This week we've been hard at work on getting you the third mission of our story which would finish up the first Chapter. There is quite a bit that needs to go into this update and we can't wait for you all to play it as soon as it's done. Look forward to this update next week!
Todays update brings you another item and ability type for items! Devils Whisper will be the first item introduced to the game which offers your troops life leech. Equipping this item will allow your units to gain health based off of damage they are dealing.
Until next time!
New Features
Altars now appear on the minimap
Granary and Bridge now have their own portraits
Granary and Bridge now appear on the minimap
New item added: Devils whisper, it gives troops who equip it life leech
Journal entries in the codex will now display each entry in an easy to read format
Units in the codex now display their default stats
Commanders are now available in the codex
Fixes
Fixed an issue that would not save your progress to steam for the second mission
Fixed an error with attack speed, the numbers were erroneously truncated
Fixed an error with movement speed, the numbers were erroneously truncated
Fixed stun duration not showing any items if selected in the filter list
Feedback
What do you guys think of Devils Whisper?
Patch 0.4.1
Greetings Captains!
We have started streaming our process and development this week and we thank everyone that has turned up to watch us breathe life into this technomagical world of ours. We will continue doing so next week and possibly even raffle a copy of the game to one lucky viewer! Join us at: twitch.tv/allied_games
This update brings forward the second campaign mission where Armas tries to remove the Free Spell rebellion from Faircrown once and for all!
Part of this wonderful new update comes a huge change to Commanders. You will now be able to summon new Commanders during gameplay using the Altar. You may only have one of each type of commander though. They also decided to do things their own way now, so they will no longer listen to your orders, instead they will lead troops as they see fit, allowing you to focus more on the battle and how your army should be equipped for battle.
New Features
New story mission available, stop Free Spell from getting back into Faircrown through the Farmlands
Campaign progress is now stored on steam the same way as your item unlocks
Going to the campaign map screen now properly sets your position based off of the last successfully completed mission
First story mission was modified to provide more instructions during the mission and letting you know where Free Spell will attack next
New cutscene type implemented for voice overs (without voice over for now ... )
Commanders game mode now gives you the ability to purchase commanders from Altars, maximum 1 of each may be hired
Commanders are no longer controlled by players, this was one of the last changes required to make sure the game was more of a battle manager
Commander abilities now hurt other commanders and bases
You can still control the auras on your summoned commanders
Journal entries are now available for each mission you have completed inside the codex
Whenever codex entries get updated, you will see a popup to represent that
Ice Rain damage went down from 25 per hit to 20 per hit
Shine damage went down from 150 to 75 per hit, the cooldown was reduced from 7 seconds to 5
Radiant blast ring damage went down from 50 to 25 per hit
Corpse Explosion damage went down to 125 from 300, the range on the explosion increased from 250 to 300
Fixes
Changed the colors of the arrows on the campaign map to show the yellow when highlighting instead of when clicking
Units will no longer erroneously go to another waypoint
Units no longer stop before moving in to attack
Onslaught will now properly show you wave bonus as it comes in
Doors to the keep in first story mission were moved back a bit
Feedback
How do you guys like the changes to the Commanders game mode now?
Patch 0.4.0
Greetings Captains!
The town of Faircrown has come to life at long last. You may now begin your journey through the world of Hendrika and experience the first mission! The full game will span across 20 various missions which will vary in length and difficulty.
As you progress through the campaign, you will gain more knowledge about the world, its inhabitants and the various different aspects of gameplay.
New Features
New campaign area which shows all the regions of Hendrika
Mission briefing available for the first mission
New map added to the game, Faircrown keep
New objective system available during story mode to guide you as required
Tutorials have been removed from the game, players will be introduced to game mechanics as they progress through the campaign
You are able to select the gates of Faircrown keep in order to view their name and health information
Fixes
Fixed a minor backend error which triggered if armies tried spawning in Onslaught without equipment on
Feedback
What do you guys think about the first mission? Were you able to defend Faircrown keep successfully?
Patch 0.3.10
Greetings Captains!
As promised, the Onslaught game mode had an overhaul to use the new placeable mechanics that Commanders had this past week.
Speaking of Commanders, we've included a new addition to it this week! No longer will you have to fear for the life of your Commander, now, only the Altar matters. Each team will be responsible for defending their Altar from the enemy. Losing a commander will not bring about the end of the game, losing the Altar will.
In other news, we're still hard at work on bringing you the first chapter in the story of Hendrika. The town of Faircrown is coming together piece by piece!
