What's this? An actual patch?!
Campaign Map
- Fixed bugs in relation to party teleporting, floating and rotation.
Time will tell, but these used to drive me nuts.
UI
Changes
- Introduced new scene notifications to give more weight to events. They can open automatically or be triggered with a circle notification.
- Generic: Newborn, Marriage, Heir coming of age, Death from old age, Main hero dies in battle, Clan member death (2 variations), Joined a kingdom, Kingdom created, Kingdom destroyed.
- Main Storyline: Supported faction defeated, Finding banner pieces (3 variations), Pledge allegiance, Conspiracy (2 variations), Declaring dragon banner.
Very nice!
- Settlement values within the encyclopaedia are now restricted to settlements that you are near, that are within your kingdom, or that have a clan member inside.
Seems a bit unnecessary, don't think the Encyclopedia needed any kind of "Fog of War".
Combat
- Armour Effectiveness Improvements:
- Reduced the armor coefficient from 100 to 50. In translation, 1 armour now provides 2 health points against blunt attacks.
- Reduced blunt damage's pure damage coefficient from 1 to 0.4.
- Increased additional armour effectiveness against blunt damage from 0 to 0.25.
- These changes increase the effectiveness of mid to late game armour against blunt damages to make it feel like a more meaningful investment.
It's interesting from what I played last two days, but armor overall seems much stronger and not just versus the much maligned looter rocks. Did all attacks inflict some kind of blunt damage?
- Added Light Crossbows (Simple, Light, Fine Crossbow). They can be set on the move and are also usable on mounts without a perk.
Coo
Battles and Sieges
- Adjusted disorganised state penalties and the events which trigger this state. After a fight or when leaving an army, parties will be in a disorganised state for 6 hours. They will move 40% slower and have 20% less battle morale. In addition, if the player leaves some men behind in order to get away from a fight this will be applied to the opponent. Missions that do not involve the entire party (clearing hideouts or alleys, prison breaks) will not cause a disorganised state.
Good stuff
Battle
- Implemented an improved system for spawning reinforcements in battles:
- Reinforcements will now always spawn near the deployment boundaries of the battle.
- The initial wave of troops always spawns on the original path with respect to the position of the battle on the campaign map and the battle size. There are two new spawn paths that reinforcements can spawn on, one path counter-clockwise to the original path and one path clockwise to the original path.
- Reinforcements will pick the safest spawn path of the three with the safest spawn path being the one furthest away from the enemy.
- This improved system prevents the camping of spawn points by the enemy as well as the spawning of troops in the middle of an active fight.
I can already tell this is a making tremendous difference. Still not exactly perfect (I'd still prefer troops to spawn outside battlefield boundaries), but a much more pleasant experience overall. You can actually see where reinforcements are coming from and plan according as opposed to guys spawning literally in the middle of fights.
Thank you for addressing this!
Character Development System
- Balanced Scouting skill experience gains -- sustaining higher party speeds with larger parties will now grant more experience.
- Balanced Combat skill experience gains -- attacking higher tier troops will now provide more experience.
- Balanced the combat perks related to throwing and ranged weapons to improve the progression curve.
- Balanced the Athletics skill experience gains for on-foot attacks.
- Balanced the Riding skill experience gained from ranged attacks to provide more experience with high difficulty shots.
- Overhauled the Leadership skill experience gain method, instead of a passive increase, it is now tied directly to experience gained by the commanded troops.
- Overhauled the Roguery skill experience gain method, instead of a passive increase, it is now tied directly to experience gained by commanded bandit troops. Additionally, balanced the experience gained from looting caravans and villagers.
- Diversified and balanced the actions which provide Engineering skill experience. Destroying siege engines now provides Engineering skill experience.
Wow it's like actually possible to level up Athletics now! Combat skills are hard to gauge, don't seem too much worse or better. Leadership is definitely better since it isn't exclusive to leading an Army.
Scouting still seems really slow/tedious to level yet.
- Clan and Party
- You can recall a clan member to your party if they are staying in a settlement.
- You can send a clan member to stay at one of your towns or castles.
- Heroes will be teleported with some delay according to their distance from the teleportation target.
Hallelujah! You have no idea how big of QOL improvement this is, you've literally saved players hours of tracking down Clan Members.
- Introduced marriage offers which will be received via circle map notifications for single clan members (other than the main hero).
Stuff like this really helps make the game world feel alive.
- Fixed a bug that prevented parties from buying enough food for their troops.
Still seems to be an issue, had a companion party in my Army, stopped at several Towns with food - they never bought any.
I'm not seeing any Camel Ranches, assume they are supposed to be in Aserai lands?
While boosting the value of Trade was good here, not sure if it was enough. Obviously leather, jewelry, and velvet are much higher. But still not sure it really competes with Horses. Trade still seems very slow and tedious to level up.
Crafting
- Separated the crafting piece unlocking experience into the respective weapon types. Crafting a weapon now collects experience for that weapon type only and any unlocked part will be available for that weapon type alone.
Another excellent change!
Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)
- Lowered the upgrade chance of recruits.
Seems the same as before to be honest.
- Notables in towns and villages are now fixed (number-wise). They were previously dependent on prosperity and hearth levels.
This seems really dumb. I thought the whole point of increasing Hearths was to unlock additional Notables. If it's fixed number now, you've really made some particular fiefs quite bad. Also what's the point of growing villages besides some increased production and taxes?
- The player’s clan now needs to be at least Tier 3 to request a meeting in castles and towns.
Eh seems unnecessary, really punishing folks who aren't vassals/mercenaries now.
- 10% of the prisoners in all settlements will now be sold daily to prevent dungeons from exceeding the prisoner limit.
Good, the full prisons got really obnoxious (be nice to see what limit is).
I see this happens with player fiefs as well. Does this mean we get the ransom revenue as well?
Quests & Issues
- Updated quest logs, alternative solution rewards, durations and/or requirements for various quests (Escort Merchant Caravan, Overpriced goods, Nearby Bandit Base, Rival Gang Moving in, Needs to Deliver a Herd, Can't sell product at a fair price, Needs access to village commons, Extortion by deserters, Needs Grain Seeds, Army of Poachers, Gang Leader Needs Weapons, Family Feud, Needs Garrison Troops, Lord Needs Horses, Lord Wants Rival Captured, The Spy party, Caravan Ambush, Inn and Out, Village Needs Tools, Needs Help with Brigands, Lord Needs A Tutor).
I see some of the rewards are better finally.
Overall very good update, I can only hope the next couple will all be of this significance, 2022 was looking very underwhelming. Game still needs a lot of work, particularily with NPC/Character interactions yet. Also Diplomacy has to be expounded a little, at least to have things like _ Kingdom will not attack _ Kingdom as part of Peace agreements. I don't expect tons of Diplomacy/Kingdom management, but there needs to be enough information so the player at least knows what is happening (like Non-Agression pacts).