Jan 28, 2021

鬼谷八荒 Tale of Immortal - jiml

【！！！！警示！！！！】道友如果使用了修改器请务必保存好存档，否则可能会引起坏档情况！！

以下为本次【0.8.1013 版本更新内容】

1.优化了部分神通的施展条件不好触发的问题。
　烈火凤：绝技以及身法生成烈焰的持续时间都增加了，使敌人更容易在烈焰中死亡。
　冰天眼：现在击杀有寒霜的敌人也能获得层数了。
2.增加了拍卖会中出现神通及其它高级秘籍的概率。
3.修复了杀害低境界的同道中人降低了声望却没有提示的问题。
4.修复了杀害敌道之人也会降低声望的问题。
5.修复了由于拾取距离过远时的动画过快的问题。
6.修复了部分技能没有显示伤害的问题。
7.修复了生成大地图时，6个灵气地形可能会缺少1个的问题。（需要新建存档，旧档需要稍等之后的补丁修复）
8.修复了宗门小比可能会出现自己作为对手的问题。
9.修复了在东海区域内遭遇战斗后可能会被传送至十万大山的问题。
10.修复了尸王可能会出现无限吸血的的问题。
11.下调了无极秘境与不归秘境的念力需求。
12.优化了出售道具的操作。
13.修正了部分逆天改命的出现概率，并对以下逆天改命进行了一系列数值调整

Jan 28, 2021

Update 5: Bigger Maps

Ruinarch - Marvin

Hi everyone! This is our first milestone update of 2021. I consider this more of a consolidation patch - it involves mostly tweaks on existing features, performance improvements and bug fixing. These changes are also partly in preparation for our next two milestones which are going to be quite big and will introduce some significant progression changes to how the game is played. Expect the first of those two milestones in late March.

Merged Regions

Probably the most noticeable change here is that we've done away with regions separated into different maps. A world may still be composed of multiple regions of different biomes but they are all now accessible within one single map.

We had to rework some of our Villager AI to make this performant. The downside here is that the Villagers now lost some of their flexibility in decision-making. There are still some further rework needed for the Villagers to operate better but these will be introduced alongside the Villager Progression update.

This change also does further reduce the necessity of having such a detailed hex World Map so it is likely that it will be replaced by a simpler minimap in the future.

We'll slowly further increase map sizes as we continue improving performance.

Customization Options

We've introduced some additional gameplay setting options to our Custom Games. Changes include:
- instead of selecting number of regions, choose between different Map Sizes. The Map Size dictates the maximum number of regions, starting factions and starting villages
- specify the starting faction's Faction Type, Name and VIllages
- set the Biome of the map's different regions
- modify various difficulty settings such as Cooldown Speed, Mana Costs, Ability Charges, Generated Threat and Villager Migration
- choose Sandbox mode if the player does not want the game to end when there are no more villagers

Updated and New Scenarios

Given the new flexibility of Custom, we feel that the current scenarios require some changes to make them offer unique challenges that you can't encounter from Custom. What we've decided to do is to tweak some scenarios to use custom loadouts and/or have unique win conditions that force players to try different aspects and playstyles available in the game. These unique win conditions should also help us identify what's currently lacking in the player's repertoire - ideally we want the player to be able to accomplish these goals using different approaches. If there is a lack of options, we can introduce tweaks in upcoming updates.

More Monsters and Monster Respawn

We've added 3 new monsters: Scorpion, Harpy and a third secret one. We have also reworked regional fauna list so that different biomes can each have their own possible sets of monster types. Monsters may now also respawn in caves and monster lairs throughout a playthrough.

New Abilities

The following new abilities have been added:
1. Remove Buff - A new miscellaneous action that allows the player to remove any positive Trait of a character.
2. Remove Flaw - A new miscellaneous action that allows the player to remove any negative Trait of a character.
3. Expel - Can be performed on a Villager belonging to a Faction allied with the player. The target will get kicked out of the Faction.
4. Heal - A new miscellaneous action that fully heals the target character.
5. Release - A new miscellaneous action that removes Restrained, Ensnared, Frozen and Enslaved from the target character.
6. Protection - A new spell which applies the new Protection status on non-hostile targets within a small Area. Characters with Protection receive reduced damage.
7. Join Faction - Available on all Cultists. This instructs them to switch to a different valid Major Faction.

