Hello everyone!
Now that the game had some time to mature and gather feedback, I thought it was time to polish up a few rough edges, balance-wise, so that is the primary focus of this patch. Though, of course, a few new features have arrived as well. Let's take a look!
Memorial
One of the popular requests was to see the fallen soldiers. Now, you can do so by clicking the memorial tab in the barracks. You can even see statistics over the soldier's lifetime, like the strongest foe slain, for example! (But important note, these statistics are only being gathered in missions after the patch, so in existing saves, these statistics will not be completely correct)
Concealed condition rework
The concealed condition (and by extension, the whole rogue school) could really be only used defensively till gaining the Expert Stealth skill, making it a very situational school till the master level is researched. The most important change is that the condition, from now on, behaves as if the unit had expert stealth from the start, opening up its usage and synergies, while reworking the old expert stealth skill. Details of the changes:
Concealed condition now only gets removed if being seen by an adjacent enemy at the start of the turn (previously given by expert stealth skill).
Expert stealth skill is now an advanced-level skill (down from master), provides concealment at the start of combat, and can be reapplied at the start of the round if no enemies see you. Does not work with heavy armor.
Pass by skill becomes a master level skill (up from advanced).
New research images
As promised, we are getting around to replacing the placeholder images for the school's research. In this patch, light/dark, marksmanship, and strategist schools received their own images.
Frostwall headquarters buff
Frostwall headquarters bonus design intent was to promote a quantity over quality playstyle, but only by making recruiting units cheaper felt weak. Now, in addition to cheaper troops, every friendly unit that dies in combat increases the melee and ranged attack of every other friendly unit by 5 (max 25) till the end of the mission.
Hammer nerf
Another popular sentiment in the feedback was that the hammers are overperforming compared to other weapons. My original design goal with the weapon was that it should be a low-damage weapon with a lot of utility, especially against heavily armored opponents. But in practice, it was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, especially with the very action-efficient stunning strike weapon skill. Details of the changes:
All hammers' min/max damage reduced by 1.
Reduced the amount of damaged armor condition two-handed hammers are causing to 1 (from 2).
One-handed hammer stunning strike skill gets -3 damage, but only costs 3 stamina (down from 4).
Staff stunning strike skill gets -3 damage.
Two-handed hammer's stunning strike skill has been replaced by Shatter. Function similarly to the old stunning strike, but in additon of the stun, it causes 2 damaged armor conditions as well. Costs 2 action points (up from 1) and 4 stamina.
Equipment balance changes:
Heavy armor defense is reduced by 1 across the board.
Tier 1 smith weapon/armor projects cost and time have been lowered across the board.
Unit's absolute minimum stamina increased to 4. So even in the worst case scenario, every unit should be able to move + basic attack from max stamina with a melee weapon.
Acid bomb and healing potion usage stamina cost increased by 1.
Acid bomb, healing/stamina potion, all get disabled if inside a melee enemy zone of control.
Acid bomb and Acid rain skills now only cause 2 damaged armor (down from 3).
Adamantine bracers now provide 10 melee defense (up from 5)
Rune bracers now provide 20 melee defense (up from 10)
Etheral rune now reduces weapon damage by 4.
Background balance changes:
Lumberjack background lost health bonus.
Farmhand background increase base cost from 30 to 35
Messenger background lost stamina bonus.
Monk background base cost increased from 20 to 25
Raider background got a +5 health bonus.
Rebelled noble reduced stamina penalty to -1. Added -3 health penalty. Reduced base cost from 100 to 80.
Retired soldier base cost was lowered from 350 to 250.
Mercenary got +5 defense and +3 stamina modifier, but increased base recruitment from 100 to 150.
In general reduced the cost multiplier for additional levels, making higher-level recruits cheaper than before.
Skills balance changes:
Assassin's serial killer skill now only works when the enemy is killed with a crit.
Warrior endurance training skill now only gives +3 stamina (down from +5).
Web spell is now guaranteed to hit, so that it does not feel like a downgrade from the net items against units with magic resist.
Condition spells are not affected by the maximum of 95% hit chance rule. They are guaranteed to hit if the target does not have magic resist.
Sword puncture skill now only costs 1 action.
Obstruction rules have changed for range attacks. Now, adjacent friendly units will not obstruct the target, making it easier to shoot enemies engaged with friendly units in melee.
Enemy balance changes:
In new campaigns, guarantee that the tier 2 and tier 3 enemy pods will be of a different race. So, for example, if in the campaign the tier 2 enemies are the elves, then the tier 3 enemies can only be orks or dwarfs.
Dark elves, banshees, shadow panthers, and goblins increase their melee defense to +20, increasing the importance of hit chance against them.
Dark elves replace the hide skill with expert stealth. This makes the racial skill that provided them with concealment at the start of the combat redundant, so it has been removed.
Shadow panther replaces expert stealth skill (as it is now redundant) with silent killer.
Golem's punch attack now only causes 2 damaged armor (down from 3).
Dwarf thunderer reduced min/max damage by 4, but made their crossbow etheral (deals magic damage instead of physical).
Globe of invulnerability now blocks all conditions as well, not just damage.
Etherals mistakenly had 0 magic penetration. This has been corrected to 5.
Reduced average enemy count by 1, and more importantly, made the enemies spawn in more numerous but smaller groups on advanced+ difficulties. This should help improve the viability of damage/initiative-focused strategies compared to sustain-based, even on the hardest difficulty level.
Further tweaked the army's territory choices while the resistance threat is high, to make larger armies choose territories without invader bases more frequently.
Bugfixes:
Now, combat saves will be correctly saved even if the player has multiple characters with the same name.
Fixed spell penetration not being properly applied.
Fixed tiles remaining visible, where previously collected supply chests were.
Closing thoughts
So that’s it for this patch. Thank you to everyone who supported us and shared feedback here on Steam or on our Discord. It means a lot to us and helps guide future improvements.
We really appreciate everyone who continues to share their experiences with the game!