Greetings friends and fellow managers!
So much has happened since the Early Access launch on Monday! We’re extremely happy with the way things are going so far, and we’d like to take this opportunity to welcome all new players to the game, and also to thank each and everyone who has reached out to us so far with feedback, questions and bug-reports!
Now that the dust is starting to settle (a little), we thought it would be the perfect time to reach out with this first official Early Access update, and the new v.0.2.4 Patch!
The last section of this update also covers *some* of the main things we’ll be prioritizing in the next few days/weeks, so read ahead for all the details.
Early Access launch week - What we’ve been up to
As most of you might have guessed, it’s been a pretty hectic (and fun!) week here at ManaVoid HQ, especially since there’s only 4 of us and 24 hours in a day! In a nutshell : Moral is sky-high, could use more sleep. :D
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the things we’ve been working on during the past few days.
Analyzing and processing Feedback...and lots of it!
More than 140 people have already filled out our “v.0.2 Feedback Form” (accessible through the game’s main menu). Add this to the hundreds of reports we’ve also been receiving here on Steam, on our official Forums and by email, and you’ll understand that we now need time to process everything and to outline the most popular topics.
We try to be as methodical as possible in our approach, and we’ll be focusing short-term development priorities on addressing the issues in order of overall importance and feasibility.
Community support
We take great pride in being as reactive as possible whenever interacting with the community! We try to read and respond to everything, and it’s always, always a pleasure for us to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to continue reaching out with questions, bug-reports and feedback!
Twitch “stalking”
Thanks to all the amazing streamers who have been producing Epic Manager content on Twitch / YouTube this week! Our team spent many hours following live broadcasts on Twitch especially, participating in the channel chat rooms and answering questions as best we could.
Promo and Marketing
Lots of time has also been dedicated to getting the word out there, on every platform we could think of. Promoting Epic Manager is an ongoing process, but we’ve put a lot of efforts on that front in the days leading to / following the Early Access Release.
Working on the game
With all the above going on, we still found some time to work on the game! Most of the improvements contained in v.0.2.4 are things reported by the community during the first 72 hours of Early Access - thanks again for all the feedback, and we hope you’ll appreciate these changes.
Introducing v.0.2.4
As you’re reading these lines, we’ve just rolled out v.0.2.4! Restarting Steam should insure your game is updated automatically, and you can verify this in the upper-right corner of the game’s Main Menu!
Thanks again to the people on Twitch who playtested this version yesterday - some of our team members followed you late into the night and were able to correct issues while they were being reported live on your stream (and that was an awesome experience!).
We dedicated a big part of the week to community support and promo activities, so time spent on development has been way less than usual.
We’re now back in full effect on that regard, and new patches will keep rolling in at a steady pace from now on! Nevertheless, we wanted to make sure to push a first Early Access patch before the end of the first week, and here it is!
Patch Notes - Alpha Build v.0.2.4
New Features
You can now rename your adventurers! Simply open the Character Sheet and click on a character’s name to edit it to your will!*
*For legal purposes, adventurers are required to have a First and Last name. :)
The Gold League is now open! This will add another 50 turns to the current campaign, as well as a new Ladder on which to compete when you finish Silver!*
Bug-Fixes
Fixed a game-breaking issue with the TrimesterVeteransRefresh() causing an infinite loop when Agency roster was empty, at the start of a Trimester Ranking sequence.
Fixed a game-breaking bug in some Resolutions caused by the GiveRewards.ApplyEconomicEvent() method.
Fixed an error with Recruitment / Contract signature that would sometimes prevent the player from hiring further adventurers.
Removed an error with the HUD Action bar that allow the use of unresearched actions (like merchants, intrigue and staff) when starting a new game from a previous campaign where these points had been researched.
Fixed a rare instance where the combat “Tutorial Report” would appear twice.
Fixed an issue with some quests from the Ironmark brothers not unlocking further quests properly.
Balancing
Reduced the Gold cost of the “Appeasing Gift” Intrigue Action by 50%.
Ambushes will now yield Gold and Item rewards, and not just XP.
Chance of obtaining Equipment Kits as rewards has been increased in all resolution.
The maximum potency of “Physical Resistance” enemy skills and spells has been reduced to 75%.
Slightly lowered the base damage of the Warrior’s “Charge” ability.
Slightly lowered the base damage of the Mage’s “Magic Missile” ability.
Bonus XP for the Agency’s Champion has been increased from 5% to 20%.
Narrative
Changed the names of some Storyline Quests, in order to clarify their role in a larger narrative arc and to guide the player towards higher tier quests.
UI
“Stats” sub-panel of an adventurer’s Character Sheet now also displays that character’s starting Action Points at the beginning of a battle, as well as his AP regen rate per turn.
Misc
Corrected a few Typo errors that were reported by the community.
What’s Next?
Continued iterative Balancing and Bug-fixing
As more and more player reports come in, we’ll continue to tweak the game’s balance and to resolve the remaining bugs. This process is continuously ongoing, and directly driven from community feedback!
Tutorial and Help Systems
We're aware that the current tutorial is both incomplete in some regards, and that having to go through it (in its current form) in the beginning of each campaign drags the early game.
We'll definitely be improving this aspect of the game shortly - allowing players to bypass the tutorial completely and (re)introducing temporarily deactivated help features like the "hints" panel and the "Epicopedia" (in-game manual) are some of the main things we'd like to tackle first in regards to this matter.
More Content
With the opening of the 3rd year (Gold League) in v.0.2.4, we’ll soon be looking into the creation of more Random Encounters, Quests and Events to increase variety all-around. New prestige classes, enemies and merchants are also coming in a not-too-distant future!
This is just the beginning
We’ll be back next week with another Patch/Update combo and by then, we should have a more detailed outline of the order in which we want to tackle the growing to-do list!
Again, we wish to express our most sincere thanks to all players for supporting this project and putting your trust in our Dev Team. We’re super excited about the future, and working as hard as we can to make sure Epic Manager is worthy of your time and attention.
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