Sep 13, 2018

The 1.2 patch will release on September 19th! Expanded Battle Character Sheet, Crits on camp actions, and more!

Dead In Vinland - hegor

Hello survivors, time to talk about the 1.2 Patch!

We’re getting there! Next week we will be releasing our first DLC after some hard working months under hot temperatures… We nearly finished the development naked. And believe me, it was not a beautiful sight.

We’re really excited to push new content live, and playtest the game again after all these changes. Since release, we have come a long way! Features that were a bit rough are now really working well, most notably the speeding features and the little resource track bar. The new distribution mode for water and food during night are also very welcomed for long runs.

We’ll talk about the content of the DLC in details in another post, right now I’ll explain to you the last new features included in the free 1.2 patch, that will be releasing at the same time of the DLC.

Expanded Battle Character Sheet

This one feature was really lacking: you couldn’t see in your character sheet the calculated bonuses/maluses given by Traits. You could see the list of Traits affecting the character’s battle skills, but you had to somehow do the maths. It wasn’t practical.

Now we’ve added the info in the character sheet – and when you select your characters for battle, so it should be easier to keep track of your character’s battle strength.

All these values start at 0, and come on top of basic active skills values shown on the skill’s tooltip. We made the choice to keep the basic values of skills shown in the active skills’ tooltip, so don’t be surprised to see that they are unchanged after level-up. In battle, the tooltips will show the calculated values, but beware! You still have to take into account the bonuses/maluses of the enemy you are targeting!

For example: a skill thas has 80% base hit chance. The characters has 2 Traits that gives him +5%, so the new hit chance for the attack is 90%. BUT, the enemy he is targeting has 15% Dodge, so the final hit chance for the attack is actually 75% chances! Or 25% chances to miss, which is quite high actually.

The only tooltip that shows the good, final hit chance value is the one appearing when you are targeting an enemy. It’s a bit tiny, so keep an eye out for it. (if the value is coloured, it means it has been modified).

Crits on camp actions

This feature was actually one of the rare features that didn’t make it to the final game, but we had it in mind during the development. What’s more depressing than going to a nice fishing spot, hoping to catch 1 to 8 juicy fishes for tonight, and coming back to camp with… One. And. Only. One. Damned. Fish.

You know the feeling… depressing. On the other hand, when you come back with 8 fishes, yeehaaaa! Tonight will be party time! Invite Björn and Elof for dinner!

So… To translate this feeling into the game, now very low and high yields in camp actions will be transformed into “Crits” that will give a very small buff/debuff on the depression gauge of the character. It’s not a game changer, but it’s a step toward making the depression gains of the characters more tied to the actual results of the actions they just made. That may be something we’ll want to investigate further in a next Dead In game.

Misc.

Look for a fight

We’ve talked about it in 280 characters or less on Twitter, you’ll now have a 3rd possible focus for exploration: Look for a fight.

In this focus, you’ll explore very slowly (-66% exploration speed) but you’ll raise the chances to trigger a fight, based on the Hunting skill of the character who is doing the exploration.

It was asked by a number of players, and can be useful if your usual explorers become TOO stealthy, and you’re itching for a fight… (in fact, completely avoiding fights and/or exploration is really a bad idea: you’ll need the extra loot provided by the battles, and you’ll definitively want to have a steady exploration pace to advance the story AND get precious “free” resources or state-lowering events)

Breeding

We reworked a bit how the sheep are breeding in the game, it was rather confusing before (even us couldn’t tell how the whole thing worked without looking into the code x))

Now you have a nifty info in the pop up showing exactly how much breeding chances you have at any time, and the tooltip further explains exactly how the system works.

How much XP is needed to level up

We already showed you that now you’ll have the information of how much XP you have in every skill, and how much is needed to level up this skill. Can be useful for those who really want to min/max the game. Even if you certainly don’t have to go that far in order to win in normal difficulty.

Safety checks

Another little feature that was asked by a few players: we added some safety checks on deleting profiles. Now you have to click a specific button to delete the profile, and confirm your choice in a subsequent pop up.

Dryer and traps

On the balancing side, we made some changes here and there. You’ll have the complete list in the patch notes, but I wanted to make a focus on these ones. We re-balanced a lot the dryer and the traps, which were not that useful before. Now with the changes we’ve made, they should be a more viable build for your camp.

