Age of Darkness: Final Stand News

Dear Protectors of the Light,

Together we stand against the Darkness, but individually we have our own strengths and weaknesses, in this exciting update we bring you Factions which will be rallied by our Heroes.
Edwin leads the charge of The Order, Aelis the fearless leader of The Rebellion and Vizargo taking the helm of the shadowy Volatists.

Each Faction will have different starting Units as well as different stats and buffs to play to their unique strengths within the world. To give each Faction a unique look and appearance, Units and Buildings have been given Faction specific signals and colouring. But this is only the beginning of how Factions will look on the journey towards v1.0.

We know our brave defenders of the realm want to know more about the Nightmares they are fighting against, so to aid in the battle the Veil has granted you a blessing! You can select an Enemy to see all their stats along with their unit description to help you strategize on how you tackle them.

As the time passes you will need more valiant fighters to keep the Veil from creeping in, so keep your eyes peeled as this is not the end for what we have planned… new champions will rise.

As always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the bug reporting channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.

Check out the full patch notes below:

[h2]Release Notes[/h2]

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• New Feature: Factions
  
• New Feature: Enemy Select
  
• Triage Tent Research cost has been lowered.
  
• Triage Tent Rescue Radius has increased.
  
• Triage Tent revival speed has increased.
  
• Localisation for New Features
  

[h3]Additional Changes[/h3]

• Heroless Icon added to save files with the Heroless Hardship applied.
  
• Save Files will display ‘Custom’ if saved on a Custom Difficulty.
  
• Updated Triage Tent Tutorial to include Hero Revival information.
  
• Updated Vizargo’s Veils Claw Description to more accurately depict the ability.
  
• .Updated UI hoverbox text for the Training Hall and Siege Factory.
  
• Updated the + & - UI in the Resources panel to have a disabled state.
  
• Updated the Unlimited Frame Rate option in the Settings menu to be located after 120 FPS.
  
• Updated Credits to include T17 QA and Volmi Games.
  

[h3]Crashes[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that would occur when pressing ‘F2’ during the loading screen.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur after conquering a Point of Interest.
  

[h3]Fixes & Changes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where the game thinks shift is being held and tries to just queue all of your movements.
  
• Fixed an issue where Units could not path correctly around Catapults.
  
• Fixed an issue where Attack-Move would not register when clicking on impassable terrain.
  
• Fixed an issue where the camera would not focus on a selected Building until you close the popup.
  
• Fixed an issue where the title would freeze when pressing F1 or F2.
  
• Fixed an issue where Aelis’ guards would not attack enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue where Aelis’ guards would jitter after an attack-command move.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s Impaling Wrath ability would not activate.
  
• Fixed an issue where there was a delay in Vizargo responding to move commands.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s range for Impaling Wrath remains when selecting a Unit after the skill has been selected.
  
• Fixed an issue where Bursters were dealing damage outside their AOE radius.
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies weren’t being agroed.
  
• Fixed an issue where Buildings would need to be double clicked to be selected.
  
• Fixed an issue where Units would be Ejected from Towers.
  
• Fixed an issue where if trying to build walls on impassable terrain the walls are built on a different area of the map.
  
• Fixed an issue where once the Hero has Respawned at a Triage Tent every death afterwards causes them to spawn at the same Tent.
  
• Fixed an issue where Units queued in the Triage Tent would not be in the correct order.
  
• Fixed an issue where when Units are removed from the Triage Tent their countdown timer remains.
  
• Fixed an issue where Unit icons would not show when selected.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with Vizargo’s Impaling Wrath FX.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Triage Tent Radius would appear white.
  
• Fixed an issue where the name of the Save File could not be changed.
  
• Fixed an issue where Unit icons in the Triage Tent queue are misaligned.
  
• Fixed an issue where when the UI is Set to 125% The Hardship Icons on the Custom Difficulty screen become smaller.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Splash Art does not scale correctly in windowed mode.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Hero Spawn VO was not playing.
  
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect text was appearing in the Emboldened tutorial in Russian.
  
• Fixed an issue with text wrapping in the Villagers menu.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vizargo's Veiled Coil description was not localised for non-English languages.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Hotkey Overrides text for various buildings was not localised for non-English languages.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Upkeep text on the Resource hoverbox overlaps the gold icon in German.
  
• Fixed an issue where the users could not send through Feedback reports.
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]
A fix for these issues will come in the following Patch Update.

• Save Files from previous games will not be compatible with this update it is recommended to start a new save file.
  
• Several fixes have been made in regards to the units getting stuck. However there may still be edge cases where this is occurring.
  

Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.

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We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.

Till next time Protectors of the Light…

[h3]AoD Social Links:[/h3]

AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server AoD Website - Official Website & Blog Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.

Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand

Hi everyone,

We know there have been some reported bugs around issuing movement commands for your army and hero lately. We’re working hard to get to the bottom of it so you can go back to slaying nightmares and pushing back The Veil.

How are we investigating the issue?

We’ve used a few different techniques for finding out what’s causing the bug - in particular, reports from players and our QA team have been very helpful for working out what’s going on. For some of the movement issues, getting a save file that has the issue happening in it has also been helpful for being able to investigate what’s happening, as that allows us to step through exactly what’s happening in the code when the issue is occurring. We aren’t able to reliably recreate the bug yet but have some fixes incoming. So a big thank you has to go to the community first and foremost for helping us track down and reproduce the bug.

What have we found so far?

We’ve figured out two different causes of movement issues - one is that sometimes, the game continues to think that the shift key is held while it really isn’t, and so tries to just queue all of your movements instead of doing them immediately. The other was that catapults were sometimes causing issues for navigation for units around them. One difficulty with this sort of bug where we don’t have any clear steps to reproduce it every time is that it’s difficult to know if those are the only causes! But those are the two that we know about.

What are we doing to fix this?

We’ve implemented fixes for movement that will be going out with version 0.6.2 for the two issues with movement that we know about. Catapults have been fixed to no longer cause units near them to have broken pathing. We’ve also added a fix for the issue with the game thinking shift is being held, although this one’s been harder for us to reproduce, which makes it a little harder to be absolutely certain that this fix resolves the issue.

If you’re still having issues on the new patch, here's how you can help with our investigation.

Please message in our Discord and provide the following information!

• If you were doing anything in particular when the issue started occurring?
  
• If pressing shift when the issue is happening causes it to stop?
  
• If the issue persists after loading a save, providing the Dev Team with that save file would be incredibly helpful (they can be found in Documents/My Games/AgeOfDarkness/Saves).
  

As always we’re working diligently to improve the game with every update. Thank you all for being a part of our early access journey so far.

[h3]AoD Social Links:
[/h3]
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server AoD Website - Official Website & Blog Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.

Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand

In this upcoming update, we are separating our three heroes – Edwin, Vizargo and Aelis – into three distinct factions – The Order, The Volatists and The Rebellion respectively. We’re creating these factional divisions both to serve some very exciting future content (which, as much as we want to, we can’t talk about quite yet!) and to create much more replayability in Survival. Each faction’s strengths and eventual weaknesses will mean that playing the Order and struggling through those early Death Nights will be a very different experience to playing the Volatists and gaining as much ground as fast as you can to fuel you later when you really need it.

Let’s go over what this update is bringing for each of the three factions, as well as what their identities are and what kind of changes you can expect longer-term.


The Order, the faction to which Edwin Everard belongs, is ancient. They’ve learned through experience that one way to conquer is simply to outlast. This manifests through where they gain the majority of their benefits:

• Siege units train faster
  
• Siege units cost less
  
• Siege units deal more damage.
  

To get them to the late-game in good health, ALL of their emboldened units get:

• More health
  
• More health regeneration
  

Their starting lineup becomes a well-rounded pair of archers, pikemen and soldiers.

What you WON’T see in this update are some of the economic requirements and benefits. Those are still being tested and implemented, but will broadly feature:

• Higher unit costs than other factions
  
• Slower early economic development
  
• Better defensive structures
  
• Much higher power cap
  
• Less reliance on expansion
  

Aelis Syren is the leader of the Rebellion, a group of underdogs facing overwhelming odds. To survive, they must be mobile and tactical. To that end, Rebellion Archers and Arbalests get:

• More damage
  
• More movement speed
  
• More range
  
• Lower upkeep.
  

To ensure they can press the advantage, ALL emboldened Rebellion units get:

• More movement speed
  
• More damage
  
• More health regeneration (but not as much as the Order)
  

In this update, they’ll also start with an additional archer. In future updates, you’ll see changes to the economic and infrastructure side. Broadly speaking, the Rebellion will:

• Be more reliant on expanding their base
  
• Require more houses
  
• Get greater benefits for exploration
  
• Get better use of the Trade Bazaar
  
• Have some of the most tactically versatile units
  

The Volatists, led by Vizargo Oriah, are all about aggression and rapid expansion. Their melee units get:

• More attack speed
  
• More movement speed
  
• Lower upkeep
  
• Lower training time
  

Though the Volatists are human, they don’t let fear control them – they embrace it. Horrified units get:

• Much more damage
  
• Less movement speed penalty.
  

Their two starting archers are being swapped out for three pikemen. With these troops and the benefits they receive, you’ll be surprised just how fast you can tear across the map in those first few nights.



In a future update the Volatists will:

• Become reliant on Dark Essence for the core of their economy
  
• Favour unit quantity over quality
  
• Treat units as disposable.
  
• Have greater access to Dark Essence and units, structures and mechanics that require it
  

While this next update makes the game easier across the board, you should enjoy it while you can. We have a lot of changes coming for these factions that we couldn’t quite get in. This is just a taste of what’s to come.

Also a reminder this patch will be incompatible with previous saves. So if you have any games you want to complete make sure to do so before the patch comes out in the next few days!

In the meantime, we really hope you enjoy experimenting with new builds and unit setups. Keep your eyes on the horizon, though… the Darkness encroaches.

[h3]AoD Social Links:
[/h3]
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server AoD Website - Official Website & Blog Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.

Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand

Arbalests were the centerpiece of many Player compositions prior to their change. One of the main metas for the game, on any difficulty, was doing an Arbalest build to make it through more difficult Death Nights and the Last Stand. So when we nerfed Arbalests, we buffed other units as well (Soldier, Pikeman, Sentinel etc.) to compensate and help create different compositions Players felt like they could use to win. There should be multiple paths to winning rather than one dominant one that undermines a lot of what the other content has to offer.

The other reason for their change was that they were the best for defense and exploration. They were used to take down special units and clear the map when exploring making them far too flexible over other units. Economically, the Arbalests were cheaper than the siege units with higher range and base single-target damage making them far more viable than late-game units. This meant that you could easily kill enemies cheaply while mostly being safely out of range. This was a balance problem we felt we really needed to address as we wanted to make sure no single unit made you feel like victory was assured. As a result, we wanted to dial back a bit on their mobility during exploration and keep them as a special unit killer, making them highly effective against the higher tier enemies when defending.

To help reinforce their nature as special unit killers, we gave them a damage buff against certain special nightmare units (Spitters, Wraiths and Crushers fall into this category currently). Previously we had the Arbalests base damage at 50 and after the nerf, this was cut down to 25. However, they deal double damage against special nightmare units, bringing them back up to 50 again. This makes them extra effective when defending against these types of units but not so great when fighting hordes of other smaller nightmares as that is a purpose saved for other units like the Flamer or Impaler. This helped curtail the exploration abilities of the Arbalest and create more risk if you do choose to go down that path.




What does nerfing their movement speed allow us to do with our units and nightmares going forward?
By nerfing the movement speed, it puts the Arbalest in more of a defensive position and gives them a stronger purpose as a special unit killer. This opens up room for other units to shine as exploration units rather than the Arbalest who excels more in defending against deadly death nights. It also ensures the Arbalest has a clearer role going forward.

It also helps give a bit more purpose to our nightmares by deciding what certain nightmares are weak to. We explored this first with our Bursters, where fire was their kryptonite, and would slow them down to a crawl while also taking additional damage. Now Arbalests, with the damage, buff deal higher damage to special nightmare units too. As we bring in new nightmare units, it will be a lot easier to define what it is strong against and what it is weak against.




What do we want for unit compositions going forward?
We want unit compositions to have proper intent and when you build one, it serves a purpose. So there will be units that have a high movement speed, regen Hp quickly and when put together, help to form a bio-ball that’s great for exploration but weak when overwhelmed by many nightmares at once. The same is true for defensive bio-balls where the Player can create compositions of units that have high damage and health but move slowly, keeping them more effective at defending against Death Nights and pester waves.

With these exploration and defensive compositions, there are many units that will fit into them and we have other units planned to fit within those paradigms as well, opening up many flexible options for how a Player would like to create their armies for different situations.




We hope that provides some more clarity on why changes were made. We're definitely going to keep an eye on the balance of the game to make sure AoD continues to be difficult but fair.

Let us know what you think and what else you'd like to hear us talk about.

[h3]AoD Social Links:
[/h3]
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server AoD Website - Official Website & Blog Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.

Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand

Dear Protectors of the Light,

Thank you all for your continued support and we hope you’ve enjoyed playing Vizargo this past week. Alongside all your feedback, messages and reviews we’ve identified several issues that we’ve decided to fix immediately.

This hot-fix is only addressing issues we’ve seen appear since the launch of the last Content Update with Vizargo and general gameplay being the focus here. We’ll be back later this month with more Content for you. Keep your claws at the ready for it!

Check out the full patch notes below:

[h2]Release Notes[/h2]

[h3]Fixes & Changes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where Vizargo’s Veiled Coil ability does not appear to be healing correctly. The ability description has been updated to reflect that it “restores his health by up to 5%” not a guaranteed 5%.
  
• Fixed an issue where the player cannot correctly animation cancel with Vizargo.
  
• Fixed an issue where Nightmares would not respawn after a Death Night in unlit areas.
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]

• Vizargo’s Veiled Coil ability will have some incorrect translations in all other languages aside from English. This will be updated in our next Content Update.
  

Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.

---

We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.

Till next time Protectors of the Light…

[h3]AoD Social Links:
[/h3]
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server AoD Website - Official Website & Blog Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.

Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand