This devlog is going to go over two major updates: v095 and v096. Both of them add polish - but we're talking pretty big chunks of polish. Like, "change up the way the first weeks of the game feel" kind of polish.

Let's try to paint a picture. The game consists of several interlocking system. 

We have the adventure map, which has been updated to better incentivize exploration, to give more dilemmas to the player, and to make sure each playthrough feels different. 

We have the strategic layer of building up your town and armies - and, oh, how would you know? Every faction has now been given a third unique building. Most of these are minor - but the one for the Horde faction entailed a large rework of how the faction functions and gives the faction a lot more identity.

We have the battles, which have seen several minor changes - and, of course, a major update to spells, though mostly the damaging spells. But all spells work at least slightly differently now, and you now gain detailed information in their tooltips.

The one thing I haven't touched is the hero level-up system. But that will change one day...

Not yet. That's for the future. But please understand for every five changes you see in these updates, there's also slowly stuff popping up to prepare for the huge update that v1 will hopefully be.

Anyway. The game is a complex interaction of systems, and most of those systems have been touched in these two updates. But let's talk specifics.

The Banner of Champions allows your Horde units to become upgraded versions of themselves through battle. In fact, you can no longer build upgraded dwellings as the Horde faction. Player feedback suggests that the rate of upgrades is faster than expected. I'd never do a change that feels like a downgrade. Upgrades comes fast and hard - but it'll still take a week of battles for your new recruits to all be upgraded.

Anyway, this gives Horde several cool identity things. First of all, very fitting for Nomads to be the faction that needs the least time to build up their town. It also incentivizes taking hard fights - which synergises well with the plunder skill that they're often offered.

Also, the Sky Pillar now gives Sand Elementals (a completely new unit unique to them) instead of Thunder Elementals - and gives one each day instead of twice a week. The Sand Elemental is the first community crafted unit and is a perfect fit for the faction of Air and Earth.

The six other factions also get a new building each, but these are just minor "resource silo" type effects.

Look at this map. Well, it looks familiar. But then notice that there's a Djinn Lamp in each player faction. You can see my Wild hero heading for one of them, but there's also one in the Decay and Enclave areas.

Treasure chests have been reworked so they can have more stuff in them than just gold and experience. I really like the system of "Pick one of these two", so I added a couple of more types. A skeleton that functions as a Lost Hero, often giving artifacts; the Djinn Lamp, which mostly gives permanent bonuses to the hero, and finally, the Abandoned Regiment, which can give several different things.

Earlier, it was quite rare to find undefended resources. Well, no longer. To such an extent in fact that the starting resources have been reduced slightly - instead, you must venture out to find gold, ore, wood, crystals, mercury and sulphur - along with campfires, lamps, treasure chests, abandoned regiments and lost heroes. Of course the system has been implemented so that all players get the same resources hidden around each of their areas.

There's also several changes to the strength and types of neutral armies that guard various points on the map. Mostly focused on giving you more to do earlier in the game.

Phew, sounds like a lot. Surely, there can't be any more content...

PSYCHE! There's now 36 achievements added to the game. Mostly meant to be unlocked during normal play, but also a few ideas for challenge runs. This will probably be built out along the way.

OKAY. Enough of this idle chatter :D

PATCH NOTES:

FEATURES

• Achievements added to the game!
• Map generation changes to make the game more engaging in early/short games
• Damaging spells now inflict status conditions (i.e. fireball sets enemies on fire)
• Spell effect numbers in tooltips
• Treasure chest overhaul and new rare resource nodes
• Two new units - Sand Elemental and Treasure Elemental
• A system that from now on will enable prereleases to have premium features only for premium users
• A new minor building for each faction
• Horde Faction rework

CHANGES

MAPGEN CHANGES

• Fixed two bugs that would allow paths between regions that should have had a guard mob
• Decreased the rate of empty adventure nodes significantly
• Increased the rate of most nodes spawning without mobs
• Gave mine nodes and artifact nodes a low chance to spawn without mobs
• All neutral mobs are 200 gold value weaker
• More nodes per area
• Slightly less steep difficulty curve in node mobs
• Less linear difficulty curve in node mobs
• All regions now get several unprotected resources spread around - symmetrical for each faction
• Minimum and maximum distance for each step in the Obelisk quest chains have been reduced significantly
• Reduced chance of all rare resource mines clumping together in one part of the region
• Added a small chance for extra random mines to spawn
• Changes to treasure chest & 3 new interactable dilemmas
  • Treasure chest may now have different contents than gold and experience
    
