Hello mercenaries!
Our first major update, Fire and Ice, is now available! This update features a new player class (the Icebinder), a gear enchantment system, and a Scourge crisis mechanic that adds new quests and special events to the game. We're excited for you all to get your hands on the new class, and we hope you enjoy what we've been working on!
Fire and Ice (0.5.206)
New additions
- Icebinder Class: The Icebinder can now be recruited! Specializing in crowd control, the Icebinder has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies. Given his affinity for the cold, he has a higher chance of showing up at inns in the Northern Hold.
- Scourge Crisis Event: We've added a new crisis event that occurs in the wake of the dragon's attack, introducing consequences and opportunities for the player.
The dragon's arrival tears the fabric between the mortal realm and the Void, opening up Void Breaches all over the targeted county. Pouring from the breaches, a horde of demons gather to march on the local city, placing it and its citizens in jeopardy. Will you help in their time of need? Or will you leave them to their fate?
- New Quests and Overworld Encounters: In relation to the above event, we've added new quests and overworld encounters that can only occur during the Scourge.
- Closing Void Breaches: Void Breaches are now physically present on the combat field, supplying enemy reinforcements until they are closed. In order to close a breach, players must move next to it and interact with it (by left clicking).
- Prologue Changes: With the aforementioned changes, the final fight of the 'Void Breach' quest has been altered. We've also made a few changes to the order of quests during the prologue to provide a better new player experience (with some more changes coming in the future).
- Enchantments: You can now obtain magical scrolls to enchant your gear with various stats and effects. There are currently 80 enchantments in total, divided across five rarities. The scrolls are consumed on use and the effects are permanently applied to gear, unless overwritten by another enchant. For now, they are mainly obtained by defeating bosses. In the 'Tales by the Fire' update later this year, there will be more varied ways to acquire them.
- Fleeing: If you find yourself in a dire situation, you can now flee from combat (so long as the mission or event allows). If you flee from combat within a dungeon, the dungeon will be aborted and you'll return to the overworld.
Changes
- Applying the Slow debuff on a target will also delay their upcoming turn until the end of the current round (if they have not yet acted)
- Enemies can now attack destructible terrain when necessary
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the Icebinder was rarely showing up at inns to be recruited
- Using 'Wait' will no longer incorrectly reduce a buff's duration by 1 - this was especially noticeable when using the Pugilist's Battle Instinct ability
- Possible fix to sometimes getting quests located in Dragate (this fix won't apply to existing saves)
- Fixed a bug that allowed Houses in Dragate to go to war (this fix won't apply to existing saves)
- Clicking the X on portraits in the party select screen now removes them from the party properly (the hitbox was previously misaligned)
- Clicking a Void Breach too fast in combat would cause it to close immediately, leading to some potential visual bugs
- Fixed a soft lock that would occur in certain situations when closing a Void Breach
- Fixed an issue where a softlock could sometimes occur at the end of combat
- Fixed an issue where a character's Health value was sometimes incorrect when viewed in the overworld
- Fixed various issues where attacking destructible obstacles could lead to soft locks
- Fixed a bug where certain gear stats were showing as being better than what was currently equipped (when they were not)
- Fixed an issue where the Market would sometimes be empty in Andilon during the prologue
- Fixed an issue where normal quests were still appearing in the city attacked by the Dragon (it will now only spawn quests related to the event)
- Much more!
Notes
- With the changes to the Scourge, it's possible that you may encounter an issue if your current save has an active Scourge. You may notice some oddities, but it should resolve itself.
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Big thanks to everyone who helped us bugtest on the Public Test Branch this past week! This update made a lot of changes to the game, so there's undoubtedly some bugs yet undiscovered. If you see any, please report them from the escape menu in game and we'll do our best to get it fixed right away.
What's next?
Aside from bugfixes, we'll now be turning our full attention to our next major update: Friends and Foes. This update will feature a significant rework to the way leveling and attributes work, as we understand that the current system is a bit limited in terms of player choice and creativity. We'll also be implementing the remainder of the ability upgrade trees, making balance changes to existing upgrades, and tweaking a few base abilities to be more useful.
On the combat side of things, we have a number of mechanical changes in store to improve the feel and tactical depth of combat. From your feedback, we know that combat can sometimes be repetitive due to the limited enemy pool. To address this, we'll be adding a number of new enemy variants and readjusting their stats to make them more distinct from one another, providing more varied challenges for the player to adapt to and overcome.
We're really excited for these changes, and we hope you are too! We've both been itching to work on them for a few months. As of now, we don't have an official estimate on when you can expect the update, but we'll let you know when we have a better idea. We're still hoping to get it out before Summer ends, but with that date creeping up, early Fall may be more realistic.
Thanks for reading, and for your continued support and feedback! If you haven't yet, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on Steam, and we also welcome you to join our Discord community!
-Curious Panda Games