Greetings, my Lord. It has been over a month since the Early Access phase of Pennon and Battle. Thank you for your support and companionship! We've been busy addressing game issues and creating new content, so we may not always respond to your feedback promptly, but we have carefully recorded and discussed each one. We also realized that we didn't have enough communication with players. You may think "What are they doing""What's the future plan of this game" etc. So here it is! Our developer log is created for this.
We have collected a lot of feedback and suggestions from players through Steam forums, social media comments, in-game customer service systems, and official communities. Most reasonable content has been adopted and added to the game, but some content is still under discussion or temporarily shelved due to some objective factors. Here are the initial improvements to the game~
1. Game Difficulty:
We noticed that some players found the default campaign difficulty too difficult to win on the first playthrough, and the fixed difficulty was not suitable for all players. Therefore, we have added difficulty options for each campaign map, adjusted the initial resources of the campaign, and reduced the BOTs' development speed at difficulties Lv.1 and 2. Players can freely choose the game difficulty according to their preferences.
2. Combat System:
In the previous setting, Warrior heroes had to be close to the target for a melee attack, but casting a spell would end their turn. We hope that all heroes can use spells to assist themselves in battle, and different classes can experience the strategy brought by spells. So we have adjusted the spells that can be cast at any moment during action, and heroes will no longer end their turn after casting a spell. We also changed the Mage's normal attack to ranged (not affected by distance decay but lower than melee damage) to differentiate it more from the Warrior and Archer classes.
3. Story Campaign:
We saw many players in the community suggesting adding more story elements to the game. We are pleased that you compare us to other excellent classic games. Based on the background of Pennon and Battle, we have launched some chapters of the 'Story Campaign,' and the subsequent chapters are also being optimized internally. Your feedback is important for us to make the subsequent content better!
4. Map Exploration:
We have optimized the functions of some buildings. To improve the early campaign experience, we adjusted the generation rules of 'Sawmill' and 'Mining Site', now they will be closer to the initial town and connected by roads; 'Windmill' and 'Farmhouse' have also removed the random guard setting, reducing the negative experience when visiting with a low combat effectiveness team; we have also added a lot of equipment and items to bring a more experience to players.
5. Town Construction:
The original construction upgrades were linear, requiring prerequisite construction to upgrade. Therefore, we have adjusted the construction upgrades to Town-level construction. Players can upgrade certain construction according to the current exploration situation, and the construction costs of some buildings have also been reduced. To increase the interaction experience between allies, we have also adjusted the interactivity between allied towns. Now you can visit allied towns to learn their spells and restore heroes status.
6. Other Optimizations:
Some very enthusiastic players reported that Operational Readiness was consumed too quickly and needed to wait until the next Monday to be restored. Therefore, we have adjusted Operational Readiness to recover daily, with an additional increase on Monday (you can still play normally without Operational Readiness). We have also optimized hero training, reducing the AP requirements for learning talents, and no longer requiring faction materials. Players will be able to experience the unique gameplay of Pennon and Battle more easily. We hope to continue providing high-quality content and services to players, but we also realize that some previous payment methods did not fully consider the player's gaming experience. We have now adjusted some paid content and will adjust the subsequent optimization direction based on feedback. Thank you for your understanding.
In the coming months, we plan to optimize various factors of the game, improve existing systems, and add more gameplay. Here is a rough plan for the short term. We welcome everyone to share their insights, and we will discuss with players which features and gameplay are more favored and try our best to make them come true.
1. Heroes:
We plan to optimize the skill system, including more unique skills for different heroes and introducing new heroes. The skill-learning rules may be adjusted during this period.
2. Soldier:
You may have noticed the recent adjustment to the Morale rules, reducing the Morale impact when carrying soldiers from different factions. This is because we plan to bring more Soldier types for each faction. The current 5 factions will have newly promoted Soldiers, and each rank of Soldiers will have more promotion branches, allowing for more Soldier combinations.
3. Spell:
The spell system will also be further improved. We plan to add more new spell attributes, categorize different spell effects, and continue to add more interesting spells. Some existing spell categories and effects may also be adjusted.
4. New Campaign Gameplay:
- More Interesting Gameplay: We plan to add new gameplay events in the campaign, such as treasure hunting. There will be treasures of different levels in the campaign, try to find them for high-level equipment or new mysterious items!
- Richer Combat Dimensions: Each faction will have new combat units, different from existing heroes, soldiers, and war machines. These units can use their related skills, bringing more strategy and variability to battles.
- Diverse Victory Goals: In addition to the existing goal of eliminating all enemies, we are trying to create some non-encounter campaign gameplay, such as surviving for a certain time or creating various challenge-oriented campaign activities based on existing gameplay.
5. New Online Experience:
- Tournament-style PVP: In this new online competitive mode, we plan to restrict the Save/Load function, preventing participants from correcting mistakes through loading saves, making it more competitive. Both sides will cultivate epic heroes under similar campaign requirements and participate in tournaments, with more unique and rare rewards.
- Customized PVP: Currently, players in online campaigns can only team up with friends, or match random opponents in the Arena. Considering the need for customized PVP, we plan to open a customized PVP option, allowing players to choose PVP with friends in the campaign and Arena.
We will do our best to implement the plan in the coming months. But as a relatively small development team, we may sometimes have to prioritize bug fixes and fall behind schedule or encounter other difficult issues. We also hope to hear your feedback during the Early Access phase. You can submit your suggestions for 'Pennon and Battle' through various channels, but if you encounter game operation issues, we recommend using the in-game customer service center for feedback, which will help us verify and handle them.
After the official release of version V1.0, we will continue to listen to players' opinions and suggestions, constantly improve the game, and continuously update its content. More new factions will not be absent, and there are plans to develop a map and mod editor.
Finally, thank you again for your support and attention to 'Pennon and Battle.' We sincerely hope to present 'Pennon and Battle' in its best form to you. Let's work together to build a more beautiful Ruachland, and we look forward to seeing you next time!
*The above content only represents the current development plan of the game. The mentioned gameplay and features may change during development, and everything is subject to the final online version.