Sands of Salzaar News

Travelers of the desert:

We've just launched an update. With this, we've fixed bugs relayed to us in detailed player reports, improved capture mechanics, and adjusted the prices of captured soldiers.
And of course, we'll be taking the opportunity to share our plans for future updates, too.

[h2]V1.1.05 UPDATE LOG:[/h2]
[h3]●Price Changes[/h3]
The Ransom Broker now considers more team factors when presenting a price for captured units. Instead of basing prices solely upon captured units' recruit costs, the team's total number of Captive Squad units remaining will also be taken into account.
[h3]●Captures[/h3]
We've improved the capturing logic, increasing the factors that come into play when deciding a capture's chance to succeed. Examples include the target's rank, and the number of captives your team has.

We're further addressing issues in which some players found they weren't gaining any EXP after combat. If you've experienced this, please try and see if it's fixed for you! Debug information can be found at the end of this update summary.
If these issues persist following the update, please share your save files with us. We need save data from those experiencing problems if we're to solve them once and for all!

[h2]Future Plan[/h2]
We've been listening closely to player opinions on the Captives system, right from the start of V1.1. The previous two issues aside, we'll continue to focus on adjusting the Captives system in future updates to ensure it's balanced. We'll be fine-tuning ransom and release logic, capture and recruit probabilities, and much more.
[h3]●Captive Status & Recruiting[/h3]
You can provide captives with rations and medical treatment following future updates. That said, whether you choose to do so remains up to you. Will you focus on recruiting captives to survive, or will you deny them rations and treatment? Not all captives will readily yield to you if you choose the latter, however, as it may only serve to strengthen their resolve.
[h3]●Captive Escape[/h3]
Your team has a limited capacity for its captives. Once over this limit, they can choose to make a break for it.
[h3]●Captive Release[/h3]
Releasing a captive improves your Favor with their faction. The released captive also leaves you Ironstone and Wood resources, with a chance to grant Soldier EXP Stones. Releasing non-soldier captives grants you a piece of their equipped gear, with a chance to grant Talent Shards and Wisdom Crystals.
[h3]●Talents[/h3]
We're adding a Captives Talents branch, [Priorities], that offers two different routes to develop down. Perhaps you'll seek out and slay soldier elites, or maybe you'd prefer to subdue tons of lower-ranking targets instead.

Stay tuned for future updates to hear about all this in greater detail.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
●Fixed a bug where Ember Ocher could grind down jewel dust without spending any jewels.
●Fixed a bug where you couldn't return to garrison at the Tribal Hall.
●Fixed a bug where save files created with a hotkey could crash when reloading the game.
●Partly fixed a bug where no EXP is granted from combat.
●Optimized recruitment success rates when the player is the leader.
●Fixed a bug where the Nameless had no Ransom Broker.
●Fixed a bug where enchanting in the Champion of Chaos DLC smithing skill page would cost no equipment.

If you have encountered any issue, please feel free to contact us through our official Discord channel https://discord.gg/xdindie!

[Optimizations]

• Increased the number of days NPC leaders take to return once exiled, as they are now exiled deeper into the desert.
  

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug that made players unable to speak with the Blacksmith.
  
• Fixed a bug related to Resolution settings.
  
• Fixed a bug where recruiting minions didn't deduct recruitment attempts.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Ransom Broker sometimes forgot to take captive heroes with him.
  
• Fixed a bug where NPC leaders would always fail when recruiting generals. NPCs now provide generals with higher remuneration, meaning that they will be able to attract more generals.
  
• Fixed a bug where the same character sometimes appeared in the party and captives tabs at the same time.
  
• Fixed a bug where captives would refuse to proceed to the desert when exiled. There's now someone to oversee that the captives are indeed exiled.
  
• Fixed a bug where captives could also be taken during dungeon and text battles.
  
• Fixed several issues with the writing/text.
  
• Fixed an issue where characters recruited from among captives couldn't be sent out.
  
• Fixed a display bug for towers summoned by players.
  
• Fixed a bug where combat didn't grant experience.
  
• Fixed a bug where the tournament couldn't be started.
  
• Fixed a bug where players couldn't enlist active forces.
  

Travelers of the desert:
It's been a while!

