In a recent poll we held on Steam and Discord, we asked players what they feel is the main reason they lose in Survival. More than half of all participants answered that it was the unpredictability of the Death Night’s pathing that ultimately brought their Keep to the ground. Luckily, we’ve had the Watchtower in the works for a little while to help remedy this exact problem!
The Watchtower is a new Light building that, unlike the Fire Sconce and Tower, does not remove Horrify or even provide much vision. What it does instead, is show the exact path the next Death Night will follow in a massive radius around it.
This is an extremely powerful thing to know. If you know exactly where the path is ahead of time, you can focus all your resources on the most efficient chokepoint, negating much of what makes Survival challenging (it is, after all, also a game about exploration as much as it is a game about preparation). So, the Watchtower comes with some caveats:
You probably won’t be able to build it before Death Night 1. In this iteration it requires some Iron. In a future update it will likely require a small amount of Dark Essence. Since the first Death Night tends to play out close enough to the keep that the nightmares take extra time to pose a threat (allowing you to be a bit more flexible in your defense placements), we feel this is a fair trade-off for not having the Watchtower available at this point.
It won’t display the exact path until the crystal is revealed. This is to ensure there’s still some time pressure around deciding where you need to build.
You’ll only see the Death Night’s path highlighted where you have vision. The detection radius of the tower is enormous, but the vision is not, so you’ll have to send some scouts or build some other structures if you want to see the entirety of the path.
Now, this means that when you first build your tower, if it isn’t in the lead up to a Death Night, it may look like it is doing nothing. We’ve got some improvements on this front that will just miss this update, but will be out soon.
The most important of these is the Point of Interest indicator. Once placed, the Watchtower will provide a visual clue indicating the direction of the next-closest Point of Interest relative to the tower’s position. This has no range limit, so if all you care about is tracking down Points of Interest, then one tower will get you there.
Hopefully the Watchtower helps alleviate one of the things you, the players, said was most frustrating, without compromising the difficulty that makes Age of Darkness satisfying to play and progress on.
Stay tuned for v0.7.0 in the coming weeks!
As always, if you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Aid us with your thoughts by taking our Player Survey. Your feedback and suggestions will help us to improve and shape Age of Darkness: Final Stand as we journey towards v1.0.
Let us know what features you’d love to see implemented, as well as what you’d like to see improved!
As always, if you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Team17 Age Of Darkness: Final Stand Factions Livestream!
Protectors of the Light!
The Factions update came out last week and the fine folks at Team17 are going to be showing off the latest changes and additions on their Twitch channel on Tuesday at 16:00 BST!
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand - Content Update v0.6.2
Dear Protectors of the Light,
Together we stand against the Darkness, but individually we have our own strengths and weaknesses, in this exciting update we bring you Factions which will be rallied by our Heroes. Edwin leads the charge of The Order, Aelis the fearless leader of The Rebellion and Vizargo taking the helm of the shadowy Volatists.
Each Faction will have different starting Units as well as different stats and buffs to play to their unique strengths within the world. To give each Faction a unique look and appearance, Units and Buildings have been given Faction specific signals and colouring. But this is only the beginning of how Factions will look on the journey towards v1.0.
We know our brave defenders of the realm want to know more about the Nightmares they are fighting against, so to aid in the battle the Veil has granted you a blessing! You can select an Enemy to see all their stats along with their unit description to help you strategize on how you tackle them.
As the time passes you will need more valiant fighters to keep the Veil from creeping in, so keep your eyes peeled as this is not the end for what we have planned… new champions will rise.
As always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the bug reporting channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.
Check out the full patch notes below:
Release Notes
Improvements
New Feature: Factions
New Feature: Enemy Select
Triage Tent Research cost has been lowered.
Triage Tent Rescue Radius has increased.
Triage Tent revival speed has increased.
Localisation for New Features
Additional Changes
Heroless Icon added to save files with the Heroless Hardship applied.
Save Files will display ‘Custom’ if saved on a Custom Difficulty.
Updated Triage Tent Tutorial to include Hero Revival information.
Updated Vizargo’s Veils Claw Description to more accurately depict the ability.
.Updated UI hoverbox text for the Training Hall and Siege Factory.
