Greetings, warriors!
Another month gone, another update is ready to take off! We've had a lot to deal with this month: fixing some of the more obvious issues with the game, addressing player feedback, figuring out what we want to achieve with this project in the future, updating our social media presence... and a lot more.
This update is bringing a couple major changes to the gameplay as you know it since we're restoring and reintroducing the mechanics that previously refused to work. So please, bear with us, let's go through everything at once.
☯ We hear you... Windowed mode is here!
That's right, unlocked by popular request. However, it is still experimental and is only available and set in the Battle_Realms.ini file found in the core game folder. If you don't know how to get there, please, see #6 in our official troubleshooting guide. We will need your feedback on how it performs!
By tradition, AMD GPU (videocard only) users who rely on dgvoodoo2 to have the best possible BR experience will have to take some extra steps in order to make it function properly, but we've done most of the work for you and came up with a new config!
If you're an AMD GPU (videocard only) user, grab our latest dgvoodo2 config right now for users with AMD videocards, more information can be found in the troubleshooting guide (#6).
☯ Horse/Rider Damage Distribution Ratio & AoE damage application - now fixed and remixed!
Now this is something that definitely spices up the horseplay in the game...
A little bit of backstory: In the legacy version of Battle Realms horses acted as an (mostly) impenetrable shield for the units that mounted them, that was because of a bug in the code. Originally any damage dealt to a unit on a horse was supposed to be distributed across the rider and the horse according to the percentage set in the database file.
The code, however, skipped an important check resulting in horses always taking 100% of the incoming damage from everything. On top of that, the AoE damage dealt by such Battle Gears as Soul Chill, Whirling Spear, Wrecking Ball etc. woud apply to the horse twice, which effectively made horses extremely weak against AoE Battle Gears.
We restored the code, making the damage distribution work as it was always supposed to, the bug with double damage application was also fixed.
All of that combined makes horses... much less fragile than they used to be, however each clan has a set of Battle Gears to effectively counter horses or damage the rider much more than the horse. We're not gonna spoil a lot, so discover on your own!
Horse/Rider Damage Distribution (General Info):
Melee attacks - 75% damage to horse, 25% to rider. Missile attacks - 25% damage to horse, 75% to rider. AoE Battle Gears- Percentage varies. For example, Serpent Raider's Caltrops BG will distribute 100% of damage to horse, while Serpent Musketeer with Sniper Scope will distribute 100% of damage to rider instead.
That will cause a bit of chaos in the game's balance, so please, lets us know your thoughts regarding this change.
☯ Battle Realms had... what? Reintroducing hybrid damage!
Many of you probably caught themselves hearing blunt damage audio feedback on Dragon Spearman's or Kenji's kicks, piercing damage audio feedback on Serpent Swordsman's poking attacks etc. And you probably asked yourself, "Do these units sometimes attack with a different damage type?".
Well, wonder no more! The answer is no, the unit damage type stays the same no matter the animation. Many units in Battle Realms are actually wired to deal damage types based on their animations; however, they were limited to dealing only one damage type by the code... up until today!
After continuous discussions within the team and proper analysis by Ed Del Castillo himself, we've decided to lift this limitation and restore yet another unique feature BR was supposed to offer.
We understand this will cause a shift in the game's balance because it directly adds an RNG factor that being the randomization of animations thus damage types, but this also adds more flavor to BR combat and the game as a whole. We will most likely be improving this system as the time goes.
☯ High-poly models for Wolf Brawler, Packmaster and Berserker - here at last, followed by a little bonus!
This has been delayed many times, but for a reason! We're now releasing this to you along with a short story...
Out of all high-poly models (currently unlocked by the 'High' Level of Detail in Options), the Wolf ones were the most outdated. They were much different in design compared to their low-poly counterparts, surely that is something we were quite eager to fix because it just didn't look right. Not only those models were dated in their looks, but some didn't even have proper masks or the 'Shale Armor Equipped' texture that indicated the units wielded their iconic armor.
They indeed have many more polygons, but you can see some things are amiss: hair form and color, Berserker's shield... These models were made before the clan design got finalized, so this is the result. Using the good ol' Liquid tools, we were able to update them using the existing files in the game. Some things are impossible to change (like the hair) without reworking the model completely, so we touched only what we could surely fix.
While the base models weren't really changed (besides mask textures, hair color and Berserker's apparel), we added shale armor variations for Brawler, Pack Master and Berserker. Grayback received a pickaxe update and, together with Longtooth, got updated mask textures.
You might've noticed we also changed the texture on the pack wolf. That is the original high-res texture straight from the year 2000, a real treasure! We did some spelunking, yes.
Remember- this is only available if you select 'High' Level of Detail in Options. For reference, if you select 'Very High' LoD, you get the original low-poly BR unit models:
It is done for a reason, we know it's a bit messy, but we will change that in the future updates.
All in all, we're eager to hear your feedback regarding all of this! Let's move on to the full changelog...
1.57.4 Changelog:
Technical:
- Fixed the High DPI scaling issue that made the game render outside of the screen, resulting in an extremely zoomed view.
- Game can now be played in a window (see more in Highlights above).
- Fixed game rooms not properly updating settings in the main lobby screen.
- Fixed lobby refresh time (now it updates upon on an interval).
- Fixed lobby selection getting reset when the game list was updated.
Gameplay:
- Fixed horse/rider damage distribution for weapons and battle gears (see more in Highlights above).
- Fixed horses getting damaged twice by AoE damage (see more in Highlights above).
- Fixed an exploit that allowed to tame horses faster by partially skipping the peasant taming animation.
- Fixed battle gears that are supposed to be 'melee' type, like Dragon Spearman's Whirling Spear, Wolf Werewolf's Wolf Bite and such (As a result of this change, such 'melee' type BGs now penetrate Lotus Staff Adept's Dark Canopy or Dragon Samurai's Dragon Skin because the latter two were always supposed to protect from projectile attacks only).
- Fixed a bug that made golems (and sometimes peasants) go idle when harvesting or collecting water.
- Fixed units sometimes refusing to train in combat buildings.
- Fixed magic objects (Death Sentry, Totem, Scorched Earth etc.) not being identified as attackable under certain circumstances (the most vivid example of this is Death Sentry on the water).
- Fixed unit attachments being rendered separately from units under certain circumstances (like entering buildings).
- Fixed Lotus Shadow Steed "Symbiosis" Visual FX when its rider is killed.
- Zymeth and Lotus Clan Watchtowers won't cast lightnings on enemy units stationed in their watchtowers. This used to happen before resulting in both wasting their lightnings.
- Lotus Reapers won't reset their attack animation when performing execution (innate ability).
- And most importantly... Golems are now able to run! They didn't do that in vanilla because of a bug.
- Reduced responsiveness delay for multiplayer games, offline games will have no delay at all.
- Targetable Battle Gears (Death Sentry, Smoke Bomb, Scorched Earth etc.) will now take into account the run order (ALT + Use Battle Gear action). Previously units ignored the run order when activating their Battle Gears resulting in them just walking and losing time.
- Improved unit disengagement-chase behavior (they won't run around a unit they're chasing, wasting their stamina).
- Peasants will always choose rice patches that are the closest to nearby huts when harvesting rice.
- If the base is under attack, the game will play a restored sound FX alert.
- Restored hybrid damage based on unit animations (see more in Highlights above).
- Reduced collision radius on units.
- Game time is now visible on the UI panel (near the resource counter!). This replaces the previously available !time console command.
- Restored realistic water animation. This will make water more 'wobbly' than it already was. Don't stare at it for too long or you are going to get dizzy!
- Peasants will now always try to deliver horses to the stables closest to them if multiple stables are built.
- Tamed horses will face their target when doing their battle gear action. For example, Lotus Shadow Steed will now breath directly on a building, greatly increasing its chances to set it on fire.
- Tamed horses won't regenerate stamina if units are in the process of mounting them (only when getting on the horse, this is done to reduce the mount/dismount exploit until we find a better solution).
- Tamed horses without riders will now trample if under attack or run away whenever convenient.
Journeys (Campaign):
- Increased Nightvol's hordeling spawn chance.
- Added effect to Nightvol when spawning hordelings.
AI:
- AI will keep group pathing when moving a war party (it won't send units one by one to attack or to reach strategic points, the whole formation will move as one group).
- AI will wait until units regenerate their health before moving or relocating war parties (this prevents AI sending severely harmed units back to battle).
- AI lotus won't eat golems using Tier 2 units in order to obtain Battle Gears.
We've begun looking into the game balance, every update will basically bring a bunch of tweaks to certain things in the game.
- Wolf Brawler now deals twice as much damage per hit on his '5 hit combo' animation. Finally Brawler lives up to his character!
- Lotus Brother Sehk's Yin score generation has been reduced from 5 to 1 (1 per each projectile = 5 score points in total). This Brother would generate Yin quicker than the other Brothers because of this dev oversight (generating 5 score per 1 projectile, resulting in 25 score points per 1 attack compared to the other two brothers' 5 points per 1 attack).
- Serpent Musketeers' damage to buildings was reduced by 50%.
- Serpent Musketeers' hitpoints were reduced from 240 to 210.
- Serpent Musketeers' Armor Multiplier against Blunt type of damage was changed from 0,5 to 1, meaning they will take full 100% damage from blunt attacks.
- Dragon Spirit (Dragon Monument's Unique Ability) will now penetrate Staff Adept's Dark Canopy and Dragon Samurai's Dragon Skin.
Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!
Miscellaneous info:
- Report any issues you experience in this topic.
- Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
Follow Battle Realms:
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- On Reddit.
- On Twitter.
- On Twitch.