Summary
Bloody hell, this patch turned into another long haul — six months in the making. But as I mentioned in my devlogs, so have my toddlers been playing Pokémon with all viruses and bacterias, “Gotta catch’em all!” and their summer-vacation. So I haven't been able to work for even half of this time.
Things just kept escalating like a domino effect. It all started when I decided to add more abilities. I realized the game had poor support for that — especially the super-ugly talent system I’d built before (yeah, not proud of that one!). But there were also features I really wanted: casting times, abilities with multiple effects, stacking status effects, in other word, more complex abilities.
The real troublemaker was how badly things played with object-oriented inheritance. So I scrapped that and built a much simpler, component-based spell system — sooo much easier to work with.
Oh and finally a heads up, as I have changed so much in multiple places, so there is a higher chance something is broken that I haven’t noticed, e.g. I added a new camera (it determines what you see in the game) that supports much more visual-effects for a tool I’m using (camera,shake, jiggling interface, etc.), but Flash also manipulates the old camera to do its movement, which I easily could have missed. So this patch might have added more bugs that need to be treated :).
Upcoming changes
My plan is to release patches every 2–4 weeks, aiming for every two. Each update will at least add one new feature, like an ability or unit. I know I’ve said this before, but the last patch required big reworks to support more advanced abilities and smarter enemies.
- I never thought it would be so extensive, so my new plan is now:
If I need to add something complex, I’ll work on it alongside the regular updates with new content / fixes. This will be a little bit more time-consuming by juggling tasks, but I definitely think it is worth it, as it will solve this kind of delay in the future. This plan will hold at least until the end of the year, after which I’ll have less time to dedicate as I’ll need to go back full time with work.
That said and as mentioned before, I won’t stop updating this game, not until it reaches version 1.0, no matter how long it takes.
Heads up
I made a lot of changes, so there’s a higher chance of unnoticed bugs. For example, I added a new camera system with more visual effects (shake, jiggling interface, etc.), but Flash still used the old camera for movement, a more “unrelated”/remote thing which I easily could have missed.
TLDR
Fixes across the board, more noticeable are unit-AI not doing weird stuff
Introduction to new “code-systems” so I as the developer can much easier (& faster) add new abilities, units/buildings with smarter AI and more playable classes
Added a new ability in Fire Mastery — A mastery that is the first one that stands out as something different.
Reworked how “Poison” works
A step in making enemies sub-faction be more different from each other (much more to come)
Otherwise you could just read the headers of things at top to see if you want to delve more into details.
Patch to Experimental Branch
Oh and a reminder, all these changes are for the experimental-branch, so it may contain “extreme” testing, rather then small balance-changes, to much faster see if the change is on the right way, minor patching is for the second branch of the game (Testing & Balancing) before reaching the final branch that should have stable & well-balanced version. And in this experimental branch I can more easily throw in something you want to try that sounds like a good test, so you can be a big part of the molding of the game, if you want to :).
To test this version, you’ll have to play on the Experimental branch, so to do that, you have to start steam, go to your library, right click on the game/Properties/Betas and select "Experimental - Latest version arrive on this" Now you should see "SELECTED VERSION experimental" right next to the play-button in the library. (Or if you right click on it in the system-tray, it says Myriad Mayhem [experimental])
Pyromancy
Added new ability in a new spell source: Fire! This little emberspark* ended up being a real eye-opener for me in terms of gameplay (more on that soon). So, fire magic will have similar spells that most games have, as I’m too big a sucker to some spells like meteor, but I’m also trying to come up with new ones and with interesting twists. So a mix of classic ones, but also hopefully some new experiences — if you have ideas, I’m all ears! Early-access games are perfect for that kind of community creativity.
Fire’s main role will be one of the highest damage dealers (and DPS), mainly through area spells, but with what drawbacks to remain balanced? I thought that it would be fitting to have its main damage come from damage over time (DoT), but that got me thinking: not every ability needs to strive to make you the ultimate powerhouse. There are already plenty of games that do that exceptionally well, and while I love that kind of gameplay myself, it wouldn’t be feasible (or fun) in making a clone of those awesome games.
