Mar 6, 2024

Last Epoch - EHG_Kain

Hello Travelers,

For today’s patch we have a bunch of fixes for controller, UI, skills, and more. We’re also spending a moment to comment on Dive Bomb and Ghostflame. Read below for the full notes.

BUG FIXES

QUEST

Fixed an issue where players would get the Immortal Empire quest before gaining access to that quest state of Elder Gaspar
Fixed an issue that caused the elevator to the Council Chambers to never appear after defeating waves of monsters at the end of the Void Assault quest

CONTROLLER

Fixed issues with interacting (such as opening a chest, or talking to an NPC) while using a controller
Fixed an issue with mapping the “Y”/Triangle controller button
Fixed issue with controller bindings disappearing when using a mouse
Controller binding dialog can be closed by pressing the “B” / Circle button
Navigation cursor refocuses the corresponding action binding button after an action is bound

Fixed an issue where once a party member enters the arena and you do NOT enter the arena, you cannot open any UI
Fixed an issue so that “Steam Required” and “License Required” are separate errors
Fixed issue where some enemies had no/only partial red outlines when hovered
Fixed an issue where item tooltips displayed when the mouse was not hovering them
Fixed issue causing “no characters found” to be overlaid on your character list at character selection
Fixed inconsistent portraits for Maceth and Leyda

SKILLS

Fixed a bug where Elemental Nova’s damaging area was not affected by increases to its area of effect
Fixed issue where when returning to human form after transforming turns, the player model invisible
Fixed most instances of a bug where channeled movement skills, particularly Flame Rush and Shield Rush, could lock the player into the movement and not visually move the player until the ability ended

OTHER

Slightly Improved party transition times
Fixed a visual gap in Festering Sewers
Fixed weird visual triangles at top of screen in The Ancient Cavern
Fixed issue with players dying prematurely by setting their actor to invincible as soon as we spawn them, then allowing grace period to overtake later
Fixed issue with linking the game guide in chat
Revert change from previous patch that was causing players to see other players running in place (reverted change was a fix aiming to fix players not animating when joining a scene).

CHANGES

Require players to manually click to transition scenes during the campaign
Various Bazaar UI/UX improvements
Greatly reduced the sell price of Arena Keys and Arena Keys of Memory
- Arena keys now sell for 175 (from 6500)
- Arena keys now sell for 175 gold (from 6500)
- Arena keys of memory now sell for 265 gold (from 7250)
- This was done to remove the burden of optimal on MG players feeling like they needed to level up CoF and use arena key prophecies to farm gold effectively
Added Prevention for CoF bonuses from doubling XP tome rewards in Monoliths
- This is also technically a bug fix as the XP Tome Reward isn't a direct item reward. Item Factions are not intended to have an effect on experience gains, only how items are obtained.

GHOSTFLAME AND DIVE BOMB

There’s one change in this patch, and another change we’ll be releasing soon which we wanted to speak a little bit more to than just listing. These are changes to Ghostflame’s Spirit Kindling Node (included in this patch), and Dive Bomb’s Cloud Gatherer node (being released in near future).

CHANGES

Ghostflame

Fixed a bug where Ghostflame’s Spirit Kindling could apply to the player if it had previously hit a Wraith during its lifetime and was not currently hitting a Wraith

Dive Bomb (hotfix soon)

Changed Cloud Gatherer to only apply to any individual Smoke Bomb one time.

Both of these nodes are exceptionally overperforming, but that’s not why we’re changing them right now. We’re changing them because of the performance impact these skills are causing, more specifically their tendency to crash servers.

Our current stance is that we won’t issue mid-cycle changes for balance, such as with Profane Veil’s Vampiric Blood node. While the node is much stronger than intended, it’s not causing performance issues and so it will instead be changed with the next cycle patch. This stance is of course open to feedback, it’s not carved in stone. If there’s high demand to fix bugs or make changes that affect balance mid-cycle, we can adjust.

While these changes are being made for performance reasons, they do also carry considerable impact to power levels of these skills/nodes. This automatically raises some questions, to which we’ve provided a short QA below of what we think are the biggest questions.

