Stolen Realm cover
Stolen Realm screenshot
Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Tactical, Adventure, Indie

Stolen Realm

Hotfix 18.10 Various Fixes

Skill Changes

  • Increased damage from Slaying Shot from 350% to 400% of Attack Power
  • Impaling Shot no longer recieves bonuses from number of targets and its damage has been increased from 170% to 300% of Attack Power


Bug Fixes

  • Fixed various issues that could cause items/characters not to load correctly
  • Fixed issue where it was possible to get damaged by an allies damage return
  • Fixed issue where Chain Frost could proc abiltities that require weapon skills to proc
  • Fixed issue where bonus damage from Long Shot was being calculated incorrectly
  • Fixed issue with items that grant enchants (Magedraw & Phoenix Claymore) dealing 0 damage and effects only lasting 4 turns.

Hotfix 18.8: Battle End Lock Fix

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue that could cause a lock up at the end of battle

Hotfix 18.7: Battle Start Lockup / End Turn Bug Fixes

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed various issues that caused possible lock ups on turn progression.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause you to be unable to load into battle.

Hotfix 18.5: Character/Item Loading Fix

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue that caused some characters and items not to load correctly on computers with non-English language settings.
  • Fixed issue where Executioner could grant you an extra AP when its not your turn.

v0.18 Patch Notes - Monk Update

Greetings heroes of the realm! As we announced in our latest dev diary, we have been hard at work with the next content update for Stolen Realm. You know already its main new feature – a new character class, the Monk: a powerful martial artist specialized in controlling the battlefield positionally, with strong hand-to-hand combat, high mobility and skills that allow them to pull and push enemies around.

But that’s not all in v0.18! To begin with, you’ll find some brand new enemies in your adventures: the Hand Clan and the Blackguards. These two factions make use of the new mechanics brought to the game by the Monk (it wouldn’t be fair if only players could kick people around the battlefield, wouldn’t it?) The Hand Clan are a warrior clan that lives in the water mountain; inspired by Eastern cultures, they are powerful hand-to-hand combatants, just like the Monks. On the other hand, as their name hints, Blackguards are bandits who roam deserts and forests at night. There are also some new bosses (keen-eyed readers spotted a ronin in the dev diary…) but we don’t want to spoil all the surprises – just keep your eyes peeled out there!

There’s also a bunch of quality-of-life UI updates, and lots of tweaking and fine-tuning for balancing purposes. You can find all the details in the patch notes below. Remember that we’re happy to receive your feedback both here in the Steam forums and on our Discord server – your input is invaluable for us!

Good luck in your next adventures, heroes!

NEW FEATURES




  • New Skill Tree: Monk
  • New Warrior Skill: Charge
  • New Warrior Skill: Bash
  • Extended Skill Bar
  • Added Monk character preset
  • Skill Tree and Inventory menus are now able to be opened in battle
  • Added new party events
  • New enemy groups: The Hand Clan, Blackguard each with new bosses.
  • New enemies: Zombies, Minotaurs, and more. Oh my!
  • More visually clear 'Ended Turn' indicator on character portraits
  • Updated 'Giant' class enemy animations
  • Added more bow class weapons
  • Added fist weapon class
  • Added other various items
  • You can now Exit Game from the pause menu


