A Huge 'Thank You!'
We are grateful to everyone who has tried the game and shared their experience of the Open-World prototype. A very special thanks to Deviant, mithc, SomeCommonName, and TheBrightKing for all their testing efforts. With hundreds of hours of gameplay under their belts, their detailed feedback on the use of different systems, balances, and mechanics were immensely useful for us, helping to prioritize what we need to improve first.
So What's in the Current Patch?
Most importantly, the Companion Combat AI improvements, about which we will release a separate post in the near future here. Also, various tweaks to the trading background systems to make the early game a bit more forgiving until we add Tasks. Beside those, we made a metric ton of typing and script corrections, squashed bugs, and added some smaller quality of life features.
What's coming next? We listened to You
We have decided to split our Companion Combat improvement Milestone (milestone 19) into two. In this build, we are releasing the enhancements made to the combat AI speed and logic, while the part that was supposed to cover adding new skills to enemy units will return as a separate milestone later on. Instead, we are refocusing our efforts to some early game improvements, most notably: Trading Tasks.
Tasks are jobs commissioned by factions for a fixed fee. Players can take on these Tasks knowing the exact money they will receive without having to dig deep into the trading meta from the start. They are the best and most reliable way to earn reputation with factions, too.
So the benefit of placing Tasks to an earlier spot on our development roadmap is to allow players to ease into the open-world part without having to have an extensive meta-knowledge of what can be bought or sold for a good profit in the different parts of the Empire. While completing these tasks for a fix commission, players also earn reputation with factions, gaining access to higher tier Tasks, better market prices, and one-time rewards. You can find some more details on Tasks in the description of our Milestone 20 here.
Okay, time to jump to the patch notes so you guys can experience this new build yourselves. Enjoy!
PATCH NOTES v0.5.04
New Features 👀
- Milestone 19 — Companion Combat AI improvements 💀
- The AI takes its turn much faster ⌛
- Opponents move between rows based on their preference (melee, ranged) ⚔️🏹
- Enemy units take advantage of cover 🛡️
- Enemies are now able to swap positions 🔄
New / Updated Content or Game Mechanics 🎁
- Trade was made slightly more profitable in the early game with small comitati while significantly harder in the mid/end game
- Tweaks to Workforce and Guard requirements to make high-end comitatus size a little more costly (requires more crew to run one)
- A number of Perks have been merged to make them more impactful
- A shed-load of typos and event scripts corrected (anything you reported is supposedly fixed now 🤞)
- Carrying Passengers for longer distances is now slightly more profitable
- Scouting has a slightly better chance now (but still not justifies keeping scouts, that will come with Hunting and Tasks only)
- Added a few new visual and sound effects for enemy characters
User Interface Improvements 📝
- Throw-out window can now be manually triggered from the Cargo pane (to get rid of contraband, unwanted goods, etc.) 🗑️
- Goods tooltips improvements (now shows both Buy and Sell prices) ⚖️
- Panning on the Chart with keyboard arrows added 🗺️
Fixes 🛠️
- A number of bugs causing all kinds of grief fixed (left some in so you can keep reporting them)
- Fixed the bug that prevented crew combat to come up during camping. Expect to be ambushed during the night more often. Finally! 💀
Coming Up Next 📈
- Trade Tasks 📦
- Factions pane and Faction rewards 🛡️
- Hunting and Foraging 🏹
- ...
- More Sound Effects 🔊
- Companion Level Up and Progression ⏫