Our December content patch has arrived, bringing with it a festive new Undermarket storyline and a visit from Mother Winter herself!
A Winter’s Crest Carol
Taverns that aligned themselves with the Undermarket instead of the Fantastical Crimes Unit will receive a special holiday mission to fake a haunting of elderly miser Jebediah Scrunge and trick him into giving away all his money to undercover Undermarket agents.
Jebediah is no fool, however, and tricking him will require the help of a powerful hallucinogen called the Waking Nightmare, which you should take special care in handling, lest you accidentally break the vial and dose yourselves instead.
Avoid dosing yourselves and convince Jebediah Scrunge of the errors of his ways to unlock up to four powerful new pieces of gear, including a Peanut Brittle Dagger and Chestnuts of Roasting!
Undermarket-affiliated taverns will receive this mission along with all the previous winter-themed content around Day 45.
Mother Winter’s Wild Ride!
Your tavern has been invited to compete in Beor’s craziest and most violent holiday tradition, Mother Winter’s Wild Ride.
Maneuvering her gift-laden death chariot pulled by a dozen dire moose, the matron of winter attempts to complete three laps of the snowy arena. If the heroes are able to unseat her from her sleigh, they’ll get to keep her whip along with earning an invitation to the Winter’s Brawl (coming next patch)! And any presents that fall from the chariot belong to the heroes, succeed or fail.
For this year’s Wild Ride, the role of Mother Winter will be played by orc warlord Mafalda Marrowsucker, a name that will sound mighty familiar to players who follow the backstories of their heroes. Mafalda is the mother of Grusilla, and killed five of Gru’s six sisters after being cursed to one day die at the hands of her daughter. Mafalda also annihilated Grunson Wolfspawn’s entire clan and kept him a caged prisoner for eight years.
Sending either of those heroes on the quest will result in a very different storyline, as they will be much more concerned with exacting revenge than winning any contest.
Five new pieces of festive loot are up for grabs in this holiday event, including a snowball cannon and my personal favorite new item… the Longbow of the Red Ryder.
All taverns, regardless of faction affiliation, will receive this quest around day 45.
A Nasty Narrative Bug Has Been Squashed!
In the process of testing the new content, we uncovered (and murdered in brutal fashion) a bug that had been causing a wide range of minor narrative issues for years. One of our string commands was zigging when it should have zagged, creating a situation where our engine would sometimes produce the wrong value on global variables.
This one little fix instantly corrected a host of small issues. This bug most recently manifested in last month’s food critic quest, where sometimes the system would say you earned a different number of stars than you actually did. That’s no longer the case.
Most excitingly, this fix unlocks a bunch of content that was already implemented, but wasn’t previously accessible. Tzarina Darkmane, Ursul Mangleclaw, Jenetta Lionheart and the famous bard, Szolem, are all now unlockable through the Frozen Games and a whole new style of road encounter now works properly for the first time. A few of many examples…
The Magic Seeds
You may have encountered a random stage where a hero is suckered into purchasing “magic seeds” from a street vendor. There’s now a whole storyline that will advance one step every additional time you trigger this encounter while having the hero present who purchased the seeds. Over the span of weeks, you’ll now see that hero planting the seeds and receiving a variety of powerful benefits from the plant that emerges.
Don’t Push the Button
That random encounter with a giant button marked DO NOT PUSH! now properly functions. The game will remember who pushed the button, and certain NPCs and factions will treat the button pusher differently because of it.
The Guy Trapped Under the Rock
There’s a whole storyline attached to that hiker you find trapped under a rock. Now, if you fail to save him, it kicks off a series of events that unfold each time you encounter that stage. You’ll eventually run across his remains and potentially find an item that launches a special quest.
Pastor Hartigan
In the bug territory, you may have passed Pastor Hartigan leading her flock to safety. That meeting now properly kicks off a storyline where she later returns to help in the fight and you can randomly encounter her multiple times. Whether that tale is one of triumph or tragedy depends on your actions.
All the Bug Dungeons
There were certain situations in some of our more complicated recent dungeons where some branches didn’t unlock properly. That is no longer the case. This includes some special events, like the medal count in the Frozen Games and the battle(s) against Waspzilla.
What’s Up Next?
Successfully completing Mother Winter’s Wild Ride will earn your tavern an invitation to the Winter’s Brawl, where four of your heroes will do battle with rival taverns and guilds in an icy stadium loaded with deadly obstacles. That event will be coming in our next patch, along with a bunch of inter-character relationship storylines that play out on the road.
Grunson was kept prisoner for years by Grusilla’s mother and will instantly hate her just because she’s a Marrowsucker. Sending them out together may result in them working through their differences and becoming friends... or one could straight-up murder the other.
Gurg once hired Dugorim to try to kill Braysen, and Katris has tossed Braysen in the clink a couple times. Expect to see relationships playing out and evolving on the road when you send characters with overlapping backstories out in the same party.
Do you have ideas for special events or loot that you want to see in Epic Tavern? We want to hear from you!
The Epic Tavern team streams every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern), and we have open voice chats with players every Tuesday and Thursday on Discord (http://discord.gg/epictavern).
Mondays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Story talk with Tomo and Shawn on Twitch Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Wednesdays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Let’s Play Epic Tavern on Twitch Thursdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Fridays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Dev stream with Memige on Twitch
The Harvest Patch is live!
