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Changelog v1.3(PTR) — September 20, 2024

Notable additions

  • There is now an option in game lobbies that lets you enable “Mixed Factions” for the game:

    • — When playing using Mixed Factions you will immediately claim enemy towns and settlements as they are after a battle (no option of occupying/razing/converting). This allows you to recruit troops and wielders from outside your starting faction and freely mix them.

    • — Neutral hostiles can be made up of troops pulled from multiple factions.

    • — Neutral troop dwellings allow any faction to recruit from them (and can thus never be pillaged).

  • A new map was added named “Under One Banner” that is made to experience the mixed factions in a fast and fun way.

Game balance

  • The number of artifacts transferred as loot after a battle is now capped at 3. We felt that losing all equipped artifacts after a battle was a bit too punishing. It is however always the three most powerful artifacts that are transferred.

  • Losing wielder will gain XP after a battle for the enemy troops it has killed, same as the winning wielder.

  • A maximum of 1 building can now be sold per town/settlement and round. This was implemented primarily because the fact that you could immediately sell all of an enemy’s buildings after capturing a town/settlement when playing using Mixed Factions was too powerful, but we also felt that it was better for balancing overall.

  • Pricing to Faey buildings and research have been reworked and now cost a mix of Ancient Amber and Glimmerweave. Hopefully, this will make the Faey more viable to play as a specific strategy.

    • — Faey Grove upgrade costs 5 less Glimmerweave and 5 more Ancient Amber

    • — Faey Grove generates an additional Faey Spirit

    • — Faey Court upgrade now costs 10 Glimmerwave and 10 Ancient Amber, was 15 and 5

    • — Faey troop research now costs 5 Ancient Amber and 5 Glimmerweave instead of 10 Glimmerweave

  • Some troop research has been reworked to make it more competitive

    • — Aurelia’s Vigor now gives 2/4/5 hp +1 dmg final tier

    • — Feed the Rats gives 1 dmg, 1 move, stealth

    • — Invoke the Empress to give Arcana, 10 def, 5 init

    • — Hearty meals give 2/4/5 hp +1 dmg final tier

    • — Nature’s blessing gives 2/4/6 damage and 2 hp final tier

    • — Sword and Shields give 1 dmg, 10 init, 2 dmg

  • Further initiative changes to make some builds less oppressive

    • — Artificers lowered to 19

    • — Hellroar from 28 to 27 

    • — Shamans/Sage’s initiative lowered to 13/14 

    • — Crawler raised to 35

  • Eth’dra dmg raised to 9-14 to give that unit a bit more viability on its own

  • Scarred Brutes now have defend ability 

  • Wielders skill pools have been reworked to make sure some overlooked ones are more viable in a competitive environment

    • — Remove prepared from Freeblade starting pool

    • — Remove Raider from Awakened skill pool, march is now pre-req for eager

    • — Raider skill pool re-built, making archery and positioning harder to get

    • — Scouting removed from Erudite skill pools above level 5

    • — March was removed from Reaver skill pools above level 5

    • — Reaver skill pool 1-4 added magic resistance if you have Order

    • — Raider removed from Magus skill pool 1-4

  • M’sugna has long been one of the strongest wielders, with a very strong starting army backed up with excellent skills and spec. This has been changed, she’ll still be strong just not quite as strong.

    • — Starting army is now 1 Tremor, 2 Guard, 5 Shaman

    • — Starting skill is Positioning

  • P’chas starting skill changed to Creation since he stole it from M’sugna

  • Ambertinas starting army changed to 1 scavenged bones and 5 toxicologists to give her more destruction to start out with

Adventure

  • All Wielder’s view have been increased by 2 and all Lookouts, Fallen Beacons, and Farseers Vessels have been increased by 1. This is to help a little bit with exploring and choosing and also to have a slightly higher chance of seeing the enemy in time.

  • Scouting skill now gives 3 view, 6 view, and then 2 movement. This is to give players a better way of getting a scouting wielder.

Battle

  • Selecting the spell quick bar will now select the previously selected spell making it easier to cast cheaper spells in sequence when playing with a controller

  • The spell target no longer ends up in weird places when playing with a controller

UI

  • Removed option to click outside random event popup to close it. Too many players accidentally close it before reading.

  • Added tooltip support for toggles, sliders and dropdowns in options. Works for controller too!

  • Certain choices now requires the user to hold the button to accept when playing with a controller to avoid accidentally choosing the first option

  • Neutral troop dwellings now have a more specific description (“Source of troops”) and better mouse over cursor states

  • Wielders in the wielder recruitment menu are now ordered by their type

  • Fixed attackable settlements not using the “attack” cursor on mouse over

  • Added toggle for Mixed Factions above Game Settings button in Lobby

Map editor

  • Removed “embedded area trigger” from neutral hostels since that has never been supported. Place a nearby area trigger map entity instead if you need the functionality.

Multiplayer

  • Made online game flow more robust to counteract softlocks and strange behavior in cases such as the host leaving while a client is joining

  • Fixed exception when a player disconnected from the game during a battle and was replaced by an AI

Campaigns

  • Epic music now plays when fighting enemy wielders even if they are the ones attacking you

  • The moment Merkoth arrives in Arleon mission 3 has been made more moody

AI - Adventure

  • General army recruitment improvements to cope with troop permutation increase (Mixed Factions)

  • Optimize costly troop recruitment calculations

  • Fix pathing issue when trying to find a path to a walled town through portals

  • Improve long distance pathing to have better accuracy when looking for a shorter path through town gates and similar entities

Misc

  • Fixed issues with quick- and autosaves getting stuck and reusing a single save file over and over if the player deletes some of the existing files

  • The number of quick- and autosaves available are now fixed at 9

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