Traps now have 75% chances to be recovered in all cases, that is to say even when you catch something. Traps being rather costly to craft, now you can use them for a longer time.

The dryer works as before, but we changed the values a lot since release. Now meat and fruits dry a lot faster during sunny days and drought, and the base steal chances has dropped to 10%. You’ll just want to avoid storms…

Phew, that’s it for today, survivors! The 1.2 Patch will be big for Dead In Vinland, so don’t forget to check it out on September 19th! And of course, we’ll release the first DLC: The Vallhund to get a cute fluffy companion in your camp.

See you next week for the Patch and the DLC!

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Happy surviving!

Aug 9, 2018

Random traits for the enemies

Dead In Vinland - hegor

Hey survivors!

Right now, we’re facing a very stong enemy: Drought is today’s weather in France… But like our survivors, that doesn’t mean we’re not working! And like our survivors, we’re craving for some rain! 🙁

The work on 1.2 and 1.3 Patches is advancing pretty well, we have almost finished developing all the features, and we are entering the playtest and localization phase. It will take some time, since we made some changes that can have some impact on the whole game’s balance, so we have to playtest in “real conditions” – aka dozen and dozen of hours – before making tweaks. But don’t worry, the 1.2 Patch is still coming this summer ;).

Today we’ll talk a bit about one of the new features in the free 1.2 patch that will be released at the same time as the DLC…

Random Traits for enemies stacks

As you may know, in the first version of the game there was some sort of day limit that triggered a game over event if the player was taking too long to finish the game. Initially, we needed that because we feared that after a while, there wouldn’t be enough content – and so no more reason to continue playing. But in the end, people were afraid of having this kind of time limit, and feared that they would have to “rush” things. This was not our intention at all, we think that the game should be enjoyed without any time constraint. So we removed this game over event, and tweaked a bit the end game content, so now (since the 1.02 patch) you can enjoy playing as long as you want.

We think that was a good decision, but because of that, the game lacks a bit of variety if you continue playing for a long, very long time… We are talking about more than 70 hours playthroughs, it doesn’t concern so many people if we look at the data, but still, we thought we should do something about what we considered to be an issue.

In the last 1.1 patch, we introduced some variability in the end-game stacks of enemies by adding random modifiers (Traits) to the battle characteristics of the enemies, like +2 HP, +10% To Hit, etc…

In the upcoming 1.2 patch, we have expanded this system and reworked all the stacks of enemies throughout the game by adding those modifiers to every single enemy in the game, meaning that every encounter will be unique.

You’ll for example end up sometimes with a “Quick Pillager” with a bonus to initiative, or a “Frail Archer” with lower HP, and another time an “Armored Pillager” and a “Precise Archer”.

The bonuses themselves are rather low, like +/- 5% to Hit, +1 HP, +2 Initiative… But when you reach endgame, we start stacking bonuses and throw some more powerful variations in the pool (like +2 max Damage, +1 Damage resist, +20% To Hit, …)

The only stat that we won’t touch is AP, because it would have too much of a big impact on the AI of the enemies, making them potentially acting “dumb”.

New Modifiers

Here’s a list of the different basic modifiers we added:

Precise
Mighty
Evasive
Quick
Vicious
Blessed
Armored
Tough
Defensive
Short-sighted
Feeble
Easy Target
Slow
Hesitant
Dumb
Frail
Off guard

The difficulty of our enemies stacks gets higher depending only on the number of days passed on the island (apart from the retaliation stacks, which are special, and that we boosted a lot), and so the random Traits that enemies can get are growing accordingly: at first, they’ll have only flaws, making the start of the game a bit easier, but soon they will start to gain increasingly good Traits, and even 2 or 3 good bonus Traits!

Enemy traits you’ll meet at the start of the game

This will make battles a whole lot more challenging, but since it was an area of the game that towards mid-game was getting easier and easier we thought we could add a bit more spice here 😉 Now the enemies evolve like your characters, so you’ll have to carefully plan ahead and make sure to have some combat specialists in your team! (that should be easier now with the rework of the level ups, see the 1.1 patch changelog for more details)

We’ll still have to playtest the balancing of this system to see if we didn’t made the game TOO challenging… but we feel it will provide a good challenge for hardcore players, as well as some more variety for new players.

