Hey everyone! Today's patch is a much larger one that required some more thorough testing on our side (due to a few "under the hood" changes), so we apologize for taking a few extra days with it.
Now that we're able to take a moment, we wanted to give a big thank you to everyone for your support during our 1.0 launch! We're so glad that many of you are enjoying the game and its story. We've been reading all the feedback we receive (though we can't respond to it all), so we appreciate everyone taking the time to leave their thoughts on the forums, Discord, or in a review (and if you haven't left a steam review yet, we'd be grateful for it!). Here are today's notes:
Patch Notes 1.0.009
New
The total number of remaining reinforcements for the battle is now displayed on the right side of the turn order
Updates
Wealdere creatures are now Vulnerable to Frost damage
Damage numbers and status text over a unit's head now displays each instance on its own line instead of trying to combine them into one (which made it hard to tell if a secondary damage source was applying or not)
The combat indicator for offscreen characters now bounces a bit so it's easier to notice
Optimized certain parts of combat to be a little snappier. Enemies now act slightly faster after moving (among other small tweaks to speed things up)
Reduced the time it takes to use the Guard skill before going to the next turn
Return to Cinder and Cold Feet can no longer stack on top of itself or other traps
Updated some cave combat layouts to help with AI pathfinding
Updated the camping screen visuals to display up to 7 units
More choices during dungeon events now display a % chance (when relevant) to give you a better idea of the risk you're taking
Dying and failing on any mission during the prologue will now prompt a game over screen and you will need to reload and retry. Previously the game allowed you to continue, but this was potentially a cause of a rare problem (and a full party wipe at that point sets you so far back anyway that it's not advisable to continue on)
Made some adjustments to the flow of main campaign events that should result in less waiting around. Letters from Vahn that advance the story will now be given to you when entering a city (if the prerequisites are met), instead of relying on the event to trigger during overworld travel (which was a much less consistent way of doing it)
Increased the priority for Black Skull sabotage events to occur while the 'Blood Feud' quest is active
Adjusted the minimum required level of the campaign event that occurs after completing the Strength in Numbers quest. We suspect that some players' average party level was too low for that event to trigger, resulting in them having to wait around without any direction. If you're far enough into the game to complete Strength in Numbers, the next event should now trigger much sooner
Added in some new campaign quest objectives letting you know when you need to wait a bit (usually no more than 30~ days) to avoid any confusion on what you need to be doing
Fixes
Enchantments and enemy traits (eg. Giant) that increase Health now work properly
Damage Shields applied at the start of combat (from Enchantments and the Valkyrie's passive) now stack properly
Fixed an issue where using Rainfall (with aoe upgrades) overtop of ice terrain could cause a huge slowdown
Rainfall no longer destroys ice walls
The damage preview when using the Pugilist's Crippling Force ability should now be accurate
Fixed an issue where an empty text field could be shown over a unit's health bar which threw off the positioning of damage numbers
Fixed an issue where units walking into Fire terrain were receiving a Burn that only lasted for 3 rounds. All burns should now last until cleansed
If a character bounces off a cell and dies they will no longer leave behind a "ghost" that occupies their previous position
Made some changes to the turn order so it now has a maximum number of units it can display (so the order won't go offscreen when there are many units on the field)
Fixed an issue where if you couldn't see the end of the current round and used Wait, that character's turn would be lost (this currently wasn't an issue due to us displaying a large number of units in the turn order, but with the above change this has now been properly fixed)
Fixed an issue where your units could be pulled despite having Push/Pull Immunity
The off screen unit indicator no longer points towards your mouse cursor if you are moving a unit
Fixed an issue where certain combat encounters that started with a cutscene could have enemies stacked on top of each other in certain situations
The Deathlord boss can no longer perform Attacks of Opportunity
