Hi all! This is ThingOnItsOwn, checking in and saying some words about what's going on, development-wise.

It's been a long quiet period overall in my communication, in general and especially on itch. I used to spend a lot of time here, but as the game has grown, I'm just not able to. Nonetheless, the game is still being developed.

Patch notes for v2.3 are attached at the bottom of this post. This update which just went live, is enough proof that this time was not spent idly. It adds 50 new spells, reworks to several magical skills, catapults and enhanced graphics, among a lot of other things. Actually, the patch notes for v2.3.0 ended up being so long and the list of changes so gargantuan, it became more and more difficult to figure out what's up and down.

I regretted the speed at which v2.1 and v2.2 came out since I didn't have time for quality control and I let major bugs through. With v2.3, I think I adjusted a bit too far in the other direction. I'm currently planning to spend some weeks on improving v2.3, then start developing the things I have planned for v2.4, which should be a size more comparable to v2.2 in size, but with as high level of quality as v2.3, let's hope.

I'm hoping that v2.4 will be a free patch that will release at the same time as the paid DLC named Rogue Realms.

There was an announcement a while back about Rogue Realms, and it's been quiet since then. The DLC is super far in development actually. For a while I was working towards an October launch date, which might've led to a low quality product. It's now delayed due to "Market Reasons", which I'll use as much as possible to pump the DLC full of better balance and more polish.

Last I talked about Rogue Realms, just exactly what the DLC would be was a bit in flux. Now, things look a lot clearer. The DLC will have the following features:

- 27 new hero skills and new skill trees for all heroes

- A new unit (+ upgrade) for each faction, and new town buildings for all factions

- Rogue faction, a new faction representing the neutral units in the game (incl. 68 new neutral units)

- The Rogue faction comes in 12 flavours, each with its own unique line-up of 10 units, and each with 2 heroes

- Six new warmachines, new maps, new unit abilities for old units, etc.

It's a pretty large DLC and also a step up in complexity. I don't think it's recommended for beginners, but it's great for people who want *more*.

I'm quite excited for the DLC to be done and out, it's sort of a love-letter to the complexities and unexpected synergies that make me continue to be interested in working on the game. But we all gotta keep practicing that strange strange thing known as Patience.

Hero's Hour is out on a lot of marketplaces now. Steam is, as is usual, the largest, but not the only one. I don't actually hang out on those marketplaces - sorry! Not even itch, even though this is where I started and where I used to be so active. I feel a bit like the person from the small town who went and became famous and then never visited his old friends or the town again :(

Instead, I'm focusing mostly on the discord server and on twitter as my means of communication to the community. The discord can be accessed here or by clicking the Discord-looking icon in the top right of the main menu in-game. I'm just called ThingOnItsOwn on twitter so that's a bit simpler. Bug reports and suggestions are appreciated, though I can't promise to do all suggestions. Currently I've considered 93 suggestions and implemented 32, so that's less than 1 in 3. Still, 32 suggestions implemented is a lot in its own way.

Anyway. As mentioned, I'll be spending some time making sure v2.3.0 is as stable and good as possible, might even do some more mod improvements. Then it's on to v2.4 and finishing the DLC in the new year.

Thank you all for the patience -

Mvh Benjamin "ThingOnItsOwn" Hauer

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MAJOR FEATURES

- Blight Ritual skill and Blight units rework

- Potency has been reworked entirely

- Demonology and Necromancy now allow choosing the produced unit

- Spellbook now has sorting and filtering

- Skill descriptions now display fully without needing to press shift. The detailed description is slightly faded in colour

- Mana Wells have had their effect changed slightly, but now appear sometimes during normal map generation

- Some cool new hero portraits

- Sorcery rework

- Mysticism rework

- Wisdom rework

- 40 new spells added

- Devour now uses unit power instead of cost, but shows the stat gain as you're targeting the spell so there's less need for guessing

- Fixed a graphical bug with Aether Forge spell offers which sometimes would show the wrong frame

- Spell targeting graphics updated

- Tired mechanic rework. Adventure map buildings that took "2 days" have been altered for the new system. Tired is now a debt of movement points. For instance, tired 5 means that next turn your hero will have 5 less movement points. Tired 25 means your hero will pay off 17 movement points next turn (remaining unmoveable) and then the last 8 the day after again.

