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Roguefort 0.36.0 - Power to the Cheesemakers

Roguefort · published · build 26368409

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Bonjour Affineurs,

Hang on to your cheesebelts because spellcasting in Roguefort gets a huge buff and deepening in this update.

Too long have "quesomancers" played second fiddle to melee focussed builds. But today, this all changes. Spells now have their own stat known as Spell Power, which adds, well, power to spells (more below). Manna also gets passive regen when enemies are not around. Also, rare cheeses are much stronger and have deeper and more rewarding synergies. This all means that spellcasting builds are viable in and of themselves, as they should be.

The wilds are quite a bit calmer too, depending where you are located, and especially at night and on main roads. I've also added a pile of the things you've been asking for, like a Ready tab in the Quest Log and a way to see full item cards all the time, for those players who want more detail.

I've also been working on tracking down and fixing the source of the slowdown that some players reported during long play sessions. I think I've got a handle on the causes, but it's an ongoing process and requires a lot of testing, so I hope the fixes in this update help.

The game is in the first few weeks of Early Access, so thanks for your input and understanding as I work to make it the best game possible, which will take time. I've learned a lot in a really short space of time. One of those things is that players are diverse and want different things - many of which are, unfortunately, mutually incompatible. I try my best to navigate the pros and cons of every decision in this game and I'll work as hard as I can to decipher the best path forward for the game design and development.

The roadmap aims at a 1.0 release in about one year from now, so there's a great deal more to come. I'm mentioning this here because if you are reading this then you are one of the people who cares enough about the game to read patch notes, which is wonderful to me (hi), but it also means I take your feedback seriously because I know how passionate/interested many of you are about this project. Every bit of positive feedback makes my day and I also appreciate any constructive critical feedback, where "constructive" means something I can work with, like a concrete suggestion or an example of another game or mechanic I can go research and learn from. If you've left feedback and I've been able to address it, I hope that it improves your experience of the game.

Thanks for reading and playing,

Tim

Spells

  • As mentioned above, there's a new stat called Spell Power. Each level adds 2%, and each Spell Mastery tier lets 2 more of your levels count. A character who never casts stays at the plain numbers.
  • The Spell Belt window, your character sheet and every war cheese card show your Spell Power, including in heals, Mend war cheeses, marks and rinds. "How it adds up" shows your build too, so you can see why a spell hits as hard as it does. A cloud's card says what it does each turn.
  • Spells can crit now, at three quarters of your Crit Chance, and crit damage works on them too.
  • Fire, cold and poison damage on your gear now add to Heat, Cold and Rot spells.
  • Manna comes back on its own while nothing hostile is in sight. A full pool takes 200 turns, or 100 turns at 20 mastery tiers. In co-op, each player goes by what they can see.
  • Staves are caster weapons now. Each point of staff damage adds 3% Spell Power, and each hit gives you 2 Manna.
  • Tier 3 spells cost 6 Manna (was 7) and hit at x1.25. Tier 4 spells cost 8 (was 9) and hit at x1.5.
  • Eleven weak spells are cheaper: Camembert Haze, Washed Rind Wave, Limburger Lob, Reek Cone, Aged Filament, Amnesia Cloud, Putrid Arc, Permafrost Rind, Moonlit Masterwork, Silenceshell and Frostfire Reserve.
  • Inkwell's Gift is back on the Scholar branch, with +8% Spell Power on spell hits and +8% status duration, up to 5 times. Oracle's Eye adds 25% Spell Power.
  • Damage, heals, shields, summons, zones and Ward all grow with Spell Power. Ward's ceiling is still 40.
  • Spell Power, a war cheese's Strength and Inkwell's Gift add together, so they don't multiply each other. A synergy like Putrid Inferno multiplies your build, but not Strength.
  • Your own blast and friendly fire use a war cheese's plain damage, before Strength.
  • Life Drain now heals 20% of the damage that gets through, so a hit stopped by armour or a shield heals less or nothing.
  • Caster runs in the Monadic Descent will be faster now. Old rows on the boards stay.

