Greetings Thieves,
I hope you are all surviving the hot summer months. I know I certainly am not.
But in Update 1.8, you can cool off with a snowy rework of the Brewing Troubles contract, along with more gameplay and balance tweaks, plus a handful of quality-of-life improvements to get Cloak And Coin that little bit closer to a full release!
Re-Worked Contract: Brewing Troubles
While playing Cloak And Coin with some of you and in a few small testing circles, I noticed a troubling (see what I did there?) trend with the Brewing Troubles contract: nobody was playing it.
The general vibe I got was that players found the layout confusing and the difficulty a little too punishing.
So I went back to the drawing board and reworked the map into something I'm much happier with. Introducing Brewing Troubles 2.0:
The objective stays the same but I have changed the mission briefing ever so slightly:
Deep in the frozen peaks sits a long-abandoned alchemists’ academy, recently broken into by a disgraced alchemist seeking revenge on an ally of the Thieves Guild. Infiltrate the tower, spoil the brewing concoction.
I much prefer the new look and feel of Brewing Troubles, and I hope you all have a blast playing it! Shipping alongside Update 1.8 come more changes, gameplay improvments and quality of life changes.
Update 1.8 Patch Notes
Gameplay:
Added the reworked Brewing Troubles contract to the available contract pool across all difficulties.
Increased Guard patrol times across all difficulties.
Increased Guard hunting radius across all difficulties.
Reworked the Main Menu and Pause Menu to better match my final vision for these screens.
Added several new hat cosmetics to Gordon the Goblin's Hat Emporium.
Increased overall lighting brightness in Gunpowder Gambit.
Added more props to Gunpowder Gambit to help break line of sight and escape chases.
Added new sound effects for book pickups.
Added additional sound variants for all item pickups.
Bug fixes:
Fixed an issue where Guards and other enemies could fall through the map.
Fixed an issue where some menus would not close properly.
Fixed an issue where Wizards lightning FX would not always disappear when they teleported.
Fixed an issue where the Sun Kit could unintentionally stun wraiths.
Fixed an issue where some Guards would not reset back to their default patrol path after some time.
Looking Ahead
With Brewing Troubles 2.0 now wrapped up, my attention is turning towards some of the bigger pieces needed to get Cloak And Coin out of Early Access and ready for a full release.
Some of the areas I'm currently exploring include:
Improving controller support and overall gamepad usability.
Making progress towards Steam Deck compatibility.
Expanding the variety of Curses available during contracts.
Adding more content to keep repeat playthroughs fresh.
Continuing to improve Guard AI and stealth gameplay.
As always, plans change and priorities shift, so I'd rather not lock myself into specific timelines just yet. That said, I'm happy with the direction Cloak And Coin is heading, and I think a few more months in the oven will leave it in a state worthy of a full release.
As always, if you’d like to report bugs, share clips, or chat with me and other Thieves, you can join the community here.
Happy heisting,
netDOT