Update #7 - Developer-to-Player Communications, Melee Balance and Fixes

Hi everyone -

Hailing frequencies open! Our latest update allows me to respond to your feedback directly in-game and inform you when I've added new content. Plus more balance and bug fixes!

[h2]Developer-to-Player Messages[/h2]
While I've been making changes in request to player feedback every Monday for the past 7 weeks, I've noted that many players aren't aware of the changes. Our latest feature aims to address this by notifying you of new content in-game. When you load up the game, you'll now see a bouncing lore scroll at the title screen whenever you have a new pending message from us. If your game loads directly into an adventure, the message will open automatically. This will provide a direct link to the release notes so you can review the changes.

This new feature also allows me to send personal direct messages to players in response to feedback you've shared in-game. I've intentionally kept this feature simple (there's no inbox to manage, we're not an email client) - rather, your newest unread message will always display on top. You can reply to my message in game using the "Pencil" icon which will open the pre-existing "Share Feedback" tool that can also be accessed anytime in game via Settings (Esc) -> Share Feedback.

Reminder: The best way to report bugs is to use the Share Feedback tool in game, as this captures the game state so I can quickly reproduce your issue and solve it faster.

[h2]Here’s the full list of changes for this update:[/h2]
[h3]*This update is also applied to our free demo version.[/h3]

• New Feature: Developer-to-player communications
  
• Improvement: The game server will now detect when newer versions of the game client are available and notify the player if Steam hasn’t automatically updated the game to ensure players always have access to the latest version and bug fixes.
  
• New Card Design: Our Kill Bill inspired spell, Three Point Palm, has been redesigned to be much more effective and more fun. Originally, it caused a unit to die after a unit took three steps, but in practice, the AI would simply not move to avoid death. Now, it’s a really cool finisher move that deals 3 damage with Knockback (3) and inflicts Downfall: Deal 3 damage in 3x3 area. So, effectively, you get to kung-fu chop an enemy flying across the map ending in a fiery explosion if you time it right :)
  
• Balance: Albirich, Fighter Mage has been given Armor (2) and Block abilities to increase his melee prowess. To compensate, his max Life has been reduced from 25 to 20. (Thanks Sinister Design)
  
• Balance: Sibylla, Conjurer has been given the Lunge ability.
  
• Balance: Added the "Skeleton" type to Liche King. This means he’ll now be affected by buffs from Skeleton Captains, so watch out!
  
• Balance: Antarus, Battle Mage, can now use his knockback even more effectively thanks to Thomas Hirsch’s feedback. When placing an explosive spell, like a fireball or meteor, the knock back will now push from the center of the blast (rather than from the cast location) so you can blast enemies back towards the Battle Mage to score combos. Units in the center of the blast will be knocked away from the cast location, as with other damage spells.
  
• Fixed bug where the "M" key was no longer able to close the map (Thanks molji, none, mr.kitty)
  
• Fixed bug You can sometimes catch enemies/bandits hanging around the edge of the shadowy area. And kill them. (Thanks mr.kitty and noahbarker)
  
• Fixed bug where Orc Battlehorn was not adhering to its rules of +2/+2 on orcs and goblins and +1/+1 on other units (Thanks Marvin and mr.kitty)
  
• Fixed bug where Poison Cloud was not dealing the initial 2 damage to indicated on the card. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  
• Fixed bug where casting Savage Transformation while already transformed into a Bear would result in losing your Summoner’s casting abilities. (Thanks mr.kitty)
  
• Fixed bug with Spirit Recall where a guardian defeated at the end of battle by an enemy counter attack did not revive as indicated on the card. (Thanks noahbarker and nakama7777)
  
• Fixed bug where Spore Pods created with Death Blossoms spell remained on the board after battle and potentially blocked movement because they couldn’t be destroyed. They now despawn after battle and are destructible in explore mode like exploding barrels. (Thanks Cendre fer, Lyra'Louk, and Sinister Design)
  
• Fixed bug where Stone Ankh wouldn’t trigger correctly when used on a Summoner (Thanks Marvin, nakama7777)
  
• Fixed bug where Red Starling was double buffing units when used in conjunction with Pied Pipe (Thanks MaKo and Nat20s)
  
• Fixed bug where dungeon could potentially generate too few keys to open all the chests. The cause of this bug was that the enemy minion party carry the key was being truncated when the player retreated and approached from a different entrance to a corridor (as this changed the location and size of the valid spawn points). The fix corrects the spawn points so that enemies (including the one carrying the key) are no longer truncated.
  
• Fixed bug where the game might not gracefully recover from a bugged battle being unable to load after restarting the game and could potentially delete the player’s adventure save data
  
• Fixed bug where game would not respect the Steam language setting as the default starting language for the game on startup if the player had changed their language setting in game.
  
• Fixed bug where HM_GridModel/getGamePiece() threw exception during the call to repositionUnits() because the game grid was not yet available. The actual cause of this issue was that the arena was able to be populated in older version of the game after being defeated and returning to the arena, then retreating and being captured again.
  
• Fixed bug where attempting to recover from a bugged battle resulted in the invalidActionPrompt being unable to formatText due to activePlayer being null.
  
• Fixed bug where retreating from Bandit encounter and then returning would not reposition the bandits relative to the player’s new starting location.
  
• Fixed bug where viewing an Elite's card after its been defeated shows the character without its equipment skin. (Thanks Wesley)
  
• Fixed bug where stacked Antoine's Tomes on Arch Mage would not recover more than 3 cards (Thanks mr.kitty and nightler)
  
• Fixed bug where replying "Got it" to the retreat tutorial prompt would make it so that a dice roll is required to retreat even though the initial retreat should be free (Thanks Wesley)
  
• Fixed bug where moving to a valid diagonal space with keyboard would fail when the space ahead of it would be blocked for diagonal movement.
  
• Fixed bug that would throw exception TypeError: Error #1009 at controller.controls::ExploreControls/setDestination2() when moving with the keyboard after destroying an object. Thanks fuyu.lee, Cherry, sgtjojoe, Science Stud and Sire Aymeri
  

[h2]Coming Next Week[/h2]
For next week's update, I'll be focusing on balance changes in response to your feedback and the Steam data we've shared here.

If you have any thoughts on game balance (card changes, encounter difficulty, elites vs. bosses, etc.) please join us in the following discussions:

1. Balancing Minion, Elite and Boss Encounters
2. OP and UP cards

I'd like to get changes implemented this week so I can shift gears and address more QoL issues (such as keyboard mapping and gamepad support) before the end of the month so I can put all focus towards new content going into September (per our roadmap goals).

[h2]Help us Grow Summoners Fate with your Steam Review[/h2]
Thank you to everyone who posted a Steam review last week! We're now just 2 reviews away from our goal of 100.

Reviews are very important for Early Access - they help us reach more players, grow our community and improve the game, so I very much appreciate your support in writing a Steam review for us :)

Join the Discussion:
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)

Thanks so much!

~Ross