Wealderes will no longer push you back when they hit you with an Attack of Opportunity (which could sometimes cause a softlock) and they'll now just do a generic attack for 100% of their Power
Skeleton bone piles no longer count towards the Flanked status on your units
The damage preview when using the Huntress' Rapid Fire ability now takes into account the 3rd shot from the Barrage upgrade
The Refuel upgrade for Blazing Lance will no longer make the ability Stun instead of Taunt
Can no longer overwrite planks and ice pit hazards with certain traps
Fixed a few Shrine events where the preferred offering was incorrectly set
Fixed a bug where Named gear that had rolls for increased Movement, Speed, or Evasion were having those effects doubled
Fixed an issue where some high level recruits could sometimes not have the right number of ability points available
Potentially fixed an issue where cities would eventually begin to recycle the same recruits you had previously seen. They should now generate brand new recruits when the inn refreshes (usually between 30-60 days)
Attempting to recruit a character again that had previously left the company will now properly add them to your roster
Fixed a rare issue where the game could autosave when a scripted event was playing, which could put you in a bad state if you were to go back and load that autosave
Fixed an issue where a city that was destroyed would not appear destroyed when you first loaded a save file
Fixed the following achievements: Unlock all jobs, visit every city, obtain 5 legendary items
Made some changes to the flow when turning in contracts. We're hoping this will fix a very rare issue where you can get stuck in Andilon during the prologue (typically after the Void Breach quest). If you do still see this issue, please submit a bug report!
Fixed an issue where renaming the company wouldn't update properly sometimes
When renaming your company in an existing save, the max character length can now be as long as it is when naming your company when starting a new game
Fixed an issue where doing battles in a city could cause the world UI to disappear afterward
The Direct Action quest (miner's strike) will no longer show up multiple times (it's meant to be a unique quest)
Fixed an issue where sometimes quests weren't being removed from a city immediately after accepting them (e.g. Direct Action quest)
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Future Plans
We'll continue to patch with bugfixes, tweaks, and new additions over the next few weeks, but we wanted to let you know that you can also expect to see some new content added to the game towards the end of November. This will add to the pool of non-campaign quests available, so you won't be seeing quite as many repeatable quests once you get into the mid-late game.
A few people have also asked about what our roadmap for future development looks like, and while we're not going to share anything just yet, we are aiming to do so in December as we approach Christmas. Rest assured, we are not done developing and improving the game. It will still be receiving regular updates with new content, classes, enemies, and more!
-Curious Panda Games
Patch Notes 1.0.008
Hey all, we've just pushed out a small patch. This one should hopefully take care of any issues surrounding the quest 'The Last Stand'. In the next few days we'll be looking to add in an option for players to save in between the different phases as that sequence of events can be lengthy.
Patch Notes 1.0.008
Fixes
Changed the Mortal Reminder Dungeon Modifier that reduces bleedout points from 1 to 2 (for real this time!)
Fixed an issue where the Fleet-Footed Boots legendary item always incorrectly had a 400coin repair cost
Enemies throwing stun grenades (with the Subdue ability) can no longer crit on the throw as the ability doesn't do damage
Made the reset ability points button more prominent on the ability upgrades screen
Fixed an issue where certain legendary item's active abilities could only be used once per dungeon instead of once per combat
Fixed a crash during multi-team battles that was caused by Waiting on the last round of combat before moving to the next team/fight
Fixed an issue where the warning icon from channels could persist between multi-team battles
Increased the expiry timer for the campaign from 25 -> 30 years
Updated Named gear loot drops to be tied directly to the Skull difficulty of the dungeon/encounter (eg. 5 Skull bosses should now always drop Masterwork Named gear)
Patch Notes 1.0.007
Hey everyone! A bit of a bigger list of fixes today, and a new feature to display the presence of enemy damage shields above their sprite and health bar.
