Today we’re releasing Update 0.7 that introduces a few new features and a variety of important balance changes & bug fixes. We’re laying important foundations for the next update, which will finally bring the new World Map. Oh and by the way: you can grab the game cheaper now with the -33% Weeklong deal!
Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:
City UI Rework
The City UI is by far one of the oldest pieces of the interface that we’ve had in the game. Today we’re ready to roll out the new and improved version that features cleaner design & a couple of changes. Make sure to visit some of the Temples - the word is that the Monks of Navaroth have learned to Inspire everyone who’s ready to donate coin for their cause.
The new cities feature a couple of new artworks that better resembles the local architecture, and we’ll be adding more unique features and art in the coming months.
Flee from Battle
In an ideal world a brave commander should never retreat on the battlefield. But reality can be tricky and so can be certain skirmishes, especially when the good of one’s people is concerned. We’ve implemented a new feature which allows you to flee from any combat scenario, provided you can get to the edges of the map. Note that it’s not exactly a Get Out of Jail Free card that you can keep using at all times - you’ll still suffer losses, but the upside is that you won’t die.
New Graphics Settings
Even though Glorious Companions is not that performance intensive of a game, we do want to provide an experience that the vast majority of people can run smoothly. We’ve added a bunch of sliders that control the density of in-game vegetation (that is: trees, grass and other non-gameplay elements) that you can use to customize the game to your liking. We recommend lowering some of them to increase performance on lower-end machines.
Brazilian Portuguese localization
We're excited to announce that both the store page and the game got localized into Brazilian Portugese with the help from @ZKuerten! Let us know if you find any errors or lacking translations ːlunar2020contentgoatː
Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!
Content:
City Panel rework - overhauled UI and improved functionality.
New feature: Flee From Battle.
Implemented Sound Effects for the new abilities.
Added settings for Vegetation (that can be used to improve the game's performance).
Added a new functionality in the Temple - now you can Inspire your units with the monks' help.
New Engineer's grenade models.
Balance:
Made the Gravity Trap invisible for enemies.
Increased the unit level limit.
Lowered the healing costs in the Temple.
Now units can't see past the Smoke Grenade's area of effect.
Increased the amount of quests available in cities.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
Fixed a bug that occured when swapping two-handed weapons between sets (reported by Zethrio).
Fixed a bug with the armor stats not updating when switching armor parts (reported by Zethrio).
Fixed a bug that occured when cancelling battlecrew changes.
Fixed a bug with refreshing stats in Battlecrew Manager.
Fixed a visual bug with Corpse Eater skill.
Added tooltips for gadgets.
Fixed a bug with Weasel ability.
Fixed a bug with Counterattack ability.
Fixed a bug that occured when you had too many status effects on one unit.
Fixed a bug with fog of war not reappearing at the spot where a unit died.
Fixed a lot of multiplayer bugs.
Fixed a bug that allowed users to interact with units after a battle ended.
Fixed a bug with the rotation tip staying on screen after a battle.
Fixed an animation bug when stopping on the World Map.
Fixed a bug with units taking damage from gadgets that were already destroyed.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze when some buffs were in play.
Fixed a bug with Blade Fury ability.
Fixed a bunch of issues connected to the Smoke Grenade skill.
Fixed a bug that allowed enemies to see some of the abilities being used in the fog of war.
Time Limited Statuses (such as wounds) are now displayed in the above-unit UI.
Tweaked a few ability FXs.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Development Update: Upcoming Patches
Hello there, Companions!
Today we’d like to share some news on how the development of Glorious Companions is going at the moment. There are currently two updates that we’re working on simultaneously and a bunch of upcoming features that we’re extremely excited about.
As for the medium-sized update that is nearing its release, it’ll be mostly packed with various bug fixes & tweaks. However, you’ll also get the chance to finally hear the lacking sound effects for all the new abilities we introduced in the last patch. On top of that, we’ve also prepared a new feature that allows you to flee from battles, at a cost of course, and it’s also scheduled to be released in the same patch!
The big update will take a longer while to finish up properly. We’re essentially working on a complete visual overhaul, both for the World Map and the battle scenes. With it, we hope to make the environment look more consistent and unique, and we’ll also be releasing a fresh soundtrack to fit with the new vibe. But the changes aren’t limited to only the visual side of the game - together with the 0.8 Update we’ll introduce new major gameplay mechanics. The most important one is the Dungeon System, where you’ll be able to take on new enemies and try to take down the big and ugly bosses guarding powerful artifacts in a series of challenging encounters.