Tweaks

- Scheme cooldown is now different depending on the Scheme that was triggered.
- Slightly reduced Night Zombie HP.
- Migrating villagers will more likely spawn away from player structures that are at the edge of the map.
- Quantity of resource piles are also now displayed in their nameplates.
- If Brainwash is successful, the target's Needs will all be fully replenished.
- Characters now very rarely flirt with their husbands or wives.
- Temporary: Monsters now do not spawn in wilderness - they only spawn inside caves and other special structures.
- Divine and Nature Worship will usually only be considered as crimes if the Faction Type is Demon Cult.
- Villagers will take back objects that they assumed was stolen from them.
- Elves no longer like to eat Rats and Ratmen.
- Slightly reduced some plague transmission rates.
- Reduced Plague spell charges to just 1 and slightly increased its Mana Cost.
- Tend Farm action is now removed. Farms can now be harvested daily.
- Villagers can now usually only obtain resources and food when the appropriate resource structure has been built. This is a pre-setup for future Villager Progression updates.
- Sharing Intel that a Wild Monster or Undead ate or butchered a Villager may now trigger Exterminate Quests.
- Cultist trait is no longer considered as a Flaw. Cleanse Flaw should no longer remove the Cultist trait.
- Added a Skip Advanced Tutorial switch in the Settings Menu to disable optional tutorial quests related to new Demonic Structures and other gameplay elements.
- Clicking on Pause button while game is paused will unpause the game.

Bug Fixes

- [FIXED] Booby Trap Character renamed to Booby Trap as it does not fit inside the right click menu.
- [FIXED] Trolls are not eating their prisoners.
- [FIXED] Character selector is misaligned when the selected Villager is sleeping on a bed.
- [FIXED] Bone Golems attack prisoners.
- [FIXED] A Faction sometimes considers a Worship as a crime even though it is still their own Worship ideology.
- [FIXED] Monsters that turn into zombie have the wrong zombie sprites.
- [FIXED] Snatch action is still available on characters that belong to the player's Faction.
- [FIXED] Some characters get stuck when trying to attack doors or walls.
- [FIXED] Wrong crime assumptions can be used as blackmail material.
- [FIXED] Lycanthropes may target and kill their original forms.
- [FIXED] Some characters have a strange glow.
- [FIXED] Some Plagued characters are missing their Plagued particle effects.
- [FIXED] Gibberish text are sometimes seen in Successor tooltips.
- [FIXED] Some instances of failed Preach action logs it incorrectly as if it were successful.

Jan 28, 2021

Ranks - Seasonal Ladder Revamp

KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas

Ladies & Gentlemen... and the rest of you guys!

This blog will cover the details of the changes we are doing to the seasonal ladder along with some other fundamental changes to the overall progression in the game.

This blog is part of a series to inform you about all the upcoming changes:

High-level overview blog
Wildcards
National Progression and Achievements
Non-nation specific seasonal ladder (this blog)
Transition to the new systems or "What happens with my stuff?"

National Progression

National ladder no more

Because the current seasonal ladder incentivises players to play different nations and offers a lot of rewards depending on the nation being played, we feel it overlaps too much with the new national specific progression system. Having both national ranks and national levels is confusing and not ideal from a game design perspective.

So we have opted to simplify the current ladder, making it a single, non-national track where it will be more competitive to reach the top and more about status and bragging rights than rewards.

It didn’t really make sense that the most advanced and experienced players with big collections were getting the most cards from this system while players outside of the top few hundred players were struggling to get cards they needed to complete their decks. In the new Kards ecosystem, the national progression system is the main driver of your collection, while ranked play drives your status through prestige, and is reflected with gold card rewards and other equipment & other decorative items later. Overall the amount of rewards in the game will be higher and more consistent, hopefully allowing for a great player experience.

