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Early Access Update 1.1

Dear Kings and Queens,
We just rolled out the first regular Update for Thronefall. Here is a quick summary of what changed:


Key Rebinding: This has been requested a lot and should obviously be part of every decent game. It is now possible to set up your own control configurations. By default everything should work like it used to, but due to technical reasons you might have to rebind movement to the W A S D keys if you were used to it. This is because there’s only one slot to bind per action per input device and the default binding for movement is the arrow keys. On the upside a lot more controllers should be supported now.

Upcoming Night Preview: Another much requested feature. The pause menu now displays a summary of the enemies attacking during the next night in the pause menu. There you can read a quick description for each of those enemies and see how many nights you’re away from your next victory. This should help a lot in making the right preparations.

More specific tooltips for Perks and Mutators: Many of you were understandably annoyed by the lack of information in some of the tooltips in the perk selection. You’ll find specific numbers and percantages, instead of some vague “does much more damage” blabla there now. We know that some other places in the game could very much use the same treatment as well. We'll see what we can do! ;)

Balancing Changes: Based on your feedback we tweaked many of Thronefall’s endless balancing parameters. The new version should play more intuitively and increase the overall fairness of the game. You’ll find a comprehensive list of all changes at the end of this post :)

That’s it for this update – now we’re off to work on new gameplay content. We’re excited to share the next level and maybe even a little surprise with you soon. Thank you all for being such an amazing community, thank you for providing us with tons of useful feedback. It made working on this update a joy.

All the best
Jonas & Paul


Here are the balancing changes in full detail:

[h2]GAME BALANCE
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As you can see we do not want to be shy about making necessary balance adjustments in this early phase of early access. We greatly value all the feedback you’ve provided us with and tried to reflect it as best as we could in the following changes.

[h3]YOUR UNITS:
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- Your units will only start chasing after enemies once they arrive at the position you sent them to. That means your units will obey your orders much more strictly and not get distracted on the way when you send them somewhere.

- Your melee units have a small agro range in hold position mode now so they will no longer watch their comrades being slaughtered right next to them in hold position.

- Units on hold position lose their hold position state when they die and respawn
This is to prevent some exploits and unwanted behaviors

Hunters:
- Prioritize attacking monsters when different enemy types are in range
- Arrow range increased by +40% when attacking monsters
Hunters, while strong in certain situations, were not the most exciting unit to build. This should help you make much better use of their strengths.

[h3]ENEMY UNITS:
[/h3]

Elite Crossbowmen:
- Instead of attacking immediately when you enter their range they will foreshadow their attack with a red line giving you some time to react.
Some of you complained that the elite crossbows were too strong and frustrating to play against. While the difficulty is not something we want to change (it has to get more difficult somehow), we agree that they need more counter-play so they are more fun to play against, which should be the case now.
- Attack speed increased by 20%. Elite crossbows lost a lot of dps (damage per second) to the change above. This adjustment brings their dps roughly back to the old level. That being said, if you micro well, they will barely deal any damage to you and your troops now.
Extra note: Towers are generally a good counter to elite crossbows as well.

[h3]WEAPONS:
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Long Bow:
- Renamed to "Bow & Dagger"
Better reflects the character of this weapon as it is both ranged as well as melee.
- the stab automatically prioritizes lower health units and stab range increased by 20%
This is the first weapon you play with so the main purpose of this weapon is to be beginner friendly, not powerful beyond belief. That being said, we want to allow for some more expression of skill and reward making good use of the stab mechanic. With these changes, skilled players should be able to get quite a bit more out of this weapon making it a more viable pick for them.

Spear:
- Damage reduced by -5%. Damage against fast enemies increased by +5% (so unchanged). The spear was a bit too strong as an all round weapon. Enemies without the "fast" tag will take one or two more hits to kill now.

Sword:
- Auto attack damage increased by +5%, manual attack damage increased by +10%
Not that it really needed the power increase at a higher skill level, but this should make the weapon a bit more fun to use and learn for more casual players as well.

