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.
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.
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.
ACTIVE ABILITIES
“Brace for Impact!”
Grants bonus Dodge Chance and Block Chance until the next turn. While the effect is active, all received strikes receive major penalties to Accuracy, Fumble Chance, Armor Penetration and can’t crit.
Light body armor halves the skill’s Cooldown Duration and Energy Cost, and heavy armor doubles its Cooldown Duration.
This skill is useful for situations when your enemy is preparing to deliver a highly damaging or debilitating strike - “Brace for Impact!” will allow you to either negate it entirely or at least greatly reduce its effectiveness.
“Flexible Defense”
Delivers a strike to three adjacent tiles with a penalty to Weapon Damage but a large bonus to Stagger Chance. Additionally, all enemies within the skill’s area of effect receive a debuff to Weapon Damage, Fumble Chance, and Accuracy for three turns.
Light body armor prolongs the debuff’s duration to six turns, and heavy body armor replenishes 5% Max Energy for each enemy within the skill’s AoE.
Although this skill works well with all armor types, its synergy with high Dodge Chance makes it exceptionally useful to lightly armored builds.
“Unyielding Defense”
Allows to reposition to an adjacent tile, then activates an effect that grants a bonus to Control Resistance, Block Power Recovery, all body parts’ Protection, as well as Block Chance or Dodge Chance (depending on which one is higher). Receiving enemy strikes grants an extra stack of the effect.
This skill isn’t considered a stance, so it can be used together with Weaponry stances. Other than that, it provides an option to safely reposition when surrounded by enemies, as moving with abilities doesn’t trigger Attacks of Opportunity.
“Battering Ram”
“Battering Ram” performs a charge towards a target, dealing Crushing Damage to it with a chance to apply Stagger.
Light body armor halves the skill’s Cooldown, increases its Range, and allows it to grant bonus Weapon Damage for a few turns that scales with Dodge Chance. Heavy armor reduces the skill’s Range and switches the Stagger Chance to Stun Chance for a greater impact.
This skill is meant to be an alternative to “Dash” from Athletics, offering extra means of closing distance with enemies, especially if your weapon of choice doesn’t have access to charges.
PASSIVE ABILITIES
“Self-Repairs”
Reduces the rate of Durability loss (for weapons too) by 15%, increases the effectiveness of Repair Kits, and allows to dismantle armor into fragments that can be used for patching up your other armor.
Additionally, this passive grants a bonus to Bleed Resistance and Fortitude for each equipped piece of armor with more than 80% Durability.
Different fragment types replenish different amounts of Durability depending on an item’s level. For instance, a piece of cloth scrounged from a peasant shirt won’t be very effective when used for repairing an expensive mantle.
“Hard Target”
Reduces Armor Penetration of all attacks against the character.
Ranged attacks against the character also grant a bonus to Dodge Chance for a few turns while simultaneously reducing the attacker’s Accuracy. The effect triggers twice if the enemy manages to land a shot.
“Battle-Hardiness”
Using stance skills and maneuvers reduces Damage Taken until the next turn.
Light body armor also grants bonus Dodge Chance and Counter Chance for a few turns for each traveled tile (this includes tiles traversed with charges and maneuvers), and heavy body armor reduces Skills Energy Cost for each turn spent on the same tile.
“Custom Adjustments”
Each piece of equipped armor grants a special bonus depending on its type.
Light armor grants additional Protection to the respective body parts. Medium armor grants Bleed Resistance to the respective body parts. Heavy armor increases Max Energy and Energy Restoration.
====================================
And finally, here are some of the new items that will be added with the Equipment Update III:
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.
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.
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
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
The Drunken Woodsman is a safe haven for any hunter whose trade brings them close to Osbrook.
Mannshire - New Orchard
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
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:
Medium Backpack grew in capacity and received sizable side pouches.
Small Backpack isn’t particularly roomy, but it’ll be much easier to obtain than other bag types.
Field Surgeon Bandolier - a solid choice for anyone who wants to carry lots of meds and other consumables.
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.
