The full release of Wool at the Gates is finally out after over a year in Early Access!
We are celebrating the release with a 25% discount for the next 2 weeks!
Completed Roadmap
In version 1.0, we have achieved our vision for what we set out to add to the game. With 3 factions and 9 classes, Wool at the Gates required an abundance of content and options to feel whole. We have added about ~50% more options across the board since Early Access. This includes more Maps, Heroes, Troops, Towers, Perks, Enemies, and a new game mode.
Each faction is now packed with strategic options, featuring 19 perks, 6 tower types, and 6 troop types to choose from. More importantly, the class system is fully realized. With the addition of 3 new heroes in Version 1.0, every class has its own hero and a complete roster of units and towers built around it. The 9 classes and all of their possible combinations are represented across 36 unique troop and tower types, creating a huge variety of playstyles. Command an undead legion with Necromancers (Human – Warlock/Summoner), build around the infinite-range All Seeing tower (Orc – Berserker/Mage), or unleash devastating volleys from Fire Archers (Elf – Ranger/Mercenary). Add in the 27 subclasses to experiment with, and no two strategies play the same.
With 6 maps, 18 unique strategy-testing challenges, endless runs on every map, and randomized runs in the game's new Wild Mode, there is a ton to do! We can proudly say that we feel the game is now complete.
What's New in v1.0
3 New Heroes
Rath (Human Summoner) - Literally rain down death from above on your enemies. Fight behind the lines of your undead army, piercing enemies with your long reaching spear.
Kronk (Orc Berserker) - A true tank joins the hero roster. Surround yourself with as many enemies as possible to smash and stomp.
Lunara (Elf Enchanter) - Support your defenses with the healing of Elven magic. Create healing auras and support turrets to give your allies the edge on the front lines.
New Map - Lamoon
Lamoon, the final map of the game's Campaign, is a mountain fortress nestled deep inside sheep territory. Can you fortify and defend this battle-ready city and overcome some of the most difficult challenges yet as sheep invade from all sides?
Some dark magic has been at play throughout the Campaign and has been transforming the sheep into stranger and stranger sheep-like beasts, whether it be rats, wolves, or dragons. These mutations reach their most twisted forms yet here, with literal mutant sheep among other creatures that will truly test your resilience.
Challenges Rework
We have received feedback that some of the challenges feel too restrictive in how they let you play. The original intent with these challenges was to have players experiment with interesting playstyles by completing them. However, Wool at the Gates is all about options and strategic freedom, so we feel these challenges do fight with the fun of the game. For this reason, we have reworked many of them to make them more open ended to different strategies. If you have completed any of these changed challenges before, they will still be complete in the update regardless of how they changed.
Gilia - Executioner: Removed ability requirements. Now have to reach hero level 7 instead of 5.
Gilia - Dark Magic: Removed hero and class point requirements.
Hindell - Diversity: Requires 70 faction points per faction instead of 60.
Windrim - Control Freak: Removed and replaced with Class Mastery, which requires you to get 18+ class points in any class.
Windrim - The Great Summoning: Renamed to Thick Wool. No longer requires Summoner class points or the use of the Call Forth Ability.
Ovismaw - Walled In: Renamed to Personal Space. No longer requires specific perks.
Ovismaw - The Eye Commands: No longer requires specific perks.
Waiterra - Slow Death: Replaced with Gold Rush, which requires you the beat the level with at least 100 unspent gold.
Faction Perks Major Update
For a while, we have felt that many of the perks in the game were either not useful or interesting enough. This update includes a deep rebalancing of the perk system in attempt to make each as powerful and useful as the next. In addition to balance changes, the faction points requirements for unlocking perks has been raised slightly to compensate for most perks becoming more powerful. See the specific changes made in the Balance Changes section.
Quality of Life
Added a Skip button to the Tutorial. Skipping the Tutorial will still mark the tutorial as complete and unlock content.
Improved challenge notification sounds to give better feedback if a challenge condition is failed or complete.
Epic drums now play on the final wave of the map to notify you that you are on the last round.
Veteran difficulty now has unlimited retries. Now only insane difficulty and Wild Mode have a 3 retry limit.
Added enemy previews for the current round in the pause menu. This should make reading enemy descriptions much easier when using a controller.
Improve Simplified Chinese Translations
We worked with a native speaker to greatly improve the quality of our Chinese localizations. Thanks Xiao! If anyone in our community would like to help us improve our localizations in other languages, please reach out to us on Steam or our Discord channel.
Balance Changes
Maps
Hindell: Increased the difficulty on several rounds.
Windrim: Increased the difficulty on several rounds.
Heroes
The health of most heroes increased, more significantly affecting melee heroes.
Zagzul’s basic attack range and radius increased.
Durngrim's melee attack damage increased from 3.5 to 4.5.
Hero Abilities
Sanctuary: In addition to making units in the dome untargetable, they also now cannot take damage while in the dome.
Whirlwind: Damage reduction increased from 50% to 65%.
Rampage: Damage increased from 30/50/90/ 120 to 40/80/ 120/160.
Class Bonuses
Arcane Shields: Reduced bonus from 25%/50%/75%/100% to 22.5%/45%/67.5%/90%.
Troops
Conjurers: Now create a Summoned every 7 attacks instead of 6.
Riders: Now take reduces melee damage.
Crossbowmen: Changed to now gain attack speed while attacking the same target. Designed to be strong against elites and high health enemies.
Marauders: Now prioritize hitting enemies that have not been slowed.
Towers
Vengeance: Vengeance projectiles now also triggers when nearby buildings are destroyed.
Ice Shard: Reduced damage by ~10%.
Siphon: Increased health from 150 to 200. Slightly increased damage.
Totem: Can now heal any ally (not just troops). Heal amount reduced from 50 to 30. Health increased from 100 to 150.
Buildings
Adjusted wall build and upgrade costs on all maps to be consistent. Wall cost is now determined based on the number of segments in the wall.
Bank: Health increased from 60/150 to 80/200
House: Health increased from 35/100 to 50/125
HQ: health increased from 100/350/700 to 150/375/750
Lumbermill: Health increased from 40/80 to 80/200
Shrine: Health changed from 50/150 to 50/125.
Temple: Health changed increased from 80/250 to 100/250
Wall: Level 2 health increased from 600 to 625.
Perks
Perk Milestones changed from {10, 20, 40, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210} to {10, 25, 45, 70, 100, 130, 160, 190, 220} to better pace earning perks.
Reordered the unlock order of some perks.
Simple Minded: Bonus health and damage per duplicate type increased from 4% to 5%.
Dark Temples: No longer considers walls. Range increased. Now gives 3 bonus gold and XP per round instead of 2. Now shows hidden range when selecting the temple.
Enlightenment: Now gives 2 faction points per faction each round instead of 1.
Eternal Life: Now gives 5 seconds of invincibility when triggered. Moved from tier 2 to tier 1.
Harmonic Foundations: Gives 2 gold discount instead of 1.
Higher Ground: Damage bonus increased from 30% to 35%.
Mirror Armor: Health bonus increased from 30% to 40%.
Pristine Towers: Range bonus increased from 20% to 30%.
Seeds of Vitality: Health bonus increased from 15% to 25%. Now caps at 50% after 5 rounds.
Sky Guardian: Now gives 100% bonus damage against flying enemies. Moved from tier 1 to tier 2.
Class Warfare: Now gives 3 class points per class instead of 2.
From the Rubble: Cooldown reduction increased from 25% to 40%.
Brute Force: Damage buff increased from 30% to 35%. Melee damage taken reduction changed from 25% to 20%.
Watchful Spires: Health bonus increased from 900% to 1500%.
Battle Experience: Now gives 2 XP per round instead of 1. VFX now plays on hero when active.
Divine Trinity: Moved from tier 2 to tier 1.
Eldar Training: Moved from tier 2 to tier 1.
Fleet Footed: Moved to tier 2. Attack speed increased from 20% to 30%. Movement speed increased from 40% to 50%.
Master Marksman: Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%.
Sustainable Growth: Now gives 5 extra high output rounds. Moved from tier 1 to tier 2.
Armor Up: Moved from tier 2 to tier 1. Health bonus changed from 30% to 20%. Damage taken from ranged reduction increased from 25% to 35%.
Artillery Support: Moved to tier 1. Reworked - Now makes HQ projectiles do explosive AOE damage. No longer increased HQ basic attack damage.
Barracks Defenses: Health bonus increased from 200% to 300%.
Building Up: Moved from tier 1 to tier 2.
Shapeshifter: AOE damage increased by 50%. Damage reduction increased from 50% to 75%.
Unwavering courage: Moved from tier 1 to tier 2. Damage reduction increased from 25% to 40%. Damage dealt bonus increased from 15% to 25%.
Adrenaline: Attack speed bonus increased from 20% to 30%.
Endless Horde: Health and damage gained per spawn increased from 10% to 15%.
Heart of Fire: Bonus range increased from 25% to 30%.
Jagged Structures: Health bonus increased from 20% to 30%.
Stormshroud: Ranged damage taken reduction increased from 25% to 30%.
