Greetings, heroes of the Realm! We’re releasing a patch today that brings several important new features to the game – features that we believe will have a profound impact on your tactical battles. This patch implements destructible barrels and movable crates, which will be spawned randomly throughout battle maps, making the positioning of your heroes (and enemy troops) more important than ever.
Up until now, battle maps were essentially open fields; from this patch on you’ll have to think carefully about how you position your heroes and where you send them, because you can find yourself quickly isolated from your allies if you make a mistake… but on the other hand, you can use these terrain features to your advantage, pinning your enemies down, attacking them from the safety or your cover, or forcing them into obstacles to split their party. We hope you enjoy the new depth that this feature will bring to your battles!
You can destroy these barrels to clear the way – but beware their area effects! Ice barrels slow everyone down around them when they explode. Fire barrels go in huge blasts, causing raw damage. Smoke barrels, on the other hand, increase dodge chance on the ground for 3 turns. You can use these explosions to your advantage – but so can your enemy! And crates can be moved around the battlefield, giving you the ability to redefine your environment to improve your position.
That’s not all, of course – this patch also implements a new feature we’ve called Enemy Modifications. Essentially, enemies can now have random modifiers that alter them in various ways, from regeneration to increased movement speed and even explosion on death. This makes each enemy unique, and thus, each battle different from the rest.
While these are the two main new features, this patch also brings a lot of balancing changes, tweaks to the skills system, and quality-of-life additions, as well as squashing a good number of bugs. Check out the full patch notes below, and let us know what you think about the new stuff in the comments!
v0.15.6 Patch Notes
General Changes
Destructible barrels and crates are now spawned randomly throughout battle maps
Enemies can now have modifiers that alter them in various ways (Regeneration, Explosion on Death, Movement Speed, etc.)
Increased size of text on tooltips
It is now much rarer to get legendary and mythic items while gambling
Vitality now grants +1% Max Health per point
Health per level decreased from 20 to 15
Intelligence now grants +1% Max Mana per point
Mana per level decreased from 20 to 15
Bonuses to Healing Received now affect life steal and health regen
Changed Dwarven totem to now grant 15% stun chance on hits
Features
Ping functionality in battle to mark specific spots you want to show your allies
Skill Changes
Fireblast damage increased from 100% to 130%.
Dazzling Darts damage increased by 30% each dart to 40% each dart.
Chilling Strike damage increased from 120% to 150%.
Frost Shard damage increased from 90% to 130%.
Dagger Throw (Deadly, Poisoned) damage increased from 65% to 100%.
Cripple damage reduced from 140% to 70%. Changed from Action to Free Action. Mana cost reduced.
Maim damage reduced from 160% to 100%. Changed from Action to Free Action. Mana cost reduced.
Gouge damage reduced from 160% to 100%. Changed from Action to Free Action. Mana cost reduced.
Bleed stacks now reduce physical resistance by 3% per stack. Damage of bleed reduced by 20%.
Poison stacks now reduce all healing taken by 1% per stack.
Seal of Protection changed from 10% all resistances to 10% reduced damage taken.
Changed Avatar of Flame to now apply damage over time for each stack of heat you've applied.
Slam, Stunning Slam, Crushing Slam changed to a line spell 3 hexes wide 5 hexes long. This change was made to give warrior a way to interact with the new destructible mechanic.
Light's Beckon target range increased from 10 to 15, teleport to caster range increased from 1 to 3.
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue with Ambush I & II not working as intended
Fixed issue where Steal Action was affected by range adding mods
Fixed issue where you sometimes were unable to see health bars
Fixed issue where characters would sometimes keep ground effect statuses after they expire
Fixed issue where you could sometimes still receive healing with Child of the Abyss
Fixed issue with Shadow Walk not working correctly
Fixed issue where skills like Mass Freeze, Frozen Earth, and Burning Ground would have sound effects that acost your ears
Fixed issue that caused Ghost Armor to block status effects without being expended
Fixed issue that would sometimes caused enemies to attack their allies
Fixed issue where Glory would make you untargetable while active
Fixed issue where EnGarde could trigger on allies
Fixed issue where Break the Ice was marked as a negative status
Fixed issue where Rune of Exploding wouldn't consume Overwhelming Power and Break the Ice
Fixed issue where you could leech from yourself using Leech Might/Dexterity/Intelligence using skills like Bloodlet
Fixed issue where Evasion status would show as Enduring Evasion
Fixed issue where a character could dodge a Rune of Exploding before its activated when placed on their hex
Hotfix 14.9: Town Spawning Fix
Town Spawning Fix
Bug Fixes
-Fixed issue that sometimes caused characters to be unable to move upon entering a new town.
Hotfix 14.8: Item Stash Bug FIx
Item Stash Bug FIx
Just pushing out a quick fix that cased unexpected behavior while using the Item Stash.
Bug Fixes
-Fixed issue where items from the item stash would unexpectedly cause items to get sent to characters -Fixed issue where clicking the stash filter buttons would cause items to move from stash to inventory and vice versa
Hotfix 14.7: Enemy Damage Per Player Bonus Nerf & Bug Fixes
Enemy Damage Per Player Bonus Nerf & Bug Fixes
Just a quick hotfix mainly for an issue where enemies were receiving double the bonus damage that comes from player party size.
