The Mountain Horns quest marker in world map pointing to wrong location has been fixed
Shadow of the Mudar quest rewarding 3x Skyfeater trinket is now working properly
Boss encounters are now introduced by a quick intro timeline to go deep with lore. Timeline will be polished and iterated with next updates [bosses updated: Bogromon, Alaloth, Akidaan, Kariasha, Jarzothan, Ahromon and Ilzeborth]
Item, weapons and equipment iteration is still in progress. A new set of stats has been implemented, changing weapons, shields, armors [resistances/bonuses]
Gems rarity and market value fixed
Dialogues and barks all around Plamen improved [showing now variations for each race, previously not working properly 100% times
Minor bugs fixed [missing icons, card data, descriptions]
Fixed a bug interrupting companions’ bow skills and freezing the behavior of all AI in the scene
Removed 2H weapons leftovers from strongholds’ blacksmiths stocks
Fixed some enemies’ AoE skills breaking when aiming at a non active target
Description fixed for Earthquake, Leaping Strike, Force Wave, Rain of Arrows skills
Fixed Tutorial UI getting cut when using wide aspect ratios
Fixed a bug making the bounty board unresponsive from time to time
Fixed a bug causing wandering vendors’ dialogue options lead to Vendor UI despite the choice
Fixed a bug causing player-controlled companions being unable to parry enemies’ attacks
Parrying arrows with weapons with perfect timing allows now players to deflect the projectile
A first round of iteration on weapons has been completed. Base damage of all weapons has been reworked and CritChance is now different for almost every weapon in-game
Achievement ‘Snail’ will now unlock on the 5th year as by description (4 years in-game); achievement ‘Sloth’ description updated to the 2nd year (1 year in-game)
Fix Solemnwood navigation inconsistently breaking on scene load
Fixed a quest related special vendor spawned notification
Fixed Masterchef of Baga quest markers
Moved a QG in Goldport night layout
Fixed Desert Scales’ QG availability
Revised cost and rarity for stronghold upgrades
Fixed a bug that could make the councilor spawn two times during the king summon’s chronicle.
Strongholds items and servants prices iterated. Servants have now rarity. New servants with different stocks and skills will be available through the Councilor from time to time
Monday morning and here we are, back in action, after a super crazy week in Germany. The team took a short break but a couple of heroes [Alberto & Giulia] drove to Cologne for the most important event of the year, 3 years later. Meeting old [and new] friends has been amazing, we missed IRL stuff so much. Sorry for being slower than usual in answering on Discord but hope you had a good time playing the game or just enjoying some vacation before September's restart. This update is just to inform you that we are fully operative, working on features announced with our first draft of the roadmap. Full mouse & keyboard support is our prio now, happening next month along with a very first update of the world map and new other features we are going to explain in details later on next week. Back to GC topic, a lot of people asked why we were attending the event and we are posting this to answer this question as well!
Making games is about the long term and we had the chance to meet many potential partners to plan the future of the game for years to come. When we started pitching Alaloth a few years ago, we were pretty sure to have a very unique concept. The point is that every single dev in the world is basically convinced to pitch something unique and 99% of the time it is not true. Validation comes with users playing the game and giving feedback and that's the reason why now, data at hand, we are pushing so hard and we are asking for support as never before. "It's like Baldur's Gate and Diablo had a baby". This is what people say the most of the time when reviewing Alaloth and this is why we're convinced that the full release has the potentials to be huge with the right partner jumping in. So it's about finding the one open to discuss the next steps toward 1.0 and beyond, with a few DLC already planned and so many ideas on our desk [yes guys, we know everyone is asking for proper multiplayer and online features...]. We'll be focusing on balancing for the next weeks, expect a new patch later on today, fixing a few strongholds-related issues [wrong prices for servants] and some other cool stuff. Thank you all!
Welcome home, champion! Strongholds are here but there is much more for you...
Hello Champions!
Sunday is not the best day to deliver a massive update, said the PR experts, but hey, we were aiming to deliver strongholds before leaving for GamesCom and we did it! This is the first part of a major update which is super important considering the long term and the whole process in terms of balancing and polishing. This patch includes changes to the global economy sys and some other adds and fixes but doesn't require to start a new game!
