Greetings, medieval adventurers!
Today August 19th we're featured on Steam's daily deal with a discount, so it's a great time to grab the game if you haven't already!
Along with the sale, we're updating the game with a variety of new features, quality of life improvements, bug fixes, performance upgrades and general polish to make overall gameplay smoother and more enjoyable.
The table of contents for this update was primarily informed by the recent feedback forms we gathered, which received over 100 responses! Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts, it is deeply appreciated.
This update is heavy on QoL and includes better banking and inventory tools, a more useful world map, controller support improvements, balance changes, and plenty of smaller fixes aimed at reducing friction across the game. In more detail below, we'll go over the gameplay changes first and new QoL features after that.
Gameplay - Treasures of Imberthale
Out of skill progression, Mining appeared to come across as the winner for the most resented skill to level, and indeed there just didn't seem to be enough experience to go around when hacking away at those rocks. Instead of just bumping up the numbers though, we bolted on a new rare resources feature to add a bit of flavor to the skill ladder as a whole.
From level 15 onwards, it is now possible to start discovering precious metals and gems while mining random nodes.
Level | Unlock |
|---|---|
15 | Silver |
28 | Basic gems |
40 | Gold |
55 | Diamonds |
62 | Platinum |
70 | Mountain Gemstones |
82 | Solyn Stones |
92 | Mountain's Heart Jewel |
These are received as a random chance on a successful mining swing, award generous bonus xp when they proc, and their discovery chance is affected by three modifiers to varying degrees - mining skill level, the quality of the pickaxe being used, and lastly the tier of the node being mined. So what can you do with them?
The Crafting skill ladder now includes a bunch of new recipes to make craftable rings and bracelets from the rare resources acquired from mining. Alternatively, Haywind, Thornhill and Bulwark Cliff have received merchants who are willing to exchange your rare resources purely for coin.
On an additional note, the mining logic and the way gathering tools apply their bonuses received some adjustment under the hood. Without going too much into specifics, wielding a higher quality tool should now a little more decisively improve outcomes across the gathering nodes and outlier cases in mining where you'd be hacking at a stone forever without a successful mining swing should now be eliminated.
Lastly, refining ores with miner's chisel also received a significant bump upwards in the XP awarded.
Crafting material drops
We’ve made a targeted balance pass on material drops for Crafting, Tailoring, Carpentry, and Blacksmithing to smooth out some of the harsher progression bottlenecks. Materials needed for mid- and late-game recipes should now drop both more consistently and frequently from enemies. Overall crafting ingredient drops especially related to late game are now more common than before.
Loot mercy system
Rare monster drops now have a mercy system. If you go dry for long enough, the drop becomes guaranteed once the miss streak reaches 125% of its drop rate. For example, a 1 in 30 drop is guaranteed on the 38th eligible roll if it has not dropped earlier.
Somewhat counter-intuitively the way pure RNG cruelty works does mean that having to wait for a 1 in 10 drop for 20 drops is not even that uncommon - about 12% chance, or 1 in 8 - leading many players to consistently question whether the loot system is broken whenever they had a streak of bad luck. This mercy system only applies to drops rarer than 1 in 8, mind you, so common drops still use normal RNG.
Combat changes
Combat XP curve
Combat XP has been increased across the board, with the biggest improvements in the mid-game level range around 40-70.
Clean kill Defense XP
Some of you rangers and wizarders complain about not getting defense xp enough. Don't you guys go to the fields with the sheepies and cows and let them whack at you for a bit of defense training?! Jokes aside, we added a defense xp bonus awarded for a so-called clean kill.
That is to say, if you kill an enemy npc without giving it a chance to take a swing at you, you now gain bonus defense xp, which is calculated based on the amount of hp of the enemy you felled.
Armor stat changes
Significantly boosted hp granted by leather armors and robes alike. The idea is that while you don't get the resistances compared to plates, you at least gain hp to give you a bit more margin to react to any damage you might receive. Plates still give most hp, but the differences aren't as dramatic as before.
Leather armors in addition now give a far more balanced set of resistances, making it the versatile choice instead of the inconvenient niche item-set you require only when running into magic damage dealers. We would like some additional synergy for the armor type when paired with ranged weapons to give it a proper identity, but didn't yet decide on the best way to go about it.
Recovering lost items after death
Death recovery has been reworked slightly to guard against potentially frustrating death loops, i.e. going back to where you died to recover items you may have lost only to die again and throw your keyboard at the wall.
With the latest changes, a safe-zone is drawn around your latest death marker, where you now get temporary aggro-immunity while recovering your dropped items. This protection ends if you attack an enemy within the safe-zone and with a short delay after you finish looting the death pile.
If aggressive enemies are nearby when the "truce" is about to end, the game displays a warning before they become aggressive again. Death items held by scavengers also remain available in their shop for much longer, giving you more time to recover in the case of repeated deaths, whereas before the scav shop reset after every death.
Quality of Life features
World Map
The world map got a major rework focused on making it more useful as an actual navigation and planning tool.
The map now supports zooming, search, a legend, and many more icon types, including workbenches, shops, task locations, player houses, harvestable resource hotspots, monster hotspots, and more.
Search can find locations, monster hotspots, and harvestable resources, then highlight matching markers on the map. The legend can also highlight different marker categories so it is easier to find the type of content you are looking for.
Hovering over resource and monster markers now shows what can be found there.
Task Journals
Task journal entries that are short, simple and to the point have been added to the quest UI, giving task-related information a clearer home inside the existing quest interface.
