Hello Mercenaries,
Here comes the fifth Community Update, as well as the first update for Wartales of 2025.
The update comes with many changes and improvements for the game. In this blog, we’ll have a look at AI improvements our team has been working on, the arrival of New Road Battle Maps, adjustments to the Morale Meter as well as our usual Balancing and Bug Fixes.
Those fixes have been chosen thanks to your feedback. Sharing an opinion on our social channels, or taking the time to answer our surveys, gives us great working material to understand which are the most interesting topics to explore.
We have been extremely happy to read what you had to say about our latest DLC: The Skelmar Invasion and Wartales in general.
You can expect more of those surveys, which will serve as a basis for future Community Updates.
Given the length of this blogpost, here is a brief summary of the main sections of the article:
AI Improvements
Tired of allies rushing into fire? The Extreme difficulty is just a walk in the park? The team has been working on the core AI system of Wartales...
New Road Battle Maps
More destinations for your confrontations
Morale Meter Adjustments
'Tis but a scratch... Not anymore! Your enemies will now have a more realistic assessment on the outcome of the battle... and run for their lives!
Balancing
We have seen your feedback on the Crossbowman class, and identified a few interesting changes... Let us know what you think!
Bug Fixes
Did we mention we have a coop save fix?
AI Improvements
For veteran Wartales players, our AI (the system commanding non-playable characters in battle, not the technology preventing all of us to buy a beefier GPU) has always been quite predictable and tends to always attack their closest enemy.
With this update, the AI in Wartales will change his behaviour in two major areas: Movement and Decision-Making
Movement:
Prior to this Community Update, the AI (friendly or enemy) was simply engaging the closest opponent, no matter the potential dangers on its way. With this update, Friendly AIs will always take into account various areas of effect of skills, traps, hazards (full list below) and will prioritize not taking damage over dealing damage.
this should be glaringly beneficial to animals from your party.
[table equalcells=1]
[tr][th]Skills[/th]
[th]Traps[/th]
[th]Hazards[/th]
[/tr]
[tr][td]
- Barrage
- Spear Wall
- Reactive grip
[/td]
[td]
- Bee Swarm
- Eokeld's Trap (Belerion)
- Alazarian Mine
[/td]
[td]
- Fire
- Poison
- The Eye's Reckoning
[/td][/tr]
[TAG-50]
Enemies will also adopt this behaviour but based on additional criteria: combat difficulty and their unit type (refer to the table below for more detail).
Decision-Making:
Following this update, we introduced new criteria impacting the decision-making of our AI:
- The target’s distance
- The target’s status (dying…)
- The attacker’s skill (backstab for instance)
Now, the AI will assess which options are available based on those criteria and pick a target.
If no target is within range, the AI will strive to get closer to the one with the highest score.
This should lead to more diversity in its behaviour as well as a bit more challenge.
Enemy units are impacted a bit differently by this change: this new behaviour will differ based on both NPC types and combat difficulty.
[table equalcells=1]
[tr][th]Combat Difficulty[/th]
[th]Better Movement[/th]
[th]Improved Decion-Making[/th]
[/tr]
[tr][td]
Easy[/td]
[td]
[/td]
[td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]
Experienced[/td]
[td]
- Allies
- Seasoned enemies
- Leader enemies
[/td]
[td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]
Expert[/td]
[td]
- Allies
- Seasoned enemies
- Leader enemies
[/td]
[td]
- Allies
- Seasoned enemies
- Leader enemies
[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]
Extreme[/td]
[td]
[/td]
[td][/td][/tr]
New Road Battle Maps
With this title update, we are also adding seven new battle maps. Encounters around roads of the following regions will trigger a battle on those new maps:
- Edoran
- Gosenberg
- Gosenberg (Beach)
- Alazar
- Alazar (Mountain)
- Harag
- Harag (Marshes)
[table noborder=1]
[tr]
[td]Alazar Plains
[/td]
[td]Harag
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Harag Swamps
[/td]
[td]Edoran Plains
[/td]
[/tr]
Morale Meter Adjustments
Morale was initially designed to speed-up the battles. The closer to victory, the more powerful your mercenaries become. However, as the maximum level gradually increased over time, our morale formula no longer fulfilled its role properly. Leading to large groups of enemies taking longer to defeat proportionally.
Initially, Willpower was used to calculate team morale gauges at the start of combat. With enemy level increasing, our original calculation (designed around the willpower values from lower-level opponents) led to a diminishing impact on morale, against high-level enemies.
With this update, we introduced a change to the way morale is calculated. Now, the enemy Willpower is set to 18 at max level (vs. 15 at level 5 previously). Additionally, the level of units in combat no longer has an impact.
To compensate, killing enemies one after the other yields slightly less morale, but raising your Willpower will have a greater impact.
In practice, this should speed up the progress of battles involving large numbers of units. And both the Galvanisation and Victory thresholds should be reached earlier as well.
In late game, morale should now have the same impact it had in early game previously.
Balancing
With this update, and following the Skelmar Invasion release, we are going to look at the newly-introduced Crossbowman class.
While we are quite happy with the community reception, and the new take offered on the ranged damage-dealing archetype in Wartales, we feel that there is room for improvement.
We have come to the conclusion that the class was getting really interesting around level 8, once the reload mechanic gets unlocked. Therefore, we have decided to swap the passive skills from level 8 to 5 in the crossbowman skill tree. This should unlock the potential of the class earlier in your playthrough and lead to more creative gameplay.
We noticed that the Gunner sub-class could become quite strong at higher levels, so much so that players wouldn’t even take full advantage of the Multiple Shot skill. That is why we have decided to slightly reduce the base damage of that skill from [3-5] to [2-3]. Consequently, should now be able to visually notice the triggering of the Gunners Multiple Shot skill.
To those of you who already completed Attia’s Arena from the Skelmar Invasion DLC (it’s discounted right now, and yes this is a shameless plug) and who unlocked the Machinist sub-class at the Military Academy, we felt that the Scatter Shot skill was a bit too situational and difficult to use.
From [5-9] base damage on the initial target + 20% damage to all units behind the target, we now have [2-3] base damage on the initial target + a whopping 150% damage (200% when upgraded) to all units behind the target (cannot trigger a critical hit).
Scatter shot should now be an interesting skill to use in crowded environments, surely the most evil among you will even deliberately shoot their own mercenaries to trigger the effect on the unsuspecting enemies.
Bug Fixes
General
- Fixed out of memory issues, the team has identified the source of many memory leaks, our investigations continue on the remaining issues
- Fixed several crashes, including:
- Crash after disarming enemies using crossbows
- Crash after using the “Deafening Roar” skill
- Crash when trying to start battles with too many companions
- Crash during Ghost Packs encounters
- Crash during Ludern’s boss fight The Beast fight
- Fixed gear disappearing from inventory after unequiping
- Fixed job experience resetting for some characters after entering the Heretic’s Farm
- Fixed the execution animation for 2 hand-weapons
- Fixed the Brute skill tree getting locked after choosing a specialization
- Fixed players being unable to exit the Unstable Bridge
- Fixed bounty spawning in unreachable places
- Fixed the “End Turn issue”, preventing players to continue their fights
- Fixed Cursed Village issue: some fights were not triggered after exceeding the noise threshold
- Fixed guards not moving on the map
- Fixed the “Accused” feature sending companions to prison in another region
- Fixed several fishing spots being unreachable or placed in the ground
- Fixed an issue preventing players to place pitons in certain areas
- Fixed collision issues on the battle map
- Fixed the “Icy Bay Fishery” background which was missing, thus making the building floating in the void.
- Fixed a lighting issue, leading to visual artifacts on water
- Fixed an issue with the “Dejected” trait, which remained active even if the companion who left the
- troop had returned
- Fixed an issue related to the morning fog which was still displayed after disabling “Weather Effects” in the options menu
- Fixed several animations and UI issues potentially leading skills to be added on the second bar. (Click the reset order button on the character sheet to quickly reassign the missing skills).
