Hey everyone,
It's been a long week. I don't have much left in me for these patch notes, so they're a bit bare bones sorry. I have spent all my dev time this week improving the UI and removing flavour from the in-game text to make it clearer. I hope it helps. Thanks everyone who has given support and constructive feedback. The reality is that I'm one man doing all this. I have a full time job and a young family and the game has been out in Early Access for 2 weeks now. I try my best and I hope the game brings you some joy.
Have a nice weekend,
Tim
Clearer words
- I've reworded text across the game to make it easier to read - a lot of flavoursome language has been reworded just to focus on mechanics and information. When I set out to write the text in the game I envisioned it could be something Tolkienesque, specifically the Silmarillion in tone. Since I'm not much of writer, I've shelved that for now because it hasn't worked out and has caused a lot of problems. If I can find someone who can actually write well and employ them, I'll do that later on. For now, I'm just going to keep rewriting stuff as I go through it, so that it's at least clear even if it's not as interesting maybe.
- Character creation is also easier to read and some of the UI boxes have changes to help them be clearer
- Did a bunch of search and replacing to make sure terminology in the game is always consistent. Various parts of the world used to call things differently because it's not a monoculture on Cantal, but now they just use the same terms, and so does the game UI.
- When you walk into the village, the main story's first stage now completes whereas before it waited for you to stand near one spot, which could be a river or some other unexpected/weird spot.
Edit HUD
- The Edit HUD bar has three layouts at the top: Minimal, Standard and Full. If you made your own layout, the Custom button brings it back. (nokturnal)
- Edit HUD is now in the pause menu and in Settings, as well as behind the padlock at the top left. (nokturnal)
- You can move and resize panels in Edit HUD with a keyboard or controller too
- If you hide a panel with its red x, the Hidden UI elements always bring it bac even when the bar is tucked away. (nokturnal)
- Your cursor's name card sits beneath the HUD panels now so it stops covering the quest tracker. A new setting turns it off - "Show the name under the cursor" (nokturnal)
- The Tab and ? UI elements under the log used to walk your character when you clicked them. Both are real buttons now. (nokturnal)
- The hint strip stays on one line and off your character's tile, the log shows whole lines, and hover cards keep clear of the HUD panels.
Settings and controls
- Settings has a search box at the top. You can a word to find a setting on any tab and go straight to it.
- Each row in Settings fits on one line. A pane beside the list explains the row you're on and shows its default
- Controls are grouped by where they work, such as Moving, Spells and Building. Use Show to see one group at a time.
- You can search the Controls by key just like Shift+F. Or select Press a key, then press any key or controller button to see what it does. (nokturnal)
- A new Conflicts view lists the controls that share a key or button in the same place
- When Controls asks you to press a button for a control, Escape now cancels that instead of closing Settings.
First time tips
- The first time you encounter a a new part of the game, a one line note with "learn more" now appears at the top left. It replaces the card that used to pop up over play. A note waits if you're in a fight or have a window open. (.knifee)
- The cards behind Learn more are much shorter. The Lessons panel keeps every one you've seen, so you can read it again.
- On first-time cards and war cheese cards, words from the Glossary are marked in orange. Point at one, or step through them with the arrow keys or D-pad, to read what it means in one sentence. (nokturnal, Keyo)
- Notes you haven't read are still there after Save and Quit, and in co-op each guest gets their own ones
- If travel keeps stopping for hostiles, a tip tells you, and Learn more takes you straight to "Stop travelling when threatened" in Settings. (Break it down Bob)
Cards, spells and traders
- Every war cheese has a plain line under its name that says what it does, on its card on the belt and in the Spell Belt window. The names haven't changed. (nokturnal, Keyo)
- Item cards in the pack, chests and the forge show a short summary first. More (? on a keyboard, View on a controller) opens the whole card. On a Steam Deck a long card used to run off the screen.
- Stat UI elements on the character sheet open their breakdown with the same More.
- Traders now show a list with a detail pane beside it. Each row has a name, one fact and a price. The pane shows the item's card and what buying it would change, like how much gold you'll have left.
- Cursed pieces show both halves of their pact on the summary: what the curse took and what it gave you.
- If a perk gives you a charge that none of your perks uses yet such as Ember, it now says what happens next i.e. "None of your perks uses Ember yet. Level-ups now favour perks that do." (Vomgnar)
The world map
- Roads are back on the world map, drawn over the fog as clear lines so it's yellow for main roads, peach for tracks and dots for paths. For terrain you haven't explored yet a road shows as a dotted hint (palpablebrush26)
- Clearing one dungeon no longer dims the whole map. (palpablebrush26)
- The Factions and Biomes filters show their regions on the world map again. (sleepysva)
- Every kind of tile now shows on the world map, including your mine, barns, comet craters and houses. The map updates when you build something or the world changes. (madness5520)
- On slower machines and very large screens, the map opens much faster. If a machine can't keep up, the map draws at half scale, still in whole pixels. (kendacity)
- An ending you commit to at the Undermaw shows on the world map, as it did on the old map
- With a keyboard or controller, you can now pick a single biome or guild in the map's legend. Press J (View on a controller) to move into the legend.
