Erannorth Reborn
Erannorth Chronicles alpha Playtest #2 is live!
The summer is in full swing and this post may not reach you in time, but if you are trapped in the city like me, and looking for something new to play the coming week, I have some good news :)
The second (alpha) playtest for Erannorth Chronicles is live (again) as we speak, and there are many cool destinations for your next vacation there! From the exotic desert of Jarakkal all the way to frozen steppes of Skarfjord.
If you had a chance to participate in the first playtest, just update or reinstall that same app.
Otherwise if you hadn't, but do want to try it out - you can find all the details in the article below.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1580800/view/3006700377646467020
Finally, if you haven't heard about Erannorth Chronicles before, I wouldn't blame you. It's a great opportunity to see what's about, especially if you enjoy Erannorth Reborn's sandbox mode.
So hopefully see you there! ;)
Erannorth Chronicles Playtest is now Available
Today I have some news about Erannorth Chronicles that some of you may find exciting. And since the title already spoiled them, let's get into the juicy bits.
But first, for those not familiar with the upcoming sequel, Chronicles continues the development from where Reborn stopped, but focusing now exclusively on the sandbox mode and a more seamless integration of the somewhat chaotic RPG experience ER offered.
Currently is in alpha and playable enough to guarantee a first round of playtesting for feedback and early bug catching. ;)
So, yes, you could be playing Erannorth Chronicles this very weekend.
All you have to do really is go to the store page and click on the request access button there. But before you do that Please keep reading the entire post...
Before I tell you the how (or the why not), let's see what's in:
Currently there 2 playable species Human & Ulniir and 6 playable classes (Mercenary, Shadow, Mystic, Hunter, Witch & Acolyte) each with many different classifications & specializations, to try different combinations. The 7 organizations you could join in Reborn, about 2075 Cards, 176 Enemies and 30+ Challenges.
This in practice means two things: there is already more content to play and experiment with than the base version of Reborn had on release. And, that yes, you can experience and play the game from start to finish.
With a few caveats:
Lots of content is still placeholder or missing, most of the races and classes ain't there just yet, balance is of course all over the place, many other features are missing and there is no 'new player experience' or a tutorial whatsoever. This is as an unfinished, early alpha version as it can be.
So if you don't already know how to play Erannorth Reborn, or learning it, but find it still too complex, or never played the sandbox mode, or of course don't like 'playtesting for free unfinished games' - then you should ignore this playtest.
If you are just curious of how things look in Erannorth Chronicles, I have you covered here:
[previewyoutube="Nfa8EtHYjnI;full"]
This is a limited time access, to a very limited amount of players, for the sole purpose of play-testing an unfinished game, that you won't be owning in your library when this playtest is over and won't substitute the pleasure of playing a completed game or Erannorth Reborn.
So, if you are ok with play-testing unfinished games, feel brave, like to experiment, break stuff and characters, come up with insane combos, and of course want to actually help in the develpment of Erannorth Chronicles with feedback and bug reports, then you are the person I was hoping to see. ːsteamhappyː
By all means - now - go ahead and click the request access button! You can find in the store page below.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1580800/Erannorth_Chronicles/
At this point I can't tell you how many players I'll accept, or when I'll be accepting more, or how long the playtest version will be available. It will all depend on the amount of people, the feedback received, bug reports etc.
This playtest will be including a limited amount of players on a need by need basis.
But some of you will be playing starting today.
Please don't be upset if you end up not joining this playtest, there will be more opportunities in the future. And please don't take up the spot from someone else, if you are not actually interested in providing feedback or bug reports either on the Playtest's Steam forum or in our Discord server.
And that's all folks!
For more details on Erannorth Chronicles, you can follow and wishlist its page from the link above.
Minor Hotfix- v1.089.9
This minor hotfix fixes an issue that can occur with the area completion rewards if you skip a pick. Nothing game breaking, but still annoying as hell.
- In sandbox: Skipping a reward out of 2 in an area rewards screen, could in some cases prevent picking 2 rewards next time.
- Fixed a typo in Yzra'kzaz's Favored Amulet & Rune-inscribed Ring.