GENERAL CHANGES




  • Might now also adds to Armor and Magic Armor
  • Might now increases Summon Damage
  • Dexterity now grants +1 Movement Point for every 20 points in Dexterity (Max 5)
  • Intelligence now grants +1 Skill Range for every 20 points in Intelligence (Max 5)
  • Intelligence now increases Summon Health
  • Reflex now increases Opportunity and Counter Attack damage
  • Reflex now increases Counter Attack chance on dodging an attack
  • Reflex now grants +1 Max Counter Attacks Per Turn for every 20 points in Reflex (Max 5)
  • Moved Crit Chance and Dodge Chance to a rating system where it can be useful early game but you need more per level to remain effective
  • All player characters wielding melee weapons now can perform Opportunity Attacks
  • Removed the movement bonus to melee weapons
  • Party Events are generally more positive
  • Decreased the after battle regen from 20% to 5% and increased the frequency of rest nodes
  • Gold Statue of the First Mountain King and Cursed Chest events now require you to complete a battle to get the loot (finally have to earn it guys...)
  • Consumables that add to movement points now immediately give you movement points rather than increasing the per turn movement you receive
  • Tweaked the node map to make treasure and commodity nodes more hidden
  • Target now receives 'Ritual Sickness' after having Dark Ritual cast on them restricting them from having it cast on them again for 2 turns after it expires
  • Changed targeting system for certain skills (Twister, Fissure, Ice Lance, Piercing Shot, Breath of Winter, and Energy Cannon)
  • Items that proc skills now have the skills based on the item level rather than the wielder's level
  • Battle log is now cleared on battle start rather than battle end



SKILL CHANGES




  • Hide in Shadows: CD increased by 1. Changed to free action.
  • Guardian II: physical resistance reduced from 10% to 8%.
  • Storm Weathered II: Elemental resistance reduced from 10% to 8%.
  • Death Dealer I: Critical Hit Damage lowered from 20% to 16%.
  • Death Dealer II: Critical Hit Damage lowered from 30% to 24%.
  • Ambush I: Isolated Damage lowered from 20% to 16%.
  • Ambush II: Isolated Damage lowered from 30% to 24%.
  • Dual-Wield Mastery: Values lowered from 8% critical hit chance, 8% dodge chance, 25% critical hit damage to 5% critical hit chance, 5% dodge chance, 20% critical hit damage
  • Precision I: Values lowered from 5% critical hit chance, 20% critical hit damage to 4% critical hit chance, 16% critical hit damage
  • Precision II: Values lowered from 8% critical hit chance, 30% critical hit damage to 6% critical hit chance, 24% critical hit damage
  • Changed Elemental Enchants to Tier 2 and they now have a 50% chances to proc on all attacks (including non weapon skills)
  • Changed elemental armors to Tier 1 and each gain 10% resistance to their respective element
  • En Garde now increases Max Counter Attacks Per Turn by 2
  • Shield Mastery now increases all stats on the shield by 50%
  • Quick Draw now applies Exhaustion and cannot be cast while exhausted
  • Overload is now self cast
  • Fade now has a 50% chance to grant stealth after an enemy is killed instead of 100%
  • Marked Prey is now triggered by all attacks instead of just basic attacks. Stacks now capped at 5.
  • Soft Step now requires 5 hexes of movement to trigger stealth instead of 3
  • Ascendancy now buffs stats by 40% down from 50%
  • Changed Quick Hands from 100% to 50% chance to trigger
  • Added new items notably fist weapons and bows.
  • Reduced damage dealt by enemy elemental auras


BUG FIXES




  • Fixed issue with Energy Cannon hitting slower than expected
  • Fixed issue where the character name text for crates and barrels would match the color of the last hovered enemy
  • Fixed issue where you could have multiple types of Rage on a character
  • Fixed issue where Overwhelming Power and Break the Ice wouldn't get removed upon casting a healing skill
  • Fixed issue where Poison Weapon would cause allies you hit to get poisoned
  • Fixed issue where Bleeding Band would also cause your allies to bleed
  • Fixed issue where Vitality break wouldn't function correctly with a healing weapon equipped
  • Fixed issue where Bloodlet would heal you if you had a healing weapon equipped
  • Fixed issue where you could walk in and out of Holy Ground and get healed multiple times in the same turn
  • Fixed issue with item mods becoming more effective on tiered items if the item already has that attribute natively
  • Fixed issue where Enduring Evasion wouldn't get applied correctly
  • Fixed issue where some items that grant passive statuses could stack with like statuses (ie. Forgemaster's Links and Fire Shield)
  • Fixed issue with Empowered Light not giving the healing received bonus
  • Fixed issue where the second target of Soul Link wouldn't use range addition modifiers
  • Fixed issue where Cauterize was scaling with Might
  • Fixed issue where you could heal with Child of the Abyss from sources other than life steal
  • Fixed issue where you could possibly activate ore veins and gathering nodes twice
  • Fixed issue where Heat could remove Ghost Armor at the start of your turn
  • Fixed incorrect description on Light's Beckon
  • Fixed issue where Wild prefix increased summon damage less than the Instinctual prefix despite being higher rarity
  • Fixed issue where you couldn't Ping while a dead character is selected
  • Fixed issue with Shield of Retribution getting double might bonus
  • Fixed various issues with enemies teleporting into disallowed hexes and some LOS blocking issues
  • Fixed various typos on skill tooltips
  • Fixed issue where Haunt wouldn't have a damage range
  • Fixed issue where Gemstone Wand Sprig would heal instead of deal cold damage
  • Fixed issue where you could possibly start the cutscene outside of act 1
  • Fixed issue where Warrior's Boon and Healing Hand could crit
  • Fixed issue where global targeting skill like Mass Freeze would target dead characters
  • Fixed issue where Static Field was using dead characters to calculate health ratios
  • Fixed some issues causing tooltip damage values to be incorrect
  • Fixed issue where Shield and Evasion stacks wouldn't properly be cleared at the end of battle
  • Fixed issue where being blind could actually increase the range of self target skills
  • Fixed issues with Shield of Retribution not properly dealing damage on expiry
  • Fixed issue where casting Bless on a target that already has the status resulted in unexpected behavior
  • Fixed issue where legacy items that used to be over level 30 would have stats scaled based on their old level
  • Fixed various issues with turn order and counter attacks / opportunity attacks

Dev Diary #2: The Monk

Greetings heroes of the realm! We’ve got some news to share with you: we’re working hard on the next updates of Stolen Realm, which will be released as soon as next week, and we can now give you a sneak peek at one of the biggest new features that will be implemented soon. We’re very excited to announce that Stolen Realm is getting a new character class: the Monk!

If you play TTRPG games like Dungeons & Dragons you’ll be familiar with the archetype: a character class based on hand-to-hand combat and high mobility, usually very tough thanks to a lot of resistances. Our Monk draws from this inspiration, but as we always strive to do, we’ve given it our own twist to make it stand out from the crowd.

So, what are Monks about? To sum it up, they are powerful martial artists with the ability to move enemies around, pulling them and knocking them back with their special skills. The active Monk skills focus on taking control of the board, so to speak, dominating the battle positionally. Thanks to their high mobility, they can charge across the battlefield and dash between enemies to help their companions wherever they are, creating havoc around the whole map.


A Monk using an AoE attack against a group of enemies

Thanks to this, the Monk is meant to support other characters’ special powers, complementing them and creating awesome tactical synergies. For example, your Monk could start a battle by kicking an enemy into a fire barrel to use the explosion to thin down a crowd of enemies before they get to charge your team. Next turn the Monk would cooperate with the Warriors of the team, pulling the toughest enemies into their Slams to weaken them. Then in the heat of battle the party’s Healer gets pinned down by an enemy, just when some other hero is about to succumb to their injuries – but lo and behold, here comes the Monk, charging across the battlefield with a fearsome warcry, to kick the monster away so the Healer can run to aid the wounded without fear of opportunity attacks…

As you can see, Monks synergizes very well with the rest of the team, creating an extra layer of tactical depth thanks to their ability to support other characters and make their skills shine. Their movement skills, paired with passives that increase damage based on how much you have moved, can create some crazy damage combos; and the tricks you can pull off when cooperating with other players are just amazing. We can’t wait to see the tactical shenanigans you come up with when you get your hands on the Monk!

Mind you, just as it happens with all other character classes in the game, Monks are not meant to be a cookie-cutter character that forces you to comply with a strict build. You can go full Monk, of course – there is a lot of customization in the pure class. But you can also take skills from other skill trees, creating your own, completely unique build. Maybe your version of a Monk dips into the Fire tree or the Shadow tree to create something truly unique to your playstyle. And of course, perhaps all you really care about is punching your enemies to death with all new fist weapons – all options will be viable!


Charging an enemy across the battlefield

As it always happens when you’re designing new mechanics, some just don’t pass the cut and are left on the design table. For instance, at first we thought of a bunch of passive skills for the Monk, based on its fantasy archetype: passive bonuses that you unlock for renouncing the use of weapons and armor. The idea was for it to be modular – perhaps you renounce the use of weapons to get certain bonuses, but keep armor on for extra toughness. In the end we decided against it, because we wanted to keep all the builds equally flexible: if you have to renounce weapons and armor you can’t multiclass efficiently Monk and Warrior, for example; and thus, Monk would have been the only class that needs players to fully commit to it, upsetting the balance of the class system.

So, what do you think about the introduction of Monks in the game? What do you expect from them, tactically speaking? We’re still in the process of refining (and of course balancing) this new class, so your feedback is very welcome at this stage! You can leave us your comments here in the comments section of this forum, or join our Discord server where you can chat with other players of the game and reach out to the development team directly. This Saturday (May 28th), from 9:30 am to 10:30 am PST, we'll be streaming our game on steam. Afterward at 10:30 am we’ll be available for an informal Q&A about this new feature and the game as a whole – we’re looking forward to seeing you on Stolen Realm’s Discord server!

Have a nice week, and good luck on the battlefield, heroes!

New Monk Class: Developer Preview

Come watch us play the brand new Monk class which will release next week! Afterward you can meet us on discord for a Q&A session.

Discord Event:

https://discord.gg/cxqne5Y7?event=979107256434065468

Hotfix 17.10: Various Bug Fixes

General Changes

  • Topaz Sword no longer has a hidden 100% chance to cast Chain Lightning on striking. It now has a 10% chance to cast shock. Changed the damage type from Physical to Lightning
  • Golden Cross and Sun Stuff no longer deal damage to you when hitting allies with return damage
  • Dark God's Scepter changed from melee to ranged.


Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue that sometimes caused you not be able to activate quests
  • Fixed some issues that caused player to not be able to end their turn
  • Fixed some issues that caused increasing lag over time while playing
  • Fixed issue where Bioluminescence wasn't properly applied to the Ghost Shroom patch loot table
  • Fixed issue where ground effects that affect movement would still affect your movement after restarting the battle
  • Fixed issue that could causes crashes on certain Water Temple maps
  • Fixed issue where one team could act while the other team isn't finished acting yet
  • Fixed issue where you could sometimes move while acting
  • Fixed issue with shift+left click to quick sell not functioning

Dev Diary #1: Simultaneous turns

Hello and welcome to the first entry of the dev diary for Stolen Realm! We’ve been hard at work for months after the Early Access release to expand the base of the game (and we've got some quite relevant updates to prove it!); but now that the dust has settled and we feel we’re heading in the right direction, we wanted to open our metaphorical doors a little bit to share with you the development process of the game – and sometimes how’s our daily work as indie developers. For this first entry we want to discuss how we came up with one of the basic pillars of Stolen Realm: its unique blend of the depth of turn-based strategy games and the white-knuckle ride of action-RPG.

Stolen Realm is our passion project, borne of our love of turn-based games, but it’s also our answer to a problem we stumbled upon very soon in the design process: we wanted to do a TBS game, and one we could play with our friends because we love shared gaming sessions; but most of these turn-based games are usually designed for single player experiences. They also run into issues when you start adding multiplayer options, such as a massive downtime between turns during combat.