Patch Notes 1.0.007
New
Added a blue meter above enemy health bars to represent the value of their damage shield (if present)
Changes
Tweaked Charion stats so they have less Health but a bit more Defense (overall their effective Health has been nerfed as they were a bit too tanky before, especially as Elites)
The Mortal Reminder dungeon modifier now reduces starting Bleedout points to 2 instead of 1
Put a warning in the journal entries of certain campaign quests, letting you know that death will result in a game over state
Fixes
The damage preview that shows when preparing an attack now properly takes the enemy's damage shield into account
Fixed a bug where some Legendary knowledge events weren't appearing in dungeons
Fixed an issue where characters were being "prepared" on the deployment area twice and they appeared to jump around before combat started
The Guardian's basic attack now properly does Holy damage
Fixed a potential bug with Bounty Hunter enemies where the grenade they throw could persist through battles
All terrain effects should now be able to override other terrain effects properly
Fixed an issue so completing a quest should now always clear any temporary allies
Fixed various issues where there could be too few or too many contracts in some cities (especially after playing for a lot of hours)
Most Points of Interest on the map should now be properly highlighted if you click the magnifying glass icon to go to their location (this isn't retroactive so it won't work with existing quests you already have)
Fixed an issue where certain customization options weren't being saved
Sorting by Relics now works on the company management screen
Various text and stats on town tooltips are now updated immediately when highlighting them
Fixed an issue where the point of interest on the map for Campaign quest "The Baggage Train" could time out. If you were affected by this issue it should be resolved retroactively the next time you load your save
The VSync option should now be properly be saved when restarting the game
Ambushed debuffs now work properly for both sides
Deployment areas are now accurate for when you ambush enemies and when they ambush you
Fixed a bug where the Pugilist's 'Mind Over Matter' passive was making him ignore the debuff from being ambushed
Fixed a bug where Legendary gear was incorrectly included in the repair price at markets (and was inflating the bill)
Fixed a bug that could occur during 2 campaign fights where the game would think one of your characters was in a different spot than their sprite position appeared in (due to a scripted cutscene that played beforehand)
Patch Notes 1.0.004
Hey all, we've pushed another patch to fix a few things! Thanks for your patience :)
Patch Notes 1.0.004
Updates
The Shrine effect that modifies the Health of non-boss enemies to 75% has been modified so their max Health stays the same but their current Health is now reduced to 75% (previously it would reduce their max health, so it wasn't clear to the player if the effect worked or not)
Updated a few trait conflicts when generating new characters (if you see any more traits that shouldn't go together, please let us know!)
Dungeon Maps no longer stack, fixing an issue where maps from various dungeon difficulties would all have the same value (not retroactive, previously collected maps will still be stacked)
Updated the priority of some campaign related events so they trigger much sooner
Increased the difficulty of boss fights in the Dragate Ruins dungeons
Tweaked the Daemond fight to spawn 2 normal hoarwulfs in place of the Dire Hoarwulf, as their Pack Hunt ability introduced an extra variable of RNG that could make things too difficult for that fight
Fixes
Potential fix for a crash during the Blighted Assault quest at the Vanguard Fort
Fixed enchantments from disappearing on Legendary items after save/loading
Fixed an issue where a Knowledge event would sometimes not do anything in dungeons (it was caused by having no more journals to find)
Fixed an issue where doing a quest multiple times could lead to some variables to be tracked incorrectly, resulting in the outcome not matching up with the choices you made in the quest
Fixed an issue where maxing out the Satchel Size upgrade would make the last slot not visible
Fixed an issue where you could potentially beat the Baggage Train fight and your progression would be blocked
Fixed a rare issue that could occur during the 'Blood Feud' campaign quest where if you were doing a dungeon related to the Black Skull and found a dynamic dungeon event that also had Black Skulls, then the quest you were doing could potentially get removed after the fight
Fixed a bug with the Amulet of Stillness legendary item not always working correctly
Patch Notes 1.0.003
Hey everyone, we've just pushed another patch to address a few issues. There's a few more we're looking into and will try to get them patched in tomorrow. Thanks for your reports!