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:
- Fixed the bug causing accumulated Pain levels to change too abruptly when the Pain Limit is decreased. - “Keep Them Coming” can no longer be triggered by casting spells. - Fixed “Determination” doing nothing when used against enemies on the same tile as a doorway. - Fixed the possibility of attacking Runic Boulders while Stunned. - Added an Accuracy bonus to Throwing Nets, Nistrian Flame Flasks, and Spider Blood Flasks. - Fixed the bug causing some contracts to not register the Necromancer’s death. - Fixed Brigand Geomancers casting “Stone Spikes” without a good enough reason. - Fixed Brigand Geomancers using the character’s Spell Range instead of their own when casting “Boulder Toss”. - Dungeon Bats and Giant Rats can no longer open doors. - Updated Crowns’ sprite. - Fixed Elite Brynn Guards not switching to their alternative sprite when in combat state. - Fixed Horse Pelts using an incorrect sprite when dropped on the floor. - The Brigands' speech lines aimed at nearby allies are no longer triggered by nearby dogs. - Bleeding enemies no longer use the character’s speech lines. - Completely fixed the bug that allowed some animals to use speech lines. - The Brynn Hierophant now uses his intended name and role. - Fixed Mannshire Guards being tagged as Osbrook Guards. - The standalone Prologue is now up-to-date.
- Fixed the freezes reported by some players when playing with the native cursor enabled. Returned the option to enable it in the settings. - Fixed some empty vessels being able to apply their targets with “Wetness” and “Covered in Alcohol” when thrown. - Fixed wolf packs getting stuck in the “Howl” loop. - Fixed the possibility of avoiding death by moving to another location on the same turn as receiving lethal damage. - Adjusted the menu layout for the 1280x800 screen resolution. - The cursor size now adapts to the game window size. - Fixed “Rune of Enfeeblement” and “Rune of Fortifying” granting their effect regardless of the distance to a runic boulder. - Fixed the occasional crash caused by killing Girruds. - Fixed the issue with displaced container menus. - Reduced the intensity of the “Drunkenness” visual effects. - Fixed Necromancers using the same speech lines as the generic Undead. - Fixed the bug causing enemies to use incorrect speech lines under certain circumstances. - Tweaked the effectiveness of alcohol and the Bloodletting Lancet to make Pain and Intoxication more manageable during the early stages of the game.
- After the latest hotfix a small percentage of players started to experience occasional game freezes when playing with the native cursor enabled. We're still investigating, so as a temporary fix we disabled this option until a proper solution is found. - Fixed an issue that sometimes didn't properly register killing dungeon bosses. - Fixed "Short Circuit" incorrectly mentioning being modified by Bonus Range. - Fixed the "Intimidation" hover displaying a technical tag instead of the debuff chance. - Fixed critical kill character lines being triggered when targeting inanimate objects.
- Drunkenness was split into 4 stacks with varying changes to stats: 1 and 2 stacks of the effect are mostly beneficial, while 3 and 4 are largely detrimental. - The number of stacks depends on the effect’s duration and is tied to specific thresholds (1x / 120x / 240x / 300x ). Stacks can only go up: once a threshold is achieved, they will remain until the effect’s duration completely runs out. - Apart from changing the character’s stats, Drunkenness also has special modifiers that manifest with each added stack. 2 stacks of Drunkenness can cause Confusion, 3 stacks - Vomiting, and 4 stacks introduce a chance to fall Asleep. These chances change dynamically depending on the number of stacks and the effect’s remaining duration. - Vomiting while asleep deals significant damage to your character and can potentially be lethal. - The intensity of visual effects now changes depending on the effect’s number of stacks. The distortions and wobbling will be barely noticeable while affected by 1 stack and will reach the levels of old Drunkenness by the time you achieve 4 stacks. - The duration of Drunkenness gained from drinking alcohol is governed by several factors. High Hunger will increase the duration, while high Vitality and Intoxication Resistance will do the opposite. - At the end of its duration, Drunkenness with 3 or 4 stacks will transform into Hangover. - Unlike other types of Aftermath, Hangover allows you to drink alcohol without triggering Bad Trip, offering an opportunity to partially negate the debuff. - Elven Citruses, Mindwort, Ginger Roots, and Antitoxin can be used to gradually reduce the duration of Drunkenness.