Updated the + & - UI in the Resources panel to have a disabled state.
Updated the Unlimited Frame Rate option in the Settings menu to be located after 120 FPS.
Updated Credits to include T17 QA and Volmi Games.
Crashes
Fixed a crash that would occur when pressing ‘F2’ during the loading screen.
Fixed a crash that would occur after conquering a Point of Interest.
Fixes & Changes
Fixed an issue where the game thinks shift is being held and tries to just queue all of your movements.
Fixed an issue where Units could not path correctly around Catapults.
Fixed an issue where Attack-Move would not register when clicking on impassable terrain.
Fixed an issue where the camera would not focus on a selected Building until you close the popup.
Fixed an issue where the title would freeze when pressing F1 or F2.
Fixed an issue where Aelis’ guards would not attack enemies.
Fixed an issue where Aelis’ guards would jitter after an attack-command move.
Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s Impaling Wrath ability would not activate.
Fixed an issue where there was a delay in Vizargo responding to move commands.
Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s range for Impaling Wrath remains when selecting a Unit after the skill has been selected.
Fixed an issue where Bursters were dealing damage outside their AOE radius.
Fixed an issue where enemies weren’t being agroed.
Fixed an issue where Buildings would need to be double clicked to be selected.
Fixed an issue where Units would be Ejected from Towers.
Fixed an issue where if trying to build walls on impassable terrain the walls are built on a different area of the map.
Fixed an issue where once the Hero has Respawned at a Triage Tent every death afterwards causes them to spawn at the same Tent.
Fixed an issue where Units queued in the Triage Tent would not be in the correct order.
Fixed an issue where when Units are removed from the Triage Tent their countdown timer remains.
Fixed an issue where Unit icons would not show when selected.
Fixed a visual issue with Vizargo’s Impaling Wrath FX.
Fixed an issue where the Triage Tent Radius would appear white.
Fixed an issue where the name of the Save File could not be changed.
Fixed an issue where Unit icons in the Triage Tent queue are misaligned.
Fixed an issue where when the UI is Set to 125% The Hardship Icons on the Custom Difficulty screen become smaller.
Fixed an issue where the Splash Art does not scale correctly in windowed mode.
Fixed an issue where the Hero Spawn VO was not playing.
Fixed an issue where the incorrect text was appearing in the Emboldened tutorial in Russian.
Fixed an issue with text wrapping in the Villagers menu.
Fixed an issue where Vizargo's Veiled Coil description was not localised for non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Hotkey Overrides text for various buildings was not localised for non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Upkeep text on the Resource hoverbox overlaps the gold icon in German.
Fixed an issue where the users could not send through Feedback reports.
Known Issues
A fix for these issues will come in the following Patch Update.
Save Files from previous games will not be compatible with this update it is recommended to start a new save file.
Several fixes have been made in regards to the units getting stuck. However there may still be edge cases where this is occurring.
Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.
--- We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
We know there have been some reported bugs around issuing movement commands for your army and hero lately. We’re working hard to get to the bottom of it so you can go back to slaying nightmares and pushing back The Veil.
How are we investigating the issue?
We’ve used a few different techniques for finding out what’s causing the bug - in particular, reports from players and our QA team have been very helpful for working out what’s going on. For some of the movement issues, getting a save file that has the issue happening in it has also been helpful for being able to investigate what’s happening, as that allows us to step through exactly what’s happening in the code when the issue is occurring. We aren’t able to reliably recreate the bug yet but have some fixes incoming. So a big thank you has to go to the community first and foremost for helping us track down and reproduce the bug.
What have we found so far?
We’ve figured out two different causes of movement issues - one is that sometimes, the game continues to think that the shift key is held while it really isn’t, and so tries to just queue all of your movements instead of doing them immediately. The other was that catapults were sometimes causing issues for navigation for units around them. One difficulty with this sort of bug where we don’t have any clear steps to reproduce it every time is that it’s difficult to know if those are the only causes! But those are the two that we know about.
What are we doing to fix this?
We’ve implemented fixes for movement that will be going out with version 0.6.2 for the two issues with movement that we know about. Catapults have been fixed to no longer cause units near them to have broken pathing. We’ve also added a fix for the issue with the game thinking shift is being held, although this one’s been harder for us to reproduce, which makes it a little harder to be absolutely certain that this fix resolves the issue.
