Combat Changes
The previous way of handling Armor and Armor Penetration along with the balancing made it more step-wise meaning it often came down to Equipment vs Equipment.
Some items would feel like you grew a lot in power while others hardly at all.
Now there are several changes made how to calculate Damage and Armor/Penetration. Effectively making it more linear with stats counting a bit more than before.
Armor is generally 15% higher while Armor Penetration has been nerfed with about 50% on 1-hand/ranged weapons, and only about 15% on 2-hand weapons.
Stat contribution is now: 0.5 * Primary Stat + 0.25 * Secondary Stat
Melee/Ranged has Strength/Dexterity switched.
Sieges finally has Checkpoints that can be overtaken by Attackers over time if no Defender enters the area.
- Wolves has been buffed a bit but are still fairly easy early game.
- Troll hits now makes a Power skill check to determine if Target falls to the ground.
- Combat AI now has a different flow using Formations vs Charge.
- Combat AI also use more variation in Formations depending on their own category (infantry/ranged/polearm/mounted).
General
Player death has always been a dear thing for us, but maybe not for all Players ;)
So over time in this project it has been slightly nerfed bit by bit until you could barely even die in Skirmishes.
Now with Spouses being easier than ever to get for Family we have removed most of these simplifications. But you can always change Hardcore settings in Options.
The 3 Game Modes now work as follows:
Hardcore - Default setting. Player dies in Skirmishes and Dungeons but not in Battles/Sieges.
Softcore - As Hardcore but Death only occur if Player has a Family and inheritance.
No Death - Softest of the softest.
There are still some Stories/Missions that will start Skirmishes where you can't die by design. But they should be at an absolute minimum now.
Other additions
- Increased starting coins effectively removing the worst outcomes where you are severely punished early game with almost nothing in the pockets.
- Stables Extension now gives the option for Characters with Horse to change horseshoes for a fee, granting a small speed buff.
- Church Extension now offer Player healing for free and Followers for a donation (Soldiers are not healed and mostly useful early game before you are set with healing items for the army).
- Combat HUD added mounted horse and Health bar.
- Settlement UI changed with Extensions in the middle more in focus and sorted the same way in Village/Castle/City (Tavern first).
- Added several new Event Sounds on World Map.
Minor fixes
- Fixed several spawn points in combat and a severe spawn issue in places where terrain and static meshes overlapped.
- Fixed several sounds in combat and on world map.
- Fixed repeating Faction Lord missions.
- Fixed mission failed/success UI cleanup in Multiplayer.
- Fixed filtering bug in Character Panel when you had soldiers with level up.
- Fixed your own children could show up as Spouses (We are not taking it that far yet ;)).
- Fixed children inheriting Titles correctly depending on Family Primogeniture.
- Fixed a bug in AI vs AI Battles cleanup.
- Fixed Desert Castle Road texture gone missing.
- Fixed transferring large search result of Spouses in Multiplayer to Client.
- Fixed World HUD showing regional name rather than Terrain Type.