- New Catapult mechanic

- New mechanic handling walls that are damaged before entering battle

- New UI that shows movement order controls

- Low Graphics setting that removes blood particles, numbers, corpses and spell effects during combat, as well as overworld mini-armies, minecarts and particles

- High graphics setting adds in denser obstacles

- High graphics setting adds in weather effects

- Hero summary screen cleaned up - now shows skill summary by default, with a toggle for showing the skill tree. The skill tree is now slightly more spaced out

- Spells that buff/debuff units now target units based on power, and their tooltips have been changed to be accurate to their effect - also for spells taught by skills

- Three new rare pickup types: Jar of Pandora, Magic Scroll and Powerspires

- Settlements - a new overworld map object, which is like a small town. Some can be upgraded to full towns

- The game now remembers unit positioning on the battlefield, using the positioning you used last battle for the same units

MINOR CHANGES

- Retreating will no longer trigger for units that would automatically resurrect after dying

- Improved UI for adventure map buildings which allow you to exchange part of your army

- Delirium heroes that have avatars linked to them can no longer be disbanded

- Icons for spells now better communicate their element (water/fire/earth/air)

- XP from combat is now rounded to the nearest hundred. XP required to level up is now rounded to the nearest hundred

- When deploying less units than you are able to, you are no longer prompted to deploy troops immediately

- When splitting a unit stack in two by holding shift, a small UI element pops up that allows you to more accurately adjust the way the stack is split

- Holding shift while casting a spell that buffs/debuffs units will make it select units solely based on proximity to the mouse rather than trying to focus on one specific unit

- You can now left click on overworld mobs to have their info panel stay up, allowing you to mouse over units etc

- Mousing over a town in UI or on the overworld will show shortcut buttons for unit recruitment, construction, etc

- Uncamping now refunds movement

- Using the Aether Forge to gain mana can now set the hero's mana above max

- Nomads can now trade artifacts with normal heroes (still cannot trade units)

- Poison and Fire damage effects in combat now no longer deal any damage after combat is finished

- Malediction and Bane texts have been updated to better reflect their effects

- Auto-resolve prompt now also appears for tiny AI-controlled armies

- Made it so that you no longer accidentally press the start battle button when positioning units behind it

- Early encounters now no longer have Fireflies or units with Cinderspirit

- Shadowy units no longer leave corpses

- EXPERIMENTAL: Midas Touch hero skill also applies to some of their spec units

- Fire Shield and Air Shield spells reworked

- Hypnotise, Blind and Berserk effects reworked to better fit their names

- Several spells have had their descriptions rewritten to more accurately describe their effects

- Meteor Shower renamed to Tectonic Shift. Icon and graphics changed

- Golden corpses have been greatly optimised

- Modded heroes which use faction classes now will show up naturally during gameplay, such as in tavern

- New unit ability icons for Retaliation, Quick Strike, Taunt, Savage, Leech Life

- The game will now correctly remember faction and hero choice when returning to main menu. Only works if the game was started recently - not loaded

- The Saviour unit ability from Flesh Wonders now has halved effect when targeting enemy units

- The Saviour unit ability now also works on Pillar (sans Monk), Arcane (sans Goblin Gunner) and Wild (sans Satyr) faction humanoids

- Saviour unit ability has been reworded to make this clear

- Loss and win screens for Hotseat mode should now work more correctly

- Shadowcloning now shows where your units will appear

- Army displays now look different to better fit larger unit sprites and to better show the number of units

- Overworld armies hover-over displays are now drawn differently to reduce the distance between army and display when zoomed far out

- Town tooltips have been overhauled

- New log that shows what spells are cast by heroes, units, abilities and skills during combat

- Spells no longer prioritise tier 1 units when the closest unit is the hero (very important for Shadowcloning)

- The skills one can choose when leveling up are now highlit in yellow

- Movement order controls have been improved

- Optimisation of background processes

- Neutral encounters now show a number of stars next to their difficulty rating. This shows their army sizes

- Graphics for dragons and great hydra updated

- Damage stat for units is now shown as a range instead of a single number

- Morale system changed so that morale procs now synchronise between units, so that several units close to each-other will gain morale proc at once

- Pressing Esc in main menu before the buttons have popped up will no longer open options menu

- Fleeing units now won't show up as a red number casualty in the combat bar

- The end game results now show the actual numbers of units left *after* combat, no matter how much healing and retreating has occured

- When a unit with the Buffer ability spends its buffer, it now changes colour slightly

COMBAT AI CHANGES

- AI for a specific unit no longer switches targets randomly, instead having random weights of targeting for any unit pairing

- Ranged units now spend some time moving away from enemies while their attack is on cooldown

- Ranged units no longer slowly inch forward throughout combat while an enemy is within range

- When no enemy units are close, unit AI now searches for a far-away unit more consistently instead of switching between distant targets

- Unit AI now often keeps targeting the same enemy for several AI steps in a row, thus becoming more reliable and faster. It switches targets about once per second, so still should target correctly

- Combat AI should now run slightly faster

BALANCE CHANGES

- Midas Touch now brings back gold more reliably

- Slave Pens now gives twice as much gold from foreign units

- There are now two options for using mercury boost on the Soul Beacon - at 1 mercury for 15 power conversion, or 5 mercury for 100 power conversion

- Daily conversion of undead units at the Soul Beacon has been increased

- You will no longer accumulate Soul Power if you do not have a Decay town

- Soul Power gain formula has been altered slightly to be more even across time

- Tree of Knowledge now cannot be used by avatars like other similar buildings

- Bloodwarping has been adjusted slightly so that transforming into high tier units costs less "points" than before, while transforming into mid tier units now costs more "points" than before

- Shadowmancy now affects larger units more often

- Projectile protection and Protection now protect against Toxicology blobs

- Elementalism, Toxicology and Call Beasts now has their effects reduced if entering combat with small armies. At 200 unit power worth of army and above, the effect is at it was before

- Bodyguards skill has been removed from Delirium hero skill trees

- Week of Midas no longer converts gem mines

- Week of Poverty now reduces gold income from towns to 50% (instead of 0%)

- Gold cost of using Diplomacy has been reduced significantly

- Damage from Burning is increased. Chance of applying Burning has been decreased

- Damage from Poison is increased. Chance of applying Poison has been decreased

- Siren Song now has a 3 day cooldown instead of 4 day cooldown

- Conflux now scales slightly more with higher mana spells

- Versatile now removes the deadzone where ranged units can neither attack with ranged or melee attacks

- Toxicology now spreads a bit less poison at longer distances

- Great Hydras now spawn every 10 days instead of every 15 days. Sacrificing artifacts decreases the timer by less

- Disbanding Avatars will not make the cost of recruiting a new Avatar go down

- Bodyguards units now regen faster

- Pearls can now be used for 1 growth units

- Heroes in combat now have +10 hp per level and +1 damage per level

- Copies of units with bodyguards ability now only create one bodyguard

- Reduced gold gained from selling artifacts

- Summoning spells now use a different formula, summoning significantly more units with high spellpower

- Duplicate spell nerfed

- Low rank demonology now offers less expensive units

- Rage unit ability is now 50% stronger

- Elementals spawned by the Conflux skill now lose health less quickly (about 30% more slowly)

- Explosion unit ability now has a smaller AOE when caused by a nonpermanent or neutral unit dying

- Explosion unit ability now deals less damage not only for nonpermanent units, but also for neutral units

