Greetings, brave heroes!
We are cooking up a tasty new patch for you folks that is now playable on our Unstable testing branch and will be coming soon to taverns everywhere. (Instructions on how to access the Unstable branch are at the bottom of this update.)
We’ll post full patch notes when the Stable branch goes live, but here’s a quick peek at some of the things we’re excited about…
Bug fixes, big and small
Most notably, a rare but nasty bug that could cause taverns to hang has been squashed, re-animated by Emilia Mortalis and then squashed again for good measure. May it rest in pieces.
Bus those tables (or don’t)!
You’ll notice that cups and plates will now accumulate on tables as you serve patrons. While you can ignore them and leave the work for the kobold cleaning crew, clicking on dishes to remove them will gain you a bit of free reputation for your tavern, allowing you to more quickly expand the size of your roster.
Unlocked heroes stick around longer
Previously, heroes that you unlocked in your adventures were a bit too skittish and sometimes went MIA if you didn’t recruit them on their first trip to the tavern. This could result in your missing out on some of the coolest characters in the game. You can now rest easy. If you fail to recruit a hero the first time they stop in, they’ll come back every few days.
Hero Relationships!
We’re rolling out the first piece of a new system where heroes will grow to like, or dislike, other heroes based on the results of their travels. Success brings characters closer, while repeated failures can drive them apart.
If a hero rolls Excellent or better in an encounter that would have otherwise failed, all their companions will love them for it. On the flip side, a Disastrous roll that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory will damage their relationships.
If an encounter has two heroes squabbling on the road, it could now adversely affect their relationship. Did your healer save your assassin from certain death? That will bring them closer together.
In future posts, I’ll babble about some of the cool things we can do now that we’re tracking every character’s opinion of every other character, but below is a fun example I ran into while testing today.
In the tavern, heroes will now sit with their friends. If you have a party of four you always send out together and they are generally successful, you’ll notice they now often share a table. And characters who are unknown or disliked will end up on their own. Which led to this moment, when the infamous assassin, Carver, stopped in for a visit to The Drunken Boar.
If saved by the Ravinger Four in the prologue, Carver tries to turn a new leaf and lead a better life, but he’s one of the most famous killers in Beor. No one likes him and everyone fears him. So when he visits the tavern, our new system knows he has no relationships with anyone and procedurally creates a floor plan (above) that matches his backstory. Packed tavern, but he’s sitting alone by the door, with his back to the wall and not another person within 15 feet of him. An appropriate first appearance for a notorious killer.
Don’t feel too bad for Carver, though. If you recruit him and send him out on quests, he’ll begin forming bonds and will take his place at the cool kid tables once they get to know him.
How to access the Unstable testing build
1. Go to your Steam Library
2. Right-Click Epic Tavern
3. Select Properties
4. Click the Betas tab at the top of the pop-up window
5. Click the drop-down arrow and select Unstable - Public Test Tavern
Disclaimer: Unstable testing builds can be, well, unstable. If you’ll be using a beloved tavern in the test build, we recommend creating a backup of your save file, just in case.
Find a Bug? Let us know, so we can squash it
Epic Tavern is on Discord. Stop on by! http://discord.gg/epictavern
From your friends at the tavern, stay safe out there (or in there, as the case may be)!