Patch Notes 1.0.003
Added an option to toggle off the Campaign expiration timer (which by default is 25 years). This can be done when starting a new game, or during an existing game (in the difficulty menu). If you choose to disable the expiry timer, it cannot be undone. If you're playing on a save from before 1.0 that has a lot of hours played, you may need to disable the timer (be sure to check your journal and see how many years remaining you have)
Fixed an issue where unlocking the One Mind Company Upgrade was not persisting after saving and loading.
Fixed a problem with the Provisions screen in dungeons where if you had more than 5 items it wouldn't scroll properly
Fixed a crash that would occur when killing the last enemy using the Stormcaller's Tempest ability with the Raging Storm II upgrade
Patch Notes 1.0.002
Hey everyone, we hope you're enjoying the game so far! We've just pushed a patch to address a few issues that have been reported. If you find any further issues, please send a bug report in game. Thank you for all your feedback and support and we hope you all have a terrific weekend!
Patch Notes 1.0.002
Additions and Changes
Added an option to disable the main menu panning/parallax effect
The Harrowing Experience dungeon modifier now only makes you lose 35 Morale instead of 50
Fixes
Fixed an issue with save file names sometimes changing when overwriting another save
The Heal Dampening Dungeon Modifier now correctly only reduces healing by 30% and not 70%
Fixed a rare crash after an event where you fight the Black Skull outside a city
Fixed an issue where some quest turn in locations would direct you to Dragate incorrectly
Fixed an issue where choosing to spare Daemond would still trigger combat
Fixed a crash that occurred if a character died from a Hoarwulf's Frost Call ability
Fixed some icons for a few Legendary items
Fixed one Legendary item to more accurately reflect its description
VSync option should now save and work properly
The Iron Oath 1.0 is out now!
Hello mercenaries! We're thrilled to announce that The Iron Oath 1.0 is now live! It's been a year and a half since our Early Access launch, and we just wanted to say a big thank you to our awesome community for joining us on this journey. Your feedback and support has been invaluable in helping to shape the game into what it is today.
Whether you're a new or returning player, we're excited for you all to jump into the world of Caelum and experience everything that we've been working on! Here are the key features of the 1.0 update, the patch notes, and a summary of what has been added since our EA launch:
1.0 Key Features
Main Campaign: The conclusion to the main campaign brings a series of new quests with new unique mechanics. We expect the average playtime for the campaign to now be between 25-30hours.
Legendary Gear: The hunt for legendary gear begins! Maps with the locations of legendaries can be obtained in high level dungeons, so keep an eye out for Knowledge events while exploring! There are currently 10 items to collect that have their own unique bonuses, with more on the way!
New Quests: New unique quests, repeatable quests, and Legendary quests! In total, we estimate the game now has at least 40 hours of unique content.
New Region: When you're far enough into the game, the region of Dragate will unlock, allowing you to scratch the surface of its mysteries by delving into a new combat environment.
Steam Achievements: Test your prowess by unlocking over 30 new Steam achievements as you play through the game.
While the game's campaign and primary features are now complete, there are still many more stories we want to tell in the world of Caelum. We're looking forward to continuing development throughout 2024 and hopefully beyond with more major updates!
Thank you once again for all your support! Whether you're a Kickstarter backer, an Early Access adopter, or just found out about the game, we hope you enjoy your time playing The Iron Oath! Be sure to spread the word and tell your friends, and if you haven't yet, we would also really appreciate you taking a moment to leave us a Steam review. They're important for not only gathering feedback, but also for the game's visibility :)
The Iron Oath releases tomorrow! Patch Notes for 1.0
Hello mercenaries!
The Iron Oath's 1.0 release is now less than a day away! We'll be launching at 8am PT on Thursday with a price of $25. Today is your last chance to take advantage of the Early Access price of $20!
Ahead of tomorrow's release, we wanted to share the full patch notes for the 1.0 build so you know what to expect with this update. If you're a new or returning player and wanted to know what all has been added throughout our Early Access period, you can find an overview in last week's post here:
Main Campaign: The conclusion to the main campaign brings a series of new quests with new unique mechanics. We expect the average playtime for the campaign to now be between 25-30hours.