  • Gold gain from treasure chests has been reduced (XP stays the same)
  • The Djinn Lamp offers a wish for permanent hero stats, resources or a unit
  • The abandoned cart offers a choice between units and resources
  • The lost hero offers a choice between artifact and experienc

OTHER CHANGES

• Starting resources have been lowered for players and AIs
• All difficulties have been lowered a bit (the normal of yesterday is now somewhere between normal and challenging)
• Meteor Shower, Explosion and Energy Blast makes enemies confused
• Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt petrifies enemies
• Fireballl and Flame Strike sets enemies on fire
• Acid Splash and Deathtripple poisons enemies
• Frost Ring, Iceball and Ice Bolt slows enemies
• AOE damaging spells now inflict a lot more damage close to the center of the cast (5x)
• Other types of damaging spells now deal twice as much damage
• The way units buffed or debuffed are picked now prioritizes unit type, has fewer exploits and has a maximum distance
• Spell tooltips specify the quantity of their effect (number of units summoned, max damage dealt, value of units buffed)
• The Berserk Spell has a new effect, giving you control over every third affected unit for the duration of the battle
• Morale has been nerfed slightly and, additionally, can no longer trigger while the unit currently is in super-morale mode
• The marketplace now costs only gold
• Critical strike damage (luck-effect) now shows up in yellow numbers and is more visible
• Players can choose their own starting colour
• Soul Beacon speed has been lowered by 25% and the Soul Siphon upgrade now doubles that speed (instead of accidentally doing nothing)
• The Sky Pillar now gives a Sand Elemental each day instead of a Thunder Elemental twice weekly
• More updates to the Hero Portrait lineup, adding in custom-made Hero Portraits
• The final duel challenge has been redesigned

v096

• Removed the 2-3 and 4+ players map categories
• Greatly improved graphics for the Elemental Gate
• When fleeing brings a hero to an undefended town, they become a visiting hero
• Rebalanced autocombat losses
• Made AI more risk-aversive, especially on lower difficulties
• Made AI automatically pick up any free resources that it passes by instead of often forgetting them
• Added a button to enable battles going at 2x speed
• Made reserve groups more equal in power level
• Fixed creature dwelling costs not taking into account the mutually exclusive creatures. This overall makes half of all creature dwellings cheaper
• AI now is able to use the marketplace
  • To buy resources for buildings it could not afford
  • To sell off excess resources for gold
• Reduced the chance of ranged units ending up in front of melee units in start of combat
• Made unit collision less jumpy
• Units affected by a buff spell will now show a small aura around them
• Units affected by a debuff spell will now show a small aura around them
• Units in defensive stance will now be slightly more aggressive
• Neutral mobs will now rise to tier 2, tier 3, etc earlier - actual difficulty unaffected
• Decay towns will now have Bone Shooters instead of Soulmages in their towers
• Debuff spells are now 33% more effective

BUG FIXES

• The Autocombat option description is no longer blank in English
• Fixed a bug crashing the game when using the Throne of the Dead to convert certain rare neutral units
• Fixed a bug that made the Decay town lack a marketplace sometimes
• Fixed a bug that made treasure chests give different results each time they were activated (saving/reload exploit, or just pressing esc)
• Fixed a bug making Wisdom worse after expert-level
• Tired heroes can no longer flee from battle
• Infernal Gates no longer spawn units when battle has ended
• First Aid tents and Balistae no longer continue working when battle has ended
• Fixed a bug relating to defeating an enemy hero without an army
• Fixed a bug that accidentally gave the Hardcore achievement for winning any game as certain factions
• Decay will no longer be offered Industrial City as town perk (since they cannot use blacksmith since v091)
• Fixed undefended artifacts or other resources generating in unreachable spots

Phooooey.

This is what happens when I procrastinate on adding a tutorial to the game ;)

Kidding aside, the whole reason I went in to doing the map gen redesin for the more interesting early game was because of player feedback. It's been pretty great having a discord because there's always feedback coming in. This means it's easy for me to see what's the most important to change. And I'm quite happy with the way things are going.

Next week - erm, more stuff? Hopefully the tutorial.

I'm still planning to implement the 8th faction for v1 release, but there's some stuff that makes it difficult to work on features which don't have art ready just yet. So that'll come when it's done.

For now, have a nice weekend, give the game a spin and tell me what you think.

Your ThingOnItsOwn

4eva