ESPERIA V1.2 - New Game Mode (Randomized) & New UI
Version 1.2 is here!
Be ready because there are a lot of things to cover! For old players, please stick to the end as the last part might be important for you!
New Difficulty mode - Randomized
A new difficulty mode has been introduced, if you play a new game in this difficulty, all the enemies will have a random class, equipment and skills (except for key characters). This means you can face a dragon while trying to rout some bandits, or discover that the head of the group of stealthy assassin suddenly became an armored knight with the Seduction skill.
This mode, by definition, isn't really balanced, but I find it quite fun to play! It's probably a good option if you want to replay the game (or who knows, even stream it!).
If it's well received, we may add a mode randomizing the player units as well in the future.
UI and Graphic changes
New Unit Menu and Deploy menu -The old menu that was taking the entire screen has been replaced by a menu displayed on the two sides of the screen. It's more beautiful, and more practical. Usable weapons and the bonus from relationships are also all visible in the menu, you don't need to switch pages to see them. -These changes apply to deploy menu as well, the menu now includes Battle stats and Relations (absent before) -Character portraits have been replaced by full illustrations on the menus.
New Battle preview -We have a new battle preview that is displayed on the side of the screen to free the map. It also includes skills and current states.
New character arts -New art for Governor Melphis and the basic Mediana/Rebel Soldiers. They have been implemented in the story. -New 'shadow' arts have been assigned to all units on the map, to fill the new menus.
Map changes -The famous black bars have been replaced by a background. I hope you like it. -Unit menu and terrain information is now fixed outside of the map. -Units area of attack don't go outside of the battle window anymore.
Gameplay changes
Weapon ranks -The weapon rank system has been removed. This was a hard choice, but I noticed the weapon rank system was slowing down the game a bit (by roughly half a second on enemy phase, usually not noticable but visible on map with high number of enemies) and it also had a very small impact on the gameplay, actually. The use of powerful item is already controlled by durability, and rare/high rank equipment are introduced gradually as the story progresses anyway so there is no real need to add another layer of control here. It could also be a bit frustrating with some unit starting at low rank like Sara with E-rank in magic or Elphin with E-rank in charms. The colors on weapon icon are still there, as they are a good way to judge the rarity/power of a weapon. Items that boost weapon ranks are not sold anymore, if you have one already, it has been changed to an item that gives you a skill linked to that weapon type instead.
Necromancy -Nina's Necromancy skill has been reworked, it works on all maps now, and you can choose where you deploy the skeleton around her.
Steal -Objects stolen by the enemies can now be taken back by defeating them -Artifacts cannot be stolen anymore! This allowed for a big gold exploit where you could steal all the artifacts the enemies had and sell them. -A new command « Steal Gold » has been introduced for Marie. She needs to be equipped with the Steal skill and it can be used two times per map. Also, the player gets gold in the base on Chapter 10 and 17 now, and initial amount has been increased by 500. -Steal is not dependent on speed anymore (if a thief was faster than Marie he could steal an object and she was unable to take it back, for instance. Now she can).
Other fixes -Corrected performance issues in Ch11-11x and 18. Chapter 11 was especially bad, I'm surprised no one reported it. It took over 3 seconds to load enemy's movements (partly because of weapon ranks, the neutral faction, the sheer number of enemies and calculating enemy's AoE magic). It's a bit over 1 second now. -Artifacts are now different from items, that means the 'Silence' state (from the 'Mutism' orb magic) will only prevents magic and artifacts use (it prevented item use before). -A bug where two « Artifacts » command appear has been solved.
As always if you see any bug or weird behaviour from the game, don't hesitate to post it in the community! I would be glad if you can leave a review on the store too! The demo will be updated later today to match all these changes.
With best witches,
PS: FOR OLD PLAYERS (before June) : If you have a save that was done inside of a map (ex: at turn 10, turn 5 etc...) the map is already loaded with old parameters. This means that the new UI cannot be put outside of map boundaries during this chapter. Since this major update change the Unit menu, you will be unable to see detailed battle stats and items when you right click on a unit on said map (they're still accessible via item menu, however. Battle preview is fine, too). It only last during this map, but it can be inconvenient, so if you want, you have the possibility to switch to the old UI by using what Steam call a game branch, to finish the chapter, and then come back to the main branch. I will put an article in the community to explain this, you can then switch back to the new version whenever you want by changing branch again. This concerns all the saves done during a map prior to May 31st. Normal saves at the base, end of chapters or deploy menu are not concerned.
Small fixes
Hello, this update fixes a couple of issues :
-Some tiles were wrongly positioned in Chapter 11, so even if the door was broken, it wouldn't open. -Text in the epilogue was displaying on the center of the image on top of characters skins, making it hard to read. -Some minor map adjustement on quests
Esperia V1.1.9 -Map changes in preparation for V1.2
Hello!