Legendary Gear: The hunt for legendary gear begins! Maps with the locations of legendaries can be obtained in high level dungeons, so keep an eye out for Knowledge events while exploring! There are currently 10 items to collect that have their own unique bonuses, with more on the way!
New Quests: New unique quests, repeatable quests, and Legendary quests! In total, we estimate the game now has at least 40 hours of unique content.
New Region: When you're far enough into the game, the region of Dragate will unlock, allowing you to scratch the surface of its mysteries by delving into a new combat environment.
Steam Achievements: Test your prowess by unlocking over 30 new Steam achievements as you play through the game.
Patch Notes for v1.0
New
Added the rest of the Main Campaign, featuring 8 new missions (10-15~ hours worth) and a handful of dynamic events
Added 10 unique legendary items that can be obtained, with most of the quests coming from 'Knowledge' events found in high level dungeons. The majority of these are 'Relics' that occupy the 4th currently-unused gear slot, but there are some armors and shields too (weapons are coming down the line!)
Added 10 various new quests, with more coming throughout November!
The region of Dragate can now be accessed (when you're far enough into the game or a high enough level)
Added an "end-game" Ruins dungeon in Dragate (we'll be expanding on this feature in the future!)
Added over 30 Steam Achievements to unlock
Added multi-floor dungeons
Small spoiler: A few missions now utilize larger parties, and two parties at once!
You can now fight with ally NPCs in dungeons (utilized in a few quests)
Added Journals to collect from all regions (which are visible in the Codex)
(New Company Upgrade) Merchant Availability: Allows you to purchase provisions for Overworld Encounters (but has fewer slots compared to dungeons)
(New Company Upgrade) Focus Training: Any time you miss a Basic Attack, that character gains +20 Accuracy, resetting after they land one
(New Company Upgrade) Guard Training: Increase the Defense and Evasion bonus while Guarding by 5 (25 -> 30)
(New Company Upgrade) Athletics Training: Gain +25 Evasion when facing an Attack of Opportunity
(New Company Upgrade) Teamwork: Every adjacent ally to an enemy increases the chance to hit with a basic attack by 5% (for when you just can't flank them!)
(New Company Upgrade) Readiness: Your party has +2 Speed for the opening round of combat
Updates
You can now choose to start a new campaign with randomized characters when skipping the tutorial or prologue
Made adjustments to all the boss fights for the 'Path of Vengeance' missions (made slightly more difficult) and increased the quality of loot given from them.
Changed the mechanics for ambushes: the ambushed side now takes 15% more damage and has -5 Speed in the opening round of combat. When ambushed, you are still able to deploy your characters, though you begin surrounded with less space to work with. We made these changes because the old method was far too spikey in terms of difficulty, and could result in having one or more characters downed in the opening round without having a chance to do anything about it
The chance to ambush enemies (on scouted tiles) is now 10%, while the chance to be ambushed (on unscouted combat tiles) is 20%. Both can be improved with Company Upgrades
The 'Heal Dampening' Dungeon Modifier now reduces the potency of healing spells by 30% (down from 50%)
You can now use abilities that have 0 charges for a cost of 50% of max Health (to be used as a last ditch effort to take down the enemy!)