So instead, I want to focus on the fun uncommon parts this game has. So fire will also embrace fire’s chaotic nature, so all fire spells will have 100% friendly fire! You read that right baby! First I thought this was way too strong a penalty. But after testing it out, it was a blast, I mean, think of every future fire-spell to have this, if you don’t like friendly fire, then you always avoid taking fire-spells. So I’m planning to make abilities work more with or against your allies-, enemies units and buildings. So you can expect more of this in future patches.
Tried giving your mage-allies the same fire-friendly-fire restriction, but oh boy did that not go well. So I’ll have them get temporarily disabled friendly fire (even when using fire-magic), until I give them new none-fire abilities that don’t have friendly fire by nature. Or let their fireball be behind an upgrade (player can choose explicitly one of two?)
Updated AI
Their behaviour has been an eyesore for ages now, that the movement/behaviour AI is sometimes super-whacky. And not when I saw one enemy footman standing still in a field and three javelineers dancing around him in perfect harmony (dance around maypole tradition?) and not reacting to anything. I understood they were either mocking my lack of programming-skills or having a too good of a time in these war times, so it can only be that they lack having fun!
Joke aside, these changes will mainly be noticeable with units (even if buildings also share this new “state-system”), so hopefully this patch has fully remedy AI-behaviour like:
Range-units sometimes walk into enemies' faces before attacking (lost in thoughts - debuff?).
Units sometimes just have a blackout & stand still on the battlefield and just "taking it in".
Guard-units not stopping for anything to reach their guardpost.
Archers on guard-duty misinterpreted that they were the solid last defence. (Not checking what is throwing javelins at them outside their view).
Training on their moonwalking skills.
etc.
Updated Detection System
The detection and targeting system has been updated to account for the actual size of units and buildings, rather than only using their center point positions.
What changed:
Previously, enemies would determine the closest target by comparing distances to the center of each target. This could lead to unrealistic behavior — for example, if you stood next to a large building, enemies might still choose to attack you first, simply because your center was slightly closer, even though the edge of the building was right in front of them.
Now:
Enemies and other targeting systems measure distance to the edge of buildings and units. This means they will prefer targets that are physically closer to reach, even if their center is farther away.
So this will be more expensive to calculate, but I couldn’t see any impact on the FPS of the game (there are other things that are the culprits regarding lag late game).
Burning and Poison effects have been updated to reflect distinct behaviors
🔥 Burning still uses a classic damage-over-time stacking model:
Each burn effect applied has its own separate duration and damage, stacking independently.☠️ Poison now uses a pooled damage model with a shared duration:
All poison applications contribute to a shared total potency, which is distributed evenly over time. To prevent extreme scenarios (e.g. 10,000 weak poison stacks stretching over years), a diminishing returns curve is applied when adding more poison, especially from long-duration or low-potency sources.
In depth / The thoughts behind the changes:
Diminishing returns represent a kind of "poison dilution" mechanic—imagine your body is already saturated with toxins. If you've been dosed with 10 liters of mild poison, and then suddenly receive a spoonful of highly lethal poison, that deadly dose gets "diluted" in the existing pool of toxins.
While not entirely realistic, it serves an important gameplay purpose: preventing abuse or stale mechanics where stacking poison indefinitely becomes the only strategy. If you're already affected by poison that will last hours, a newly applied, fast-acting deadly dose won't hit as hard in the moment—it spreads its damage across the remaining duration instead of bursting instantly. But still retain that poison is “long damage dealing status effect” with “diluted” effect game mechanics.
Note: You still receive 100% of the intended damage, it's just distributed more evenly. This ensures poison remains dangerous without becoming overly bursty or exploitable. I may still adjust the “maximum poison duration” to better tune how those fast-acting poisons feel during combat.