- Added ~400 new speech lines for the player character (including unique lines for each preset option), the Brigands, and the Undead. The list of conditions that can trigger speech lines was greatly expanded as well. - Added more options to display settings: fullscreen, bordered, windowed.
GAMEPLAY & BALANCE
- Offensive skills’ bonuses to Accuracy and/or Fumble Chance are no longer individual. Instead, there’s now a universal bonus of +10% Accuracy and -5% Fumble Chance. Leveling “Right on Target” will improve it directly. - Increased stat gains from Strength. (for each achieved threshold): [+5% > +7.5%] Weapon Damage, [+10% > +15%] Armor Damage, [+10% > +15%] Crit Efficiency (for each SP invested): [+2.5% > +3%] Bodypart Damage) - Reduced the base Block Power and Block Power coefficients for most weapons. - Changed the order of condition checks for Distant Dungeons' boss chests (if all possible Artifacts are already found, these chests are now guaranteed to spawn a unique item). - If an ability is modified by Bonus Range or a specialized Magic School’s Power, it will now be listed in its hover. - Standardized the way Bonus Range interacts with spells. Increased the number of spells affected by it. - Reduced the base Range of some Pyromancy spells. - Rather than working within the entirety of the caster’s Vision Range, Geomancy spells now have their own Range stat, just like all other Magic Schools. - Increased the durability of Runic Boulders (boosting the damage dealt to anyone Knocked back into them), but greatly reduced their Resistances, making them much more vulnerable to attacks. - Moving to another location will now automatically skip a turn, giving enemies a free action. - Significantly reduced the passive Pain decay [-0.2 per turn if all conditions are met > -0.05 per turn / -0.5 per turn if the current Pain is higher than Pain Threshold > -0.25 per turn] - Tweaked the stat scaling of Mace skills (some of the skills’ effects now favor Strength over Agility). - Significantly reduced Leechworms’ Accuracy and increased their Fumble Chance. - Bad Trip will no longer increase Intoxication. - Reduced the durability of sarcophaguses. Knocking enemies against them should no longer deal obscene amounts of damage. - Increased the impact of active debuffs on the Rest Mode’s restorative effects. - Bloodletting Lancets now use a different mechanic. - Generic Brynn merchants no longer sell treatises.
FIXES
- Fixed the exploit allowing to dupe items with the Caravan Storage. - Fixed the Bloodletting Lancet not displaying in the character's hands when equipped. - When inspecting enemies, the displayed Resistances to individual Damage types will no longer duplicate the numbers gained from the Resistances to broad Damage categories. This change should noticeably reduce the size of enemies’ hovers and improve their readability. - Fixed Backfire Damage not having 100% Armor Penetration, which was allowing to completely negate it with some armor. - Fixed an issue that made it impossible to reduce the base Backfire Chance of spells. - Fixed the upper threshold of Backfire Damage being displayed as 100% instead of 200%. - Fixed the bug with Stone Spikes’ durability that was causing enemies to receive minuscule amounts of damage when Knocked back into them. - Fixed Crit Efficiency not being split between hands in the Character menu while dual-wielding. - Fixed the loot generation bug that was causing contract chest in high level dungeons to provide insufficient rewards. - Fixed Pyromancy spells granting excessive bonus to Pyromantic Power when learned [2.5% > 2%]. - Fixed “Deadly Trick” increasing its user’s Crit Chance upon activation. - Fixed “Unstoppable” replenishing Energy for 20% of the character’s Max Health instead of Max Energy. - Fixed “Earthquake” burning a static amount of Energy instead of the listed percentage. - Added a cap to Energy Burn applied by “Earthquake”. The effect scales with Willpower. - Fixed “Cauterize Wounds” increasing the duration of its effect with each stopped Bleeding rather than boosting the effect’s power. - Fixed enemies being able to use “Maneuver” to traverse 2 tiles in 1 turn. - Fixed the Ancient Troll taking multiple instances of damage from “Piercing Shot”. - Fixed “Whirlwind” being able to move nests and hives. - Fixed “Determination” being able to hit charging enemies multiple times per turn (by Knocking them back over and over again). - Fixed Martyrs’ “Blessed in Death” granting its bonuses to the character instead of the Proselytes. - “Offensive Tactic” should now correctly improve the character’s Accuracy when they miss with a ranged weapon. - Fixed “Peck” being able to apply Blindness upon hitting any body part, not just the target’s head. - Fixed “Berserk Tradition” not granting Dodge Chance for each degree of Injury affecting the character (this includes stabilized Injuries as well). - Fixed the hover of “War Cry” displaying a technical tag instead of the debuff chance. - Fixed “War Cry” granting 1 less turn of “Battle Rage” than mentioned in its hover. - Fixed the hover of “War Cry” not mentioning Willpower as a relevant attribute. - Fixed “War Cry” using an incorrect area of effect. - Fixed “Keep Them Coming” not granting the effect of “Mighty Swing” when killing enemies with the ability tree’s skills and critical hits simultaneously. - Fixed ranged enemies being able to use “Seize the Initiative” from a distance without actually taking a shot. - Fixed the bug that prevented the use of abilities while Frozen Stiff. - Skipping time by sleeping will no longer take the Rest Mode’s bonuses into account. - Fixed the issue with the display of stats in the Character menu when using the Rest Mode. - Fixed Brigand Paymasters not being able to attack the character under certain circumstances. - Possibly fixed the crash caused by moving to a different location if a Brigand Geomancer summons a Runic Boulder on the same turn. - Fixed Brigand Geomancers being able to use Runic Boulders outside of their Vision Range. - Fixed the Blessed Aquamanile healing damaged body parts for a smaller amount than mentioned in its hover. - Fixed Paregoric not granting immunity to Coughing when it’s applied by Harpies’ “Unbearable Stench”. - Fixed the crash caused by the Manticore’s “Lion Leap”. - Fixed the bug with the“Gwynnel’s Answers” quest that could potentially result in the disappearance of the hidden lever. - Fixed Brynn Guards using incorrect speech lines. - Fixed Leechworms and certain other animals being able to use speech lines. - Ahruz from the Prologue is now correctly listed as an elf rather than a human. - Fixed the outdated hover of “Curse”. - Fixed the outdated hover of “Baleful Scream”. - Fixed the collision issues affecting the second floor of the Brynn Bank and the cart in the Plague Village. - Fixed the layering issue with the Brynn Banker's sprite. - Fixed the Guard Helmet not displaying correctly when worn by Arna. - Fixed certain vessels’ sprites not displaying correctly in the inventory and when dropped on the floor. - Fixed the incorrect sprite of the tier IV Ranged Weapons treatise. - Fixed the issue with the Throwing Net’s visuals when used on Young Trolls. - Fixed “Sleep” darkening the screen on top of the already existing visual effect.
- Made sweeping updates to the Bleed system as a follow-up to the recent distribution of Bleed Resistance between specific body parts. - Changed Durability of most weapons to better fit with previous balance tweaks. - Tweaked the level range of the loot in chests. - Added exquisite dishes to the Ralph & Sons Inn. - Added traps to the Brynn Quartermaster’s stock. - Nerfed Proselyte Matriarchs. - Moved Yagrams back to higher level Catacombs. - Paregoric will now add 4 hours to the max sleep duration. - Made the following changes to “Gaping Wound”: reduced the Abilities Energy Cost debuff [50% > 33%], added a Cooldowns Duration debuff [+33%], removed the Bleed Resistance debuff, and lowered the skill’s base Bleed Chance [75% > 50%]. - Fixed certain abilities disproportionately targeting some body parts over the others. - Fixed “Painful Stabs” granting more Crit Efficiency than listed in its hover. [+15% > +10%] - Fixed “Tormenting Swings” reducing its targets’ Max Health for a larger amount than listed its hover. [-7% > -5%] - Fixed “Blade Maintenance” granting more Crit Efficiency than listed in its hover. [+15% > +10%] - Fixed "Fatal Strike” reducing Abilities Energy Cost for a smaller amount than listed in its hover. [-25% > -33%] - Fixed “Maim and Kill” granting less Bleed Chance than listed in its hover. [+15% > +20%] - Fixed “Moment of Weakness” not granting Stagger Chance. - Fixed “Severe Concussion” reducing Accuracy for a larger amount than listed in its