Major Update: Friends and Foes is out now!

31 Mar 2023Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Hello mercenaries!

The Friends and Foes update is now live! We've received a lot of valuable feedback and bug reports during the last few weeks, and we want to give a big thanks to everyone who helped us playtest the update on the test branch. We also appreciate everyone being patient and supportive as we worked to get this update complete over the last several months. It was a big undertaking for just the two of us, and the amount of testing and tuning needed was comparable to when we were preparing to launch the game last year.

While there is still a bit of refinement to be done, we're happy with how it turned out, and we feel all the changes accomplished what we set out do: giving players a better sense of progression and choice with their characters, and making combat more engaging and less repetitive with new enemies and mechanics.

Before diving into all the changes, we want to address the feedback we've received on the update's difficulty. Players will be happy to hear that we've raised up Accuracy to be more in line with how it was prior to this update. While we do want players to have to work a bit make their Basic Attacks land (with Flanks, Staggers, Stuns), we realize that missing half the time by default isn't fun either.

With regards to overall difficulty, Battle-Hardened is now a bit easier than it was when the update first went onto the test branch. It may still be a bit too difficult right now for new players (or players who haven't played in a while), but we don't want to make any drastic changes right now since it would affect the other difficulty settings. For now, we've added the ability to switch your difficulty setting at any time in the pause menu, and we'll also be adding some new difficulty settings (and tuning existing ones as needed) in a future update.

Finally, we want to say a quick word on the state of dungeon exploration. Due to all the changes, dungeons are currently a bit barren right now. Our goal for the next major update is improving the whole dungeon experience by tweaking some mechanics, adding more event types, and also rewarding the player with better loot.

With all that out of the way, let's move onto the changes made with the release of Friends and Foes :)

Friends and Foes: Summary of Changes

Attributes Overhaul: Attributes have been reworked, and a new 'Mending' attribute has been added that increases the potency of Heals and Damage Shields (Power is now solely for abilities that deal damage).
Levelling Overhaul: On level up, the Attribute Points you gain can be spent towards ranking up attributes of your choosing. Overall, the increases are much more significant than before, and characters have a higher potential for growth.
Level Cap: The level caps have been adjusted. From levels 1-20 you will gain both Attribute and Ability Points on level up. Level 20 is the new softcap, and from 21-40 you will only gain Attribute Points (3 per level).
Class Abilities: We've adjusted the base function of a few abilities to make them a more attractive option.
Full Ability Trees: We've made adjustments to almost every ability tree, and the 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades are now fully implemented (totaling 252 new choices). They can be upgraded at level 5 and level 10 respectively.
Increased Party Size: The maximum number of characters in a party has been increased from 4 to 5.
New and Modified Conditions: We've added some new combat conditions and have tweaked a few existing ones. Conditions now last longer and play a much larger role in combat now, especially when dealing with certain enemies.
Reworked Enemies: We've reworked a lot of existing enemies, changing their stats, abilities, and passives. Overall, enemies are now more specialized in what they do, and are more statistically and mechanically different from one another.
New Enemies: We've added 30 new enemy variants into the game for more variation from fight to fight.
Enemy Traits: Elites and Bosses now spawn with Traits (from a pool of 50) that add an extra strategic consideration when fighting them, ranging from statistical increases to unique combat mechanics. You can view their traits by mousing over their portrait or sprite.
Combat Deployment: The deployment zones available for both sides are now more varied (it's no longer always left vs right!).
Line of Sight and Ranged Unit Mechanics: We've made some adjustments to Line of Sight, making ranged units less effective in certain situations when shooting through other units to hit their target. Ranged units will no longer be able to target and attack other targets when they have an adjacent enemy. They must either move, or attack the adjacent enemy (and deal 50% damage)
New UI Screens: The Manage Roster and Storage screens have been completely redesigned. Other screens now have their own dedicated windows (they will also be receiving a redesign in the future to match the style of the new roster screen).
Codex: We've added a Codex screen that contains information on all enemies, enemy traits, and combat conditions. To view the codex entry for an enemy, simply right click their portrait.
Combat Frequency: Due to increased party size and adjustments to enemy stats, fights now take a little longer on average. To compensate for this, we've lowered the number of fights in dungeons to 2, 3 and 4 for Short, Medium and Long dungeons respectively. Don't be afraid to be a bit more liberal with your ability charges!

