Glorious Companions News

Hello there, Companions!



Today we’d like to share some news on how the development of Glorious Companions is going at the moment. There are currently two updates that we’re working on simultaneously and a bunch of upcoming features that we’re extremely excited about.



As for the medium-sized update that is nearing its release, it’ll be mostly packed with various bug fixes & tweaks. However, you’ll also get the chance to finally hear the lacking sound effects for all the new abilities we introduced in the last patch. On top of that, we’ve also prepared a new feature that allows you to flee from battles, at a cost of course, and it’s also scheduled to be released in the same patch!



The big update will take a longer while to finish up properly. We’re essentially working on a complete visual overhaul, both for the World Map and the battle scenes. With it, we hope to make the environment look more consistent and unique, and we’ll also be releasing a fresh soundtrack to fit with the new vibe. But the changes aren’t limited to only the visual side of the game - together with the 0.8 Update we’ll introduce new major gameplay mechanics. The most important one is the Dungeon System, where you’ll be able to take on new enemies and try to take down the big and ugly bosses guarding powerful artifacts in a series of challenging encounters.



We’re also working on major improvements to the equipment system. We want to introduce much more variety into the items that you see throughout the course of the game and thus we’re working on an item class system that will feature items of varying quality and stats. Of course it wouldn’t be a great rework without some visual upgrades, so we’ve also decided to overhaul all the old weapon models and to add a bunch of new items (and new item types) along with the update.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!

Hello there, Companions!



Today we’re releasing the Update 0.6 that introduces a completely reworked Ability System and a glorious Visual Overhaul for the Valrenay race among many other things. Other notable changes are the new Dialogue System and over 40 new abilities for you to choose from. We’re also putting the game on a -40% Weeklong Deal!

Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:

[h2]Valrenay Visual Overhaul[/h2]


We weren’t quite happy with how the Valrenay race turned out in our first attempt. The main problem was that they didn’t look cohesive, but the design also seemed too modern on some of the units, not exactly the steam-punk vibe we’ve imagined for them. The other issue was with their armors that lacked detail.

For those reasons we’ve decided to redo the textures on the units themselves and on their armors. They now look like they actually are a part of one army, the details on their clothing and armors are greatly improved and they share a common color palette. We’ll eventually unify the designs of our Scarres too, in order to streamline the game’s art style.

Let us know if you like their brand new look!

[h2]Reworked Ability System & 40 New Abilities[/h2]


The Ability System had a few problems of its own. The main offender was that it was hidden and we wouldn’t be surprised if some players didn’t even know that there were abilities in the game. The abilities have also cost precious Learning Points to unlock them and required you to leave your units stationed at cities for extended periods of time, which didn’t work well for the overall pacing of the game.

Now instead of teaching your units new skills at special training facilities, you unlock new Ability Tiers on certain level ups (levels 2, 5, 8, 12 and 16) and choose from 3 skills that are available on a given tier. Each unit still has its own Skill Tree, though they might now share a few abilities with other units.



Coupled with the changes to the Ability System itself, we’ve also added quite a lot of new skills into the game. The biggest beneficiaries of this were Valrenay Engineer, Scarre Warlord and Scarre Avenger. If you want to test out their new abilities without grinding for levels, try the Custom Battle mode!

[h2]New Dialogue System[/h2]


We’ve finally got rid of the old ‘placeholder’ Dialogue Panel and implemented a proper Dialogue System into the game that comes with a brand new and shining Dialogue UI.

Most of the dialogue lines received some lifting and there are quite a few new dialogue options. For example, you can now pay the toll to the Bandits to avoid a fight with them, or trade an important piece of information to Shadows (if you have a high enough Intelligence stat) for a free passage.

However, the most important part in this is that the new Dialogue System opens up tons of options for us to design more immersive quests, interesting interactions with various NPCs and to actually implement the main storyline of Glorious Companions. And that is coming soon.

Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!

[h2]Content:[/h2]

• Valrenay Visual Overhaul - all Valrenay units received new, more consistent textures.
  
• Reworked Ability System - now you learn new abilities in the Unit Panel, they don't cost Learning Points and Gold anymore.
  
• Implemented the Abilities Tab in the Unit Panel.
  