Controllers, keys and first person
- In first person on a controller, swap weapons with L2+RB and switch to your harvest tool with L2+LB. RB and LB work the hotbar in first person, so before there was no way to do either.
- In first person, the Interact key now opens the same menu as a right-click, so you can Fish, Tame and Enter the Rift from the keyboard. On a controller, Plan a build opens the same build wheel as in 2D.
- When the look cursor is up, Confirm walks you to the tile under it. You can send your character a long way with a keyboard or controller, the way a click does.
- You can sort your pack with a keyboard or controller too. Press Up from the first row to reach the Type, Rar, Val and Name buttons.
- When you hold L2, the legend lists only what works in the view you're in. If you play with a controller, prompts show controller buttons.
- If you rebind a key, the toolbar, its tips and How to Play show your key instead of the default.
- The Cheese Vat, Cheese Press, Cheese Cave and Germinator now have the Use row their hint mentions, from right-click, the Interact key and a controller.
Screen reader
- In Settings, the screen reader reads each row's name and then its one-line summary. also, it reads the tab's name when you change tabs.
- In the Controls, the screen reader reads the row you're on with its key and button, and tells you how many controls a search found.
- The screen reader reads first-time notes when they appear on screen. It reads a marked Glossary word with its meaning when you move onto it.
Companions and travel
- A pet standing on a pressure plate, the ship's wheel, the Old Mouth's stairs, a raid arch or a victory stone now steps aside when you bump it, so you can use the tile. Before, you and the pet swapped places. (trespiratesque)
- Summons, pets, ballistae and traps now fight a patrol that has turned on you. Curd Golems used to just stand there. (valdrrak)
- Hired soldiers now come with you when you travel by waystone, Waywheel, wyvern, riftstone, faerie ring or Wayfarer's Whey, as pets and herds already did. (bancheis)
- When you travel by waystone, Waywheel, wyvern or riftstone, the ship you were steering now comes along as one ship in your pack. Before it could be doubled or lost. (pcspiker)
- Press Alt+C to pet the nearest companion. For other devices/input it's in the Panels menu. (raider-363)
- Co-op guests can now ping any spot on the world map. A guest can show the host the X from a treasure map even on unexplored ground. (warrat106)
Towns, building and the Notebook
- The Mine's build card shows what one, two and three mines pay, what your current mines pay right now and what adding one more would add. Keyboard and controller players now see build cards too. (blackbird806)
- Demolish can now also demolish a Tree Farm, and the trees stay standing. (madness5520)
- The Crew Roster now says why a crop tender is idle. Either their chest has no seeds, or no farm plot is within reach of the chest. (gobeers, Grumolch)
- Clicking a cottage door to place a hired worker now puts them beside the door, not in it. (Grumolch)
- On the notice board, the cottage row now says what's missing. Its Fund It button stays greyed out, and its tip says why. (fredc)
- Journal and Notes is now in the pause menu, with the same name in the Panels menu and the Controls (chewer, SGM)
- for people who couldn't find their notebook in the game, the Cheese Press and a few places other now tell you it's a page on the affineur's bench. (Vomgnar)
Quests and fixes
- If you abandon the main story's second stage, you can now get it back. Before, it was getting lost for good. I'm sorry about that in particular, if it caused you problems in the game
- Caseine's quest now takes any war cheese you've made. It used to take only one from the Rot family.
- After you beat a dungeon's boss the dungeon keeps its other monsters when you save and quit the game. They used to vanish when the the game loaded back in. (pcspiker)
- A road caravan's merchant now stays with their mule and caravan hand. Before, the merchant could vanish and leave the other two stranded. (trespiratesque)
- The Tres Piratesque achievement now counts a cache dug from a map you've since dropped, sold or destroyed. (pcspiker)
- The gold count on the top bar now goes past 9.9m, so it can read 10m, 123m or 1.2b. (__hariel__)
- The Wild tab in your bestiary now lists every creature it counts, including dungeon creatures, bosses and raiders. (ghraemdal)
- When you pick Fish beside your boat, you now cast into the deep sea, the same as pressing F. (4pt)
- In co-op, a player knocked to 0 HP by a dart plate now goes down and can be revived. So does a vampire burnt by a shrine or garlic. They used to stand frozen at 0 HP. (C0deRen)
- If a waystone in an old save has lost its owner, bump it to make it yours.
- RIND WARS now draws its crossed swords as a pixel icon because an ascii fallback char was causing rendering issues before
- Pointing at the spell belt's mastery strip now shows its tip, and a count of one reads "1 tile", not "1 tiles".