Stronger cheese

  • Rare milk, cultures and flora now make a cheese much stronger. One rare is x2, two are x3.5, three are x6, four x8, five x10, and six or more x12. Epic and legendary ingredients count as two rares, and mythic as three. Each kind counts once, and Arcane Rennet doesn't count.
  • Age multiplies that. A cheese with a rare is x1.5 at 7 days, x2 at 20 days, x3 at 40 days, x4 at a year and x5 at two years, so three rares aged 40 days comes to x18.
  • Strength raises a war cheese's damage, healing, shield and summons, and what you get from eating a cheese. It stops at x40, and sale value doesn't rise with it.
  • A cheese with no rare is the same as before. Rind Wall, Smoked Gouda Fog and the Riftcheese take no strength.
  • A Season Wheel's timed effect can run up to 4 days. Its lasting gift hasn't changed.
  • Bench cheeses you already have get stronger now. A recipe war cheese or table cheese you finished before this patch stays as it is.
  • A cheese with a rare keeps ageing on a rack or in your cave until you take it, and walking into your own cave won't take it by accident.
  • The vat, press, bench, cave, Recipe Book and Help all show how many rares a cheese holds and what its age adds. A cheese on the Cave's rack shows what you'll really take, with its rares, its age and the cave's quality.
  • Speed, damage and armour from food and drink don't stack any more. Only your strongest of each counts, so a second damage cheese adds nothing unless it's stronger. A weaker one counts again when the stronger one ends, but a new meal still replaces the last meal's buffs. Living Apothecary keeps the larger amount and adds the turns for these three. Comet Curd's and the Starwheel's night speed don't add to a food speed buff either. Books, a perfect ale pairing and the Grand Opus's lasting damage and armour still add on top. (__hariel__)
  • A strong cheese raises the Monadic Descent's difficulty. x18 makes it at least 6 of 8, and x30 or more makes it 8. It counts in your pack, in a quick slot, and after you eat it while the effect lasts.
  • In the Cheese Cave, a click now places or takes out a cheese, and the window stays open so you can lay down several in one visit. (cecilia2020, .socran, Dr_Bicinium)
  • Two grades of one cheese sit side by side in your pack again, so a bought Stilton and the Fine one you made stay apart. (madness5520, tthfry, __hariel__)
  • An ageing cheese's card says what it does, such as "When you eat it at Standard quality: +4 vision for 150 turns". (madness5520)

Calmer wilds

  • Nights have about a third as many encounters as before, and they come in waves. After an encounter you get a quiet spell, so a kill isn't replaced straight away.
  • Roads are much safer, with about a quarter of the wild's encounters and usually no more than 2 creatures at a time.
  • Dangerous country has shorter quiet spells, bigger groups (up to 6) and worse monsters.
  • Where you are matters more. Deserts, tundra and snow are the quietest, plains and hills are calmer, forests are busier, and swamps are the busiest.
  • Chopping, mining and fighting make noise for up to 30 turns, and whatever turns up walks to the sound. Sneaking keeps you quieter.
  • Fewer creatures at night also means night-only creatures are a lot rarer, and night hunting gives less XP.
  • The creature an open bounty names turns up more often while the bounty is open.
  • Quest givers near home don't ask for wolves that don't live there any more.
  • The danger line now says Night: more hostiles.
  • Rest until dawn ends when it's really light and the night's creatures are leaving. A vampire wakes before sunrise, with a line that says so. (fozzyorb, _shim_panze_)

Item cards

  • The first card you see now shows every stat, every loss in a comparison and every rule. Cheese, food and materials show in full, with nothing left behind More. (zvnxtt, tthfry, .socran)
  • New setting, Settings -> Gameplay -> "Show full item cards". The pack, chests, trade, the forge, the spell belt and the quick slots all show the whole card straight away. If you keep opening More, the game points you to it once. (samv123, madness5520, moonmoon, zvnxtt, y0l042)
  • Every weapon rule has its own line. A whey blade's card now says it deals less damage the more Manna you hold.
  • A tall card on a small screen stands in two columns, and a card taller than the screen stops at the window instead of running off it.
  • The trader keeps a comparison on screen while you read.
  • Chests and cheese stations open cards in a quarter of a second. (zvnxtt, tthfry)
  • The Vat, the Cave's rack, the cooking pot and the Germinator show item cards. (madness5520)
  • The ? key opens More on stat tips, on AZERTY keyboards too. The / key opens More in item windows. (zvnxtt, tthfry)
  • Ctrl+Shift+I used to turn every item card off. It doesn't now. (Socran)

World map, quests and finding things

  • On the world map, pick a row in the legend to hide that kind of mark, and Show all brings them back. The game keeps your choice between sessions. (avocado8716, .socran, tthfry)
  • The Quest Log has a Ready tab with a count, listing the quests you can turn in now. (czarek_ekler)
  • The workbench and forge have a Craftable only check that lists just what you can make right now. (jerf3246)
  • New setting, Show travel steps in the log. Turn it off to hide the walking lines. (.socran)
  • Wanderer's Guides now mark the beast they the mention, and they work from the Old Mouth, a dungeon or a ship. (_shim_panze_, .socran)
  • If a guide's beast isn't in your world, the book says so and marks the nearest one you haven't met. A book with nothing of its kind in your world says so and marks a place instead. (_shim_panze_)
  • Ask the way now covers the library, herder, chandler, herbalist and guild hall, and if there's more than one, "Where is the other one?" tells you where the next is. A building nobody keeps still gets you directions. (dakkadakkawagh, .socran, y0l042, ghraemdal)
  • When an animal or friendly person blocks a narrow lane, auto travel takes another route, up to twice a trip. (madness5520, tthfry)
  • If you press towards a river's shallows with only a big ship in your pack, the game now says "The water here is too shallow for any boat you carry." (zvnxtt)
  • The Stormcaller and Ironwall Schematics now say that no forge or workbench makes their sets. (.socran, tthfry)

Animals and your homestead

  • You can cull animals from the Animals panel (P). Mark a whole kind or a few, confirm, and it takes one turn. (pcspiker)
  • Breeding stops when a pen is full, at one animal per tile, and the Animals panel shows how full each pen is. Calves stay inside the fence. (madness5520)
  • An animal at a gate steps aside to let you in, if it has room. (madness5520)
  • A taming rope doesn't work on a wild Moon Hare, Frost Ewe or Ember Auroch any more. You have to befriend them. (tthfry)
  • A hired farmhand now works at your home, and one you hired earlier moves there. The Hire Farmhand row says how far they reach and what they cost. (gobeers, Socran, Formerly Dr Kang)
  • Woodcutters don't get boxed in by their own tree farm any more, and anyone already stuck walks out when you load. Tired woodcutters go home to their cottage, and town woodcutters stay out of your base. (bancheis, yjn1405, bdubya, madness5520)
  • Undo Build now takes back a worker cottage, and most builds from one sitting (up to ten) while Build stays open. You get back what you paid yourself, and anything taken from a nearby chest stays spent. (madness5520)
  • Sow turns a comet crater's scorched earth into tall grass, so you can build there again. (madness5520)
  • A small pond now holds one fisherman for every ten tiles of water, and the rest fish somewhere else. One pond could end up with about 40 of them. (pcspiker, _shim_panze_)
  • You can see past a planted tree until it's fully grown. Arrows, spells and creature sight pass it too, so it's no cover yet. (datsheeptho)
  • Harvest Area skips plants you can't pick right now. (bancheis)
  • When the game lagged, holding a direction into a drying rack or a dungeon plant could harvest it over and over and duplicate your hay or mushrooms. It now takes one. (thesquirrel_74982)

