Jan 14, 2023

Battle Realms: Zen Edition - KoMiKoZa At Work

Greetings, Warriors!

Hope you've all had a good start of the year. We certainly have, as we are at a loss for words having looked at the statistics and reception for BR: ZE after the 1.58 update release.

For a niche strategy game that Battle Realms is nowadays, these numbers are impressive. We were able to beat the peak count of concurrent players from 3 years ago, when BR: ZE first released. It is certainly a small victory for us, that we couldn't have possibly achieved without your support, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for playing Battle Realms after all these years.

Of course, not everything went smoothly but we are already working on it. Please, remember that Battle Realms: Zen Edition is not a finished product, but an everchanging product in Early Access. This is just a note from us as the developers, we try to not let that happen to the best of our abilities, but things may break, and things will break. :)

Highlights:

• Campaign Troubles, Siege & Relentless AI

As many have noted, something unpleasant happened to the campaign. It is a fusion of things. To sum it up, the campaign functionality drastically changed with our additions:

- AI started bypassing previously set limitations in general.

- Nightvol AI, who is your opponent if you play the campaign on 'Hard' decided to be extra frisky.

- Changing difficulty from Hard to Normal or Easy didn't help.

- Siege, as a cherry on top, added a heap of tediousness to some of the campaign missions.

Mainly this happened due to some of the "last minute changes" that we desperately wanted to push into 1.58, as a result we haven't had enough time to test everything. Most of these things have already been addressed by the hotfixes, and this update will add a bit more to that. So, what you should see now in 1.58.1 is:

- Most of the original campaign functionality is brought back with its limitations intact.

- "Hard" difficulty of the campaign will be more forgiving.

- Changing difficulty to Normal or Easy works as it's meant to be.

- Necromancer's Spirit Warriors, Kenji and Otomo are Siege units to aid with the initial missions of Kenji's Journey. Siege overall is a tad more forgiving for non-siege units.

• Lotus Brothers, Heroes & Double-Click / Ctrl-Click

You can now select all heroes on the screen by double-clicking or ctrl-clicking on any hero! The same applies to Lotus Brothers.

• Siege & Non- Siege Tooltips

We have moved the "Siege" text straight to units' names in smart tooltips. Additionally, "Non-Siege" will also show there.

• Cannoneer Mines' Proper Functionality

Some of you might've noticed that since the legacy game, Serpent Cannoneer's Mines activated way earlier than they should.

This is because activation range of the mine was tied to its damage radius, meaning units that aren't even stepping on a mine may activate it from a distance.

We untied the mine activation and damage radius. Now units have to be almost stepping on the mine to activate it, however the damage radius will still be in-tact.

• Kenji II Becomes a Damage Dealer

For some reason, Second Form of Kenji (first time acquiring a gun) dealt incredibly small damage to just about anything. That is on top of having already weaker AM than the first form. We fixed all of that.

Technical & Gameplay:

Updated Skirmish [ZE] Maps (minor changes and lighting).
Fixed Kenji 2 and 3 Dragon and Serpent portrait variations (Dark Red portrait for "Evil Kenji", Light Yellow for "Good Kenji")
Fixed Lotus Channeler "Unit Selected/Ready Up" animation that never played since 2001 unless she had ravens with her.
Fixed a bug that prevented units from properly cycling their idle animations if a save game had been loaded. Previously they would loop the last animation they had used.
Fixed a bug that prevented missile units from properly cycling their animations after missile attacks. Previously they would loop the last animation they had used. You would often see a small stutter in the animations which meant the animation was prevented from being played. This prevented many units from properly utilizing their innate abilities (i.e., Chemist's Healing Herbs, Kabuki's Orb Juggling, Powder Keg's Salting the Ground).
Secondary projectiles emitted from primary projectiles (i.e. Pitch Slinger) will no longer take unit's base weapon damage and instead read their dedicated weapon entry.
Added 1280x800 resolution.
Restored most of campaign levels' former functionality.
Fixed certain battle gears applying damage multiple times to mounted units and horses.
Fixed wrong AI usage of Lotus Warlock's Stamina Siphon usage.
Fixed a visual bug that would have BGs shown as active whenever a unit with an active BG (like Sniper Scope) entered a WT and then exited.
Fixed a bug that had units occasionally stuck when trying to mount a horse in narrow spaces or map edges.
Zymeth will now cast lightning strikes on nearby enemies when activating his Battle Gear.
Fixed some buildings and other structures showing wrong VFX when they get destroyed.
UnitAI will exclude peasants from being prioritized over military units, this won't apply to easy AI profiles.
Improved player reveal algorithm: it will no longer reveal players under specific scenarios like in some of the campaign levels.
Units will now properly calculate range/direction when casting spells, they will also follow their targets if they reposition. For example, previously Lotus Brothers would proceed to cast their Dark Blessing even if their targets got out of range, they would also proceed to cast the spell while misplaced or facing wrong direction. This should work correctly now.
Fixed a bug that caused horse to rear up from damage sources that didn't actually affect them i.e., being shot while protected by Dark Canopy.
Fixed force repair cursor on neutral buildings not going opaque when it should.
Fixed UI showing some BGs as active when they weren't.
All Heroes and Lotus Brothers will be considered to be from the same "unit category" meaning double-clicking or ctrl-clicking on one hero will select all heroes.
Lotus Brothers' speed won't be considered in pathing groups therefore the overall group speed will not equalize to their speed when moving.
Game will no longer consider wild animals as allies/enemies on double-clicking or ctrl-clicking.
Added additional text to unit tooltips next to units' name, indicating whether a unit is siege or not.
Added a warning popup when setting or having already set the game difficulty to Hard.

