Dustgrave: A Sandbox RPG News

Another day, another update! This one addresses a few critical issue which blocked progress in the game, and replaces the SSAA with a lighter one based on FSR.

• Critical: fixed a critical issue which prevented to finish the major quests involving the defense or protection of a settlement from various threats. Now the progress meter works properly and let you finish the quest.
  
• Critical: fixed several issues with Opportunity Attacks which could result in the fight getting blocked, with all characters being stuck and looking around awkwardly.
  
• Critical: fixed several AI issues which resulted in the fight getting blocked.
  
• Critical: removed the super-sampling antialising and replaced it with FSR temporal antialiasing. We suspect the SSAA was the cause of the crashes a few people are experiencing, and the FSR solution has only minor drawbacks in terms of quality, but has little to none performance impact compared to the old SSAA. This also means that FSR and possibly even DLSS upscaling may be available in the future for Dustgrave, once we make sure they do not generate strange artifacts or other issues.
  
• Opening the options menu now prevent interactions with other UI pieces.
  
• Fixed an issue with a cave level in which enemies spawns outside the map's boundaries.
  
• Pausing the game no longer wakes people up.
  
• Fixed some issues with markers not being set or removed properly.
  
• Fixed a few nullreferences which could rarely make the game unstable.
  

The first patch for Dustgrave has been released! Thanks to the many feedbacks and bug reports, we managed to track and fix several issues. We also changed the balancing a little to make the experience smoother!

We are also tracking the source of crashes some of you are experiencing, and we will do what we can to provide a solution as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience and support!

Patch Changelog:

• Critical: fixed a critical issue which prevented to load some savegames or enter some settlements due to a bug on containers.
  
• All bombs and potions are now stackable.
  
• Fixed a few missing strings.
  
• Fixed an issue with quests not properly ending while on the world map.
  
• Fixed an issue related to neutral parties fighting on the map.
  
• Increased the wealth of traders, so they will buy more stuff from you. In existing games, it will take a few days for them to refresh their stock and get the increased amount of money.
  
• Fixed the dialogue to join the Blue Dahlans factions.
  
• Members of the Straw Hats will now have a proper family name, instead of just their name.
  
• Bows and crossbows now yield materials when dismantled.
  
• Fixed an issue with a few quests not progressing properly due to the NPC party not disappearing on the world map.
  
• Fixed the three infested towns now having proper loot, but a new game may be required for it to appear, we are still investigating so that we can properly let existing savegames update changes to containers.
  
• Allies in combat will now avoid targeting your characters, unless they can land a really juicy AoE attack on several enemies. That's too tempting to ignore.
  
• Fixed a bug with too many characters assigned to the same inn room preventing the level to load properly.
  
• Fixed a female armor model spawning ghostly flying heads around the level.
  
• Fixed an issues with ranged actions and heavy armors.
  
• Fixed a level-up talent that was missing.
  
• Fixed a memory leak with temporary texture not being purged from memory.
  

It finally happened, Dustgrave has been released and we begin our Early Access Journey!

This is an important step in a long journey started four years ago, but it's only the beginning of a new development phase, which will see our development team follow the community's feedback to deliver content and improvements based on your suggestions!

Thank you for being part of this journey and have fun with Dustgrave!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393370/Dustgrave_A_Sandbox_RPG/

As Dustgrave’s Early Access release approaches, we wanted to share with you more details about what you’ll find in the current version of the game and what our plans for the future are!
Our ambitious goal with Dustgrave is to create a deep and vast RPG Sandbox experience, focusing on player’s freedom and the impact of choices on the game’s world. We focused on creating the core gameplay features and the codebase we needed to handle thousands of entities, so that now we can efficiently add content to the game, following your feedback and ensuring all plausible narrative paths are open to players.

Here’s what you can expect to find in the imminent release:

• More than 15 settlements, that will dynamically change to reflect their wealth, who rules over them, or which major events are affecting them.
  
• 6 Classes and 14 Skill Trees to experiment with. More than a hundred equipment pieces to create your perfect build.
  
• 4 political Factions, 3 criminal Factions, and 2 minor Factions. You’ll be able to join all political and criminal factions, gaining access to unique quests and gear, but also drastically affecting how NPCs in the world will see you.
  
• 50 Different dynamic quests, with content that adapts to the current context to offer a varied and consistent experience.
  
• 160 different event Records that track what happens in the world, affecting relationships with characters and factions, with special attention to your choices and their consequences.
  
• A stealth system allowing you to steal, lockpick, pickpocket, and start fights with an advantage.
  

According to the QA sessions we did, Dustgrave already offers 15-30 hours of playtime for a single playthrough, depending on how many towns are visited and with how many factions you want to develop solid relationships.
What are Dustgrave’s future steps? We already collected a lot of feedback with the Prologue and the QA sessions we did, and after the EA release we will closely follow discussions on Steam and Discord to determine our priorities. Optimization and bugfixes will always be on the top of the list, but right after those we will collect your opinions and ideas to focus the development on what the community wants to see in Dustgrave.