[h3]LEVELS:
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Durststein:
- Added some additional enemies coming in from the right (where the mills are) in some waves. Protecting the mills was a bit too easy on Durststein. This also makes the level a bit more difficult (which should hopefully be fine considering it felt like the easiest level for a lot of you and also considering all of the other buffs in this patch).
- Final wave has some extra ogres coming from the front in the end
This wave could at times feel a little anticlimactic as all of the enemies are trickling in a bit. This should help with that.

[h3]META PROGRESSION:
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- Required XP for leveling up reduced across the board by roughly -30% (varying depending on the specific level a bit)
- Some mutators give a bigger score and XP boost as well now.
So far only 10% of players reached the maximum meta progression level unlocking all available perks. On top of that, some people have complained about the meta progression feeling a bit grindy. That was not our intent. In Thronefall the main purpose of the meta progression is to reduce decision paralysis and complexity for new players. Looking at the numbers and the feedback we received from you, we're happy to speed up this leveling process.

- "Warrior Mode" and "Commander Mode" perk are moved to an earlier point in the meta progression. We received feedback that perks do not feel impactful enough. This feedback usually comes from newer players who feel a bit underwhelmed with the perks they unlock early on so we want to move some of the higher impact perks to an earlier point in the meta progression. Please note: This means the perks you have already unlocked might change a bit as a result of this adjustment.

- Castle center upgrades reordered in the meta progression
Due to the castle center upgrades being rearranged in game we had to do the same in the meta progression. Please note: This means you might have different upgrades at your disposal now compared to before this patch.

[h3]CASTLE CENTER UPGRADES:
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Assassin's Training:
- The old effect of this upgrade is completely scrapped scrapped. New effect: Doubles the cooldown of your auto-attack but it increases your attack damage by +250%. The main idea of this upgrade was to reward you for skillful play in combat. The previous effect of this upgrade was a bit too confusing and not as interesting as we hoped so we feel like this might be a simpler and more elegant solution to achieve the same thing but better.

Commander Mode:
- Instead of the healing aura this upgrade now allows your units to attack while you command them. This upgrade was intended to be for those who enjoy micro-managing their units and should allow for some expression of skill in that regard. We felt like any "punishments" for moving your units should definitely be removed from this upgrade path. In our opinion this upgrade path makes a lot more sense now and the advantage you gain from this is equal or greater than the healing aura for sure.

Upgrade Order:
- The Godly Curse and Magic Armor switched places in the castle center upgrade choices. That means Magic Armor can now be selected as a lvl 2 upgrade and Godly Curse is a castle center lvl 3 upgrade. There were two offensive upgrades in the lvl2 choices of the castle center that had too much overlap with each other (Godly Curse and Assassins Training both increase your damage in slightly different ways). Rearranging the upgrades like this resolves this problem and makes both the lvl 2 as well as the lvl 3 choice a bit more interesting.

[h3]BUILDINGS:
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Towers:
- "Iron Plates" tower renamed to "Fortress Tower"
- Fortress towers still have the same insane amount of health but they can now shoot two arrows at once. (That means an incredible +100% extra damage output.) Hot oil and ballista towers are extremely powerful so this one better be powerful, too, to keep up. This makes the fortress tower a better all round option for your front line. (It was definitely way too weak considering its price before.)
- Healing orbs from healing towers travel 50% faster. Healing towers are likely never gonna be something you will clutter all over the place, but a healing tower here and there can still be nice for long waves. Faster travel speed for the healing projectiles means you and your units are more likely to survive in battle (the amount healed is already quite good so let's keep that unchanged for now).

Mill:
- Explosive Mills deal +30% more explosion damage when destroyed (on every mill level).
- Scarecrow range increased by 20% and projectile speed increased by 20%
- Wind spirit range increased by 15%
The economic upgrade of the mill was still too attractive compared to the other options you can choose here. This should help a bit.

