YAR: Forgotten Throne News

[p]Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? 🙂[/p][p]I couldn’t resist and decided to release another small patch — but one that I believe is important for the overall visual perception of the game, especially since atmosphere is absolutely crucial here.[/p][p]The new rendering method gave us a significant performance boost, made the image cleaner and less blurry, and added more depth to textures. However, since it doesn’t support SSAO, it also introduced an issue with “floating objects” and a flatter-looking image.[/p][p]This was especially noticeable in interiors. If you look closely, you could see that objects lacked shadows underneath them — something that never happens in real life. As a result, objects appeared to be hovering in the air.[/p][p]In this patch, I addressed this by adding Ambient Occlusion via post-processing, which essentially creates fake contact shadows around objects.[/p][p]The difference is immediately visible in grass, trees, and foliage. Previously they looked flat, but now they have a sense of volume.[/p][p]And of course, in interiors the feeling that objects are floating has disappeared. Look closely at gaps, under cabinets, bread, sacks, bushes, and other objects in the before-and-after screenshots — you’ll notice that proper shadows have appeared.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In motion, the effect is even more noticeable. It also slightly reduced overexposure — for example, Ratmir’s tunic is more blown out on the left side in the older version. Overall, the change may seem subtle in screenshots, but personally, the lack of contact shadows really hurts my eyes in games — everything ends up looking flat.[/p]

[p]Hello everyone!
A bundle featuring my game and Oleg Kazakov’s Gedonia 2 is now available with a 33% discount![/p][p]I’m sure many of you already know the excellent RPG Gedonia and its sequel, but if you don’t — I highly recommend checking them out.[/p]

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]These balance adjustments are aimed at making the game more comfortable and fair.[/p]

1. [p]No more sudden one-shot deaths.
   If the damage dealt to the main character is extremely high, it can no longer exceed 30% of the character’s maximum health.
   In simple terms, instead of killing the hero in one hit, enemies now need 3–4 hits to do so.[/p]
2. [p]Bosses have also received protection against excessive damage, so that overpowered characters can no longer defeat them in just a few hits.[/p]
3. [p]Difficulty multipliers have been adjusted.
   The easiest difficulty is now slightly easier, and the overall difference between difficulty levels is more noticeable.[/p]
4. [p]Battle Fury has been slightly reworked.
   Many players did not understand this mechanic and assumed it was bugged because sometimes they dealt damage and sometimes they didn’t.
   Now damage is always dealt even when Fury is not active, while Fury itself works purely as a bonus, providing additional damage instead of reducing it almost to zero.
   Hopefully, this change will prevent players who misunderstood the mechanic (which is explained in two separate places) from mistaking that misunderstanding for bugs.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Graphics[/h3][p]The previous patch completely changed the rendering system and introduced several visual issues, so the following adjustments were made:[/p]

1. [p]Night lighting has been improved — nights are no longer overly bright as they were after the last patch.[/p]
2. [p]Overexposure on water during both day and night has been removed.[/p]
3. [p]Weather and weather effects have been improved.
   Materials no longer appear overly shiny, and rain droplets look significantly better.[/p]
4. [p]The shield no longer becomes unnaturally dark at certain camera angles.[/p]
5. [p]The transition between water and shoreline is now smoother and less abrupt.[/p]