Greetings once again, brave heroes!
Our November content patch offers up three new potential menu items for your tavern, just in time for a visit from famous bard and local food critic, Szolem. Unlock a fabulous new food item, then impress the bard to earn the tavern a four-star rating and a boost in popularity!
New Grub!
Mammoth Burgers: Szolem is known to enjoy a good burger, but taking down a frost mammoth is no small feat. The heroes will have their work cut out for them in a sprawling multi-stage battle. Assemble your party carefully, as fire mages, necromancers, illusionists and nature-magic practitioners will each approach the encounter in very different ways... and having a combat healer present can mean the difference between life and death. First aid won’t save a hero impaled by a mammoth tusk.
Hellhound Ribs: Woo the visiting bard with a heaping order of Hellhound Ribs, but first you’ll need to trek into the Nethercap Mountains to find the lair of a cranky mama hellhound and her pups. Survive that multi-stage scrap and receive a tavern dish that conveniently comes pre-heated. You may want to leave the fire mage home for this one.
Murderbloom Salad: A failed magical experiment bestowed sentience to all the plants at the once-majestic Savage Gardens, now abandoned and overrun by nature. The heroes hatch a plan to humanely capture a murderbloom mother plant that can be stored at nearby Harper Farms, using its discarded leaves to add a cruelty-free new item to the menu. Szolem once wrote a sonnet about a dwarf who was swallowed whole by a murderbloom plant, so it’s known that he has a soft spot for this delicacy.
The Food Critic
There’s more to earning a four-star review than just unlocking a fancy new menu item. You’ll need to get the tavern in ship-shape, impress the bard during an interview, and then provide sterling service to earn top honors. If you make a mess of things, fear not. The publisher’s office is nearby. A late-night break-in to make a few creative changes to the review before it goes to print may be able to salvage the day!
The food critic storyline begins around turn 25. If your tavern is already past that point, it’ll pop up for you within a day or two and the quests all scale to the average level of your current roster.
Blood Magic in Beor?!?
Is one of the healers on your roster a secret practitioner of blood magic? There are now a few situations (with more to come) in the game where if a hero sustains a lethal wound in the presence of someone with the Combat Healing skill, that healer may take extraordinary measures to save them, unlocking a dark secret.
This is an example of one of our favorite new narrative toys, creating storylines that attach themselves to whichever character triggers them. We don’t know which of your healers is the blood-magic user, only that there is one and only one. Your gameplay determines who it is. That character will become a central player in our future blood-magic quests, as will the hero who was saved from a certain death. The ferryman was denied its passenger to the afterlife and will not rest until that debt is settled.
What’s Up Next?
Upon emerging from my food coma, I’ll start cranking away on the big storyline for December’s content patch. The Undermarket hires the heroes to fake a Christmas Carol-style haunting in order to con a rich old guy into giving away all his money (to them).
Have an idea for special winter loot you want to see in the next content patch? We want to hear from you!
The Epic Tavern team streams every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern), and we have open voice chats with players every Tuesday and Thursday on Discord (http://discord.gg/epictavern).
Mondays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Story talk with Tomo and Shawn on Twitch Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Wednesdays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Let’s Play Epic Tavern on Twitch Thursdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Fridays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Dev stream with Memige on Twitch
Crossover Eve Haunted Loot Event Live Now!
Happy Halloween From Epic Tavern!
It’s that time of year again to slap on your costumes, snatch up a candy bucket and loot your neighborhood politely ask your neighbors for treats.
In celebration of our favorite season, we’re launching our very first Crossover Eve Haunted Loot Event! Here’s how it works...
The Challenge
We’ve selected 13 of our favorite horror quests and added a unique, limited-time reward to each. Successfully complete any of these quests during the event (Oct. 29-Nov. 24) and you’ll score yourself bonus spooky goodies!
The Quests (and Loot)
Murder Most Fowl: The tavern’s chef, Hans Hellwig, has been found brutally murdered. Investigate the crime during our event to unlock a new menu item, Spookhetti and Meatballs!
The Flaming Gate: Complete this epic quest chain investigating the last ride and fall of the Ravinger Four to unlock the most valuable food item in the game, Archdeviled Eggs!
The Curse of Blackheart Manor: Survive a night at the haunted manor to unlock a seasonal favorite, Pumpkin Spice Lager.
Late to the Funeral: What’s a party to do when a corpse just won’t stay dead? Solve this conundrum and receive the Scythe of the Reaper, one of very few items in the game that bestows the necromancy skill upon any wielder.
It’s All In Your Head: Ignatius Mordred wants the Lost MacGuffin of Beor for his shop, Morbid Curiosities. Survive the four trials of the MacGuffin and receive the powerfully enchanted Gnarled Broomstick!
The Lost Menagerie: Visit the mysterious carnival and find a way to rescue Isabella Soleil, and you’ll receive a Lost Menagerie Snow Globe!
Return to Blackheart Manor/No Rest for the Wicked: Pay another trip to the haunted manor and lay to rest the remains of Bridgette Blackheart and Raven Stormswept to receive a Pumpkinhead Helmet!
Six Feet Under: What seemed a simple task to clear out a couple overgrown bugs leads to potential disaster when the heroes find themselves trapped in the bug tunnels beneath Millston. Destroy the nest and save the town to receive Bug-Eyed Goggles that greatly boost perception and dungeoneering skills.
