We would like to thank our community for their continued feedback and support! This week we've implemented a quick couple of QOL improvements (thanks again OdiumTheologicum for the suggestions!) which should simplify your life in Hendrika.
This week's patch will be short and sweet and we have lots more planned!
New Features
Codex now contains detailed information about every unit's skill
Mass purchasing and mass upgrading items will now display cost based off of amount of unit placements which are selected
You can now mass select unit placements by holding shift before releasing the selection
Fixes
Fixed Demigod's Rage, it will now account for health modified by items
Feedback
What do you guys think of the new QOL update?
Patch 1.0.2
Greetings Captains!
We are so happy to have you all with us as we are no longer in early access! It has been such a long road, but, hard work and perseverance got us to where we are today.
One thing we'd like to remind everyone who wants to play multiplayer with their friends is: make sure that you don't have steam in offline mode! Your progress along with everything you unlock and matchmaking is done through the steam servers.
This team of two developers would like to thank everyone that has supported us to get this far and we hope to see more of you enjoy the wonderful world of Hendrika!
New Features
Troops will no longer give up if the wagon just passed the bridge in the third mission
Commanders will always come protect your altar if troops are dead
Recalling a control group twice will move you over to the group
You may now set placed units in control groups as well
Control groups now have indicators on the HUD to show you how many you have in that group
The hotkey for 'Go To Commander' was renamed to 'Go To Spawn Area' and will now cycle you through all your available Preparation Areas
Selling a placed unit will now refund you all the leadership for the equipped items as well
Placed units now have a new option next to sell, auto group assignment. Clicking the button will automatically set the unit to that control group as soon as it spawns
Fixes
Fixed a bug with spirit possession. Particle no longer stays around after the effect expires and the units no longer run back to base after recovering
Fixed a bug that prevented anyone who was not hosting from upgrading their items
Fixed a bug with clients not being able to hear audio at the start of a game
Fixed a rare instance where the host client would crash at the start of a multiplayer game
Fixed a visual glitch that would tell you an item was maxed when reaching meta 10, instead of meta 11
Fixed a bug which would not allow a host to kick a bot once they set it
Mission 3 will now properly save your progress after you complete it
Fixed a problem with team colors not showing up properly on clients during an online game
Feedback
How many here have finished chapter 1? What are your thoughts on it?
Patch 0.4.10
Greetings Captains!
We're gearing up for release and can't wait to see what you all think of Shadow Heroes once it's out. This past week has been pretty intense for all of us here at Allied Games as we are putting together the finishing touches on Chapter 1 of the story.
Without further ado, we are introducing the story cutscenes done with VO work as intended from the beginning. Armas and Konraad are looking forward to regale you with their exploits in Hendrika!
New Features
New story cutscenes now implemented, complete with voice overs
New codex category for help, you can quickly reference all game mechanics in there
New lobby update, host can set bots or closed seats
Game fonts have been updated with custom fonts, no longer default ones
Mission 3 level of difficulty now scales based off of your set difficulty
Mili's radiant blast got balanced to no longer one shot every commander on the field
New background music for campaign menu
All error messages now go to player chat log
Fixes
Mission 3 erroneously started before the conversation was over, it has now been fixed
AI Teammates can no longer equip your units
Quick match will no longer require you to restart the game in order to find more games after playing a game
Fixed a bug where clients would not need to spend money on items, they got them for free
Cannons were erroneously present in Mission 3, they have been removed
Navigation area has been re-done on all levels, units should no longer get stuck
Feedback
What do you guys think of the new cutscenes along with the VO work?
Patch 0.4.9
Greetings Captains!
With last week's unit balance we decided to greatly improve the first two story missions. Split between them is all the knowledge you need in order to be a very successful Shadow Hero!
Next week we will be updating the Codex with a whole new help section. All game mechanics learned throughout the missions will be available in there for you to review.
New Features
New Exorcist textures and unwrap, he also got a new hair and skin shader
Minimap now has a north indicator
Unit Groups now have bindable hotkeys
Default skill hotkeys now changed from numbers to be alt+numbers
Spawn areas got a visual improvement so you can see the edges from every angle
Active and Passive items are now split up into their own groups in the Inventory
You can now equip multiple placed units at the same time as long as their equipment matches, shift+click on a placed unit to add it to the list
You can upgrade multiple placed units at the same time as long as they are in the list and have the same equipment
Tabbing through a group of units now splits them up based off of equipped items
Updated the second mission with a full set of instructions to get you through the tutorial
First mission now displays how many units are coming at you in the next wave
Fixes
Removed old hints from loading screen and replaced them with new ones
Unit stats at the bottom will no longer hide on resolutions smaller than 1280x720
Various minor bug fixes
Feedback
What do you guys think of the updated mission 2?