• Over 40 new abilities! - now each unit can have up to 5 abilities instead of 3.
  
• New Dialogue System coupled with new UI and new dialogue lines & options. It'll allow us to expand on the storyline and add more interesting quests and interactions in the future updates.
  
• Added an option to pay Bandits and Shadows to leave you be.
  
• Added the Settings menu in the Esc Panel on the World Map.
  
• Added a few new quests that can be obtained from NPC Lords.
  
• Added new NPC portraits for the Dialogue System.

[h2]Balance:[/h2]

• Added ammo limits on ranged weapons.
  
• Balanced ranged weapons stats according to their ammo limits.
  
• Added a Grace Period after fighting with/running away from an enemy party.
  
• Adjusted quest rewards.
  
• Increased Gunner's Speed from 3 to 4.
  
• Rebalanced some melee weapons and shields stats.
  
• Made sure that the starting companion doesn't spawn with very negative traits.

[h2]Bug fixes and tweaks:[/h2]

• Limited the view range on the world map, so you won't see all the npc groups anymore.
  
• Added camera auto-follow on the World Map.
  
• Added highlighting the obstacles and units that block your Line of Sight to selected target.
  
• Changed the World Map selection circle to align with terrain and adjust its size depending on the target.
  
• Made the Interactive Objects of the same type not spawn next to each other.
  
• Added mirroring of animations when a unit holds their weapon in their left hand.
  
• Changed the Default Battlecrews in Custom Battles.
  
• Fixed a bug with AI units attacking with ranged weapons from the Fog of War.
  
• Fixed a bug with Camping First Aid not healing properly.
  
• Fixed bugs with Power Drain and Furious Charge.
  
• Fixed some bugs with wrong numbers displayed in the Attack tooltip.
  
• Fixed a bug with Spiders not using their special ability.
  
• Fixed a bug with wrong language displayed in the Settings.
  
• Fixed a bug with Audio settings.
  
• Fixed a bug with generating the same trait twice for a unit.
  
• Fixed a bug with animation on an AI unit that left the Fog of War and re-entered it.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!

Hello there, Companions!



We're happy to announce that you can buy Glorious Companions cheaper for the Steam Summer Sale's duration. While we're at it we wanted to show you some of the stuff from the upcoming update that we plan to release in July.

First of all, as you can see in the image above, we'll be releasing our visual overhaul of the Valrenay race. Our goal was to make them more consistent, so they all look like they're from the same faction. We also wanted them to fit better into the fantasy world of Navaroth, which the previous iteration hasn't quite achieved.



We decided to focus solely on the textures and not change the meshes, as that would require us to also update the animations, etc. (Though the Blade Dancers and Gunners will probably receive new Run and Idle animations ːwinter2019coolyulː)

Another big change that we're implementing is an actual Dialogue System that will enable us to create more meaningful and immersive quests. It should greatly improve the interactions with NPCs while making the whole world feel more alive and organic. Here's a rough WiP of the new dialogue window (of course the important stuff happens under the hood):



Those are only a few of the things that we've planned for the next update, so keep an eye out for the full changelog when the patch airs (or perhaps another devlog that'll go into more detail about the upcoming update).

Also consider leaving us a review if you like the updates that we keep pushing out, it matters a great deal to us! ːwinter2019happyyulː

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!

Hello there, Companions!





We’re excited to announce that we have a new, big update for you! It addresses a lot of the core problems with the gameplay, balance and progression in Glorious Companions. To make it even better we’re coupling it with a -33% Weeklong Deal!

Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:



We’ve finally added a feature that we had been planning to add since the very beginning. Fog of War will serve as a vital component in every battle. Our initial intention in making the battle maps as large as they were was to provide enough room for this mechanic, which requires you to move carefully through the battlefield in order to first scout your opponent. The night shall prove to be a bigger obstacle too, as all units now suffer from reduced vision range when the moon is out above.

It took longer than anticipated, but with the Fog of War system you’ll finally be able to put all your tactician skills to use.


We’ve read a lot of your feedback suggesting that the current win condition (killing the enemy captain) makes battles boring instead of exciting (which was our intention). After a few discussions we’ve decided that while this mechanic serves its role in a competitive multiplayer setting, it doesn’t work quite as well in a single player experience when playing against AI controlled enemies.

