So Steam has this new Event type called 'Game Discount' and we thought we would give it a go now that Vagrus is discounted* by 10% to celebrate its upcoming new trailer with the official full release date.

Tune in to Gamescom Studio. between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.]



If you are new to Vagrus try the FREE Prologue to get a taste of what to expect.



Thanks, cheers,
The Lost Pilgrims Team

* The discount runs between Aug 25. 10 am PDT and Aug 31. 10 am PDT

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

We have some amazing news to share with you all today: IGN - the biggest gaming news site - has picked up our Vagrus release date reveal trailer as an exclusive for their live show streamed from the Gamescom Studio.

That means that our full release date will be revealed live on August 27 as part of the Gamescom show. It's a huge opportunity for us and the game to reach new audiences and help us with a final push before the release. Tune in to Gamescom Studio between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.]

You can find all the various ways to watch Gamescom shows here (details are being added by the IGN team).

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

This week's devlog post is about the shiny new User Interfaces for settlements and crew.

Settlements

There are a large number of settlements (cities, towns, villages, outposts, encampments) that you can visit in Vagrus, all of them unique locations even though they share some characteristics and features. For a long while now, we have planned a rework for the original UI - as we usually do with all UI elements, really.

The most apparent change is that we did away with the tabs on the side and introduced buttons on top that now match other UI elements (but kept the stack of papers design that everyone knows). This allowed us to fill out the larger available space and show more on one screen.

The Stories pane now also has hover effects (in the same way as the Event choices) and numbering, so you can use the keyboard to select from the available stories. There have been other changes in the background, too, like the subtle substitution of a better-quality parchment under all of it, or tweaks to scrolling, among other things. With all these, we feel that the settlement UI has become more user-friendly and intuitive with some QoL elements you can personalize in the menus. We hope you'll like it!

Reworked Crew UI

In the long line of UI reworks, our next stop is the crew UI where all the panes will now receive a lot of changes and upgrades. We planned to make these changes earlier but the design was in motion all the time - with new stats and mechanics being added - and so other things were completed and added before these in the end. And so now, so close to 1.0, we finally got around to implement the new crew UI.

Apart from tweaking the visuals, there were technical considerations as well. Most importantly, we had to have UI elements on a single paper instead of four overlaid ones, with buttons switching between different contents of the page. This is not only more efficient with resources but also solves issues with the overlaid pages getting stuck, leading to soft-locks, which had us blocking this UI during settlement resting. The redesign solves this issue at last. Additionally, the buttons on top now share the same design as on other UI panes, resulting in a more unified look, which boosts usability.

The most spectacular changes appear on the Crew Pane since new stats were added to the display here. Among these is the workforce requirement and production of crew members, as well as their Combat Strength and Defense scores, along with the usual Upkeep and Consumption values. The same is true for Passengers, too, making it clearer when some of them pay with work beside coins.

The other vastly reworked part is the Companion Perk sheet. The formerly tiny and crowded Perk pane now opens onto the larger sheet and is thus easier to see and navigate. We love this new, clean design and we hope that it'll be well-received.



As ever, we are grateful for the continued support - this game would not have been possible without you, the players.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

As we are gearing up for the 1.0 release of Vagrus, we are finally coming around to implement the victory mechanics, which means that you will soon be able to complete a playthrough! There are caveats, of course, since we are still in Early Access, but we thought it was time to discuss what to expect (now and later).

The Design

Even in the first game design documents, winning the game was connected to Ambitions - Wealth, Fame, Knowledge, as well as some hidden ones perhaps. That is, you will select an Ambition at character creation and you win the game by reaching that Ambition through gameplay, then completing an Event that will reward you with a victory.

Freeplay

Once victory is achieved, the game offers you to continue in Freeplay Mode. This is mostly for fun or if you wish to complete some additional stories, because Achievements are turned off, and the longer you go, the less sense some stories will make when you put them in the context of elapsed time. Still, we wanted to give players the chance to keep on wandering the wasteland if that was their desire.

Victory Screen(s)

Once you complete a victory, you will receive a victory screen - for now. We are planning a series of screens touching upon the most important storyline states and companion questlines, but initially, only the single Ambition-related screen will be added, primarily because we want to hold back on story reveals and endings until 1.0. Also, only a Renown Victory is available for the time being as some things are still being worked out for the other two.

Abolitionist Rework



We've been working on the Abolitionists, too. It is a unique faction that is a bit hidden and up until now, their presence was very minor apart from their main base of operations. The build now includes a new system that you will be able to use to unlock new faction locations for the Abolitionists. This involves getting ciphers from an already unlocked location (initially their main base) and taking it (within a time limit) to a new settlement where it will unlock the faction's presence there.



