We've been quiet for a while as the team has enjoyed their Swedish summer vacations. But, since a few weeks back the team is now hard at work again. And we are soon to drop some news and updates for you. Starting right now we would like to introduce you to the upcoming AI improvements. Some of these improvements are already live on our internal development branch, however, AI improvements are an ongoing process, rather than just one update!
Since this is one of the most discussed topics in the community, we want to emphasize that we value your feedback a lot and are aware of many issues related to the AI. It is definitely not finished and we will continuously work on improving it as time goes by - So please, if you have the time, post your feedback regarding the AI in the comments section of this Blog Post. It helps a lot!
We've started to add the concept of wielder roles. So, now the AI will start looking at its wielders in the terms of roles, and from that it can take certain decision. I.e. who should get the strongest troops or what skills to pick when leveling up. This is in an early stage still, but we are quite certain it's going to affect more and more decisions. The inital roles we have created for the first iteration is Warrior and Explorer, more will come after the system has matured a bit.
This a non-exhaustive list of what has been worked on lately:
The AI upgrading and also switching out (weaker) troops when entering towns/settlements has been made more likely to happen. Previously the AI simply topped off what it had and filled empty slots, often leading to weak and pretty insignificant troops being left in slots.
Recruitment has gotten an overhaul in general, previously recruitment was only part a long term decision which meant that if it walked by its own town it did not always recruit even if the town was overflowing with units. It's now more likely to recruit if it happens to walk by. Also it should use neutral dwellings much more often than before.
Skill selection scoring has been changed, in some ways to promote command in situations when it got pushed to the bottom. This was previously a mitigation due to other issues the AI had, having many troop slots just lead to it having empty troop slots. The root cause has been fixed for this so we could remove that mitigation.
How the AI reasons around buildings has been updated and we've added more decision input for when it decides what to build. For instance, it can check how much resource surplus it has if it would buy all units it produces every round. Or what starting resources are lying around the starting area.
Deciding what to build has also previously been a bit unbalanced between the factions, which is one of the reasons why the AI has been weaker playing certain factions.
An improved retreat option is in place to make feeding weak wielders to opponents less likely to happen.
There has also been several bugs fixed which caused behaviour problems rather than crashing the game. The two major ones being: 1. It inverted treat checks which made Suicide opponents appear as Very Easy, this was particularly nasty. 2. The AI could not "see" some items under hostile zone of control, nor items it was standing next to.
The above points will be iterated upon even more, this is what we have had time to look at after coming back from our vacations. More to come in the future!
We've made a fundamental change to how the AI traces items nearby for pickup/claiming. The previous solution started out well with what we had available at the time (without making the AI even slower, it did not need that ...) but it has scaled poorly and created lots of edge cases.
The AI is now better at determining if something is on the way to where it wants to go and interact with it on the way. This is being verified currently and the initial tests look great, it also has better scaling capabilities when it comes to improvement and performance so we expect this to improve even further. As always, if you have any questions or comments about this, please put them below.
Our brand new game - Railbound - is out for you to enjoy its 150+ puzzles and comfy atmosphere. If you enjoyed Golf Peaks then there's a high chance that you'll also find Railbound fun :)
To celebrate, the game is currently available with a -10% launch discount:
Our brand new game - Railbound - is out for you to enjoy its 150+ puzzles and comfy atmosphere. If you enjoyed Golf Peaks then there's a high chance that you'll also find Railbound fun :)
To celebrate, the game is currently available with a -10% launch discount:
It's finally here! After an arduous journey Railbound is out for you to enjoy its 150+ puzzles and comfy atmosphere. We're super glad that you accompanied us on the way.
To celebrate, the game is currently available with a -10% launch discount:
We've also got some events planned for launch day on Steam! Tune in at 1PM CEST to this event or our store page for a special live Q&A with the developers:
Additions: - Added optional automated error reporting - Added cap to how many relics you can have - Added sort dropdown to Relics Menu - Added Discord Rich Presence
Changes: - Chests must be interacted with to be picked up. Space, Enter or Gamepad Down. - UI Selection Caret will be hidden for mouse interaction and shown for keyboard & controller navigation
Fixes: - Several bug fixes - Fix to game not showing Victory Screen - Fixed some UI buttons not changing color on mouse hover - Fixed enemies occasionally changing locations suddently when the game unpauses
Hello dudes and dudettes, after the super update on the Level Up system, we are back with a less exiting, but still important, update with fixes and improvements ːNigelAdvː Enjoy the full changelog below ːPizzaAdvː
Update 16103 changes:
Fixed a bug in the end game where the broken final gate could fix itself preventing the player to gather its resources (for those who have this bug, just interact with the final gate after defeating the last boss).
Added back the Super Bomb Case to Tropical Mall island.
You can now enter special codes in the game options screen.
In Randomicity DLC, fixed the Domus teleporting you into the black void.
Fixed the revive spell causing the revived character to walk on his side.
Now if the player would end up stuck in the ceiling wall of an interior area, moving in any direction should make him jump on the closest valid spot.
Now you can change the UI offsets to avoid notches and camera holes to interfere with readability.
Fixed : Too many full extractors cause game to freeze and crash.
Now enemies will not join a battle if they are on a completely different depth level.
Now when you zoom out of the map, even if you hit extreme 'zoom-out', the map should be able to zoom in correctly from the origin point.
The map will no longer shift if I double click on the icons when placing a map pin.
Improved navigation of the options menu with keyboard or controller.
Now when entering battle with buildmode active no longer shows remaining icons on the screen.
Fixed superimposition of player 'join' suggestion with quickbar key suggestions.
Fixed graphic glitch when inspecting talents in the levelup stat screen.
Fixed touch controls not appearing if defeated in battle and quit to title.
Fixed battle order in the menu under out-of-screen or below the notch area.
State icons should no longer peek from the top of the screen when opening build mode.
Fixed: The boat could become 'untangible' if touched from the side.
Now enemies should no longer jump on the Ceiling wall when finishing a battle.
Large enemies can no longer attack through walls.
Now after collecting all holy coins, the blocks under the coins can be correctly removed.
Fixed a crash when a player was joining a multiplayer game.
Improved and fixed some issues with 'blueprint achieved!' screen.
On Mobile, the options screen should no longer be partially cut on the top and on the bottom.