I’m not completely satisfied with this solution though. When short-deadly poisons will not be as bursty if it is applied after a bunch of weaker ones. But it felt like a nice solution to avoid just saying totalPoisonDuration = totalPoisonDuration + AddedPoisonDuration. But it more or less works like a… “poison resistance” in your body I suppose? But the idea is to not make it a green clone of burning. Gladly listen to tweaks or other solutions.
The reason for these canges, is as mentioned in previous patch-logs, to remove hundreds of “1 damage” ticks spawning per second on you when you have multiple status effects of the same type, and now instead see a combined dmg tick per type. Plus also make different status-effects have different characteristics - intense but short fire-dots, or long “creeping” poison dots. (maybe further extend it down the road, so burning targets will also hurt those nearby?).
Game mechanics
Units will now set move-target towards closer position on other targets like buildings, before they set “move to” to enemies “center-position”, which led them to do wanky movement to sometimes determine the closest “point” to a buildings center, is on its backside, so they would try go around it. Now they should always put their attack-position towards their closest parts.
Units on “static-”guard-duty (archers) will now react and investigate when taking damage from someone outside their view - still want them to try hold position to not leave their post on top of “good” designated guard-positions.
Made so the camera shakes by stuff like meteor, getting large hits, critical hits or buildings destroyed. - And they have diminishing effects by distance. Still in testing-phase, so might reduce / increase their respective strength & the diminishing effect. I dislike camera-shakes myself in games that rely more on precision, but for more combat oriented games that don't have that kind of precision, I think it enhances the immersion :). I’m planning to add a toggle (or slider?) to adjust it.
Buildings that create units will now create them in larger areas, to avoid them being spawned on top of each other.
Content
Barbarians sub factions now are more distinct, so their buildings have (only atm) a colour tint for “swamp” and “frozen” to easier distinguish which sub-faction you are facing. Their offensive buildings also gained poison and chilling effect on their projectiles, but reduced direct-damage to compensate.
Added so the game now supports cast time on abilities, only one new ability with it, but more to come.
New ability - Firebolt
New ability - Meteor- Had a issue so will come with next patch
Quality of Life
Finally added an effect to the equipment “Skuld”, so no more invisible-damage-burst.
“Area-size” and “Area” is now read in units of area it covers, not in radius as before. As it could be interpreted incorrectly when saying +10% AreaSize, which increased the radius by 10%, not the actual area. And as abilities down the road might have different shapes, but still covers an area. Previously so did AreaSize represent “radius” of a circle, which is why the AreaSize had such small number (as +6% Radius is not equal to +6% Area when calculate PI*r^2). So it hopefully is more intuitive, and also nice when other abilities might have a square, an oval, etc, but nice to represent everything with one “area”-value.
Movement Speed attribute numbers are now visually 10x larger to have more appealing numbers (e.g. previously 5.5 == 55 movement speed now) - you still move at the same speed.
Ability talents will now get the updated values, e.g. if beam gets an area-effect, the “beam” talent will now also show that area-effect attribute, to avoid the player having to go over all learned talents to see what the ability actually does.
Ability talents now have an updated “talent-info-card” to show all attribute modifiers it is affected by at the bottom of their cards, with icon matching the attribute, if unfamiliar with what one icon represent, you can check your character-stats to the right when you have paused the game (Almost all attributes are there, some like “Distance” for Flash aren’t in characters stats yet).
Balancing
Assassins now hit harder with a deadly poison, but fewer are spawned - they should feel more dangerous to face. - these will get a rework soon, so this is just a step towards it.
Frozen Barbarian’s giant - reduced health by 15%.
Buildings shooting arrows now shoot much slower, felt so out of place when they shoot so fast.
Increased enemies throwing axe units attack range from 4 -> 6
Updated Flash Leaping Lightning Talent - it felt weird it removed its “affected by” Cooldown, when it also reduced cooldown, also adjusted its cooldown, get 2 sec cooldown was a bit low, so made it ~5 sec (still think this ability might need more love, anyone liking it atm / using it?)