[p]Hello everyone!
Happy belated holidays to you all, and I wish everyone all the best![/p][p]I’ve released an important patch that fixes many critical issues, improves optimization, and enhances overall quality of life. The patch itself was made fairly quickly, but it was delayed for two reasons: health issues and some unexpected engine-related difficulties when switching to a new rendering method. There was a problem that I couldn’t resolve for quite some time, but everything is fine now.[/p][p]My health took a hit — severe autonomic dysfunction caused by stress and overwork led to many issues throughout my body. As soon as I recovered enough, I immediately got back to work. I’m still dealing with various difficulties, but at least I can function and work again.[/p][p]Below is a list of changes included in this patch.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• [p]Fixed an issue where control bindings (keyboard) could not be changed. All on-screen hints now correctly display the keys assigned in the settings.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where gamepad button names were displayed instead of keyboard keys.[/p]
• [p]When using a keyboard, the “Controller Type” option is now hidden in the settings. Previously, it confused players — this setting was never actually used for keyboards, but people thought their input was being switched to a controller.[/p]
• [p]Fishing works again.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an infinite reward exploit for the bear pelt quest from Velemir.[/p]
• [p]Fixed infinite experience gain when loading the game.[/p]
• [p]Demolishing your own buildings now works correctly: take the construction hammer, hold RMB, aim at the structure, and click again to destroy it. Anyone whose buildings were blocking NPC paths can now remove them.[/p]
• [p]Dead archer bodies no longer block movement.[/p]
• [p]The “Heavy Hand” skill at level 3 now matches its description requirements.[/p]
• [p]Mana potion crafting now requires wormwood and produces 3 potions from 1 unit of wormwood.[/p]
• [p]The house spirit quest reward is now given only once, as intended.[/p]
• [p]Fixed excessive rewards for Basurman weapons and lizard hides from Beloyar.[/p]
• [p]Tsvetana now gives the tablecloth only once, as intended.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where turning in Striga bones to Tikhomir caused all money to disappear.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where crates dropped items after being destroyed even if the items had already been taken manually.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where crafting a protection scroll gave a ring instead of the scroll.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an error in the required mushroom count in Tikhomir’s quest.[/p]
• [p]Purchasing the Precision Inscription from Dagal’dar now gives the correct scroll.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Quality of Life:[/h3]

• [p]When crafting, you can now see which items you currently have enough resources for. Items that cannot be crafted will be shown faded with the text “Not enough resources.”[/p]
• [p]You can now see exactly which resources are missing for crafting: available resources are highlighted, missing ones are shown in gray.[/p]
• [p]The Exit and Menu buttons on the death screen have been moved lower to prevent accidentally clicking them instead of Load.[/p]
• [p]Empty chests and crates are now marked.[/p]
• [p]Added one additional autosave slot and one additional quicksave slot.[/p]
• [p]Corpses of unlooted monsters no longer disappear.[/p]
• [p]Crafted food now stacks up to 50 items, including cooked meat.[/p]
• [p]Abilities on cooldown are now shown in gray to indicate they are not yet ready for use.[/p]
• [p]Fixed issues where text, inventory, and UI elements were cut off or didn’t fit on the screen.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Optimization:[/h3]

• [p]Significant FPS increase (Steam Deck now runs at 60 FPS on Ultra settings).[/p]
• [p]Reduced video memory and RAM usage.[/p]
• [p]Reduced GPU load.[/p]
• [p]There is a good chance that players who previously had blurry textures will now see them displayed correctly.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• [p]Damage of the second ability has been reduced.[/p]
• [p]Life-steal enchantment has been weakened; previously it restored too much health on hit.[/p]
• [p]Enemy difficulty is now non-linear. Previously, once you reached a certain power level, you could no longer encounter worthy opponents and the game became too easy. Now, different locations contain different creatures with more refined progression. Some caves will remain too difficult for quite a long time. Forest monsters and enemies around Yar remain unchanged, but enemies in many caves, the Dark Forest, and parts of the islands have become significantly stronger.[/p]

[p]Since I’m working alone and the game has grown very large, it’s difficult to thoroughly test balance changes without stretching development out for years. So I’ll be relying on your feedback regarding difficulty.[/p][p]Of course, this isn’t everything that’s planned — but these are some of the most critical and important changes. From here on, it’s mostly smaller adjustments.[/p][p]Now the focus shifts to the major update covering the second half of the game. As you remember, it’s already complete, but it needs polishing. I expect to release it within 1–3 months. That update will include the full game content. After that, I’ll add achievements, final bug fixes, and then we’ll move toward full release.[/p]

[p]Greetings!
A patch wasn’t actually planned anytime soon, but there are several critical bugs preventing people from playing. So, the following issues have been fixed:[/p]

• [p]Sudden FPS drops over time.[/p]
• [p]Gleb getting stuck in a room.[/p]
• [p]Gleb can no longer die.[/p]
• [p]The lever in the winter cave now opens the passage.[/p]
• [p]The “No free slots” message no longer appears.[/p]
• [p]You can now return to the hornet island if the task is not completed.[/p]

[p]These are currently the most critical and easily fixable issues. I had some free time, so I patched them first — the rest will be fixed later.
I recommend saving your progress in multiple slots, and when reporting problems, please attach two files: your save file and your Gamesettings file, both located in
[c]C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\Local\\YAR\\Saved\\[/c].[/p][p]Without your saves, fixing many bugs is very difficult or even impossible, as some situations are very unique and non-standard.[/p]