The number of Incense Points available for camping in Medium dungeons has been reduced to 10
You can now camp in Short dungeons (incense points are halved)
Adjusted the 'Extended Camp' company upgrade to grant +4 Incense points when camping on a Fortified dungeon event (Short dungeons get +2), as well as removing the Time cost for using provisions while on the tile
Reduced the number of Horse Training upgrades to 2 (+25/50% travel speed)
Refunded Provisions now defaults to selling for 75% of the cost. The 'Reimbursement' upgrade now refunds 100% of the cost
Ambush Tactics increases the chance of ambushing the enemy on a scouted tile from 10% to 20/30%
Ambush Avoidance reduces the chance to be ambushed on unscouted tiles from 20% to 10%. The second upgrade reduces the bonus damage taken when ambushed to 10% (from 15%)
Moved the Training Dummies upgrade (+20/35/50% XP) into a new 'Training' category in the Company Upgrades screen, and changed the renown level requirements to 0/5/10
The first 15 Renown Levels now give 2 Renown points to upgrade your company (subsequent levels give 1)
Added more information to the tooltips of enemy Immunities, resists, and vulnerabilities on their codex page
You can now bring up the character sheet in the contract negotiation screen
You can now right click an enemy sprite to view their codex entry
Increased the average level of recruits available at inns to better match your progress (it's based on your Renown level)
General Fixes
Fixed a bug where the majority of Dungeon Modifiers applied via time were not ever seen (it would usually just apply the same one multiple times)
Fixed a bug where some Dungeon Modifiers were active in overworld encounters
Fixed a visual bug where dungeon information was incorrectly being displayed in the party select screen during overworld encounters
Fixed a bug where bosses weren't dropping normal gear if they didn't drop Named gear (making it harder to gear up in low level dungeons)
Fixed some injuries that referenced old stats (Dexterity, Strength, etc)
Optimized some lights and ice shattering effects (particularly from the Dire Hoarwulf) to be a little less CPU intensive
Fixed an issue where loading a save while on a dialogue event in a dungeon could lead to a softlock at the start of the next combat encounter
Fixed an issue where provisions weren't being properly refunded in most situations
Fixed a bug where the 'Repair Gear' effect from a Rune event wasn't working
Fixed one of the Field Medic bonuses which incorrectly said they could use provisions without ending their turn. Updated it to display their actual bonus which is automatically stabilizing injuries during exploration
Combat Fixes
Fixed a bug where skeletons were being immediately destroyed and were unable to revive
Fixed an issue where whenever a temporary ally died, your party members would lose Morale as if they were part of your company
Fixed a bug where the 'Allegro' upgrade for the Balladeer's Renewing Melody ability was also applying the 'Regrowth' upgrade
Fixed a bug that allowed you to still debuff the Spectral Reaper when he casted Void Shroud
Fixed an issue where some enemies (like the Blighted Hulk) could charge into characters and get stuck occupying the same cell
Fixed a bug where a character that was Rooted while in Bleedout could not be revived by picking them up
Adjacent enemies that are Sleeping, Frozen, or Stunned will no longer prevent units from performing ranged attacks on others
Fixed an issue where the combat HUD wouldn't show up if the first character in combat failed their Morale check
Fixed an issue where you could get a Stunned icon to persist after combat if you had the Battle Frenzy upgrade with the Pugilist's Battle Instinct ability
You can now mouse over temporary allies to view their name and Health bar
Fixed an issue where the Balladeer's Lullaby sometimes wasn't working depending on which target you selected
Fixed a bug where the Balladeer's Basic Attack wasn't doing anything to destructible objects
Notes
While you can play an existing save, it is highly recommended to start a new campaign for the best overall experience (and to reduce the potential for bugs)
Due to changes, we've reset all Company Upgrades and you will need to reapply them if loading an existing save
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Since our Expeditions update last month, we've been pouring long hours into development, fitting in a few extra goodies that we didn't initially plan on. We hope you'll enjoy all the new content and changes we've been working on, and we're looking forward to adding even more throughout November and beyond!
If you've enjoyed the game, we'd really appreciate you leaving a Steam review and sharing your impressions and feedback. It helps a lot with visibility, and we could use as much as possible for tomorrow! The Iron Oath is a passion project 7 years in the making for the two of us, and we hope to be able to continue on it for many more. So spread the world, tell your friends - it would mean a lot to us! :)
Thank you, and we'll see you back here tomorrow at 8am PDT!
Hello mercenaries! Ahead of next week's 1.0 launch on November 2, we wanted to give new and returning players a look at everything that has been added to The Iron Oath during our Early Access period.
