Slaves of Magic News

Hello everyone!

This is a small hotfix that fixes the issues that came up during the release of the 1.3.0 demo:

• Fixed that the intro video started again in case the loading has not been finished till the end of the video.
  
• The intro sound volume is now governed by the effect sound volume, not the music sound volume, which should make it louder by default.
  
• Fixed a crash that can happen when opening the smith projects when there is no approvable project in the list.
  
• Fixed a crash when the player successfully finishes the last mission.
  
• Aimed shot bow skill range is now correctly set to sight range from half-sight range.
  
• Added a general description for units from the Eastern culture.
  

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that our newest 1.3.0 demo is out with a new gameplay trailer:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]New features:[/h2]
- Reworked traits system. Every character will have a background trait that represents what they did before joining the resistance + 0-3 random character traits. Backgrounds can be region-specific.
- Recruitment cost and starting level depend on the character's background. The worst backgrounds can be recruited for free.
- Removed weapon schools. Every weapon adds its own advanced skill to the character that equips it.
- The Trickery, Teamwork, and Aggression schools have been reworked into 6 classes, one for every region.
- Completely reworked profile images, that respect which region the character is from.
- Added pushing as a core mechanic. A melee attack if hit by default will push the attacked out of the tile and the attacker will take its place. If the target can't step back, it will count as cornered and the attacker receive +20 attack against it. This gives another way (besides flanking) to increase hit chance with better positioning.
- Added a lot more region-specific names for the random name generator.
- Added an overall difficulty estimate to the party builder that takes into account your current party, the enemy composition, and their amount. This should help the player to make a more informed decision.
The eastern region has been opened up. Can host a resistance base and will be a target of army missions as well.
- Added the story introduction video into the demo when starting a new game.

[h2]Balance:[/h2]
- Magic dust has been renamed to etherglow, and the amount that can be earned depends on the enemies faced and the amount of them.
- Added the ability to sell etherglow on the black market (5 dust for 50 gold by default).
- Reverted the extra starting unit change of the previous patch. Now, the ability to sell etherglow and the possibility to recruit units for free should give enough options for players to manage their unit count.
- Level 1 units do not have access to any skill, besides the one that their weapons provide.
- Redid the starting roster of every region.
- Unit cannot be retrained for free anymore, it will cost 20 gold to reset their skills. Except for universal skills, they can still be swapped around freely.
- Simplified and rebalanced stamina usage. The second action no longer costs 1 more stamina. Instead nearly all skills cost at least 1 stamina, but every character regains 1 at the start of the turn.
- Missed attacks now do not cause distraction by default. Normal hits cause 1 (previously 2) and critical hits 2 (previously 3).
- Rebalanced and simplified equipment point costs. Now by default, every smith creates 1 equipment point.
- Updated AI to be able to handle the new cornered and pushing mechanic.
- On the escort VIP mission, one pod will guard the exit rather than hunting the VIP. In addition, the enemies' spawn points have a minimum range from the VIP.
- The strategist move order skill causes a forced move condition, that makes that unit unavailable for further move order commands till it activates.
- Rebalanced headquarter bonuses.

[h2]UI:[/h2]
- Made the combat map overlay thicker, to make it better seeable while zoomed out.
- The camera will only jump to the next possible unit when the other one is finished moving.
- The fog of war will only be updated with the unit's dead after it happened.
- Added a loading screen when starting a game, to avoid confusion.
- Reworked the UI for choosing headquarters.
- Reworked the research and project tabs.
- Added a purple cloud over units that have been converted to a redeemed to make them visually distinct.
- Added a unit overlay to the team builder screen when a player hovers over a unit to make it clearer that it can be clicked on.
- Made the victory and defeat screen pop up in combat after the last action finishes, not when it starts.
- Redid the visual for the enemy counter in the combat map.
- Enemy reinforcement teleport circles are seeable behind walls.
- Reworded and added new tutorials.
- Combat map settings preferences are saved.
- Added a new music track for team builder.

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed a map generation hanging issue that was more prevalent the higher the enemy unit count was.
- Fixed a dead zone where commands were not accepted in the combat map left size.
- Fixed pop-ups being obstructed by the tabs in the barrack scene.
- Fixed mouse wheel affecting combat map zoom level while on the tutorial page.
- Fixed blood appearing instantly when an attack is successful, spoiling the result before the animation finishes.
- Fixed buttons not gradually transitioning to the not hovered over state.
- Fixed when a unit was being attacked while it was standing on a corpse, the corpse knew the result of the attack sooner than it was visually shown and it moved in anticipation before the unit died.

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we will participate in the upcoming Turn-based Thursday Fest with our updated demo which will start on April 4th!

While there is still a bit of time till you can try out our new demo, you can check out the new story introduction video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello everyone!