This particular problem meant we found it very difficult to get into a lot of turn-based games, especially since many titles required you to start the game together rather than just jump in and out with a character. So we realized that, for our game, we needed to find a way to conduct drop-in sessions with your friends at any given time without feeling slowed down by too many players, which is how many action-RPG games tend to work. It had to be fast-paced as well – but without sacrificing a satisfyingly deep tactical combat system with a lot of strategic options. There was another challenge attached to this: when to lock people together, and when to let them free roam making up their own adventures on the go.


A battle balanced for just one player

Just like any other game, we had our own deep well of inspirations and ideas that we researched and looked at the pros and cons of before we jumped into development of Stolen Realm. We loved that concept enough that we felt that we had to bring that mechanic to the world of deep tactical combat, considering that this would allow us to make a tactical turn-based game with fast paced gameplay vs long, drawn out rounds with multiple players in the game. As for other inspirations, we looked at games we love from both genres and took the best elements. For turn-based we’re inspired by Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate 1-3 and on the action RPG side we’re heavily inspired by Diablo 2, Path of Exile and others. We also draw a bit from the exploration mechanics from Slay the Spire.

It honestly just worked right out of the box a lot better than we thought. We were worried that it would downplay the importance of the strategy layer and everyone wouldn’t play off each other, but it ended up resulting in more strategic gameplay. When the fight is straightforward, everyone kind of moves forward and the battle progresses quickly. When you need a more strategic move, everyone kind of talks about it and then you have the full freedom of every team member executing their moves in any order, which actually creates a more synergistic strategy.

There were certain mechanics we gave up to make it work a little better. Heroes don’t get a lot of action points, although you can build your character towards a lot of free actions. And there wasn’t much we could do with a hero getting more turns than another, but we think the benefits outweigh any sacrifices we had to make.


This battle, significantly more difficult, is balanced for a full party

But what was exactly the solution we found? It’s what we call “simultaneous turns” – probably the most defining feature of the game. You can really have 20 enemies that all move together and execute their turns at the same time. As an example, if you have 20 enemies in say for example Divinity 2, that usually results in long down time while you wait for everyone to take their turn. This also meant that the AI for Stolen Realm had to be tuned for performance and avoid any clashes for the mechanic to function successfully. Another big part is quick story decisions that play a big role in how the team places, as well as bringing everyone together in the game’s narrative.

Let’s talk about the simultaneous turn system first. Basically, if you’re on the same team, everyone gets to trigger their actions all at once. The resolution for this is just like a real time battle, although due to a small number of action points per turn, there is still a high degree of turn-based combat feeling to the game. With regards to the adaptive AI, at the start of their turn, they sequentially map out what they are going to do next. This calculation takes less than a second, but it allows each enemy to know what the other is planning on doing, so they don't make mistakes such as trying to move to the same hex as each other. Once this is completed, they all execute their actions in real time, so the end result is the enemies act and move at the same time, effectively giving us the same great strategic feel without the absurd wait times.


An enemy turn with our simultaneous turn system

Balancing is one of the hardest things as a game developer. Having said that, we’ve taken great lengths to ensure that you don't need to play with extra characters that you don't feel obligated to take with you. Most turn-based games don't have this mechanic: a lot of them are just meant to be played with a full party, and this puts you at a disadvantage if you don't. Action RPGS on the other hand generally scale up in difficulty whenever more people join the game, and this is what we wanted. Effectively, you get to choose the party size, and the game adapts even if it’s a party of 1.

In order to ensure every aspect of the game worked harmoniously with each other, we had the core philosophy of making a great turn based RPG without waiting times from the beginning, which made it easier to add everything around that core gameplay design. There are still many design choices that are made along the way, but we always try to keep as much strategy without causing a large wait.