If you’re still having issues on the new patch, here's how you can help with our investigation.
Please message in our Discord and provide the following information!
If you were doing anything in particular when the issue started occurring?
If pressing shift when the issue is happening causes it to stop?
If the issue persists after loading a save, providing the Dev Team with that save file would be incredibly helpful (they can be found in Documents/My Games/AgeOfDarkness/Saves).
As always we’re working diligently to improve the game with every update. Thank you all for being a part of our early access journey so far.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
In this upcoming update, we are separating our three heroes – Edwin, Vizargo and Aelis – into three distinct factions – The Order, The Volatists and The Rebellion respectively. We’re creating these factional divisions both to serve some very exciting future content (which, as much as we want to, we can’t talk about quite yet!) and to create much more replayability in Survival.
Let’s go over what this update is bringing for each of the three factions, as well as what their identities are and what kind of changes you can expect longer-term.
The Order, the faction to which Edwin Everard belongs, is ancient. They’ve learned through experience that one way to conquer is simply to outlast. This manifests through where they gain the majority of their benefits:
Siege units train faster
Siege units cost less
Siege units deal more damage.
To get them to the late-game in good health, ALL of their emboldened units get:
More health
More health regeneration
Their starting lineup becomes a well-rounded pair of archers, pikemen and soldiers.
What you WON’T see in this update are some of the economic requirements and benefits. Those are still being tested and implemented, but will broadly feature:
Higher unit costs than other factions
Slower early economic development
Better defensive structures
Much higher power cap
Less reliance on expansion
Aelis Syren is the leader of the Rebellion, a group of underdogs facing overwhelming odds. To survive, they must be mobile and tactical. To that end, Rebellion Archers and Arbalests get:
More damage
More movement speed
More range
Lower upkeep.
To ensure they can press the advantage, ALL emboldened Rebellion units get:
More movement speed
More damage
More health regeneration (but not as much as the Order)
In this update, they’ll also start with an additional archer. In future updates, you’ll see changes to the economic and infrastructure side. Broadly speaking, the Rebellion will:
Be more reliant on expanding their base
Require more houses
Get greater benefits for exploration
Get better use of the Trade Bazaar
Have some of the most tactically versatile units
The Volatists, led by Vizargo Oriah, are all about aggression and rapid expansion. Their melee units get:
More attack speed
More movement speed
Lower upkeep
Lower training time
Though the Volatists are human, they don’t let fear control them – they embrace it. Horrified units get:
Much more damage
Less movement speed penalty.
Their two starting archers are being swapped out for three pikemen. With these troops and the benefits they receive, you’ll be surprised just how fast you can tear across the map in those first few nights.
In a future update the Volatists will:
Become reliant on Dark Essence for the core of their economy
Favour unit quantity over quality
Treat units as disposable.
Have greater access to Dark Essence and units, structures and mechanics that require it
While this next update makes the game easier across the board, you should enjoy it while you can. We have a lot of changes coming for these factions that we couldn’t quite get in. This is just a taste of what’s to come.
Also a reminder this patch will be incompatible with previous saves. So if you have any games you want to complete make sure to do so before the patch comes out in the next few days!
In the meantime, we really hope you enjoy experimenting with new builds and unit setups. Keep your eyes on the horizon, though… the Darkness encroaches.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
We see a bit of discussion around Arbalests after the recent nerf. Below are some thoughts and context for why we reduced their power.
Why did we change Arbalests? Arbalests were the centerpiece of any player composition prior to their change. If you wanted to win any game on any difficulty, you needed to do an arbalest build to achieve that goal. So when we nerfed arbalests, we actually buffed other units as well (Soldier, Pikeman, Sentinel etc.) to compensate and help create newer compositions Players could use to win.
The other reason for their change was that they were the best for defense and exploration. They were used to take down special units and clear the map when exploring making them far too viable over other units. As a result we wanted to dial back a bit on them and keep them as a special unit killer, making them highly effective against the higher tier enemies (Crusher, Spitter, Wraith etc.) when defending.