- Fixed an issue with the”fog of war” not properly clearing
- Fixed the “hide helmet” feature on prisoners
- Fixed some group of enemies not appearing in the world
- Dumuzi’s Half-Necklace bonus has been replaced with a brand-new unique one
Quests
- Fixed two quests in the Vertruse region of the map:
- Fate of Vertruse: the ending of the quest could be restarted, leading to a crash
- Help requested: the Old Pig Keeper - You now get to fight the pigs instead of the poor farmer
Skills
- Fixed skills (e.g: “Spear Wall”) looping indefinitely, preventing players to continue the fight
- Fixed “War Mechanism” passive not triggered after killing an enemy
- Fixed “Scatter Shot” hitting units behind walls and buildings
- Fixed “Limit Break” that could be upgraded two times
- Fixed “Destabilising Strike” which could not be upgraded
- Fixed “Reactive Grip” description for upgraded and non-upgraded versions
Coop
- Fixed Coop savegames converting into Solo savegames (Go to the multiplayer menu to load a single player save to convert the file into a coop save)
- Fixed client teleporting through the map
- Fixed players ended up stuck on top of the mountain when trying to exit the Gosenberg’s Tomb
- Fixed a missing input on gamepad: it wasn’t possible to remove a player from a coop save
You may now press “X” in order to delete a player from a coop save
The Skelmar Invasion
General
- Fixed several crashes, including:
- Crash after “Opportunistic Eye” was triggered
- Crash after destroying siege gates
- Crash when using “Silent Slaughter" in the Inquisition battle
- Fixed players getting stuck behind the Edorian Border Crossing in the Barony of Mayance
- Fixed the missing “Corrosive Collar” recipe in Ormance
- Fixed enemy who could raise the flag during siege battles
- Fixed Skald AI killing their allies
- Fixed Captain Cleance dialog after capturing Skelmars from prisoners convoy
- Fixed Sabretooth Smorgasbord recipe which couldn’t be learned
- Fixed Skelmar prisoners who couldn’t be handed over in prison after completing the DLC
- Fixed an issue with roaming Sabretooths which didn’t properly respawn
- Fixed an issue causing players being unable to give Snapdragon back to its owner
- Fixed knowledge bonus path after discovering the new Sepulchre in Ormance
- Fixed an issue with the “Y” input on gamepad (same input was used during the forge activity + opening the Strategic Map)
- New items can now be purchased from merchants:
- Glögg
- Akvavit
- Tuft of fur
- Retractable claw
- Stringy meat
- Fixed the “World's Edge Cap” helmet which could not be looted
- Fixed “Glögg” and “Akvavit” that couldn’t be crafted
Pirates of Belerion
General
- Fixed a crash when reinforcements spawn on a ship
- Fixed an issue in which the ship would disappear after starting the DLC rendering the exploration impossible
- Fixed a crash during boss fight Sea Serpent fight
- Fixed a ship collision issue, making it stuck at the edge of the map
- Fixed Meryem level during Meryem and Hana Captain fight
- Fixed a collision issue preventing players to control their ship
- Fixed an interaction with the treasure from “Treasure Map - I”
- Fixed the guard ship near the Belerion Boss despawning after reloading a save
Quest
- Fixed multiple informant’s bounty quests issues
The Pits
General
- Fixed a crash happening during the first battle of the first pit
The Tavern Opens!
General
- Removed the “T” keybind while in the camp, opening the Tavern DLC, leading to a conflict with the keybind for the coop chat.
Attention Mercenaries!
To celebrate our first Major Update of 2025, and from March 6th until March 20th, Wartales (Main game) will be 50% off. The sale also includes a 15% discount on our latest DLC: The Skelmar Invasion with 25% off on all remaining DLCs.
The Wartales OST is also now available, with 10% off until March 20th.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3533110/Wartales__The_Official_Soundtrack/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/43565/Wartales_The_Mercenaries_Edition/
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