Upcoming new game mode on Dark Heroes launch: Escape The Barrier!
Hi everyone,
Before getting into the beefy stuff I want to apologize for the slow pace this past 2 months. As some might be aware I recently had my first child and it is taking some time away from Rogue Empire! Nevertheless be assured I am still at it!
Escape the Barrier
So what is this new game mode all about!?
The idea behind Escape the Barrier is that your character got trapped inside a shadow barrier of one of the main cities. By chance you acquired priceless information of how to escape the barrier and now make a run from it! Agents of the first shadow as well as other groups chase after you!
As you can see you start the game in a special map where you choose where to advance and then get into an encounter/event. This map is randomly generated when you play the game and is inspired by other popular games. Note: The art you see here is not necessary final!
So far I though of the following encounters but more might be added. I encourage you to throw some ideas!
Regular encounter: Fight a few regular enemies. These will be grouped by themes.
Champion encounter: Fight a a champion which may have some escorts.
Shop: Our friend the magician merchant will sell you stuff!
Trap encounter: Avoid a trapped location!
Escape encounter: Against overwhelming odds there is nothing left but to escape!
Unknown encounter: Some unknown event, Examples might be skill checks, tough choices, etc.
Boss encounter: Entirely new bosses to fight against!
I am yet unsure how many maps you will have to travers. It might just be one huge one.
Another thing to consider is rules for this game mode are fairly different from other game modes:
You can not heal or recover mana inside encounters! You will heal and recover mana a bit every time you progress through the map. This will make health a very important factor when choosing where to go!
Some spells and abilities will be removed as available options for balance reasons.
Experience will be acquired after finishing a successful non-passive encounter!
There will probably be some kind of gear passing or buff as a result of your performance in your previous run. This should avoid hunting for the perfect map.
This is still very much work in progress. After this is done there is one more small surprise for the dlc proper before I open some beta testing to it!
Hope you enjoy this when its out!
Happy dungeon crawling! GW
Update 1.0.17 live! Christmas is upon us!
Hi every one! We are already getting close to the end of this rather dreadful year for a lot of us. For my self personally I am about to be a dad so that makes me happy!
Anyway, here are the changes for todays update!
Changes:
Christmas: You character will look more Christmassy (this was already the case last year). In addition it seems Santa lost a lot of presents inside the dungeons!
Different present have different type of items. Some are rarer than others of course! When you open it something will happen that I hope cheers you up!
This will go live tomorrow till the end of the month! As always you can disable these events from the settings menu!
Bugs:
Fixed bug where returning to an old area after some time with old summons of you would break the game.
Fixed bug where returning on previous levels and then reentering a level with a named enemy would make the enemy disappear.
Balance:
Enemy base spell critical damage was reduced for easy and normal difficulties.
Player and Enemy spell critical damage intelligence influence reduced slightly.
Hunter:
Hunter's initial Create Ammo ability cooldown reduced to values of their improved counterparts.
Dirty Shot now has a longer cooldown but has now an improved effect across the board. In addition enemies that after being hit by the ability do not see their current target will now always disengage from combat with it.
Mage:
Reworked how siphon mana works: It now siphons mana based on your own mana and damages the target accordingly. If the target has its mana depleted some damage will still be done! Cooldown has been increased. In general terms this should give the player more control over the ability (increasing your maximum mana pool increases the effect) and also makes it a dual effect ability specially powerful against casters
Warrior:
Trap Prepared Armor skills improved and renamed "Situation awareness". Now in addition to the trap effect mitigation it also reduces(eventually nullifies) the disarming chance on the warrior.
Other:
Upcoming Dark Heroes DLC new class reveal: The Soul Reaver!
Hi everyone,
Before getting into the beefy stuff you might have noticed that the DLC I have been working on has now a name!
Dark Heroes
Simple yet fitting.
Now onto the good stuff! Lets dive into the second class I have been working on:
The Soul Reaver
A warrior from beyond, the Soul Reaver has a strong link to the spirit world. This enables him to harness and manipulate the souls of his victims!
As hinted previously, the Soul Reaver has a unique resource: souls.
When defeating your enemies you acquire their precious souls which you can later use in unique powerful effects. While enabling these powerful abilities, souls are a rare and finite resource which means one has to be careful not to run out of them before a complicated situation!
To showcase the class let me show you a few abilities:
Soul Nova: A powerful AOE spell especially useful when surrounded by enemies. While costing several souls, its destruction potential might well pay the cost back!
Soul shield: Several souls whirl around you trying to intercept incoming damage. Be careful, as high damaging hits might remove a soul, reducing the chance of future damage mitigation.
Spirit Portal: Cast a portal on a location in the map: then cast again on any character (friend or foe) to teleport it to the portal location! There is no limit (within the level) for the portal location but it is very frail and can be destroyed at any moment.
One of the interesting gameplay mechanics you will notice while playing the Soul Reaver is the possibility to combo/chain certain abilities into powerful effects. This my friends I will let you discover for yourself!
Feel free to ask any questions you might have! Some might not get answered though ;)
Cheers, GW
Update 1.0.16 live! Halloween is close!
Hi every one! It's time to merge the beta into the main build!
And here are the changes!
Changes:
Halloween gets into Ethistos!
From the 28th of October to the 3th of November be watchful of confused villagers walking around dungeons! No one knows what they ate for this to happen, but the are obsessed with one question!
Trick or Treat?
Be warry of what you answer as you will have to deal with the consequences!
You can set a reminder for the event start at the top of this article!
Uncovered Abilities
Something asked some time ago is now a reality!
You can now check out all the abilities you uncovered so far for every available class from the main menu.
This will not work retroactively for dead characters but loading a current game should fill in the abilities you discover with that character!
Bugs:
Game should properly pause when not focused.
Only the last tile targeted by piercing shot will have a chance to return the used arrow.
Balance:
Undead creatures do not heal over time with natural means.
Druid: All the druid forms have been buffed. Also the negative effects of being unbalanced with nature have been reduced. Specifics (spoiler):
Druid negative effects of being out of balance reduced significantly.
Druid bear aspect damage reduction now improves every 8 levels instead of every 10.
Druid tiger aspect speed bonus increased from 25% to 35%, damage bonus increased from 25% to 30%.
Druid scorpion aspect poison damage and duration significantly increased in all its power levels.
Druid eagle aspect speed bonus increased from 15% to 25%, dodge bonus increased from 30% to 35%.
Druid drake aspect damage bonus increased from 50% to 60%. Fire breath damage and range increased (cool down increased too).
Other:
Shadow creep/chase is now an optional setting for the challenge dungeon. Having it enabled will increase soul essence and score gain by 30%.
When using the keyboard to do range attacks (t key) the mouse cursor will be disabled to avoid accidental misfires.
Firing on empty tiles will now not destroy any ammo.
Satiation/Hunger level icon is now also shown when well satiated (not only outliers).
There is now an option to show the current satiation/hunger next to the corresponding status effect icon.
Holding shift to see the items on the floor now only shows the text.
Added special effects and improved UI for different main menu sections.
Story mode renamed into apprentice mode to avoid confusions.
During seasonal events (if enabled from the setting menu) a small icon will appear on the top right of the main menu screen.
Coming up next: I will preview the other new class to be release with the DLC I am working on! Also dark themed but in this case a little less common than necromancers!
Cheers and happy crawling! GW
New Beta Branch Update 1.0.16
IMPORTANT: How to try the beta branch?
Steps to try out the beta branch of the game:
In your game library right click on "Rogue Empire -> Properties"
In properties select the "Betas" tab
On the drop down select the version: beta - Beta testing for next release
Changes:
Uncovered Abilities
Something asked some time ago is now a reality!
You can now check out all the abilities you uncovered so far for every available class from the main menu.
This will not work retroactively for dead characters but loading a current game should fill in the abilities you discover with that character!
Halloween!?
To keep de mystery this will be disclosed when merged into the main build!
Bugs:
Game should properly pause when not focused.
Only the last tile targeted by piercing shot will have a chance to return the used arrow.
Balance:
Undead creatures do not heal over time with natural means.
Druid: All the druid forms have been buffed. Also the negative effects of being unbalanced with nature have been reduced. Specifics (spoiler):
Druid negative effects of being out of balance reduced significantly.
Druid bear aspect damage reduction now improves every 8 levels instead of every 10.
Druid tiger aspect speed bonus increased from 25% to 35%, damage bonus increased from 25% to 30%.
Druid scorpion aspect poison damage and duration significantly increased in all its power levels.
Druid eagle aspect speed bonus increased from 15% to 25%, dodge bonus increased from 30% to 35%.
Druid drake aspect damage bonus increased from 50% to 60%. Fire breath damage and range increased (cool down increased too).
Other:
Shadow creep/chase is now an optional setting for the challenge dungeon. Having it enabled will increase soul essence and score gain by 30%.
When using the keyboard to do range attacks (t key) the mouse cursor will be disabled to avoid accidental misfires.
Firing on empty tiles will now not destroy any ammo.
Satiation/Hunger level icon is now also shown when well satiated (not only outliers).
There is now an option to show the current satiation/hunger next to the corresponding status effect icon.
Holding shift to see the items on the floor now only shows the text.
Added special effects and improved UI for different main menu sections.
Story mode renamed into apprentice mode to avoid confusions.
During seasonal events (if enabled from the setting menu) a small icon will appear on the top right of the main menu screen.
If you want to help out you are welcome to check this build out. I ll probably put it up on the main branch late next week if all goes well.
Cheers and happy crawling! GW
Update 1.0.15 live
Hi every one! It's time to merge the beta into the main build!
The shadow will eventually creep into the level and start to fill it. Any living creature touching the shadow will be harmed by it!
A small intro linked to the start of the main campaign added at the start.
Each dungeon level after the first one will have its theme randomized.
Added new achievements for the challenge dungeon.
Bugs:
Ammo +hit and +dmg now show values in same order as with weapons.
Fixed an issues where the story was not showing in a late game part.
Fixed some non translatable texts.