New Features
Onslaught game mode now uses the same spawning system as Commanders
Onslaught units can now be upgraded the same way as you could upgrade them in Commanders
Onslaught rewards scale with wave number
Placing a unit in Onslaught will not keep spawning it, you only get it once
Onslaught now allows you to sell a placed unit, you can't sell units that have already spawned though
Spawning zones in Onslaught have been combined into one major one
Onslaught units will always return to their placed location, once spawned, that location cannot be changed
Commanders has been modified to no longer win or lose on commander defeat
Commanders now have an Altar that you must protect, destroy the enemy Altar to win
AI Commander will choose to defend the Altar, will only run away if the Altar gets destroyed, who wants to stay around for that explosion :p
Victory or Defeat, units will now stop what they were doing
Fixes
Selling a placed unit will no longer show you the actions to move or sell it
Fixed health regen, all items which implemented it now work again
Fixed a bug in the armory which did not allow you to upgrade a meta level if you had the exact amount it needed
Commander abilities were able to do damage to commanders, this was fixed
Fixed a bug that would place a copy of your unit outside of the map
Feedback
What do you guys think about the new Altar addition to the Commanders game mode?
Patch 0.3.9
Greetings Captains!
This week has been pretty busy, we've completely revamped the item system along with the Commanders game mode.
The biggest change you will be noticing is the equipment system. We've done away with the Unit Loadouts, no longer will you need to worry about your setup before a match. Placing a unit on the field now allows you to individually equip them by clicking the green +. You will then be prompted with a small inventory window which will show you: every Meta 1 item at your disposal, their cost, passive items being blue and active items being red. Clicking on any of those items will automatically purchase it using your leadership and assigning it to the first available slot. If you click on the slot that contains that item, you will be refunded the full amount you have spent on it. This will quickly allow you to try out various strategies during a game!
At the end of every game, you will no longer be awarded items, instead you will receive components. You may use components in the Armory in order to unlock higher tier meta items to be available for purchase during a match. Your progress with item unlocks will no longer be stored locally, so you will have access to all your meta levels so long as you use your steam account.
Next week we will be bringing those changes to Onslaught as well, so look forward to it!
New Features
Commanders game mode now has a general wave timer, all units will spawn every 30 seconds
Unit Loadouts are phased out as of this patch, they have been replaced with an equipment upgrade system
All your item unlocks and component gains are now stored through steam and are linked to your steam account
Finishing a game no longer rewards you items, you will now receive components
You can use components in order to unlock higher Meta levels to be available during game
Every unit placement now has access to an upgrade menu, click the + in order to bring it up
You can only upgrade an item up to the highest Meta level that you've unlocked
Filtering items both in-game and main menu will now show you all items which match any of your selected criteria rather than having to match all selected options
Item tooltips will now show you the max Meta level you have unlocked of that specific item type
Leadership cost for items is now also displayed on item tooltips
Slot restrictions have been lifted from all items, you may now equip multiples of the same kind for stacking bonuses
Selling any item from a slot will refund you all the leadership you have spent on it to that point, including upgrades
Fixes
Fixed a positioning issue with text in the Codex which made it too close to the edge in some cases
Floating damage text now goes away quicker
Feedback
How do you guys feel about the update to Commanders? What about the new equipment system?
Patch 0.3.8
Greetings Captains!
With the work we're putting towards the new item system and campaign story implementation, this week gets to see the Codex come to life! The Codex will contain information about Units, People of interest, Locations and History. As soon as we've implemented the first campaign mission, a new Codex type will become available: Journal.
More entries will become unlocked in the Codex as you progress through campaign, so look forward to more of them as we release missions!
New Features
Demigod area of effect for damage was slightly increased
Codex implemented in game
Codex now available in main menu as well as in-game
Fixes
Couple back-end fixes for menus
Feedback
Is there anything else you guys would be interested in seeing with the Codex?
Theme Refinement
Over the next few weeks, Shadow Heroes is going to be going through some trimming and focusing. The game has changed a lot since we started. In some ways, it has become a lot more awesome and fun. Alternatively, it strayed from its core concepts a bit. Since our launch in early access, Shadow Heroes went through a lot of changes based on your feedback and the game was greatly improved as a result. We're going to keep on doing that but we'll do it in a way that helps define the core idea of the game.
What is the core idea of Shadow Heroes?
Shadow heroes is a real time battle manager. Bit of an odd term, I know, so let's analyze it and I can explain what it means. First, real time. This is pretty self-explanatory. One second in real life is one second in the game. This is where the challenge primarily resides, knowing what to focus on. Second, battle. Essentially what you're going to be participating in while playing Shadow Heroes. Your forces versus an enemy's forces. Both sides will have objectives. Sometimes they will be the same, sometimes they will be different but they will always be conflicting. Finally, manager. This is the real meat element of the phrase. In Shadow Heroes you're not a soldier. You're the captain. You give orders, recruit troops, and adjust the battle strategy.
