The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker News

Greetings!

Today we have a regular game update for you, introducing a new side quest "A Historical Undertaking", new items, new abilities and skill trainer interactions. Quick showcase and patch notes may be found below:

[h2] A Historical Undertaking [/h2]


Near Thornhill's southern gate (Baron's Gate), the player may now encounter a house belonging to the Regal Society for the Preservation of Imberthale’s History and Relics, or the Preservation Society for short. Its curator, Ser Ames Verrington, tasks the player with acquiring relics of historical significance from locked crypts within Thornhill's catacombs. It's all in the interest of protecting them, of course.

This will start a chain of quests progressing through the catacombs, the first part of which is included in this update.

[h2] New Lifeskill Traits [/h2]


The skill trainers in Haywind College have received new traits / abilities available for purchase. There are new interactions especially for the gathering skills of mining, woodsmanship and fishing. For example, it's now possible to remove impurities from ore out in the field, to gut fish into fillets and to split logs into firewood, which in turn can make campfires out in the field of course.

Performing these actions offer a way to stack some of your gathered resources to gain more inventory space, and they also contribute to your experience in their respective skills.

The sorcery trainer has also received a choice for a new ability.

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

New:

• New side quest, A Historical Undertaking.
  
• Over a dozen new items, including recipes, cosmetics and special furniture.
  
• 6 new buffs and abilities.
  
• New trait options for Haywind's combat skill trainers as well as alchemy, mining, fishing and woodsmanship trainers.
  
• All small storage bags and other starting trait items are now available for purchase from Haywind trainers
  
• Haywind trainers now have shops offering experience books and skill related items
  

Changes:

• Spell/ability selection no longer resets after consuming potions/food or after using once-off spells or abilities
  
• Adjusted skill book experience gains at higher levels
  

Fixes:

• Fixed an aggressive LOD setting related to brambles in Silvermirror Throne, causing them to disappear while still near the player.
  
• Fixed some typos.
  
• Fixed colliders/doors on some houses to better detect when to display interiors.
  
• Adjusted Quick Strike damage timing to match the animation
  

More quests and content are in the works, so stay tuned and happy gaming!

Greetings!

Today we have a content update introducing 3 new side quests into the game, among other things. Here we'll quickly cover a brief description of these quests and where to find them. You can also scroll down for the patch notes.

[h2] Plague Doctor's Apprentice [/h2]



This is the largest of the new sidequests in the update. The city of Thornhill is reeling from the effects of a plague called the Blistering Plight that recently swept through it. Besides a few mentions in dialogue, this wasn't really represented in the game yet, so we decided to make a sidequest revolving around that theme.

You start this quest by running into a young woman outside the plague doctor's house in Thornhill, as you walk north up the road from the poor people's district on the eastern side. She turns out to be the plague doctor's apprentice, but the work the doctor is currently conducting is beyond her experience.

If you prove to be able to craft yourself the appropriate attire, you will be sent to carry out the plague doctor's work, where a variety of skills may be needed.

[h2]The Foreign Raider[/h2]



This is a fairly simple bounty on one of Haywind's marauders, which you can acquire by talking to a Deputy Rieler in the militia camp west out of Haywind. He's hunting for a foreign bandit leader called Nyls Yellen, and if you bring him proof Yellen's demise, there is a quirky reward to be had. More bandit quests to come in later updates.

[h2]Mountain Rescue[/h2]



Down in the mining village of Ratcliffe, near the Silderstone mountain, you may find a miner's wife who is extremely concerned for her missing husband. She asks for your help in going up the mountain to search for him, but don't forget to bring necessary mountaineering gear with you!

On your way up the mountain, hidden in a cave, you may also discover a strange altar. Offer a key, say a prayer to the Stone Father, and new gifts may appear! Oh, and watch out for the menacing cave bear lurking about.



[h2]Other Patch Notes[/h2]



New:

• Added a full screen world map, you can open it by clicking the icon next to the minimap or by using a keybind
  
• Added a minimap text for Lovers' Rest in Silvermirror Fen to alleviate confusion during quest 'Reckoning of the Silvermirror Witch'
  

Changes:

• UI Scale can now be lowered down to 5% and increased up to 300% in video options
  
• Scrawny wolves now drop wolf pelts
  
• Adjusted trainer trait costs
  
• Adjusted shop prices
  
• Skeleton Sorcerer's Staff - Increased special attack damage and debuff duration. Special attack debuff strength now scales up based on Sorcery level.
  
• Some journal improvements on existing quests.
  
• Changed etherlight portal room npc loot tables in a way that players are no longer restricted to crafting a unique vessel of essences
  

Fixes:

• Starting furniture (chest, table, chair etc.) in Spruce Shade Shack sometimes disappearing
  
• Added empty vials to alchemy recipes that were missing it
  

Stay tuned and happy gaming!