This brought about the Powerful perk ability that was given to them that increases their damage against these higher tier enemies. At the moment, this isn’t directly shown to the Player because it was put in at the last minute but it still achieves their goal as a special unit killer.
What does nerfing their movement speed allow us to do with our units and nightmares going forward? By nerfing the movement speed, it puts the Arbalest in more of a defensive position and gives them a stronger purpose as a special unit killer. This helps feed into more of a purpose for our other units where they will shine as exploration units rather than the Arbalest who will excel more in defending against deadly death nights. It also locks in the goal of the Arbalest and keeps their intention clear so that when other units come in, they don’t invade the space that they have as special unit killers.
It also helps give a bit more purpose to our nightmares by deciding what certain nightmares are weak too. We explored this first with our Bursters where fire was their kryptonite and would slow them down to a crawl while also taking additional damage. Now we have Arbalests with the Powerful perk dealing higher damage to special nightmare units. As we bring in new nightmare units, it will be a lot easier to define what it is strong against and what it is weak against.
What do we want for unit compositions going forward? We want unit compositions to have proper intent and when you build one, it serves a purpose. So there will be units that have a high movement speed, regen Hp quickly and when put together help to form a bio-ball that’s great for exploration but weak when overwhelmed by many nightmares at once. The same is true for defensive bio-balls where the Player can create compositions of units that have high damage and health but move slowly, keeping them more effective at defending against Death Nights and pester waves.
In essence this helps remove the one-size-fits-all that the Arbalests had previously and slots them more comfortably into a defensive role, giving some breathing room to other units. With these exploration and defensive compositions, there are many units that will fit into them and we have other units planned to fit within those paradigms as well, opening up many flexible options for how a Player would like to create their armies for different situations.
We hope that provides some more clarity on why changes were made. We're definitely going to keep an eye on the balance of the game to make sure AoD continues to be difficult but fair.
Let us know what you think and what else you'd like to hear us talk about.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand - Hot-Fix Patch v0.6.1
Dear Protectors of the Light,
Thank you all for your continued support and we hope you’ve enjoyed playing Vizargo this past week. Alongside all your feedback, messages and reviews we’ve identified several issues that we’ve decided to fix immediately.
This hot-fix is only addressing issues we’ve seen appear since the launch of the last Content Update with Vizargo and general gameplay being the focus here. We’ll be back later this month with more Content for you. Keep your claws at the ready for it!
Check out the full patch notes below:
Release Notes
Fixes & Changes
Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s Veiled Coil ability does not appear to be healing correctly. The ability description has been updated to reflect that it “restores his health by up to 5%” not a guaranteed 5%.
Fixed an issue where the player cannot correctly animation cancel with Vizargo.
Fixed an issue where Nightmares would not respawn after a Death Night in unlit areas.
Known Issues
Vizargo’s Veiled Coil ability will have some incorrect translations in all other languages aside from English. This will be updated in our next Content Update.
Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.
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We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand - Content Update v0.6.0
Dear Protectors of the Light,
The fight against The Veil continues, but along the way the evil has corrupted our most brave and loyal. To aid in your fight, we bring you our newest Hero Vizargo, The Consumed Hand. On his path to power, Vizargo has been enticed by The Veil and given into temptation by consuming Dark Essence.
Although he may look wicked, he is not irredeemable, the corruption of the Dark Essence has only partially taken over his body which is what grants him with abilities to fight against the Nightmares that no other Hero has.
See the Hero Spotlight trailer for Vizargo here. [previewyoutube="RMugbjQ37BY;full"] To aid your Units and help them fight alongside your new Hero, you now have a brand new Military Building, the Triage Tent. This Building provides you a chance to revive Units who die within its Radius. Additionally it increases their healing rate while within the Radius, helping you to send them back into the heart of the battle faster. As well as this, if your Hero dies within the Rescue Radius, it will respawn back at the Triage Tent where they died.
In the spirit of keeping you on your toes, we have made some improvements and balancing changes to Arbalests. Their health and damage has been lowered slightly, however they have now been given a unique perk. The Powerful perk increases damage against Crushers, Spitters and Wraiths. Heroes and Impalers have also been granted the Powerful perk to improve their capabilities against their most deadly of foes.
The time is now, Vizargo calls your name and beckons you to his side. Lead your fearless new Hero into the Darkness and clear your lands of the pestilence that plagues it…
As always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the bug reporting channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.
Check out the full patch notes below:
Release Notes
Improvements
New Hero: Vizargo, The Consumed Hand.
New Building: Triage Tent
New Resources & Villagers Panel.
New Enemy Damage Multipliers for Heroes.
New Enemy Damage Multipliers for Arbalests.
New Enemy Damage Multipliers for Impalers.
Localisation for New Features.
Additional Changes
Stun Durations are now Individual rather than Global.
Enemies who are Stunned stop attacking for the duration of the Stun debuff.
Increased Pikeman Health.
Increased Pikeman Cost.
Pikeman no longer needs to be researched.
Increased Arbalest Cost.
Lowered Arbalest Damage.
Lowered Arbalest Health.
Lowered Arbalest Movement Speed.
Increased Flamer Movement Speed
Flamer no longer needs to be researched.
Lowered Grand Bellows Damage.
Lowered Upkeep on Fishing Port.
Added Pikeman to the pool of Units that can spawn from Points of Interest.
Triage Tent has been added to the Hotkey Overrides Menu.
Added the functionality to Keybind ‘Select All Catapults’ and ‘Select All Pikeman’ under the Units Count Menu .
The 'Hotkey Overrides' Ability subsection now dynamically updates for each Hero.
Updated the Charge Skill description to more accurately reflect the Skill.
Updated the Hold Command description to more accurately reflect the Command.
Updated VFX for Points of Interest.
Added Vizargo Voice actor and 1518 Studios to Credits.
Crashes
Fixed a crash that would occur when inputs were pressed during the loading screen.
Fixes & Changes
Fixed an issue where the Player could not sell Buildings when Shift Selecting multiple Buildings of different types.
Fixed an issue where Buildings could be repaired using the Repair All Hotkey with Rusty Tools applied.
Fixed an issue where the Ballista Tower would fire projectiles while upgrading to the Grand Ballista Tower.
Fixed an issue where Enemies were not being stunned by Sentinels on the first hit.
Fixed an issue where Catapults would overshoot their target.
Fixed an issue where Impalers would do the incorrect amount of Damage to Spitters when Horrified.
Fixed an issue where Nightmares are not being aggroed when shot by Towers.
Fixed an issue where Dark Essence does not drop from Elite enemies if a Ballista Tower lands the final shot.
Fixed an issue where the Hero Select button would overlap with the Hero Description text box if the Ui Scaling is Set to 125%.
Fixed an issue where Buildings only show construction progress when filled with Villagers.
Fixed an issue where Units do not have flavour text after selecting a Training Hall that is training Unit.
Fixed an issue where the Skill Tree notifier would display the incorrect number of Upgrades available.
Fixed an issue where the Cursor is not always changing to a Sword when hovering over Enemies close to the edge Vision.
Fixed an issue where the resources panel would appear above Houses while building.
Fixed an issue where Crawlers could stack on top of each other.
Fixed an issue where the Units mesh would overlap.
Fixed an issue with the Archers animation when switching between Idle State and Running.
Fixed an issue with Edwin’s Animation when switching between Idle State and Attack.
Fixed an issue where Crushers could get stuck in between two Animation loops when chasing a Flamer.
Fixed an issue where no Death Night music would play when loading into a Save from the previous Version.
Fixed an issue where no music would play on Death Night 1.
Fixed an issue where the Gatherers text in the Resource Hoverbox was not localised for non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Tax Earnings text in the Gold Income Hoverbox is cut-off in Russian
Fixed an issue where the Dangerously Familiar Hardship description was not localised in non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where Autosaves text in the Load Save menu overlaps in French.
Fixed an issue where the Return to Menu button from Credits was not localised in non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Credits title was not localised in multiple non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Navigate Back button is not localised in multiple non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Revive button and description are not localised in non-English languages.
Known Issues
A fix for these issues will come in the following Patch Update.
Some Save Files from the previous version may not be compatible. When loading in a Save from the previous version, Units you have not researched in the Training Hall may disappear and cannot be Researched or Trained.
Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.
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We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