Patch Notes for Friends and Foes (0.6.008)

Gameplay Changes and Additions

You can now change your difficulty setting at any time (except in combat). We will be adding more difficulty settings (and tweaking existing ones) with our next major update. With the new mechanics at play, we recommend starting on Adventurer, and then bumping it up to Battle-Hardened if you're finding it too easy.
Removed the old primary attributes (such as Toughness, Finesse, etc). Players now invest directly into combat stats such as Health, Power, Evasion
Starred attributes are now randomly assigned to characters to encourage different builds, instead of being fixed and dictated by their class
Power now only affects abilities that deal damage
Added a new Mending stat that handles the scaling of Healing and Shielding effects
Accuracy of Level 1 characters is now closer in range to where it previously was on the main branch (for those that have been playing on the latest test branch, it'll be 12~ higher than it was, 22~ if you only played the first version on test)
Reworked the XP table for leveling up, particularly beyond level 10 (late game should be a bit less grindy now)
Increased the level cap to 40 (with a soft cap of 20). From levels 1-20, characters earn both Attribute and Ability points. After level 20, they will only receive a reduced number of Attribute points
Reworked the number of Ability and Attribute points given at each level
The 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades (totaling 252 choices) are now fully implemented. A character will unlock them at levels 5 and 10 respectively
The majority of character traits have been adjusted so they're more impactful, and two new traits have been added that affect Mending
Adjusted the values of many enchantment scrolls to be more significant (particularly Health, Power, Damage Shield, and a few others)
Added a 'Scroll of Mending' Enchantment, granting +5/6/7/8/10 Mending depending on the scroll's rarity
All Gear has been slightly adjusted to better synergize with the new attribute system
All existing enemies have had their stats reworked and abilities adjusted. Enemies now have more of a specialized purpose.
Over 30 new enemy variants (many with new abilities) have been added to the game
Elite enemies now also gain +14 Defense and +50 Mending (in addition to their Health and Power being increased like always)
Increased starting coin across all difficulty levels (due to the party size increase)
On Adventurer difficulty: player Accuracy has been increased by 10, enemy Evasion has been reduced by 10, and Bosses have fewer combat traits
Adjusted starting XP when skipping the tutorial (so players don't need to replay the tutorial to start on an equal footing)
While in the prologue, the Inn now guarantees enough recruits to reach a party of 5 (and a Guardian is guaranteed to be among them)
Euric no longer takes a cut of your profits (and now works for free out of the kindness of his heart!)
Euric no longer has the Reckless trait (since it conflicted with his Fortitude trait)
Adjusted mercenary salary costs to be significantly cheaper, capping out around 300~ coin per year (it was too difficult to get ahead previously. This is more of a first pass, and we'll be revisiting salary costs again in the future)
Overworld Encounters have been made more difficult across the board to compensate for the fact that you don't need to save your ability charges for future fights (they were previously far too easy)
The difficulty of random Overworld Encounters is now more varied. If you are capable of beating '5 Skull' encounters, you will occasionally still come across 3 and 4 Skull encounters