We've made a lot of changes during Early Access - some that were planned in advance, and some that came about as a result of player feedback. We're thankful to each one of you that has joined us on the journey, and shared their experiences to help us improve the game! Here's a look back at the last year and a half:
And the more substantial changes from each update:
Icebinder Class: The Icebinder class specializes in crowd control, with a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies through various means.
Gear Enchantments: Over 80 enchantments that can be looted in dungeons and applied to equipment, granting stats and unique effects.
Scourge Crisis: A special crisis event that occurs in the wake of the dragon's attack, including new quests, events and consequences for the player as they try to save a city from destruction.
Leveling and attributes overhaul: A complete rework of character attributes and a new way to level up, which lets players more freely customize their characters any way they want
Full ability upgrade trees: Introduced over 250 new upgrades to round out the rest of the ability upgrade trees for each class
Combat rebalance: We increased party size to 5(from 4) and rebalanced abilities, enemies, status effects, and gear
New enemies: Introduced over 30 new enemy variants into the game
Enemy traits: Added over 50 traits that are applied to enemy Elites and Bosses, adding to combat variety
UI Overhaul: We redesigned nearly every UI screen in the game to be more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly
Codex: We added a Codex screen which lists details on all the enemies you've encountered. You can view an enemy's codex page during combat by right clicking them or their portrait
Balladeer Class: The Balladeer fills the role of a pure support class. With many tunes strummed from their trusty lute, they have the ability to heal, cleanse, buff their allies, and debuff enemies.
Dungeon Exploration Overhaul: A rework to how dungeon exploration is handled, giving more opportunities for risk vs reward. Dungeon Modifiers and Camping Incense were also rebalanced.
New Dungeon Events and Event Types: We added many new dungeon events to interact with, resulting in a variety of outcomes that are both beneficial and harmful
Named gear: Tougher bosses have a higher chance to drop Named gear. Named gear has increased stats and comes pre-loaded with randomized enchantments
New quests and overworld events: Added 6 brand new quests and a handful of new overworld events
With 3 major updates, 2 large updates, and countless patches, the two of us are happy with what we've achieved so far. But development of course won't stop with 1.0 - we have many more ideas, with more stories to tell for the next year and hopefully beyond!
Information about the 1.0 build
If you're a returning player, your old saves will be compatible with the 1.0 build. However, with all the changes to the game, we highly recommend starting fresh for the best overall experience (especially if your save is from an early EA build). Due to the number of variables at play, we can't guarantee there won't be some oddities or small problems that occur with older saves.
When Early Access began, we had around 15 hours of unique content, with the first part of the main campaign being completable in around 10-12. For 1.0, we expect the average run of the main campaign will take most players 25-30 hours, with the whole game having around 40 hours of unique content (plus more new quests later in November!).
Stay tuned next week for the full 1.0 change log which we will be sharing on Wednesday before our Thursday launch! Until then, we hope you have a great weekend!
-Curious Panda Games
Release Date Announcement & Expeditions Update
Hello mercenaries! We're thrilled to announce that The Iron Oath is leaving Early Access and will be releasing on November 2nd, 2023.
We're excited for returning players to check out all the changes and additions we've made over the last year and a half, and to welcome in new players who have been waiting for the game's full release. The 1.0 release brings a conclusion to the main campaign, but that doesn't mean we're done with the game. There are still more stories to tell in the world of Caelum, and we're looking forward to continuing the journey with you!
We'd like to give a big shoutout to our Early Access community. Your feedback and support has been awesome and we can't thank you enough for helping shape the game into what it is today.
Price increase & last chance sale!
To celebrate the announcement, The Iron Oath is now 10% off until October 11th. This will be the last chance to get the game at a discount, as the price will be increasing to $25 (USD) when we fully release on November 2nd.
Lastly, the Expeditions Update is now live on the main branch! Thanks to everyone who checked it out on the test branch over the last week. This update adds Named Gear that you can loot from bosses, and new content in the form of quests, overworld encounters, and company moments.
