Gladiator Guild Manager News

[h2]Here's what new:[/h2]

• Gladiators and items in shops have red frame when you don't have enough gold to buy them.
  
• We started improving gladiators AI (Still long road ahead but we're restructuring code and they might behave a bit different in some situations already)
  
• Ring of Death gold inflation fixed (Now the further you get in the game, more gold it will provide).
  
  We're intending on further updating Ring of Death feature in the next patch. So each of the modes would have it's own rank and goal is to climb as high as possible. Getting better rewards at specific milestones:
  
  Eventually we'll also add boss fighting mode (4th panel). But this mode will come only after Early Access as it will take a lot of time to create different bosses.
  
  [h3]More Minor Updates:[/h3]
  
• Undead Yeti bugs and animation fixed
  
• Guild background replaced for a bit nicer one
  
• Map arena selection bugs fixed
  
• Tooltip over sell item and undo sell buttons
  
• Added end battle button in Editor
  
• Placing units in editor is now more smooth
  
• Worgs now have higher priority for selecting ranged units like Archers or Pyromancers
  
• Archers are nerfed. A bit lesser damage, minimum execution speed increased from 0.2 seconds to 0.3 seconds, and weaker push force (we are currently working on push force, freeze (stopping gladiators), and other movement features)
  
• And bunch of small things/fixes/improvements that we forgot to write down so now we don't know what they are ːsteamfacepalmː
  

Anyway, we're getting closer and closer to where getting the game in state we want it to be. Thank you for being with us on this journey of developing and shaping up the game!
If you have any feedback as always tell us here on steam community or even better join our Discord Community and chat with us there!

Thank you all!

Hey guys! Here is the newest progress of the game. We gathered your feedback from the last big closed beta update and from people following the development. Our main goal right now is to make the gameplay loop more fun, engaging, and with more things to play with.

Join our Discord Server to follow development more closely, talk with us and share your thoughts with the community.



[h2]New Timeline[/h2]
Timelines now consist of a full month with 30 days included, instead of 10.
Throughout the month, the timeline will move to the left, displaying info about things that are coming your way. Those include: gladiator/shop updates, shop discounts, current weather and upcoming weather, when you will have to pay your gladiator’s wages and when the championship is going to happen.


Gladiator wages are always at day 30 and are paid automatically (if you don’t have enough gold, the gold will go into negative value, but you will not lose your gladiators).
On the bottom right corner of the screen you’ll see text indicating how much gold was spent on gladiator wages.

Championships are always held on the first day of each month.
The activities you do throughout the month serve to prepare you for the most important part of progressing in the game: winning the championship.

There is now a weather system that affects gladiators in combat. This provides more strategy, as you know which gladiators are less effective during which weather so you can prepare accordingly.

Weather changes affect most arenas. But there are arenas like Ancient Temple or Hollow Mountain that always have the same weather buff so you know what to expect there.

From time to time a gladiator or item shop discount will appear on the timeline and you’ll be able to see how long the discounts last. It will discount random gladiators or items in shop with random discount percentages.



[h2]Ring of Death Arena[/h2]

While preparing for championship at start of the next month, between quests you’ll also be able to play the Ring of Death Arena. After playing this arena, it will become available again in 7 days.

In this arena you’ll be able to choose 3 different modes:

• Blind fight
  Choose your gladiators without seeing the enemy team.
  
• One VS One
  Choose a single gladiator to fight against an enemy champion.
  
• One VS Many
  Choose a single gladiator to fight against many enemies. Another difference here is that enemies can be positioned at any part of the arena and so can your gladiator (no left and right side like in other battles)
  

Each of these will unlock after finishing one championship.


[h2]Gladiator Level Up Points[/h2]
Previously, stat points were automatically allocated when gladiators levelled up. From now on, when gladiators level up, you’ll be able to choose which stats you want to put the points in and with that have more control over the progression of your gladiators.



You can mouse over gladiator abilities to see how stats affect the calculations of the ability (such as damage, cooldown, etc). We’ll try to explain this in the tutorial once the game is ready for Early Access.
(This was already in the game before. It’s just a reminder since we seen people asking what those stats actually do.)



[h2]More[/h2]
-In the championship, you will only face the types of gladiators that you can hire yourself (or if buildings of those gladiators are available for buying). This feature will shine more once there is a larger pool of gladiators to choose from, making each playthrough more unique.
-Small gladiator AI improvement that helps them target enemies who are dealing higher damage.
-Some bug fixes, visual improvements and other minor things.