Combat Changes and Additions

Max party size is now 5!
The combat deployment zones available to both sides are now more varied
Added over 50 enemy traits that can be assigned to Bosses and Elites, giving them increased stats and unique mechanics that will need to be considered as you're fighting them. Bosses will have 2-5 traits depending on the encounter difficulty, while Elites will always have 2.
Tweaked the Resistances and Immunities of most enemies.
Enemies now have Vulnerabilities to certain damage types (ie. Holy is strong vs Demons). Attacks against vulnerable enemies will do 25% more damage
Units can no longer target other enemies with ranged attacks when they have an enemy next to them. They must either move away (and incur an Attack of Opportunity), or attack the adjacent target and deal 50% less damage. This was done to give players more means of countering powerful ranged units (by jumping on top of them with a speedy melee unit)
Ranged units can no longer shoot through their allies from a distance to deal full damage to a target that is directly behind the ally. They will now do 50% less damage (due to partial Line of Sight) when attempting such a shot
When using Guard, that unit counts as a full Line of Sight blocker to enemies (meaning you can place a squishier character directly behind them, and prevent them from being targeted at all under the right circumstances)
The duration of most conditions have been increased, giving them a more important role in combat
Most abilities that cleanse conditions have been made more effective by also providing immunity to all conditions for 3 Rounds (which allows you to also use them proactively)
The Guardian's 'Radiance' passive - which cleanses all adjacent allies - now requires 4 stacks in order to trigger instead of 3 (it was very powerful and too easy to trigger, but it also makes her damage abilities that consume Radiance stacks more potent now)
Added two new combat conditions: Sunder Armor (breaks target's Defense) and Grievous Wounds (prevents targets from being buffed, healed, or shielded)
Bleed and Burn conditions now last until cleansed
Updated Poison to deal damage to the target equal to 10% of their current Health, lasting until cleansed (we had been meaning to change it for a while as it was previously too similar to Decay)
Stunned characters have their Defense halved (and we updated the tooltip to mention that Basic Attacks against Stunned targets cannot miss, which was always the case, but not displayed anywhere)
Added a new Miasma terrain effect that inflicts Poison on the occupant
Tweaked the Corruption Terrain that is spawned by Demons and Corrupted units. Enemy units standing on it will be healed for 10% of their max health once per round
Increased the effects of standing in Tall Grass to be more impactful. Units now gain 15 Evasion, but lose 15 Accuracy.
Reworked how enemy compositions are created by applying a "strength value" to each unit. Combat difficulty should now be much more consistent as a result, and we can easily tweak the values as needed going forward if an enemy is too strong or too weak relative to their value.
Limited the number of enemies that can appear upfront in a fight. Any overflow will now spawn as reinforcements in later rounds (this will most often be seen in overworld fights, and on smaller tilesets such as the Fort)
A number of changes to various class Abilities and Upgrades. Too upgrade changes to list, but below are the changes made to abilities themselves:
(Guardian) Blinding Strike's damage has been significantly increased
(Guardian) Safeguard's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Guardian) The Root from Judgment now lasts for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Huntress) Rapid Fire's damage has been slightly reduced
(Huntress) Restraining Order now Roots for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Huntress) The buff and Mark from True Sight now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Huntress) Increased the trigger range of Overwatch from 2 to 3 cells
(Huntress) Volley's damage has been increased
(Icebinder) Arctic Armor's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
(Icebinder) The Freeze effect from Cold Feet now lasts 1 Round instead of 2
(Icebinder) Cold Feet's trap damage is slightly increased
(Pugilist) Mind, Body, and Soul no longer heals by default, but it does provide condition immunity for 3 Rounds
(Pugilist) Healing Trance now heals adjacent allies for 25% of the value to himself (instead of 50%, which was too powerful)
(Pugilist) Battle Instinct's starting values have been reduced to +35% for Evasion, Defense and Power
(Pyrolancer) Pyromania can now be active on more than one ally
(Pyrolancer) Wildfire can now be used again without erasing a previous instance
(Pyrolancer) Return to Cinder can now be used again without erasing a previous trap, and its damage has been slightly increased
(Pyrolancer) Heatwave has had its damage slightly reduced
(Stormcaller) Conduit now targets a specific cell instead of an enemy (so it can miss if the target moves). Any cell within range (empty or occupied) can be targeted. We felt the ability was a bit too easy and powerful before, but now it requires a bit of planning. To compensate for the change, its damage has been slightly increased.
(Stormcaller) The range of Cyclone has been increased and any pushed targets are also Slowed for 2 Rounds
(Stormcaller) Changed Wind Surge to now grant a singly ally +10 Speed, +2 Movement and +20 Evasion for 3 Rounds.
(Valkyrie) Aegis now grants the Valkyrie a flat +20 Defense (previously +40%). The Buff and the Taunt now last 2 Rounds (up from 1)
(Valkyrie) Guardian Angel now applies a Damage Shield to the targeted ally for 3 Rounds
(Valkyrie) Take Flight's damage has been slightly reduced
(Valkyrie) Champion's Order now lasts for 2 Rounds and has a Range of 2 (both up from 1)
The 'Potency' upgrades for Damage, Healing, and Shielding abilities have been reduced (most have gone from +25%/+30% down to +15%/+20%). With the rest of the trees now available, the previous values resulted in you outscaling enemies too much in the late game (few enemies could withstand 1500 damage from an upgraded Rapid Fire!). While we want you to feel powerful late game, it shouldn't be easier than doing 1 Skull missions in the early game
A number of changes and additions to enemy Passive Abilities:
(Specters/Wraiths) As a drawback to their Apparition passive (teleporting and ignoring Attacks of Opportunity when moving), Specters can no longer move and attack on the same turn, and will now delay their attack until the end of the round
(Necromancers and Undead) Decay no longer stacks on targets. Targets will have their Max Health lowered by 5% every round until cleansed
(Demons) Enabled the Demon's Empower passive. Upon their death, they will buff the stats of one adjacent ally (with the highest Health). Be mindful of this when going to strike a killing blow!
(Soldiers) Due to their training and discipline, House Soldiers excel when fighting together in formation. We've given them a Shieldwall passive that grants them a bonus to Defense and Evasion when they have two or more adjacent allies at their side
(Nullbeasts) Nullbeasts gain a new Deadzone Shroud buff when occupying a cell with Deadzone Terrain, granting them increased Evasion and cleansing their conditions.
(Hoarwulfs) Ice Tracks now spawns Ice Terrain on the cell they move to, instead of on every cell traversed.
(Hoarwulfs) Added a new Crystalize passive to Hoarwulfs, increasing their Defense by 10 (max of +30) for every round they remain stationary. This can be dispelled by pushing them, burning them, or by using an ability that removes enemy buffs
(Brightmanes) Added a new Piercing Light passive, allowing their attacks to completely ignore Defense
A few passives are currently disabled, leaving a few enemy types without any. We'll be enabling them in a future update