Ant Misbehavin’: The bug war heats up when the heroes visit Orthisalis and find the once-bustling fishing village is a ghost town. Rescue the local residents and destroy the Ant Queen to receive the always stylish Spiderweb Leggings.
No Good Deed: An attempt to rescue a young prisoner goes thoroughly off the rails when the heroes discover too late that sweet little Melody is a vampire princess. Team up with legendary vampire hunter Hans Velsing to dust the murderous tyke and you’ll earn yourself a Black Cat Brooch!
Curses!: Ignatius Mordred’s shop, Morbid Curiosities, is destroyed by a supernatural storm, scattering cursed artifacts everywhere. Race against witch Silvaria Thornheart to recover the artifacts, then take her down to receive your very own Candy Bucket!
The Dark Rift: A salvage mission for a sunken ship in a raging storm, a rival group of explorers trying to sabotage your every move, an interdimensional breach deep beneath Beor Bay from which mysterious rift elves have emerged, and a hearty dose of experimental magic. What could go wrong? Survive this ill-fated adventure and you’ll receive Beorian Tales of Terror, a sure bet for keeping your heroes entertained around the campfire!
The Deadman’s Easel: When the events from a series of violent paintings come true, the heroes must investigate the mysterious painter, Lucius, and avoid becoming his next subject. Snuff out this threat and the Deadman’s Easel is all yours!
New Horror Quests!
The Fantastical Crimes Unit has two new missions available. Taverns that aligned with the FCU instead of the Undermarket and that have completed the mission Curse of the Swamp Witch will now receive a pair of extremely dangerous quests perfect for adventurous heroes in search of a horrifying challenge.
What Lies Beneath: Wererats have been spotted in the sewers under Beor. Accompany the FCU’s Redshirt Brigade on a mission to clear out the threat and discover the hard way that there are dangers far greater than wererats lurking below.
In Your Dreams: An assassin is executing Fantastical Crimes Unit upper brass by entering their dreams and killing them as they sleep. After three days without rest, FCU commander Daria Stonemaw hatches a desperate plan. All it will take is four heroes willing to enter her nightmares and battle against an Undermarket assassin in the dream realm. Any volunteers?
We’re also cooking up a special, food-themed event for you folks next month. Have a dish you want to see in Epic Tavern? We want to hear from you!
The Epic Tavern team streams every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern), and we have open voice chats with players every Tuesday and Thursday on Discord (http://discord.gg/epictavern).
Mondays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Story talk with Tomo and Shawn on Twitch Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Wednesdays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Let’s Play Epic Tavern on Twitch Thursdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Fridays, 4-5 p.m. EST: Dev stream with Memige on Twitch
Our latest patch (1105) brings with it a horde of fixes, improvements and new content/features. You can find an itemized list at the bottom of this update, but here’s a quick overview of some of the new things we’re excited about…
Loot Chests!
No, not the crappy kind that ruin games so companies can squeeze more money out of you. These are the awesome kind that you find in-game for free and then open when you get back to your tavern for bonus gold and loot. Chests come in four ranks (Dull, Common, Rare, Epic), each of which have four possible levels. More dangerous quests provide higher caliber loot chests.
Name Your Own Heroes!
While some character names are hard-coded, the majority of patrons in your tavern can now be renamed at the moment of hire! In this first incarnation of the feature, it’s still easy to miss. A pop-up screen appears when you hire a hero. There’s a button on it that lets you rename any character whose name isn’t hard-coded. We’ll make this easier to spot in future builds, but it is up and working, so we wanted to make the feature available to you folks ASAP. Much like our random tavern name generator, we have a random character name generator you can access by clicking the little yellow dice above the name fields.
Equipment Refactor!
Every item in the game has been refactored. Hundreds of items have had descriptions added and every item has had its effects tuned. There is also now a consistent item naming system. If an item has Rugged in the description, it will always improve Mountaineering, etc.
Required Characters/Shared Personal Quests
I’m all kinds of psyched about this one. We now have the ability to require certain characters on a quest. This opens the doors to one of my favorite new things, shared personal quests. You may have noticed that many of the tavern regulars have overlapping backstories. Now, once you get to know two heroes who have a history and unlock all their bio strings, a shared personal quest may pop up, where both heroes are required on a quest to resolve some issue in their past.
Murgul Flametongue and Gurg Stoutbelly once belonged to the ill-fated adventuring group The Companions. Fully uncover the backstory of these two heroes to unlock Those We Left Behind, where they return to the maze of Xyris the Minotaur Queen and attempt to recover the remains of their former traveling companions.
Custom Character Refactor!
Every custom character has been retooled, punched up, and now starts with at least one piece of unique gear that reinforces their backstory.
New Level-Up Screen
Leveling up heroes is a cause for celebration and our old way of treating level-ups like just another summons wasn’t doing the moment justice. Now, at the start of each turn, you’ll get a special screen where you train every hero who has earned an advancement.
Widespread Rewrites over the first six weeks of gameplay
Much of our early-game content was written before we had the ridiculous assortment of narrative tools now available to us, and it felt a bit sparse and outdated compared to our newer stories. So many of those early quests have been revamped, and their rewards spruced up a bit. The same is true of Personal Quests. Expect to see more of this in the next couple patches.
New Prologue encounter and follow-up quests!