This has been a much requested feature, helping to better track which npc might have wanted what and where, instead of hunting around the bushes or the achievement window for potentially missed tasks.
Bank and Inventory Management
This update delivers major changes and additions to inventory, banks, sorting and general item management.
Storage bags rework
Storage bags have been functionally entirely reworked, so that they now act as authentic extensions of the inventory. Items inside storage bags may now be directly consumed, be used for crafting, turned in for quests, dropped directly from the bag, moved between bags and inventory, and rearranged freely.
Swapping items in occupied slots between a bag and the inventory is now possible, and storage bags additionally have improved withdraw and controller menu behavior.
Sorting
Inventory, storage bags, and bank tabs now have sort buttons. You can sort by name, quantity, item value, item type, total stack value, or use Auto sort, which groups items by useful categories.
Bank sorting works per bank tab, so each tab can keep its own organization. Auto sort also understands storage items, equipment, potions, food, and general items.
Bank item placeholders
Enabling placeholders at a bank lets you withdraw an entire stack while keeping that bank slot reserved as a zero-amount item. When you deposit the item again later, it snaps back into the same organized spot.
The feature is optional and has its own Placeholders toggle beside Bank Notes. Placeholders may still be moved, sorted, or cleared manually.
Equipment presets
While at a bank, "Presets" allow you to save equipment and inventory setups so you can quickly gear up for different activities. A preset can be made to include only equipment, only inventory, or both.
When using a preset, the system can bank your current setup and then rebuild the saved loadout from available bank items, making it much faster to swap between skilling, combat, bossing, or travel setups.
Controller Support
Controller support has been expanded across movement, combat, UI navigation, inventory, storage bags, bank, options, world map, character creation, trainers, popups, and more. In our view the full gameplay experience on a controller now feels much more satisfactory!
Smoother controller movement.
Most major UI windows now support controller navigation.
Improved controller hints, focus handling, amount sliders, and close/select behavior.
Quick access buttons in inventory to drop and move items
Controller virtual mouse
A virtual mouse has been added for controller users, making it possible to interact with UI elements that still need pointer-style control. It also preserves its position between toggles, so using it feels less jumpy.
Tactical Time
A new feature, let us call it Tactical Time, was developed initially with controllers in mind. It slows the game down, mainly to make radial menus and other UI-windows more comfortable to use during a fight. On controller, it can be toggled by pressing Left Trigger and Right Trigger together, and it automatically enables for radial menus.
It also works on mouse and keyboard - the default keybind is Space and can be changed in options - because once the system existed for controllers, it was too useful not to expose as a wider feature.
Miscellaneous Patch-notes
Discovered and fixed a memory issue related to UI elements, reducing game's ram usage and potentially fixing some UI-related lag spikes.
Added Sell 50 and Sell All to the shop right-click menu.
Sell All and Deposit All now handle all matching stacks of the item.
Exceptional items now show a small exceptional icon.
Selling regular items in bulk while also having an exceptional version in inventory should no longer unintentionally sell the exceptional along with the regulars.
Improved player learned Lord Blackshield's Shield Bash ability to be more responsive.
Archery close-quarters combat debuff now only applies when actually mid-attack and being struck by enemy.
Closing the achievement XP picker before selecting a skill no longer consumes the reward.
Added autorun and a keybind for it. Autorun keeps the player moving forward until canceled by the keybind, WASD, or mouse movement.
Added a camera-look toggle keybind, so camera look no longer requires holding middle mouse the entire time.
Fixed a major lag issue with the salvage workbench.
Gathering tools now explain their effect in the tooltip.
Wooden shields magic res was bumped up a little to somewhat account for reduced magic res in rebalanced leather armors.
All spellscroll items are now stackable, whereas before some were and others weren't.
Added stacking to various bone items and raw meat to further alleviate early game inventory bloat.
Fixed a few mismatches with what task giver asks in dialogue and what completion actually required.
Fixed Lacerate trait incorrectly being blocked by Magic level requirements; it now unlocks through the intended Swordsmanship trait path. Additionally its tooltip now clarifies that a blade weapon is required and the effect does not apply bleeding to undead enemies.
Improved Forge Fires so it now handles bulk ore conversion more reliably without skipping inventory stacks. Additionally it now supports ore to ingot conversions more widely - including refined materials, rare ores, mountain ores, Coldstone Iron, and coal-based smelting where appropriate - and it awards smithing XP appropriately after each conversion.
Updated Satiated so its potion-duration bonus only applies while an active food buff is present, and its trait description has been reworded to make that food requirement clearer.
Novice Saucemaker recipe unlock interactions now only require the intended trait, whereas before a bit of coins were also required, leading to some player confusion.
Fixed several Azzar Kheyn damage spells so they properly award Magic XP when dealing damage.
Added missing buff names/descriptions for several visible potion and food buffs.
Added remaining duration text to buff hover tooltips.
Filled in missing descriptions for visible effects like Knockback, Regret, and Frozen Arrows.
Fixed awkwardly generated tooltip descriptions on some xp boosting items such as the spoon for cooking.
Crushing bones with pestle and mortar will now process up to a stack of bones at once, chicken bones and vulture bones may also be converted at 2 bones -> 1 bone dust ratio, monster bones may now also be converted with 1 bone -> 3 dust ratio.
On a side-note, the demo has also been brought up to date and in line with the improvements since... well, since the last time it was updated, we're not sure...
And that's all for now. We're delighted to see the game continues to be enjoyed, and hopefully this latest batch of improvements will make the experience that much smoother.
And as ever, happy medieval gaming, adventurer!
Pura