[h3]Note:[/h3]
Keep in mind, now that the timeline lasts 30 days, if you stay longer on some championships you might run out of quests. This will be solved by adding more of them soon. But you’ll always have the option to play some of the Ring of Death Arena modes each 7 days. And eventually we’ll add even more things to do, to make the gameplay more dynamic, engaging and interesting (You can read about the new features we plan to add below).




-Next things we’re planning to focus on is collaboration with local businesses for passive income. There will be a few available businesses, like a small stone mine or woodcutting camp. They will call for your help and you will need to fight several waves of enemies to set them free. After that the local business will give you part of their income, but from time to time they will ask for your protection.
You’ll be able to see passive income indicators on the timeline.

-Synergy for gladiators with various buffs. Example: Item that makes the gladiator deal 30% higher damage to frozen targets, making this gladiator very efficient if paired with the Cryomancer, who can freeze enemies. And many, many other combinations increasing the tactical possibilities of the game.

-First parts of the Main Quest Chains.
Also more side quests, so there is higher variety in each playthrough and more things to do while preparing for the upcoming championship.

-Expeditions - this feature will probably come a bit later, as it needs a solid amount of work and we have many other things to finish before we get to this. But we started considering it so we want to hear your thoughts about it.
The idea is that you’d be able to buy a guild building that lets you use a caravan and send a number of gladiators on an expedition. You’d see a hand drawn map of a dangerous, uninhabited nearby region that you would explore and dwell deeper into.
There would be no actual battles to look at. You would only send a couple of gladiators and they would be unavailable for a certain amount of days, depending on how far you sent them.

When they return, they would bring the news of what happened. If they were successful, they would bring you some loot and resources. If not, you’ll need to consider sending stronger troops or a higher number of troops to conquer that part of the map.
The map would have caves, old buildings/towers occupied by bandits, forests and other locations with valuable loot. Sometimes abandoned, but more often occupied with various enemies that need to be defeated by your caravan party of gladiators.

We feel like this would be a pretty fun additional thing to do. Planning which gladiators to send, and when to send them to get the most out of them. That is also different from usual battles so it would add to variety in the gameplay and keep things more engaging.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about this idea.

If you haven’t already, join us in our Discord Community where you can follow up development more closely or chat with us about the direction that the game is going and help us with your feedback to make the best game that we can! :)


Thank you for your patience and all the valuable feedback! We’re working hard on getting the game fun and polished before Early Access, and we’re getting closer and closer.

Basic editor functions are now ready in beta!
You can put together friendly and enemy gladiator teams, set their levels, and watch them fight!



There is also an option to copy friendly or enemy team so you can send it to a friend or to our Discord Community to show others the teams that you've made.

Keep in mind that is is just a basic version of the editor and new features are coming. We’re planing on adding options to choose items and quirks for gladiators. And eventually additional abilities for each gladiator.

Another feature we're planing is Challenge Mode. Where you can create an enemy team, set amount of points player can use to create their team (for gladiators, items, etc) and then send the challenge to a friend.
We'd also have prepared Challenges that you can load in the game and test your skills.


This features is both something we need for development and a fun toy to play with and test how gladiators work (or don’t work ːsteamhappyː). This will be a huge help in figuring out when the gladiators behaviour breaks, or where they don’t act in the way they should.
But more importantly, a place for you to test out some strategies and combinations really quickly.

Here’s a quick tutorial about how to use the editor: https://youtu.be/lh9ATHRmsf0

All feedback about what you'd like to see or change in the Editor is more than welcome! Tell us here or in our Discord Community.

Also we have new channel on Discord called #share-editor-team where you can share your teams or try teams that others have made.

Thanks for following up on the development of the game!

Next feature that we’re planing to focus on is changing how timeline works and adding weather effects that will affect all the gladiators in the arena. As well as to update the editor with new features.

We’re having a 45 minutes brainstorming session on Twitch Stream where you can help us generate ideas for a specific aspect of the game together.



[h2]Change of Design And Reason for New Arena Type[/h2]
In short, here’s the change we’ll make in the game. We want to make Championships a BIG deal. They will be available only at every 30th day (end of the month). And at one point we will also add a boss fights at the end of each championship and of course a larger reward for wining. Making you feel great once you beat the championship and move forward in the game.
But during these 30 days we’ll have quest, and we also want to add another type of arena that can be started at any point you want to. But after finishing it, it would have 7 days cooldown before it can be played again.

[h2]Theme of the Brainstorming Session[/h2]
The theme of this brainstorming session is this new arena that will be playable at any point with 7 days of cooldown.