We’ve started swapping out some of the prologue encounters we don’t love with ones we do. One of the new random encounters available has the Ravinger Four encounter a sanitarium in flames. Save them and the insane illusionist Zeddicus Gnash will become a major crime lord in the ensuing decade that you’ll need to deal with. Fail to save them and you’ll be sent to investigate the nuthouse ruins, haunted by a collection of dangerously insane ghosts.
Netherling on a String
Your Netherling on a String toy (acquired through the quest chain The Tinker’s Damned) has gone rogue and it somehow knows every hero’s darkest secret. If a hero has it equipped when leaving the tavern, it will occasionally target another hero in the party and taunt them about the most painful moment of their life. With more than 30 personalized taunts depending on which other heroes are present, this toy promises to be an entertaining, if sometimes demoralizing, addition to any adventuring party.
We’re currently cranking away on a special event that’ll be launching before month’s end. We’ll have new scary quests to play and special limited-time rewards for completing classic Epic Tavern horror quests during the event. More info on that front coming next week!
Full(ish) list of improvements in our current build 1105...
New:
Loot Chests! You will now find treasure chests (Dull, Common, Rare, and Epic) in your travels and open them upon returning to the tavern
Adventurers now have a personal gold stash and associated wealth rank. Quests can now branch based on the wealth rank of heroes in your party.
New Level Up Flow allows all Adventurers who are ready to be leveled up to do so at the start of the turn.
Required Characters! If a quest revolves around a particular character, you are now required to have that hero in your party to launch the quest
Shared Personal Quests! Getting to know heroes with overlapping backstories may unlock quests where both characters are required
New Quest Chain: Those We Left Behind
New Prologue Encounter: The Burning Sanitarium
New Quest Chain: Still Crazy After All These Years
New Quest Chain: The Haunted Nuthouse
Hunger now causes increased Spirit drain (10% extra drain per hunger rank 1 - 4, which creates a max drain rate of 80% per day)
Deaths and Incapacitations in your Hero party are now called out in a unified event pop up to ensure you don't miss these key events.
Decorated death types have been introduced. Deaths can now come in a variety of flavors, all controllable via the Narrative engine, and all FULLY MODDABLE. In Streaming Assets you can find the new DeathTypes JSON file which lets you designate your own custom death events.
Expanded tooltip functionality to support "live" updates while visible
Added live tooltip for hunger/starvation UI
Added live tooltip for health and spirit bars
Added tooltip for spirit drain indicator
Added support for changing the MOTD on ET's News Server
Hooked trophies up to trophy placement system
Enabled Decor button to launch trophy placement system
Enabled mount point click to launch trophy placement system
Tavern trophies: Setup for trophy scroll list
Rewrites/punch-up/reward tuning done on most early-game quests
Improved:
Equipment Overhaul…
-Equipment now has a rarity rating and can be awarded randomly by category
-Every item in the game has had its effects refactored and a consistent naming system has been implemented. Items with Rugged in the name will always improve Mountaineering, etc.
-Descriptions added to several hundred items
Rewards adjusted for several hundred quests/encounters to better match the text description
All personal quests have been punched up
Refactored all custom characters, tuning their abilities and giving each at least one custom piece of gear to start
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Is There A Doctor in the House?
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: A Sore for Sight Eyes
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Rub A Dub Pub
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Murder Most Fowl
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: The One Who Got Away
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Nuts!
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: In Plain Sight
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: The Tinker’s Damned
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: The Good, the Bad, and [TAVERNNAME]
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Six Feet Under
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Ant Misbehavin’
Quest chain rewrites/tuning: Sometimes Dead Is Better
Loot Divvy screen refactored
Rebalanced Starting Gold funds to ensure new patrons can afford their first round of drinks
Summons Icons and the Drink Chain Widget can now be clicked on directly to activate rather than requiring the player to click directly on the character
Maximum items in a chest is now linked to the Grade of the chest
Hunger UI has been redesigned
Starvation UI has been redesigned
VFX added for hunger gain event
Wound and fatigue effects are now dynamically calculated and appended to the effect list at the time it is referenced, eliminating the need to track them in the main effect list
Legacy wound and fatigue effects (non-dynamically generated) are now removed from the characters' effects lists upon startup
Fixes
Passed Out is functional again
Achievement Fixes: Passed Out, Quests!, Greedy Boss, Trickle Down Theory, Charitable Owner, Team Appreciation, and Perfectionist are now obtainable
Corrected hang that could occur if you were logged into Steam but without a connection
A new Drink Chain Combo failure state "Sold Out!" has been added for if you run out of stock during a chain
Corrected race condition during party assignment that would lead to a soft lock
Tavern Facilities can now be purchased after the turn they become available
A parsing error in Narrative Token EQUIPID has been resolved, allowing stages that use it to display and function correctly
Menu has been updated to properly support 16x10 resolutions
Sold Out Messaging no longer remains after the Drink chain in which it occurred.
Corrected an error in Loot Chest Grade table the resulted in far too many Epic Chests
Hunger and starvation tracking is restored, and now integrated with passage of time of day
Spirit drains while traveling as per design (40% per day by default)
Refactored wound and fatigue states, consolidating them with the effects system so they are driven by presence of relevant effects
Hunger UI now disappears during event action phase
Hunger UI now initializes properly in all contexts
Parties that have already attempted their quest objective and are returning home can no longer "abandon" their quest.