What is the point of this? Most importantly, it allows you to get Tasks from these locations, making it possible to raise your Abolitionist reputation to its maximum more fluidly. Apart from that, some quests involving the faction at certain places now require you to unlock the specific location before interacting with the cell there.

This system fleshes out the somewhat shunned Abolitionist more and we hope that it will lend the much needed depth and infrastructure to a slaveless playthrough. We hope more of our players are now motivated to try a successful Abolitionist run.

New Wyrms



By 'alternative Wyrms' we do not refer to a group of odd subculture, but a series of new enemies that are coming to ruin your day! These Sand Wyrm variants share the general look of the basic creature with slight modifications (and in some cases, differences in size). The reason for this diversification is that the long, high-end storyline involving them we are working on called for more and more varied enemies to make fights interesting and keep players on their toes.

And so please welcome the Armored Wyrm, the Frenzied Wyrm, the Spitter Wyrm, and the Great Wyrm. We hope that they will cause the right amount of trouble. We are looking forward to hearing your reactions to the Renown victory aswell and see how easy or difficult you find it to reach.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

Hey Folks,

In case you have not heard the good news yet, we are participating in DreamHack Beyond with Vagrus between July 24- July 31.
This unique game show does not only have their Steam sale page active already, they have also created a video game that you can log into, pick your avatar, and walk around in a Rick and Morty reminiscent world.



Within the game, you can roam around and check out rooms full of video game and creator booths, talk to NPCs, and complete quests.
You can claim a free ticket with the link here, and start playing here: DreamHack Beyond Game.

Enjoy! Cheers,
The Lost Pilgrims Team


During the event, Vagrus is available with a 10 percent discount.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

with so many of you well over the hundred hours mark in the game, it was high time for us to add the opportunity to actually win it. The first winning condition we have implemented is the Renown victory. The other two, Wealth and Knowledge will become available in the 1.0 release later this year.

No worries, though, meeting the winning condition and actually retiring with your vagrus are two separate things. Even after you are able to win the game, you can decide to continue playing and trigger the victory screen later in the associated in-game Event, essentially postponing the victory (and the game's end).

The Abolitionist faction is a secretive one that only engages a vagrus when they see a like-minded individual, so many players have never met them. Still, even the vagri who did may have felt that their reach was rather limited in the previous builds. With this release, they receive a new mechanic that allows players to unlock interactions with them in many other locations over time as they gain the trust of the faction. This spreading mechanic also serves as the means to get faction Tasks from them in those unlocked locations and even have the chance to increase their faction presence in the settlement of your choosing.



There are a number of other improvements as well, detailed in the patch notes below.

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.

Now let's jump into the details:

--------------------------------------------------

• Renown Ambition can be selected during vagrus creation
  
• Renown win condition implemented (triggered by the player from an Event)
  
• The option to change from Freeplay to Renown Ambition added (at the same location as the Renown victory Event chain)
  
• Callings now grant a temporary commission boost on the applicable Tasks (Trade or Mercenary)
  
• A great number of market, task, and equipment related tweaks
  
• Shorter initial loading time

• Option to unlock Abolitionist faction locations in numerous settlements via contacting cells
  
• A new NPC and quest line added that leads up to Renown victory (but part of the Event chain is playable by any vagri)
  
• New types of Wyrm enemies added
  
• New Jhakra and Legionnaire visual variations added

• Companion combat area targeting perspective added
  
• Leader UI rearranged a bit so the vagrus's details would not overlap
  
• Companion Perk UI runs a bit smoother (but still needs further improvement)

• Various trade and Task generation related fixes and tweaks
  
• Very rare Kindly Sister VIT to POW convert crash fixed
  
• Occasional Oghre Tantrum crash fixed
  
• Encourage now works during +1 Days in Events
  
• Liberating slaves now yields the correct amount of reputation with the Abolitionists
  
• Several animation sizes have been fixed
  
• Applied a great number of combat decal refinements
  
• Various other UI and/or bug fixes

Known Issues

• Companion Perk UI is bugged and lags - this will be fixed in a later build

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope.
'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Crew and Settlement User Interface update and the first set of Companion loyalty questlines are inbound.

Between July 24 and 31, we are participating in DreamHack Beyond with Vagrus. Find us in the festivals' virtual world in Hall: Normal Hive 4 in the RPG Games room. You can claim a free ticket though the following link: DreamHack Beyond.

Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland!
- The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

This week, we return to talk about the recently updated Companion Combat targeting options that suit different play-styles. The changes include a number of options from the main menu that allow the configuration of the way you target your foes and friendlies during the fights in Vagrus:

• Using keyboard only? Aside from picking a Skill with the keys '1-4' (and '5' for Move), you can use 'Tab' to switch between available targets, and 'Space' to confirm the action.
  
