(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)
Hey Folks, I'm making a quick status update blog post as my plans for v1.4.0 have changed a bit, and so the information I gave when releasing v1.3.0 is no longer accurate.
Despite my attempts to keep the scope of v1.4.0 limited, the amount of smaller content additions I want to add to it got pretty large. At the same time, I've been running into some delays with implementing the new blacksmith's quest. Previously this would have just led to 1.4.0 being delayed, but I want to try something different.
v1.4.0 is going to be split into two updates. The blacksmith quest overhaul will now be in v1.5.0, and v1.4.0 will instead contain all of the smaller content additions and changes I'm currently working on. This way v1.4.0 will release on schedule and I will be able to focus exclusively on the blacksmith's quest once v1.4.0 is done. This does delay the quest rework slightly, but there will still be plenty of things to look forward to in v1.4.0.
So What is Coming in v1.4.0?
You can expect another blog post sometime in early to mid September with a beta and more details on v1.4.0, but here is a quick summary of what is coming and roughly how far along it is:
- 🟩Loads of Smaller Fixes (100%): I maintain a list of small low priority changes and fixes that I want to investigate, but over the last two years or so I've let that list grow and grow. for v1.4.0 I've chewed through that list, knocking it down to about 1/8 of its previous size.
- 🟩Ring of Arcana (100%): A new item! The ring of arcana will passively enhance the power of enchantments and glyphs, letting them activate more often and with stronger effects. This one has a lot of interesting gameplay potential.
- 🟩Footwear of Nature Rework (80%): I'm also planning on reworking the footwear of nature! The item's active effect is a bit phoned in currently, so I'm going to expand it to allow for a lot more flexibility based on the seed you've most recently fed the item.
- 🟨Berserker Rework (60%): I'm planning to change berserking around so that it is manually activated, which will let me give it a significantly larger power budget. Players who like the automatic berserk safety net will still be able to access it via a talent.
- 🟧Tutorialization Improvements (50%): Shattered plays pretty intuitively on touch screens, but really needs a little more of a lead-in for users on mouse/keyboard or controllers. I plan to add a very short initial tutorial that guides the player though the game's basic controls.
- 🟧Lore Additions (40%): I'm planning to finally expand the game's journal system beyond just guidebook pages. Each region is going to have a separate bit of lore text to find, which will give more details about that region and the people who were there before the hero.
- 🟥Interface Improvements (20%): Just like with the changes screen in v1.3.2, I'd like to expand a few of the game's interfaces to convey more information, especially for users on large screens. Big candidates are the alchemy screen, hero select, and the rankings screen.
I'm going to start sharing some more bite-sized info on these changes on Twitter very soon, so follow me there if you'd like some quicker updates.