Fictorum v1.1 Released!
But First: A Word from the Devs
Seeing the large number of bugs reported from our players and the critical reviews (which were completely fair), we realize that our game was not quite ready for release, nor did it meet a lot of our player's expectations, and for that, we're sorry. We hope this patch can restore your confidence in us and Fictorum, and further, we plan to add more content and features to our game in the future (all completely free) to expand upon its potential and our initial goal of making a truly great game to play as a wizard.
After the game's release in August, we combed through our reviews and feedback and listened to our game's community for ways that we can improve our game and, after months of hard work, we are proud to bring you a massive patch with those improvements.
https://youtu.be/5IuPpNOF-TM
Major Change: Performance Improvements
We've made massive performance boosts throughout Fictorum! The areas that you'll see the biggest changes are:
- Initial load time significantly reduced
- Projectile targeting is now much more responsive, especially with faster projectiles
- Lag removed from death and looting
- Lag removed after selecting a new mountain or starting a new event
- Lag significantly reduced when switching difficulty/title in character screen
- Lag significantly reduced when changing equipment
https://gfycat.com/ifr/AbleElderlyDutchshepherddog
Major Change: Camera Improvements
The camera will switch to an over-the-shoulder view while inside buildings for a more consistent experience. Additionally, you can now play over the left or right shoulder (available in the settings menu or press the interact hotkey while casting a spell to switch in-game).
https://gfycat.com/ifr/UntriedImperfectAfricanfisheagle
Major Change: Gamepad UI Improvements
We've ditched the joystick mouse cursor plugin we previously used and reworked all of our UI to work beautifully and seamlessly with a gamepad. Additionally, we've added an auto-sort feature to make managing the inventory with the gamepad even easier.
https://gfycat.com/ifr/BackCarefulBactrian
Major Change: Event Rewrites
We've been working with Nathan Fierro—the author of The Demon of Cliffside—to improve our existing events and add new ones. Every single event has been either edited, rewritten, or removed and he has done an amazing job crafting the confident, brutal, and vengeance-fueled voice of our game.
New Starting Text:
It was impossible, of course. But Acanthio was a Fictorum, the last one, and by stretching the very limits of his power and of creation itself he survived his own execution. Such power comes with a price, however, and his body was warped with corruption, his mind scarred with the brief, blazing glimpse of the world that moment gave him, of the horrors within the Miasma. And of the Inquisition, its endless armies already stirring, a hound scenting the magical trace of his miracle. The Firebrand could not run away, not forever, but he could run toward. He cast his vision onto his map, marking the way to the Grand Inquisitor. Marked with red, marked with blood. It was the Grand Inquisitor who had decreed The Firebrand would die, and it was death he would receive.
Major Change: AI Improvements
One of the main complaints of our game was the AI. Upon spotting the player, enemies would run as fast as they could towards the player in the absolute, most direct line. With this version, we've significantly improved their formerly bad behavior—they'll now search for alternate routes to overwhelm the player in small groups of mixed forces, working together to bring the player down. This has also laid the framework allowing us to do even more for our enemies later on...
https://gfycat.com/ifr/ZigzagIllinformedJaguar
Major Change: Physics Improvements
Another common comment that we saw when we posted to Imgur or reddit was that our destructible meshes lack weight and move too much like foam once shattered. After adjusting the physical materials of our meshes, they now move much more realistically.
https://gfycat.com/ifr/VibrantAmusedAmericanalligator
Major Change: Enemy Spell Variation
We made a big mistake when we were first setting up our enemy spellcasters in that they all had their own individual spells that were specific to the caster, even if it was essentially the same spell. They worked differently, had inconsistent damage and physics, caused loads of bugs and balancing issues, and were an overall pain to maintain. Eventually, we realized that we should rework all spellcasters and archers to use the same spells available for the player and then add any additional output (damage tweaks, multi-shot, chain reaction, etc.) that we'd like for them. As a result, casters are more varied, putting to use spells that you can also find in-game. We even have more we'd like to do with these capabilities, but that's for another patch...
https://gfycat.com/ifr/BlandSillyDiplodocus
Minor Improvements and Bug Fixes
- Fictorum has been upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.18
- Normal items will only ever be received at the very start of the game and will spawn as a magical item instead (does not apply to runes)
- Mana costs and drain have been completely rebalanced
- Fixed a bug that would prevent some achievements from registering
- Projectile spells with Pierce will now penetrate trees
- Arrows now have a trail particle effect and are much easier to spot
- Fixed a bug that would occasionally not go to the follow-up event for dispatching Revan
- Character auras will no longer flicker when knocked down
- Fire manifestation will no longer eat processors for breakfast
- If the starting titles have been reset, a new character will no longer bring in the last title of a character if it has not been unlocked.