We have heard your concerns about this leading to less diversity in decks on the ladder. What our experience with the ladder so far shows is that players tend to have their favorite nation or nations and split their games between that and whatever might be popular in the meta at the time, therefore we are confident moving forward with the change. This is, however, something we will keep a close eye on in the future and take action on if needed. A diverse and fun game experience is something we will always strive towards.

The Ranks

The number of total steps (stars) to climb the ladder to the top will remain very similar to the current system. However instead of having to get to the top with 3 nations, the progress is non-nation specific. There are 25 ranks, starting from 25th rank and reaching rank 1 of Field Marshal at the top. Each rank has 5 stars to complete to rank up to the next except rank 1 of Field Marshal, which only has one star which you get as soon as you complete the 5 stars of rank 2.

While you are still in ranks 25 - 21 you can not drop down between ranks, which should help new players off to a good start.

Most other aspects of the system will work as before or very similar, such as “safe points” at the bottom of each rank and winstreaks etc. However, these are parameters we may or may not change and fine tune as a result of testing and feedback so we are not giving out the exact details yet.

The seasons will remain 1 month seasons bound to calendar months and at the beginning of a new season, all players will drop down in rank as in the current system. Exactly how many stars/ranks will be dropped, will also be configured after more testing and feedback.

Rank icons, names and stars.

Matchmaking changes - What you see… is mostly what you get

As many of you may know, we have not been matching players based on ranks in the current system. The main reason for this is that everyone has different ranks in different nations and thus the rank in the nation you are playing at any given time, says nothing about your overall position in the ladder or your skill level. So instead we have been using a behind-the-scenes Elo system which we feel has worked very well for the purpose of matchmaking but offers no visibility to players.

With the new and simpler, single-track ladder, we are changing this so that the rank (ladder position) is the main matchmaking factor and the Elo system only a secondary matchmaking tool for more granular matchmaking within the ranks. So with the new system, you will ideally be matched against players with a similar rank (maximum 2-3 ranks up or down depending on number of players in the queue).

And finally, both players will see each other’s rank while in Battle.

Rank icon and name in battle.

That’s it for now in this quick summary of changes to the seasonal ladder. Keep in mind that we can expect some bumps in the road to begin with, especially when it comes to matchmaking and queue times, so we will be monitoring the system very closely and adjusting the appropriate parameters and fine tuning the system as we need for the system to work as fairly and efficiently for all players alike.

Please share your thoughts on these changes with us, we really appreciate your feedback.

Provide feedback!

Also, make sure to keep an eye out for the transition blog, where you learn how your current ladder position and rewards will be affected when the new system lands.

Finally for more information on all of this make sure you tune in to the Bunker Chat, where we cover all these changes and more, on the 29th of January at 16:00 UTC on www.twitch.tv/kardsccg

Jan 28, 2021

Dev Log #02

Recon Control - Dmitry Kozlov

Hey people!
Want to give you some insight into the progress I've made since the last dev log.

Skill tree

Added 6 more secret skills you can learn during a combat mission. Once you learn one you will be able to see information about it permanently (during the next playthroughs).

"Carry weight" branch has been renamed into "Strength". Previously this branch provided only more carry weight capacity and in my opinion, it was not worth the required skill points. A brand new "Strength" branch provides a few things at once: carry weight capacity, melee damage bonus, and increased grenades throwing distance.

Also, there are 3 new tasty skills:

"Medical reuse" for a medic branch. Allows you to reuse bandages and medkits.
"Throw through the door" for a grenadier branch. Allows you to throw grenades behind a door when you standing right next to one.
"Heavy weapons" for a strength branch. Gives an accuracy bonus for machine guns and sledgehammers.

Campaigns maps

I've assembled all missions into 3 campaigns. Still working on balance though. The first campaign probably will be easy for people who have played the alpha demo already. But the rest two will be pretty challenging.

Items unlock system

Part of the items now is locked initially. To unlock them you need to pass missions and earn medals.

Added new medical items:

"Antidote" allows you to remove a poisoned effect.
"Medical pack" which restores 30 HP and removes a bunch of negative effects at once. But its basic use cost is 12 AP. This means you will need to skip one turn or have a high medic skill in order to use this item.