This update main purpose is changing map sizes in preparation for the next main update, here are the main changes : -The 'size' of all maps has been changed, however, the game area itself didn't, which means you probably won't notice the difference, except on very big maps that now have 'black bars' on their left and right, too. The reason for this change is because all that empty space on each side of most maps was unused. Now, the black parts on each side will welcome the terrain description, as well as part of the menu and objective screen, freeing the view of the current map. -None of these changes apply to maps already loaded. Basically, if you saved *during* a map, that map won't be changed and you still have the useless black bars that can't welcome any UI (this is linked to the 'important' note below). -While I was at it, I changed Ch3 and 4 maps a bit. The game area itself didn't change much, so it's played almost the exact same but there was a lot of unused space in both of them. I will update the demo later this week to match these changes. I also recolored the red carpets in several chapters
IMPORTANT - There will be a displaying issue on your old saves if you saved during a map or in the "preparatory" screen. I couldn't fix that (yet). Don't panic, once you load everything is normal and it will disappear if you just save again. It's just that the save system kept the previous coordinates and tries to apply them to the 'new' map. So you will see the usual red and blue dots in weird positions, but nothing has changed on your save, since it will either load the 'old' map with old coordinates (saved at turn X) or in case of a save in the preparatory screen, load the new map during the opening event.
Other fixes: -Minor fixes in script in several parts of the game. -Astrid and Sara relationship also triggered the Elphin-Astrid relation bonus (on Elphin's side). -A chest wasn't marked as open in Close Bonds II, even after being opened -Helen's info was wrongly displayed in Extra even if the player hadn't met her.
Esperia V1.1.8 -New illustrations
Hello there! This is a rather small update with graphical changes.
New : -Fullbody illustrations have been added for the "Dragon Knight" and "Assassins" NPC units in the story. We will try to add some other illustrations like that in the future. -There was a minor rewriting of the ending scenes in Prolog and Chapter 4 as it could be hard to follow what happened. -It was actually in the last update but I forgot to mention it : objective screen is now visible at all time when you open menu on the map.
Fixes : -On Hard mode, if Alex was equipped with a short sword and had no or weak level up, he could "lose" the fight against the enemy in the arena in Chapter 3. This has been fixed.
Mouse control on fullscreen has been set up on default, the way the game goes fullscreen should look a bit different now, butyou can use your mouse! If you encounter an issue please mention it in the community! (But there shouldn't be any)
A major update is in works for V1.2, stay tuned! As always, if you like the game consider dropping a review or simply talk about it to people you know!
Esperia V1.1.7 - QoL update
Hello everyone!
Today we have an important update: lot of new QoL and improvements and some minor fixes.
-Unit info on the map is now more detailed! We added a detailed unit info on the map, before you only had the HP, level and xp of the characters when you were hovering on them, now you can have the main battle stats and equipped weapon. This will avoid perpetually opening and closing the unit menu to see detailed stats. You can change how much details you want in the config menu, if you pick "M" as a size it's close to the old layout (by default it's on XL, the highest detail). -Unit markers have been added on the map. When you select one of your units to move, a small icon will appear on top of others units if : *You can talk to this unit with this character (you don't need to put yout unit right next to it to see) *You have a relationship with this unit (to help position your units and benefit from the bonus) *The enemy unit has a weapon effective against your unit or a high critical rate (at least 20%) -All animations should be smoother now, as they have more frames. I tested all classes/types but if you notice something odd, please write about it in the bug section. -The "Info" command on base has been removed as it wasn't used.
Fixes : -Some animations were glitching after an indirect attack (general and mercenary). Paladin indirect attack has been reworked. -The last image was still unlocked even after reaching the end of the game. -Valmer and the Dark Howl appeared too close to the player on Chapter 5. Especially Valmer. This is a bug as their original position was changed when the map was made bigger.
This week, Esperia is 20% off to celebrate the two-months since launch! It's a good time if one of your friend wants to try it!
Esperia V1.1.6 - Small fixes and graphic changes
Hello everyone,
This update fixes a couple of bugs and bring minor graphic changes :
Fixes : -Diana and Marius A-rank bond was disabled, probably the unfortunate result of a test. It should appear if you have unlocked it now. -Alex and Nina C-rank bond wasn't properly triggering, which means the bonus wasn't active and B-rank bond was locked as a result. This is fixed, B-rank will temporarily grant back the C-rank effects once you've read it. -"Close Bonds II" quest was actually leading to Close Bonds I map, and thus, could be replayed with no limit. This has been fixed, it now leads to the right map.
Graphic: -The map sprites of several characters have been modified and/or recolored: Nina (necromancer), Sylvie (marksman), Sara (bishop), Elphin (sage), Linus (dragon knight) and Melvis. -The White and Dark dragons now have corresponding colors in battle.