IMPORTANT NOTE The game is playable usiing old saves as usual but issues can occurr from time to time. We are working try to prevent it, new saves will be bug free so if you spot something wrong, please consider this [i.e. Entering Free Mode could not stop enemy pawns or some UI elements as portraits or texts could be wrong
STRONGHOLDS
We were aiming to have strongholds by the end of the month, but we decided to speed-up things and go on with a first iteration of the sys, which is pretty cool. The stronghold has been thought to be a customizable personal hub, allowing players to plan their moves in a safe environment with the help of many different servants. The stronghold will be open to visitors, new characters will be available and new quests will be unlocked on the way. Taxes will be collected granted 10k gold per year.
Councilor: the Councilor is in charge to recruit servants on your behalf. When the Councilor is tasked and a new servant is hired, players will have to wait around one week to see him in the stronghold
Chef: the Chef grants the player the chance to cook recipes available in the cookbook in the comfort of a private kitchen
Priest: the Priest will unlock the private shrine to respec your character using Orbs of Chaos
Debt Collector: the Debt Collector is the one in charge to take care of taxes in your feud. A good Debt Collector can raise the amount of tax collected up to 50% per year
Architect: the Architect is in charge to provide upgrades to the stronghold and to make it better and better with fancy furnitures. Fancy stuff will pop-up in his store time by time. Upgrading a stronghold will take 2 weeks
Special Chars: unique characters will visit the stronghold granting new quests or asking for something from time to time [i.e. a special vendor with a unique stock, a unique QG and so on]
GAMEPLAY
We've put in a few important quality of life improvements, following your suggestions on our Discord server. We've worked on quests and the very good news is that we've finally put in all the contents we wanted, having more than 150 quests in place, now in their final shape with their final rewards. We've implemented the last 25 missing rewards today and there is just a bunch left still giving out money only [that were placeholders to let quests work]. This is a very important thing, because many players will notice big changes in their inventory as with everything in place, we've been finally able to determine the [almost] final level of rarity of each item. This means that what you see now is coherent with quests and tasks you can find all around Plamen and even if stats are not matching the real value/fancyness of the item/weapon, this will happen soon with the second part of the update. Moreover, we've added a new tracking sys with a cursor showing the direction for your tracked quesst [if any] that will be visible in the infobox of cities and places on the map.
As we said, saves are still working but we suggest to start over a new char to check what is changed and enjoy what is in now. We've even given a first pass to Grand Masters, changing their rewards. Not still working 100% but now they grant cool items basically lowering all cooldowns and in the future, they'll grant extra bonuses for the skillset linked to the respec of choice. Durability and repair costs have been iterated once again. Repair now costs 15% of the item value while selling an item to a merchant, will grant 40% of the item value to the player. Workbench have been iterated as well, considering the work done on all the items in-game. Repairing will be cheaper and workbench have been reworked accordingly.
ECONOMY
This is probably way more important than anything else at the mo. We've iterated every single item in-game, adjusting numbers a bit but working on in-game values to start. Doing like this is a bit weird, but for a number of reasons we're forced to do this kind of work to balance things properly. So, as we already said, this first round was mostly to align available rewards and avaialble items with a ratio, focusing on the progression of all systems together blending the proper way. Prices have been generally lowered and made consistent even if you are going to find items that will be still higher/lower in terms of stats, with the proposed value/rarity.
This will be fixed in the second round, but you can already see improvements around, making the whole thing way more coherent. Consumables, weapons, shields, armors, trinkets, belts, rings, cloaks: everything has had a first rework and even if we've tested things a bit, this week will be useful to gather feeds and data for the future updates. As usual, don't panic if something seems broken: we can revert and even if we'll be out for GamesCom and the team is going to take a break, we'll be available for emergencies.
NEXT
We are leaving for Germany today, have a great week! We have 50+ meetings for Alaloth and we hope to come back with enough info to be able to draft the long term plan heading to the full release. A few publishers would like to jump-in, investors are asking about our future projects and we are in the middle of a huge puzzle, trying to find the best way to solve it. Considering our past experiences and the actual situation, we'll be very careful with the next steps. The game is doing well, feeds are cool and we feel, now more than ever, to have something unique to push here. So no rushes and we'll keep you posted as usual [we realized just yesterday how many updates & patches we've sent out in one month and how many channels we handle real time trying to answer to every single question we receive...]. Happy to confirm that we are completely aligned with the roadmap we've shared and we'll probably be able to speed-up things in September, with the things scheduled [M&K anyone?].