Patch 0.4.8
Greetings Captains!
Balancing is a huge part of game development. This week we took a long hard look at every unit and gave them each the attention they deserved. We believe this new set of changes has made battles a lot more enjoyable for all!
With this balance came a great deal of new features and improvements that will also help with the quality of life while playing the game.
New Features
You can now group mass selections of units by pressing Ctrl + 1 (or any number between 1 - 0)
You can recall a mass unit selection by pressing the appropriate number key
First story mission was updated to have a more streamlined teaching process
Archangel max health reduced from 240 to 160
Archangel radiant light damage reduced from 300 to 50
Chanter max health reduced from 80 to 40
Chanter invocation buff defense reduced from 2 to 1
Cherub max health reduced from 150 to 60
Cherub max damage reduced from 3 to 1
Demigod min damage reduced from 30 to 25
Demigod max damage reduced from 40 to 30
Demigod no longer gets 50% damage boost from being hit, instead it now gains 25%
Exorcist max health reduced from 90 to 60
Hunter defense reduced from 2 to 0
Hunter max health reduced from 100 to 45
Martyr min damage increased from 7 to 9
Martyr max damage increased from 9 to 11
Martyr max health reduced from 175 to 100
Paladin min damage reduced from 12 to 8
Paladin max damage reduced from 15 to 10
Paladin max health reduced from 145 to 100
Spirit min damage increased from 3 to 4
Spirit max damage increased from 5 to 7
Placing units now snap inside the placeable areas
Placeable spawn areas now make the unit templates face the proper direction
Missions 1 through 3 no longer have placeholder images on the campaign map
Fixes
Fixed a bug where the next wave timer was blocking input when trying to place units through it
Fixed a bug with the codex cutting off on some resolutions
Fixed a bug with passive items not taking up the proper space in the actions panel
Fixed a camera problem which would make it stuck in some angles after being rotated
Fixed a problem with cannons targeting being rotated on the ground
Feedback
What do you think of the unit balance now? Which one is your favorite?
Patch 0.4.7
Greetings Captains!
At long last team battles have finally made an appearance. Multiplayer matches can now be played with up to 6 players. Each side is able to have up to 150 units on the field for battles, allowing for up to 150vs150.
Several improvements have been made on the backend which should help with load times as well as some of the units not being able to move. If you find any problem areas, please report them using the in-game bug submission form.
New Features
Selecting multiple units and pressing the hotkey for their active items will now trigger all active items of that type in that slot for that particular unit type
Modified the waypoint navigation system for units, this should result in less units being stuck without having a place to go to
Units in onslaught mode will sell for full price instead of half price like they do in other game modes
Multiplayer is now available for up to 6 players with Team vs Team
In multiplayer games, the maximum number of units on the field is still 300, but it will be split across all players. For example if you have a 2v2 match, each player can have 75 units on the field. However, if you have a 2v1, the solo player will have 150 while the 2 get 75 each
Fixes
Fixed an issue with ranged units using incorrect values for targeting, they will once more properly shoot from their full distance
Fixed a problem with victory screen being displayed incorrectly when more than 2 players were in a multiplayer match
Fixed an issue where some of the old assets had an invalid engine version which caused a slowdown when booting the game up
Cherubs no longer heal units who are at full health
Couple of back-end minor fixes
Feedback
What are your thoughts on the multiplayer battles?
Patch 0.4.6
Greetings Captains!
Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for is upon us. We have modified the way the AI system works to drastically reduce game thread calls. This means the glorious 300 unit battles will perform much better.
If you happen to run into any problems, please make sure to make an ingame bug report or post it on the discussion boards. While we do test our builds before giving them out to you guys, it's hard to account for every possible action our players take :)
New Features
Mission 2 in the story has had the enemy troops limited to sending out a maximum of 5 chanters and 5 cherubs per wave
Updated some of the system messages during the multiplayer lobby setup to give hosts a better idea of the status of the lobby
Quick buy will now allow you to trigger the selected template unit Move function
Quick sell now allows you to sell a selected template unit
Various minor improvements
Fixes
Multiplayer has been fixed to show the commander select screen at the start of game
Multiplayer units will now properly accept placement in their respective zones
Altar explosions now show for clients during multiplayer games
Players on separate teams no longer have the ability to use the opponent's team altar to summon a commander
Unit equipment has been fixed for multiplayer, a client will be able to equip their units with their unlocked items
Status effects are properly being shown to all connected clients
Auras properly trigger and change during multiplayer games for clients
Onslaught modes now properly show the unit selection when you have a unit selected
Fixed in-game chat system, it will no longer disappear for no reason without the ability to get it to come back
Go to commander hotkey is now fixed for Commanders game mode
Feedback
How many units were you able to get fighting each other? Show us your massive battles!
