I am newly returned from an Internet-light family reunion with a bunch of changes and fixes. Apologies if I've been a bit slower to respond to posts, comments, screenshots, reviews, etc. lately; as though a wi-fi diet were insufficiently Luddite, the great outdoors saw fit to destroy my phone, as well.
It was a good--if somewhat unproductive--trip, though, and I look forward to resuming regular updates! Unfortunately, it may be another week before that actually happens; I am moving my family half way across the country this weekend, and we have a ton of packing to wrap up before then. I might manage to wring out another update or two before we leave, but it may not be feasible.
Some of the highlights of this update: legacied champs cannot be killed (they will auto-pillage upon "death"), more codex and UI tooltip feedback, always-on character outlines (to help distinguish good/bad guys), character purchase buttons are now ordered by number to be bought, and a big scaling rewrite. This last bit will mean that many players (especially those not playing at or near 1920x1080) will see larger pixels in this build, as the game will stretch pixels rather than the camera's view. This should help those who have had a lot of empty space on-screen.
There have also been a lot of bug fixes. I know I addressed one cause of the "staring contest" bug, but keep an eye out, because there may be more to it. As always, thank you for all of the reports and suggestions :totcordial:!
Changelog
Additions:
Characters always have faint outlines now (red for heroes, blue for minions)
New banner: Mystic Kunai (+1 shadow damage added to minion ranged attacks)--this banner now unlocks with the Sisterhood, as the Brotherhood already had a banner
Recovery traits; these explain how characters recover health/defense once every so many seconds while out of combat
Ability slot icons now appear over characters who are taking or about to take a turn in combat, hopefully improving the clarity of how abilities line up with each slot
Changes:
Scaling change; game smoothly scales pixel size instead of play space to resolutions that are unevenly divisible by the game's actual resolution
Reorganized a lot of assets and code
Character buttons are now ordered by number of units being bought, so full packs are always on top
Legacied champions can no longer be killed; they will be whisked away to pillage if they drop below 0 health, giving them some time to recover
Darkened tooltip background some more
Improved some codex and UI tooltips (especially on character entries)
Altered Timepiece entry for clarity
Changed a couple of icon appearances
Trolls and slimes recover faster outside of combat (1 point every 10 seconds)
When grabbing a row on the actual Hoard (not the DHV), the camera will scroll to the bottom, so you don't accidentally think you're already there and miss out on extra tiles
Some resource tile art has changed
Fixes:
Resolved one source of the "staring contest" bug--could be more to it, though
Broken plots would sometimes appear that just said "Plot:!"
Sometimes, blocking floor wouldn't be reported properly
Tutorial window "blip" could appear on the left at some resolutions
Completed prophecies would stop appearing in the prophecy glossary until the next time the game was launched
Fixed several instances of UI bleeding, where tooltips or other feedback would reflect the wrong UI element
Outlined characters had an almost imperceptible transparency added to them
Blinking caused character outlines to flash momentarily
Clicking a champion portrait over the surface would cause the champion to go pillaging (it should just move the camera to the champion's position in the dungeon)
Dropping an item on a champion portrait that was over the surface would not deploy the item to the champion's location
2015.07.15: Sable Sisterhood and Rickety Rookery
[Edit: 2015.07.15b uploaded to correct a plot bug and fix a loop glitch with the new Rookery. Thanks for the reports!]
Two related floors tonight, and a little floor tree shuffling while I'm at it. The new floors are the Sable Sisterhood (a Nightblade-producing, Study-based alternative to the Black Brotherhood floor) and the Rickety Rookery (a crow-oriented trap floor which also produces flesh from the heroes it hits).
I have moved the Black Brotherhood to be Guildhall + Dwelling (rather than Camp + Dwelling), as Assassins (and the new Nightblades) feel like a more natural extension of Thieves. Because the Brotherhood and Sisterhood floors are now deeper in the tree, their prices and power have been adjusted accordingly. The Rookery is an extension of either of these floors, actually making it the deepest floor in the game so far.