Minor Update - v1.089.8
This little update fixes a few minor bugs and changes 'synergy focus' to 'synergy draw' for more clarity.
- Bewitch & Freeze effects on Damaging cards will properly prevent breaking some of the status counters due to the damage dealt.
- 'Synergy Focus' will display as 'Synergy Draw'. (Modding-wise, it's still declared through 'SynergyFocus:x' for compatibility purposes.)
- Updated the Codex entry for Empower & removed some effects mentioned there, that it was no longer affecting.
- Dead Man's Coin will properly destroy 'Pirate' enemies that don't belong in the 'Pirate Coalition'.
- Zombie Pirate is now a proper 'Pirate' and was allowed to join the 'Pirate Coalition'
- Modding Addition: Added support for GreaterStun:x, GreaterFreeze:x & GreaterBewitch:x. You can use these along the matching effects to increase the damage threshold needed to break these statuses by x.
Community Modding Contest #4 is finished! Let's vote our favorite entries! ;)
Our 4th modding contest is now officially finished! Please leave the pencils and keyboards down, and let's congratulate everyone who took the time to participate and take the time to appreciate their efforts. Check out their mods, play with them, have fun - and of course vote for our 2 favorite mods among them. ːsteamhappyː
- Each player can vote (ːsteamthumbsupː) up to two entries in the comments below, till the clock hits Friday 18 June (Midnight/PST).
- You can (and should of course) vote for your mod. Or use any factors that are important to you decide your vote. It was something you were missing, it was fun, it shown great effort, support a friend, looks cool... all can be valid reasons, so follow your heart and ːsteamthumbsupː your favorites.
- Since entries 2 & 4 are both from the same author, I'll follow the usual contest ruling that only one of them can win, and take into account the one with the highest rank to determine the author's placement.
Modding Contest #4 entries
Listed in the order they were submitted:
1. Fantasy Portrait [Portraits]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2489110854
2. Best Female Avatar Pack Ever [Portraits]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2493386434
3. Crafting in the Overworld [Events/Locations]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2508548502
4. The Witcher [Archetypes/Class]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509630150
5. Kermit's Portrait Pack [Portraits]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509906548
6. Goblin Hordes [Archetypes/Race]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2515560657
Hotfix - v1.089.7
This small patch fixes a quite major issue in modes like Agent or Draft, that could make some cards not appear (not get properly filtered) in the deck builder. So it should solve the curious cases of the disappeared cards, not having enough cards to fill your 30 card deck etc. but if it doesn't or cause any unexpected behaviors let me know.
On the side I also added support for hi-res avatars (they still need to follow same ratio ie. 462x1150) because it was just a click and someone asked for it.
Minor Update - v1.089.6
This little update fixes a few minor bugs and also improves the render quality of the game fonts.
Misc Improvements
- Tweaked the font atlas & materials to improve their rendering quality and readability.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a visual glitch with certain auto-buffs not refreshing instantly.
- Equipping/Unequipping items will now force Town contents to refresh.
Erannorth Reborn - Modding Contest #4
With Summer around the corner and Erannorth Chronicles nowhere to be seen, what a better time for a modding contest? :D
How to participate
a) Create a brand new mod for Erannorth Reborn.
b) It has to be specifically designed for this contest. So no old mods please. I know all our Workshop mods by heart. ;)
c) Upload it in our Steam Workshop before 15 June 2021.
d) Post the link of your creation in our #modding-contest channel in discord.
The Prizes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1580800/Erannorth_Chronicles/
1st
- 3x keys for Erannorth Chronicles to share with your friends.
- The 'Modder' title in our Discord channel and a seat in the modding council.
2nd
- 2x keys for Erannorth Chronicles to share with a friend.
- The 'Modder' title in our Discord channel and a seat in the modding council.
3rd-10th
- 1x key for Erannorth Chronicles.
Who will be judging the entries?
Our Discord and Steam community.
What if (as usually) there aren't enough entries. Will you cancel the contest?
No. Our Discord and Steam community will still vote among the entries. ;)
Any entries with 3+ votes will qualify for the prize. At least 1 of these votes must be from the current modding council or me. You know, just to filter out fake or no effort mods.