Removed slowing-attack from Berserkers and added it to giants - Berserker already have + movement speed ability, and giants are meant to be slow melee tanks, so they can need the extra help in slowing hit target to “catch up”.
Made Wizard <1% slower - for nicer number roundings:3
Enemies building now have a lot less health - This is partly a "test", but I thought it made the playthrough feel much more enjoyable. It shouldn't be a grind to take down one enemy building, their main defence should not be hp, but offensive stuff.
Other
Changed Arcane tome icon to better match a “pixel-art”-styled game (got a few more for other masteries, but the arcane-book no longer fit)
Removed the “glitter” particle effects on the smaller xp-orbs, it got a bit too cluttered, and it instead emphasised the larger ones that still retains it (might even go one extra step for the largest one, to have a pulsing effect or something?).
Updated the critical-chance icon
Updated enemies throwing-axe sound effect
Removed Pre-pooling units (e.g. pre-spawn in enemies, so it is much easier to spawn in a bunch / avoid minor lag-spikes when a large wave is spawned, however, it is barely noticeable, and will only be felt “first time”*. So now when removed, reduce start-new-game time by ~20%, which I think is better).
Some buildings will now have “grass” growing on them, if they are placed on top of grass, to make them feel like they belong / don’t stick out as much.
Added so “vibrant colors-setting-effect” is always on in MainMenu to make it more pretty. But let me know if anyone has any weird graphics with it / can’t see main-menu. Then I’ll just have to remove it.
Bugs
Fixed bugs
I have found and fixed at least one place where one of these bugs enters. But in the worst case, there were even more places the bug sneaks in that I have missed, so maybe a bit misleading with "Bug fixes".
Overshooting with projectiles (arrows, spells, etc) are now checking for overshooting manually (no longer using Unity’s built in) - was almost guaranteed when it got laggy.
Red numbers not always going back to normal in the upgrade and building UI.
Upgrade description sometimes going on top of existing text for either the upgrading or building UI.
Talents that modify abilities “Affected by” will now be reset correctly when creating a new game.
Flash reverts the player back to the starting position. E.g. you use flash on a position (not aiming where you stand), camera starts to move to new position, but then you snap back to original position.
A couple months ago, I noticed a bug related to surrender & starting a new game. But I’ve tried to replicate it tens of times without any result. So maybe it is also gone? - Been reworking the talent-system-code, so it might have been that.
Game crash - Was related to status effects, and very hard to replicate(had a game running over a long time with ramped up mages vs poison-dudes spawning loads vs each other with no incident), Hopefully gone now. A nasty threading-issue-bug.
Not sure if I introduced this bug last patch, or with my current patch (been working on it way too long), but now “Focusing hat” works correctly with Beam again (e.g. makes it possible to move slowly while channeling Beam).
If the invalid reason to place a building is because of not lack of money, but something else (already placed this unique building, etc.), the visual effect is red & shaking money-text will no longer triggered (I’ll have to come up with a better way to tell what the reason is, but I can’t think of any simple and clean way atm. So it will be postponed for the moment).
Unsolved bugs (but possible to be recreated)
AI (units) gets stuck or exhibits bad pathfinding, even when using a bought tool with a lot of tweaking, but I still think it can be improved with even more tweaking
Unsolved bugs (that I have not been able to recreate or really hard to recreate)
These are reported bugs that I have not been able to recreate or have really hard time to recreate. So I'm sorry you have to keep experiencing these, but if they are not major, so have I put them to the side for the moment, and have my eyes open for them to figure out their criteria to be made.
But I gladly take all the help I can get, so if you experience a bug, I gladly hear about it, as I aim for a bug-free game. In the best case, explain the scenario with things you might think are related when it happened, maybe you notice it only / always happens when doing thing A after thing B.
Chain Lightning: Doesn't always jump to the next target in the vicinity.
If you're slowed by a chill effect, the blue visual effect sometimes doesn't disappear.
Upgrades in progress don't always cancel when the building is destroyed.