Quality of Life Update (1.7) now available!
[h3]Greetings, Viceroys![/h3]
We’re back with another Against the Storm update—one that, hopefully, will make your experience with the game even more convenient, fun, and… symmetrical! So, what’s in store?
Continue reading for our design notes, full changelog, and information about settlement saves.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]DEVELOPER NOTES[/h2]
Today's update is a bit smaller than usual, focusing on quality of life, balance, and bug fixes. That's because most of the team is working on new content behind the scenes, but we still wanted to introduce some community-inspired features and shake up the meta a bit in the meantime. Some of the highlights of this update include: town statistics, production stats in building panels, a mirror building option, more non-uniform building footprints, event and order reward changes, a cornerstone rebalance, and much, much more. So without further ado, let's dive in!
First, the town statistics. With the 1.7 update, you will finally be able to see a detailed breakdown of your current settlement - how much reputation you’ve earned from various sources, how many villagers have died, how many resources you’ve used, how much Amber you’ve gained, and more. This information will be available not only at the end of a run but also during gameplay in a new tab within the warehouse UI.
In the same warehouse UI, you’ll also find a Global Effects tab, which provides a summary of all bonuses and effects that apply to your town and villagers - such as production speed, double production chance, movement speed, and season duration. Please note that this tab only shows global effects and does not include bonuses that apply to specific villagers or buildings.
We’ve also added a new statistics tab to all buildings that produce goods (production buildings, camps, fishing huts, mines, etc.). There, you can see a breakdown of the workers assigned to that building, including their production speed and double yield chance.
While all these stats might mostly serve as interesting trivia or a way to watch numbers go up, they should also bring more clarity in some places - for example when you’re wondering how much double yield chance a particular worker has.
The second highlight of this patch is the numerous balance changes to orders, cornerstones, and events. One of these changes was already teased in a previous dev note - when we adjusted how yearly cornerstones are drawn based on certain conditions in your current game. With today’s update, we’re expanding this system to include certain rewards from orders and events, as well as some perks sold by traders.
This primarily affects rewards related to complex food, clothing, and services, as well as perks that increase their production. These items will no longer appear as rewards if no one in your settlement can actually use them to meet a need. For example, an order that previously gave a static +2 Jerky bonus may now give a different reward that is better suited to the species in your settlement.
Normally, we’re very hesitant to interfere with RNG, but with the introduction of Frogs, the needs matrix has expanded significantly. This has made it harder to cover multiple species with the production chains and rewards you acquire during a run. That’s why, in a previous update, we added passive bonuses to all service and complex food needs - and now, we’ve decided to introduce a bit more guided randomness in some rewards.
In this update, we've also taken a longer look at cornerstones, mostly buffing the ones that were underpowered and infrequently chosen by players. Additionally, some of the more "problematic" perks, such as Fish Scraps and Queen's Gift, have been completely reworked. We still left some weak cornerstones unchanged for now, as we believe that upcoming content and system changes will make them more useful (but only time will tell).
While working on all of these balance changes, we happened to notice that some orders were outdated or had lost their synergy between objectives and rewards - likely due to how much the game has evolved since their last balance pass. So we took the opportunity to clean things up there as well.
Finally, for balance, we've adjusted the goods that Xiadani Stormfeather sells. As a late-game trader, she used to offer mostly basic resources and was almost identical to Sahilda. This made sense when we first introduced her, but since then we've changed the way merchants are selected for a settlement, and her wares rarely made an impact. Now Xiadani focuses on more advanced, late-game goods - and she may even have Ancient Tablets in stock from time to time.
Let’s move on to UX and UI - because, as the name of this update suggests, there are quite a few changes and additions in this area. Most notably, we’ve added a new section to world map modifier tooltips, making it easy to see if you’ve completed the corresponding deed. We’ve also introduced tooltips for specialization icons in the in-game encyclopedia, an option to disable screen dimming during autosaves, a zoom sensitivity setting, an automatic pause when alt-tabbed, and much more.
But the two additions we’re most excited about internally are the ability to mirror buildings and the introduction of more irregular building footprints. While this might not sound like a huge change to the most hardcore players, we’ve always wanted to offer more ways to create unique and visually interesting settlements. Against the Storm will likely never be a game focused on customization and decor, but these features should make decorating your town a little more interesting.
Lastly, as with every update, we’ve fixed numerous bugs, improved overall game stability, and made several localization tweaks. We’ve also replaced some old icons with new custom assets and refreshed certain buildings to give them a higher-quality look.
Thank you all for providing feedback, reporting bugs, and giving us suggestions for new content. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:
Eremite Games
P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]UPDATE 1.7 CHANGELOG[/h2]
Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.
Changes marked with 🐸 are related to the Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone DLC.
[h3]New content and features[/h3]
We’re back with another Against the Storm update—one that, hopefully, will make your experience with the game even more convenient, fun, and… symmetrical! So, what’s in store?
- Town Statistics, Production Statistics, and Global Effects
- Mirroring buildings (horizontal flip)
- More irregular building footprints
- Balance changes to Cornerstones, Orders, and Rewards in general
- Deed information on World Map Modifier tooltips
- Background autopause
- And more
Continue reading for our design notes, full changelog, and information about settlement saves.