Greetings!

In today’s update we’ll be sharing our plans for this year’s development on Cursebreaker.

The amount of support, feedback and bug reports since our EA release has been truly phenomenal, thank you sincerely everyone who’s been a part of this! It’s been more than we could’ve expected and we’re really grateful. Rest assured, the bug / feedback reports you’ve been sending have been reaching us and we’ve been combing through hundreds of messages in the past week.

Our focus since release has been mostly to document player feedback, and within the hot patches we pushed during this time, we alleviated the most egregious bugs that were preventing main quest progression and addressed QoL issues, such as a WASD movement option and inventory bloat before bank is even accessible.

We will continue shaping the game according to player feedback throughout the rest of the development as well. Underneath we’ve outlined seasonally what we’ll be focusing on in our upcoming development.

Addressing bugs and QoL features is something we’re aiming to do throughout the year. This is just a list of the major features or other things we have already planned, or have started working on. But it does not mean that our development will be strictly confined to what's listed here.



[h3]Improvements to Thornhill exploration[/h3]
- Currently side content drops off sharply around the time the player reaches Thornhill city
- Will therefore be developing several new quests focusing especially around Thornhill areas
- Thornhill covers a large area without any dangers present, so will be adding street thug encounters etc. to create more dangerous parts of the city
- Will work on adding sidequesting content to the other bare areas after Thornhill, mainly the surrounding forests, fenwater village (which currently has nothing) and swamp sidequests

[h3]Haywind marauders / Bandit Fortress quest chain development[/h3]
- The marauder plight Haywind is experiencing - mentioned in misc dialogue by several npcs - is getting a larger quest chain related to it
- Sequel to the small existing quest involving the mayor's daughter
- Leads to the heart of the bandit fortress northwest of Haywind, concluding in a repeatable dungeon
- New lootable equipment and... rare drops?

[h3]More traits and abilities to Haywind trainers[/h3]
- Traits give mostly passive bonuses now
- We want to add some more active abilities, including to life-skills
- We're planning at least a few more traits in each skill tree in Haywind
- More traits will be coming later to Thornhill

[h3]Workbench furniture obtainable from Thornhill[/h3]
- All crafting workbenches will be placeable in player houses
- Obtainable from Thornhill, but will most likely require completion of a special quest to unlock

[h3]Pathfinder improvements[/h3]
- We've started reworking our pathfinding system
- Currently the biggest cause of lag spikes
- Will greatly reduce getting stuck issues
- Possibility of adding new features like line of sight

[h3]Balancing[/h3]
- Setting up analytics so we get more reliable data to work with
- Balancing combat, economy (item value, shop prices), xp gains
- Balancing inventory size (solutions include but not limited to: increase stack sizes of certain items, offer more and different storage items, beast of burden or bankrunner followers, allow turning unstackable items to stackable on the go if you have the right tools with you [for example use Mortar and pestle to turn unstackable bones to stackable ground bones])



[h3]The Ghost of Greywall late-game quest chain and dungeon[/h3]
- The old Greywall prison southeast of Haywind is afflicted by a curse, preventing its dead souls from passing onto the afterlife and driving them insane
- Includes a chain of multiple quests, each step unlocking access deeper into the dungeon and its boss, The Ghost of Greywall
- Dungeon becomes repeatable after completion
- New lootable equipment and... rare drops?

[h3]Thornhill Academy[/h3]
- Thornhill trainers will be offering late-game perks and abilities
- Possibly trainer / skill related quests

[h3]Thornhill Catacombs[/h3]
- Filling in the extended areas into a dungeon to crawl through
- A quest leading to the dungeon's depths

[h3]Life-skill minigames[/h3]
- Various content offering alternative ways to level up skills
- Xp rates will depend on gameplay intensity: designed to offer either low but consistent xp rates for those who just want to sit back and relax, but also top tier xp if you're focused and keep up with intense mechanics

[h3]Steam cloud saves[/h3]
- Back up your saves in Steam cloud, access them on multiple devices

[h3]Optimization[/h3]
Focusing on graphics optimization, possibly requires reworking graphics of some elements in game, such as buildings, particle effects and vegetation



[h3]Achievements[/h3]
- Achievements on Steam, also an in-game window to check achievement requirements and progress.
- Achievements might also unlock new content and add new cosmetic options such as cosmetic gear or house furniture.

