Overview
We've added party revival, and Willow's (the healer hero) revive ability so there's no more perma-death. When health is reduced to zero, heroes are knocked unconscious and their portrait in the top left of the screen turns deep red. At the end of the battle heroes regain consciousness and a little health, enabling players to continue their adventure without having to reload. In village maps there’s a 5 minute cool down to prevent cheating.
The loot system has been overhauled to support scaling as player heroes move up in level. Loot is now dynamically generated, and items can finally receive meaningful magical properties. Names comprise a prefix, the weapon type, and a suffix, for example a Vigorous Axe Of Scorching. Weapons now receive visual effects such as flames and frost.
We’ve added The Glade, home to the Gladefolk, updated Mordrich’s Factory to separate out Bonefinger’s lair, and extended both Withering Dead and Gladefolk campaigns.
There are two ways to keep heroes alive. One is to recruit Willow the healer, the other is to craft health and power potions. Alpha 26 adds wild herb patches around the environments which can be harvested by selecting a villager and right clicking on the herbs. Wild herb patches regenerate over time and build up to a capped amount so you don't have to constantly collect them.
Villagers can man the well and pump Buckets Of Water. Water is used in potion making (crafting at the Herbalist's Den), will soon be added as an input into brewing, and is a precursor to being able to extinguish building fires.
Faction standing is an essential system for implementing the campaign storyline. Helping one faction causes your standing with the opposing faction to decline. We added several new nodes to Workbench (the visual scripting environment built into the Editor) that allow us to tweak values as players complete quests.
Patch Notes
This public build incorporates experimental patches 0.3.12.0 through 0.3.18.0. The patch notes are too long to fit in a Steam announcement, and continue over on our website (link at bottom).
Player: Added faction standing system (precursor to allies and enemies)
Player: Extended the Campaign (it’s still very much WIP)
Player: Dynamic loot generation system implemented
Player: Magic weapons now have visual effects when they have a suffix enchantment
Player: Added hero death and revival. including Willow’s ability
Player: Enabled potion consumption via character portrait wheel
Player: Potion Making now functional
Player: Added water to the types of resource peasants can gather
Player: Added clickable event notification to warn of impending attack (mostly spiders at the mo); mob will be shown briefly, then Fog Of War will fade back
Player: Added find peasants button to minimap including headcount
Player: Restricted some of Willow's abilities to targets that make sense (e.g she can no longer heal enemies)
Player: Ability targeting improved so now only valid targets are highlighted
Player: Z and X now adjust camera zoom, especially useful in construction mode
Player: Mouse cursor is now constrained to the window when in fullscreen mode (Windows only)
Player: Added audio settings toggle to disable transition to battle music
Player: Save games now always create a new save instead of overwriting the last one
Player: Added Ser Gregory’s missing voice lines
Player: Edited Lilith’s voice files to flow into sequential dialogue more smoothly
Player: Tweaked when healthbars appear (hiding for neutral and friendly non-human factions)
Player: Active Quests: Added red x for when quest failed
Player: Active Quests: Added find icon next to subquests
Player: Added connection cost smoothing to pathfinding code to try to improve path quality
Player: Increased speed of number transitions in marketplace
Player: Added impact sound effects when weapon has suffix enchantment
Player: RTS: F1..F9 single press now only selected hero, double press to zoom camera to them
Player: RTS: Single clicking on hero portrait now selects, double click to pan the camera to that hero
Player: RTS: Double pressing on control group keys (0..9) will now zoom to that control group
Player: Willow's purify ability now removes bad buffs from characters (and prevents them from getting any new bad buffs for 5 seconds)
Player: Characters and weapons are now 36% bigger*
Player: You can now select a peasant and right click on a profession building to train
Player: Added VFX to Willow's revive ability
Player: Made Q,E camera rotation frame rate independent in the game
Player: Scaled camera movement speed by height above the terrain (70% - 120%)
Player: Building healths doubled
Player: Increased size of wheat sprites
Player: Construction options now close when a villager/hero is selected
Player: Added levelup sfx and vfx to heroes. Increased sound range for abilities
Player: Changed the behaviour of the minimap back to what it was (which was less confusing)
Player: Moved leather armor research from Blacksmith’s to Tailor’s Emporium
Player: Moved bows research from Blacksmith to Hunting Lodge
Maps: Tutorial: UI blocking removed so game responds to input from keyboard and/or mouse during dialogue
Maps: Glade: Added new campaign map and linked to Shirebrook (home of the Gladefolk)
Maps: Mordrich’s Factory: Temporarily removed option to fight Mordrich as it stops campaign from advancing
Maps: Mordrich’s Factory: Locked two doors unless you are a faction friend of Withering Dead
Maps: Bandit Caves: Overhauled Kenny’s Throne Room in the Bandit Caves to resolve pathfinding issues
Maps: Bandit Caves: Fixed navmesh causing characters to stick where mine tracks cross stream
Maps: Bandit Caves: Added ladder portal in Kenny’s throne room to save players running back to entrance
Maps: Bandit Caves: Traps now do enough damage to kill Quixl (who will revive)
Maps: Bandit Caves: Quixl’s cage is now locked in the cutscene and opens if you release him
Maps: Sandbox: Swamp: Removed annoying big tree near quarry, tweaked quarry and mine areas
Maps: Added dialog at end of campaign to let players know that’s as far as we’ve got
Balancing: Villagers require fewer carrots to become full
Editor: Q and E now change elevation, Z and X zoom
Editor: Expanded Swamp Ruins Kit with pieces being used to make Bla’tu’s Palace dungeon
Editor: Defined all the proper factions for drop downs
Workbench: Cross-map tracking of quests
Workbench: StartSubQuest node added
Workbench: Added SubQuestInProgress node
Workbench: Added SubQuestCompleted node
Workbench: Added CompleteSubQuest node
Workbench: Added FailSubQuest node
Workbench: Popup dialog appearance improved
Workbench: Conversation node portraits can now be explicitly set via categorized dropdown (portrait input still optional). A mini portrait icon will appear above the node to help readability.
Workbench: Conversation node option checkboxes are now hidden in the inspector to reduce clutter; inputs work as usual
Workbench: Added FactionStanding group of nodes (...)
Workbench: Added ifFactionStanding node
Workbench: Added FactionStandingSimple node
Patch notes continue at:
http://www.gamesfoundry.com/patches/#alpha26