Increased nutrition value of rations to reduce required supplies quantity and mitigate excessive quest costs
Negative Gold Totals will no longer cause the Loot Divvy screen to freeze the game
Added missing line return in Quest Complete rewards Details list
Corrected logic error which allowed Incapacitated heroes to be assigned to a quest if they were in a facility
Corrected calculation error that increased Epic Loot Chest occurrence
Corrected Error that resulted in a one turn delay after a character leveled up before the player was allowed to allocate skill points
Hunger is now initialized to 0 for all party members when departing the tavern
Text edits to Level Up panel
Corrected scene errors in Tavern and Pulled New narrative Data
Corrected pronoun form in one of the incapacitation strings
Demoralized added to Bathhouse Treatable ailments
Required Character exploit has been fixed, preventing heroes who are not on your roster, or incapacitated from being added to a Quest
Hotfix for 1090 - LogOut Button fails
Broken Levelup Prefab has been Restored
Levelup properly saves skill point assignments
Drinkchain Tutorial flow now functions following Grunson and Murgul's Level Up on Turn 3
Increased starting stock of Mead from 20 to 40 to prevent running out before it's possible to order more.
Party displaying as wiped out when there are still surviving members has been fixed
Spirit decay during travel has been reactivated
Base Natural heal rate has been reduced for all adventurers
Fixed trophy placement system bugs
Trophy system: Trophy now reverts to default when it is unmounted
Corrected several situations which were allowing Adventurers to change into invalid states
Fixed several Narrative and procedural-based rewards that were either not displaying or not being given to the party
Token parsing errors preventing gold rewards in some cases has been fixed
Token parsing error preventing narrative deaths has been fixed
Bug which prevented narrative rewards granted in the resolution text from correctly displaying has been fixed
Corrected error in Tag assignment for Characters
Corrected serialization error in Loot Chests
Hang with Loot Chest serialization corrected
HP, SP, Skill, and effect changes display in Stage results again
Do you have suggestions on how we can make Epic Tavern even more, well, epic? We want to hear from you!
The Epic Tavern team is streaming every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern), and we have open voice chats with players every Tuesday and Thursday on Discord (http://discord.gg/epictavern). Stop on by and let us know what features you want in your epic tavern.
Mondays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Story talk with Tomo and Shawn on Twitch Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Wednesdays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Let’s Play Epic Tavern on Twitch Thursdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Fridays, 4-5 p.m. EST: Dev stream with Memige on Twitch
Epic Tavern with IGDA on Twitch Today 3:30-4pm PDT!
We're going to be hanging out with IGDA today and chatting about Epic Tavern, Drop by and hang out with us!
https://www.twitch.tv/igda
Tavern Scrawl #58: Patch Notes and a Look Ahead
Our new patch is LIVE and ready for your next great adventure. Full patch notes are at the bottom of this announcement, but here’s a quick overview of the new improvements and a peek at what’s on tap for your next patch.
Tavern Improvements!
The tavern layout has changed, with a new floorplan that makes better use of the space. Dishes will also now pile up on tables as you serve patrons, and can optionally be cleared away with a click for a bit of bonus tavern reputation. As you get deeper into the game, you’ll notice bigger crowds in your tavern and we’ve also squashed a bug that was causing unlocked heroes to go AWOL if you didn’t recruit them the first time they stop in.
Facility Improvements!
We’ve retooled the recovery rates for the infirmary and bath house and made it so any Mood or Psychosis effect makes you eligible for the bathhouse. We’ve also eliminated a bug that could cause fully healed adventurers to milk their recovery by hanging out in the infirmary until you manually removed them. Now they’ll properly get the boot when they’re ready for action.
Adventuring Bugs Squashed!
We’ve revised your quest list and added tooltips to make it easier than ever to track your past and current adventures, as well as made a host of stability improvements to questing. A Peek at What’s Next: Relationships and Required Heroes!
One of the most exciting changes we’re busy working on for the next patch is a complete overhaul to the way a hero’s relationships evolve, both with their fellow heroes and the tavern itself. We have a bunch of new tools that will allow us to make every success bring heroes closer together and every failure drive them apart. Encounters where heroes squabble on the road will no longer just be flavor text. Every interaction will affect their relationships, for better or worse.
We’ll also now have the ability to require a particular character on a quest. If it’s Murgul’s personal quest, you can’t launch it unless she’s in the party. With that comes a change in approach to how you unlock characters. In early builds of the game, heroes you encountered in your travels were pretty much always open to joining your roster. If you met them, you got to recruit them. No longer. Heroes will have to be won over and convinced to join your roster through successful completion of their quests. Fail, and they’ll sign on with a rival. The central idea being that the heroes of one playthrough can be the villains of the next.
If in recent builds, you’ve encountered Odessa Dauntless or Bengar Skullsplitter in the prologue and failed to save them, you know that they’ll turn up later as monstrous versions of their former selves that will have to be dealt with. Example below...
Success: ____________________ Failure:
Emilia Mortalis and Grusilla Marrowsucker will be joining the infamous assassin, Carver, as the next two heroes who can become villains if you fail to recruit them. Without the guidance of the tavern, Emilia falls further into her obsession with reanimating animals, which was cute when she was making zombie rats. Around the time she starts creating vampire bears, you’ll have a real problem on your hands.