Co-op

  • Everyone in a party needs to be on 0.36.0.
  • Going through a dungeon mouth, a cheese cave, a holdfast gate, an inn door or a stair no longer pulls your party along. Everyone else gets a Go together / Not now card, and you all go once everyone says yes. One Not now and nobody moves. A downed player is still carried along, and an arrest still takes partners with it.
  • At a dungeon mouth, a guest can also choose to go in alone, and the party keeps playing above with no card. Take the stairs up from floor 1 to come back with what you found. Nobody can follow you in until you come back out, and the party can't go in anywhere together while you're inside. If you quit or the host saves and quits, what you found is lost. The host can't go in alone yet, because the host's machine runs the world above.
  • In a long-played world, a guest could get stuck on "Save not confirmed" with Alt+F4 as the only way out. Save party should now work on big worlds, the wait matches the size of the world, and a failed save gives you Leave anyway. (hyperx69)
  • In a party, Wayfarer's Whey or a Riftcheese used inside a dungeon or building you're sharing now shows Go together first and takes everyone with you. Nothing is spent until everyone agrees. A guest has to use it from a quick slot, and it's refused while a partner is in a cell.
  • Any player can cull the shared herd, and the log names who did it.

Going home, quest rewards and gear

  • Riftcheese now takes you home from a cheese cave, a dungeon, a ship or the Old Mouth. Eating it in a cave used to leave you stranded on a void tile with the cheese gone. (sleepysva)
  • Wayfarer's Whey sets you down beside your campfire. Its hotkey now refuses the Old Mouth and Mahargekdar's Plane, as the pack does, and spends nothing.
  • New setting, Homing Whey skips seeds. Seeds stay in your pack when you drink one. It's off by default. (ravenor., nalathnidragon, everyzig314)
  • If your pack is full when a quest hands you something, the line tells you where the item lies, and it can't be lost. (inkykrillie)
  • Cheese commissions now take the ingredients they ask for. They used to stay in your pack. (_shim_panze_)
  • A legendary dropped by a roaming boss now shows its real name, and ones you already carry are fixed when you load. (.socran)
  • Your cheese fire and poison auras leave your own summons and hired hands alone now. (trespiratesque, .socran)

Bestiary

  • The Wild tab lists every creature it counts again, including the Mythic Beasts and roaming bosses that 0.35.0 dropped. Sorry about that one. (.socran, sleepysva)
  • A creature now needs to be within 4 tiles and in your line of sight to go in your bestiary. A creature behind a wall used to count, so bosses you never met could show up there. (.socran)
  • Most creatures' descriptions now show in a pane beside the list, and I've corrected some text that mentions some legacy systems and experimental features / items that are either in development or were removed from the game during earlier stages of development for whatever reason (sleepysva)

Controllers

  • The Notice Board's Hand in here rows take the D-pad now. With nothing else on the board, you couldn't reach a ready contract. (tthfry)
  • The pause menu answers the D-pad, A and the arrow keys during auto travel. (tthfry)
  • RT now hides or shows the item card in the trader, the mailbox, the auction house, a player trade and the cheese stations. In the trader it used to buy or sell the row you were on. (tthfry)
  • Amelia's Grace chapter closes on A and RT. (tthfry)
  • Holding A won't answer Cull, Release, a Confirm menu or a letter's Pay button by itself any more.

Voices and first person

  • New setting, Settings -> Audio -> Character Voice. Pick from five voices, A to E, for your character's hurt sounds. A is the voice you already know, and selecting another plays it so you can hear it.
  • In first person, land no longer tears through a far shore as broken dashes.
  • In first person, names over people's heads are crisp at any screen size, and that goes for co-op partners too.

Long sessions

  • Long sessions should stay smoother, especially in towns and by water. Please tell me whether it helps. (moonmoon, .socran, dimensional_ouroboros)
  • Leaving 2.5D gives its graphics memory back. (moonmoon)
  • A growing pet, a silk spinner or a baby in the stable used to add an extra full redraw on every turn. Now it only happens on a turn when something changes. (dimensional_ouroboros)