CHANGELOG
Strongholds are here! [with 7 achievements]
New quest available Venomous Strike
Overviews are now shown in a frame, supporting all resolutions the proper way
A new pop-up shows now the total required cost when repairing the equipment
Quest icons in World Map are now bigger
Active quests titles and their statuses are now shown in the locations' info boxes on the World Map
A new marker has been implemented on your pawn, to show you the right direction to the tracked quest [when possilbe]
First round of iteration for global economy has been done. More than 700 items checked
Quest Woe of a Stubborn can be completed as intended
Quest A Whole New World had a typo in one of the characters name, now fixed, and its update notifications are now properly shown after each step completion
Lesser Cloak of Vigor can now be equipped properly, showing the right cloak model on you character
Quest The Hunt has been fixed and now do fails when conditions occurr
Quest Imperial Intolerance makers have been fixed and now the quest is doable as intended
Grand Masters' rewards have been iterated and are now more powerful and unique. More on the way
In Thilaris a Quest Giver, not showing the proper 3D model, is now fixed
Some POIs names in Codex have been fixed, as many other typos around. Proof in progress
Blacksmith showing doubled blueprints in Winterleaf has been fixed
VFX and SFX for eating/drinking actions are now shown in Inventory view, making it more clear when you eat/drink something directly from that UI, out of the FA
The Citadel overpaint and navmesh have been improved, some unwanted obstacles to the player navigation have now been removed
The Harbingers have been iterated to have more challenging fights
Hashak overpaint has been iterated and improved [do you see the arena?]
Timelines in strongholds have been improved
Quest Troubles of a Merchant removes QI correctly when completed
Frostsong has now its icon and card properly displayed
Quests The Wold Rider, The Woods Keeper, Condemned, Accused, Exiled, have now their markers correctly displayed
A Northern Voyage interactable item is no longer interactable during combat, as intended
Bosses Xamoth and Drag'Drimin aren't spawning anymore if their FA has been already claimed by anyone, as intended
Quest Nature's Keepsake reward is now as intended [showing 3 rings of the same kind]
A few 1H weapons showing wrong assets in size, have been fixed
Quest Lost on the Frozen Trail interactable in Silvermoor is now properly working
Quests A Lovely Gift and Queen of the Dead have now their day/night indicators properly shown in World Map
Cosmetic improvements on almost every in-game environment
Unity updated to a new stable version allowing us to put in custom tool to get useful data for balancing and iterations. Small issues could pop-up despite the intensive testing sessions before the switch. Just be sure of send over dumps if weird things happen
Dhara’Ahzim codex entry now works properly
Leaping Strike attack making the player ‘bounce-back’ when used on a wide enemy now works properly
Shaba-Ku quests’ order switched (House of Orphans, Baga’s Shame, Mirrored Vanities)
Brewdall Family Crest Quest dialogue is now fixed
See-through outlines of players when behind some NPC now fixed
Warlord skills not working properly with an unarmed char now fixed
Polearms are now correctly held with both hands while in fighting stance
Pad now works properly when remapping mouse & keyboard
North-East corridor navmesh in Stonechair now fixed [behind Xamoth]
Spawn point and irregula navmesh in Rot Finger now fixed
Tentative fix of the cage’s glitch in Black Heart deployed
Just a quick update to inform you that we are pretty confident about releasing the major update with strongholds before leaving for GamesCom. We initially targeted the end of the month to release it but you know we are fast, and we are testing the feature right now so we'll hopefully be able to deliver next week. The update will come with a new round of balancing and misc improvements that will be detailed before the patch of course. Two more important info: we are going to release a new patch today or tomorrow too, because we are updating Unity to a new version right now. We were using an old version of the engine because it was super safe and we've waited for a new one with the same stability to make the move. Of course, even if we are testing everything right now, a few issues could occurr but in case, once again, don't panic. We are here to fix everything if needed. The new engine version is needed on our side to include a new set of tools to gather data and info that will be crucial in the next months, for balancing and improvements. We should be able to unveil a few community-related features as well, involving players on our Discord server. Anyone helping us with the development and contributing to the community itself, just helping others or simply contributing with your suggestions, will be rewarded with gifts and perks. More info to come! GamesCom will be pivotal for our future plans, so expect big news in September. While a couple of heroes will be in Cologne [Alberto and Giulia], the whole studio will take a short break the same week. This means that this will be probably the only week of the year in which the game will not be updated. We'll be available 24/7 as usual on our channels but the guys are going to recharge batteries after this super crazy summer in which everyone gave 110% for the EA launch. In case of emergency [catastrophic events or such], we'll find a way to fix as usual so, no worries anyway.