But we also didn’t want to completely get rid of it. From now on killing the enemy captain won’t end the battle, but instead it’ll substantially hinder enemy morale. First of all, death of the enemy captain will trigger a Fear check among the party and each unit will receive a slight debuff that’ll weaken its fighting capabilities. That way aiming to take down the enemy captain will still remain important to win the battle, and yet it should also make for a more fun and balanced gameplay.

Oh, and letting your own captain die will still trigger an instant defeat like it did so far.



While we’re working on an overhaul of the Ability System, we wanted to implement a quick quality of life improvement into the game in this update. Till the next update is released you’ll be able to instantly learn your skills at Training Facilities (though the time will still pass while training) just like it was before for the captain unit. The training times were also significantly lowered. Of course you’ll still need the Learning Points and Gold, but you won’t have to say goodbye to your companions for multiple days each time you want to teach them a new ability.



We have a bunch of new and awesome illustrations for our Interactive Objects on the World Map. To spice things up we’ve decided to refresh the whole panel and implement some fancy fx on top. We’ve also added special sound effects for each of the interactives to convey the mood even better.
Expect a lot more Interactive Objects in the game when the new World Map Update is finally released!

Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!

[h2]Content:[/h2]

• Fog of War in battles.
  
• Changed the win conditions - now killing an enemy captain applies a debuff to their units instead of ending the battle.
  
• Added Escape menu in battles.
  
• Dynamic HP bars that hide and show up automatically.
  
• Overhaul of the Interactive Object panel.
  
• New Interactive Object illustrations and sound effects.
  
• Sight range is shorter at night.
  
• Added a confirmation popup on turn's end.
  
• Added adjustable outlines on allied and enemy units in battle.
  
• Added contextual tips / onboarding in battle.
  

[h2]Balance:[/h2]

• Tweaked the distribution of neutral enemy groups on the World Map.
  
• Temporarily made all skill learning instantenous, units no longer have to stay at a training facility to learn them. (We'll be reworking this system in further updates.)
  
• Rebalanced item prices as well as unit prices.
  
• Taverns will host at least one of each unit type available in the given city.
  
• Camp Training EXP now scales with the unit's level instead of Mind stat.
  
• Camp First Aid heal buffed, passive HP regen on the World Map nerfed.
  
• Buffed Poisonous Dart damage and poison.
  
• Lowered the required EXP for levels past 6.
  
• Lowered the required company EXP for all levels.
  
• Buffed the Leather Armor's resistance.
  
• Mystic Well gives more EXP on success.
  
• Destroyed Wagon deals less damage on fail.
  
• Abandoned Camp gives more gold on success.
  

[h2]Bug fixes and tweaks:[/h2]

• Fixed Knockback and Rain of Bullets being castable without ammo.
  
• Fixed displaying accuracy % for all abilities.
  
• Speed of camera scroll on the World Map now depends on the zoom level.
  
• Displaying damage dealt to shield with Farewell ability instead of '0!'.
  
• Fixed the range of Dragon Plague jump.
  
• Fixed the range of Vengeance replenishing.
  
• Tweaked the text appearance in the cutscene.
  
• Unaffordable items at Flea Market have their prices colored red now.
  
• The training facilities now show what you're lacking to learn an ability.
  
• Fixed aura effects healing issue.
  

We can finally share with you some of the progress that we’re making on the new World Map. Keep in mind that these are WiPs though!




Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!

Hello there, Companions!



We've decided to lower the base price of Glorious Companions to $19.99, which will stay this way at least until the Full Release. We feel that this new price better reflects the current state of the game, especially that we're planning to stay in Early Access for another year.

Now when we're about a month away from our 0.5 update, which will introduce a lot of gameplay improvements, new features and a better progression balance, we thought that it's the best time to drop the base price of Glorious Companions.

We're glad for your support so far and hope that you understand our reasoning here ːlunar2020contentgoatː

Check out what's coming in the future updates in our recent devlog (including a sample of the new and awesome soundtrack): https://steamcommunity.com/games/1001040/announcements/detail/2224158720771427187



Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!