And an unrecruited Grusilla will now return to the Badlands and attempt to seize control of the Marrowsucker Clan from her murderous mother, Mafalda. Will Gru become a tyrant even more dangerous than her mother and what will that mean for the tavern? Can her sister, Gurda, help bring Grusilla back from the brink of madness? Stay tuned...
We Want to Hear from You!
The Epic Tavern team is streaming every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern), and we have open voice chats with players every Tuesday and Thursday on Discord (http://discord.gg/epictavern). Stop on by and let us know what features you want in your epic tavern.
Mondays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Story talk with Tomo and Shawn on Twitch Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Wednesdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev stream with Memige on Twitch Thursdays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. EST: Dev chat with Tomo and Shawn on Discord Fridays, 7-8 p.m. EST: Design stream with Tomo on Twitch
In these trying times, we hope a return trip to the land of Beor for a fun bit of escapism will be just what the doctor ordered. Stay safe and happy adventures, friends.
Monday 4/20 Livestream!
Hey, all!
Shawn, Tomo, and I are going live right now! We are anticipating the release of our latest patch, this week, and wanted to go over some of what you can expect. Jump in! ːwinter2019joyfultearsyulː
http://twitch.tv/epictavern
We'd love to hear your questions & requests, and to just say hi to you!
/Rich
Tavern Scrawl #57: New Unstable testing build!
Greetings, brave heroes!
We are cooking up a tasty new patch for you folks that is now playable on our Unstable testing branch and will be coming soon to taverns everywhere. (Instructions on how to access the Unstable branch are at the bottom of this update.)
We’ll post full patch notes when the Stable branch goes live, but here’s a quick peek at some of the things we’re excited about…
Bug fixes, big and small
Most notably, a rare but nasty bug that could cause taverns to hang has been squashed, re-animated by Emilia Mortalis and then squashed again for good measure. May it rest in pieces.
Bus those tables (or don’t)!
You’ll notice that cups and plates will now accumulate on tables as you serve patrons. While you can ignore them and leave the work for the kobold cleaning crew, clicking on dishes to remove them will gain you a bit of free reputation for your tavern, allowing you to more quickly expand the size of your roster.
Unlocked heroes stick around longer
Previously, heroes that you unlocked in your adventures were a bit too skittish and sometimes went MIA if you didn’t recruit them on their first trip to the tavern. This could result in your missing out on some of the coolest characters in the game. You can now rest easy. If you fail to recruit a hero the first time they stop in, they’ll come back every few days.
Hero Relationships!
We’re rolling out the first piece of a new system where heroes will grow to like, or dislike, other heroes based on the results of their travels. Success brings characters closer, while repeated failures can drive them apart. If a hero rolls Excellent or better in an encounter that would have otherwise failed, all their companions will love them for it. On the flip side, a Disastrous roll that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory will damage their relationships. If an encounter has two heroes squabbling on the road, it could now adversely affect their relationship. Did your healer save your assassin from certain death? That will bring them closer together. In future posts, I’ll babble about some of the cool things we can do now that we’re tracking every character’s opinion of every other character, but below is a fun example I ran into while testing today.
In the tavern, heroes will now sit with their friends. If you have a party of four you always send out together and they are generally successful, you’ll notice they now often share a table. And characters who are unknown or disliked will end up on their own. Which led to this moment, when the infamous assassin, Carver, stopped in for a visit to The Drunken Boar.
If saved by the Ravinger Four in the prologue, Carver tries to turn a new leaf and lead a better life, but he’s one of the most famous killers in Beor. No one likes him and everyone fears him. So when he visits the tavern, our new system knows he has no relationships with anyone and procedurally creates a floor plan (above) that matches his backstory. Packed tavern, but he’s sitting alone by the door, with his back to the wall and not another person within 15 feet of him. An appropriate first appearance for a notorious killer.
Don’t feel too bad for Carver, though. If you recruit him and send him out on quests, he’ll begin forming bonds and will take his place at the cool kid tables once they get to know him.
How to access the Unstable testing build
1. Go to your Steam Library 2. Right-Click Epic Tavern 3. Select Properties 4. Click the Betas tab at the top of the pop-up window 5. Click the drop-down arrow and select Unstable - Public Test Tavern
Disclaimer: Unstable testing builds can be, well, unstable. If you’ll be using a beloved tavern in the test build, we recommend creating a backup of your save file, just in case.
From your friends at the tavern, stay safe out there (or in there, as the case may be)!
Dev Stream for 3/25/2020 at 4pm Pacific
Today's Dev Stream will be a special session where Eric, Rich, and myself talk about the good old days at Treyarch when we worked on "Spider-Man 2: The Game" from 2004. We'll share stories of the development and our thought process in its design. Catch us at https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern at 4pm Pacific time!!
Tavern Scrawl #56: Patch update!
Greetings, adventurers!
We are super happy to bring you our newest patch update!
TL;DR:
Prologue Refactor!
Our writer, Shawn, is currently in the middle of a sweeping refactor of the prologue encounters to make their results have more of a lasting impact on the world of Beor. The first wave of changes are now playable in our new patch! In addition to fine-tuning many of the existing stages, there are two new quest chains that can be unlocked in the prologue:
“Sometimes Dead Is Better”
For some time, failing the squire stage in the prologue resulted in Merrick Ravinger re-animating the fallen squire, Odessa Dauntless, to continue fighting. That used to be the end of the story. Now, not so much. During the decade following The Battle of Mountain Fall, Odessa grew into a powerful vampiric knight who now threatens the region and must be dealt with.
