Dear Travellers of the Otherworld!
The wait is over! Update 1.3 called "The Flesh Rises" is now available!
After two weeks of intensive Beta testing we ironed out issues which sneaked into the game. Thank you for participating and helping us out here! It was a pure joy to connect with you on Discord and via the Steamforum and hearing your thoughts on our new content and reading through your feedback on the Balancing. That really helped to get things right.
Once again: Thank you for your support. You contributed in enabling us to create the Update in the best possible way!
Since this is the last big Content Update for Drova, we want to give you some insights about decisions we've made after the Release of Drova and what role you played in this process.
In the following Video Chris talks about the time right after the release and about the new Update. As always the video is in German language but English subtitles are available!
Post Release
First of all we were indeed surprised by how well the Drova release worked out. We always believed in the project but everyone of you helped outperforming whatever we imagined upfront. Via your reviews and feedback you showed us that we indeed created something special with Drova. Something we can be proud of and something we wanted to build up even further.
Aftter Drova started off strong we knew we couldn't just move on to the next project. We wanted to give back. For all your love you showed for our little game.
We'll be honest here: We thought about creating a DLC and we did some research on that. But we ran into an issue here: All RPG DLCs we love are closed off and add additional areas to these games with new questlines and so on and most of the DLCs can be played without the main game itself as well (and some also come with prepared savegames etc.).
Through your Feedback we quickly realized that this wasn't the best way for Drova to become an even better game. Wishes you had mostly were focused on specific features and gameplay mechanics for the game. They were based on certain quests, quality of life improvements and so on. We wouldn't have been able to deliver on both things. We're a small team, we can't work on a DLC at the same time while also improving the game based on your feedback. And we didn't want to create a DLC with Features which were also essential for the game itself (e.g. new difficulty options, fast travel and so on).
So instead of going for a DLC we decided to come up with a plan for three major Updates in a timeframe of 5 months. And then take on the task to improve the game based on your feedback to make Drova the best possible game.
In 1.1 we introduced changes based on the feedback we received early on. We made controls even more customizeable, added a new cateogry within the Journal which allowed you to find NPCs easier and we also added a new questline to unlock Fast Travel.
With 1.2 we focused on a new difficulty. Quite often NG+ was requested. And a harder endgame. But the way we envisioned Drova NG+ doesn't work out pretty well which is why we've decided to create a special difficulty which allows player to make use of their knowledge about Drova. We also added new behaviours for monsters so that the new difficulty would indeed be a fresh challenge even for experienced players.
And now 1.3 introduces tons of changes based on your feedback again. We've added new challenges and optional content for you to discover in later chapters. And new spells. We also took our time to adjust Chapter 3 based on your feedback. Scroll a little bit down and you'll find more detailed infos about the recent changes.
And now we've reached the end of those three updates. And with that an even longer chapter for us comes to an end. Drova was our life for the last four years and it influenced our lifes in so many ways. During all that time you followed us, you've been there for us. You helped shaping up Drova to become the game it is today. And we can't thank you enough. You are the reason why we can continue creating games. And that's exactly what we'll do.
From now on we will, next to releasing some small additions here and there and bugfixes for Drova, concentrate on a new project. We cannot really say much about it just yet as we're still in the process of prototyping, throwing ideas around and testing out things. But one thing is carved in stone: We want to build upon the experiences we've made with Drova. And it will, once again, be a RPG.
Cay Campaign
Many of you fell in love with a small little piglet in the Forest Primeval. We got so many requests for a Cay Plushie and some of you even started a poll on our Discord for that. We loved the idea so we started looking around right away.
In cooperation with Makeship we created a Plushie for Cay! The Plushie will be declared as funded once at least 200 preorders have been made. So it is now in your hands to make it a success story!
Here's a link for the campaign!
And now let's check what's new in Patch 1.3!
What's new?
Quite some of you wished for more content for later parts of the game. For the new Patch we took that feedback serious and added fresh lategame content. And yes, of course there was more feedback and all of the new content and changes in the following list are based on your feedback!
WARNING! Some of the changes contain heavy spoilers. If you did not play through Drova just yet and you don't want to get spoiled you should REALLY skip this part!
The Flesh Rises
This is the biggest change we ever made since the release of Drova. The description is vague on purpose as you shall get a chance to discover on your own what this is all about:
Uncover secrets of the Bygones. How did the Red Moor come to life and what did the Bygones do there back in the days? Follow the hints and you will find something huge but will you be able to follow the path till the very end?
The Old Magic
Even before the Rune Magic of the Bygones was discovered there was Magic in Drova. The Divinities shared their Runes with some of their closest human beings which allowed them to cast Magic in a natural way. Find the hidden secrets of the original inhabitants of Drova and discover their magic!
Many of you were sad that Magic comes in quite late in Drova. That's mostly due to the fact that we developed Drova as a game with a close combat focus in which your resources to cast magic build up by hitting enemies with your weapons.
We always wanted Drova to feel grounded. That's why the first things you can learn are of physical nature till you later get your Runestone to cast Magic.
We do understand though that some of you want to have that Mage fantasy in Drova right away. For that we have added a new spell category which will allow you to cast magic even without a Runestone. These spells are influenced by the Mind attribute which means investing in it early can give you some advantages.
We hope that this brings those players who want to play a mage closer to their fantasy. For us this was the best way to implement it into the world of Drova. Let us know how your experiences are with that addition.
Chapter 3 Changes
Yep. We've got tons of Feedback regarding Chapter 3. Many had the feeling that they couldn't act like they wanted or how their character would have acted. Or they were shocked after the bossfight and what tragedy was caused afterwards.
The results and topics caused by the expedition are an important point within the story of the game. It changes everything and gives a twist and it allows the player to understand their faction and their actual goals. And it allows the player to question the decisions.
