The demo update brings loads of gameplay changes.
As this is a major mechanical update and some changes affect the ingame economy and power levels significantly, there will probably be some adjustments and fixes during the next week.
Tasks:
- Introduced a new gameplay mechanic, you may now receive Tasks from a messenger of the four factions. These tasks are given when you visit Hubs.
- You may choose to complete any of these tasks to gain rewards and faction reputation.
- You may also opt to do only the task of one or two factions gaining better rewards and increase the anger of the faction that was not satisfied.
- These Tasks are simplistic by design, the complexity comes from what you choose to complete.
- There is also an option to decline the Tasks and their rewards. This will also be the philosophy going forward if there will be other major gameplay mechanic additions, though these missions have always been a planned feature.
Seeker interaction:
- When you interact with random NPC Seekers on the map there is now an extended trade and talk mechanic option.
- You can choose to trade your resources for different resources and helpful items. Now you can unload those surplus alloys for Smokes or Supplies.
- You can also spend some movement to just talk and gain Spirit or info.
- These seekers also have desired trades. Satisfying this desire rewards some Faction reputation.
Spirit and Melee:
- All melee attacks now drain Spirit. You can always attack even though your Spirit is 0.
- Nectars are now buffed and more accessible from the trade mechanic mentioned above.
- Some ranged weapons can also have this Spirit draining feature.
Breakup:
- The threat of party breaking up when at low Spirit is now revised.
- As before, when the Spirit drops beneath 25 there is a chance that the party is in Conflict. Unlike previously you can now clearly choos your options before resting, no more quesswork when resting.
Armours:
- Total rework of all armours and how they are handled.
- Only one helmet and armour can be active at the same time.
- Armour sets come in three classes: Light, Medium, Heavy.
- Light armour sets all provide +1 Initiative and Escape and have their Defence bonus derived straight from Agility, which is lost if affected by Restrained.
- Heavy armours all provide + Con Bns HP, -1 Initiative and increase Scramble min and max by 1.
- All armour items now have upgrade slots, similar to weapons. This is generally only 1 slot, with highest tier items and Medium armours having more.
- Instead of having upgrade items like weapons have, armours can be modified with most passive Gadget items (now known as “Equipment”). The upgraded armours effect is less powerful than the Equipment items and can change if upgrading helmet or armour.
- Ex 1. Gas Mask would give +2 when attached to a helmet instead of +3.
- Ex 2. Veteran's Armband would give +1 Handling for armour and +1 Luck for helmet.
Rare item variants:
- All weapons and Equipment can now have random, more powerful variants.
- There are up to four stages of higher rarity, each yielding more powerful bonuses.
- This is the case especially for weapons which have more random bonus types.
- All Equipment does not have all stages available.
- Faction stores will also sell rare variants of their signature items when you have gained their favour.
Shard rework:
- Shards now combine in your inventory into Bundles.
- Bundles can be used to select what item it turns into.
- This reduces quesswork in the field and provides some help in inventorymanagement as you have access to wide range of options while carrying a Bundle.
General Item changes:
- New weapon tag: Swift. Weapon with this feature adds Initiative to the attack Pierce if first turn or enemy is Blinded. Added to following weapons: Throwing Knives, Strider Repeater, Short Sword, Cadre Blade
- Added items: Scavenge type weapons: Scattergun, Rad Roscoe and Rad Caster
- Added Upgrades: Swift Weapon Upgrade, Soothing Weapon Upgrade (reduces Spirit consumption)
- Added Armours: Hunter Set, Barrage Set, Marauder Set, Leather Jacket, Combat Jacket
Map:
- Added a new map feature: Keystone. Interact to gain +2 Phantom Anger and unlock the Exit after 2 Rests if staying near the Keystone. Found in all maps after the early game.
Damage Modifiers:
- Damage modifier percentage handling slightly altered.
- Proficiency bonus is now changed to 25% from 50%. Malus penalty is now changed to 25% from 50%. Weakness and resistances are unchanged from 50%.
- Attack damage Proficiency is now slightly altered. There is now a possibility to have Proficiency for attack types, such as “Handguns” and “Blades”.
- Fixed damage calculation to work properly for damage modifiers. The multiplier is meant to be applied after defences have been applied to the damage. Take this into account when weighing between Pierce and Damage.
Perks:
- Akimbo: Now gives the Proficiency for “Handguns” when carrying two or more handguns.
- Blind Fighter: Renamed to Harmony. The Awareness and Pierce bonuses in melee are now flat 2 OR (Agility + Intelligence + Charisma ) / 3, whichever is highest.
- Pugilist: Now gives Proficiency to “Fist” weapons in addition to all the previous benefits.
- Unarmored: Buffed the Defence bonus from 1 + Agi Bonus to straight Agility, as the armours are now a lot more tempting item choices.
- Waste Walker: Buffed the Loot Rate bonus from 5% > 10%.
- Tweaked Scavenger and Junkrat perks to show their damage bonus in the pre-attack damage calculations.
Swarms:
- Swarms now scale more aggressively when the map limit is reached. They WILL overwhelm the player.
- There was a minor error in Swarm escalation calculation which made them dealable in the endgame. This was accentuated by the fact that spawners were more rare/further away in the larger maps.
QOL:
- Added range selector buttons in the inventory screen. Some items have different stats at different ranges. Now you can select the range to see these changes.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed enemy Animosity related map screen crash.
- Fixed Swarms not scaling properly.
- Ensured that Swarms do not crash the game when reaching extremely high Phantom Anger levels.
- Fixed a Medkit related crash.
- Loads of minor fixes.
That's about that for now! Hope you enjoy it. This update was bit of a crunch. As stated at the start, I may need to maks some adjustments and hot fixes during this week. But I'm looking forward to it!
If you have an itch for some other turn-based goodnes check out TurnBasedThursday Fest
More news in couple weeks (hopefully)!