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue where enemies were getting double the bonus to damage for each character in your party
Fixed issue where pressing ESC in stash/gambling/transmog/quest map windows wouldn't properly close out the window
Fixed some issues with Item Stash/Transmog not working correctly
Fixed issue where optional quest level selector wouldn't default to your last quest level selected
Features
Stash now auto selects the next available item slot after moving an item to the stash/inventory
Double click to send items to stash/inventory
General Changes
In the Character Menu, changed "Next Level" (which shows the total experience needed for the next level) to "To Next Level" (which shows how much more experience you need for the next level)
Changed experience values to be higher (both experience earned and experience needed to level)
Update 14: Difficulties, Act Based Quest System, New Shops and New Towns
Difficulties, Act Based Quest System, New Shops and New Towns
We're excited to introduce a whole new progression system, including 3 new towns, 4 acts, and a brand new difficulty setting. We hope you enjoy these features as you adventure through the Stolen Realm!
General Changes
Difficulty is now set on the party select screen instead of choosing on the quest select menu
Changed quest progression system to be Act based
Ranged weapons are now more common in Armorys
Summons are nerfed early game and buffed late game
Features
Item stash
Added new merchant: Gambler
Added new merchant: Transmog
Characters now ordered by last time played
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue where Fencer's Finesse II would grant 5% instead of 8% dodge chance
Fixed issue where casting Shield of Light or Shield of Retribution on a target that already has it would remove it from them
Skill Changes
Fracture duration increased from 1 turn to 2 turns.
Purge mana steal increased by 50%.
Hotfix 13.2: Mana Changes & Summon Buffs
Mana changes & Summon buffs
This update includes characters getting more base mana per level, and the reduction of mana costs. Also summons now have more health and deal more damage. As always, thanks for your feedback and help in shaping the game!
General Changes
Increased maximum mana gained per level by 25%
Lowered all mana costs by 12%
Additional lowering of mana costs of Fire tree
Increased health and damage for player summons
Skill Changes
Fuel for the Flames I now increases mana costs by 15% (up from 10%) and increases damage by 30% (up from 20%)
Fuel for the Flames II now increases mana costs by 25% (up from 15%) and increases damage by 50% (up from 30%)
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue with Shield of Retribution not working properly
We're excited to release this small update that enhances the health and mana pickups dropped by enemies. We believe this should be helpful for those who are still struggling with the absence of recovery in their builds. We hope this change along with decreased enemy health and damage at later levels and a reduced cost for refunding skill and stat points will allow people to find and enjoy a variety of builds.
We understand that removing recovery was controversial and we appreciate the honest feedback that was shared. We've heard you and we're excited to work with you to make Stolen Realm the best it can be. Nothing here is final and if you want to know more about our reasoning we've included an explanation after the patch notes. We hope we can keep an open dialogue that makes everyone happy.
General Changes
Enemy pickups left on the battlefield are now automatically picked up upon battle victory
Summons can now trigger enemy pickups
Summons now benefit from enemy pickups
The last enemy defeated can now drop a pickup
Reduced cost of refunding skill and stat points by 50%
Decreased enemy health and damage at later levels
Increased effectiveness of mana potions
Features
Gold send window now has a 'Set To Max' button
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue that caused Redemption not to work on the caster's death
Fixed incorrect health regen value on Dragon's Blood amulet
Fixed issue where Consumption was only giving 5% increased damage instead of 10%
Fixed issue where you could send all of your gold except 1
Fixed issue where consuming a potion would sometimes not expend the item
Fixed issue where items over level 100 couldn't be reforged properly
Problems with Recovery
Less Strategic Choices
One of the major issues recovery caused was that it didn't feel like we had to watch how much health and mana was lost, because we would eventually regain anything used. This happened on the battlefield and on the world map. We found that with recovery you cared less about taking big hits of damage or spending a lot of mana on spells, because you would naturally gain it back in the current fight or in the next. We found that we would rarely try to grab health and mana pickups dropped by enemies. We found that on the world map we rarely made the choice to regain health and mana for the same reason. This made choices both on and off the battlefield less strategic. Without recovery we find that we use shrines, pickups, actions and positioning more strategically than before. Without recovery we find that we more carefully choose our way through the world map so that we have enough in the tank to defeat the last boss.
Prolonging Battles
A common complaint we found caused by recovery was that it prolonged battles. There were situations where our characters couldn't die, because the amount of health we'd recover was greater than the damage the remaining enemies could deliver, but we'd still have to finish the fight with 10 more turns to go. There were also fights where you could kite enemies while your recovery regained you health and mana, but one misstep in 10 or 20 turns would cause you to suddenly lose the battle. Not to mention the desire for an adventuring party to leave a single weak enemy alive until everyone regained their stats. The consistent feedback was that these situations felt boring and broken.
Unbalanced Stat
Another main problem with recovery was that it was a stat that was simply too strong. It's probably one of the reasons this change has come with so much pushback. We found that putting very little into recovery at later levels would solve most health and mana problems. It was easy to attain 20% health and mana recovery per turn which rendered healing, life steal and mana steal unnecessary. It also forced us to severely spike the damage enemies did. If everyone in your party recovers their entire life pool in 3-5 turns we can no longer make enemies that slowly defeat you. Any enemy must defeat you instantly or not at all. There wasn't much middle ground between being one shot and invincible.
Open Dialogue
We honestly believe the game is better without recovery as a main stat, but we know not everyone agrees with us. We'd like everyone to keep that honest feedback coming to us. Together we can make a better game with everyone's opinion. Nothing right now is finalized. We're going to continue to improve the game with your help.