hover. [-50% > -25%] - Fixed “Offensive Tactic” not granting a bonus to Crit Efficiency upon landing a critical shot. - Fixed “Revel in Battle” granting all its bonuses while just under the effect of “Striker Stance”. - “Seal of Finesse” will now properly reduce the accumulated Backfire Damage by 20% rather than only negate the Backfire Damage generated by the ability itself. - Fixed enemies with two-handed maces incorrectly prioritizing the use of “Mighty Swing”. - Fixed “Flame Saturation” reducing Spells Energy Cost for a larger amount than listed in its hover. [-20% > -10%] - Fixed “Inner Reserves” replenishing less Max Energy than listed in its hover. [20% > 25%] - Fixed “Now or Never” not granting its bonuses for successful and partial dodges. - Fixed “Dismember” reducing the target’s Health by a flat amount rather than scaling the damage with its Max Health. - Fixed “Residual Charge” granting its effect for a smaller number of turns than listed in its hover. [4 > 6] - Fixed “Shield Bash” reducing Block Power by a larger amount than listed in its hover. [-30% > -20%] - Fixed “Pack Sense” granting its bonuses not only to Wolves but also the Character. - Fixed “Spot Weakness” not applying some of its effects. - Fixed “Seal of Power” incorrectly reapplying its effects. - Fixed “Boulder Toss” using two different formulas for its chances to apply Stun or Daze. - Fixed the softlock that could occur when bringing potion ingredients to l’Owcrey. - Fixed the crash caused by learning certain rumors. - Fixed the hover of “War Cry” not listing the skill’s debuff chance. - Fixed “Tongue Push” displaying an incorrect hover. - Fixed ranged Brigands not dropping bows on death. - Fixed Bleed Resistance appearing twice in the Character’s stat menu. - Fixed the issue preventing the activation of the Boulder Circle under certain circumstances. - Fixed the generation bug with one of the abandoned carts. - Fixed the generation bug with one of the Camps. - Severe Intoxication will no longer cause Vomiting. Also significantly reduced the chance to Vomit while affected by Deadly Intoxication - on top of that, the overall chance drops to zero if the Character experiences significant Hunger.
- 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.
- Fixed the crash caused by finishing the Mannshire Priest’s task when playing on an old save. - Fixed the Mannshire Priest’s task not increasing your Reputation when playing on an old save. - Fixed “Jolt” not being able to apply “Resonance” on more than one target at a time. - Runic boulders will no longer damage the caster when summoned. - Fixed the Mannshire Priest thanking you prematurely for completing his task. - Fixed the crash caused by the servant in the Golden Grain Inn. - Fixed one of the new Restlesss missing a name and a description. - Fixed the crash caused by learning new rumors. - Fixed the missing backpack in the Hermit’s Hut. - Removed the passive Cooldown Reduction from “Coordinated Advance”. - Fixed the issue causing dialogue options to disappear when learning certain rumors. - “Seal of Geomancy” now properly grants +15% Block Chance, just as listed in its hover. - Fixed “Destabilizing Hits” not granting extra Stagger Chance. - Fixed the Restless dropping double the intended amount of loot. - Fixed the possibility of lockpicking already opened containers. - Dirwin’s starting trait now works as described. - Fixed “Piercing Shot” always failing to hit targets behind the main one. - Fixed one of the Brigands missing a “resting” sprite.
Special improvements to some of the Points of Interest added with the Forgotten Lore update: the Boulder Circle and the Order’s Prison.
Added a task to the Mannshire Priest (may require starting a new game to access).
6 new types of mid tier Restless.
10 new types of high tier Brigands.
3 new abilities that come with them.
4 new helmets and 2 more Heater Shield variants.
5 new boots
New folio.
New unique spear.
New unique bow.
Added unique abilities to Gulons.
Added eggs to harpy nests.
Added rumors for new Points of Interest.
FIXES
Just as promised in the dialogue, guests of the Golden Grain Inn can now expect to be served breakfast.
“Vow of the Feat” no longer grants its bonuses when enemies are not within Vision.
Fixed the crash caused by triggering the Manticore’s dialogue if the character dies on the same turn.
Fixed Skeletons being able to feel pain.
