1.0 Date Announced! Weekly Update #8

Weekly Update

Hello! Welcome to our Eighth Weekly Update!We have an official 1.0 launch date: August 13th!Unlike previous patchnotes the beta is no longer its own version and has been rolled into the default branch of the game. The beta was meant to help test for stability while I was reworking some core systems that had a high chance to have unintented consequences and stability issues. Now that that period is over the beta has been folded back into the default (and only) version of the game.Enjoy!

NEW FEATURES

The main focus this update is healing and build variety. I added ten brand new healing abilities across the mid and high tiers. Support and hybrid builds should have a stronger class identity as a result and the party can now have a dedicated "healer" if they so choose.

New depth to healing abilities have been added as well to help flesh out the "healer identity" including a new heal over time effect, self heals, party heals, single target heals, and cleanses. On top of that, Crit Damage is now a real tracked stat you can see and build toward.

The secondary focus is readability and bringing all parts of the game up to the final level of polish I want for 1.0.

Last update I cleaned up the ability menus and the shop menus, and this time it was the character sheet and the inventory's turn. Your View Stats screen is now a proper interactive character sheet, and the inventory is fully interactive too, so you can equip gear, drink potions, and read books straight from your pack instead of bouncing between separate menus. Menu navigation should feel pretty intuitive now!

And a handful of quality of life things landed as well. The companion menu got flattened down to a single clean screen and now lets you use potions directly on a companion while out of combat, the combat action menu was tidied up, and finally I added a new quest chain for players when they reach level 70.

New Healing Abilities

- Ten new heals were added from Tier 3 to Tier 7, split mainly between the nature line (Ranger, Druid, Warden, Archdruid, World Tree) and the holy line (Paladin, Champion, Highlord, God-Warrior), with one dark drain heal on the Lich line.

- The set covers every flavor of healing: quick self patch ups, single ally heals, whole party heals, party cleanses that strip all status effects, and a new heal over time.

- Heal over time is a new mechanic. It tags a target with a green REGEN status that restores a percentage of their max HP every turn for a few turns. Like the rest of the status system it is percentage based, so it scales with whoever you put it on.

- A few standouts: the World Tree's capstone heals the whole party and drops a party wide regen on top, the God-Warrior's restoration is a big self heal plus a self cleanse, and the Lich's Dark Mending is a strong single target heal but has a drawback of applying a debuff to the target as a side effect.

Crit Damage as a Stat

- Crit Damage is now tracked like your other stats. It shows up on your character sheet and in your skills totals, and you can drill into it for a full breakdown of where every point is coming from, exactly like the other skill bonuses.

Character Sheet and Inventory

- The View Stats screen was rebuilt into an interactive character sheet. It lists your nine skill bonus stats with the same "enter a number for the full breakdown" you get in the skills menu, your XP and gold now sit right next to your level, and every equipment slot and your abilities line are selectable. If you want to equip gear from the menu it now ties directly into the appropriate inventory section same with abilities it should all feel much more intuitive!

- The inventory is now fully interactive. Select any item to act on it directly: equip weapons and armour, drink potions, or read books and tomes right from the pack. Anything with no use just gives you a quick flavor line.

- In inventory the category Armour is now subdivided up by slot (Head, Chest, Hands, Feet, Mount, and an All view) so you can go straight to the piece you are looking for, and armour descriptions were trimmed so they no longer repeat the slot you can already see next to them.

Combat Menu Cleanup

- The action menu is now drawn in a clean bordered box, with option numbers, damage type tags, and MP costs all lined up in proper columns for both you and your companions.

- Trimmed some clutter and tightened the type tags so they hug the damage type instead of floating in a wide bracket.

- Fixed the menu so that skipping through the screen resets you back to the top.

- Aiming an attack at yourself or a friendly now asks you to confirm first

- Rewrote some combat messages to be more clear and have better readability

Companions

- The per companion menu was flattened, so Talk, View Stats, Equip an Item, Prepare Abilities, Use Potion, and Dismiss are all right there on the first screen instead of buried in a submenu.

- Use Potion is a new option. It opens your normal potion list, but the potion is applied to that companion instead of you, so you can top a companion off between fights.

Balance Changes

Balance was lighter this time since last update was a full pass, but the two big additions here are relevant:

- Crit Damage was added as a skill bonus

- The new healing abilities have higher mana costs than most abilities at their tier. I will likely be increasing mana costs for higher tier spells in the future.

Bug Fixes

- The character creation screen that shows your hero's title used to close on a timer before you could read it. It now waits for you to press Enter, like every other window.

- Cleaned up the opening tutorial text: removed the vault and key spoiler list from the intro, added a reminder to buy some gear at the shop before heading out, and reworded the skill advice so it does not funnel everyone toward one path.

- Some visibility bugs were fixed to have more consistent visuals

Future Plans

I'm probably going to be increasing mana costs across the board and adding the final implementations to the last few quests in the game.

I also plan to start on Linux cross compatibility and hopefully mac after that if all goes well!

Please let me know if you have an idea for the game or if you run into any bugs.

Thanks for playing!

-Lansdolli