- Halloween Event
- Focusing on more endgame challenges (open outdoor boss encounters?)
- New items to be looted and crafted

[h3]Necromancy quests[/h3]
- Access to the depths of Spruce Shade crypts
- Possibly adding in quests to learn abilities to summon undead minions



- Christmas Event
- Pausing small updates to prepare for the official release patch, we'll be sharing sneak peeks in social media

[h3]Amarien's Mountain Pass[/h3]
- New mountain areas
- New enemies
- New quests, probably a multiple-quest chain leading through new areas, surrounded by smaller side quests
- New harvestable items
- New items and crafting tiers
- Increased level cap

- Full release and big update early 2024!



We'll continue to post further updates on our progress in these dev blogs and let you know if our plans happen to change. You can also join our discord community if you haven't already done so, the link can be found below; we're most active in responding to questions there.

Also feel free to follow us on twitter, where we've posted progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly.

Massive thanks once more to everyone playing, giving feedback and supporting the game! Seeing so many players finally really getting to play the game has been incredible to our team.

But for now, stay tuned and happy gaming!

Regards,
Pura

Early Access Update 3

Blogpost detailing our plans for future development coming tomorrow!

New:

• You can now change camera rotation speed in Options > Gameplay
  
• You can now hide damage numbers in Options > Gameplay
  

Changes:

• Increased wool drop rate from sheep
  
• Decreased Arakite hammer special effect xp multiplier and increased cooldown
  
• Tammi the Forest's Heart now deals physical damage instead of magical
  
• Damage dealt to enemies (and subsequently exp gained) is now capped at the monster's remaining health
  
• Disabled Rich Text in online chat
  

Fixes:

• Improved lag spikes when entering new areas
  
• Critical hit AoE damage increasing uncontrollably when hitting multiple enemies
  
• Players from different geographic regions not being able to see each other in online mode
  
• Lots of pathing and minor graphical issues
  
• Wool missing ground item model
  
• Consumable items (Usually Mistywood Talisman) sometimes removed from inventory in combat
  
• Corrected Novice Woodcutter trait cost to 50 gold (from 200)
  
• Iron hatchet missing Woodsmanship skill requirement
  
• Rain falling inside Spruce Shade Shack
  
• Quick Strike ability hitting from too far after using long range weapons
  
• Shield Block ability not working with Iron kite shield
  
• Bestiary showing loot that's not possible to drop (Mainly Faintly Glowing Bead from higher level monsters)
  
• Fixed a few typos
  

Early Access Update 2

New:

• Added an option to recover the strange gem from a hydrobor wizard in haywind, if you sold the gem to them
  
• Added a new interaction/reward to Meara Rahingar, the mage who starts out arguing beneath the tree in the village in Mistywood
  

Changes:

• Improved damage and accuracy of greatswords, battleaxes, hammers and spears
  
• Adjusted Haywind children dialogue to be more normal
  
• Slightly edited haywind magician boy dialogue
  
• Slightly adjusted haywind magician boy orb stats
  
• Improved 'something suspicious' quest instructions in journal
  
• Made it more obvious in dialogue to the player that they can deliver hunting goods to various Mistywood hunters
  
• Made Mistywood hunters more varied in their requests for creature parts
  
• Improved 'hunting for perfection' quest instructions in journal and dialogue
  
• Eased 'hunting for perfection' requirements to 1 frustrating animal part each instead of requiring a pair
  
• Changed spellcaster robes naming scheme
  
• Improved Mistywood Talisman item description
  
• Improved descriptions for Gabrius' staff and its special spell
  
• Emberstaff - Changed level to 10 (from 1) and price to 800 (from 250)
  

Fixes:

• Resurrecting in wrong location after dying in Temple of Etherlight
  
• Guardian of Etherlight health bar staying visible after leaving the chamber
  
• Equipped items disappearing after a patch if player no longer has requirements to equip the item
  
• Corrected several trainer trait descriptions
  
• Consumable items sometimes removed from inventory in Etherlight Guardian battle
  
• Incorrect monster level in quest Awoken in Fury journal
  
• Emberstaff, Staff of Furious Wind and Staff of Spiteful Seas not removing mana cost when manually selecting the spell from spellbook
  
• Removed duplicate small copper bag spawn in the cave near Grainwater
  
• Emberstaff missing stats
  
• Trees turning white
  
• "Mountain with a name" minimap text
  
• Quest marker popping over hunter ivonna under certain circumstances when no quest was available
  
• Players no longer receive two Foulvenom Curseblades at the beginning of quest 'Reunion of Fire and Death'
  
• Players should now be able to recover the Foulvenom Curseblade in the Hallowed Cave in the event they somehow manage to lose it
  
• Killing Bren Atrik from quest 'Something Suspicious' should no longer trigger a new bestiary entry
  
• Removed brain extract from alchemy crafting since it currently didn't have a use
  
• Fixed missing journal entries for 'Nature's Friend' quest
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented Aaron's dialogue in Timberwell after finishing the quest 'In Search of a Bride'
  
• Lots of pathing and minor graphical issues