Greetings, friends!
It is finally time to share with you the newest major update to Swordhaven. Here is a general overview of what to expect as soon as you update your game to v0.6.0:
A new Player background has been added. The Waidelott is a priest of the Dragon Cult that came to Nova Drakonia for spiritual reasons, as well as to grow in their profession, but it will only be up to you if they succeed in this, or find a new meaning in life.
As with all other backgrounds, the Waidelott has a unique personal quest with a new dungeon, a unique boss enemy, NPC interactions, follower and more.
Speaking of followers, now every constant companion has a unique starting combat technique which may not be found in any of the skill trees. Some abilities heal, some are used for stealing, and some deal damage, buff allies or debuff foes, but all are sure to serve as fun additions to the gameplay.
Old Quarter is now fully built, with loot scattered in the outside areas and all interiors available for visitation, though populating them with people is something for the next update.
Other new locations like the bad side of the city and the city docks have also been added, though these are still very much a work in progress.
Just like we did with Old Quarter, we believe sharing them in this incomplete state with you is a way to show what is to come and listen to your feedback, so please pay them a visit!
Visiting these new places in the city will prove easy, since we have as of now added an interactive map that pops up whenever you transition from one place to another, letting you pick which already visited district to fast-travel to.
In regard to QoL, it has been significantly improved. We've added features to movement, such as preventing teammates from blocking access to chests. Although this new pathfinding system is currently a bit wonky in places where the old one wasn't, these issues will be addressed, and overall, we'll be left with much smarter movement for the release.
Also, now there's no such thing as a crafting failure where you lose your ingredients without crafting an item. With this new addition, your Crafting skill determines how much durability your tool loses after each attempt. This means you'll wear through your tools faster at low Crafting levels and more slowly at high levels, but your crafting will always produce the item you want.
We have also changed the last Crafting perk to something much more viable. Now you will have a chance to *not* use an ingredient and still craft the item you wish to make. We also added helpful %chance indicators that display your chance to pickpocket or lockpick after you make a single attempt to do so on Normal.
There is also now a Bluff skillperk that allows you to escape reputation diminishment when caught stealing or pickpocketing. It works great with the new chance display QoL feature, give it a try!
Speaking of Crafting, another important addition to check out is the new mining mechanic: Some random encounter maps now feature underground areas that can spawn ore veins, which can be mined with a pickaxe. Ore can then be crafted into valuable ingots if you've studied this recipe by reading an appropriate smithing manual. Ore veins also sometimes appear in cave-type story dungeons such as the Snatcher's Lair.
A number of lesser additions have also been made. Characters sporting new costumes and portraits. Guards now patrol the streets of Swordhaven. Spawners in the Sewers and on random encounter maps have been tweaked to prevent farming. We've added unique models to many loot items. Two new fully animated chest types have been introduced for dungeons and dwellings. The weapon modification information is now much more cohesive. Enemies in random encounters have been rebalanced. Additionally, new weapons have been added, including a unique dagger, a secret maul, and more.
The list goes on!
Finally, game slowdown in some areas has been eradicated thanks to your feedback. We really appreciate your help and hope that it continues in the future!
Yours,
Atom Team
New mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3513925059
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3505044111