Important: Due to numerous systemic changes, the update will close ongoing settlements to prevent potential issues. As compensation, you’ll receive Citadel Resources equivalent to winning that game, along with a Royal Resupply. Your Cycle progress and meta progress will remain intact.
If you’re eager to finish your current settlement, you can temporarily access a special Steam branch with version 1.6. Details on how to do this can be found at the end of the update notes. However, we recommend using this option only as a last resort.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]DEVELOPER NOTES[/h2]
Today's update is a bit smaller than usual, focusing on quality of life, balance, and bug fixes. That's because most of the team is working on new content behind the scenes, but we still wanted to introduce some community-inspired features and shake up the meta a bit in the meantime. Some of the highlights of this update include: town statistics, production stats in building panels, a mirror building option, more non-uniform building footprints, event and order reward changes, a cornerstone rebalance, and much, much more. So without further ado, let's dive in!
First, the town statistics. With the 1.7 update, you will finally be able to see a detailed breakdown of your current settlement - how much reputation you’ve earned from various sources, how many villagers have died, how many resources you’ve used, how much Amber you’ve gained, and more. This information will be available not only at the end of a run but also during gameplay in a new tab within the warehouse UI.
In the same warehouse UI, you’ll also find a Global Effects tab, which provides a summary of all bonuses and effects that apply to your town and villagers - such as production speed, double production chance, movement speed, and season duration. Please note that this tab only shows global effects and does not include bonuses that apply to specific villagers or buildings.
We’ve also added a new statistics tab to all buildings that produce goods (production buildings, camps, fishing huts, mines, etc.). There, you can see a breakdown of the workers assigned to that building, including their production speed and double yield chance.
While all these stats might mostly serve as interesting trivia or a way to watch numbers go up, they should also bring more clarity in some places - for example when you’re wondering how much double yield chance a particular worker has.
The second highlight of this patch is the numerous balance changes to orders, cornerstones, and events. One of these changes was already teased in a previous dev note - when we adjusted how yearly cornerstones are drawn based on certain conditions in your current game. With today’s update, we’re expanding this system to include certain rewards from orders and events, as well as some perks sold by traders.
This primarily affects rewards related to complex food, clothing, and services, as well as perks that increase their production. These items will no longer appear as rewards if no one in your settlement can actually use them to meet a need. For example, an order that previously gave a static +2 Jerky bonus may now give a different reward that is better suited to the species in your settlement.
Normally, we’re very hesitant to interfere with RNG, but with the introduction of Frogs, the needs matrix has expanded significantly. This has made it harder to cover multiple species with the production chains and rewards you acquire during a run. That’s why, in a previous update, we added passive bonuses to all service and complex food needs - and now, we’ve decided to introduce a bit more guided randomness in some rewards.
In this update, we've also taken a longer look at cornerstones, mostly buffing the ones that were underpowered and infrequently chosen by players. Additionally, some of the more "problematic" perks, such as Fish Scraps and Queen's Gift, have been completely reworked. We still left some weak cornerstones unchanged for now, as we believe that upcoming content and system changes will make them more useful (but only time will tell).
While working on all of these balance changes, we happened to notice that some orders were outdated or had lost their synergy between objectives and rewards - likely due to how much the game has evolved since their last balance pass. So we took the opportunity to clean things up there as well.
Finally, for balance, we've adjusted the goods that Xiadani Stormfeather sells. As a late-game trader, she used to offer mostly basic resources and was almost identical to Sahilda. This made sense when we first introduced her, but since then we've changed the way merchants are selected for a settlement, and her wares rarely made an impact. Now Xiadani focuses on more advanced, late-game goods - and she may even have Ancient Tablets in stock from time to time.
Let’s move on to UX and UI - because, as the name of this update suggests, there are quite a few changes and additions in this area. Most notably, we’ve added a new section to world map modifier tooltips, making it easy to see if you’ve completed the corresponding deed. We’ve also introduced tooltips for specialization icons in the in-game encyclopedia, an option to disable screen dimming during autosaves, a zoom sensitivity setting, an automatic pause when alt-tabbed, and much more.
But the two additions we’re most excited about internally are the ability to mirror buildings and the introduction of more irregular building footprints. While this might not sound like a huge change to the most hardcore players, we’ve always wanted to offer more ways to create unique and visually interesting settlements. Against the Storm will likely never be a game focused on customization and decor, but these features should make decorating your town a little more interesting.
Lastly, as with every update, we’ve fixed numerous bugs, improved overall game stability, and made several localization tweaks. We’ve also replaced some old icons with new custom assets and refreshed certain buildings to give them a higher-quality look.
Thank you all for providing feedback, reporting bugs, and giving us suggestions for new content. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:
- Steam Discussions, Discord, Reddit - discuss the game with the community and share your impressions
- Feature Request Tool - suggest specific new features
Eremite Games
P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!
[hr][/hr]
[h2]UPDATE 1.7 CHANGELOG[/h2]
Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.
Changes marked with 🐸 are related to the Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone DLC.
[h3]New content and features[/h3]