Those Who Rule News

Hey everyone!

Decided to give you all a breather from bombarding you with updates now that the game was in a more stable place, and try and push out some larger changes that the community has been asking for. There's going to be a slew of changes with this patch, but the ones I'm most excited to get your opinions on are the changes to the Base Inventory UI.

This change patch is my first dive into implementing some more base QoL features that have been requested. Things like getting more money when selling upgraded weapons, being able to see which weapons have been forged at a glance, showing which weapons can be equipped and which can't due to weapon proficiency, auto-filtering by unit, mutli-filtering, sorting units based on level, the list goes on!

I've also fixed some of the more egregious balancing issues like certain units showing up under-leveled, and a certain class being a bit too powerful. Also starting giving love to some underplayed classes/units. None of this is set in stone, so please let me know your thoughts!

• QoL: Added ATK/HIT upgrade and Refinement icons to the storage UI controller so you can at a glance tell which weapons you've upgraded and where you've put certain refinements.
  
• QoL: On selling weapons, you will now also get back 50% of what you spent on upgrades, as well as 50% back any attached refinements. Just as you would if you removed and sold the refinement separately.
  
• QoL: Added a "Select Weapon" label to avoid early confusion in the forge.
  
• QoL: Show weapon ranks in unit inventory screen.
  
• QoL: Filters now stick after being selected. Clear on building the UI.
  
• QoL: Automatically select filters unit can use in base unit inventory.
  
• QoL: Grey out/make transparent weapons that are unequippable either due to rank or type.
  
• QoL: Units in the base/formation menu are now sorted based on level and if they were deployed in the last chapter, so your most used should always show up at the top (three main characters will always be on top).
  
• Fix: Fixed being able to equip refinements as normal items.
  
• Fix: Fixed duping refinements on some cases of saving/reloading.
  
• Fix: Skirmisher Agile ability extra movement no longer reset when selecting an allied unit.
  
• Fix: Bald Illyana when picking promotions after being a hunter. Helmet to non-helmet promotions losing head. eg. Crusader to Enlightened.
  
• Fix: Fourth attack showing in battle UI, but only 3 executing. 4 will now execute.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where poison was quartering healing, rather than halving.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where dialogue's weren't respecting completed side quests.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where Talon with Dove Effigy could be taken out of his animation state and would lock up on trying to heal a second time.
  
• Fix: The camera will now pan to the last selected unit at the end of cutscenes if one is waiting to choose their direction.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where if you continue after a certain unit in chapter 8 appears, he would be loaded incorrectly into the enemy array, making his recruitment event not fire.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where you couldn't navigate up or down characters after unequipping an item in the base unit inventory screen.
  
• Fix: Small text typos.
  
• Balance: Sentinel's now apply fortify to themselves as well as their target while using "Safeguard".
  
• Balance: Englightened's "Cartography" ability changed to only work while they are still able to act.
  
• Balance: Elias starting STR boosted by 1. Growth rate from 40%->50%.
  
• Balance: Reduced the scaling of cost in the forge section in relation to the items cost from 50%->100%->150% to 50%->75%->100%.
  
• Balance: (Chapter 7 Spoilers) Rho and Benjen now both start at level 11 with increased stats. You will still be able to pick their first class promotion on their first level up. You all mentioned that the two units that join in this level feel way too weak, and I agree, they start too far behind the rest. With the last change to allow for first promotions to happen past level 10, these two units will now still allow you to pick their first promo, but with an easier time getting them there. This should also help balance out having units a little too low level earlier on in the game. Now that the new units are up to par, I've reverted the change of chapter 7 being level 11 enemies, and put them back to being level 12. I'm still keeping the other nerfs to enemies in chapter 7 that were part of the previous patch.
  

Next up I'll continue fixing any bugs reported as always, and I have a few more things I want to try with the base menus such as a "Enter Shop" button when you're on a unit that filters the shop by what that unit can use. I'm also going to try and take a swing at a "Restart Battle" button. Anything that touches saves I always want to be extra careful with, so this may take a little longer than just next patch. After that I'll start on the story improvements I mentioned in the roadmap.

Also, we're at 60+ suggestions on the weapon/shield/item/refinement form! There are some amazing ideas in there already, but I want to see at least 100 before I organize it all for voting, so go put in your ideas to see them potentially come to life in game if you haven't already!

Form link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmjhQK2g-cEuCEqySanMlW8urCU0OgLDRoRUMnXc0hsN8ELw/viewform?usp=header

As always, thank you all who have supported the game so far, and also those of you who have left your feedback. These last two weeks have been amazing, and I'm really excited every morning that I get to wake up and work on making this game better for you all. Thank you for giving me that opportunity.

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Doing something a little different with this patch...


A lot of you have suggested some awesome ideas for weapons, shields, items, and refinements you'd like to see in game, well this is your chance to shine! I've put together a form to capture all your great ideas, and after a week or two, I'll compile them all into a list for community voting. The highest voted ideas for each category (weapon/shield/item/refinement) will be put into the game, along with an immortalizing "Forged by player123" in the description!

In anticipation for a lot of submissions, I'm going to be curating some submissions into the special categories of "Most Historically Accurate", "Most Unique", and "Most Cursed" (explained in the pinned thread) for easier voting, so keep these categories in mind for some of your submissions!

[h3]Pinned thread[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1822060/discussions/0/603021405018197022/

[h3]Direct link to the submission form[/h3]
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmjhQK2g-cEuCEqySanMlW8urCU0OgLDRoRUMnXc0hsN8ELw/viewform?usp=header

• Fix: Refinements are no longer duplicated on overwriting an existing one. NO FUN ALLOWED.
  
• Fix: Confirming a forge now refreshes the unit's abilities, meaning you should see correct stat values in the unit info UI.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where reloading the chapter from the main menu wouldn't properly reset new unit's item charges.
  
• Fix: Fixed Illyana's personal ability (Aptitude) to put it back to giving +1 ATK and +5 HIT for EVERY weapon proficiency at A rank or higher in EVERY battle (regardless of weapon used).
  
• Fix: Small change to how promotions are triggered, they will now trigger anytime the unit is above level the promotion level without having promoted yet. This may seem like an insignificant change, but it may allow me later down the line to introduce characters at a higher level, but still allow the player to choose their first/second promotion on next level up. This will also give a workaround to the issue a few of you have experienced where you character seems to skip their promotion. They will still promote on their next level!
  

Thanks for reading, and I'm excited to see what you all cook up!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey Everyone!

Let's jump right into the changes and roadmap for this update. Would love your feedback in the comments!

• Fix: Fixed an issue where every time you would save in the "battle prep/formation" menu, the elite bonuses on veteran would be applied again.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where going to main menu and then continuing mid-battle could cause recruited units to disappear (though they'd be back next chapter). This was happening because recruitment flags always check against the slot save, but it's now updated to look at the mid-battle save when you're using the "continue" button to continue from the middle of battle. If you ever recruited a character, hit "main menu", and hit "continue", and came back to a unit not being there, this is why.
  
• Fix: Chapter 13 giving a black screen when trying to load a "mid-battle" save if you try to load the save before hitting the top left cave.
  
• QoL: In chapter 13, a new defeat condition is now added (chapter 13 spoilers) when Wesley dies, so you can't continue playing the chapter when the win condition is impossible.
  

Next up I'm going to tackle a couple more of the little nefarious bugs that are hard to repo. Like when you're spam clicking through dialogue and the Dialogue UI starts behaving in glitchy ways, and potentially even locking player inputs. Or skipping a chapter (if anyone has steps on how to reproduce this, please share!). Or duplicating refinements (sorry I know a lot of you are having fun with this one).

Once I have the bugs down to mostly niche scenarios (though will still be prioritizing any you bring up!), below is a very rough outline of the roadmap I intend to follow.

1. Gameplay affecting bug fixes. This will always be priority #1.
   
2. A patch focused on base/storage/shop QoL improvements, as well as general QoL. Keep sharing what improvements you'd like to see!
   
3. A patch focused on expanding the story a little bit more. This will mainly involve more support conversations in the latter third of the game, and potentially a few side objectives, maaaybe even some new characters that were designed, but didn't make the original cut. I also want to slightly tweak the epilogue based on some more choices/side objectives, but this will require some work with the voice actor so may happen asynchronously.
   
4. A patch where I implement the most popular weapon/item suggestions from the community. Now that a lot of you have had time to get to know the game's mechanics, I know you have ideas for things you'd like to see in the game, well this will be your chance! Stay tuned for more news on this.
   
5. Controller support, Steam Deck Verification, potentially Steam achievements here as well.
   
6. Brutal difficulty. With the first person to record themselves beating it getting a custom illustrated in-game character that will show up in other brutal mode playthroughs.
   
7. Some level of mod support. Still mulling on what is feasible.
   

Would love to hear your thoughts on this roadmap and what you think should be tweaked.

As always, thank you all for the massive support you've shown the game. We hit 100 reviews with a "Very Positive" rating, and I couldn't be more thankful to this wonderful community for making it happen.

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey Everyone!

This patch aims to address the issue with chapter 4 crashing on integrated graphics cards (mainly laptops). The graphics settings are now available as "Standard, Low, and Very Low" with the main difference being "Low" and "Very Low" have had their texture sizes reduced to a quarter, and an eighth, respectively. If you have ever tried to load chapter 4 and the game has crashed or stalled on a black screen, please try moving the "Graphics Quality" down to "Low" or "Very Low" and hitting "Save". You shouldn't have to restart the game, but if you're still seeing the issue it could be worth doing a restart to make absolutely sure the settings take effect.



I haven't tested the entire game on these settings, but I wanted to make sure you could play the game first and foremost. I think this will be a large step towards unblocking some of you without dedicated graphics cards. I don't think the effect is too drastic either, here is one example:

• Feature: Introduced a graphics settings (Standard/Low/Very Low) to hopefully alleviate the issues some players with laptops were seeing like certain chapters crashing due to loading textures.
  
• Fix: Settings not loading/saving correctly if you've updated the screen edge sensitivity.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where unblockable reinforcements could be pushed out of the map by units standing on their spawn tile. If you saw a certain reinforcement in chapter 7 not being recruitable, this is why.
  
• Fix: If you made edits to your units in their joining chapter in the formation menu and saved, but not in base, the units would go back to default equipment upon restart. It now works correctly where saving in formation menu and restarting will still keep the edits you made showing up in base.
  
• Fix: Text fixes "resfresh" -> "refresh", mispelling of "Macrus", Bodyguard ability clarified in its description.
  
• Balance: Crusader now has 2 charges for their smite ability.
  

Also got some fixes for certain unit's being "pushed off the map" and not being able to be recruited. Another fix for an issue where default equipment would keep getting assigned to units on their first chapter in your squad (Mainly happened if you only saved in the formation menu and not base).

Also just a slight balancing change for now so the Crusade can keep up with Enlightened and Saint. Hope this helps make the class feel better.

If you were somebody who was experiencing chapter 4 crashing on your laptop, please confirm to me in email or the Steam forums if the new graphics settings has fixed the issue for you!!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

If you've been affected by any crashes when starting chapter 4, please read on, or skip to the bottom and read "Chapter 4 Crashes Troubleshooting" for some things we can try if this patch doesn't address the issue for you.

• Fix: Fixed an issue with (Chapter 10 spoilers)Hilda not showing up in chapter 11 after being talked to with Sven or Slyker in some scenarios.
  
• Fix: Level ups can no longer be skipped by clicking quickly at a specific point.
  
• Fix: Made a certain character that shows up in chapter 7 an unblockable reinforcement, so you won't lose him if you're standing on his tile.
  
• Fix: Group prayer description now correctly reflects that it doesn't heal the caster.
  
• Fix (first attempt): First fix attempt at solving the issue where chapter 4 is crashing on load for people with specific models of integrated graphics cards (found mostly in laptops). I've manually gone through the textures that appear only in chapter 4, and have disabled "mip-mapping", a form of optimization the UnityEngine does by default that doesn't really apply to the way I'm using the textures anyway. If this does not resolve the issue for particular graphics cards drivers, I will look to do a larger disabling of mip-mapping throughout the texture assets.
  

If you are seeing crashes as soon as you try to load chapter 4, the issue has to do with either the way UnityEngine maps textures not working with a certain brand of integrated graphics cards (again, usually found in laptops), or the loading of textures without enough graphic memory (which is more unlikely as there aren't many textures used in chapter 4). If you look at the player logs, you will see a lot of the following error (with the numbers changing):

d3d11: failed to create 2D texture id=2271 width=1024 height=1024 mips=11 dxgifmt=77 [D3D error was 8007000e]

In the meantime, if you're not able to progress past chapter 4, here are a couple steps you can take to see if it resolves the issue as recommended by Unity support (though it's a little generic):

1. Update GPU drivers.
   
2. Uninstall GeForce Experience.
   
3. Disable any app used to monitor framerate.
   
4. Full restart of you computer.
   

In the worst case scenario here's what we can do:

1. You can send me your save file and I can update it to chapter 5, along with all your character's levels up 2 levels.
   
2. I recorded the dialogue scenes for chapter 4 and posted an unlisted YouTube video here so you can still see what is happening in the story/base: https://youtu.be/yPQzBnIgBS0
   

This is a temporary workaround, and obviously not ideal since you'd be missing playing through the chapter, but it can get you unblocked for now while I try and get a hold of a laptop that can reproduce this issue. I would try loading chapter 4 one more time after you download patch v1.0.8 to see if the new texture changes fixed the issue for you.

Sorry to those of you that have run into this. Things specific to the hardware the game is played on is very difficult to anticipate, but I'll do my best to make it playable on all systems that I can. My hope is this patch can resolve the issue for some of you, so please let me know if you continue to hit a crash on Chapter 4!!

Best,
Eldin T.