- Fixed a bug on the Inventory tooltip that would display keyboard instructions while using a gamepad
- Fires crackling within homes will no longer be heard over a long distances
- Enemies will get stuck around carts much less frequently
- Fixed a bug that would prevent the history window from scrolling down far enough to the event choices right after combat
- Items with no stats will no longer appear
- Projectiles will no longer be frozen in the air after hitting a spell shield
- Characters in ragdoll will both collide with the world and receive fall damage much more consistently
- Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause the player to jump unintentionally upon landing or prevent a jump entirely
- Cooldowns will now properly round to a single digit
- The Vasshorn event has been removed
- Equipping an item while flying no longer causes the character to move up a little
- Healing will no longer be available from vendors when at full health
- Wake passives will no longer activate with great fervor on the title screen
- Fixed a bug that would allow selection of disabled event choices
- Fixed bug that would occasionally make locations on the chapter map difficult to mouse over
- Enemies will content themselves with your death, ceasing their attack after your demise.
- Enchantments will no longer cost double while in a shop location
- Notifications for new title unlocks will not repeat
- Haven will no longer block targeting if it is your spell
- Having the enchanting slot filled and hovering over items in inventory will no longer cause a hit to FPS
- Opening the trash tab then dragging an item into it will no longer cause the trash open animation to happen again
- Fixed bug that on rare occasions prevented interaction with the world map
- Having 100% rune shaping start position will no longer negatively affect spell shaping
- AOE effects (auras, traps) no longer appear on walls and props
- Casters no longer wait for you to return to your feet before shooting
- Negative effects on items will no longer increase during enchantment
- Lightning Orb will no longer persist permanently with an Echo rune
- Lightning Damage is now properly shown in the "Details" section of the inventory
- Death, knockdown, or traveling through the nexus will automatically end the Slow Time ability
- Rune images will update properly if you switch spells while casting
- Highly enchanted projectiles will no longer seek enemies without a Seek rune
- Retiring to void will properly to move the save to the void and prevent continuing the game
- Efficiency runes will now lower mana drain (in addition to mana cost) and will properly have their effects increased via enchanting
- Destructible mesh hitboxes will now properly despawn for Rock Wall and Glacier
- Goatee and chin facial hair will properly display when selected on the character customization window
- Fix a bug that allowed runes to be assigned to an ability upon initial spawn
- Health/Mana/Stamina values will no longer remain visible if an associated bar was hovered while the inventory is closed
- Enchanted ability tooltips will now properly reflect actual cooldown duration
- Meteor's visual effect now properly scales with the size of the spell
- Loot found will now properly overflow into the next row in the history scroll
- Dash will now properly scale with Slow Time
- Fixed a bug that would show incorrect information for passive scrolls in spellbook slots
- Mouse X and Mouse Y are much less sensitive when binding controls
- Candles/torches will properly be destroyed instead of occasionally floating in midair
- Cooldown timers will be correctly displayed with duplicate abilities
- Nexuses on boss levels can no longer be seen via clairvoyance
- The player will no longer float into the sky when frozen solid
- Several spelling and grammar errors have been fixed throughout the game
- Parts of the nexus will no longer ignore projectile collision
- Treasure chests will no longer spawn underground
- Voice hit responses will no longer play from landing damage if the player has been killed
- Characters will no longer play their death sound effects if frozen solid or badly burned
- Shockwave will properly play a sound when activated
- Area spells with the Nova rune will now always spawn on the player instead of the final targeting location
- Difficulty, hardcore, and title buttons are now more obvious when hovered
- Unlock conditions for titles have been clarified on the Start Game menu
- Plasma ball damage has been nerfed
- Item values will be increased based on enchantment level
- Interior props will have greater variation
- Character details now show attributes after passive modifiers have been applied
- Quest objectives and loot can be seen through debris while clairvoyance is active
- The Flaming Bulwark starting title will now start with the Flare spell
- Seek will prioritize targets closer to the final targeting location over targets closer to the projectile
- Projectile spells with Pierce will behave better in general
- Vault targeting has been improved
- Final encounters have been improved
- Loot containers will now be limited within levels based on difficulty
- Incendium Impulse has been greatly lowered
- Rune attributes will scale better with their rarity
- Fire propagation from Manifest is now more realistic and performs better
- Escape now controls the settings window on the start map
- The Grand Inquisitor is now more challenging and will use a new array of spells to end your journey
- Attribute weights for item values have been rebalanced
- The Starcaller starting title will now only start with a Seek rune
- Stamina drain while sprinting reduced to 20/sec
- Invigorate now has a 10-second cooldown, enchanting reduces the cooldown
- Shaping bonus has been reduced overall on affixes and will scale with chapters
- Difficulties details are now shown on the New Game menu
- Chapter tabs have been improved and a scrollbar allows for easier viewing
- Most abilities have had their mana cost significantly reduced, several have had their cooldowns increased.