• Are you fine with mousing over stuff while resting your index finger? Hover over the target and trigger the skill from the keyboard without ever having to click with the mouse.
  
• Want to do away with having to confirm? Sure, attack like a pro without having to click twice by switching off confirm in the options.

Visual Improvements

There are also visual upgrades, like Area Targeting boxes instead of the previous visual effects on the metal bases of the characters.



We also added visual queues about Move + Action Skills in the form of the 'foot' indicating where the character is going to move while the player picks the target of the second part of the Skill.

Overall we are quite happy with these changes and the visible improvements of Companion Combat and while there are still further upgrades planned, we hope you like them already and find the best combination fitting your play-style.



Let us know how you like the options, and which type of targeting is the most usable for you!

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

The greatest thing about running open development is receiving amazing feedback from players that helps improving your game. The hardest thing about open development is identifying what the actual problem is that your players are having an issue with.

The perfect example of all this is Crew Combat in Vagrus, which is an aspect of the game that players complained about fairly regularly. After adding the Flee/Appease option, it got slightly better but not as much as we had hoped. While digging for the reasons, we came to some interesting realizations. Whenever we heard someone getting irked about how they bled out against a much stronger enemy, we asked whether they tried appeasing them and they pretty much all said "No, 'Flee' implied losing big time".

So we renamed the button from Flee to Buy off/Lure Away to better indicate the appease options lying underneath it. It got slightly better again. Yet many players still ignore it. When we asked why, we learned that they had a bad experience with it. They used the Auto Offer function that gave away all their slaves, which in turn resulted in a workforce shortage and sent them into a death spiral. Boom. Never touched the option again.

The Auto Offer function was indeed something that we left unfinished. It only offered money and crew, but not cargo, nor items. Thus, it often proposed a deal that was far from being optimal. So from the player feedback, "Crew Combat is insanely hard" we got to "a small piece of the Appease feature was left unfinished and coupled with no explanation, it led players to fight unwinnable battles they should be just avoiding".

The good news is: the current build has Item Offers and improved Auto Offers in it. And hope to see more players get the hang of when and how to avoid fights that are way out of their league.

Item Offers

Items are a resource that is often overlooked. They have no weight to be considered in the cargo hold and can accumulate silently. Items looted from events or combat encounters can turn otherwise unfortunate ventures profitable - if sold in the right place.

It also makes sense that these valuables be traded or used during Crew Combat appeasing. They can even add new flavor, since the various enemy types are interested in different items - tribal folk in trinkets and charms while Necromancers in ancient tablets and arcane texts. We even decided to introduce beast lures and Undead charms that are highly effective against those kinds of foes.



Items are split into two categories. Well, more like three. The items listed in blue are the ones that will help the player the most to successfully Appease the enemy (or aid their Flee in case of Beasts or Undead). The second group lists the items that can also be used but with less efficiency. There is also an implicit third category of items that the player owns but cannot be leveraged in the given situation.

Auto Offer Improvements

With Item Offers added into the mix and considering the feedback we deciphered, we spent some time shoring up our Auto Offer logic, too. For one, now it offers cargo and items as well, though it does not apply advanced mathematics to optimize the offer, there is an underlying logic that takes the enemy's goal into account. It will offer Supplies and edible goods first to voracious opponents, valuables to looters, mounts to poachers, and so on.

We think - and hope - that these changes brought us one step closer to addressing some of the unintended difficulties players face in the game as we continue to improve other features as well.

As ever, we are immensely grateful for all the support and feedback!

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

Companion Combat is an important facet of Vagrus even though players have quite a lot of control over how much they want to engage in it. At the same time, it is the most complex part of the game when it comes to code, so whatever changes we make requires more time relative to other parts.

After we added Mercenary Tasks, our focus has moved back to improving Companion Combat, partly because a lot of players opt to enter it from Crew Combat, so it is our goal to keep these fights interesting for as long as possible. The current set of changes are thus aimed at spicing things up a bit: more movement and thus further emphasis on positioning instead of spamming Skill 1 while standing still. The changes include:

Push-Pull Improvement:

When enemies are pushed into or pulled into another enemy, instead of being damaged slightly and staying at the previous position, the two combatants switch places, potentially setting weaker targets up for attacks or messing with their available Skills.



Skills Involving Move Action:

These Skills no longer require a free position to move into. Instead, the acting combatant will switch places with the one on the target position. In the example here, Gor'Goro charges forth, switching places with Harvek in the front line.



Here, Harvek jumps back, taking Renkailon's position while throwing his dagger.



