like in the new Archmage Rises Combat?
Controlling, Dehabilitating.

Position, proximity, and angles matter in Archmage’s new combat, and this is especially true for a skilled Earth Mage.

As the ultimate battlefield tactician, Earth Mages use their control of earth and stone to keep their enemies off balance and knocking them around.

The more unbalance enemies become the more damage they take as they are moved.

Additional acid-themed spells such as acid blast and acid wash, corrode an enemy’s defenses reducing their resistance to both earth and physical damage.

This corrosion also makes earth magic highly prized among our battle style mages, looking to provide their blades with more susceptible targets.

Here are a few of the spells you'll be able to learn as an Earth Mage:

• Tremor: Jolt your foes with a sharp shudder of the ground beneath their feet.
  
• Stone Spike: Call up a spire of stone to break your foes and send them reeling in pain.
  
• Acid Blast: Scorch the field of battle with a cataract of caustic acid.
  
• Acid Wash: Shower your foes with the searing exhalations of the heavens.
  
• Seismic Shift: Fling your foes toward the field’s center with a swift upheaval of the earth.
  
• Exposure: Erode your foes' footing and expose them to the perils of storm and earth.
  
• Earth’s Grasp: Shatter your enemy’s concentration and drag them one step closer.

We'll have even more details diving deeper into the magic of an Earth Mage as we get closer to release.

What do you most want to see in the new school of earth magic? Let us know in the comments!

Next week we release NEW combat. Something we’ve put a ton of effort into and hope you enjoy!

Here is an internal WIP video one of the programmers shared to show certain things working. It excited me to see how far we’ve come, so I’m sharing it with you too. Don’t take it as promises of any particular feature, just that it is better combat.

• Last week, we did a full audit test of the game to see how broken it is. I expected 99 bugs but it was only 36. We’ve already managed to fix many of them. We’re performing another full test today to see how shippable it is.
  
• One of the reasons we couldn’t ship until Jan is we have to do three passes on all the spell schools. We’re just finishing our second design pass today, then embarking on pass three. This is when the numbers and timing really get tuned for each spell. So far, on schedule!

There is a new spell progression system. Here is a WIP example of how we’re really trying to celebrate the level up.




I’ve been asked several times “Will my progress be saved across versions during Early Access?”

My answer is “Yes. As best we can, it is a priority.”

Here is a line directly from our feature documentation

We need to preserve progress. Players can’t be told to just restart. They have to choose (opt in) to restart.

This is one of those times where we’re doing our best to preserve your progress, given massive massive changes to the underlying structure of the game.

1. All the spells are new, even if they have the same name. We will be refunding all spell XP so you can rebuy your spells.
   
2. The spell progression system is totally different with new buffs/rewards for hitting new ranks in a school. Spell XP will be refunded.
   
3. With a new system comes new XP costs, there just isn’t an easy way to map them. So you may have had 7 ranks in Fire before but now only have 2 ranks. But those 2 ranks are more powerful than the old 7.
   
4. Equipment (weapons, armor, etc.) have also changed drastically and function differently. We will refund the gold value of all equipment so you can buy new equipment.
   
5. Given the above, that means you will be naked and unequipped in the world… if your save file was in a dungeon and just about to go into battle, that’s real sucky. So we’re going to transport you to A) Your tower. OR, if you don’t have one, the starter town. Sorry if that isn’t ideal for you, it’s the safest thing we can do that works for everyone’s situation.
   
6. The new enemy race of Crocodons won’t appear in any previously generated worlds or save files. To experience them, you have to generate a NEW world.

We’re making best efforts here. I’m putting a programmer on this task today and it will take several days to pull this off. But if that isn’t sufficient for you, we will keep a Previous Build Branch on Steam. (Let’s call it “Archmage Classic” 😝 OK, lousy WoW joke.) So you can decide when you want to play the new version.

To be super ultra clear on this point: We are publishing the new version of the game to the default Steam branch, meaning everyone will get it. You have to opt into the ‘classic’ branch so as to retain the current version.

After saying alllllll that, the new version is best experienced in a new world and new game because the changes start right from character creation.


If the above wasn’t enough, Nolan is still cackling madly to himself as he works on an improved version of NPC dialogue. NPCs will be more aware of you, things you’ve done, and previous conversations. Things like this:

"Welcome, welcome." Bertram Bottom is complacently washing a bucket half-full of tankards and plates. He glances up in annoyance. "Brave of you to carry a dagger as your primary weapon. Most people see it as a last resort."

This is part of the new Dynamic Quest system, but will be coming before it is released in Update #3 Exploration.