Hi folks!
Content Update 8 is well underway, and as development continues, you can try the latest build (0.7.40) through our beta branch. It includes several improvements and balance changes, but the major new feature is the ability to traverse ocean tiles.
You can travel to ocean tiles only from a harbor tile, using the contextual Sail action, which is available only on Harbor or Ocean tiles. Eventually, you will need to own a ship to use this action, but for now, you can sail freely to make testing easier. Additionally, there are many new discoveries added, with a focus on Ocean and Harbor tiles.
Traveling south of Denham, you'll also find a new island called Lacris, the same island that gave this update its name. Lacris will have its own share of contracts, as well as contracts that require you to travel there. The region's difficulty is slightly above Denham's, making it a good area to explore around level 14 and up.
Speaking of contracts, their rewards have been boosted on Normal and easier difficulties. On harder difficulties, contract rewards will range from what they were before to slightly less. The reason for this is that enemies on higher difficulties have better equipment and therefore drop better loot, while enemies on easier difficulties have less wealth and weaker equipment, which results in less valuable drops. Granted, that gear is not as needed on easier settings, but this should make things feel more fair overall. You can preview the difficulty effect on Contracts while setting it.
Wealth gain has also received a solid buff, with all enemies now having a chance to drop more farthings than before. You should be able to equip all your party members with decent to good gear, instead of just your main character.
On the quality of life side, there is now a new checkmark that lets you auto level certain companions or even your main character if you want. The moment you activate it, any unspent SP and PP will be assigned automatically, and from that point on, every time you level up. If you gain SP or PP in a different way, they will be assigned the next time you level up, not instantly. By default, this option is disabled, and its status is saved individually for each party member as part of your save file.
The Shortcut and Explore actions have also had their cooldowns reduced. Explore now lets you trigger discoveries or more rarely events at will every 4 turns, and Shortcut is available once per turn while inside town borders.
Speaking of Shortcut, it may have flown under the radar, but it allows you to fast travel between town locations like the barracks or the inn, as long as you have discovered them. You no longer need to remember where they are or search for them on the map each time you return to town.
There's of course more, but that's all for now. We'll be talking more about the upcoming update in a future news post. Have fun, and if you get to try any of the new changes in the beta branch, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!