Greetings friends and fellow managers!
It’s already been a week since our last update, and we didn’t want to leave for the weekend before rolling-out a new patch, so here it is!
THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to reach out to us with feedback. Most of the patch elements listed here are a direct consequence of the notes we took of your comments in the past week! It’s always a pleasure for us to hear from you, and we hope you will continue to do so in the future! ːsteamhappyː
Patch Notes - Alpha Build v.0.2.5
*Make sure to exit Epic Manager and Restart Steam to get the new version. Top-Right corner of the Main Menu should now read : Alpha Build v.0.2.5*
*While old save-games are still compatible with this new update, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND STARTING A NEW GAME to make sure you receive all bug-fixes and balance changes.*
New Features
- The early-game Tutorial is now completely optional! At the end of the Rookie Draft, players will now be able to decide whether they want to skip the tutorial or not. * Choosing to skip the tutorial will also let you save your game as early as Turn #1.
- The first (WIP) version of the Epicopedia, Epic Manager’s in-game manual, has now been added and can be accessed by clicking on the purple “?” on the top-right corner of the game’s HUD. * Today’s patch brings only a very (very) barebones version of the Epicopedia. It will receive much love and attention in the upcoming days. We expect next week’s upcoming v.0.2.6 patch to feature a much more polished version of this new tool.
Bug-Fixes
- Character Traits that affect AP costs in Combat will NO LONGER appear in draft Candidates. These can now only be acquired / lost through Random Encounters. *This is to circumvent players having to “re-roll” (restart) the Draft multiple times until they found an adventurer with an AP-buffing trait.
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the unlocking of the 3rd party to cause a NullRef() error.
- Unlocked yet undeployed parties will no longer cause the “Party Awaiting Action” Prompt at the end of each turn.
- Removed contract negotiation loophole that allowed players to hire adventurers for only 1 gold.
- Fixed erroneous calculations with the Warlock’s “HP Sacrifice” and Damage output values.
Balancing - Combat
- Combat Consumables with a “Slowing” effect will now impair the enemy’s Initiative a lot more than before.
- The Thief’s “Pickpocket” ability will now deal damage (1.25x basic attack) on top of stealing gold.
- The Thief’s “Pickpocket” ability will now yields 50% more gold.
- Warlocks will no longer be wounded when performing “HP Sacrifice” skills.
- Ranger’s “Exploit Weakness” will now only debuff enemy Physical Resistances (as opposed to “All Resistances” previously).
- Monk’s “Offensive Stance” will now only buff ally Physical Damage (as opposed to “All Damage” previously).
- Monk’s “Defensive Stance” will now only buff ally Physical Resistance (as opposed to “All Resistances” previously).
- Reworked and increased Adventurer “passive Resistance bonuses” to help with the later stages of the game.
- Slightly nerfed AOE Spells and Skills to make the late-game combat encounters more fun.
- Slightly reduced “Starting AP” and “AP Regen” modifiers for high-level characters (both Adventurers and Enemies).
Balancing - General
- Changed XP values for some high-level enemies.
- It is now possible to Terminate the contract of any adventurer regardless of his current deployment status. Previously, an adventurer needed to be benched, or in a Party currently standing on an Active Portal to do so. *Signing a “Locked Contract” still prevents termination.
- Some quests from the “Thieves Guild” Faction should no longer always appear on the Guild’s “HQ” node.
- Increased the Fame gain of AI Agencies in the Gold League.
- Reduced the Fame and Gold yields for all quests of Threat Level 4 and above.
UI
- The “Adventurer Infos” (displayed at the bottom-left corner of the Combat HUD) now also includes the target’s list of Active Skills. This is very useful when deciding which of your allies to target with an AP buff or the “Command” skill.
- The “Adventurer Infos” (displayed at the bottom-left corner of the Combat HUD) now correctly refreshes at the start of each Combat Turn.
- Fixed a UI Canvas error preventing players from using the “Lock Contract” functionality.
- Using the “Elemental Missile” Skill in combat will now properly close the Consumable Panel.
- Tooltip will now also display the current AND previous classes of an adventurer when hovering over a portrait in the bottom bar of the main HUD.
- Mage and Witchdoctor Primary/Secondary Stat icons will now display the proper icons during the Draft.
- Added a new visual indicator to show that Focus/End Turn actions can be executed using the “SPACEBAR” Hotkey in Combat.
Audio Fixes
- Scout Dialogue SFXs are now properly linked to master SFX volume setting.
Quality of Life
- When negotiating a contract, players can now hold “SHIFT” to increase / decrease the offered Salary by increments of +10/-10.
The next few steps
As you can see from the patch notes above, today’s update concentrates mostly on bringing needed balance changes and bug-fixes, as well as making the tutorial completely optional, which was a feature requested by many community members!
Next week should bring a new patch of a similar nature, as our team will also dedicate some time to prepare our booth for the upcoming Montreal Dreamhack Convention! This will be ManaVoid Entertainment’s very first gaming Expo, and we’re very excited! http://montreal.dreamhack.com/en/
Once we get back from Dreamhack, we’ll start focusing all our efforts to the introduction of new content and features to Epic Manager! More details on that front will follow very soon :D
Thank you!
Once again, we wish to express our most sincere thanks to all Epic Manager players, for supporting this project and putting your trust in our small Dev Team. Your continued participation really means the world to us, and we’re always happy to correspond with you and to get your feedback! To put it simply, YOU are awesome.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us here on the Steam Discussions or our Official Community Forums over at : http://forums.manavoid.com
Best regards from the whole ManaVoid Dev Team