Those Who Rule News

Hey everyone!

Spent the week learning more about Unity optimization, and how I can apply best practices to Those Who Rule. I think we've got some great improvements in this patch that should help everyone have a smoother experience, but especially those who are playing on less powerful hardware. The game is also currently 20% off!

• Optimization: Added a 30 FPS option. This will help extremely cut down on GPU usage for lower spec systems. NOTE: FPS is overwritten by enabling "vsync" so if you want to see the performance gains from reducing the frame rate, you need to disable "vsync" in settings.
  
• Optimization: Every 2D texture is now compressed, resulting in an average ~550 MB reduction in GPU VRAM usage in-game.
  
• Optimization: Compression of various assets has also reduced the download size down from 925 MB to 750 MB. Size in storage reduced from 4.1 GB to 3.4 GB.
  
• Optimization: Unity defaults to loading all audio clips to disk on startup. I have disabled this setting for background music, and am now streaming audio as needed. Basically loading/unloading a clip as it is used, saving ~1.2 GIGABYTES of memory as you play. The streaming method has a bit of overhead to "warm up" audio files so you don't notice a delay, but the memory savings will heavily offset any overhead costs.
  
• Optimization: Loading times across the board, but especially on startup, are now slashed due to not loading all audio assets at all times and smaller asset sizes.
  
• Fix: An issue with the Agile ability on controllers where it would sometimes leave the "focus" on the enemy unit, not allowing controllers to pick the Agile movement slots.
  

Hoping these changes allow more of you to play the game on less powerful machines. There is a lot of I've learned about proper optimization the past week. This has been an extremely useful exercise for my growth as a developer, and I'll be taking any learnings here and using them from the very beginning for any new titles.

The game still isn't perfectly optimized, and there were a lot of other changes I could have made, but ultimately decided not to for the stability of the game and getting to other roadmap items. Some changes would require large restructures of the way assets are loaded, which while a fun technical challenge, would likely cause an array of unforseen issues that I wouldn't be able to catch in my testing.

Thank you all for the continued support. Next up will be Achievements and Cloud Saves!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all enjoying the changes in the story patch. Nothing super new with this one, just wanted to push out fixes for issues people have reported the last few days.

• Fix: Hotkey inputs now working in promotion UI.
  
• Fix: Group Prayer now heals the caster as well, as shown in the preview. Description updated.
  
• Fix: Active abilities that could multi-hit no longer use up multiple charges.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where "Cannot have two of the same refinement." was showing up at innapropriate times.
  
• Fix: Fixed another refinement duplication that could happen when you unnassigned and re-assigned a refinement in a single action. I think the initial unnassign puts it in storage, and then when you re-assign it re-assigns from the "removed refinements" list but not the storage. Make it clean up the storage too.
  
• Fix: Added "1H" and "2H" to all the filter tooltips in the base menu.
  

Thank you all for the continued support, and such detailed feedback on any issues you might run into!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

I'm excited to announce the release of the largest content update to Those Who Rule yet!

• 2 new characters with unique abilities.
  
• 14 new unique, community driven weapons, items, and refinements.
  
• 7 new support conversations.
  
• 9 new elite enemy abilities, including unique ones for the three final bosses.
  
• Reworked item drops in the last quarter of the game to scale with enemy difficulty.
  

Two new characters that come with their own unique personal skills.

• Drunkard: Status effect duration on this unit is doubled. For each status effect, gain 2 STR and SPD, and 1 DEF.
  
• Ambush: When initiating combat without moving, gain 6 ATK and 30 HIT.
  

• Yew Bow: SS Rank Bow. Restore {0}% of this unit's health according to stacks on this weapon, consuming used stacks. Gain a stack every time you defeat an enemy with this weapon.
  
• Throwing Knives: Throw the knife at an enemy. Apply 20% bleed for 2 turns. Can multi-hit. (2 Range) (3 charges)
  
• Javelin: Throw the javelin at an enemy, dealing double weapon damage to staggered enemies or enemies without block. Refresh a charge on kill with this ability. (2-3 Range) (1 charge)
  
• Maul: SS Rank Battleaxe. Doubles weapon damage against armored units (Defenders and their promotions). If this strike defeats an armored enemy, fully restore the health of the lowest ally within 2 tiles (including self).
  Armor Bane.
  
• Parrying Dagger: Gain 3 ATK and 15 AVD when facing the enemy, and your block is full.
  
• Swordbreaker: Gain 10 AVD when facing the enemy, and your block is full. If you dodge an attack with full charge, stagger the enemy at the end of combat.
  
• Ethal's Kite Shield: Block regenerates according to the user's unused weight. Any regeneration over the shields block amount is restored as vitality.
  
• Weapon Training Manual: Doubles weapon EXP gain. Proficiency required to equip any weapon is reduced by 1 level.
  
• Coin Pouch: Store 100 denari each time you defeat an enemy with this item equipped. Store up to 5,000 denari total. Obtain all stored denari upon selling this item.
  
• Cloak: Gain 15 AVD.
  
• Shieldmaster's Gauntlets: Gain 2 DEF against frontal attacks with a shield equipped. Double shield regeneration.
  
• Featherweight Refinement: Gain 1 SPD for each unused carry weight.
  
• Drakkar's Bloodlust Refinement: Heal unit for 25% of the vitality damage they deal (rounded down). Reduce this weapon's damage by half.
  
• Counter Refinement: Gain 6 ATK, enemies always strike first.
  

And last but not least, some new elite abilities to spice up the late game. I tried to make abilities that will push some of the more popular strategies to their limits.

• Back From The Dead (UNIQUE): The first time this unit's vitality would reach 0 from an attack each chapter, end combat and gain 10 Fortify and 5 Frenzy for 2 turns and fully restore your vitality.
  
• Manipulator (UNIQUE): Takes no damage while there are allies within 2 tiles.
  
• Young Lion (UNIQUE): Gain 2 ATK/SPD/DEF, and 10 HIT for every enemy within 3 tiles.
  
• Sure Strike: Guaranteed to hit.
  
• Invincible: Take no damage from the first 2 rounds of combat each turn. (Multiple hits count as one round of combat).
  
• Martyr: On death, give allies within 3 tiles 4 Frenzy and Fortify for 2 turns. Deal 25% VIT damage to enemies within 3 tiles.
  
• Iron Marshal: Gives self and allies within 3 tiles 4 DEF.
  
• Shadowblade: Gain 50 AVD for the first 3 rounds of combat each turn. (Multiple hits count as one round of combat).
  
• Patient: Gain 1 STR and 5 HIT for each turn in the chapter.
  

I've also made some increases to denari income in the late game to compensate for the increase amount of elites in later chapters. I hope this patch can lift the final quarter of the game to be a similar challenge level to the chapters that precede it.

I knew early on I wanted to do something like this as a small way of saying THANK YOU to the amazing SRPG community on Steam. I know our genre isn't as popular as some, but I was blown away at the reception to Those Who Rule. To everyone who has played, reviewed, or even just followed the progress of the game, I couldn't do this without you. I hope you enjoy the additional content!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to push out a little bug fix/balance update as I am wrapping up the story patch. I'm expecting to get it released this Friday, April 4th.

(Example of one of my favorite new Elite Abilities: Martyr)

I'm done with all the elite abilities, characters, items, weapons, and refinements. All that's left is the additional support conversations, recruitment of the two new characters, and some additional side objectives in the last quarter of the game.

• Fix: Button clicks on bows in the action bar to function properly with auto ability select.
  
• Fix: Row highlights now cleared in shop and inventory when using a controller.
  
• Fix: Fixed an issue where the "cursor" was lingering on Steam Deck when using a controller.
  
• Fix: Small typo fixes in tooltips and dialogue.
  
• QoL: Total charges now shown on all abilities in the promotion UI.
  
• Balance: Longbowman "Arched Shot" can now multi-hit. HIT penalty per tile traveled reduced from 10->5. Charges reduced from 3->2.
  
• Balance: Chapter 13 spoiler. Increased Wesley from 19 to level 21 to better align with the average level of the chapter. Stats scaled accordingly. You will still pick his tier 3 promo on level up. Also his AGL/DEF wasn't scaled correctly, so those have been increased to better reflect his growths.
• Balance: Fated refinement no longer loses ATK on odd turns.
  

Also wanted to give an update to those of you who may be newer to following the game, this is what I have planned for the roadmap of the game, and what has been completed so far.

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. (Releasing April 4th) 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. (Releasing April 4th) 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 is done, hopefully a few more days of Steam Deck approval. Planning on achievements after the story patch!) Controller support, Steam Deck Verification, potentially Steam achievements here as well.
   
6. A pass through for more performance optimization.
   
7. 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.
   
8. Some level of mod support. Likely to do with a pre-built save file so you can edit character starting stats/growths/classes/inventory.
   

Thank you all who have taken the time to play the game and leave your feedback. Hopefully the new planned content will provide many more hours of enjoyment, and some fresh new play-throughs!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

With a gargantuan effort from @Sigismund's Wrath, we can finally announce the release of the official Wiki for Those Who Rule! https://thosewhorule.wiki.gg/



It will contain a ton of useful information for those of you who like to theory-craft, as well as useful information that can help answer questions like "how do I recruit X?", and "where can I get item Y?".

It's not fully filled out yet (Chapters, npcs), but we are opening it up as it has the majority of information that anyone would need in a play-through. We welcome any feedback/contributions you'd like to make! I'd love for this to be a community led page as much as possible, and I'm always happy to fill in any gaps that there might be. Let us know what else you'd like to see in the forums or the Discord!

Also wanted to push out these bug fixes as they are some of the last "big ones" that are affecting play-throughs. I think I've finally solved the dreaded "chapter skip" when spamming ENTER bug. If you ran into this, it means that you could spam the ENTER button faster than once every 16 milliseconds (60 FPS), pretty impressive! (Delayed input registration is a little more likely though)

• Fix: Button clicks on bows in the action bar to function properly with auto ability select when a unit has a weapon with a movement skill.
  
• Fix: Double input registration happening in the shop on Steam Deck fixed. This was also affecting being able to input settings.
  
• Fix: Final fix for skipping chapter when rapidly hitting ENTER. I have finally given up and just put a big fat "Wait" between when you can press "ENTER" to skip cut-scenes. There will now be a multiple second cooldown for when you can press the enter button. Functionally, this changes nothing for the player. But I've tried some cute fixes, and they didn't work. Time to embrace the caveman solution.
  

Other than that, I'm going to continue chugging along on the story patch this week. See you all on the other side. And as always, thank you all for your boundless support!

Best,
Eldin T.