The Shaman Diary Demo · published
As this patch is massive and rework a lot of systems, you may encounter some incoherent behaviors when playing on a previous save made before this release. An effort was put to minimize the risk...
But if you happen to face this situation and really want to continue your playthrough with your existing save file, feel free to contact me on discord.
Much of the development work concerns content outside of the demo. These elements will be mentioned without full detail and marked with an *. It's the occasion to have a look to the content being added to the final game.
Interactive elements:
A lot of interactive elements were added in all the maps. Many of them are giving some small consumable items.
Glowing effects:
All the interactive elements (box, barrel, cupboard...) have now a glowing effect that will fade after you interacted with it. No more lottery interacting with every decor to find one box that can be looted. Exploration is finally encouraged !
Taunt quality of life:
You didn't notice the taunt effect is gonna fade and your team just died...? That's a story of the past ! When the taunt effect is near fading (reaching its last turn), a specific little sound is played as a subtle reminder.
State animation:
Important states such as taunt are playing an animation every fight seconds on the concerned fighter. This is the case for every important state (such as important states that can result in a one-shot mechanic is not handled).
New achievements and rewards:
Many new achievements were added and boss hard modes is now encouraged with a little reward. That way you can show off, but the little reward also helps you further !
Cooking system rework: Cooked meat was a no-brainer button, giving a lot of HP for very little cost. The quantity of meat and the amount of HP it recovered was making other options relatively useless. The cooking system was reworked so meat recovers a fixed amount of HP and only potions recover a percentage. Besides that, different meat quality have been added based on aditionnal ingredients.
The narrator:
A strange character now comments your actions from time to time... I'm not sure who invited him here... ːsteammockingː
Fight tutorial:
The very first tiny fights in the introduction chapter were very messy giving no information to the player to understand what was going on. A tutorial has been added to understand the situation.
Immersion rework:
Many immersion improvements were added such as visuals and animations... And above all, every interactive element should now play a sound when interacting with it ! New animations include for example the characters going to bed and sleeping instead of the screen directly going black.
System messages:
All system-related messages not emanating from a speaking character must now use a distinctive visual element to differentiate them from regular dialogue. Skills explanation, item addition, coins payment, etc... are concerned.
Behavior points:
More opportunities to gain behavior points have been added here and there. The 10 points cap (unlocking some specific rewards) is now achievable within the demo (not all of them are reachable).
New bosses*:
12 new unique bosses have been added.
New items*:
25 new unique game-changing items have been added.
New quests*:
12 new side-quests and Valdroit main-quest have been added.
New crafters*:
New crafter NPC such as the tanner, the tailor and the alchemist have been added.
New recipes*: 50 new crafts recipes (including armor sets and many potions) have been added.
Armor gems sockets*:
A new system of gems sockets on armors has been added. Multiple specific gems were added too.
Grimoire system*: A new system of grimoire unlocking specific spells has been added to Nelia toolkit. Multiple specific grimoires were added too.
Elemental catalysts*: The elemental catalyst system has been added to Bjorn toolkit. This includes all the specific catalysts.
Observation skill*: A new tactical tool related to elemental vulnerabilities has been added to Malo's toolkit.
Fishing spots*:
Many fishing spots have been added including different types of fish.
States rework:
Is the taunting effect going to fade right now...? Will the immobilisation still be active next turn...? States (bonus, malus, crowd control) were hard to track because all of them had different behavior. Some decreased their turn counter at the end of the global turn, some did so right after the fighter did an action... That's a story of the past ! Now every state is synchronized on the end of the global turn. This makes all the states coherent and easier to track. Many states descriptions were also reworked.
Skills balance:
Many skills and states were rebalanced or adapted to better fit the new state system, these include trap shot, tranquilizing shot, taunt and many others
Crash and softlock:
Some specific situations (entering the jewelry with an item to appraise and leaving without appraising the item) was leading to some quests being definitely locked. This is now fixed and such situations should not happen again. A crash was also detected in some specific sitation that got fixed.
Collision issues:
A few collisions issues were detected on some maps. These have been fixed. There should be not more issue now but if you encounter a strange behavior please report it on steam discussions or discord.
CP generation with shield:
When a shield was active (for example after taunting), getting hit by an enemy was generating no CP at all. This is now fixed.
Alban training:
In the very first chapter, Alban had 50 available training points. He no longer has time to train and those points have been removed...
Nelia long quest:
The quest started by talking to Nelia in Helrow Inn was considered quite long (from putting the trap to clearing the dark cave). To avoid the situation were the player gets swept away by events without getting the possibility to optimise his build, a warning has been added before triggering the events.
Battle backgrounds:
Some backgrounds during the fights were out of scale with the characters. It could lead to the characters walking into air or physical elements. This has been reworked and backgrounds are now more coherent.
Remote dialogues:
Sometimes Nelia was able to talk in the conversation even if she was not in the group at all. This has been fixed, no mobile-phone allowed anymore ! ːsteamfacepalmː
Shield balance:
Bastion has been nerfed (again) to be more coherent when facing enemies attacking multiple times. Hp regen is now 1%HP per physical hit.
Sleeping animation:
Glowing element:
See you soon in Astreia !