Cards, tooltips and Help

  • Point at your wood, stone or crystal and the tooltip says what it's for. The crystal tooltip also says how to get more. (vitokinator)
  • Material cards say what each material is used in. If all it's good for is selling, the card says that too. (fladelade, torentarra)
  • Tool cards say what a better tool really does. An Iron Hatchet's strike on a tree counts as two from a plain hatchet.
  • Build cards use plain words, so a Woodcutter says "Wages: 1 gold every 5 turns" and a Trap says who sets it off.
  • When you can't afford something, the game says what you need, such as "You need 6 wood and 2 stone."
  • Quest objectives name who to bring goods to, and a fine names the settlement whose notice board takes the payment.
  • Spell upgrades, perks and Arts spell out what they do. "+50% evasion → crit" is now "+50% of evasion added to crit chance". (madness5520)
  • Help's Build page has a Your Home section. You don't need a deed and you can't buy a house. Your home is the campfire or hearth you set as home. That fire can heal you, and Homing Whey sends your goods to chests close to it. (enwehr)
  • The Glossary has new entries for the Home campfire, the Homestead Ledger, the Reserve Cellar, Level and the Monadic Descent. (zenoshi, naikhou., bobinhedgeorge, enwehr, juh9870, hmliveira)
  • Help now covers shearing wool, how a mine pays you, where hay comes from, and paying off a blood-debt. (deadcatbf, trevelyanheart, berserkr666, zvnxtt, .rarehuman, valdrrak)
  • The Old Homestead Deed does nothing, and its card says so. It's off the Wanted board too. (enwehr)
  • The rack and the bench use the same place names for a long lay, so the Winter sleep lay says tundra or taiga in both. (madness5520)
  • Look text on water tells you that you can swim deep water at half pace, and that items can float out of your pack.

Smaller fixes

  • Wheels of War crashed the game at 90% Interface size. Fixed. (heckinred)
  • A town could be drawn wrong until you reloaded, such as Roquelle showing as a different city. I've fixed one cause of this. If you still see it, please send me your save. (sleepysva, hyperx69)
  • The Forge's reroll card now shows the chance every stat gets better, as well as each stat on its own. (bancheis)
  • Monadic Descent run times show seconds. (trespiratesque, ultramoist)
  • The Mastery board's haul only counts what a descent gives you now. Buying back something you sold, catching an item that floated away, fetching a thrown javelin, studying a scroll and buying from a shelf don't add to it. (__hariel__)
  • The Status tab shows Botany's XP to the next level, and Botany and Sneak show (Max) at the cap. (.socran, tthfry)
  • A Sporeling marks plants within 5 tiles on the minimap. (.socran)
  • Take Wing is listed on the wyvern's card, and PageUp and PageDown scroll the card. (.socran)
  • Scrolling over a dialogue doesn't zoom the map when it closes any more. (jojoknob)
  • In 2D, anyone asleep on the floor keeps their head now. A sleeping child used to read as a blue rat. (ravenor., jonaway1988, __hariel__)
  • A carried shield stands in front of your armour. (zvnxtt)
  • In the cooking window, a click on a row ticks it and the row's cook button cooks it. Before, a near miss could cook by accident and waste your ingredients. (valkreign, tthfry)
  • Someone standing on a lantern or torch used to get its description on their hover card. Now the card is about them. (datsheeptho)
  • A ship could double in your pack or vanish if the game ate food for you on the same turn you boarded or landed. Boarding and landing now move the ship exactly once. (.socran)
  • Brewmaster's save now works on food and drink you use from your pack. (bancheis, madness5520)
  • A vampire who dies of thirst wakes with 80 blood, the amount they were turned with, so the thirst can't kill them again straight away. (.socran)
  • Vertical bars are gone from the sides of cards and rows. Changed numbers at the affineur's bench get a stepped outline, and the world map legend shows each biome's colour as a square.
  • Chests don't show Protected or EXPOSED any more. Nothing steals from a chest, so a roof over one doesn't matter. (torentarra)
  • Demolishing a town's building warns you when it would cost you the right to build in that faction's settlements. Before, the warning came at the wrong reputation.
  • The Affinage Arts button stops counting Insights you've already spent on perk reroll tokens. (tthfry)
  • Striking a tavern patron shows AFRAID! rather than HOSTILE! and WANTED, because only that tavern's patrons react, and the Attack menu says so before you swing.
  • The worker wage tooltip includes your Counting House discount.
  • Toggle Build Placement in Controls is now Build Cursor On or Off, the same name the Panels menu and Help use.

Known issues

  • With Detailed characters off in the display settings, long sessions don't get the full improvement yet.
  • With Show full item cards on, a few cards can still be cut off at 1024x640 with Large text. I don't quite know how to fix that (yet)