It’s been two weeks since the Steam Next Fest ended, and thousands of people downloaded Dustgrave’s alpha demo, which allowed us to gather a lot of useful feedbacks! Thank you all!
In these two weeks, we’ve prioritized many features that you people have been asking, and we uploaded a new demo build with a quite large changelog.
One of the most requested things was to give new players more information and a sense of direction right after starting. That’s why we added a small starting tutorial quest which will help everyone familiarize with the basic game’s mechanics.
We also started adding in-game tutorial panels, which will provide more details on Dustgrave’s mechanics. We plan to improve them in the future, following the community’s feedback and adding content until they will cover all the game’s features and rules.
The journal has been changed to include a level mini-map. Some people told us that navigating levels was too confusing, so now it will be much easier to find traders, quests, and other important entities.
We also improved many other things: it is possible to swap between weapon sets in combat, companions will be smarter when following the player, invisible obstacles will no longer ruin your day, and NPCs will be much more reactive to your crimes in the world.
In the next weeks, we plan to drastically increase quests' variety and make the world more interesting and dynamic. We are testing new map-related events like more roaming NPC parties or temporary locations to be found, and we will soon implement new dynamic quests which will allow you to get work from minor factions and improve relationships with them.
If you want to ask about new features or suggest something, head to the Steam’s Discussion Board and get in touch!
Full changelog:
Major Fixes and improvements
- Forget about spending too much time walking around, because a Level Mini-map is now available in the Journal screen, so you will know where to go.
- You can now send bug reports through the in-game main menu.
- When hovering your mouse over people, you will now be able to see their names and affiliations.
- A work-in-progress tutorial panel will now activate when necessary and give you all the info you need, but it is also always accessible when clicking on its button.
- NPCs will be much more reactive to crime and getting caught will ruin your reputation with settlements and factions.
- Weapon sets can now be properly swapped in combat.
- Added a new Tutorial Quest, to help people move the first steps in Dustgrave. We are sorry we left you on your own!
- Added a new screen showing all the passive skills and other effects your characters may have, including Wounds and Traumas.
- Wounds and Traumas heal faster. We all wish it could be the same in real life.
- It is now possible to convince hostile NPCs to give the player available quests.
- Punching people no longer blocks the game forever.
- A new settlement, Canneto, filled with Infested zombies is now available and will be used by dynamic quests as a possible target of conquest. It will then be repopulated and spawn quests on its own.
- Camps will no longer appear when no one is there to use them.
- When betraying the quest giver, accepting a reward, or a bribe, it is now possible to kill all quest targets before they go away and still complete the quest like nothing happened.
- Allies in quests will be less likely to just stand there while you do all the killing.
- Fixed a bug seeing tiles getting occupied for no good reason. Now you will no longer have to walk around invisible obstacles in combat. Allies and companions will also follow your active character more easily.
- Tables, barrels, chests, and other small containers will no longer block visibility, meaning it won’t be as easy to sneak inside someone’s house, steal some stuff, then use a table to become invisible.
- People will no longer use their Opportunity Attacks on their allies, which we’ve been told is a terrible tactic.
Minor fixes and improvements
- People will no longer sleep inside their bed structure.
- Added several new faction-related dialogues and improved existing ones.
- Your journal will no longer be filled with quest duplicates.
- Fixed several missing strings.
- Fixed a graphical artifact appearing near characters’ feet.
- Added some information on backgrounds and cultures in character creation.
- Enemies will be more reactive to the player walking around.
- Skills will properly refresh when a character’s equipment is changed.
- It is now easier to know if a movement will require one or two actions points, since we changed the preview colors to be clearer.
- The “Record Added” notification will no longer prevent you from travelling.
- Greatly reduced the amount of useless loot in the game.
- Reduced the cost of armors and weapons.
- When meeting people on the map, they will no longer look towards the horizon but instead will be facing the player’s party.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393370/Dustgrave_A_Sandbox_RPG/