[h3]PERKS:
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Our goal for perks is to make each of them feel as impactful as possible. That's why this list is pretty much buffs only. Some perks did not feel all that useful, yet, so we want to make sure each perk has its place in at least some viable builds.

Royal Mint:
- On top of the passive income from the castle center this perk also gives a starting gold bonus of +1 now. This perk was already quite useful but we want to make perks feel as impactful as possible so let's help this one out a bit more. This should make it more useful for low-eco levels like Frostsee

Heavy Armor:
- Health boost increased from +300% to +350%. This was already a pretty good perk but it was not used as much (probably due to the fact that the exact numbers were not shown in game). Just to make sure, we gave it a bit of an extra bump to make it even more useful for your warrior builds.

Ring of Resurrection:
- On top of giving you a fast revive once per night, this perk now also revives all or your dead units with you. Let's be honest, this perk was utterly useless before this update. Now it should be quite powerful and provide a new strategic option to play around with.

Pumpkin Fields:
- The health increase for fields has improved from +400% to +900%. This perk needed just a little bit of extra help. Increasing the income of fields further would be too powerful so let's hope this does the trick.

God's Lotion:
- Your health regeneration is improved from +100% to +120%. We want to help this perk out a bit, but we also feel like it's quite good already, so only making a careful adjustment here for now.

Gladiator School:
- Your units respawn +75% faster (up from +50% faster). Units are very powerful in Thronefall so having a faster respawn rate is a massive advantage. This perk also makes all barracks more expensive, which is quite a huge downside, though. This power increase should hopefully warrant the extra costs!

War Horse:
- The cooldown between damage ticks is reduced by 15% making this perk 15% stronger. It is more of a niche perk but it is quite powerful in certain situations and in the right builds, so only making a careful adjustment.

Big Harbors:
- In addition to all of the other benefits (more health, 2 more boat capacity) fishing harbors spawn with one boat on the water. Especially niche perks like this should be powerful in order to make sense. We hope this can also help people who are struggling with their economy on Frostsee.

Archery Skills:
- On top of the existing +60% range increase archers also get +20% move movement speed now. Making this perk more attractive for unit / commander type builds.

Faster Research:
- On top of upgrades finishing much faster they now also cost -1 gold. Making this perk more powerful and potentially helping with the economy on Frostsee.

Fortified Houses:
- Health increased from +150% to +250%. Making this a more viable option as a defensive perk.

Healing Spirits:
- All healing effects on you and your units are +65% more effective (up from +50%). This is not too bad because this also applies to your self-healing etc.

Ice Magic:
- The slow effect on enemies lasts +200% longer (up from +100%) and enemies move -30% slower while slowed (-25% before). Not even sure if this is enough to make this an interesting pick, but we hope this will at least help it in some niche builds on specific levels.

Melee Resistance:
- You, your units and your buildings start the game with +35% resistance against melee attacks (up from +30%). Small buff to make this perk more impactful.

Ranged Resistance:
- You, your units and your buildings start the game with +35% resistance against ranged attacks (up from +30%). Small buff to make this perk more impactful.

Power Tower:
- The attack speed of the tower closest to you is increased by +233% (up from +200%). This perk is quite powerful and fun to play around with so let's help it out a bit more to make sure it remains a viable pick in this ocean of perk-buffs.

Treasure Hunter:
- Gives you +50 gold (up from +40) before the last night. For casual players +60 would probably even still be a balanced amount but that would almost force highscore players to go with this perk, so let's meet in the middle.

Warrior Mode:
- Your own damage can increase all the way up to +160% (up from +150%). Making careful adjustments as this perk definitely has some game breaking potential when it's too strong.

[h3]MUTATORS:
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Challenge the Turtle God:
- Score Boost increased from +20% to +40%. For highscore hunters this was by far the least popular perk to pick. This change might not even be enough to fix that, but let's see what happens. This should open the doors for a possible shift in the meta at least.

Challenge the Snake God:
- Score Boost increased from +20% to +30%. For highscore hunters this was another unpopular pick for obvious reasons (gold being pretty important for your highscore) so this should help in making it a slightly more attractive choice to go with.