The 1.2 Patch will be available for free this summer!

If you want to stay up to date with all the updates – be sure to follow us there:

Happy surviving!

Jul 5, 2018

Dead In Vinland's Future - Roadmap

Dead In Vinland - hegor

Hello survivors!

So, Dead In Vinland has been out for almost 3 months now (whaaaaatt?? already?! We could have sworn it was just yesterday…), and the response from the players has really been great. So, first of all: thank you all!!

Since release, we didn't take a break: we released many patches, hotfixes, and the BIG 1.1 patch that we released last month, which addressed the most important feedbacks from the community.

We're rather pleased with the state of the game right now, however, we don’t want to stop there. When we released Dead In Bermuda (in 2015), we wished we could have made more post-release content, but due to design and technical constraints it was not possible.

So, when we started development of Dead In Vinland, we had this in mind, and didn't made the same mistake. We CAN make new content for the game, and - that's what this post is actually about - we WILL!

We checked the forums, we checked the ideas coming from the Feature Wishlist thread, and some of our own... and we can now officially announce that we will be working on at least 3 DLCs for Dead In Vinland! And free updates, of course.

We made a little roadmap, let's check it out:

ROADMAP DETAILS

1. New Companion
This summer, we’re going to add a new companion in Dead In Vinland. We think you’re going to like having this one in your camp. 😉
Release: Summer 2018

2. New Game Mode
We’re adding a brand new mode for Dead In Vinland that will give you a totally new way to play the game. It’s a mode that was actually asked by the players. Can you guess what it’s going to be?
Release: Fall 2018

3. New content
We can’t reveal much, but we will add some new content in Dead In Vinland! We can only say that this one will have to do with the dialogues. We’ll share the details in 2019.
Release: Q1 2019

FREE UPDATES

Each DLC will be accompagnied with a major 1.X patch, with new features from the DLC that will be available for free to everyone, as well as smaller improvements on the game. We'll show some sneak peek on our Twitter starting next week!

UNANNOUNCED SURPRISES

Shhhh... ;)

We hope you guys will like what we’ll be adding to the game! We want to keep working on it as long as we can. We already have a lot of ideas for after the 3rd DLC, but it will only be possible if the sales go well, so spread the word and show us some love <3
Oh, and for those asking: yes, we’re starting to think about our next game, but it’s way too early to be talking about it...

If you want to stay up to date with all the updates - be sure to follow us there:
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Happy surviving!

Jun 15, 2018

1.1 Patch is here!

Dead In Vinland - himrahill

Hello survivors!

We're pretty excited to finally give you this big fat free 1.1 patch! We've been working hard on it since release, and we think we have addressed most of the common gripes people had with the game.

For the occasion, we made a little video to demonstrate the new features of the 1.1 version. Matt's english is not... very good... but bear with him ^^ We'll get better if we do that regularly.

https://youtu.be/5NuFRBvnEWQ

But enough blabbering, here is the full patch note:

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PATCH NOTES:
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Speed up options

We greatly raised the max speed of all the ingame animations, and added more options, so that you can really speed up the game as fast as possible.
You can modify these values in a dedicated tab in the options menu, and find your perfect setting.

Skip Mode

We reworked our fast-forward mode into a real skip mode that you can activate/de-activate when you want. Just press the button or right-click anywhere.
It will temporaliry set all the speed up options to the max.

Skip Mode for dialogs

We added the skip mode for the dialogs, so now you can really speed up those you've already seen.

Instant text display for dialogs

We added an option to enable instant text display in dialogs. It speeds up Skip Mode even further.

New RNG modes

We added 2 new optional RNG modes:

A "Statistical" RNG, as we call it, that completely reworks how the success chances for skillchecks, to hit chances, etc... are computed. In short, you now are certain to get a result that will be near the statistical expectation. (i.e. : 80% chances will give you a good result 8 times on 10)
A gaussian mode for all the random throws concerning "ranges" (like damages, states increases/decreases, items scavenged...). It will basically make that you'll get more often average values than extreme ones. For example, on a 2 - 4 DMG roll, you'll roll much more 3's, and sometimes 2's or 4's.