“Bengar Netherkin”
Bengar Skullsplitter has long been unlockable as a playable character in the prologue, but failing to save him will now result in the famous weaponmaster being transformed into a horrific monster by the netherkin. A decade later, it’s up to you to finish what the Ravinger Four started and put down the creature once known as Bengar Skullsplitter.
New Compound Encounters!
In your travels, you’ll encounter an increasing number of multi-part encounters with our latest batch of compound encounters.
These new encounters place a particular focus on ranged combat, so now some battles will kick off with a volley of ranged attacks before the fighting gets up close and personal. There are also opportunities to avoid encounters entirely or reverse an ambush through a successful perception check. And there are new massive random encounters, including…
“The Siege of Smiling Acre Farms”
When the heroes happen upon an idyllic farm swarmed by a slavering horde of zombies, it’ll take every skill in their arsenal to deal with the horde and its creator while attempting to save as many members as possible of the besieged family. Your actions will determine the fate of Smiling Acre Farms and decide whether future encounters at the farm are cause for celebration (providing a range of buffs) or a painful reminder of past failure.
Seasonal Encounters!
Shawn has devised a system for determining what season it is based on your turn number. Random encounters should now accurately reflect the time of year! Does your crew have what it takes to survive getting caught in a multi-stage blizzard?
Lots of Quest and Stage Fine-Tuning.
Shawn has made minor adjustments to dozens and dozens of encounters, fine-tuning their effects, rewards and text to make everything just a little more epic.
More details on the contents of this patch to follow!
Discord: The official Epic Tavern Discord server is the best place to chat with fellow players throughout the week. Share stories, swap strategies, and stay up-to-date on development news. It’s also where you can report technical issues, bugs, or contact us. Join the Discord server here! [http://www.discord.gg/epictavern] We have live dev chats every Tuesday and Thursday at 4pm PDT.
Twitch: Want a peek behind the tavern doors? We host an Epic Tavern development stream every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 PM PT. Stop by to chat and see what the Epic Tavern team is brewing on Twitch! [http://www.twitch.tv/epictavern]. You can also check out our replays on our YouTube channel! [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaPRzQK69HwZ7Oiw1FFsoog/]
From everyone here at the Tavern,
CHEERS!
New:
- Added FX to gold/rep changes for served drinks/chains - Integrated FX for gold/rep gain and removal, upon relevant UI button clicks and patron interactions - Serve combo FX are delayed until post-combo UI cleanup - Created/added coin gain and removal sound FX for coin VFX event - Created/added rep gain and removal sound FX for rep VFX event - Added GameActions tab to SkillsTraitsEffects sheet - Restructured Skillspecials to specify type (GameAction or PassiveBonus) with refID from relevant tab - Created GameAction class, integrated with DB - Redesigned party dashboard - Added quest progress indicator with built-in key stage result indicator - Food supply is now messaged by a 5-step non-interactive color-coded slider - Time of day is now messaged by a decorative slider (not yet integrated) - Added dashboard callouts for leaving/entering the tavern - Improved Travel dashboard callout - Added dashboard callout for intermediate UX flow between selecting party action and confirming/interacting - Available party actions are bound to partyData; currently only Rest is functional - Rest action is now functional with log-embedded "pop-up" - Created adventure action list item for dynamic population - Redesigned and consolidated quest info area to upper right - Added placeholder log for quest warnings, events, etc - Supplies widget is now a 5-step color coded interactive slider in stylistic keeping with the dashboard - Supplies steps now correspond to one of five tiers that correlate to specific supply amounts (and therefore cost) dependent on party size and distance - Laid some groundwork for character skill specials as related to Game Actions - Integrated questecution notifictions (quest status report on lower right). Status messages now display for: hero becomes hungry, hero begins starving, hero is no longer starving, quest objective completion/failure, party departing/returning, making/breaking camp, heading back after key stage, quest abandoned (turn back), party enters new zone, start of afternoon and evening - Added minor local randomized variation to hunger accumulation for each party member (evens out in the long run, does not affect system) - Seasonal encounters! - New quests! - New compound encounters!