To War: Bonus damage increased from 30% to 35%. Heroes now gain the damage bonus.
The Great Tower: Can now be used to build or upgrade any tower instantly to level 3. Still gives bonus damage and health.
Massive Army: Now gives 2 extra troops per barracks instead of 1.
Retirement Plan: Reworked. Now gives 5 bonus gold each bank payout and automatically upgrades banks to level 2 for free.
Death and Taxes: Now prioritizes getting gold from destroyed tier 2 houses over tier 1 houses.
Bulwark: Invincibility reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
Burning Gaze: DPS reduced from 2.5 to 2.0.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where Warlord perk would show incorrect number of rounds survived, not give the bonus properly on reload, and would buff all damage, not just damage from basic attacks.
Fixed bug where Bombarder tower would not correctly apply AOE damage to enemies if they were not close to the bottom ground height.
Bombarder tower AOE no longer sometimes doesn’t trigger explosion if they projectile misses.
Fixed bug where Sentinel taunt would sometimes not apply if not close to bottom ground height.
Fix bug where ranged troops would sometimes ignore player commands while in combat.
Fixed bug where Pristine Towers perk would not remove its damage bonus when damaged.
Simple Minded Perk no longer plays the “perk gained” VFX anytime a tower or barracks in repaired.
Mouse selection box no longer gets stuck if you open pause menu while clicking and dragging.
Fixed bug mouse select would get stuck if your last selected troop died during selection.
Enemy gold drops now properly maxes at 50 gold in endless mode.
Fixed bug where flying enemies would sometimes spawn facing backwards.
Conjurers and Oathbinders will now attempt to spawn Summoned at nearby ground enemies if they are attacking air.
Conditions that trigger based on being hit now work properly if hit but the damage was dodged or completely avoided. This affects Thorn Tower, Reflection Tower, Counter Attack Warrior bonus, Pillars of Wrath perk, and Jagged Structures perk.
Veil tower will no longer attempt to hide a Monument absorbing damage for the Watchful Spires perk.
Fixed a bug where Solitary double damage bonus would not get applied properly.
Tutorial no longer gets stuck if you kill all of the sheep with your basic attack in less that 5 attacks and don’t use your ability on the first round.
Sprint no longer starts active in eye form if you previously were sprinting when you switched to hero form, then switch back to eye form.
Shadow Step ability now snaps to the navmesh, preventing your hero from getting stuck in objects behind the target.
Selecting a class UI in the HUD with controller now properly highlights all units of that class on the map.
The level progression bar in the Victory UI will no longer show full if you have exactly the right amount of wool after you level up.
Fixed a few holes in the flying navmesh that would prevent flying enemies from taking certain routes.
Other Changes
Added 4 new achievements for beating Lamoon, it's challenges, and beating all of the challenges on Lamoon and Waiterra on Veteran and Insane difficulties.
Tempest and Vengeance tower classes switched. Tempest is now a Ranger/Berseker and Vengeance is now a Warlock/Berserker.
Improved quality and noise of the game’s ground texture. Removed sharp artifact in the texture.
Hero basic attack hits now play additional VFX to be more noticeable and impactful.
Shrines now show their heal range when selected if you have the Mending Light Perk.
Improved the animation for the Rapid Fire hero ability when used by Orc heroes.
Troop command sound now plays at the command position not your hero position.
Rejuvenation class bonus now plays heal VFX when active.
Smite Enchanter Class Bonus projectile SFX and VFX improved.
Added new gameplay setting for screen shake intensity.
Fixed “One Time Use” UI overlap issue in the random perk menu in Wild Mode in some languages.
Challenge abandoned notification no longer plays multiple times on the same challenge if it has already failed.
Marks from Arolas's basic attacks now visually pulse when applied.
Fixed broken water materials on Gilia and Tutoria that made the water flow unnaturally.
Changed Ovismaw’s color scheme to be more vibrant.
Reworded “Quit” to “Exit Game” in the menus to avoid confusion about whether it would quit the level or the game.
Fixed game stutter when building the HQ.
Added popup when launching game that informs the player if an update has invalidated any current runs.
Thank you!
We want to thank you so much for supporting us during Early Access! Whether you playtested new content with us in-person or remotely, reached out to us on Steam or in our Discord channel with feedback or ideas, or just played the game and waited eagerly for new updates, your involvement and appreciation of the game means the world to us. Without you, we would have never been able to reach this point and gotten the game to the amazing state it is in today.
Please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you find any issues or have feedback regarding the full release. We hope you enjoy the new content and all of these changes. We love both working on and playing this game. That said, I'm going to play through it myself now!
Thanks again for everything,
Mr. and Mrs. Creature