These 2 options can be enabled independantly. You can change them on the new game and load game screens.

Give same water ration to everyone

We added a little shortcut to give everyone the same water ration, and to clear the rations set to everyone.

Distribute food and water rations with right-click

We changed how the right-click works: it now magnetic drags food or water rations in the night phase, and if you left-click a character, the item will be kept in the magnetic drag. In short, you'll be able to distribute a lot more easily stacks of items, without having to drag n drop them from the bottom bar.

Safety check when boiling water

You won't be able to lose your fire anymore if you try to boil water and you don't have enough Fire Intensity.

Level Ups reworked

- The system now automatically re-rolls duplicates traits.
- You'll automatically get 1 Battle Trait and 1 Non Battle Trait. The 3 other Traits are still randomized.
- You'll now be able to re-roll the Trait list! You can do it 5 times each level-up, and you'll get a temporary bad trait as a tradeoff (for now, it gives -20% General XP. Cumulative)

Side bar sorting options

We added the possibility to sort your characters by state or skill in the sidebar. It will enable you to quickly see who is the most tired, or who is the best craftman in the camp :)

Inventory filters

We added some filters in the inventory, now you can filter by basic resources, food, healing items...

Items overview bar

You can now flag up to 12 items that you want to show in the overview bar, on top of the screen. With that, you can track the current stock of critical resources, and customize it the way you like!

Animosity gauge feedback

We now show the gauge progression of the Animosity Level of Björn when the value changes. You'll now see the direct impact of giving Elof more or less resources, and if you are near of the "point of no return"...

Post battle XP

Characters now gain a bit of XP when they participate (and survive) a battle.

Tavern: auto-switch to Relax Mode

If you don't have enough beers, the Tavern will automatically revert to Relax Mode.

Keyboard shortcuts

We added the list of all keyboard and mouse shortcuts in the option menu. You will see there that you can send all characters to shelter with pressing DELETE key, or that you can select a character just by pressing its number on your keyboard.

Saves no longer destroyed

The saves are no longer destroyed on game over now, even on True Viking, meaning that you can get the "bad" ending and still reload to try and get the "good" ending :)

Loki's trade revamped

Loki was completely reworked. He will trade a lot more items with you, and most importantly, he will trade TINDER with you... So now you won't be stuck without Tinder because you used them all :)

Miscellaneous

Added a privacy setting button in the option, for anonymous data collection.
The saves have been reworked, they should be less corruption-prone.
You can now re-use traps even when you catch something.
The drag n drop angle in the bottom bar has been reworked.
We added a "quit without saving" button, for the save-scummers ;)
You can now access the Character sheets outside camp.
Reworked the starting random traits: their maluses have been globally lowered, but now you get 3 instead of 2. All characters also draw from the same big list of traits, and can get any of them.
Added a check so that Eustache and Blodeuwedd's romance won't go to the final level if the player rebuked Eustache at every occasion.
Changed the "eat mud" tribute, to reflect if the player always gave meat.
Boosted a bit the Elites stacks during retaliations events.
After day 120, added new "full elite" enemies stacks and added some random buffs on them.
Changed a few runes and storyline dialog trees so that you don't have to start the dialogues again if you fail consecutive skillchecks.
Sheeps are now ordered by Health before being given food => the ones with lowest Health will be given food first, which can matter when there isn't enough food for every sheep.

Balancing

Dryer: food dries faster each days (+20%), for each weather type.
Dryer: lowered stolen food chances without upgrades from 15 to 10%.
Pens: lowered basic milk output from 8-12 to 6-10
Lowered a bit the "easy" mode: -20% animosity gains, -10% disease chances, -10% dehydration chances.

Fixes

Corrected the final event for Moira and Gudrun: the wild sheep wasn't removed from the inventory.
Corrected some exploits with the Helmet guy and the Cursed Tablets.
Corrected a rare bug that made the player stuck in battle
Corrected the floating bearded head rune
The last tribute won't be shown anymore once you've completed it.

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That's it! We hope new and old players alike will enjoy the game even more now. If we corrected things that made you give us a bad review at first, don't hesitate to update your review :) As a small developer, we rely on that A LOT.

And here's a small gif summing up some of the new features!

Happy surviving!