Disclaimer
Erannorth Chronicles is still under development!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1580800/announcements/detail/3083253326003982516
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1580800/announcements/detail/4756342589041848998
At this point the Character Creator, the Overworld map, the new tooltip systems and hundreds other improvements already in place. But, on the other hand the content itself needs a lot of work.
Races, Classes, Perks, Enemies, Cards, Map locations, Challenges etc. at best need to be adapted or changed and at worse get recreated from scratch. So don't expect the game to be ready any time soon.
When I'll be able to use my key?
Your prize key will give you instant access to whichever test or beta build is available at the time.
So whether you decide to get in right away and help with the beta testing or just wait till the release to activate your key is entirely up to you.. ;)
And that's all folks!
Looking forward to see your creations!
Engine Optimizations and Bugfixes
The patch 1.089.4 is now live in the main branch, which I hope will make your Erannorth Reborn experience even better.
I also added a milestone branch 'legacy_1.088.8', for those who find that prefer better the old way of generating enemies and encounters. If you find any bugs or anything out of ordinary let me know ;)
You can find the relevant patch notes below.
On a side note, 'Erannorth Chronicles' page is live (a couple of days now) on Steam.
Don't mind the screenshots and page contents at this point, as they are from a very early stage in development. And are using placeholder content from Erannorth Reborn that may (or may not) be part of Chronicles.
You can wishlist or follow its Steam page below, if you want to follow the development. I will be posting any news related to that project there. Probably starting next month.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1580800/Erannorth_Chronicles/
Patch Notes - v1.089.4
Bugfixes
- Cards were displaying a minimum damage of 0-1 even when the actual damage range was 0-0. This could wrongfully appear higher if an amplify bonus was active. (Amplify doesn't boost 0 or negative damage.)
- Damage estimation algorithm was predicting less damage when Split or Imbue was involved. Split/Imbue value was getting substracted instead of the enemy resistance.
- Damage estimation algorithm wasn't taking into account the Amplify bonus that the player already had prior to casting, thus displaying a lower damage estimation.
- Sixth Sense will properly take into account cases where the enemies ability is in the last turn of a cooldown and it will be available to use once they act.
- Applying 'Inevitable Healing' to an enemy will properly prevent them from Healing
- Portrait Mods weren't initializing properly after patch 1.089.0
- Dungeon Entry tooltip's Enemy level estimation has properly a min value of 1.
- In certain cases Amplify bonus was displayed incorrectly in the Card text. (It was still dealt properly).
- Clicking while ModManager loading should no longer make the game unresponsive.
- After acquiring Desecrate and Consecrate boosting perks, these effects were reporting the wrong amount of damage. (The perks boost duration. Not Damage intensity.)
- 'Oak Skin' had 'Water' as element instead of 'Earth'
Misc Improvements/Changes
- Moved the 'Resume' slot to a more prominent spot. Should be impossible to miss.
- Split Damage will now appear directly in the card along with any relevant modifiers (amplify).
- While Imbue is active the Damage in cards in your hand will appear individually along with any relevant modifiers (amplify), as if every card had Split. Hovering over the enemy with that card will show you the total damage estimation.
- World Map areas will just display the Recommended level. Once in the area, the Dungeon Entry tooltip will display an accurate estimation of the Encounter level range in the area.
Enemy Database Optimization & related notes
- Deprecated Enemy variants setting.
- Enemy database is now populated on-demand rather than being pre-seeded.
- This should speed up loading times by
- a lot*.
- Enemy levels can scale to infinity (aka as high as an integer can get) since they are generated on demand.
- Encounters will have a bias to be as close to PC levels in Gauntlets and to the Area upper threshold in Sandbox.
- But since small fry tiers are also in the mix, enemy progression should feel smoother.
- Since now Enemies can be of any level, they must be at least Level 1 to create an Illusory Copy. The lowest resulting copy will count as level 0.
- Since now Enemies can be of any level, Enemies must be at least Level 2 to split through Multiply upon dying. The lowest resulting copy will count as level 0.
- Note to modders: The new spawn system allows to create enemies of a lower level than their defined Tier. Even negative or 0 level enemies. But it's not recommended, as it may have unforeseen results in their stats & resistances/weaknesses.
