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Hero's Hour News

Major Update Out Now!

[h3]Hi everyone,

As part of the Turn-Based Fest, we're glad to announce the latest update is now live - including tons of new features! πŸŽ‰[/h3]



Hero's Hour v2.3.0 the Magical Update is now out! It's a large update which focuses on spells and spellcasters, but also has a lot of other goodies, a bunch of QOL-changes and almost innumerable balance changes. The patch notes are 190 lines long, but here are the highlights:

  • 50 new spells
  • Reworks to several magical skills - Potency, Wisdom, Demonology+Necromancy, Blight Ritual
  • Magical overworld objects, such as mana wells, jars of pandora and scrolls
  • Catapults, which destroy the defences of enemy towns over several turns
  • Weather effects and other improved graphics


Good luck within a now even more magical version of Hero's Hour!

[h2]FULL PATCH NOTES[/h2]

[h3]MAJOR FEATURES[/h3]

- Potency has been reworked entirely
- Demonology and Necromancy now allow choosing the produced unit
- Spellbook now has sorting and filtering
- Mana Wells have had their effect changed slightly, but now appear sometimes during normal map generation
- Some cool new hero portraits
- Sorcery rework
- Mysticism rework
- Wisdom rework
- 40 new spells added
- Devour now uses unit power instead of cost, but shows the stat gain as you're targeting the spell so there's less need for guessing
- Fixed a graphical bug with Aether Forge spell offers which sometimes would show the wrong frame
- Spell targeting graphics updated
- Tired mechanic rework. Adventure map buildings that took "2 days" have been altered for the new system. Tired is now a debt of movement points. For instance, tired 5 means that next turn your hero will have 5 less movement points. Tired 25 means your hero will pay off 17 movement points next turn (remaining unmoveable) and then the last 8 the day after again.
- New Catapult mechanic
- New mechanic handling walls that are damaged before entering battle
- New UI that shows movement order controls
- Low Graphics setting that removes blood particles, numbers, corpses and spell effects during combat, as well as overworld mini-armies, minecarts and particles
- High graphics setting adds in denser obstacles
- High graphics setting adds in weather effects

[h3]MINOR CHANGES[/h3]

- Skill descriptions now display fully without needing to press shift. The detailed description is slightly faded in colour
- Using the Aether Forge to gain mana can now set the hero's mana above max
- Nomads can now trade artifacts with normal heroes (still cannot trade units)
- Poison and Fire damage effects in combat now no longer deal any damage after combat is finished
- Malediction and Bane texts have been updated to better reflect their effects
- Auto-resolve prompt now also appears for tiny AI-controlled armies
- Made it so that you no longer accidentally press the start battle button when positioning units behind it
- Early encounters now no longer have Fireflies or units with Cinderspirit
- Shadowy units no longer leave corpses
- EXPERIMENTAL: Midas Touch hero skill also applies to some of their spec units
- Fire Shield and Air Shield spells reworked
- Meteor Shower renamed to Tectonic Shift. Icon and graphics changed
- Golden corpses have been greatly optimised
- Modded heroes which use faction classes now will show up naturally during gameplay, such as in tavern
- New unit ability icons for Retaliation, Quick Strike, Taunt, Savage, Leech Life
- The game will now correctly remember faction and hero choice when returning to main menu. Only works if the game was started recently - not loaded
- The Saviour unit ability from Flesh Wonders now has halved effect when targeting enemy units
- The Saviour unit ability now also works on Pillar (sans Monk), Arcane (sans Goblin Gunner) and Wild (sans Satyr) faction humanoids
- Saviour unit ability has been reworded to make this clear
- Loss and win screens for Hotseat mode should now work more correctly
- Shadowcloning now shows where your units will appear
- Army displays now look different to better fit larger unit sprites and to better show the number of units
- Overworld armies hover-over displays are now drawn differently to reduce the distance between army and display when zoomed far out
- Town tooltips have been overhauled
- New log that shows what spells are cast by heroes, units, abilities and skills during combat
- Spells no longer prioritise tier 1 units when the closest unit is the hero (very important for Shadowcloning)
- The skills one can choose when leveling up are now highlit in yellow
- Movement order controls have been improved
- Optimisation of background processes
- Neutral encounters now show a number of stars next to their difficulty rating. This shows their army sizes
- Graphics for dragons and great hydra updated
- Damage stat for units is now shown as a range instead of a single number