A few of these changes were actually quietly added yesterday, but are included in tonight's notes for completeness.
Changelog
Additions:
Sable Sisterhood floor; requires Guildhall + Study and produces Nightblades (agility, high shadow damage, ward fatigue)
Rickety Rookery floor; requires Sisterhood or Brotherhood and offers Murder of Crows trap (melee damage + Flesh drops, armor negates)
"Inventory full" tutorial message
Changes:
Reduced upper-tier minion counts to three; first-tier floors will continue to produce four units, and nothing has been bumped back down to two
Shortened many plot names
Made a couple of small legibility improvements to the "signature" font
Black Brotherhood now requires Guildhall and Dwelling
Assassins buffed (more health/defense/melee damage, and deal poison damage when backstabbing)
Silent Scavenger banner moved to Rookery prophecy (from Abattoir)
Fixes:
Scrolling while hovering over a floor or reinforcement button wouldn't update the buttons until you moved the mouse away
Some trait-based deployables weren't functioning correctly
Addressed a couple of rare achievement glitches
Floor button preview overlay didn't look quite the same on the DHV as on the actual Hoard
Repaired some minor errors in various floors
2015.07.13: "Alternative" No More
Following your advice and opinions, I have changed the Floor UI for everyone over to the previously "Alternative" option, which lists floors along the left side of the dungeon. Everyone I have spoken to (novices and experts alike) have agreed that they now prefer this UI, and it makes little sense for me to continue to offer the other option. On top of some minor changes, improvements, and fixes to this UI, I have added a preview overlay that appears over the Hoard when you hover over a button, so you can see how much room must be cleared.
I gathered a lot of bug reports this weekend while I was out of town, but I was unable to address them until today, so there's a large number of fixes below. Thank you for all of the thorough reporting lately; the game wouldn't be nearly so good without your feedback :totcordial:!
Changelog
Additions:
Floor overlays appear on the Hoard when hovering over a floor button, allowing you to see how large a floor is
"Offers" and "Leads To" have been added to tooltips for ghost floor buttons, as well
While dragging a minion over another minion, the other minion will be outlined (useful when trying to target a combat swap)
Changes:
"Alternative Floor UI" is once again the one and only floor UI
"Offers" floor tooltip now displays a key trait icon for minions on offer (such as "Draconic" or "Undead"), rather than a generic minion icon
Right-clicking in the codex works the same as left-clicking (for consistency with right-clicking things outside of the codex--which opens the codex to that thing's page)
Removed slight offset from "ghost" floor buttons
Toned down warning klaxon volume
"Send [trait] Pillaging" plot now only picks traits for characters whose floors you own (previously, it was possible to be given a goal for a minion you had gained by pillaging, making it more difficult to hunt down a character with the correct trait)
Legacied champions are now disassociated from their home floors after a game, allowing you to get a full pack of fresh minions from a legacied floor that previously birthed a champion
Resource cap pillaging rewards are selected more intelligently
Clicking a "heroes built a new checkpoint" message will jump to the offending checkpoint
Fixes:
"VIPs Only" achievement has been revised; it was inadvertently made more difficult (unintuitive but do-able) by the recent drag/drop changes--it is now awarded for simply having four of your champs in a single battle
Minion pack costs were not listed when viewing a specific minion--only when viewing a generic minion entry
Some characters had inappropriate "Biped" and "Living" traits
Floor button font and icons could remain partially transparent after becoming available
Floor button resource requirements "have/need" didn't update if the update wouldn't result in changing the button's status
Screen stopped shaking during destruction
Hovering over a character would indicate advantaged/disadvantaged characters throughout the dungeon, rather than in the immediate surroundings (overwhelming)
When sound was completely off (not just turned down), looped sounds would play at full volume
Codex font would appear faded if opened from the pause menu immediately after opening the game
Overhead champion icons wouldn't move while the game was paused (looked funny if you were moving champions around while the game was paused)
Outlined characters were running emitters more quickly