I will keep the mouse control on the test branch for a bit, but so far it didn't seem to have prevented anyone from playing, so this will probably be live in one of the next updates!
Esperia V1.1.5 - Balancing, small fixes and mouse control?
Hello everyone, this update aims at fixing some issues and change balancing, please read it to the end!
Balancing : -We added swords and spears effective against armor units: "rapier" and "shock lance". Generals were especially hard to kill with full hp, so this should level up the field a bit. We also added a chest containing a rapier in the Governor house in Ch4 that will help against the boss in Ch5. -The 4th character quest with Disguised Truth has been rebalanced, with a small increase in Elphin's tome durability, reinforcements have D instead of C rank weapons and the boss B instead of A. Rewards for defeating him is now a A-rank charm.
Fixes : -The "Berserk" class skill was giving a bonus of +8 in STR/SKL/SPD instead of +4! It was giving the right +4 bonus but triggered twice... How were you guys even dealing with enemy berserkers in hard mode...? -On Chapter 11(a), two villages had the same events (dialogs and items) -On Chapter 10, some units had a lv10 class skill despite not being lvl 10 and reinforcement didn't have it despite being lv10. -We extended ch2 map by 1 tile so that the mouse icon isn't covered anymore when trying to save/load. -Not really a fix, but Nina in Necromancer finally has a better personal sprite and her Occultist motion has slightly change as well to welcome Alice. I'll probably make it better in the future.
New Control : -We added a new control called "Details" in the game control option. It is by default linked to "shift" key. This allows you to read the extra content on some support magic where it's written 1/3 (for instance, Heresy or Salamander)
Mouse use on Fullscreen : -This is an issue I still didn't solve entirely, you will see no change in the default version, however, I put a "test" version in a branch of the game that has this functionality. If you do a right click on the game in your library and go to Properties, you can click on "Beta" and opt-in in a test version. This won't affect your saves, you can switch from default to beta when you want, this beta version has the mouse control in Fullscreen. It works fine on my end, but it uses hardware instead of software to call the fullscreen, so I didn't put it in the normal branch yet as it might cause conflict with some hardwares (not to mention Steam Deck, can't try it there either...). I would be glad if some of you (especially those who wanted mouse control ^^) could give it a try and report in the community tab. If there is no issue, I will probably push it in the default branch afterwards.
Thank you for reading, hope you keep enjoying the game and as always, think about leaving a review!
Esperia V-1.1.4 - New quest maps
Hello!
We added two new quest maps available after chapter 15 : another Gold Rush and another Close Bonds map, it's the same map but with a different layout and obviously stronger enemies. This should help people struggling with gold and help improve some of the late game relationships.
Fixes : -Reduced the gold reward from Twin Swords quest from 10000 to 5000 golds. The bonus was too high compared to other quests, especially considering this map's other rewards. -Fixed an issue with Astrid-Sara A-rank relationship where the wrong scene was displayed. -Fixed a bug in the Knight of the Sun quest where opening the door gave a sword for absolutely no reason. -Also very minor editing in the text of that chapter.
Apparently the Steam Deck issue was solved last update! If you enjoyed the game, please consider leaving a review, it really helps!
Esperia V1.1.3 - Issues on Steam Deck and others
Hi everyone!
This update fixes several minor bugs and aims at solving the "Steam Deck text display" issue. Apparently, the text in dialogs and narration is cut for Steam Deck users, this update has a chance to solve this. I say "a chance" because I don't own a Steam Deck myself, for those who use one, please reply in the comments here or in the community if the problem is solved or if it hasn't changed. Other issues solved : -There was a problem with Sara and Nina relationship: C rank wasn't triggering properly (thus B was unavailable, as well as the usual bonus). This is solved, some of you might see both C and B ranks if you haven't read it yet (they have I and II in the name), in that case, please look at the first before ~ -Liliane and Diana A-rank relationship was wrongly displayed in the extra menu (honestly they're kinda A rank from the start, but they don't have a pairing ending here). -Nina's summons on her promoted class were classified as cavalry instead of undead. This solves some of the weird "summon on top left of the map" issue. A couple are still there, but working on it!
I'm reading all the comments in the community so don't hesitate to post there!
Esperia V1.1.2 - new fixes
Hello, this new update fixes some of the game bugs
-Characters who reached max bond level without triggering the conversation could get a pairing ending, which resulted in some characters having multiple pairing endings. It is fixed now. -Some relationship events were appearing too early, causing issues within the story -There was a graphical bug on Gustav and Sara relationship lvl 2 -Helen can now be promoted with the usual item (Class badge) -Xp granted has been reduced for some charms. -Some other fixes on dialogs/proofreading.
