Greetings, Lightbringers!
Time flies, it’s been almost six months since Empire of Ember hit Early Access! This week we would like to run a retrospective to see how much the game has improved in this time.
Having Empire of Ember released on Early Access has allowed the community to try the game as it develops and has also provided us an opportunity to take stock of all the feedback provided- both positive and negative-, allowing us to continue working and improving the game.
The full release of Empire of Ember is initially intended within Q1 2022, but of course, this is not written in stone. Any game development cannot be 100% accurately planned, as this is subject to balancing all the feedback and improvements we want to make to deliver the best and most enjoyable gaming experience we possibly can to our players.
Since the Early Access release, there has been a considerable restructuring of the initial build. Here are some of the most relevant changes compared to six months ago:
GENERAL
- Framerate has been doubled on most missions and even in the most complex battles should stay above 40 FPS.
- Load times have been cut roughly in half, including startup and shutdown.
- The game now runs better on very low-end systems, including the ability to use forward instead of deferred rendering.
- Sounds for the entire game have been redone.
- The visuals for most levels have been improved, with better textures for player buildings.
- Difficulty levels have been implemented. Per user request, medium difficulty no longer increases game difficulty based on time.
- Better-looking terrain with a new terrain rendering system.
- Gamepad should now work consistently.
- Enemies should no longer move through walls when getting up.
- The female avatar has an all-new cloth system, for better visuals when her sleeves move.
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COMBAT
- The player has all-new combat animations.
- Player's melee combat has been reworked, allowing for attacks from multiple directions that enemies attempt to parry. Blocking feels more consistent and responsive. The player also has a new shove ability, to push enemies into spikes or get around shielded enemies.
- Units now fall into archetypes, adding a strategy element to your army composition. For example, one teleporting ghost may be able to defeat an entire army of melee units by himself, while presenting no challenge to even a single archer.
- Commander mode was greatly improved, allowing better unit selection while avoiding unintended orders.
- Players having trouble with certain missions can now take advantage of the new alchemy system, allowing the player to spend spellbooks in order to give big bonuses to combat, including regenerating health, a much-requested feature.
- Troops can be directly given commands using the function keys, instead of the radial wheel, allowing for faster and more accurate commands without having to leave combat. Gamepad users have a radial wheel alternative.
- Catapults now use stone to shoot, preventing exploiting this otherwise too powerful unit.
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ENEMIES
- Enemies now drop gems of varying rarity after combat, which can be sold at a high price.
- Enemies should seem much smarter now. They follow formations and commands better while being less likely to be stuck or confused.
- Enemy aggro has been improved, such that enemies will attack the player when he is a threat, but not overwhelm the player and deaggro when attacked by the player's allies. A new spell 'Harmless' was also added to allow users to directly deaggro or even charm enemies when upgraded.
- Enemy armies on the campaign map now present a broad range of challenges rather than being consistently difficulty. This gives the player an opportunity to recover from previous losses.
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SPELLS
- Telekinesis now shows a path indicator, so players can target distant enemies consistently.
- New spell 'magelight' used to lead the player through the darkness.
- The 'entropy' and 'loot magnet' spells were added, to help players that like to destroy everything.
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MANAGEMENT & ATTRIBUTES
- The economy has been rebalanced, where players now get raw resources from villages which they process in their own city. Steel is used for units, spellbooks for research, and wood for buildings.
- Each of the player's attributes now plays a big role in the game, allowing for different play styles. For example, athletics allows for faster running, more dodging, and faster bow firing allowing the player to kite enemies more easily. Meanwhile, weaponry increases damage overall and melee attack speed in particular, suitable for a DPS-focused player.
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CONTENT
- Cities have been added. Cities have their own missions, which pay well and also increase the player's reputation with that city. However, most missions reduce reputation with some other cities, leading them to attack you. This has been tied into the online city sharing feature, meaning every city siege is different.
- A dynamic day/night system was added, with a new spell 'magelight' used to lead the player through the darkness.
- The game has been made more accessible for new players, with a better tutorial that makes clear the early game mechanics.
- A whole new research system has been added, a dice-roll minigame that gives increasing rewards at higher levels, including unlocking units or discovering equipment.
- Most dialogues have been reviewed and improved by a new writer, Scott Hamm, who also worked on the Age of Decadence and Battle Brothers series of games.
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The current roadmap will now focus on tracking and fixing bugs and improving combat, performance, and other technical aspects. We continue to work hard on adding to the above to provide a top-notch game experience to all our players!
In these past few months, the dev team has been working day and night to address all the issues spotted by the community. A huge thanks to all of you, your feedback has been crucial for the game to feel as it is now, and will continue to help it grow in the right direction!
If you haven’t already, please try the game and leave us a review on Steam, update your old review to include all the new updates in the game, and rate any other reviews that you think players will find helpful! ːsteamthumbsupː
As usual, we welcome you to join our community on Discord, Steam, and our Social Media channels: Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
Please wishlist and follow the game, and tell everyone you know about it!
This is all for today. Have a fabulous week!