Fixed the damage cap of “Wounding Spearhead”.
Fixed “One at a Time!” not granting Block Power Recovery.
Fixed “No Retreat” continuously granting its bonuses even after moving to other tiles.
Fixed enemies being able to enter walls with “Maneuver”.
Fixed “Blade Maintenance” granting its bonuses to all weapon types rather than just swords.
Fixed willows and shrubs occasionally spawning in the middle of some roads.
Fixed some achievements not working as intended: “Drink and Be Merry” and “Theory and Praxis”.
Fixed the possibility of reflecting “Tempest” with “Seal of Reflection”.
Fixed the possibility of reflecting “Seal of Reflection” with “Seal of Reflection”.
Fixed the possibility of starting campfires on tiles within the reach of tides.
Fixed the issue causing items in the inventory to overlap when using the auto sort button.
Fixed some unique shields missing a sprite when dropped on the ground.
Fixed the bug causing NPCs to be overly inaccurate when using missile abilities such as “Fire Barrage”.
The food items that spawn on the surface and inside buildings will now stay fresh rather than rot away
Fixed Mancatchers and Beastslayers spawning additional Dogs each time a save file is loaded.
Fixed Catacomb pedestals spawning additional treatises when reentering the location.
Fixed some Brynn NPCs missing a description.
The effects of the Heraldic Note is now properly listed in the Reputation log.
Fixed Yagrams’ Rage not accumulating as intended.
“Determination” will no longer attack enemies who are already adjacent.
Fixed “Respite” replenishing 4 times more Energy than it’s supposed to.
Fixed the Brynn Cheese Trader’s incorrect greeting line.
Fixed some of the Golden Grain NPCs' incorrect greeting lines.
Fixed some Proselytes displaying an incorrect death animation when killed with critical damage.
Fixed the endless stacking of “Concussion”.
Fixed the Smithing Bailiff being able to sell his stock in broad daylight.
Fixed two handed swords not applying Stagger with their skills, this time for sure.
Fixed Bran the Trapper losing his stock in certain scenarios.
Fixed the incorrect contents of the hidden stash at the Watermill.
Fixed rings not affecting the character’s stats when equipped together with an identical ring.
Fixed Vipers spawning in pairs.
Fixed the possibility of going through the Burial Cave door while it plays its closing animation.
Fixed the chicken coop at the Ransacked Homestead continuously spawning new eggs.
Fixed capes not granting bonuses to certain stats.
Fixed the incorrect journal description of the final stage of “Gathering the Caravan”.
The state of secret rooms is now properly saved between sessions.
BALANCE
Increased the base Accuracy of thrown items.
Added new Pyromancy spells to Brigand sorcerers.
“Cauterize Wounds” can now remove the effect of “Gaping Wound”.
Added a damage cap to “Forceful Slam”.
Changed the mechanic of “Not this Time”.
“Leg Sweep” now has a chance to Stagger the targets it fails to Immobilize.
“Mighty Kick” now always has a chance to Stagger.
Changed the mechanic of “Armor Crusher”.
Nerfed “Opportune Moment”.
Rather than always hitting all targets in its path, “Piercing Shot” now has its chance to hit calculated individually for each affected target.
Changed the mechanic of “FInal Push”.
Added defensive bonuses to “Fight to the Death”.
Added extra bonuses to “Moment of Weakness”, allowing maces to better synergize with other weapon types.
Changed the abilities available to Proselyte Matriarchs.
Fixed Ol’ Tott’s prices.
Reduced Hunger gain from the Curse of Voracity.
UX
In order to make exploration easier and more streamlined, Points of Interest will now be marked on the global map upon entering map tiles adjacent to them.
Added a new camera setting: edge panning.
DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
We also updated our Roadmap, the details are below.
Just like the last few major updates, the next one, “Rags to Riches”, will focus primarily on systemic changes, adding a number of new mechanics and improving upon the existing ones. We plan to release it next year: among other things, the update will feature the long-awaited Caravan system, revamped contracts, better dungeon generation, and tweaks to the economy.
After that, there’ll be “Venom in the Waters”, which will introduce another biome to the game, a new boss, a new magic school, and a whole new dungeon type (along with its own enemy faction).