Challenge the Falcon God:
- The chase-the-player duration is decreased by -60% (instead of just -33% before) which makes it more difficult to distract enemies when this perk is active. This should make the mutator feel more impactful and bring it more in line with the difficulty increase of other mutators.

Challenge the God of Destruction:
- Buildings only heal 25% of their health per day (instead of 33% before). Trying to bring the difficulty increase more in line with the other mutators and trying to make mutators feel more impactful.

Challenge the Wasp God:
- Instead of only doubling the amount of enemies spawned in the first 3 waves, enemies also spawn in +25% faster in those waves now. As enemies kind of tend to trickle in a bit in the first waves, the difficulty increase from this mutator was not as noticeable as it should have been. This should bring it more in line with the other mutators.

[h3]MODDING:
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Two little goodies for the modding community:
- Enemies are in a Resources folder now. This should give you the possibility to spawn in your own enemies.
- Balancing data is in a Resources folder now. Modifying this won't do anything but you could use it to display additional data in game.


FAQ

[h3]Hi there fellow Kings and Queens,[/h3]
We wanted to give you a quick update on some of your most frequent questions that we're seeing come up over and over again. While it's not all good news, we'd like to be transparent about what you can expect from us moving forward.


Will there be an endless mode?
A careful yes. At the current stage we can’t make any promises, but it has been one of the most requested features. We love the idea and feel like it would make a great addition to the game. We are fairly confident that it’s something we could manage within our limited resources as a two people dev team, but there is still some research left to do. Please be a little patient, we'll do some experimentation and see what we can make work! :)

Will there be a Linux port for Thronefall?
Unfortunately not. It should work okay using Steam Play / Proton, though. In our experience it works really well on Steam Deck, too.

Will there be a multiplayer or co-op mode?
No. While we agree that this would be really fun, being just two people our time and resources are unfortunately very limited. Anything multiplayer, even if it is "just" local, is extremely time intensive from a development perspective, and we don't want to release anything half-baked.

Why did the demo get deactivated? Is it intentional?
Yes, we deactivated the demo. Initially the demo was meant only for the Steam Next Fest, but because it was so well received we decided to leave it online until release as a little bonus. 🙂

My progress wasn't carried over from the demo. What should I do?
While for most of you the progress should carry over from the demo to the main game just fine, it seems like in some cases that did not work out. Big apologies for the inconvenience at this point! Feel free to modify your save file located in Users/Username/AppData/LocalLow/Grizzly Games/Thronefall by opening it up in a text editor. It is written out in plain text so it’s pretty straightforward to modify.

Will there be a level editor or wave editor?
No. Level editor definitely not, wave editor most likely not. We know that these can sound straightforward to implement, but they are really not. They would eat up most of our time and we feel like there are more important things for us to work on right now. Remember that this would also require some way of sharing creations etc. which is something we are not quite equipped to with the resources we have available at the moment.

Will there be mod-support?
As we have to say no to a lot of your requests, we would love to at least provide you with the ability to make some of it happen yourself. Note, that we need to conduct some further research before we can confirm or promise any specifics, though.

Will there be more content?
YES! Besides balancing and bug fixes, that is our number one priority for now. More content is on its way!

Why didn’t you respond to my post/message/e-mail?
Honestly we were quite overwhelmed by the massive amounts of feedback and suggestions we received so far! Thank you so much for all of them – they are an invaluable part of shaping Thronfall into a truly good game. While we (and especially our community manager Sacha/Sdan) do our best to catch up with everything it’s outright impossible to respond to every single one of you. We hope you understand!

What will happen during Early Access?
Right now we are working on a small quality of life and balancing update that will arrive in about 2 weeks. After that we'll focus on creating the next level and more content. We will continue to monitor your feedback and try to incorporate as much of it as we can into the future development of Thronefall.

We hope that this gives you a good first impression of roughly where we are headed with Thronefall!

Thank you all for the continued support and excitement!
Paul & Jonas


Early Access Hotfix 1.01

Hi Folks,
quick update from us addressing the most urgent issues you have reported. Here is what changed:

Balancing:
⚖️ - To make up for the lost income from the fix to gold mines, enemies drop a little bit more Gold on Durststein (desert level), but the late game and the the final waves should be quite a bit more challenging now, bringing it more in line with the other levels. We'll keep a close eye on how these changes impacted the difficulty and make future adjustments if necessary.
Bugs:
🐛 - Gold mines were actually bugged and gave you 6 gold every single day. This has now been fixed and their income is reduced properly over time.

🐛 - The "Castle-Up" upgrade for the castle center reduced the cost for walls way too quickly. This issue is now resolved.

🐛 - You can no longer go out of bounds on Durststein (desert level)

🐛 - Enemy units can no longer "climb" the mountains to get past your walls on Durststein (desert level)

🐛 - We doubled the gravity for the player character so it should no longer feel as floaty

🐛 - You are reset to your castle center if you manage to fall through the map (does not address the core issue of falling through the map, but this should already help make those rare cases less frustrating)

🐛 - Achievements should now show up during gameplay instead of only after closing the game

🐛 - The monitor refresh rate in the graphics settings does not show all of its 29 decimal points anymore and is rounded instead

🐛 - You can no longer get yourself stuck behind the barracks on Frostsee (ice level)



Thanks for all of the bug reports! Doing our best! 🙂

Cheers
Jonas and Paul

Thank you!

[h3]Fellow Kings and Queens!
[/h3]

Just a few words from us right after releasing Thronefall into Early Access. Thank you all for this absolutely crazy response to our little game. We’re overwhelmed with joy – to see so many of you having fun with what started out as a tiny idea in our heads many months ago is just mind blowing. Here is a brief overview of how we plan to proceed with the development of Thronefall:

The weeks leading up to the release have been incredibly intense. To be honest, we desperately need a few days off – otherwise our brains will probably burst into flames. We hope you understand!

During this time we’ll start to sort the massive amounts of feedback we received on our Discord and the Steam Forums. We are so grateful for all the thoughtful suggestions, bug reports, feature ideas and kind words. Be sure that we do our best to keep up with it! At this point also a shoutout to our community manager Sacha (Sdaan) who makes sure that everything reaches us and nothing gets lost. Please be friendly to him, he did one hell of a job the last couple of days.

After we assessed all the feedback we’ll update you with a more elaborate roadmap.
We are aware that Early Access can often be a mixed bag, and since we’re only a team of two things can sometimes take a little while. There’s just *a lot* to do and we can only do one thing at a time.

However, we are determined to make Thronefall the best game it can be in the coming months. Thank you all so much for participating in the development of Thronefall! Never could we have dreamed of such an amazing and active community. We’re beyond excited for the journey that lies ahead!

Cheers
Jonas & Paul


Thronefall is OUT NOW!

Hey everyone!

So excited to be typing this: Thronefall, our new minimalist kingdom defense game, is out now!

Summon the soldiers, fortify the walls, and spare no gold in preparation! It’s time to defend your kingdom for the next few minutes — and only just a few minutes. After all, isn’t that how long it takes to build a thriving kingdom?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In the spirit of our previous games, we’ve tried to make a classic strategy game without unnecessary complexity. Build your minimalist kingdom during the day and emerge on the battlefield, ready to defend it until your last breath, at night. You’ll get to pick your weapon and how to fortify your kingdom, but you won’t have to worry about getting caught up in expansive, overly detailed systems. Just build, defend, and enjoy your time.

We hope you enjoy what we’ve created. We’ve always been endlessly grateful for the support given to our past games, and we’re looking forward to seeing the reception for the latest project we’ve poured our hearts into. Thank you so much for playing the demo, for the endless stream of feedback and for the encouragement! Join our community Discord and follow us on here to stay updated on what’s to come, and have fun fighting for your tiny kingdom. :)

-Jonas and Paul