Patch 0.4.5
Greetings Captains!
After lots of tinkering under the hood we managed to increase efficiency with units being drawn on the minimap, while at the same time boosting the AI's ability to calculate enemies in range. This performance increase is only the first of many to come.
New Features
Selecting a unit will now show you which unit is selected on the field, green is friendly, red is enemy while yellow is neutral
You can right click and drag on the campaign map in order to see more of New Hendrika
Points of interest on the map now have a glow around them when the mission is in that area
Improved the first mission with pings on the minimap for points of interest, like the location of the east, west and south gates during the first 3 tasks
During the first mission, you will no longer be allowed to start wave 2 and 3 unless you have completed the tasks as they show up
Second mission now has a minimap ping for the bridge conversation
Added more AI optimizations in an attempt to make the game smoother with a lot of units on the field
Optimized minimap points, this was accounting for some of the lag when presented with lots of units
Optimized the spawning of units to take into consideration units on the field after every units that gets spawned, making sure only 150 exist on the field for each team
Fixes
Fixed the spawn area in the second mission to no longer allow you to spawn exorcists in trees, you should not be allowed to decorate trees :p
Fixed a problem with tooltips getting stuck on screen if you clicked and dragged a unit button on the HUD
Removed a tooltip which was no longer in use on the top of the HUD, this was sometimes getting stuck on screen for no reason
Fixed some of the navigation problems with the navmesh, units should once again be able to go around buildings and edges much easier
Reduced the particle count on the exorcists attack animation
Feedback
Out of everything we've featured so far, what has been your favorite?
Patch 0.4.4
Greetings Captains!
This week was mainly dedicated to improvements and polishing. We've still got a ways to go before everything is complete, but we're getting there!
We also reached a decision to migrate to the latest unreal engine version in order to improve optimizations!
New Features
If units go behind obstacles, you will be able to see their silhouette through objects
Wagon in the third mission is now easier to select
Units in timed assault now have equipment set to them
Made improvements to first mission to show where the east, south and west gates are during the first tasks
Chanter invocation area of effect has been made slightly more transparent to be able to see units better
Campaign Map is now complete with proper points of interest
Updated the Game Engine to the latest Unreal Engine 4.13
Various additional optimizations
Fixes
Fixed a bug with codex journal entries, they were playing behind the codex and were being hidden by it
In-game conversations will no longer stack if another one is already playing
Cannons now display their ability in the HUD again, this was un-intentionally removed
Loading story progress from steam now works properly
Fixed a bug that allowed you to upgrade an item for free if it was locked
Fixed a problem with cherubs killing altars instead of healing them
Fixed units going through solid objects, they aren't incorporeal after all :p
Fixed a grammar mistake during the second mission dialog
Story mission 2 and 3 now allow you to Surrender properly
Feedback
What do you think of our updated map? What about chapter 1 of the story?
Patch 0.4.3
Greetings Captains!
After a very long week, filled with fun times and *grumbling* horses ... the final part of chapter 1 is available for you guys to play through. Stop the Free Spell terrorists from trying to escape to the neighboring country of Aylmar Reborn! Failure to do so will not bode well for Faircrown in the future. There is still work to be done on this mission, but this is a first look at it.
We will also be working on improvements for all of chapter 1. That will include improvements to conversations and instructions during the levels. We want to make sure our captains are fully prepared for all that Hendrika will throw in their path.
New Features
New story mission available, prevent Free Spell from escaping Faircrown and crossing the border into Aylmar
Story mission selection arrows have now been brightened up on the campaign map
Units will no longer spawn in battle if your side has over 150 of them already on the field (does not affect Onslaught, only Assault and Commanders)
Conversations have been upgraded to display the text one word at a time instead of all at once
Units mentioned during a conversation will be shown in purple
Improved the conversation for the first story mission to include better hints on how to place units
Fixes
Vengeance buff no longer stacks, dealing more damage than previously intended
Ranged units will no longer try getting into melee range while attacking
Commanders will no longer use skills on dead units
Corrected a problem that set your highest completed mission incorrectly in game
Spawning units message no longer cuts out on the HUD
Fixed two action buttons not returning to normal if you selected a template unit then decided to purchase a unit
Several back-end fixes
Feedback
How did you guys like the third story mission? What do you guys think about the Timed Assault game mode? Anything you would change?