We’re also working on major improvements to the equipment system. We want to introduce much more variety into the items that you see throughout the course of the game and thus we’re working on an item class system that will feature items of varying quality and stats. Of course it wouldn’t be a great rework without some visual upgrades, so we’ve also decided to overhaul all the old weapon models and to add a bunch of new items (and new item types) along with the update.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
New Ability System & Valrenay Visual Overhaul - Update 0.6
Hello there, Companions!
Today we’re releasing the Update 0.6 that introduces a completely reworked Ability System and a glorious Visual Overhaul for the Valrenay race among many other things. Other notable changes are the new Dialogue System and over 40 new abilities for you to choose from. We’re also putting the game on a -40% Weeklong Deal!
Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:
Valrenay Visual Overhaul
We weren’t quite happy with how the Valrenay race turned out in our first attempt. The main problem was that they didn’t look cohesive, but the design also seemed too modern on some of the units, not exactly the steam-punk vibe we’ve imagined for them. The other issue was with their armors that lacked detail.
For those reasons we’ve decided to redo the textures on the units themselves and on their armors. They now look like they actually are a part of one army, the details on their clothing and armors are greatly improved and they share a common color palette. We’ll eventually unify the designs of our Scarres too, in order to streamline the game’s art style.
Let us know if you like their brand new look!
Reworked Ability System & 40 New Abilities
The Ability System had a few problems of its own. The main offender was that it was hidden and we wouldn’t be surprised if some players didn’t even know that there were abilities in the game. The abilities have also cost precious Learning Points to unlock them and required you to leave your units stationed at cities for extended periods of time, which didn’t work well for the overall pacing of the game.
Now instead of teaching your units new skills at special training facilities, you unlock new Ability Tiers on certain level ups (levels 2, 5, 8, 12 and 16) and choose from 3 skills that are available on a given tier. Each unit still has its own Skill Tree, though they might now share a few abilities with other units.
Coupled with the changes to the Ability System itself, we’ve also added quite a lot of new skills into the game. The biggest beneficiaries of this were Valrenay Engineer, Scarre Warlord and Scarre Avenger. If you want to test out their new abilities without grinding for levels, try the Custom Battle mode!
New Dialogue System
We’ve finally got rid of the old ‘placeholder’ Dialogue Panel and implemented a proper Dialogue System into the game that comes with a brand new and shining Dialogue UI.
Most of the dialogue lines received some lifting and there are quite a few new dialogue options. For example, you can now pay the toll to the Bandits to avoid a fight with them, or trade an important piece of information to Shadows (if you have a high enough Intelligence stat) for a free passage.
However, the most important part in this is that the new Dialogue System opens up tons of options for us to design more immersive quests, interesting interactions with various NPCs and to actually implement the main storyline of Glorious Companions. And that is coming soon.
Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!
Content:
Valrenay Visual Overhaul - all Valrenay units received new, more consistent textures.
Reworked Ability System - now you learn new abilities in the Unit Panel, they don't cost Learning Points and Gold anymore.
Implemented the Abilities Tab in the Unit Panel.
Over 40 new abilities! - now each unit can have up to 5 abilities instead of 3.
New Dialogue System coupled with new UI and new dialogue lines & options. It'll allow us to expand on the storyline and add more interesting quests and interactions in the future updates.
Added an option to pay Bandits and Shadows to leave you be.
Added the Settings menu in the Esc Panel on the World Map.
Added a few new quests that can be obtained from NPC Lords.
Added new NPC portraits for the Dialogue System.
Balance:
Added ammo limits on ranged weapons.
Balanced ranged weapons stats according to their ammo limits.
Added a Grace Period after fighting with/running away from an enemy party.
Adjusted quest rewards.
Increased Gunner's Speed from 3 to 4.
Rebalanced some melee weapons and shields stats.
Made sure that the starting companion doesn't spawn with very negative traits.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
Limited the view range on the world map, so you won't see all the npc groups anymore.
Added camera auto-follow on the World Map.
Added highlighting the obstacles and units that block your Line of Sight to selected target.
Changed the World Map selection circle to align with terrain and adjust its size depending on the target.
Made the Interactive Objects of the same type not spawn next to each other.
Added mirroring of animations when a unit holds their weapon in their left hand.
Changed the Default Battlecrews in Custom Battles.
Fixed a bug with AI units attacking with ranged weapons from the Fog of War.
Fixed a bug with Camping First Aid not healing properly.
Fixed bugs with Power Drain and Furious Charge.
Fixed some bugs with wrong numbers displayed in the Attack tooltip.
Fixed a bug with Spiders not using their special ability.
Fixed a bug with wrong language displayed in the Settings.
Fixed a bug with Audio settings.
Fixed a bug with generating the same trait twice for a unit.
Fixed a bug with animation on an AI unit that left the Fog of War and re-entered it.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Summer Sale & Next Update Sneak Peek
Hello there, Companions!
We're happy to announce that you can buy Glorious Companions cheaper for the Steam Summer Sale's duration. While we're at it we wanted to show you some of the stuff from the upcoming update that we plan to release in July.
First of all, as you can see in the image above, we'll be releasing our visual overhaul of the Valrenay race. Our goal was to make them more consistent, so they all look like they're from the same faction. We also wanted them to fit better into the fantasy world of Navaroth, which the previous iteration hasn't quite achieved.
We decided to focus solely on the textures and not change the meshes, as that would require us to also update the animations, etc. (Though the Blade Dancers and Gunners will probably receive new Run and Idle animations ːwinter2019coolyulː)
Another big change that we're implementing is an actual Dialogue System that will enable us to create more meaningful and immersive quests. It should greatly improve the interactions with NPCs while making the whole world feel more alive and organic. Here's a rough WiP of the new dialogue window (of course the important stuff happens under the hood):
Those are only a few of the things that we've planned for the next update, so keep an eye out for the full changelog when the patch airs (or perhaps another devlog that'll go into more detail about the upcoming update).
Also consider leaving us a review if you like the updates that we keep pushing out, it matters a great deal to us! ːwinter2019happyyulː
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Fog of War Update (0.5) & Weeklong Deal
Hello there, Companions!
We’re excited to announce that we have a new, big update for you! It addresses a lot of the core problems with the gameplay, balance and progression in Glorious Companions. To make it even better we’re coupling it with a -33% Weeklong Deal!
Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:
Fog of War
We’ve finally added a feature that we had been planning to add since the very beginning. Fog of War will serve as a vital component in every battle. Our initial intention in making the battle maps as large as they were was to provide enough room for this mechanic, which requires you to move carefully through the battlefield in order to first scout your opponent. The night shall prove to be a bigger obstacle too, as all units now suffer from reduced vision range when the moon is out above.
It took longer than anticipated, but with the Fog of War system you’ll finally be able to put all your tactician skills to use.
Battle Win Conditions
We’ve read a lot of your feedback suggesting that the current win condition (killing the enemy captain) makes battles boring instead of exciting (which was our intention). After a few discussions we’ve decided that while this mechanic serves its role in a competitive multiplayer setting, it doesn’t work quite as well in a single player experience when playing against AI controlled enemies.
But we also didn’t want to completely get rid of it. From now on killing the enemy captain won’t end the battle, but instead it’ll substantially hinder enemy morale. First of all, death of the enemy captain will trigger a Fear check among the party and each unit will receive a slight debuff that’ll weaken its fighting capabilities. That way aiming to take down the enemy captain will still remain important to win the battle, and yet it should also make for a more fun and balanced gameplay.
Oh, and letting your own captain die will still trigger an instant defeat like it did so far.
Temporary Ability Learning Tweak
While we’re working on an overhaul of the Ability System, we wanted to implement a quick quality of life improvement into the game in this update. Till the next update is released you’ll be able to instantly learn your skills at Training Facilities (though the time will still pass while training) just like it was before for the captain unit. The training times were also significantly lowered. Of course you’ll still need the Learning Points and Gold, but you won’t have to say goodbye to your companions for multiple days each time you want to teach them a new ability.
Interactive Objects
We have a bunch of new and awesome illustrations for our Interactive Objects on the World Map. To spice things up we’ve decided to refresh the whole panel and implement some fancy fx on top. We’ve also added special sound effects for each of the interactives to convey the mood even better. Expect a lot more Interactive Objects in the game when the new World Map Update is finally released!
Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!
Content:
Fog of War in battles.
Changed the win conditions - now killing an enemy captain applies a debuff to their units instead of ending the battle.
Added Escape menu in battles.
Dynamic HP bars that hide and show up automatically.
Overhaul of the Interactive Object panel.
New Interactive Object illustrations and sound effects.
Sight range is shorter at night.
Added a confirmation popup on turn's end.
Added adjustable outlines on allied and enemy units in battle.
Added contextual tips / onboarding in battle.