The current idea that we have for this new arena (Ring of Death - current name) would let you choose 3 types of gameplay whenever you start it (it can be more than 3 if we figure out more fun things)

• Blind Fight
  You select your team and lock it down. And only after choosing your gladiators, you will see the enemy team appear. You can then change positions of your gladiators and items they carry. But you can not change the gladiators themselves.
  
• 1vs1 Melee Fight
  Here you can see the gladiator that you are about to fight. But arena has barricades around fighters making it very small, so it’s intended for proving your strongest melee fighting gladiator.
  
• Betting
  Two teams are already in the arena. And you can place a bet on the team you think will win (not using your gladiators at all)
  

We are still thinking about those types of gameplay and want to make them more interesting. Perhaps we can have more than 3 type, and then as you progress in the game, new random modes would be unlocked.
But what better way to think about new types of gameplay, than to brainstorm it with you guys :)

So in this Twitch Stream what we want to brainstorm with you the new and interesting gameplay types that can be chosen in this arena.


[h2]Here are the few guidelines:[/h2]

• Once we start brainstorming I’ll set the counter and brainstorming will last 45 minutes. (If you still have ideas after the 45 minutes expire, join our Discord Community and tell us about them in #feedback channel)
  
• I will not judge any idea. At this stream we only want to generate as much as possible.
  
• Write anything you like, no matter if it’s wrong or ridiculous. Bad or out of place ideas can be an excellent pathway for a new more creative and excellent ideas that we wouldn’t arrive at if we didn’t start with wrong idea that lead us up to the right one.
  
• You’re encouraged to build upon or get inspired by ideas presented by others, in order to generate new ideas.
  
• Stay on subject of this “New Arena Gameplay Types”. (You can write ideas related to other subjects in #feedback in our Discord Community) (And we’ll have more streams like this with other specific aspects of the game too)
  

After a day or two, Danijel and me (Darko) will work those ideas out, see what fits the game, maybe build upon them or adjust them. And then I’ll do another stream where we can discuss and evaluate those selected/adjusted ideas.

Here is our Twitch Channel Link: https://www.twitch.tv/entertainmentforge

Stream will start in less than 2 hours from now (countdown in on twitch page).

If you miss it. You can still give us your thoughts on the new Arena Type in the #feedback at our Discord Community.

So let’s have a chat and figure out how to make the game as fun as possible! :)

After considering your feedback and our thoughts on how the features from the new update are working out, we brainstormed some final changed and additions to what the main gameplay loop will look like.

Here are the changes and new features. Tell us your thoughts about them :)



We wanted to change the timeline to last 30 days but also to move forwards like this:


It would tell you what kind of weather is coming (weather will affect all gladiators in the arena), as well as when gladiator and item shop updates are. At day 30 the main championships would be organized.

[h2]Championship[/h2]
We want championship to be a big deal that happens once a month. We'll add more things in between to do (gonna talk about it right after this).
We noticed that you guys enjoyed the boss fighting quests in beta. So we are thinking about adding an unique boss/champion at the end of each arena, that you'd need to defeat in order to prove yourself and unlock the next arena. Making it even more satisfying when you conquer the arena.


While you're preparing for championship other than doing quests, you'd be also able to join The Ring of Death Arena. This arena would be available right away, but after playing it, it would require 7 days until it become available again.

Here you'd get to choose 3 types of games:

• Blind Fight - You would set up your team and lock them up. Only then the enemy team would be revealed. You won't be able to change your gladiators, but you'll be able to change their position and items.
  
• 1vs1 Fight - Here gladiators would have a very small fighting area and both you and the enemy will have just one gladiator. Place to prove your best fighter.
  
• Betting - If you choose this type of arena, you're not putting your gladiators into arena. Instead you'll see two gladiator teams and be able to bet gold on the one that you think will win the fight.
  

We believe that this will refresh gameplay and let you guys do something different.


There will be several places of business in the map, unlocking as you progress. They will need your protection.

At first you'll need to defeat several teams of enemies (bandits, undead, beasts, etc) and then you'll make a deal with this place where they will give you passive income every 15 days in return for your protection. The place might get attacked again and you'll have limited time to defend it before it's taken away.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
These are main changes/additions we have in mind to make the final gameplay loop more fun and with more variety. Of course other features that we talked about are coming as well, but we need to make sure the main gameplay loop is fun and that we can build upon that.

What are your thoughts on these ideas? You can tell us here or join our Discord Community and talk with us there.

Thank you!