Additionally if we added an option to not catch the Divinity, that'd have massive influences on later parts of the game. We would need to add a massive chunk of additional content for Chapter 4, adding a completely new story. Which... well, means that it'd also change the game in more ways than we can even imagine.
And yet, we do understand those who didn't like how the events turned out. We will keep that in mind for future stories told by us. This helps us to plan out things a bit better in the future and include alternative ways right from the very beginning.
We still took a look at the expedition once again and changed a couple of things which should make the events a bit less shocking and maybe even a bit more understandable.
Now you have the option to question the events way more during the Expedition itself. Also reactions of people have been adjusted when you warned them. Together with Diemo you can now also pre-warn the Divinity and inform it about the events which are about to happen. That even has an influence on the fight itself.
We also added a dialogue with Reija in the Library to give you another option to reflect and think about the events in Chapter 3.
A new Dungeon of the Bygones
New notes appeared about a ruin of the Bygones! The Bygones are known for their experiments with Rune Magic to discover new ways of using it. It seems that they worked on a way to improve warriors with Magic...
Search for the ruins and face magically improved warriors. Only by doing so you can discover the secrets hidden in there.
Weapons & Magic
Many of you who played a warrior disliked the fact that they had not enough spells in the lategame to play the kind of warrior they wanted to be. Maybe those having that warrior fantasy don't want to throw fireballs or energy strikes but just want to hit someone with an Axe right in the face.
Since many events in Drova rely on the Runestone and the option to get access to that Magic, we have added new spells which are based on weapon types and add magical damage based on your weapon and type of weapon.
The new spells can be discovered in Chapter 4.
Red Moor Caves
Another feedback we got was that most of our caves and dungeons use the same graphics. We have now added a new tileset for the Red Moor which should give you some variety for the underground areas of the game and that you will have the feeling to be in the Moor even while in a cave.
Additional Changes
Here is a list of other changes we made and added to the game.
- A new spell was added which has nothing to do with casting magic on a Weapon and is also not related to the Old Magic.
- New Discover-Options - A bunch of new objects can be found and contain information when take a closer look.
- Treasure Maps are marked as found.
- Credits are now played slower and can be speeded up by pressing a key.
- Nests of flies have a new animation when not destroyed.
- The laughing animation was reworked and should look better on all NPCs.
- In English smirking has been reduced (and replaced with other words here and there).
- 3 new weapons with improved focus generation have been added. These shall support the player early on to focus on Mind rather early in the game.
- You can now tell Reija that you found Monk in Chapter 1.
- You can now snitch on Katsa and Mursel at Levin.
- You can now tell Meluna that you defeated Bady.
- New journal entry which gives a hint on where to find your equipment after getting drunk with Eugen.
- New monsters appear in chapter 2 and 4.
Balancing
- Focus Form: Decreased time to max burn rate from 30 to 15 seconds.
- Kick: Reduced strength scaling by 50%.
- Magic Missle: Increased damage from 200 to 250.
- Rune Spear: Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
- Blaze: Slightly increased cast time.
- Battlecry: Now Increases only physical damage.
- Spells no longer suffer from reduced poise damage when hitting multiple targets.
- Ring of Blood: Reduced healing by 33%, but improved healing when using weapons with lower damage (like daggers).
- Gladiator Armor: Damage reduction reduced from 90% to 70% for NPCs.
- Swords: Slightly decreased charge time of sword's third combo attack.
- Daggers: Increased critical damage multiplier of the secondary from 200% to 250%.
- Focused Strikes: no longer affects multihit attacks with spears.
- Increased HP of Jero/Molvina and Drivanius by ~20% on Insane among other slight adjustments.
Bugfixes
- Fixed Wind Talisman, so it increases only physical damage.
- Some text adjustments here and there.
- Some changes to environment here and there.
- Fixed an internal error when loading during loot interaction.
- Fixed two hair presets that had visual errors.
- Fixed error where package can be duplicated when looting Asmus.
- While Henik is in the warehouse his location in the journal will be "Nemeton Market".
- Fixed energy storages at the platform puzzle to only react to magical damage.
- Fixed an dialog error that caused overlapping sounds.
- Fixed some non-lootable items in the world that were blocked by other objects.
- Fixed an issue in the deep mine with Jendra that caused a cutscene to stuck sometimes.
- Fixed exploding flesh monster that kept running while exploding.
- Fixed a bug in spell menu that caused an amount number to pop up.
- Fixed a bug that caused enemies to have wrong poise values if they have a variant in insane mode.
- Fixed wrong focus bar slicing in the ability tab.
- Fixed Blaze spell so it hits objects like training dummies.
- Fixed Spear talent generating Endurance for each enemy that got hit.
- Fixed some places where player could get stuck between some obstacles.
- Changed Venia channel animation in the intro.
- Dried Heart of Sprigga: now affects flesh monsters properly.
- Aldos Ring no longer has the tooltip part with “if multiple are equipped…”.
- Fixed quest “Road to the Pit” so that Jola still guides you there if you have been there already.
- Fixed that Mottek couldn’t be attacked after guiding you to the Pit.
- Fixed Baldo walking out of his cage sometimes.
- Reduced chance that NPCs in a group block the player.
- Fixed a rare bug with Kendrick resulting in a stuck dialog.
- Fixed a bug that caused bandits not to use consumables.
- Removed the possibility to loot the gladiator helmet from ada before beating her in the arena.
- Fixed a bug that causes the game to freeze when talking to NPCs entering/leaving caves.
- Fixed a bug that caused the player not to stagger blocking too much when using Dorian’s Heirloom.
- Fixed a bug that caused the journal entry of “The Way to the Red Tower” to not update properly when playing Remnants Camp.