[h3]COMBAT AI CHANGES[/h3]

- AI for a specific unit no longer switches targets randomly, instead having random weights of targeting for any unit pairing
- Ranged units now spend some time moving away from enemies while their attack is on cooldown
- Ranged units no longer slowly inch forward throughout combat while an enemy is within range
- When no enemy units are close, unit AI now searches for a far-away unit more consistently instead of switching between distant targets
- Unit AI now often keeps targeting the same enemy for several AI steps in a row, thus becoming more reliable and faster. It switches targets about once per second, so still should target correctly
- Combat AI should now run slightly faster

[h3]BALANCE CHANGES[/h3]

- Week of Poverty now reduces gold income from towns to 50% (instead of 0%)
- Gold cost of using Diplomacy has been reduced significantly
- Damage from Burning is increased. Chance of applying Burning has been decreased
- Damage from Poison is increased. Chance of applying Poison has been decreased
- Siren Song now has a 3 day cooldown instead of 4 day cooldown
- Conflux now scales slightly more with higher mana spells
- Versatile now removes the deadzone where ranged units can neither attack with ranged or melee attacks
- Toxicology now spreads a bit less poison at longer distances
- Great Hydras now spawn every 10 days instead of every 15 days. Sacrificing artifacts decreases the timer by less
- Disbanding Avatars will not make the cost of recruiting a new Avatar go down
- Bodyguards units now regen faster
- Pearls can now be used for 1 growth units
- Heroes in combat now have +10 hp per level and +1 damage per level
- Copies of units with bodyguards ability now only create one bodyguard
- Reduced gold gained from selling artifacts
- Summoning spells now use a different formula, summoning significantly more units with high spellpower
- Duplicate spell nerfed
- Low rank demonology now offers less expensive units
- Rage unit ability is now 50% stronger
- Elementals spawned by the Conflux skill now lose health less quickly (about 30% more slowly)
- Explosion unit ability now has a smaller AOE when caused by a nonpermanent or neutral unit dying
- Explosion unit ability now deals less damage not only for nonpermanent units, but also for neutral units
- Rune of Air no longer reduces luck strike chance of units with high luck - instead, the cyclones summoned last for shorter time
- Rune of Burning and Rune of Death now no longer override the burning or deathstriking abilities of the units
- Rune of Death now creates slightly more skeletons, but reduces luck and morale by 1
- Rune of Ice now has a larger chance to proc and deals more damage
- Diplomacy will now always at least give a single unit (even in case of dragons)
- Heroes that are camping remain tired
- Counting house now gives +500 gold per day, but costs more
- Cost to develop potential mines has been reduced
- Flying units now have a cooldown between each time they use their execution
- Copies of units with bodyguards ability now only create one bodyguard

[h3]FIXES[/h3]

- Skills that give a flat bonus to health or damage now always apply before skills which multiply health or damage
- The icon that shows that a unit is fleeing now draws in front instead of behind the unit - it would become obscured by big unit sprites
- Fixed Forlorn Cloister
- First Aid tent no longer prioritises neutral units above permanent units
- Permanent units rezzed by first aid or other effects now have abilities requiring permanence apply to them
- Fixed a bug that made Armorer change units projectile sprite instead of giving projectile protection
- Salted units don't recreate bodyguards
- Fixed a bug that blocked selection of alternate heroes
- Lexicon now shows heroes in the same order as the hero selection menu
- Fixed heroes taking much longer to return to battle if they were slowed before "dying"
- The Tired text in the GUI now disappears when hovering over movement bar, so that you can still see daily movement points
- Fixed a low chance for a whole unit group to spawn as Pond Champions instead of Toadfrogs
- The rare chance for a toadfrog to spawn as a pond champion now works correctly with casualties
- Fixed being offered zero units via Diplomacy in rare circumstancces - instead, the diplomacy pop-up just won't trigger now
- Fixed a bug that made Call Beasts summon Militia instead of Snouthogs on Dirt and Bamboo Forest terrains
- Daily gold income from units with Taxpayer now shown in the gold income tooltip
- Monolith description changed to better reflect its effect
- The income UI no longer shows rare resource income from Tainted mines, but now shows them under Gold income
- The income UI now correctly shows Overgrown mines
- Power of Elementals and Desperado achievements now can unlock even if the enemy is neutral
- Fixed a crash that occured in classic town screen when hovering over the gold cost of a high tier unit
- Fixed a rare crash relating to a save_info.txt file being mysteriously empty
- Warmachines now move to the position of the boat in naval combat while setting up armies
- Wargroups deployed mid battle are now less chaotic in where they can be deployed. They are now deployed at the edges of the map
- Xp gained messages now show the correct number in the case of learning
- Lower resolution displays now have the number of towns and heroes displayed in the HUD reduced
- Rightclicking a group of units on the battlefield will now split the group correctly even when playing at 2x speed
- Hidden beasts can now no longer be discovered on top of your hero
- Avatars can no longer get infinite movement by equipping and unequipping artifacts that increase movement
- Fixed a bug that could make the game get stuck while using Firegating and Firetrapping and making a movement order into the space in the spellbook where the spell is, then cancelling the spell
- Reduced the chance that parts of the map are inaccessible due to a building spawning close to your town and blocking off the path
- Fixed a bug that made units look wrong when leaving the state of being a frog
- Summoned units dying at end of combat no longer cast spells via Destruction
- Mastery buffs will no longer apply to the hero as a unit in combat
- Conscription center now as expected when discharging units worth more than 1 level of Discharge income increase
- Combat camera will no longer be able to leave the battlefield no matter which camera setting you use
- Fixed a bug that made the combat camera jitter crazily right after starting combat
- Wail will no longer affect undead or mechanical units
- Using town portal now sends the hero to the correct tile, and also makes them the visiting hero
- Forlorn Cloister now more correctly converts the spells that heroes know
- fixed reviving evolved units becoming new units in your army
- Gold cost of using Diplomacy has been reduced significantly
- More than 100 neutral modded units can now be loaded in

[h2]Play Now! [/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/

βš” Nominate Hero's Hour

Hi everyone,

If you enjoy Hero's Hour, it would be awesome if you could nominate us for a Steam Award!
Several categories fit such as 'Best Game You Suck At' or 'Better With Friends'.

Thank you for your support, and stay tuned as we have cool stuff in store... πŸ‘€

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/

Factions Guide II

Hey everyone,

After making a video guide about the Order, Wilde, Arcane, Decay, Pyre, Horde and Enclave factions, th_pion made a second one to explain how the other factions work!

Check it out and learn more about Lament, Tide, Earthen, Pillar and Delirium factions:

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/mhUHXjEZo4U[/previewyoutube]

And in case you missed it, here's the 1st video guide:

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/R4J05Mq4HoY[/previewyoutube]

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Rogue Realms DLC announced![/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2007040/Heros_Hour__Rogue_Realms/

Between the empires, lands of the rogue lay dormant, anticipating their chance to rise and become one of the next empires. Rogue Realms is a major expansion to Hero’s Hour, focusing on the wilderness and untamed lands - and the strange creatures, cults and societies that live there.

[h3]Features[/h3]

  • The new Rogue faction, incl. 12 different Rogue towns
  • 50+ new units
  • 25+ new heroes
  • 25+ new skills
  • More variation in buildings for old factions
  • New adventure map objects
  • New spells, artifacts and unit abilities
WISHLIST NOW


V2.2.3 Patchnote

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS[/h3]
optimisations to battles with large numbers of units - there should be ~15% less FPS drop
Oligarchy now has a less severe reduction in fieldable army size, especially noticeable for higher ranks

[h3]BUG FIXES[/h3]
fixed a bug relating to War Clowns
fixed the Taunt ability not working correctly
fixed the Skirmishes screen showing wrong numbers
fixed a rare bug related to custom artifacts
fixed an issue with custom script with() function
fixed an issue with custom script unit_transform() function
fixed an issue with custom script unit_skin_pack() function
fixed a bug that made the AI not conquer Palaces
changed the description of the Graveyard vault to be more accurate
fixed a crash relating to using the soul beacon with sound turned off
fixed a bug making it so that tooltips for units during battle displayed outside of the screen for low resolution monitors
fixed a bug affecting the display of tooltips too far to the left of the screen in case their header width was larger than their text width and their original placement would put them above the top of the screen
fixed a crash relating to using mods that added artifacts in non-English
fixed a crash relating to using mods that added artifact sets in non-English
Delirium will no longer always take part in the main menu background battle
heroes can no longer have negative movement
fixed a crash related to bloodwarping and modded neutral humanoid units
fixed a bug that made games started from custom tilemaps not able to save
Rain of Frogs and Frog Torrent spells now create 20% more frogs
fixed a crash bug relating to feared units during naval battle
fixed a camera glitch during naval battles related to unit ability Insensate
units that fall into water now lose immunity and insensate immunity
fixed a bug that caused dead heroes using unit skins to turn invisible
fixed a bug that made using Devour during Week of Invasion give +5 attack
fixed some bugs relating to combat camera in cases where few permanent units are in battle
minor optimisation of combat speed by changing how the combat camera operates
fixed an unknown save corruption bug
fixed a graphical only bug in the options menu in main screen if text is on screen
fixed a bug that allowed you to create units for free at monuments
fixed an issue with the lexicon becoming unaligned after clicking to display a mercenary hero skill tree
fixed AI heroes leaving a boat on land when using town portal to defend their town
fixed unavailable spells being part of the lexicon spellbook and blocking the achievement for collecting 95% of spells

[h3]MODDING[/h3]
neutral modded heroes can now be selected from the hero selection screen
modded faction town build grids now use a seed based on the name of the faction instead of based on load order
modded faction town build grid's seed can now be changed using a number in Seed.txt file in the faction folder
custom projectiles can now be set to fly straight if they have straight as part of their name
faction mods can now put their unit files into a subfolder named Units and hero files into a subfolder named Heroes
neutral heroes which use heroclasses from factions now more accurately work like normal faction heroes
the following new custom scripting functions are added:
- string()
- other()
- saving()
- init()
- variable_exists()
large amounts of neutral modded units now display better in custom skirmishes

v2.2.1 Patchnote

Hello everyone! We pushed a patch following yesterday's update. Here's the list of what's been done! :

[h3]v2.2.1 changes :[/h3]

  • Fixed music quality of several tracks
  • Fixed a bug related to how the AI hired units, which confused which dwellings were built
  • Fixed a bug that disallowed AI to recruit the alternate units
  • Adjusted the number of units given to high level roaming heroes to be less absurd
  • Fixed a bug related to Hardcore difficulty and end-of-week effects
  • Fixed Shadowcasting and Shadowcloning being switched
  • Fixed a bug related to using custom artifact effects
  • Fixed a bit of English in the translated description of some special weeks
  • Improved performance (slightly) for people who play without sounds
  • Allowed for custom spells to change the effective spellpower of its effects
  • Fixed a bug that made Tainted mines draw twice and on top of the floating crystal