Balance:

Siege Changes

- Non-Siege multiplier will be 0,33 instead of 0,25 (non-siege units will deal 1/3 (33%) of their base damage to buildings instead of 1/4 (25%)).

- Reduced hitpoints for WOTW Shale and Landslide buildings to make it less tedious initially.

- Added missing Siege value on kenji's Critical Strike weapon.
- - Fixe wrongly set weapon impact for his default and critical strike weapons.

Due to secondary projectiles emission fixes, Pitch Slinger and Chemist's Starburst BG needed rebalancing:

• Wolf Pitch Slinger Missile Attacks

- Pitch Slinger base projectile damage decreased.
- Pitch Slinger base projectile Firepoint value decreased.
- Pitch Slinger base projectile ProjectileEmittedInFlightRate increased.

- Pitch Slinger secondary projectile damage increased.
- Pitch Slinger secondary projectile Firepoint value decreased.
- Pitch Slinger secondary projectile siege decreased.

- Secondary projectile damage class changed from fire to explosive.
- Secondary projectile VFX changed from base pitch attack effect to additional fire effect.

• Dragon Chemist Starburst:

The Starburst Rocket explodes into 3 smaller rockets that are supposed to cover wider range. Due to how it had been previously implemented, it was near-impossible to see that, it looked like 1 rocket dealing huge damage.

Note: if the rocket impacts a building, all 4 rockets will immediately explode in it without flying off. The same applies to units.

- Remade the functionality so the smaller rockets can actually be seen now.
- Main rocket and cluster rockets damage, firepoint value and area of effect increased.
- Changed main rocket impact sound.
- Added main rocket trail VFX to cluster rockets.

- Starburst will be 1 charge only

General Unit Balancing

- Second form Kenji (first time acquiring a gun) damage increased.
- Second form Kenji Cutting AM decreased (takes less damage from cutting attacks).
- Second form Kenji Blunt AM decreased (takes less damage from blunt attacks).

- Third form Kenji Cutting AM decreased (takes less damage from cutting attacks).
- Third form Kenji Blunt AM decreased (takes less damage from blunt attacks).

- Dragon Spearman damage reduced.
- Dragon Spearman hit points reduced.
- [Dragon Archer] Fire Arrows will no longer require stamina. 15 charges instead.
- [Dragon Archer & Samurai] Zen Accuracy technique damage boost decreased.

- Serpent Bandit Looting will give 30 rice and 15 water instead of 50 rice and 25 water.

- Serpent Cannoneer's hit points reduced.
- Serpent Cannoneer's Cutting AM increased (takes more damage from cutting attacks).
- Serpent Cannoneer's missile damage reduced.
- Serpent Cannoneer's melee damage reduced
- [Serpent Cannoneer] Cannonball bounce dampening decreased
- [Serpent Cannoneer] Smoke Bombs charges decreased from 4 to 2.
- [Serpent Cannoneer] Mines damage increased.

- Serpent Swordsman damage increased.

- [Serpent Musketeer] Sniper Scope activation stamina cost decreased.
- Serpent Musketeer Blunt AM decreased (takes less damage from blunt attacks).

- Serpent Fan Geisha Fire AM increased (takes more damage from fire attacks).
- Serpent Fan Geisha Explosive AM increased (takes more damage from explosive attacks).
- Serpent Fan Geisha Magic AM increased (takes more damage from magic attacks).
- Serpent Fan Geisha movement speed increased.
- Serpent Fan Geisha will spend less stamina when running.
- [Serpent Fan Geisha] Pressure Points technique damage boost decreased.
- [Serpent Fan Geisha] Flexibility technique health boost decreased.

- Serpent Witch melee and missile damage class changed from Explosive to Magic.

- Wolf Brawler damage decreased.
- Wolf Ballistaman hit points decreased.
- Wolf Ballistaman Cutting AM increased (takes more damage from cutting attacks).
- Wolf Ballistaman Fire AM decreased (takes less damage from fire attacks).

- Werewolf Explosive AM increased (more damage received from explosive attacks).
- Werewolf Magic AM increased (more damage received from magic attacks).

- Wolf Hurler missile damage increased.
- Longtooth missile damage and BG damage increased.

- Mauler base damage reduced.
- Mauler's Miners Union technique is back to 1 Yang and increased damage boost. No siege bonuses.
- [Mauler] Wrecking Ball stamina drain rate increased.
- - Mauler will not be siege by default, but he can gain Siege capabilities with Wrecking Ball BG.

- Staff Adept hitpoints decreased.
- Staff Adept base damage decreased.

- Lotus Brothers movement speed increased.

- Master Warlock Soul Thresher becomes Siege.

- [Leaf Disciple] Leafbite technique damage boost reduced.

Final Words:

This would conclude the update 1.58.1. We haven't forgotten about certain resolution issues that came with the update 1.58, this is still being worked on, please, stay tuned.

In the meantime, we are thinking of creating either a large F.A.Q. or a Q&A Announcement. Please, ask your questions in the comments below and we will try to answer them there.

Thank you for your continuous support and interest in Battle Realms: Zen Edition, and the Battle Realms universe as a whole!

Join the official server for the game, the universe, and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by more than 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug, or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

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- The Battle Realms Team