Will existing entries be removed from the leaderboards?
The answer to this is no, we will not be removing current entries from the leaderboards. We understand this choice does have the negative effect of affecting some player’s motivation to push the leaderboards when there’s a leader. However, there’s many other negative effects if we do remove entries. Primarily, if we remove rankings in these situations, it incentivizes players to keep these interactions a secret until the very end of the cycle, making it much more difficult for us to act in time for the next cycle.
Dive Bomb’s Cloud Gatherer has been known and used since release, why are you only changing it now?
We were willing to live with the node being imbalanced, but it wasn’t until later that we realized players were maintaining Smoke Bombs in Echo of a World as they ran echoes, which means as more and more Smoke Bombs piled up, the server becomes more unstable and eventually crashes. We’re only fixing this mid-cycle due to the server issues it presents, not its balance.
Why not fix it in a way that keeps it as powerful as it currently is, but without the server issues?
Investigating a skill for appropriate balance changes that’s not purely numerical takes a fair amount of time. From design discussions, to implementation, to QA, and finally merge and release. For cases like this, it unfortunately taking this time means it comes at the cost of time spent towards other bugs, or new content, when we only plan to remove it as soon as the next cycle starts.

Mar 6, 2024

Trial of Allegiance | Patch 1.14.1 "BOLIVAR"

Hearts of Iron IV - PDX Chakerathe

Hello there generals, it's your friendly neighbourhood Community Manager, Katten, here to talk about, Trial of Allegiance patch notes!

But before that, I want to remind you that the DLC releases tomorrow at 17:00 CET! So if you want to secure the exclusive track 'Carnaval Do Brasil', pre-purchase now!

And if you missed what this DLC is all about, watch our release trailer below;

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2695150/Hearts_of_Iron_IV_Trial_of_Allegiance/

################################################################
######## Update 1.14.1 "Bolivar" #########
################################################################

##################################
# Trial of Allegiance
##################################
- Added Brazilian focus tree
- Added Argentina focus tree
- Added Chile focus tree
- Added minor focus tree for Paraguay
- Added minor focus tree for Uruguay
- Added Voiceovers in Brazilian Portuguese, Argentinian Spanish and Chilean Spanish.
- Added numerous new (awesome!) 3D models for the new nations
- Added 6 new music tracks

##################################
# Gameplay
##################################
- Admiral Trait Tree has been reshuffled, ordered now by fleet role and with some rebalancing
- The Monroe Doctrine has been reworked from the old USA guarantees to something more flexible to go with the ToA launch
- More sensible AI weights for interventionists USA going Monroe Doctrine. Will now only DOW if enough tension is generated by that country
- Tweaked Ethiopia to be more aggressive initially in the war against Italy
- Added Embargo Decision against Venezuela
- Changed handsoff tag to Haiti
- Added Quebec as releasable at game start
- Added an event to Mexican focus "Bolivarian Alliance" to ensure that players can refuse the ticking communism national spirit if they wish.
- Fix that ensures a certain shadowy German gentleman can be 100 percent obtainable if Germany capitulates and a certain focus in the Argentina fascist branch is taken
- Reworked the Amazon to have Impassable Terrain areas to model the deep jungle

##################################
# Balance
##################################
- reduced the number of super heavy tank destroyers needed for support battalion to 20
- reduced IC cost of jet engines considerably
- German focus 'Treaty with the USSR' now grants 1x200% research speed bonus for tank hulls, from 2x100%
- Medium tank created by german focus now starts with an MIO if AAT is installed
- Railway Company now gives 15% armor to armored trains instead of reliability
- Several mission specific air advisor modifiers that were non functional have been replaced with mission efficiency bonuses
- Airborn advisors now give bonuses to paratrooper defence and org rather than plane states
- Escort Efficiency now reduce disruption from enemy attacks
- Fixed broken turret for Italian SH tank Hand of God
- CAS leaders/doctrine now also give ground attack bonuses on top of mission efficiency to boost impact
- Added the Union Pacific Railroad as a new Industrial Company for the USA
- Added a variety of new Spies for Germany, Japan and the United States.