Getting into a new randomly generated level should now properly generate the character in an not so dangerous room.
Fixed bug where the ring of life would sometimes glitch the game.
Fixed information on perception and agility tool tips.
Fixed wight amount showed to show up to 1 decimal.
Fixed UI action bar not graphically updating stacks when using the pickup key to pickup an item.
Fixed bug where tabbing and entering a level in a specific way broke the camera following.
Fixed UI issues where a stat level up contemplation option by default was not shown on the left side.
Added a dynamic level change generation system for the rare occasions where level changes disappear. This was mainly done as I am not able to reproduce the issue.
Balance:
Slings now does bludgeoning damage instead of piercing damage.
Shield bash damage now is based on the shield block value. In addition this ability can not be dodged or missed.
Eghos campaign food consumption reduced on easy and normal difficulties as it is meant to a introductory campaign and also has no fixed town.
Warrior class hp has been increased slightly.
Explosive shot has a chance to break doors.
Increased starting ammo stack of hunters from 100 to 300.
Greatly reduce cool down and energy usage of the first aid ability.
Increased druid's bear aspect HP bonus from 35% to 50%.
The shadow will eventually creep into the level and start to fill it. Any living creature touching the shadow will be harmed by it!
A small intro linked to the start of the main campaign added at the start.
Each dungeon level after the first one will have its theme randomized.
Added new achievements for the challenge dungeon.
Bugs:
Ammo +hit and +dmg now show values in same order as with weapons.
Fixed an issues where the story was not showing in a late game part.
Fixed some non translatable texts.
Getting into a new randomly generated level should now properly generate the character in an not so dangerous room.
Fixed bug where the ring of life would sometimes glitch the game.
Fixed information on perception and agility tool tips.
Fixed wight amount showed to show up to 1 decimal.
Fixed UI action bar not graphically updating stacks when using the pickup key to pickup an item.
Fixed bug where tabbing and entering a level in a specific way broke the camera following.
Fixed UI issues where a stat level up contemplation option by default was not shown on the left side.
Added a dynamic level change generation system for the rare occasions where level changes disappear. This was mainly done as I am not able to reproduce the issue.
Balance:
Slings now does bludgeoning damage instead of piercing damage.
Shield bash damage now is based on the shield block value. In addition this ability can not be dodged or missed.
Eghos campaign food consumption reduced on easy and normal difficulties as it is meant to a introductory campaign and also has no fixed town.
Warrior class hp has been increased slightly.
Explosive shot has a chance to break doors.
Increased starting ammo stack of hunters from 100 to 300.
Greatly reduce cool down and energy usage of the first aid ability.
Increased druid's bear aspect HP bonus from 35% to 50%.
Shape shifting as a druid now removes freezing effects.
Other:
Added 9 new soul essence perks.
Improved several sounds.
Potion and scrolls stay in the action bar when the amount of them reaches 0. For the moment this does not persists when loading games.
Added weight sorting option.
Added a small timer to reenter the same exit to avoid accidental level reentries.
If you want to help out you are welcome to check this build out. I ll probably put it up on the main branch early next week if all goes well.
Cheers and happy crawling! GW
The forbidden arts shall embark in Ethistos!
Hi everyone,
as hinted last week, I am going to show you one of the new classes I have been working on:
The Necromancer
With a frail body but an eternally willed mind the necromancer will use the bodies of defeated foes to raise his own allies! Not the kind of allies you want around for some drinks but definitely to beat your enemies!
At its core the necromancer will fulfill the classic summoner notion one has of them, raising several types of undead to come to his aid!
You might find your initial minions weak and dumb but experienced necromancers learn how to improve their creations in several ways!
Some necromancers might forfeit their mortal lives and decide to turn in greater undead beings such as a Vampires! Be warned this transformations are unique and shall stay with you till the end of days!
Feel free to ask any questions you might have! Some might not get answered as there are other mechanics to the necromancer you shall discover by yourself!
Cheers, GW
Who is there?
Someone is approaching...
Next week I will show you a little bit about a new class coming to Rogue Empire! Guess which one it might it be? ːsteamhappyː
New work in progress!
Hi everyone!
I hope all is well on your end! I wanted to start a series on what is coming next for Rogue Empire! At the moment I am working on a dlc with new game play features, classes and other cool stuff. Some of these features (not sure which yet) will be added directly to the main game, expanding its scope even without the dlc.
So get right on it with the new feature for today: Mystic Runes!
Mystic Runes are powerful items that you will find around Ethistos. This runes will enhance your gear in different ways. Common runes might give standard passive bonuses while other runes might add unique effects to your character/gear. Lets dive into some examples:
+3 Strength
Heal 5 HP on a successful block
Destroys a random equipped gear item to prevent a killing blow
3% chance on hit to do another hit
While very powerful Mystic Runes come with some important limitations:
You can only have one rune applied on any gear piece at any point in time.
While you can replace a previous rune enhancement, the original rune will be lost for ever.
This should introduce some strategic decision making to when and to what you consume a rune for!
I hope you liked this small preview. Please be thoughtful this might be subject to change ːsteammockingː