We've mentioned in a previous update preview that we would add a new feature: Captives. It's been under development for a while now, and we're happy to announce that it's going live with this patch!

In the current build, once you defeat an enemy army, they will be able to rebuild a large army in just a few days and begin attacking you anew, which has led to overly frequent battles in the late game. Plus, war has been the only means with which to annihilate your foes once and for all. Thus, we've thought of adding the Captives mechanic to enable players to make captives of the enemy's wounded units.

If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of the new feature, or if you have any questions or worries, feel free to check out these two development journals where we go into greater detail and answer a few common questions.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1094520/view/4041486102480343224
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1094520/view/4211502058701959226

What's more, the game is on sale at a price equal to our historical lowest price point for two whole weeks on all platforms. This new update will hit mobile devices in two days.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094520/_/

[h2]Sep 06 Update Log[/h2]
●Addition: Captives Feature
Upon being victorious in combat, you make captives of the enemy's wounded units, with a chance to make NPCs your captives. There is a cap for how many Captive Squads you can have, and upon exceeding this cap, you have a 30% each day to lose 1-5 captives. However, should you fall in battle, the enemy may also lay claim to your heroes and soldiers.

You can check any NPCs and units you've captured by tapping the Captives tab in the Party menu. Here you may choose to either Convert or Release captives. NPCs and soldiers are converted differently, however. Once a few days have passed, you receive Conversions, with which you can convert selected soldiers.

NPCs take a longer time to convert and comprise several phases: during each conversion you converse with them, having a chance to progress onto the next conversion phase (this also triggers a cooldown). Complete several of these phases successfully to convert an NPC.
Please be noted that the function of auto-generating NPCs based on event won't be on live until next patch.

●Addition: Dungeon
We've added the [Dungeon] to the town, where captured heroes will be imprisoned. You can choose to either retrieve captives for a cost or—attempt a jailbreak. However, there might be a price to pay for jailbreaks, successful or not, so proceed with caution!



●Addition: Ransom Broker
We've added a new merchant character too, the Ransom Broker, who will conduct a new form of business: the trading of captives.

●We've reworked the Settings menu and added more quality options.
●Support for different resolutions has also been added.
●Fix: Fixed a bug where the Yaya DLC character's skills could lead to limitless health or instant death.
●Fix: Fixed an issue where ordering a character in a city owned by another faction would also cause that faction's units to deploy.

If you have encountered any problem, feel free to join our Discord to get in touch! Our managers will try their best to help you out.

Travelers of the desert:

Hi everyone! The Steam Summer Sale is about to begin, and our 50% off discount will be kicked off across all platforms from Jun 25 to Jul 11. Additionally, we’ve brought you the TO BE A HERO Bundle with Hero’s Adventure and Warm Snow. May all travelers be able to experience the joy of life!



We are also going to have the following bugs fixed next week:

Fixed the bug where Puncturing Giant’s Smasher had no range stat
Fixed the bug where the display of UI on some mobile screens was partial
Fixed the bug where the EN voice acting was accidently removed
Fixed the bug where part of the EN text was missing
Added the Dynamic Lighting feature back
Updated the UI of Ember Workshop


During the past months, we’ve been working on the development of the Captives feature. As this function involves a wide range of stuff, there are also many adjustments and designs required. Nevertheless, we hope to launch a more complete and more playable Captives function, bringing a richer gaming experience to everyone.

So many thanks for your patience, and feel free to join our Discord to get in touch.

Travelers of the desert:

Travelers of the desert:
This time around we've continued to remedy lag. We came to realize that some art assets weren't fully integrated which in turn led to them taking up unnecessary RAM. This will be resolved with the ver. 1.0.45 update.

What's more, we're adding further support for the mod editor. For this new expert version, we'll be making available most UI menus so that modders can replace or change these out. We'll also provide a feature where you can upgrade simple mods to expert ones and make it easier to create resource packs.


Fixes

●Fixed a progression-halting bug with the Spirit Witch's [Catch Burak] story:

This bug has been present in our localized versions and was caused by section breakers. The issue should be resolved in the new version; yet, this isn't the only place in the game where this has been happening. We'll look over our localized versions again and make changes where needed.

●Fixed an issue on mobile devices:
where the game would appear vertically for some players.

●Fixed two issues with the text.