##################################
# UI
##################################
- Equipment designer name is now shown in the production list
- You can no longer accidentally click on units while in construction mapmode
- naval battle reports are now properly hidden on reading when parts of stacks
- Fixed list positioning in Military Industrial Organisation Roster

##################################
# AI
##################################
- Fixed bugs in how AI selects research
- A bunch of bugfixes and improvements to how AI calculates research weights
- AI will now pick more appropriate military spirits. AI now cares more about getting early equipment design techs in order to unblock them from iterating on tank equipment
- German AI will prefer picking silent workhorse before other advisors
- German AI will no longer value Heinz Guderian more than every other advisor combined :'(
- German AI will prefer to take army chief advisor before air chief
- Unit controller will now properly handle impassable neighbour adjacencies during an attack
- Discourage AI from changing production lines too quickly and too often and waste efficiency
- Allies of Britain will now share invasion strategies around Norway and be more hesitant
- make sure UK AI doesn’t hold out on guaranteeing poland when it's time critical, just to save up for laws
- fixed a scope issue for italian AI strategies
- USA AI now more likely to lend-lease UK and Soviet
- UK AI should switch from interwar tanks quicker
- Various strategy tweaks for naval invasion behaviour around the mediterranean

##################################
# Modding
##################################
- Added AI strategy research_weight_factor
- Added variable values for deployed_army_manpower_k, deployed_navy_manpower_k, deployed_airforce_manpower_k, and deployed_army_manpower_k
- it is now possible to define colours on sub ideologies which will then be used over ideology group colour
- Added optional 'is_frame' argument to equipment definitions to let modders define fully designed equipment without the game thinking it's a frame.
- Added longest_war_length and war_length_with triggers to allow checking how long a nation has been at war
- Fix AI for assigning MIO to production line when Task Capacity is activated in mod
- From now on_leave_faction will fire every time someone leaves a faction.
- From now on_become_faction_member will fire every time someone joins a faction.
- From now on_send_volunteers will NOT fire when volunteers are sent back to their origin country
- AI strategy EQUIPMENT_PRODUCTION_UPGRADE_DESIRE_OFFSET now handles positive numbers as well

##################################
# Graphics
##################################
- Fixed some bugs in train gfx spawning which could cause almost all trains to pick high-traffic ports as target locations
- fixes and tweaks for mud look
- Several visual updates to make mud look nicer
- Mud never shown on impassable terrain areas as it makes them harder to see and you cant walk there anyways
- Fixed an issue with german army insignias

##################################
# Bugfix
##################################
- Fixed issue where submarine task forces attempting to pass through a strait would check the rule for navies instead of the one for submarines.
- Fix for a problem where white peace does not give back all owned territories, because neutral countries owned it.
- Fixed an issue where the price of equipment in a purchase contract could change.
- Newly created Spains (after SCW starts) now update their trade influence correctly, so volunteers sent to them will now reinforce correctly straight away
- Air deploy interface filters will properly work when land and CV planes are both in stockpile
- Slovenia, Palestine and Israel now start with the correct capitals
- Soviet Union: National Spirits for Anti-Soviet Military Thinking can now be removed via decision even when Beriya takes power before the Right Opposition Coup.
- Fixed bug where National Spirits from Scandinavian Joint Focus tree didn't always have an icon
- Fixed showing negative night penalty as a positive
- Sweden: Ebba no longer gets her construction speed bonus removed when upgrading her
- Sweden: Pull the Trigger decision for communist Sweden now makes Communist NOR/DEN very likely to want to form an alliance with Sweden, and reduces the want of wanting to join the comintern or other factions
- Fixed an issue that caused communist Sweden AI path to not work properly
- Fixed the names of Zimbabwe characters
- Fixed the names of Zambian characters
- Fix the diplomatic action Justify Wargoal disappearing when the target state is not controlled by the target country anymore
- Added namelists that were missing for LAO, VIN, CAM, TRA, KOS, PAL, ISR. Also fixed the capitals for Qatar and UAE being incorrect.
- Airwings attached to armies should no longer forget their missions when they lack coverage of target areas
- Italy no longer calls its allies to join the war against Ethiopia. Italy no longer joins war against Poland. Ethiopia in exile cannot join their overlord's wars until they have completed the "Formal Request" decision.
- Made Light Aircraft MIO now upgrade CAS as well as fighters.
- Blocked province buildings from being constructed in impassable provinces
- block construction fully in impassable areas
- Fixed a bug where no effect would come from the British focus "Gibraltar for Spanish Support" if having LaR enabled.
- updated the claims gained in the Portuguese focuses "Recover the East Indies", "Recover Brazil" and "Latin America".
- Norway's Modernise Armed Forces Decision available during wartime and can be selected after 3 months of war if the appropriate focuses have been completed
- CV NAV and CAS now have proper bonuses from Admiral traits (Dive Bomber and Torpedo Bomber)
- Fixed the bug where the airplane designer did not choose the proper 2d icon by default.
- Fixed an issue where navies could not be ordered to move out of blocked sea regions.
- Fix issue with Convoy raiding efficiency modifier from leaders not applying correctly
- Fixed issues in SCW hidden event handling the opposition side of the CW working on controlling garrisons against the player

