Those Who Rule News

Hey everyone!

As I posted on the roadmap, I've been working on a Brutal mode for fans who enjoy a really difficult challenge. I also wanted to make it a fun community event with a friendly competition, with an in-game prize immortalizing the winner. It's almost ready, and I'm ready to announce the start date:

June 7th, 10 AM PST (UTC−07:00)

• EXP gain reduced by 20%, scaling down sharply when overleveled, leading to no gains once 4+ levels over the average enemy on a map. Healers happens sooner at 2+.
  
• New powerful elite abilities meant to counter popular strategies. More bonus stats to elites. More elites throughout the game.
  
• Scaled up enemy stats, with extra scaling depending on the class' strengths. More enemies and reinforcements.
  
• AI behavior tweaked in almost every chapter to better act in groups.
  
• More loot provided through chapters.
  
• Permadeath always enabled.
  

1. The winner will be the first person to send me the save file of their completed Brutal mode run. Emailed to [email protected]. Winner is decided on first to hit my email inbox. I'll take a few days to process and verify all the entries.
   
2. This is not an ironman challenge, you may restart chapters as many times as you need.
   
3. You may still choose between random or fixed growths.
   
4. I've decided to not require a video recording of the entire playthrough, as I know this will make it too cumbersome on many people who'd like to attempt the challenge. Instead, I've added some protections against cheating, and detection for any tampering.
   
5. Hacking or save tampering of any kind will disqualify you.
   
6. Knowingly abusing a bug to gain an advantage will disqualify you. If you run into one on accident, please email me so I can patch it out instead.
   
7. If I don't receive any finished runs within 3 weeks, I may tone down the difficulty a bit.
   
8. In the off chance you run into any game breaking bugs/freezes, you may send me your save file and I'll try to fix it ASAP. I'm not aware of any currently in game.
   

• The first person to complete the game on Brutal mode difficulty will get to commission a custom in-game character that will appear in other Brutal mode play-throughs. We'll work together to create a mood-board we'll send to the character artist, as well as their stats/classes/personal skill. I will then work to get that character into the game on other Brutal mode play-throughs.
  
• The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will all get a special shout-out in the post-game credits.
  

We're also currently on an all-time high sale of 30% for the #TurnBasedThursday Fest, so now is the best time to pick up the game if you're wanting to prepare!

This new content will be completely free and optional. I hope it allows those of you who relish challenging content further enjoy the game.

Again, thank you everyone for your support thus far. I couldn't have asked for a better community around the game, and I'm truly humbled by the level of attention it's received. Hoping I can continue to deliver these kind of experiences to you all for many years to come!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Still working on Brutal mode but I've still been making fixes as they're being reported, so wanted to get a few of those out there for you all. This patch also includes some fixes for ultrawide users. There are still some UIs that have some rough scaling, but there shouldn't be anymore heads being cut off in dialogues!



Right now my tentative date for brutal mode is June 2nd to coincide with the upcoming TBT Fest on Steam, OR June 6 so that people can try and complete it over the weekend for the custom character prize (read more below). I may hold a poll in the Discord to vote for this, so join if you haven't already! Or just let me know which you prefer in the comments here.

• QoL: Hotkey re-mapping can now be done for some in-game actions in the settings UI.
  
• QoL: Dialogue UI now scales correctly on ultrawide screens. (Heads will no longer be cut off).
  
• QoL: "Shop" and "Storage" labels added to the shop UI.
  
• Fix: Updated movement when affected by ZoC to not allow you to move more than 1 tile, even with movement buffs. This is quite a large change for a lot of movement abilities, but will increase consistency across the board. Also fixes some weird interactions with AI and movement penalties.
  
• Fix: Blade surge on invalid targets no longer lets you move again.
  
• Fix: Fixed a bug with selecting saves on the Steam Deck when cloud sync was enabled.
  
• Fix: Dialogue text fixes.
  
• Fix: Tutorial clarity updates.
  

Also, I set up a developer page, so if you want any updates on potential future games, feel free to give a follow there! https://store.steampowered.com/developer/eldinT


For those of you who have been waiting patiently for a brutal mode, it's on it's way! Here is a sneak peak at some of the changes I've been working on. Don't hold me to any of these as they are still subject to change!

• New Elite abilities.
  
• Some existing Elite abilities modified for brutal mode.
  
• Elite enemies appearing much earlier, and more frequently.
  
• Changes to group AI in some levels. e.g. attacking an enemy will trigger their allies to rush you.
  
• More enemies + reinforcements.
  
• Enemy lethality increased (Mainly STR + SKL). I won't be increasing defensive stats as much. I believe this way enemies will be better positioned to punish your mistakes without feeling like you're just hopelessly behind on stats.
  
• Slight EXP decrease, harsher EXP drop off when outleveling enemies.
  
• Cap on EXP grinding.
  

Sharing this to get any feedback you all may have! Let me know what you like/don't like, or things you'd want to see. The reward for the first person to beat the game on the new Brutal difficulty will be to create a new character that will appear in other brutal mode playthroughs!

Hope you're all having a great week, and as always, appreciate the support you've shown to me and the game. Almost at 500 reviews, absolutely insane, and can't thank you all enough!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Cloud saves are now officially supported for Those Who Rule!

• QoL: Cloud saves will now sync when you open or close the game.
  
• QoL: Added "(still needs to do damage)" to Elias' personal ability description for better clarity.
  
• Fix: Brutal achievement no longer accomplished on cutscene battles.
  
• Fix: Fixed issue with "Skill Issue" achievement triggering on enemies that couldn't counter attack.
  
• Fix: Making edits to some newly joined units wouldn't persist into battle preparation if you didn't save in base.
  

I tried a couple of implementations, but I ultimately went with Steam's "auto-sync" cloud saves. How it works is very simple:

• When you close the game, it will push all save files up to the cloud if they are newer/more recently edited than what's on the cloud.
  
• When you open the game, it will pull all save files from the cloud, overwriting any local files that are out of date with what's in the cloud.
  
• NOTE: If you have save files in the same slot over multiple systems, Steam will only store 1 of each save slot. If you don't want them to override each other (whichever is the latest), you will need to disable Cloud Saves.
  

By default it is enabled for everyone. Here is a great resource from Steam if you have any questions, as well as how to disable it if it's not a feature you need: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/68D2-35AB-09A9-7678


Your save files will still be in the same location locally. If you ever want to pull down your cloud saves you can do so here: https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage


Hope this allows more enjoyment of the game for those of you who switch between computers or Steam Deck! Let me know how it is working for you.

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Some exciting news, we have officially been given the green stamp of approval from Valve: Those Who Rule is Steam Deck Verified!

Along with this exciting news, this patch will introduce 30 achievements in the game ranging from engaging with game mechanics, to some seriously difficult side objective challenges. They are as follows:

• A Grave Mistake*: Defeat all enemies in the prologue.
  
• The Journey Begins: Level up a unit.
  
• A Painful Lesson: An enemy has backstabbed your unit.
  
• Insult To Injury: Defeat an enemy with a Shield Bash.
  
• How Do You Do, Fellow Smiths?: Add a refinement to a weapon.
  
• On Second Thought...: Remove a refinement from a weapon.
  
• A Cut Above: Promote to an Advanced class.
  
• Elkcellent: Defeat two or more enemies in one round of combat with the Elk Effigy equipped.
  
• Country Roads: Refresh your turn with Mountain Boots.
  
• Better Together: Heal 15+ HP with Ethal's Idol in a single turn.
  
• Just For Show: Gain 10 stacks of Wolf Effigy.
  
• Bonk: A player unit took a hit for 0 damage.
  
• Skill Issue: Dodge an attack from an enemy that has a 0% chance to hit.
  
• Forged in Battle: Promote to an Exalted class.
  
• Brutal: Hit an enemy for 40+ damage in a single attack.
  
• Frenzy: Attack an enemy 3 times in a single round of combat.
  
• Bloodletting: Finish off an enemy with the damage from the bleed effect.
  
• Expert: Hit SS rank with any weapon type.
  
• Thank YOU*: Complete the game on any difficulty.
  
• Ranger General*: Complete the game on Veteran difficulty with Permadeath enabled.
  
• Hunter: Refresh a charge of the javelin throw ability by defeating an enemy with it.
  
• Stolen Goods*: Complete chapter 3 while having defeated both pirates before they escape.
• You Weren't Supposed to Hear That...*: Complete chapter 6 while having defeated both elite enemies.
• Hero*: Complete chapter 6 while having saved all militia.
• Not According to Script*: Complete chapter 8 or 9 while having defeated Rickard.
• Turning the Tide*: Complete chapter 10 while having opened all chests.
• Scorched Earth*: Complete chapter 13 while having burned all 7 supplies.
• The Best Defense...*: Complete chapter 15 while having opened all chests.
• What Do You Stand For?*: Make a decision in chapter 19.
• Goodbye, Friend*: Defeat the defector in chapter 20.

Achievements marked with an "*" will be "retro-active" meaning if you already completed the game, if you load up the credits, the game will trawl through your save file to check if you've completed these, so you don't have to go back and do them over again.

Also some quick bug fixes for this patch.

• Fix: ZoC ignoring effects (Hidden, Rat Effigy) now work correctly with the Agile Ability.
  
• Fix: Inputs now disabled during promotion so you cannot double promote.
  
• Fix: Can now open unit info on torch enemies in chapter 6. Torches properly applying burn in all cases now.
  

I hope these achievements push the experience to the next level for some of you, as well as provide some replayability to those who've already enjoyed the game. I tried to make as many retro-active as I could, for 12 total. Some are triggered by certain gameplay events, so those won't be retro-active. Next up I'll be looking into a potential cloud save implementation, then on to Brutal difficulty!

The current plan is to announce the drop of the Brutal difficulty patch ahead of time. As a way of saying thank you to the community, the first person to complete it will be given a custom in game character that appears in other Brutal mode play-throughs. The game wouldn't be what it is today without you all, so thank you.
Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Quick small update. Was going to wait to release this with the achievements, but there really isn't a reason to delay it. Especially as it'll immensely improve the experience on Steam Deck.

• QoL: Controllers can now use the left stick to navigate the unit info and promotion UIs, allowing them to hover icons to read tooltips, and toggle stats/growths.
  
• Fix: Cleaned up some more unused assets.
  
• Fix: Show correct dialogue portraits for "Kicking the Habit" support conversation.
  

Achievements are going well so far! I have them all in the Steam backend, for 30 total. Now just need to integrate with the Steam APIs and trigger them from code.

Best,
Eldin T.