●Fixed an issue with Anniversary mod Zombie x Squirrel, where you didn't gain EXP as intended.

●Fixed a bug where a test segment would appear when opening up the Class Shop in the Eclipse Hive DLC.

All of the above changes will be updated on all platforms.


[h2]Captives - New Progress[/h2]

We've been working on the new Captives feature as of late, and we've been keeping an eye on your questions and worries. So, we'd like to share our progress and answer some questions in the process, naturally, feel free to leave even more feedback too!

[h2]Captives Gained From Battles[/h2]

[h3] (not representative of the final version)[/h3]


There's a chance to capture NPCs when defeating other tribes in battle, which just so happens to be the main way in which to acquire captives. We'll also consider whether to add more ways in which to acquire captives once the feature's been released, such as attacking traveling NPCs or exchanging captives with other forces. However, be sure to quickly toss any excess captives into the dungeon lest captives might begin escaping should you exceed your captive cap.

Apart from capturing NPCs, we're also planning on perhaps making soldiers capturable. However, that would require adjustments to several UI menus and we'll need time to discuss and think about whether or how we'll make this work.

[h2]What Use Are Captives?[/h2]



Following our last update log, many of you have been asking what captives are used for. They're honestly similar to how they are in many other games: they can be sold for gold to slavers, executed (after which that NPC will be permanently gone from your game), or released. Or, you can even draft them into your own team (with some restrictions, of course).

Soldiers of a higher level and NPCs of a higher status are naturally worth more. You'll also be able to hand over nobility captives when interacting with other factions to meet their demands. Each such you add increases your diplomatic weight and can be used to force them to concede land, pay tribute, or even surrender.

There's plenty of content that can be added to a system like this, however, we only have so much time and energy, so we'll begin by working on the most important parts first and perfect what we have in future iterations. Naturally, we also want to add functionality interfaces so that you, our community, may expand upon what's there, by perhaps adding the ability for captives to break free from jail, or so that you may... do untoward things with those you've captured.

[h2]Can Captives Be Executed? Would That Make the World Empty?[/h2]



A good question indeed. That's something we had plenty of discussions around before we even began developing this feature. To remedy this, we added in our last update the ability to auto-generate NPCs based on events. And we'll be adding a new set of families and NPC generation with the new version too.

As the months tick by, the world will once again bustle with life no matter how many NPCs you execute. However, newly generated NPCs are based on models and might only have access to a few set talents and skill pages, meaning that they'll be inferior to the original NPCs.

We estimate that this will become available for free with the next update.

[h2]Mod Workshop Support[/h2]

The Mod Workshop has been and always will be an integral part of Sands of Salzaar. And so, without further ado, we'll be providing more tools and support. In this version, we'll incorporate most FGUI menus to Expert mods, giving you the ability to edit the design and change assets for almost every menu. We'll also make available configurations for the base game's maps along with another batch of reference content.



The new mod editor will contain a function where you can upgrade simple mods to advanced ones. What's more, you'll be able to quickly make resource packs via a Unity editor from within the settings of advanced mods (you'll need to install any Unity dependencies for this to work).

GUI Location:



But that's not all. During our work to adapt the game for multiple platforms and continued development, we've upgraded the game's Unity version. This has naturally caused changes to the game's Unity action models. While most older mods should still work, some advanced mods that contain actions for new characters might need to upgrade to the 2020.3.48 Unity version and repackage their asset packs.

To simplify this process, we're providing the ability to directly upgrade old advanced mods from within the editor. However, we'd still like to extend our apologies to all you modders out there for any inconvenience caused.



Another thing that's been on our mind as of late, is the fact that each new update affects our mod community one way or another. Some mods might become unavailable until a fix is released, or even worse, mods where the authors have discontinued update support may become unusable entirely. Plus, every update also comes with its own bugs.

Our plan is that starting our next update with Captives, we'll provide stable access to old versions so that you may choose for yourself whether to use the latest version or an older one. This means that even as we update the game, you'll still be able to use the mods you've grown fond of.

Naturally, we won't have versions available for all the small updates that we make but only for major updates. We'll make sure to keep a branch available of each major patch going forward that should be compatible with most mods created during that time.

That's all for this update! Feel free to join our Discord to get in touch! Our managers will try their best to help you solve any issues you encounter in the game!