##################################
# Stability & Performance
##################################
- Maximum number of players in a MP game can now be configured by the host in settings.txt. Bumped the default value to 64.
- Prevent CTD in International Market AI that could happen for sea routes
- Fixed a CTD in international market when sorting on linux and mac
- Fix CTD when a mod removes unit leader traits from DB

Mar 6, 2024

Sphere of Influence available to pre-order and Free Train Bonus Pack release!

Victoria 3 - Commissar_roach

Hello Victorians!

Today is not only free Update ‘Blackcurrant’ 1.6!

We also have an update about the Expansion Pack, Sphere of Influence, and a surprise free pack for all players!

First up, the free Trains Bonus Pack! Choo Choo!

The power and potential of steam transportation is brought to new life for Victoria 3 in Trains Bonus Pack.

In this bonus pack, free for download for all Victoria 3 owners, players will see new models of classic train engines from the dawn of rail transport to the years of the iron horse, when the expansion of railways across continents signaled a new age and a smaller world.

This free pack includes a total of ten new 3D models of train engines traveling across the game map.

Five Experimental Trains:

The Planet (Great Britain)
John Bull (America)
Saxonia (Germany)
Cherepanov (Russia)
Le Continent (France)

Five Engines from the mid-century:

GNR Stirling Great Britain)
Jupiter (America)
Südbahn Class 23 (Germany/Austria)
Class G (Russia)
120 Ouest (France)

The appropriate train models will appear both in their country of origin and in other countries with relevant ties to them, such as subject nations.

We also have resident train expert Mike, talking about why we picked these trains. For only a brief 11 minutes!

Eagle eyed viewers may have noticed one of these in motion at the end of the 1.6 Update video.

To see these trains in-game, make sure to go to the Steam page and activate the pack!

Now for news about Sphere of Influence!

Releasing on the 6th of May 2024, Sphere of Influence is now available to pre-order or if you are looking for the best deal possible? Check out our Expansion Pass, including Sphere of Influence! Alongside this, we have more information about the Expansion below.

Put your diplomatic skill to the ultimate test in Sphere of Influence, a new expansion to Victoria 3. Pull other nations into your orbit through diplomatic skill, economic leverage or straightforward bribery. Build a durable international faction of like-minded governments, pursuing goals for a common good or the glory of your power.

Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy simulation of the Victorian Age offers new ways to impose your will on the world. A coalition of reactionary powers can form blocs to work against the threat of liberal forces in other nations. Use your economic might to co-opt or coerce other regimes, spreading the banner of your ideology wherever your fleets might sail. Resist or embrace domestic pressure to change your traditional foreign policy, as your interest groups organize into lobbies that push you to build new coalitions of power.

Sphere of Influence adds many new actions and systems to illustrate the quick moving nature of diplomatic relations in this dramatic era, including new content specifically about The Great Game - the decades long competition between the British and Russian Empires for pre-eminence in North India and Central Asia.

