ASKA News

[p]Hey Vikings,[/p][p]we're back with a new patch, hopefully this addresses a lot of the recent issues you've been encountering.[/p][p][/p][h3]Food Tier Adjustments[/h3][p]We've been getting consistent feedback and bug reports on the food tier system and we have made some profound adjustments.[/p][p]There was a mix of bugs and some system imbalances. What happened is that the conditions with which villagers checked their food satisfaction were too restrictive.[/p][p]On top of that, villagers would sometimes pick food based on other survival rules, which meant that a lot of opportunities for them to satisfy their food tier were missed. This is no longer the case.[/p][p] [/p][h3]New Food Tier Rules[/h3][p]· Villagers will always prefer to eat food from their tier;[/p][p]· Villagers will check every 2 days to see if they ate food from their tier;[/p][p]· This means that any time they eat food from their tier, a 2 day cooldown will trigger;[/p][p]· This cooldown will be reset every time they eat food from their tier;[/p][p]· This gives a lot of headway to build appropriate food stockpiles;[/p][p]· As long as a food type is produced, there should be no need to micromanage food or play with whitelist rules;[/p][p]· Overall villagers should seem happier and a lot of the food issues should go away;[/p][p]· Removed notification marker from villager food preference complain;[/p][p]· White Cheese has been moved to Tier III;[/p][p]· Forager Pies and Berry Pies have been moved to Tier III;[/p][p] Complain and Issue Overhaul[/p][p]· The food tier issues exposed some other issues with our Complain system;[/p][p]· Villagers will now only complain for critical issues, like not having the right tools, being homeless, dying of hunger etc;[/p][p]· All other smaller issues no long trigger the yellow exclamation mark above their head;[/p][p]· Basically villagers should now report only critical issues, reducing the pressure on the player;[/p][p]· Workers only show complaint messages when they do not have anything else to do;[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h3]Improvements and adjustments[/h3][p]· Increased Jotun Blood drop rates for all Draugr types;[/p][p]· AI Pathfinding improvements and optimizations. We continue to solve issues where villagers get stuck, we've already eliminated some nasty cases so you should see fewer and fewer stuck villagers;[/p][p]· Added Cheese Buffs, affecting base stats like STR, DEX, etc;[/p][p]· Re-added Leather Scraps Gloves;[/p][p]· Stews pack more food and cook faster;[/p][p]· Villagers food preferences system adjustments;[/p][p][/p][h3]Fixes[/h3][p]· Fixed a bug causing the Villager Menu UI to freeze when using Japanese, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese Language;[/p][p]· Fixed Armorsmith not receiving defencepoints from being inside the settlement walls;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing the Firekeeping task from Builder's Hut to not save and load correctly;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing the Task UI to not update correctly for clients after assigning or dismissing a villager from the workstation;[/p][p]· Fixed an issue where the road edges would destroy patches of terrain, previously painted with the Roadmaker and Path Planner tools; [/p][p]· Fixed tasks not appearing correctly for joined clients;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing cheese to spoil on the Cheesemaker Aging rack.[/p][p]
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[h3]Hey Vikings, [/h3][p]we're back with a patch to address some balancing issues and some of the bug fixes that didn't make it in yesterday's major update. Thank you again for all the feedback and bug reports![/p][p][/p][h2]Changelog[/h2][p]· Hair and skin are no longer visible on armor racks;[/p][p]· Fixed armor racks inside houses not working;[/p][p]· Villagers milk the Smolkrs immediately upon them generating a single smilk resource;[/p][p]· Fixed remote players potentially getting stuck in loading screen if they previously saved close to the sea;[/p][p]· Fixed Chieftain's House colliders;[/p][p]· Fixed villagers potentially getting stuck in the reforested areas;[/p][p]· Fixed warehouse quantities not working for number bigger than 255 on remote players;[/p][p]· Reduced the food consumption rate of tamed Smolkrs;[/p][p]· Smolkrs produce more smilk;[/p][p]· Fixed patrol button;[/p][p]· Pies are now Tier IV, Soups are Tier II and all Cooked Meat, Cooked Fish Meat, Cooked Vegetables and Cooked Fruit are now Tier I; Villagers will now only eat raw ingredients when absolutely no cooked food exist. [/p][p]·Increased egg drop rate from bird nests from 0.3 chance to 1.[/p][p][/p][p]Note: Villagers will not starve if their preferred food isn't available.[/p]

[p]This update brings a rich mix of new features, reworks, and much-needed improvements to level up your village life and gameplay in ASKA!
[/p][p][/p][p]Smolkrs are no longer just your curious forest pals (or aggressive little demons), now you can raise them in the brand-new Smolkr Pen! Even better? You can smilk them for fresh smilk and turn that into delicious aged cheese with the shiny new Cheesemaker. It's weird, it's wonderful, and yes, it’s totally worth it!

[/p][p]The Happiness System has gotten a full makeover, making your villagers’ moods more dynamic and meaningful. A happier village means a stronger, more resilient one. Meanwhile, hunters have gotten smarter (and a little bolder), so keep an eye out for new risks when sending them out.
[/p][p][/p][p]Need a new look? Suit up with two brand-new armor sets in the form of Huskarl Armor set and Plate Armor set. One stronger than the other. We’ve also packed in a bunch of UI upgrades, performance boosts, and bug fixes to make everything feel smoother, faster, and more immersive.[/p][p][/p][h2]
New Features and Content[/h2][h3]
New building: Smolkr Pen[/h3][p]· Allows players to capture and tame smolkrs;[/p][p]· Smolkrs produce smilk (smolkr milk);[/p][p]· Smolkrs need to be fed by a player or villager;[/p][p]· If both a female and a male smolkr are present in the pen, a baby smolkr will spawn after a while;[/p][p]· Players can set slaughter rules; Villagers will slaughter any smolkr that exceeds the set population limit;[/p][p]· Slaughtered smolkrs give meat and leather scraps;[/p][h3]
New Building: Cheesemaker[/h3][p]· Allows the production of cheese using smilk from the new Smolkr Pen[/p][p]· Players and Villagers must first produce Unripe Cheese using smilk and other ingredients[/p][p]· Unripe Cheese needs to be left to age on the Cheesmaker's shelves to make it suitable for eating.[/p][h3]
Happiness System Overhaul[/h3][p]· Villagers now have a tier based on their top proficiency.[/p][p]· Tiers have also been assigned to food items;[/p][p]· Higher tier villagers require higher tier food;[/p][p]· Houses now feature a new attribute, "area desireability";[/p][p]· Housing points now refers to interior factors, like furniture;[/p][p]· Area desirability refers to exterior factors, like unpleasant production buildings in the house's range;[/p][p]· Both housing points and area desirability affect villager happiness;[/p][h3]
Hunter rework[/h3][p]· The hunter buildings now come with a new task that allows for choice and prioritization;[/p][p]of the prey the hunters will look for;[/p][p]· The hunters will now hunt all the creatures of the first mentioned prey type within all relevant marker ranges, before going to the next one, and so on, skipping the ones that are not marked by the player nor the ones they feel they can't fight yet;[/p][p]· The Hunter House allows the hunters to go for wolves & bears in addition to the usual deer & smolkrs;[/p][p]· The hunters going after dangerous prey will ask players for better equipment and will be reluctant unless sufficiently trained to undertake such a task; [/p][p][/p][h3]New Armor Sets: Huskarl and Plate armor [/h3][p]·  The Huskarl set is better than the chainmail set and the Plate armor set is better than the Huskarl set[/p][p]·  The Huskarl set includes helmet, chest, pants, gloves, boots[/p][p]·  The Plate set: chest, pants, gloves (completes the existing heavy metal shoulders and helmets)[/p][p]·  The current armor progression: linen gambeson, leather gambeson, chainmail, huskarl, plate[/p][h3]
UI Improvements[/h3][p]· Villagers UI List performance optimizations in Workstation Menu;[/p][p]· Improved Gamepad scroll behavior in UI lists;[/p][p]· Added option to open villager menu from assign page on Gamepad;[/p][p]· Simplified the UI for fire priorities task;[/p][p]· The Bear Den can now be discovered and viewed on maps;[/p][p]· Visual overhaul of icon rendering, making them much more readable and crisp;[/p][h3]
Optimizations[/h3][p]· Optimizations for world generation and streaming;[/p][p]· Optimizations for world data saving and loading;[/p][p]· Players should experience improved performance from these changes;[/p][h3]
Squashing Those Bugs[/h3][p]· Fixed a bug causing task quantities to not actually change if edited using the input field;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing the crawler boss to never spawn again after quitting the game during his encounter without killing him;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug that would break the UI when opening and closing the Tinkerer Table from Workshop's menu;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing outpost selection dropdown to not work correctly in some cases;[/p][p]· Fixed a bug causing the settlement resources tab to no longer show any resources;[/p][p]· Fixed an issue with world map tiles being displayed incorrectly around islands;[/p][p]· Fixed an issue with world navigation being reconstructed after loading a saved game;[/p][p]· Fixed a streaming issue for multiplayer clients loading into dynamic spawning points (boats, etc);[/p][p]· Fixed a game loading issue for multiplayer clients getting stuck in the "Preparing world" stage;[/p][p]· Fixed an issue where villagers would get stuck behind cave walls and dying from exposure or hunger/thirst. [/p][p][/p][h3]ASKA is currently 40% off on Steam right now and until 10 July! [/h3][h3][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/h3]

[p]Are you ready for tomorrow's update Vikings? Check out the dev diary to find out more about what is coming to ASKA! 👇
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[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]ASKA 1 year anniversary![/h3][p]
Vikings, it’s hard to believe, but it’s been officially ONE YEAR since we released ASKA in Steam Early Access! It continues to be one of our greatest adventures and endeavours as of yet! It’s been a very exciting year and jumping from update to update sometimes makes the past blend into a wonderfully hectic and colorful blur, so we’re taking a step back to look at all the things we’ve managed to achieve in this one year of early access. [/p][p][/p][h3]40% Discount![/h3][p]And to top it off, we’re lopping off 40% of the game’s price, making it THE best time to jump in the game, either alone or with friends. Let’s dive in the past!
[/p][h3]6 major updates[/h3][p]We’ve managed to deliver 6 chunky content updates, making the current version of ASKA quite a different beast from the initial release of the game. [/p][p]
[/p][h3]Update 1 - August 2024: Custom Game Mode and more![/h3][p]The first major update saw the addition of the Custom Game mode, during a time when the game was getting a bit of negative feedback for the base mode being too harsh, one of the most common requests being the addition of a “peaceful mode”. With the Custom Game we allowed the gentler vikings to take it easy and enjoy building and crafting at their own leisure without fear of Revenant attacks. Or, on the contrary, those who needed more of a challenge now had the option to crank up the enemy headcount and biome scarcity. [/p][p]Among other additions, the Outhouse (“RAAAAGH-OOOF”) brought some relief to both Vikings and farms, the Beauty Pit allowed players to customize their character mid-session, the Metal Parts Collector made Villagers take better care of their scrap iron and the Spiky Walls made life a living hell for marauding Smolkrs and Skellies.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Update 2 - October: Farmers and Fighters[/h3][p]This important update brought a much needed feature to the farming system - the ability to schedule crops, allowing for automatic crop rotation. Hard to believe there was farming before this, right? Another much needed addition was the Militia system and the horn, which overhauled village defense and added another layer of depth to how fighters work.[/p][p]We also shed light on the Caves, adding the ability to place torches and we made the crawler dens defeatable, and we also added the Steam Cloud Save system![/p][p]
[/p][h3]Update 3 - November: Dedicated Servers Update[/h3][p]November brought on one of the most requested features: Dedicated Servers and in-game chat. The world also changed forever as part of this update were also the new terraforming tools: the Roadplanner and Pathmaker, making ramps and automated road building a reality. Archers also got better and the game received some very important visual facelifts, with new shaders, reworked materials and improved lighting.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Yule Update - December 2024[/h3][p]A festive gift[/p][p]we had in store[/p][p]For all you Vikings[/p][p]Who cried “More!”[/p][p][/p][p]December brought in the Yule tree and decorations, as well as a HOST of other improvements for things like the Bloomery, patrol routes and some warehouse wars.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Update 4 - February: Trees Regrow![/h3][p]This has been our all-time most well received update and made trees an infinite resource with the addition of the Forester. Our metrics so far indicate that you considered this to be the most exciting of all updates. Besides trees, we’ve also added the Explosive Sacks, making iron renewable, virtually making all the resources in the game infinite. Caves were also caught in the spotlight and received a much needed rework.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Steam Deck Update - March[/h3][p]Hard work was also done to make ASKA run smoothly on the Steam Deck marshalling the dawn of a new kind of player: the COUCH VIKING. ASKA would no longer be restricted to the cumbersome desktop, but would learn to travel by plane, boat, bus and train.[/p][p][/p][h3]Update 5 - March: Lakes and Outposts[/h3][p]Also in March we finished work on the brand new outpost system, which allowed players for the first time to set up decentralized sub-settlements, adding a whole new layer of management to the entire villager system. Lakes were also added, marking the first time we’ve added a major new biome to the game after the EA release. Besides this, we’ve also added a whole new array of thatch buildings and PIES made their first appearance[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Update 6 - May: Tinkerers and Armorers[/h3][p]Our most recent update at the time of writing, this update allowed vikings to research new weapons using ancient looted weapons, the armorsmith was added, and probably most importantly: bombs now gained the ability to remove the dreaded unremovable rocks! As usual, a nice assortment of new buildings also graced the Build Menu, like the Lookout, the Proud Chieftain’s House. Also, last but not least, the party system was implemented.[/p][p][/p][p]Beyond the major updates, we’ve also delivered tens of patches and hotfixes and we’ll continue to do so - we’ve only just begun![/p][p][/p][h3]Our Wonderful Community[/h3][p] But by far our greatest achievement was being lucky enough to gather such a wonderful, friendly and helpful community around the game. Every developer has their concerns when it comes to how a community might evolve, but ASKA has been blessed with one of the nicest playerbases we have ever encountered as gamers ourselves. Your trust, feedback and bug reports are what made ASKA grow and we hope you realize that you’ve managed to help this tight indie team power through one of their most daunting projects ever. In a world where a lot of things can go wrong it seems A LOT of things went GOOD for ASKA, and it’s you, our alpha, beta and early access players we’re thankful for making this happen.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]What’s next?[/h3][p]We’re almost done with our next update, so expect good news really soon[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Our Community team[/h3][p]We would also like to thank our former community manager Paige for all the wonderful work she’s done for ASKA before passing the torch unto Aleksandar, our brand new shiny community manager! We’ve been fortunate to work alongside some wonderful people from Thunderful Games and this last year of development has been nothing short of spectacular.[/p][p]
An endless round of applause also goes to our faithful Discord mods: Alvoro, Hydra, Khaos, Marvin Redsock, Remize and ZapZockt, without whom we couldn’t have done anything! We’re also thankful to our Viking Veterans who have been with us since the very first versions of the game AND some of whom have been with us since our older days back during BOSSGARD’s development.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Dev Stream Today: Playing old ASKA Builds![/h3][p]We’ll be streaming today to celebrate the anniversary, and we thought it would be really cool to turn back the clock and play some VERY old ASKA builds, just to remind ourselves of the long road which is ASKA’s development. [/p][p]Tune in on our Twitch channel at 19:30 CET: [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]
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