UI/UX Changes and Additions

Split up the old 'Company Management' window into separate screens (with their own hotkeys). The 'Manage Roster' screen has been completely overhauled and is much easier to use (the other screens such as Company Upgrades, Reputation will be getting a rework in the future to match the new style of the Roster screen)
Added a stat comparison tooltip when hovering over equippable gear in the 'Manage Roster' screen
Added a Codex that can be accessed at any time to give players information on the foes they are facing (accessed in combat by right clicking an enemy portrait)
The default dialogue font is now larger (the smaller font remains as an option for those who prefer it). We will be slowly converting all other UI elements to this larger font.
Tweaked existing Tutorials and added a few new ones to help new players gain a solid understanding of various game mechanics
Added a tooltip when hovering the difficulty skulls of a contract or encounter that suggests a recommended party level
Void Breaches in the overworld now display a recommended party level in the tooltip (we'll be adding this in the tooltip for other Points of Interest in the future as well)
Added a tooltip on a character's XP bar, so you can see their progress to the next level
Increased the number of slots in the turn order UI
Added more unique status icons for some buffs/debuffs instead of using the generic ones all the time
The number of rounds remaining for buffs and debuffs is now displayed on the status icons (and within the tooltip)
A unit's stat tooltip now comes up in combat after hovering their sprite for 1 second (you can still instantly access it by pressing tab)
Added Mending, Critical Chance and Accuracy to the stat tooltip (and a list of traits for Bosses and Elites)
Added a new boss icon to the portraits of boss enemies
Added instructions and a sound effect when using abilities that select 2 separate targets

Fixes

Significantly sped up the "thinking" time for certain enemies on their turn (such as the Spectral Reaper)
Potential fix for a crash that would rarely occur when a floor hazard expired
Fixed a crash related to Frozen targets taking damage from certain sources
Fixed a bug where all allied attacks would contribute to the Stormcaller's Static Charge stacks on an enemy (inflicted by his passive). All ally attacks still have a chance to trigger the Stun (based on stack count), but only the Stormcaller's attacks can increase the stacks now
When using Wait, the duration of buffs and debuffs will no longer tick down until you actually take an action in the round
Ability upgrades that refresh the duration and value of Damage Shields will now update correctly
The Valkyrie's passive 'Vismyr's Protection' which provides a Damage Shield (base of 70) at the start of combat now works correctly
Fixed a bug where other Damage Shields applied to the Valkyrie would instantly break when damage was taken
Fixed a bug where Taunted units would just pass their turn
Fixed a bug where Taunted units were not counting towards a Flank on their taunter
Fixed a bug where the Icebinder's 'Impaling Ice' ability would cause the target to act twice at the end of the round
Fixed a bug where you sometimes wouldn't get the promised coin during an event (like when making a deal with Bandits)
Fixed a bug where Basic Attacks against Staggered units were not guaranteed to hit (now they are)
Fixed a crash with falling rock hazards and significantly sped up the rate at which they fall
Fixed various bugs where enemies would sometimes not act on their turn (still sometimes occurs, but the majority of instances should be resolved)
Units should no longer get stuck in Ice Walls
Fixed a bug that allowed the 'Potency' ability upgrades to persist after refunding that character's ability points (until the game was shut down)
Fixed a bug where a character's Health in the overworld would be displayed as the amount that they had when they left a dungeon
Possible fix for a rare softlock that could sometimes occur during the camping cutscene after the tutorial
Fixed a bug where quests sometimes wouldn't appear in cities after completing the prologue
Fixed an issue where the effects from Tall Grass sometimes weren't being removed even after the unit moved off of it
Fixed a bug that was in the latest test branch where the Journal wasn't displaying any quest information
Many more undocumented fixes! There are a few minor ones we're aware of, and they'll be getting addressed in a future patch

Notes

Due to the changes, all your characters will have their Attribute and Ability points refunded when loading an old save. You'll need to reallocate them.
Any enchantments applied to gear on old saves will be removed and you will be given scrolls in your Storage (if you're currently in a dungeon, you won't see them until you exit)
We've left the F10 debug function enabled. If you experience a softlock in combat, hitting F10 will usually fix it (though please do still submit a bug report in game so we can get the log and fix the problem)

What's next?

We will be following up with patches as needed to fix a few more minor bugs (and any new ones that are found). Up next is our Tales by the Fire update which will be bringing many improvements to dungeon exploration (and dungeon loot) along with adding our 8th class: the Balladeer.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support and feedback. We hope you like all the changes! If you're enjoying the game, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on Steam, and we'd also like to invite you to join our Discord community. Have a great weekend!

-Curious Panda Games