Items and equipment
Let's take a look at the way that items and equipment currently work. After every victory, you win items. You can then change the loadout of your army so that when they spawn they will have better equipment. As a result of this being how we are handling equipment, games can become one sided if your opponent has much better items equipped. Half of this system does not respect "real time", so, we're going to be changing that. The biggest change will be: removing unit loadouts. Setting up your army's equipment before hand is not adaptive, it's not real time and if you're up against a superior enemy or someone who counters your setup there is very little you can do about it. Instead, every time you place a unit inside your spawn area, you'll be able to equip it with up to five meta 1 items. Equipment slots no longer restrict you, you may even equip multiples of the same item. Once an item is equipped, you will have the option to upgrade it to a higher tier item. Equipping and upgrading items will cost leadership points, presenting you with a choice: more troops or better troops.
Preview of the item upgrade screen
After every battle, you will be rewarded with components. These will be used to unlock higher tier items that you can upgrade to during a match. For instance, you can only upgrade to a meta 10 armorband if you have researched it using components in between matches. Higher tier items take more components to research but nothing too crazy. Early on, you should easily be able to research one or two new items with every game that you win.
Changes to 1v1 Commanders
Another one of the major changes that you can expect will be changing commanders to an assault mode. This will have all of your units spawning at fixed intervals every 30 seconds. This way you won't be waiting for a large army to spawn and smaller armies will have less chance to stack up. Commanders were, originally, a way to give the player something to do in between waves. Now that there is the item upgrade system and placing units in formations, that's less of an issue. They also don't fit the "real time battle manager" theme that well since they tend to personify the player rather than be something you manage. For now, commanders will go into story missions but we are throwing around a few other ideas as well.
Unit Tactics
The final element that we will be adding is unit tactics. Every unit placed will be able to be assigned a tactic. These are their general orders of how to engage. At first there will be:
Vanguard: Units will charge in head first this is the way units currently work.
Support: Units will try to stay off the front line and behind other units
Flanking: Units will try and attack from the sides of the main force.
We have discussed a few others but more testing and refinement is needed before we can commit to them.
Overall, we are taking a good hard look at elements within Shadow Heroes and asking: Does it happen in real time? Is it part of a battle? Do you manage it? If the answer is no, perhaps there are some elements to tweak. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these upcoming changes and your ideas for future changes!
Patch 0.3.7
Greetings Captains!
This week we did a pass on optimization and pathing, there should no longer be units stuck on the bridge or that attempt to walk through solid matter!
As a new quality of life improvement units during Onslaught mode no longer drop collectibles, instead, leadership will automatically be collected when a unit dies. This will stop you from worrying about coins that could have fallen off the bridge and focused on building an impressive defense force ;)
We've also begun work on implementing the first chapter of the story and continuing work new item system. Expect to see elements from both in the upcoming weeks.
New Features
Updated the navigation radius of units on Faircrown Bridge to be smaller
Pathfinding has been switched over to navigation mesh for performance increase
Onslaught no longer drops collectibles, the loot is automatically collected by you on an enemy death
Updated collisions on Faircrown Bridge
Overall performance increase with lots of units on screen
Fixes
Fixed a new dupe bug that was created as a result of menu streamlining
Fixed a problem with Onslaught not updating the unit portrait if you tried to cycle through units while the purchase menu was up
Feedback
With the story and item storage being reworked, which of the two are you guys most excited for?
Patch 0.3.6
Greetings Captains!
Continuing on the progress from last week, we've now managed to implement more audio cues throughout the game.
Next week we'll start working on implementing items through the steam inventory. This will allow player trades and marketplace transactions for them. A full blog post will be available next week which explains the process.
We will also be starting work on implementing the first chapter of the story, we're very excited about sharing the story of Hendrika with everyone!
New Features
Equipping items, slotting them or sorting them now have audio feedback
Decomposing items now plays a sound effect to go with the animation
Audio will now play when an item is ready for crafting
Success and failure when combining items now provide audio feedback
Shine, Ice Rain, Wild Growth and Fire Pit now have audio cues
Demigod visual size increased to make them more menacing on the battlefield
Fixes
Fixed a dupe glitch in the item inventory
AI Commanders have their detection range increased, this will prevent them from cowering in the corner if they have troops
Feedback
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the sound effects and our future plans!
Patch 0.3.5
Greetings Captains!
This week we've been hard at work trying to get some proper audio cue's in the game.
Our menu also received a new makeover, streamlining the process between the Unit Inventory and the Main Menu. Going back and forth between them will feel a lot more seamless.
With these quality of life improvements to the game, we're now at a point where we can focus on getting the first chapter of the story implemented.
New Features
Audio feedback added to buttons, dropowns and checkboxes
Options screen now provides feedback when modifying sliders for volume
Hiring units will provide an audio queue to let you know the operation was a success
Trying to place a unit when you can't hire one now gives you warning sounds along with the error message
Menu music now implemented
Transition between menu and unit inventory has been streamlined, load times when travelling back and forth should be greatly improved
Fixes
Minor bugs and spelling mistakes taken care of
Feedback
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the sound effects and menu music!