Features of Victoria 3: Sphere of Influence include:

Fierce Competition: Use your Prestige to become a Great Power and create your own Power Bloc! Dominate other nations in a diplomatic arrangement to pursue common economic or ideological goals, whether promoting open trade around the world or spreading specific values to other nations.
Power Bloc Customization: Choose the identity and principles of your loose alliance, whether it be a group promoting ideological concerns like the Comintern, or an economy-oriented bloc pushing for cross-border market integration like the Zollverein. You can even customize colors and emblems for your bloc!
“The Great Game”: New events, journal entries and decisions inspired by the Russian and British rivalry in Central Asia, and a new Objective - you can play as any of the powers central to that conflict, including Persia and Afghanistan. A newly redrawn map highlights the many competing interests in this frontier between empires.
Foreign Investment: Invest in the economic development of countries outside of your direct influence, making a profit from their financial success.
Nationalization: Start a Diplomatic Play to seize foreign assets in your country and prevent your wealth from going overseas.
Subject Interactions: Adjust the payments from your vassals and protectorates, meddle in their internal politics and more!
Interest Group Lobbies: Domestic interest groups will pursue foreign policy objectives, promoting amicable relations with some countries and hostility with others, or even influence the development of friendly lobbies in other nations.
Power Bloc Monuments: Build majestic monuments to emphasize your bloc’s influence and domination over world events.
New Historical Flavor: New historical characters and companies, most centered on the Great Game content, as well as more events, new journal entries, Lobby related content, new clothing and event art.

Without Sphere of Influence players will be able to use foreign investments in their subjects. Players with Sphere of Influence will be able to form mutual Pacts with other countries to allow foreign investments there, and there is a Power Bloc Principle to allow foreign investments within the Bloc.

More information will be released in Dev Diaries, with the first diary on Sphere of Influence to be released on the 14th of March, this will be an overview of the upcoming diaries and more information on the Expansion Pack itself.

But first we will have the last diary on 1.6 on the 7th of March (tomorrow). See you then!

Mar 6, 2024

Development Updates #16

An Amazing Wizard - Gobo

{LINK REMOVED}

🧙‍♂️ Development Updates #16

In the last 2 weeks we were mainly working on new boss room, adding story behind quests, making initial runs way more fun, buffing summoning spells and spells merging.

✅ Added:

[Rooms] Added new boss room background.
[First Run] Extra random spell now always spawn at the beginning of the first run. - so you can test spells merging way faster now.
[Spells Drop] There is now 70% increased chance to drop first 2-4 spells from destructive objects.
[Quests] Added initial randomized dialogues for quests.
[Quests] Changed initial dialogues and detailed descriptions in quests.
[Enemies] Added Chilly Imp enemy.

🔄 Changed:

[Sprites] Reverted reducing quality of all sprites. - game size is back to more than 2GB because reducing the quality of art was causing some unacceptable issues.
[Spells Merging] Increase base change of successful spells merging.
[Spells Merging] When merging spells fails then only the worse spell will be lost instead of both spells.
[Enemies] Moved all temporary enemies from level 2 to level 3.
[NPCs] Spellweaver NPC now spawns way closer to the starting area.
[NPCs] Quest NPC now spawns further away from the starting area.
[FPS] Changed maximum FPS limit from 300 to 144 (default value of 144FPS limit is not changed).
[Spells] Nerfed Lesser Fireball base damage (23 => 18.5).
[Spells] Power of the Bones now summons 2 => 1 skeletons, it's mana cost and cooldown was reduced by 50% and now this spell has 1 => 2 charges.
[Spells] Ratatata now summons 3 => 1 rats, it's mana cost and cooldown was reduced by 66% and now this spell has 1 => 3 charges.
[Spells] Summon Dark Puppy now has 2 => 3 charges and the summon duration was increased to 4 => 5.25 seconds.
[Spells] Summon the Army now summons 2 => 1 enemies, it's mana cost and cooldown was reduced by 50%, cooldown changed to 21 => 16 seconds and now this spell has 1 => 3 charges.
[Spells] Summon Werewolf spell now has 1 => 2 charges.

⚙️ Fixed:

[Dialogs] Both player and enemies are now immune to all effects during dialogues.
[Quick Travel] Both player and enemies are now immune to all effects while Teleporting Altar(quick travel window) is active.
[UI] Fixed a bug where sometimes some UI elements were flickering (it was related to reduced quality of sprites).
[Achievements] Master Class Spell is now working as intended.

Stay tuned for the next updates!