Fixed a bug breaking all the items in FA when trying to revive companions in a coop run. The issue caused interactable objects to be no more interactable, forcing a restart to leave the FA
Deity Codex entries will now be unlocked correctly, as intended, depending on the chosen deity selected while creating a new character
Heater Shield’s size has been reduced to the proper one
Black Heart, Cleaverocks, Brystead Lookout walkable areas have been improved, fixing navmesh and colliders blocking the player
Repair costs of all items have been lowered [from 0.70% to 0.30% of the item value for a full broken item]
Misc typos have been fixed [General Vendors and Traits in the tutorial, misc in-game notifications related to artifacts and events, quests and dialogues, misc Codex entries]. Proofreading in progress
"Home Under the Mountain" quest in Karak-Hohn [Reputation Quest] has been changed: The Lord of The Mountain [Armor] has been switched with King of The Mountain [Axe] as intended
Durability of all in-game items has been iterated and all the values have been increased
All the Armor Sets actually available in-game have been iterated, showing now the right value for rarity and brand new resistance. Prices are still WIP as the general balancing of wereables and usable items
It's a rainy Sunday here and we would like to drop a super quick note about the latest hotfix released on Friday. As you know, we are super fast with bug fixing and this is the most important thing we've considered when we started thinking about the long term plans for the game. We've released 10+ patches so far and i think nobody in the world can say a thing about our availability here or on our social, trying to solve as much problems as possible when they pop-up. We are proud of the work done, and we would say that we've always pushed the EA launch as something different from the usual EA launches. We don't have a vertical slice of the product to iterate, we have a fully playable product that needs to be iterated, polished and balanced to became what we had in mind since the very beginning. No game breaking bugs, no crashes, solid builds: we can say that all of this is real and again, proud of this and happy to know that players appreciated it. By the way, all of this does not mean that we have done with the development of course. We've updated the game trying to keep game saves safe everytime [and we'll continue like this], we've updated the game testing stuff on our internal branch and we've updated the game keeping in mind what we said above. A solid build to play is a must for us, and this is not going to change, but it's important to remind that development is a pain and sometime we can't simply know what is going to happen with the implementation of new features. The last patch was basically built around a first round of economy balancing that will be completed tomorrow. Two weeks ago we've put in the revive for companions. Yesterday we've receveid a few messages complaining about both things so it was worth claryfing once again what's going to happen next.
The revive feature was working fine when patched. We've worked on the feature this week too, and apparently the last update caused some regression. A few players experienced crashes or have been forced to restart the game trying to revive companions or trying to interact with them once gone. Crashes or no chances to interact with items/loot chests in FA, are directly connected to this, we are going to fix this tomorrow. The other economy-related issue is the one about repair costs and durability. We've increased durability for items on Friday, we are going to release the [almost] final iteration tomorrow. Repair costs will be lowered [by now, they are lower than the costs we had at release] and a first bunch of items will get their real in-game value. Remember that is never about a single feature but we are talking about connected systems. The problem with the repair cost is that the value of the items is still wrong and super high, compared to the money available in loots, quests and so on [even because right now, the sellling price for items have been decreased and we've iterated loots and rewards as well]. In both cases and for future patches, please, don't panic :) . "The game is broken" or "The last patch destroyed everthing" or stuff like that is non sense now, because bugs can happen at this stage, even if we had no significant tech issues since launch. And we are aware in real time of things gone wrong in case. Regression is pretty normal, we usually talk about what we do before and after a patch note and we build and fix at speed of light. Our idea was to update twice per week when possible but to avoid issues like this, we are probably going to patch on Thursday instead of Friday, to avoid scary weekends like this and let you play safe. Thank you for the support as usual, Major Update on the way soon! Have a great Sunday!
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