During the Early Access, we’ll drastically increase the game’s content, with particular care devoted to the following aspects:

• Making the World Map feel more alive and engaging, adding local and worldwide events and allowing minor quests to be done dynamically with encounters on the map.
  
• Adding a ton of dynamic quests, especially when it comes to unique content for factions and late-game content, the latter of which is completely absent for now. Following the feedback we received, we also want to add more minor and major quests that can be done in the same location, to avoid constant traveling in and out of levels.
  
• Expanding the current Classes and Skills selection, integrating new features in the combat and improving what’s already available.
  
• Giving more content to companions, allowing you to develop relationships with them and doing quests to help them with their personal stuff.
  

Thank you for your support and please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and opinions. We mean it when we say we plan on including player suggestion!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393370/Dustgrave_A_Sandbox_RPG/

We're getting closer to Dustgrave's Early Access release, meaning we've been spending our time polishing and improving every game's aspect! Following the feedback we received after releasing Dustgrave's Prologue, we worked on many Quality of Life improvements and updated the game's build with all those new improvements.

Here's an extensive changelog of what has changed!

[h2]Major Changes[/h2]

• The Major Quest involving the defense of a settlement from a raid has now a specular counterpart. You can now join raids on settlement, use a disguise to try and play both sides, and sabotage one side by pretending to help them.
  
• Added several crafting recipes to create potions, bombs, and trinkets.
  
• Added many new items with new Actions, to increase the variety of loot and open up new possibilities in combat. Spellcasters items, in particular, have now a much wider variety of Actions.
  
• Quests can now be tracked both on the Map and in Levels.
  

[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]

• Killing enemies now gives Experience.
  
• The bug reporting tool in the game now works properly.
  
• Fixed an issue with a dungeon being bugged, may not be fully save-compatible.
  
• Added some small tutorial panels for the world map.
  
• The world's minimap now has a list of active quests, allowing players to click on them to track and see where they should go.
  
• Fixed missing strings for undead.
  
• Fixed a few skills with the wrong tooltips.
  
• Fixed rounding on numbers in tooltips.
  
• Fixed "Quick Thinker" skill not having a correct tooltip
  
• Added option for Borderless Window
  
• Fixed an issue with the disguise deactivating while swapping character in the character screens.
  
• Dead people will no longer have VFXs on them.
  
• The Bug Reporting screen now closes after sending the report
  
• Fixed several issues with the AI being stupid on the map
  
• Fixed the item tooltip not showing old info when hovering other items
  
• Added a timeout time to quests, so if you take too long people may die and you may fail and make everyone sad.
  
• Looting all items now closes the UI.
  
• Fixed a few blocking errors related to combat, in particular with status effects like bleeding.
  
• Classes Icons have been remade.
  
• Fixed some UIs to be fully compatible with ultrawide resolutions.
  
• Added more shortcuts to open panels, navigate the UI or perform actions. Many of them are now visible by hovering buttons and other UI pieces.
  
• Chinese localization: fixed several strings that were not localizing in Chinese properly. Added missing strings to localization.
  
• Fixed floating texts in combat to be clearer and less cluttered.
  
• Added additional info in the Attributes screen to clarify how various modifiers work.
  
• The game now creates 5 different autosaves, to prevent playthroughs from getting corrupted by bugs, and to allow players to go back further in time if needed.
  
• Traumas and Wounds now disappear over time as intended.
  
• Reduced the amount of items looted but also reduced the chance of them being damaged.
  
• Fixed an issue with allies seeing their morale go to zero.
  
• The same key used to open panels will now close them.
  
• Now you can easily know how many days you have before a quest fails, instead of relying on pure intuition.
  
• Added several new contextual tutorials.
  
• Fixed some parsing and gender mismatch in dialogues.
  
• Added more dialogues for secondary events to increase variety.
  
• The Action's tooltip in combat will now also be displayed when hovering the mouse over available actions, instead of requiring a click to select them.
  
• Added dynamic loot on the map, an efficient way to gather materials for Crafting.
  
• Added a small tooltip to indicate how many Actions Points a movement will cost.
  
• Improved the clarity and responsiveness of floating texts in combat.
  
• You can now deselect Actions in combat by pressing Esc.
  
• The in-game menu can now be accessed on the Map too, allowing to reload or quit. Saving on the map is not possible yet.
  
• Empty containers now have a grey highlight.
  
• Improved Enemies AI in combat, they will no longer move across space and time, and they will get stuck less often.
  
• You can now rest in Inns and Taverns, allowing for Wounds to heal faster.
  
• Fixed more than 300 strings containing grammar or syntax issues.
  
• Fixed Scenarios progress meters to highlight the correct milestone, and also display Faction icons when relevant.
  

Have fun!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393370/Dustgrave_A_Sandbox_RPG/