Hi folks, with only a few things left to wrap up, the focus remains on your input and suggestions. If you have ideas or things you would like to see in the game before we leave early access, let me know. The "official" release will not mark the end of new content or stories. It is just a milestone, but making radical changes to systems and mechanics after that point may be difficult or impossible. I still want to expand a certain story, and after that it comes down to what you want.
Speaking of feedback and mechanics, let's talk about crafting. The consensus was that it felt underwhelming, since it was usually cheaper to buy items outright, and learning recipes meant either endless book hunting or tedious trial and error with ingredients. Neither was fun. So, let's see what's new in that front.
Crafting Overhaul
This latest update brings major improvements to the crafting system, making it more rewarding and approachable. Tools can be shared across the party, deconstructing items instantly teaches their recipes without guesswork, and prices across the economy have been rebalanced so crafting always yields a profit. Taking on contracts tied to goods you can craft makes the profit margin even bigger.
However, crafting certain tools may now have additional requirements, such as Smithing, while exotic weapons will often require both Smithing and Enchanting. Beyond its immediate effect on the economy, this also opens up new avenues for crafting item types and upgrading gear in the future.
Deconstruct
Deconstruct replaces Destroy on eligible items until you learn the recipe. This applies to every item that currently has a recipe.
The option to deconstruct, if available, will always show up on the item, so you'll know right away if something is craftable. However, you must first meet all skill and tool requirements to deconstruct items. In this case, your party needs a hammer, which the popup informs me about. Other items might require certain skill ranks.
If anyone in my party has a hammer, I can deconstruct the quarterstaff to learn its recipe.
Once I learn the recipe, I can start mass-producing these weapons, either for my party or to sell.
Ok, after I find the missing ingredients, that is.
What about my profit? 109, which is pretty good in this case. Of course, this will vary depending on the regional economy. You may find the bones cheaper elsewhere, and so on.
New Skills, Perks and Actions
The skill system has also been expanded with four new skills: Perform, Cooking, Smithing, and Enchanting. Each comes with its own perks, recipes, and actions.
Smithing, Enchanting, and Cooking are primarily crafting skills, but they also provide various bonuses to your build along the way.
There are also numerous important bug fixes and other improvements throughout the game.
But, you can read more details in the patch notes below.
That's all for today, folks.
Patch Notes - 08/09/25 # 0.8.20
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue where wounded actors could enter combat with negative HP (e.g. after a skirmish).
Fixed an issue in the combat log where wounds displayed more HP lost than the actor's actual HP.
Fixed an issue where wounds could reduce an actor's HP below 1.
Skirmishes where the hostile band is wounded but the leader was killed now resolve instantly instead of leading to combat.
Fixed an issue with the Llanford Lake romance scene that did not correctly account for the gender of the romantic interest.
Fixed an issue with "Mortar and Pestle" and "Ink and Quill" not being parsed correctly by the requirements processor.
Added the missing perk benefits for the vampiric bloodlines of the Veil and the Verdant Abyss.
Fixed some typos in various conversations.
Skills & Perks
Added Cooking, Smithing, Perform, and Enchanting as skills.
Added new Cooking perks. Cooking is now used instead of Survival when performing the cooking duty in Camp.
Added new Smithing perks, recipes and materials.
Added new Enchanting perks, recipes, and materials.
Added new Perform perks and combat actions.
Existing Perform-related items now give a roll bonus to Perform instead of a flat bonus.
Herbalism and Alchemy perks now teach recipes for consumable potions instead of infinitely usable ones.
Crafting & Items
Introduced crafting recipes for weapons.
Added new ingot types, enchanting materials and their recipes.
Certain crafting recipes now also require Smithing.
Some potions have quietly vanished from alchemist shelves; they can now only be crafted or found as loot.
Merchants that sell food, such as Olivia in Llanford or Gretta in Heygrove, will now also sell cooking ingredients like salt and onions.
Items with recipes can now be deconstructed as long as you meet their recipe requirements. Deconstructing teaches you the recipe but destroys the item in the process. Deconstruct replaces Destroy on eligible items until you learn the recipe.
Party members can now share tools when crafting. If any party member has a required item for a recipe, it will qualify even if it is not in your own inventory.
Economy & Balance
Adjusted the prices of ingredients, materials, and crafted item recipes. Crafting now almost always yields a small to medium profit.
Adjusted the prices and rebalanced various Alchemy, Herbalism, Cooking, and crafted items.
Further improvements and tweaks to crafting recipes and economy.
Editor & Tools
In the actions editor, actions that can be crafted now list their ingredients under linked actions.
Added filters for recipe 'loss' and 'profit>=x' in the actions editor.
Added a button to generate placeholder actions for Rarity variants in the Actions Editor.
Implemented the "Artwork" field in actions. It allows specifying artwork instead of using the item name; otherwise, it should be left empty.