Thank you for reading today’s dev diary! Remember to check out Stolen Realm on Steam, add us to your wishlists and we’ll catch you again in the near future with some more information. You can also drop by our Discord channel to say hello, meet other fellow heroes of the realm, and give us your feedback about the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330000/Stolen_Realm/

v0.17 Patch Notes - End Game, Quest Modifiers and Tiered Loot

If you think you’ve won every battle and defeated every enemy, if you feel like there are no challenges left and you can now put your arms to rest… you are wrong, heroes of the realm, for peace is not everlasting and the struggle never ends! We’re excited to announce a new update (yeah, two in a row, we’re on a roll!) that, among many other things, brings end-game content for an endless challenge that will test the mettle of your band of heroes.

Basically, in addition to increasing the difficulty level as high as you want, after you complete all the main story quest all maps will roll with modifiers that greatly increase the difficulty – but also bring you bigger rewards as well. Let’s see a few examples of these modifiers. Lethal Life will make you lose a percentage of your HP per turn in battle – you’ll have to be really quick defeating your enemies! Abominable Allies, on the other hand, will make you face two bosses instead of one.



That’s not all in this update. We’ve also added a Tier system for loot; from now on, items will be capped at level 30, but now the higher quest levels can drop new tiers of items: Levels 30-40, Tier 1; Levels 40-50, Tier 2; and Levels 50-60, Tier 3. There are a few quality-of-life additions, like the ability to hover over enemy modifiers to see what they do, link items from shops and stash, and rename your character in the Character Select menu. There are also a bunch of balancing changes and bugfixes. Check out the full patch notes below!



FEATURES




  • Added a Tier system where loot from level 30+ quests can roll special modifiers that increase their effectiveness
  • Added a battle modifier system that takes effect after the main story quests are completed. These modifiers make battles harder in various ways, but increase your rewards.
  • Various performance optimizations
  • You can now hover over enemy modifiers in the examine window to see specially what they do
  • You can now link items from shops and stash
  • You can now rename your character in the character select menu via the ellipse menu
  • Added a static party gold display


GENERAL CHANGES




  • Item levels are now capped at 30
  • Reduced the amount of damage barrels deal by 20%
  • Special vendor features (Respec, Materials, Gabling) now travel with you as you progress through Acts
  • Damage Reduction is now capped at 50%
  • Life steal is now less effective at higher levels
  • Life steal is now longer affected by Healing Received bonuses
  • Extra attacks from Marksman's Cap, Dwarven Handaxe, Last Word, and Winged Axe now perform a complete attack and are only triggered on basic attacks similar to Quick Hands
  • There are now separate stashes for Softcore and Hardcore items
  • Quest Select window now has a static quest info panel
  • Camera panning is now locked to the level view


SKILL CHANGES




  • Changed Quick Hands double attack chance to 100% instead of 33%, but now can only activate once per turn
  • Frost, Fire, Thunder Borne now reduce their respective elemental resistance by 10% down from 15%
  • Purge now removes 20% of the target's max mana and restores 20% of the caster's max mana
  • Bloodlet, Kindling, Conduit, and Steal Action now apply exhaustion



BUG FIXES




  • Fixed issue where Smoke Bomb would also get applied to enemies
  • Fixed issue where Thunder Wrath would target barrels and crates
  • Fixed issue where Purge wasn't taking as much mana as it should
  • Fixed issue where Purge could steal more mana than the target had
  • Fixed issue where you sometimes couldn't send item to others after splitting them
  • Fixed issue that caused Move Object to keep on getting reapplied to the skill bar
  • Fixed issue where Fickle Flame would effects character menu stats
  • Fixed issue with weapon enchant visual effects not displaying correctly
  • Fixed issue where pressing escape wouldn't close the crafting window
  • Fixed issue where the Gathering goal would sometimes move when you try to harvest
  • Fixed issue where fishing wouldn't pause correctly when the escape menu is opened
  • Fixed issue with fishing becoming easier/harder based on frame rate