Patch Notes 0.8.008
New
Added a number of new quests (6 brand new, plus some "old" ones we realized weren't showing up)
Added new Company Moments (events where you converse with members of your company while traveling) and Overworld Encounters
Added Named Gear, which is an enhanced version of regular gear that has 2 random stat boosts applied to it (higher tier gear will have larger bonuses), and also comes pre-loaded with randomized enchantments. Named Gear will have a chance to drop from bosses at 2 Skull+, with a 100% chance from 5 Skull bosses.
Added a note during dialogue events to indicate when a character's personality trait has influenced them to say something
Added experimental support for controllers (still lots of work to be done). This can be enabled in options.json by setting ControllerEnabled: "true" (The file is found in C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Curious Panda Games\The Iron Oath)
Added additional Steam Deck support (it's now marked as 'Playable' on Steam. There's only a few issues left and we'll continue working on this in the future to get it fully Verified)
Updates
Codex now only shows entries for enemies that you have encountered (this isn't retroactive, so old saves will need to find enemies again to unlock their Codex entry).
When unlocking a Codex Entry, a graphic will show at the bottom of the screen (either during Dungeon Exploration or in the Expedition Summary, depending on the situation)
Bosses now drop more appropriate gear for the type of enemy defeated (eg. you can expect to find a Staff from a Deathlord, but they won't drop a Lute)
Buffed the values of many Enchantments and also made them more likely to be found in loot chests
Better pathfinding on the world map when traveling to and from dungeons
Added more dungeon locations in every county
Updated quests so the location of its associated dungeon is within the county you accepted it from (eg. If you accept a quest in a town, you can expect the dungeon to be relatively close by instead of on the other side of the region, unless the context of the quest dictates otherwise).
Significantly increased default travel speed on the world map (just the visuals of it, the number of days passing remains the same)
When 'City Events' change in a city, the available quest list will now update immediately so the quests are more relevant to the current situation
Updated the description of the buff icon when the Valkyrie uses Champions Order with the 'Unimpeded' upgrade
Added text to inform users on their turn when a character is Rooted (so they know why they can't move)
Adjusted the percentages of disarming Traps (tools are now a bit more potent, though a Picklock being present remains the biggest bonus)
When completing 'A Blacksmith's Request', he now can give any type of weapon instead of always giving a Polearm. Additionally, if you choose to sell him any spare iron you have, he will now inform you he can't pay full price but will increase your reputation with the city.
Added some falloff for ranking up the Mending stat (now aligns with other percentage-based stats)
Void Breach events now have a 100% chance to spawn in dungeons (on side paths) when there is a Void Breach 'city status' active in the area
Fixes
Fixed an issue when cycling through characters in the company management screens so it moves linearly through the list
Fixed various sound effect issues with breakable objects
Tooltips on the overworld HUD now show when you hover the icon (previously only showed when hovering the text/number)
Fixed a bug with the 'Camp Fortifications' upgrade where the Renown level requirements were incorrectly set
Fixed a bug where the Outlaw Deadeye was ignoring all Defense of their target (instead of only when the target has under 20%)
The Power Aura upgrade from the Pugilist's Battle Instinct now lasts for the same duration as the ability (It was only lasting 1 Round previously)
Fixed an issue with the 'Swell' upgrade for the Balladeer's Anthem of Warding ability that could cause targeting issues
Fixed an issue where some stats were not being calculated properly after ranking them up a lot
Fixed an issue that could cause a soft lock in combat when drawing custom movement routes on certain tilesets
Added a decimal place to the values of some attributes in the roster menu
Fixed an issue where the Company History screen could not be closed with 'Esc'
Camping no longer resets the Time Meter to 0 (we intended to remove this mechanic last update with the dungeon rework but it slipped through the cracks!)
Other various minor bug fixes
We hope you enjoy our final Early Access update! :)