Multi-phase Skills:

Speaking of Renkailon, one of the changes is not mechanical but visual, namely that Skills that have multiple phases will now perform these during the same camera zoom clash animation as originally intended, making it much more pleasing to the eye.



Acrobatics Perk:

Acrobatics is a Perk that is typically used by certain very agile characters - and opens up a new mechanic for them. When a combatant with this Perk Evades an attack successfully, they do not move onto a random empty position but can choose where to Evade, even onto an occupied spot, thereby opening up new tactical considerations.



Diehard Perk:

This Perk essentially saves a combatant from becoming Downed 30% of the time. When successful, Diehard makes it so that the character stays standing. Although far from reliable, it can save you in a pinch.



Although that's it for now, more improvements on the way for Companion Combat.

Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

it was amazing to see how our latest patch was received. So many great new reviews and quite a few previously negative ones flipped to positive. We appreciate you all immensely for your vote of confidence! Especially as apparently we left a huge bug in the game that made the late game easier, instead of the early game, as we originally intended. So that's getting fixed but what else comes in this new patch, you might ask? Let's dive in!

Crew Combat Appease Improvements
Appease is a feature that is still not used by many players, though it often holds the key to avoid major losses. With better Appease conversions, the option to offer items going forward, and the improved Auto Offer function, hopefully more players will benefit from this feature. Have we mentioned adding Beast Lures and Ahskulite Charms to distract beasts and Undead from your fleeing forces? Yep. Those. too, are now in the game.



Companion Combat Targeting
Changes to targeting include making a number of new options to configure how you preferred to target your foes and friendlies:

• Using ony the keyboard? Beside picking the Skill with keys 1-4 (and 5 for Move), now you can use 'Tab' to shuffle through available targets, and 'Space' to confirm.
  
• Okay with mousing over things but want to rest your index finger? You can now hover over the target and trigger the Skill from the keyboard without ever having to click with the mouse.
  
• Want to do away with having to confirm? Sure, attack like a pro without having to click twice.

There are also visual upgrades, like Area Targeting boxes instead of the previous visual effects on the metal bases of the characters. While these changes are not final and there are further improvements planned, we hope you like this already and find the best combination fitting your play style.

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.

Now let's jump into the details:

--------------------------------------------------

General

• Tweaks to the starting comitatus crew composition and beast type stats to enable an easier start
  
• New open-world starting tutorial added about the game being hard, and also Wasteland vs Dissonance Modes
  
• Dissonance Mode Heal (camp & event) boost
  
• Increased the workforce offered on a number of low-income passengers

Companion Combat

• Area targeting as an option (instead of having to click on the character bases)
  
• Area targeting visual update
  
• Previously targeting steps only worked in this order: Skill > Target > Confirm; now you can also do Target > Skill > Confirm
  
• You can switch Skills without having to select the target again
  
• Character selection refreshes the Skill bar to show which Skills can be used on the given target
  
• Change between targets using 'Tab'
  
• Confirm Skills with 'Space'
  
• Option to 'Target First Available' - after selecting a Skill, the first available target gets automatically selected
  
• 'Hover as Selected' option added
  
• UI, logic, and performance improvements to the new targeting features
  
• Unfocused enemies will fade to have a better focus on the target(s)
  
• Added SFX for a number of enemies

Crew Combat

• Item offering option added to Appease/Bribe
  
• Auto Offer functionality extended to offer Cargo and Items as well
  
• Beast lures and Undead Charms added in Events (mostly shops in settlements)

• Supply price limit period (Late vs Early game) corrected
  
• The disappearing character UI during successful Evade with the Acrobatic perk fixed
  
• Maxed out Cargo hold vs Stash anomalies solved
  
• Vitality mod anomalies in Dissonance mode after combat & camping fixed
  
• The bug where market and events did not refresh after 'One more day' fixed
  
• Journal scroll bar no longer cuts into text/assets
  
• Exquisite Banner Renown modifier counts towards Event dependencies now
  
• Various Task/Passenger related validations and auto-repair jobs added
  
• Rare Discipline/Liberate crash bug fix
  
• Fixed when some Trade Tasks were not visible on the Chart
  
• Failed Escort Tasks and stuck Passengers are fixed

Known Issues:

• There is a rare bug where the skill selection with keyboard misfires. Planning to apply a hotfix once we are able to reproduce and resolve the issue
  
• The Companion Perk UI is buggy (lags). Planing to rebuild it.
  
• Long initial loading time - we will see if we have time to do something about it before 1.0

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope.
'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

As we work on rounding out the content for the 1.0 release, we are also continuing our final UI upgrades: Crew and Settlement panes will come next.

Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland!
- The Lost Pilgrims Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord