Hello!
We wanted to give you a full list of all the changes going live on release (October 28th) as well as what content is coming next. If this looks great to you please share it with friends!
Release Patch Notes
Additions
- Act 3 of Story Mode added!
- Online Multiplayer Cross-Play added! Play against random foes from around the world via Steam, Nintendo Switch Online or Xbox Live.
- Cross-play for Online Custom Games, which will allow you to face off against your friends regardless of what platform you're playing on, will be added in a future update.
- Four new boards added for Skirmish and Multiplayer, with the old "Peaks" board retired.
Gameplay
- Panicked Shout no longer affects characters diagonal to the Medic.
- Abilities where characters jump forward (Superman Punch, Rush etc) can now target characters on the same height level when the Heavy Feet debuff is active.
- Fix for Charged Draw still working with the Bear Hug debuff on the Archer.
- Fix for Phase buff also preventing Basic Attacks being used against the Medic.
- Fix for Fireball AOE not staying within 1 height difference of the main target.
- Fix for Ricochet and Healing Aura retaining targeting information if the action wasn't completed before the player ran out of time for their turn.
- Fix for characters which should be killed due to Share Pain damage from multi-hit attacks not dying if there was a miss before the killing blow.
- Fix for using a Basic Attack removing the Crotch Kick debuff (Steam only as of writing).
- Fixes for some abilities not removing the Crotch Kick debuff after being used (Steam only as of writing).
UI
- All in-game text now localized into German, Spanish, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. (Brazilian Portuguese coming soon)
- Additional support for characters from languages not included in the game added.
- The currently selected character in pre-battle character selection is now outlined on the board.
- Fixes for character selection and placement in Local Multiplayer.
- Speech bubble positioning and sizing improved.
- Health bars for non-involved characters now fade away during action animations.
- Damage text now stacks horizontally rather than floating upwards from the character.
- Damage effect sprites updated to be more visible.
- Fix for damage numbers/sprites being hidden by other gameplay UI.
- Ability stats are now displayed when swapping abilities in the Adventure tavern.
- Fix for the loading text on the initial splash screen always displaying in English.
- Fix for Chinese and Japanese language options sometimes appearing blank within the Options menu.
- Fix for the Adventure tavern introduction message being displayed twice.
- Fix for the feedback window not opening if the feedback button was pressed while the sent confirmation was being displayed.
- Fix for the glowing effect used in the Tutorial not disappearing if it was restarted.
- Fix for speech bubble character name not updating when changing language (Steam only as of writing).
- Various formatting fixes.
AI
- AI thinking time halved!
- Various AI logical fixes to ensure its decisions are as close to the best legal decision as possible.
- AI logic has been improved to always use an action when one is available.
- Fix to ensure the AI doesn't use an action to apply a duff/debuff if the target character already has that buff/debuff (Steam only as of writing).
- Fix for the AI sometimes cheating when they had the Bear Hug debuff (Steam only as of writing).
- Fix for possible AI soft lock if the player ended their turn incredibly quickly.
- Fix for the Rougarou AI using Kidnap and then hiding up a tree to avoid being killed (yes, really, this happened).
Controls
- Controller vibration added.
- Vibration strength is set to 100% by default and can be lowered/turned off in the Options menu.
- When using mouse/touchscreen the board cursor is no longer restricted to selectable tiles during movement.
- The board cursor is no longer restricted to selectable tiles when an action/item target is being selected.
- Flame Wave targeting updated to be easier to use.
- Water and obstacle (trees/pillars etc) tiles can now be selected with the board cursor.
- Various UI navigation fixes.
Fixes
- Various online multiplayer fixes.
- Flame Wave animation no longer sometimes clips through the floor.
- Fixes for shadows being displayed incorrectly during some attack animations.
- Fix for Adventure Map movement and loading still running when the Pause menu was open.
- Various visual FX layering improvements.
- Various sound effect fixes.
Misc
- Initial load time greatly reduced.
- Loading time between the Main Menu/Adventure Map and gameplay greatly reduced.
- Performance improvements which should result in a better/more steady framerate throughout, especially during gameplay.
- Two Wolves removed from "Open Field (Variant)" in Tactician Mode.
- In Adventure Mode injuries now have a 20% chance of occurring when taking damage to/while below half health, rather than always occurring when going below half health.
- Selected abilities for a character are now stored in all modes (apart from Local Multiplayer) and carry over as the default selected abilities where applicable.
- The save file location on MacOS has been changed, meaning that Steam Cloud now works.
- Note: Any existing cloud saves from other platforms will be used over existing Mac save files in the old location, but those existing save files will not be deleted and will be used if Mac was the only platform played on.
- Resolution settings now included on MacOS.
What's Next
Now that we’ve seen what release day will bring let’s look at our first update post launch. We are aiming to have this out late November, early December.
Traits
Before we get to far into these, I want to provide some definitions that can help sort everything out.
Innate Ability / Trait – This is the ability or trait that classes have no matter what. For example, the Medics Cleanse is an Innate Ability and the Archers Eagle Eye is an Innate Trait. Before we just called these passive abilities but that wording won’t work for what we are going to be adding into the game, especially with new characters on the way.
Have to click to use it = Ability
Always active = Trait
Simple!
We will be adding in 2 traits to all characters in our update. Let’s have a look at some:
(Alchemist)
Newtons Findings – Increases the bonus from Alchemist Stone to +3
(Wizard)
Friendly Flames – The Wizards AOE fire attacks no longer deal damage to teammates.
(Assassin)
Thrill Seeker – Increases the Assassins speed to 8. This means he’ll be the first character to move, he’ll be even faster than the Archer on the turn order.
(Medic)
Hard Slaps – The Medics basic attack increased to 3 damage.
As you can see Traits can really change a character. Traits will be added to the pool that players choose from when customizing a character before a battle. All characters will be receiving 2 additional traits in the update. This means it's possible for a character to have their Innate and 2 Abilities and 2 Traits or Innate and 4 abilities etc.
Example of Trait / Ability Selection
Board Builder (BB)
Board Builder will allow players to create their own boards and upload them to a server. You would then be given a code which you can give to anyone and they can access and download the board for play!
Players will be able to customize the following
- Spawn Points
- High Ground
- Obstacles (Line of Sight Pillars / Trees etc)
- Board Sizes (Boards can reach sizes of 15x15 tiles! Verticality can be increased passed High Ground 2 as well)
- Water
- Empty Tiles
- Theme
- Board Items (Flowers / Grass etc)
Example Boards
Another exciting aspect of BB is in the future it will allow you to create encounters, allowing you to essentially make Tactician Mode fights and share them! I can’t wait to see what you all create with this system.
Ranked Online
Ranked Online will allow players to compete in matches in 3v3 or 5v5 settings and move upwards in our rating system. We are planning on resetting ranks every so often. We will share the specifics of how ranks are calculated in a coming update as well as share the images of each rank!
New Classes on the way
I wanted to share the names of the new classes which will start to be added in to the game next year. Their details will be revealed further around the start of next year.
- Bard
- Berserker
- Paladin
- Trapper
- Siren
- Owlcaster
- Aether Knight
- Geomancer
- Necrolass
That was a lot of info, congrats to those of you who managed to finish it. I hope you all are looking forward to full release as much as we are. We have so much content planned and can't wait to get it out there. Thanks again for going on this journey with us and supporting a small studio in our first game. We promise to keep updating, providing content, and not let you down.
-Matt