- Rewriting History will now set your health to a minimum of 50% of max health
- Items will no longer be auto-equipped when picked up
- The Character Customization window is now available on the developer menu
- Color parameters for all armor types have been improved
- Chip's Challenger can now be found as a unique
- Runes have had their effects rebalanced on area spells
- Enchanting costs have been doubled for spells
- Clairvoyance can now be used while casting a spell
- Daggers have been removed as possible weapons for enemies
- The inventory tooltip has been improved to always show the currently hovered item closest to the cursor, then currently equipped items next to it
- The history scroll can now be moved with the joystick
- The New Game and Customize Character windows have been improved
- Visual improvements have been made to the projectile targeting spline
- Chain will do a much better job of targeting nearby enemies
- Haven visual effects have been improved
- Flight control improvements and toggle (see action bindings)
- Due to redundancy with Clairvoyance, the Void projection Scroll will no longer be found in-game
- Special conditions with spells will be more commonly available as choices in events
- The font has been changed for spell slots to increase clarity for their corresponding hotkeys in the UI
- Stamina no longer regenerates while the player is airborne
- Vendor will now heal for a percentage of maximum health, versus a static amount
- You can now heal as much as you can from the full heal option, even if you can't afford it a full heal
- Hex/HTML codes can now be used for colors on Character Customization
- Shamblers will no longer wait politely for characters to rise to their feet before exploding
- A short delay and sound effect has been added for the Corrupted shambler prior to exploding
- Area spells with a Spread rune will now alternate sides to create spell instances (example: create 3 to the right, 4 to the left), versus creating maximum equal amounts on both sides (same example: create 7 right and 7 left)
- Debris will refrain from instant killing the player (except on Nightmare where it has no mercy)
- Sentinel flares will now do non-elemental damage and cannot be reduced by any damage reduction
- Flamethrower no longer applies any damage on contact, but persist and manifest multipliers have been increased
- Default runesets are now visible on the Start Game—Show Inventory screen
- Items that drop in later chapters will be slightly better
- Visual effects will be shown in the characters hands while casting a spell
- Radial damage will no longer be increased on High Explosive runes
- Fireball, Ice Blast, and Incendium have had their radial damages increased
- The projectile targeting mesh has been improved
What's Next?
Now that we've improved the overall quality and internal structure of Fictorum, we are ready to focus our efforts on adding new content. Additionally, we're on a much more recent version of the Unreal Engine and have no plans to upgrade again (which was the source of most of our dev time in releasing this version), which means that we can get future updates out much more frequently.
Here are a few of the things that we're planning:
- Doubling the pool of possible events
- Adding new items, runes, spells, and abilities into the game
- We've been inspired by Slay the Spire (which is a masterpiece of game design, if you have not played) and we'd like to create a brand new, hardcore-only game mode intended for shorter, more randomized playthroughs in the next several months
- You can see our full list on our Trello
We hope you're as excited about these changes as we are. If you'd like to chat with us about suggestions to improve our game or share any issues you encounter, we'd love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out to us in whatever way works best for you.