- Grinding & overleveling in Gauntlet modes will (still) scale up the enemy levels to match player, but now is capped at 2x the stage level (instead unlimited).
- i.e in Stage 3 as long as PC is level 3 (or less) they'll meet up to level 3 normal enemies (up to Stage). From level 3 to 6 enemies will match PC level (up to Stage x 2). After reaching level 6 the max level of a normal enemy PC can find in this stage will be capped at 6.
- i.e in Stage 9 as long as PC is level 9 (or less) they'll meet up to level 9 normal enemies (up to Stage). From levels 9 to 18 enemies will match PC level (up to Stage x 2). After reaching level 18 the max level of a normal enemy PC can find in this stage will be capped at 18. (instead of equal to PC level)
- The point of this scaling was (and still is) to discourage grind and instead motivate players to finish 9-Stage run around level 9-10. But if they
- want* to grind, they still get (eventually) that brief moment in the sun where PC can dominate the stage like before. (Before PC could do that because the DB would eventually run out of enemies. But now it can't run out of enemies as they are created on demand, therefore a cap had to be enforced.
Engine Optimizations and Bugfixes (in Development Branch)
It's been awhile!
As you probably know, my development efforts have been focused into the next Erannorth game, which has the official name "Erannorth Chronicles". Still in early development phase to talk much about it here, so for now let's talk a bit about Erannorth Reborn.
One of the things that particularly annoyed me about Erannorth Reborn, was the loading times, which is the inevitable result of pre-seeding the various databases, so that there won't be any loading screens as we play, but only when we start or restart the game.
The biggest overhead was coming from the Enemy database. If for example you had 800+ enemies in your database like I do, it could take a while to generate even 10 variations for each of them and eventually produce a database with 8.000 enemies. Up these variations to 20, and the engine needed to generate 16.000 enemies, dragging the loading times to the pits of Deimos Chasm and back.
In retrospect this was a very stupid approach, but since Erannorth was the first real project I undertook in Unity it was bound to have many such mistakes.
As I was upgrading the game engine for Chronicles, tackling with these loading times was one of my first priorities.
The obvious solution to that problem was to instead generate the enemy variants on demand. Then while looking up to the database for the enemies, if they didn't exist, create them on the fly and cache them in the database for the duration of the run. The end result was half the loading time, but this time for 'infinite' levels/variations of enemies.
But why would you care about something that will come in Erannorth Chronicles and God knows when?
Well, it was too cool to pass by. And since I had to make a bugfix patch anyway I backported this (and some additional optimizations) to Erannorth Reborn as well. So keep an eye for the upcoming patch 1.089.0, unless you are in the public 'Development Branch', in which case you already have it.
You can read more about the upcoming patch in the changelog below or try it right away by switching to the public development branch. If you do, and find any bugs, or balance issues in it, let me know ;)
Otherwise, I will be adding it to the main branch as early as next week.
Patch Notes - v1.089.0 (Development Branch)
Bugfixes
- Clicking while ModManager loading should no longer make the game unresponsive.
- After acquiring Desecrate and Consecrate boosting perks, these effects were reporting the wrong amount of damage. (The perks boost duration. Not Damage intensity.)
- Displayed card damage was inaccurate if Imbue or Split was active/part of the card.
- 'Oak Skin' had 'Water' as element instead of 'Earth'
Misc Improvements/Changes
- Moved the 'Resume' slot to a more prominent spot. Should be impossible to miss.
- Split Damage will now appear directly in the card along with any relevant modifiers (amplify)
- While Imbue is active or if a card has Imbue, Damage in cards in your hand will appear Splitted.
- World Map areas will just display the Recommended level
- The Dungeon Entry tooltip will display an accurate estimatation of the Encounter levels in the area.
Enemy Database Optimizations
- Deprecated Enemy variants setting.
- Enemy database is now populated on-demand rather than being pre-seeded.
- This should speed up loading times by
- a lot*.
- Enemy levels can scale to infinity (aka as high as an integer can get) since they are generated on demand.
- Encounters will have a bias to be as close to PC levels in Gauntlets and to the Area upper threshold in Sandbox.
- But since small fry tiers are also in the mix, enemy progression should feel smoother.