I wanted to give you a status update on our upcoming new patch to our demo. The original plan was to do it in multiple smaller patches, but feature creep had other ideas! Some big changes are coming that just simply couldn't be implemented in smaller increments. We still need some time to deliver the patch itself, but I didn't want to leave you all in the dark so read on if you are interested in the upcoming major changes!

[h2]Reworked resistance members[/h2]

Every resistance unit will have a background trait that describes what they did previously. This affects their starting statistics, possible additional traits they could have, and their hiring cost. In addition, the possible backgrounds change depending on which region the unit is from.



The eager-eyed could notice that the portraits have been completely reworked as well. Now with a quick glance at the portrait, you will know which region the unit is from. Updated the name generators as well with more names so that they can generate more unique names.

[h2]New core combat mechanic, pushing and cornered[/h2]

I always had the back of my mind that flanking in itself to increase your hitchance is not enough as that is relatively hard to do consistently. Plus it always felt a bit unrealistic that standing right next to a wall is the best defensive position as in that case, the unit is physically impossible to be flanked. Then came the idea of the cornered mechanic.



Now, units will count as cornered when they can't move backward from the attack direction and suffer a 20 defense penalty. In addition, every melee attack that hits will push the target back 1 tile while the attacker takes their place if possible. These changes make positioning a lot more interesting even in situations where flanking is unfeasable.

[h2]Advanced skills rework[/h2]

Weapon attributes have been removed. Instead, every weapon will have their own advanced skill that comes with it. This gave me the possibility to differentiate weapons more besides damage, especially the one and two-handed variants of the same weapon. For example, that wide slash attack on the previous gif will be only available to units using two-handed swords!

The other 3 skill attributes (Aggression, Teamwork, and Trickery) have been heavily reworked into 6 classes (Ranger, Assassin, Protector, Strategist, Barbarian, Warrior). This means that every region now has a unique class. In addition, because the weapon does not take up one of the 2 available skill school(the new name for attributes) slots of a character, it opens up the builds space.

[h2]New eastern region[/h2]

We have finished the eastern region combat map as well, so this last region opens up! The region itself is research-focused and will provide the resistance access to the strategist skill school!





[h2]Closing thoughts[/h2]

And that's it for today's devlog! One important point is that because of the extent of the changes on the skills system, the new patch will not be compatible with previous saves. In addition, the patch will include a lot of other smaller balance and bug fixes as well, plus something else that I do not want to spoil just yet!

As always, if you have any questions feel free to drop by our discord here.

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone had a great holiday session! "Behind closed doors", we are hard at work for our new content patch, but I wanted to address some of the feedback the demo received since the previous patch. So without further ado, the 1.2.5 patch notes:

[h2]UI:[/h2]

• All bars transition into the correct value at creation/when the value changes, rather than being there instantly.
  
  
  
  
• Added markers to other units showing sight range from the hovered-over location on the combat map while deciding movement. This helps to see exactly where ranged skills can be used.
  
  
  
  
• All buttons transition into the hover overred state over time, rather than instantly.
  
• Updated the barrack/laboratory background
  
• Instead of blocking the time advancement button in the campaign map, there will be a flashing exclamation mark on the science lab button when no research has been chosen.
  
• Added a flashing level-up marker in the character sheet for the empty skill slot while removing it from the character profile picture, to make it clearer that a new skill needs to be chosen to level up.
  

[h2]Balance:[/h2]

• Increased armor values (medium to +3, heavy to +6). This means that a tier 2 light armor (like in the case of dark elves) that gives +5 armor still does not invalidate a tier 1 heavy armor completely.
  
• Increased weapon damage across the board to compensate for the increased armor. Time to kill is around the same against armored units, but unarmored ones became easier to kill.
  
• Weakened the inquisitor soldier's heavy armor to provide +4 armor instead of +6.
  
• Reduced the enemy amount at the base defense mission at the end of the demo.
  
• Reduced the default range of ranged units from double their sight range to their sight range. Despite the reduced accuracy, the potshots were still too potent without counterplay. Now only the Aimed shot skill allows ranged combatant to shoot beyond their sight range.
  
• The range penalty for ranged attacks starts from half their sight range, rather than from sight range.
  
• Swapped the point-blank shot and the distracting shot position in the skill tree. The arbalest now starts with point-blank shot skill.
  

[h2]Bugfix:[/h2]

• Fixed a bug which caused to remove 1 day from the ongoing research when the player loaded a saved game.
  
• Fixed blocked clicking on the right side of the campaign map, inside the area of the reminder scrolls, even when there are no scrolls there.
  
• Fixed units not receiving wounded status in the campaign map after being damaged in the combat portion.
  
• Fixed wounded time for units. Previously the less damage the unit incured, the longer the wounding time was.
  
• Fixed shielded units sometimes cause the game to soft lock.
  
• Added a max timer for animations so that if similar bugs happen in the future, they will not cause soft locks.