Balance:
Tweaked the distribution of neutral enemy groups on the World Map.
Temporarily made all skill learning instantenous, units no longer have to stay at a training facility to learn them. (We'll be reworking this system in further updates.)
Rebalanced item prices as well as unit prices.
Taverns will host at least one of each unit type available in the given city.
Camp Training EXP now scales with the unit's level instead of Mind stat.
Camp First Aid heal buffed, passive HP regen on the World Map nerfed.
Buffed Poisonous Dart damage and poison.
Lowered the required EXP for levels past 6.
Lowered the required company EXP for all levels.
Buffed the Leather Armor's resistance.
Mystic Well gives more EXP on success.
Destroyed Wagon deals less damage on fail.
Abandoned Camp gives more gold on success.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
Fixed Knockback and Rain of Bullets being castable without ammo.
Fixed displaying accuracy % for all abilities.
Speed of camera scroll on the World Map now depends on the zoom level.
Displaying damage dealt to shield with Farewell ability instead of '0!'.
Fixed the range of Dragon Plague jump.
Fixed the range of Vengeance replenishing.
Tweaked the text appearance in the cutscene.
Unaffordable items at Flea Market have their prices colored red now.
The training facilities now show what you're lacking to learn an ability.
Fixed aura effects healing issue.
Bonus: New World Map progress
We can finally share with you some of the progress that we’re making on the new World Map. Keep in mind that these are WiPs though!
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Price drop to $19.99!
Hello there, Companions!
We've decided to lower the base price of Glorious Companions to $19.99, which will stay this way at least until the Full Release. We feel that this new price better reflects the current state of the game, especially that we're planning to stay in Early Access for another year.
Now when we're about a month away from our 0.5 update, which will introduce a lot of gameplay improvements, new features and a better progression balance, we thought that it's the best time to drop the base price of Glorious Companions.
We're glad for your support so far and hope that you understand our reasoning here ːlunar2020contentgoatː
Check out what's coming in the future updates in our recent devlog (including a sample of the new and awesome soundtrack): https://steamcommunity.com/games/1001040/announcements/detail/2224158720771427187
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Plans for Future Development & Teasing the 0.5 Update
Hello there, Companions!
We’re back with some fresh news and development updates. We’ll talk about our plans for the future of GC’s development, as well as the contents of the next update. To be frank, in the recent months we’ve thought a lot about the direction we’re taking with this game and we’ve spent a lot of time analysing the feedback we’ve received since our EA release.
We’ve decided that what the game lacks the most at the moment are not new races or abilities. Our biggest priority right now will be fixing and improving the gameplay foundations, and you’ll see the first batch of that in Update 0.5. We’ve come to the bitter realization that no amount of new playable units will make the game fun, when there’s little to do on the world map and the battles don’t offer enough challenges and/or variety after the first few.
Fortunately, based on the feedback we’ve received and our own conclusions we’ve got a solid plan on how to get the game to where we want it to be. It’ll require a lot of hard work but we’re confident that it’ll be for the best.
Update 0.5 Major Contents
Anyhow, for now let’s go back to the upcoming 0.5 Update that will be released in the first week of June. Besides the QoL improvements, smaller features and bug fixes, here are the two biggest changes that we’re preparing for you:
Fog of War
This is the biggest feature we’ve been working on recently and it meddles with a lot of other mechanics, especially with the AI and special abilities. We’ve still got a lot of testing, balancing and bug fixing to do when it comes to it but the core mechanic is already up and running. We’re hoping that this change will make battles more interesting and thrilling. It should also allow for more intricate strategies and tactics to be used successfully on the battlefields.
Battle Win Conditions
We’ve read a lot of your feedback suggesting that the current win condition (killing the enemy captain) makes battles boring instead of exciting (which was our intention). After a few discussions we’ve decided that while this mechanic serves its role in a competitive multiplayer setting, it doesn’t work quite as well in a single player experience when playing against AI controlled enemies.
But we also didn’t want to completely get rid of it. In the next update killing the enemy captain won’t end the battle, but instead it’ll substantially hinder enemy morale. First of all, death of the enemy captain will trigger a Fear check among the party and each unit will receive a slight debuff that’ll weaken its fighting capabilities. That way aiming to take down the enemy captain will still remain important to win the battle, and yet it should also make for a more fun and balanced gameplay.
Oh, and letting your own captain die will still trigger an instant defeat like it did so far.
Plans for the future
Okay, so let’s go through the biggest features/changes that we’re planning for further development (as in stuff that we want to have in the game when we release the full version / leave EA).
Skills / Abilities rework
We thought that it’d be fun to leave units at special training facilities so they can master new skills, but it turned out to be a lot more tedious than we expected. Additionally, it’s not very intuitive and some players might even completely miss that there are abilities to be learned in the game.
Instead, we’re working on a system where units will gain special skill points used to unlock abilities every few levels, and players will be able to use them right away in the Unit Panel. Thus learning new abilities won’t require time and gold anymore. We also plan to implement a lot of smaller skills that units will be able to learn besides the major abilities we have implemented at the moment. When maxed out, each unit will have 5 skills, of which at most 3 will be active abilities.
Story / Gameplay Direction
Here’s the biggest news: we’ve decided to scrap the idea of going full-on sand-box mode with Glorious Companions. Rather than that, we’ll focus on implementing a main quest line so that players have interesting stuff to do from the get-go. We’ve realized that we simply do not have the manpower to ever get to the point where that mode alone would be compelling enough for most players. That doesn’t mean that we’re “downgrading” our vision. Instead, we hope to hook you with an interesting story and a mystery to solve around the continent, one that will require a skilled commander. We have something quite special prepared for that and it’s certainly a big topic, so we’ll be back to talk about it in more detail in future devlogs.
Dungeons
We also plan to implement a Dungeon system, and with it a lot of unique enemies and bosses. There’ll be a total of 5 dungeons (one per biom), each with its own defenders and a tough boss at the end. They’ll be much more challenging than your typical world map encounters, as you won’t be able to heal up between ‘rooms’ and their defenders will come equipped with some interesting abilities of their own. You’ll have to put in some work to even find some of them, and then in the final room you’ll face a big ol’ boss that you’ll need to defeat to complete the dungeon.
New World Map / Cities
We’ve already teased that a completely new world map is coming, but there’s still work left to be done before we can release it. Along with the graphical overhaul you’ve already seen, we’ll be adding a brand new soundtrack to fit the visual changes and the darker fantasy mood we’re aiming for, composed by Zofia Domaradzka. Here’s a little preview, a track titled “Restless Night Ahead” that will be featured in the new main menu screen. Check it out for yourself!
[previewyoutube="QTXILrea1bo;full"][traczek zofii na yt][/previewyoutube]
The new world map will bring in more interactive events, objectives and encounters for you to face. Additionally, we’ll be rolling out a neat looking volumetric fog of war for the world map, as we strive to make exploration more meaningful and dangerous.
After the World Map upgrade we plan to change the way cities look and their UI.
NPC Interactions
Last but not least, we will be reworking the NPC interactions and dialogues. At the moment NPC interactions along with the city UI are the most outdated and underdeveloped aspects of the game and we definitely feel the need to improve them before we leave EA. This will go hand-in-hand with our focus on the new main story within the campaign.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Patch Notes 0.4f
Hello there, Companions!
Here are a few more fixes for the bugs you've reported and we've found ourselves.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
- Fixed a bug with Baron's Knockback in Training Facility. (reported by CaptainSol) - Fixed a number of bugs with Camping assignments. (one of them reported by MoonShadow) - Fixed a bug with some abilities requiring firearm ammo to use. (reported by CaptainSol) - Fixed Shamaness's passive and Power Drain's damage. - Captain Call descriptors tweaked.
Patch Notes 0.4e
Hello there, Companions!
Turned out that the amount of new additions to the game in our 0.4 Update kind of impacted the stability of the build. To be honest it was one of the most thoroughly tested builds that we published, unfortunately we weren't able to catch some of the bugs before the Update's release.
Anyways, we've fixed a number of game-breaking bugs that you've reported and the game should be much more stable now. If you encounter anything else, please send us your Player.log and save files to contact@gloriouscompanions.com or post them on the Bugs subforum.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
Fixed mouse camera scrolling in Battle.
Fixed a bug with the Sweet Revenge quest. (reported by Bristly Stranger)
Fixed the Fur Armor texture on Walord. (reported by Bristly Stranger)
Fixed a bug with the Trapper goal. (reported by madra)
Fixed World Map loading bug. (reported by Rob'sEvilTwin)
Fixed a bug on the World Map with the time still flowing after stopping the company's movement in some cases.
Patch Notes 0.4d
Bug fixes and tweaks:
- Fixed another bug with game getting stuck in battle after a ranged attack. (reported by Grandfinale1)