Improved:
- Updated/integrated design for effect list item, facility slot, and checkin projection list items - Duration indicated by time dial/disc - Persistent effects (ie. sepsis, infection) display infinite symbol over time dial - Turn Popup: Updated returning adventurer list item to accommodate design changes - Updated effects tooltip formatting to accommodate design changes - Added UI messaging for incapacitated party members during travel and events - Quest and stage fine-tuning
Fixes:
- Added tooltips for hunger WIP - Adjusted text boundaries for Early Access Notification on Landing - Quest supplies increment/decrement buttons now work properly - HP and SP are now clamped on the low end to 0 -Corrected string command issue causing hang on Scent of a Wom-Ant -Corrected data issue causing strange behavior from some Make Camp/Break Camp stages - Equip slot "empty" buttons are enabled as necessary during tutorial - Corrected string command issue on Make Camp stage 1089 - Quest log item background indentations have been fixed - Questecution music is now set to loop - Removed debug line from PrologueFadeSequencer that was interrupting the starting tavern music track - Fixed null ref error on existing Break Camp stage instances that have no spirit gains - Fixed questecution null ref related to stage gains that was causing a Make/Break loop - Added safety check to avoid negative party temp movement points in TokenParser, as well as in property getter/setter - Changed "Close Range" stage subtype name to "Melee" - First stage on return leg no longer triggers instantly after key stage (key stage event was resetting the intermediate stage spacer) - Camera focus offset has been adjusted to prevent quest details from overlapping the avatar stage results icons - Various fixes to return stage flag not being properly set - Return stage quest log item formatting is now correct - Party dashboard: Supplies slider now refreshes upon food consumption, The pause button no longer briefly displays at the start of questecution, Ration buttons no longer disable after one click, Ration buttons become disabled when supplies run out, Ration buttons become disabled when supplies run out, Party Options button is now hidden on depart and return stages - Break Camp loop fixed: Quests with bad return stages are now automatically cleaned up and a new return stage generated, with log warnings so we know when it happens in the future - Debug log cleanup - Fixed stage node serialization depth limit warning - Fixed error related to legacy parties lacking Adventure Actions - Multiple fixes to avatar creation, destination flag display and cleanup - Quest destination flags now display a glowing success or fail icon, dependent on quest status - Underway quests: day of week info populates correctly - Underway quests: time disc displays night time mode when not in questecution (party is camping) - [Optimization] Quicker quest log display: quest log item elements for expanded view are not processed until the quest log item is clicked/expanded - Fixed some null ref race conditions causing camera focus errors on the map - Completed quests: quest debrief is now visible when viewing - Fixed a party portrait FX null ref - Added an editor menu item to clean the cache - Redesigned quest marker mouseover pop-up, added more quest info - Fixes to portrait level/effect callouts for completed and underway quests - Available quests: upon scene load, avatars and paths are pre-generated and hidden until quest selected - Fixed inconsistent quest marker mouseover behavior - Added dashboard callouts/replacements for quests underway and returned - All non-quest stages are now generated on the fly, including Break Camp and Tavern Return (no more tracking of curNodeIndex) - Hunger and starvation stacks integrated - Rations now have a default nutrition value (5) that dictates how much hunger is removed per ration - Ration buttons work properly, dashboard updates on change, ration buttons deactivate when rations depleted - Ration buttons message number of rations consumed per click (hero's desired meal size based on their hunger capacity) - Fixed some errors related to party Rest action - Time of day slider now updates/inits properly - Time of day text readout now displays properly - party avatar pathfinding initialization fixed, questecution is functional again - Fixed break camp stage generation bug that would cause multiple break camps to get created for continuing quests - Notification Manager: Implemented checks to distinguish Questecution notifications from Tavern notifications (avoiding resultant errors) - Added a keyStage flag to the stageContainer class - Notification Manager: Implemented checks to distinguish Questecution notifications from Tavern notifications (avoiding resultant errors) - Added a keyStage flag to the stageContainer class - No-travel quests no longer bog down/hang the game - Successive quests within a single day no longer break the game at "Set Forth" - New questecution report items now appear at the top of the list - Various updates to quest supplies processing that bring it in line with the new UX for Underway and Archived quests - The 8th stage of the prologue no longer infinitely loops - Prologue progress slider now functions - Prologue time of day indicator now works (party is ensured to arrive before end of day) - Added safeguards against starvation for The Ravinger Four - Questecution status report: no longer reports tavern departure as arrival - Questecution status report: now correctly announces it is morning at start of day - The Party Rest action is now disabled for the prologue - Party slot ration buttons are now disabled for the Prologue, with tooltip - Hunger rate variability is more noticeable - updated DB files, and a P4Connect orphan - Questecution: stage generation no longer skips quest stages at the destination that precede the key stage (fixes prologue end stages) - Fixed tutorial blocker that occurred upon clicking first patron in tutorial - Party assignment: clickability is restored to Pending quests so assigned parties can be changed - Tavern management hub is no longer invisible (positioned off screen - apparently this is something nobody else was experiencing) - Fixed out of range error related to legacy return stage code - Fixed broken questecution status messages for Prologue quest - Eliminated quest base cost (trial run) - Tavern: Fixed intermittent disappearance of management hub at top of turn - Removed placeholder Wounded effect from returning adventurer list item - Displaying completed quests no longer sets archived party members to AVAILABLE status - Refactored handling of stage node execution and fixed various bugs related to broken parties (less than two characters), procedural zone stage selection - Quest status report: fixed buggy day phase notifications - Quest resolution pop-up: Epic moment and quest debrief now display properly - Restored stage trigger functionality - Fixed adventurer tooltip XP formatting - Stage trigger tags are no longer visible in stage results - Stage trigger tags no longer show up in the setup (fixes non-challenge events) - Procedural XP rewards for non-challenge stages are no longer zeroed out - All procedural XP rewards now have a small random variance - Tavern Quest List/New Quest Pop-up: quest reward list now displays tavern expansions/upgrades and currency rewards (gold/rep/XP) - Reward scroll list "none" indicator is now hidden when list is populated - Temp removal of mood effects as they're not fully supported for the upcoming patch - Stage triggered events at quest destination no longer skip intermediate triggers - Stage triggers now allow for any combination of triggered stages and sequenced nodes - Fixed race condition that could null a stage triggered via setup - First travel stage of Stomp! in a newly started tavern no longer displays the Set Forth travel option - Questecution: Turn Back now works again