- Rune of Air no longer reduces luck strike chance of units with high luck - instead, the cyclones summoned last for shorter time

- Rune of Burning and Rune of Death now no longer override the burning or deathstriking abilities of the units

- Rune of Death now creates slightly more skeletons, but reduces luck and morale by 1

- Rune of Ice now has a larger chance to proc and deals more damage

- Diplomacy will now always at least give a single unit (even in case of dragons)

- Heroes that are camping remain tired

- Counting house now gives +500 gold per day, but costs more

- Cost to develop potential mines has been reduced

- Flying units now have a cooldown between each time they use their execution

- Copies of units with bodyguards ability now only create one bodyguard

FIXES

- Skills that give a flat bonus to health or damage now always apply before skills which multiply health or damage
- The icon that shows that a unit is fleeing now draws in front instead of behind the unit - it would become obscured by big unit sprites
- Fixed Forlorn Cloister
- First Aid tent no longer prioritises neutral units above permanent units
- Permanent units rezzed by first aid or other effects now have abilities requiring permanence apply to them
- Fixed a bug that made Armorer change units projectile sprite instead of giving projectile protection
- Salted units don't recreate bodyguards
- Fixed a bug that blocked selection of alternate heroes
- Lexicon now shows heroes in the same order as the hero selection menu
- Fixed heroes taking much longer to return to battle if they were slowed before "dying"
- The Tired text in the GUI now disappears when hovering over movement bar, so that you can still see daily movement points
- Fixed a low chance for a whole unit group to spawn as Pond Champions instead of Toadfrogs
- The rare chance for a toadfrog to spawn as a pond champion now works correctly with casualties
- Fixed being offered zero units via Diplomacy in rare circumstancces - instead, the diplomacy pop-up just won't trigger now
- Fixed a bug that made Call Beasts summon Militia instead of Snouthogs on Dirt and Bamboo Forest terrains
- Daily gold income from units with Taxpayer now shown in the gold income tooltip
- Monolith description changed to better reflect its effect
- The income UI no longer shows rare resource income from Tainted mines, but now shows them under Gold income
- The income UI now correctly shows Overgrown mines
- Power of Elementals and Desperado achievements now can unlock even if the enemy is neutral
- Fixed a crash that occured in classic town screen when hovering over the gold cost of a high tier unit
- Fixed a rare crash relating to a save_info.txt file being mysteriously empty
- Warmachines now move to the position of the boat in naval combat while setting up armies
- Wargroups deployed mid battle are now less chaotic in where they can be deployed. They are now deployed at the edges of the map
- Xp gained messages now show the correct number in the case of learning
- Lower resolution displays now have the number of towns and heroes displayed in the HUD reduced
- Rightclicking a group of units on the battlefield will now split the group correctly even when playing at 2x speed
- Hidden beasts can now no longer be discovered on top of your hero
- Avatars can no longer get infinite movement by equipping and unequipping artifacts that increase movement
- Fixed a bug that could make the game get stuck while using Firegating and Firetrapping and making a movement order into the space in the spellbook where the spell is, then cancelling the spell
- Reduced the chance that parts of the map are inaccessible due to a building spawning close to your town and blocking off the path
- Fixed a bug that made units look wrong when leaving the state of being a frog
- Summoned units dying at end of combat no longer cast spells via Destruction
- Mastery buffs will no longer apply to the hero as a unit in combat
- Conscription center now as expected when discharging units worth more than 1 level of Discharge income increase
- Combat camera will no longer be able to leave the battlefield no matter which camera setting you use
- Fixed a bug that made the combat camera jitter crazily right after starting combat
- Wail will no longer affect undead or mechanical units
- Using town portal now sends the hero to the correct tile, and also makes them the visiting hero
- Forlorn Cloister now more correctly converts the spells that heroes know
- fixed reviving evolved units becoming new units in your army
- Gold cost of using Diplomacy has been reduced significantly
- More than 100 neutral modded units can now be loaded in